Ryan A Graves.com

This is a project is a collaboration between the Interactive Media Division and the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. This video is yet another example of an awesome application of a mash-up of technologies. It will be fun to see the final product.

“Viewfinder” is a novel method for users to spatially situate, or “find the pose,” of their photographs, and then to view these photographs, along with others, as perfectly aligned overlays in a 3D world model such as Google Earth. Our objective is to provide a straightforward procedure for geo-locating photos of any kind, and our approach is to engage a community of users for a certain amount of human help. We specify that a 10-year-old should be able to find the pose of a photo in less than a minute, and we are convinced that this goal is achievable. While we are not entirely there yet, we are getting closer. This is our progress report.

April 3, 2008

When MTV started airing ‘Elimidate’ (and other equally worthless shows) and permanently abandoned their roots, music, many were very upset. When Fall Out Boy became “Sell Out Boy” and abandoned their indie roots, many others were very upset.

Pitchfork.tv provides and awesome combination of what MTV and Fall Out Boy stole from us, great indie music with great indie videos. Not only does pitchfork.tv hook up some great videos they are on the ball with offering some mp3’s and blogs along with the usual fodder of photos, reviews and interviews.

In the words of the founders: “Pitchfork.tv is the first-ever music video channel dedicated to the documentation of independent music. As a visual extension of the music coverage Pitchfork Media has provided for more than a decade, and a means of updating and advancing the music television format, Pitchfork.tv brings you closer to the artists you love, through original mini-documentaries, secret rooftop and basement sessions, full concerts, exclusive interviews, and the most carefully curated selection of music videos online.”

My take: Site well built. The UI is phenomenally creative where the video playing never leave center stage but you can still read your reviews and get the concert schedules. As a say.no.radio faithful this is a welcomed combo to my favorites.

and it’s still pretty lame.

It’s great when a company can be successful, helpful, and assist the common good. It’s not often that companies, at least profitable ones, can achieve all of these at the same time. A great example of a company that has summited this challenge is Sourceforge.net.

SourceForge.net is the world’s largest Open Source software development web site. SourceForge.net provides free hosting to Open Source software development projects with a centralized resource for managing projects, issues, communications, and code.

Registered Projects: 173,632 Registered Users: 1,821,739

Those are quite impressive number all the while creating a huge user base. Now a days well over half the apps I download send me straight to Sourceforge.net.

Well done.

Here’s a new idea. Well, an old idea with a Web 2.0 spin…my favorite. ControlC is a web based application that automatically stores everything that you Copy/Paste onto the web. Brilliant idea right? Well, there are some concerns around security. Specifically some of the TechCrunch readers have shared concerns about the security of this product. I don’t see the problem. Call me irresponsible if you’d like, but I see security concerns as a almost a thing of the past. The web is being forced to become more and more safe. As our lives move onto the web (I know it kind of sounds sad, but it’s true) we are forced to find ways to stay safe and developers are forced to near a guarantee of safety. I understand that there are no guarantees but peoples behavior proves my point. Take Mint.com for example. A web based personal financial management site. Within days of TechCrunch40 they were doubling their server capacity because so many people couldn’t wait to throw their financial information up on the site. If people are that trusting with their personal financial data what makes you think that ControlC will have any problems. They won’t.

This is a great idea and another perfect example of how there are so many things that we forget we even do on a day to day basis that can be improved and digitized with new technologies.

Please share your experiences with ControlC using comments.

2 nights ago I played Guitar Hero for the first time and let me say, it is worth the hype. I know I’m a little behind the “gamer” trend here and I know that it has been out for a while. However, this game is FUN! I felt a little Asian because I was pretty good at it right away. It’s a game that you can have fun with because you don’t have to be awesome in order to have fun, but if you are awesome (RW) then you can up the level and make it really challenging with bridges, power chords and the like.

For all the parents out there looking for a good Christmas gift for someone between the ages of 8 and 40, look no further. Mom, if you are reading this…I want one! I played the game on NintendoWii with the wireless guitar and I felt like I was on stage. When it comes to choosing your character I recommend the chick with the black bra and torn jeans. If you play guitar hero let me know where you are in the game and your thoughts…

This morning, I needed to access my Google Docs to find a password that I had saved. After trying to open my Google Docs page to access the folder I needed I was unable to access it. It read that it was loading for over 20 minutes…

If Google allows these types of error that limit or deny peoples access to there saved data it will ruin peoples trust in using Google docs. I’m usually a huge supporter of Google but access to ones data is a huge issue that I hope they get worked out.

Have you had problems with Google or Google docs? Leave comments!

In an effort to soak up some of the unread (I hate this word) blogosphere left behind by the striking Hollywood writers I’m going to write a short movie review.

 American Gangster (2007) with Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe hit the big screen Friday, November 2nd.  My first reaction was this film could join the ranks of Scarface (1983).  But after more thought I think that the movie lacked something.  American Gangster had the drama, it had the battling good guy vs. bad guy, Denzel “the gangster” had the “he seems like such a good guy” qualities that gather the support of the audience, but it didn’t have that factor that set it apart.  Scarface (1983) had the crazy shoot’m up scenes, Blow (2001) had the excessive drug use, others like them use nudity and other dramatics, American Gangster did not.  American Gangster was attempting to leave most of these “dramatics” out of the movie to set it apart from that crowd but it failed to make up for those dramatics with something else.  The result, a good gangster movie that will probably win awards for both Washington and Crowe, but the film overall still lacked that ”amazing factor” that would’ve taken it to the next level.  My prediction: no Oscar.

Mint.com, the new start-up that helps users manage their personal finances is legit.  They just won TechCrunch40 the start-up competition put on by Michael Arrington’s blog TechCrunch.  The night they won I went to their site to sign up but I experienced very slow load times and nothing seemed to work quickly at all.  Apparently, they estimated over 100,000 new users were trying to sign-up for Mint that night.  A few days later I received an email apologizing for the inconvenience and I decided to give it a shot.  I had all my bank accounts added within 5 minutes and was able to see what my most visited establishment (Chipolte) is and what my spending avg.’s are.  This site is as easy to use as advertised and has some pretty sweet features.   I had to re-categorize a few of my expenses to make the analysis more accurate but that only took a few minutes as well.

Some of the other features bosted by Mint.com:

• Add your accounts in less than five minutes
• Know where your money goes
• See savings opportunities that are “unique to you”
• Get email or text message alerts to keep you in control 24/7

Give Mint.com a try for yourself and let us know (using the Comments here on ActionsTalk.com) what you think…