photo by Scott Beale

The next Dorkbot SF takes place on Wednesday, November 18th at Noisbridge in San Francisco and features presentations by Anselm Hook (Augmentia – Scratching the surface of Augmented Reality), David Gessel (Stalking Slanderizing Trolls), Shelly Farnham (Steve the Robot H.E.Ai.D.: a Large Scale Generative Music and Laser Play Space) and Gian Pablo Villamil (360 Degree Panoramic Video Without the Megabucks).

See the Dorkbot SF #48 event listing for more info.

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The November 2nd issue of The New Yorker, “Unmasked” features a cover illustration and comic by Chris Ware showing what Halloween is like in the modern age.

via Coudal Partners

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The hackerspace Noisebridge is one of San Francisco’s cultural and artistic gems. Its members have contributed a wide variety of art, hacks and local culture.

Noisebridge is a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring, and of course, learning. Noisebridge is also more than a physical space, it’s a community with roots extending around the world. We help people build neat and awesome things.

On Friday, October 2nd, these über-makers and geeks are having an open house for their one year anniversary that will show off what they have done and can do. This alone is worth the price of admission, which is free. Things to see include:

The Brain Machine (which you can learn to make at noisebridge)

A Compass Vibro-Anklet (which you can learn to make at noisebridge)

A Makerbot Robot (which can be used at noisebridge)

Also at the event will be the Reverse Engineering Bar with only the geekiest of drinks and music by DIY-band Corpus Callosum and Cally McMorrow, circuit bender of legend.

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We’re absolutely sure that with the aid of super-futuristic technology that we know is being invented right now, sex in the future will be more amazing than our Cylon-Cylon (plus Replicant, plus Cameron/T9) fantasies could imagine. I mean, I just get stuck thinking of two Summer Glau’s kissing. But until then, and barring Chinese manufacturing of a cheap entry-level priced Peep Show Holodeck (patent pending), we have the annual international sex and technology festival Arse Elektronika.

This year’s theme “Of Intercourse and Intracourse” promises to be a buffet of futuristic and fantastic sexual innovations, artistic explorations, and virtual hallucinations of the sci-fi-meets-pr0n kind. The thing is, it’s in just two weeks and with poeple flying in from all over the world to participate, there are a lot of talks and happenings to choose from. Starting October 1 to the 4th, events will be at various San Francisco locations including Roxie Theater, Center for Sex and Culture, Noisebridge, Femina Potens Gallery, and PariSoMa.

Tickets to each of the three-day events are here at Brown Paper Tickets. The main site with the full schedule is here.

Don’t have time to sift the schedule to find out where to see the hot robot sex action? Here are recommended highlights:

* Thursday, October 1 is the opening night, and we’re excited to see that Annalee Newitz will be speaking at the opening gala. It officially starts at 6pm with an explicit film festival at the Roxie Theater in the Mission, and is followed by in-theater opening presentations that, if you’ve seen the Arse opening (and award ceremony) before, you’ll know they’re anything but dry. Also, not on the schedule is a hardware-hacked Atari Joydick showdown: male vs. female gaming parts. We’re sure this will be pretty outrageous.

* Friday, October 2 talks start at the Center for Sex and Culture at 8pm, but the one we won’t be missing is Johannes Grenzfurthner’s “Dating Yog-Sothoth and Fucking a Zombie.” If you’ve seen his presentations, you know he’s — rather unpredictable. The talk’s description is only, “Bizarre Sci-Fi and Fantasy in Graphic Novels. No spoilers.” Enough said.

* Saturday, October 3 is the Big Fat Future Sex Day, with talks going from 11:30am to 9pm at ParisSoMa, then a not-to-be-missed (though limited capacity) evening gala at frisky erotic art gallery Femina Potens, starting at 10pm. Daytime talk highlights include “Sex Without Meat: How Singularitarians View Sex” by R.U. Sirius, “Will You Still Love Me Like This In The Year 2300?” by Annalee Newitz, and “Biometrics in the Bedroom” by Kyle Machulis (AKA qDot). The nighttime future sex fiesta includes a bizarre installation of DIY porn tools, plus a six-piece musical act that fits the theme while putting the flesh into all this hypothetical sex. This is the party, replicants.

* Sunday October 4 is the hackfest: at hacker space Noisebridge, sex hackers will demo how to create a Joydick (and other sex/gaming hybrids), you can learn how to make your own ’steampunk’ vibrator from the expert, the Thrillhammer’s Allen Stein will show you genital-based haptic devices and much more.

We’ll see you there. Just don’t get your dangly bits too close to the moving parts. Unless that’s your fetish.

photos by Scott Beale

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Rich Juzwiak made an amazing montage from 66 movies of the popular cellphone “no signal” plot device used in horror and suspense films.

via SFist

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photo by Scott Beale

The next Dorkbot SF takes place this Wednesday, September 23rd at TCHO in San Francisco and features presentations by Mark Pauline (Survival Research Labs), Timothy Childs (Technology and Chocolate) and Michael Ang (Light, Attraction and Emotion: Projects with Photons, Biology and Electrons).

See the Dorkbot SF #47 event listing for more info.

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Andrew Hyde is organizing boco, a new conference focusing on tech, music and food, that takes place on October 2nd in at locations around Boulder, CO.

The main goal we have is to create amazing and unique experiences. We are not hosting the conference at a hotel or conference center, instead the entire town plays host, rolling out the welcome mat and showing off what we are so proud of.

The conference organizers are offering Laughing Squid readers a 20% discount on registration.

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monochrom has just announced Arse Elektronika 2009: “Of Intercourse & Intracourse”, their annual conference on sex, technology and the future, which takes place October 1-4 in San Francisco, kicking off with the Prixxx Arse Elektronika 2009 Awards Ceremony on October 1st at the Roxie Theater. Here’s the full schedule.

We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species. And that’s why our annual conference Arse Elektronika deals with sex, technology and the future. As bio-hacking, sexually enhanced bodies, genetic utopias and plethora of gender have long been the focus of literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, this year will see us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer. Our world is already way more bizarre than our ancestors could have ever imagined. But it may not be bizarre enough. “Bizarre enough for what?” — you might ask. Bizarre enough to subvert the heterosexist matrix that is underlying our world and that we should hack and overcome for some quite pressing reasons within the next century.
Dont you think, replicants?

At this year’s event monochrom will be releasing their second Arse Elektronika Anthology “Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?”.

Taking up where the successful first part of our series left off, this anthology stands under the motto “future” — and the ways in which the present sees itself reflected in it. Maintaining a broadened perspective on technical development and technology while also putting special emphasis on its social implementation, this year’s conference focuses on Science and Social Fiction.

Here are a few photos I shot last year at Arse Elektronika 2008.

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Mobilize 09, a conference that explores future of the Mobile Web hosted by GigaOm, takes place on September 10th at Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.

Mobilize 09 is a one-day conference that brings together the thought leaders and practitioners of the mobile web and telecom ecosystems for demonstrations and debate. We’ll examine what it means to have wireless broadband speeds at the Gigabit scale and how the explosion of platforms beyond traditional handsets creates new opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors and consumers.

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Gnomedex 9.0, a really great technology conference run by Chris Pirillo, takes place August 20-22 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle and is selling out fast.

Hundreds of the world’s leading bloggers, podcasters, videobloggers, and tech-savvy enthusiasts will once again descend upon the city of Seattle, Washington from August 20 – 22, 2009. The ninth Gnomedex conference is generating a fair amount of buzz in the blogosphere, which underscores our reason to produce it. Indeed, we will once again become the crossroads between producers and observers, between users and developers.

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Lori and I came across a curious flyer for the Vital-Orbit Personal Human Force Field in SOMA, one of the many wonders that can be found at The Jejune Institute.

Channels users own Hydrodynamic activities to project a spherical charge armament against all material bodies and organic compounds. Unintended matter undergoes total magnetic reversal (a process called “negativism”).

See Previously: The Elsewhere Public Works Agency Needs Your Help

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gdgt, the new gadget site created by Ryan Block (former editor of Engadget) and Peter Rojas (founder of Engadget & Gizmodo), has just launched.

gdgt (like “gadget” — or g-d-g-t) is a new kind of technology site — a social gadget platform that enables you to connect with the community through your gadgets, and connect with your gadgets through the community. It’s a place for you to engage with your devices and hang out with people who are as passionate about their gear as you are.

Here’s my account on gdgt.

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VBS.TV Motherboard produced a really great episode featuring Australian performance artist Stelarc whose work involves extending the human body through technology.

Stelarc is a Greek weirdo who lives in Australia and uses medical equipment, prosthetic limbs, electrodes, virtual-reality systems, endoscopy, and crazy cyborgian human-internet connections to produce shows that fuses the lines between art, performance art, body art, and some kind of futuristic Skinny Puppy electronics trade fair. RIght now he’s setting up a big retrospective in Paris with artifacts and clips of all all his old favorites: Virtual Arm, Stimbod, Stomach Sculpture.

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The latest TED Talk video features Clay Shirky on “How cellphones, Twitter, Facebook can make history”.

Look for a Laughing Squid cameo in Clay’s talk at around the 8:22 mark, where you’ll see that on this blog we only focus on the really important stuff in life.

Thanks to Alexander Rose for the tip!

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Dorkbot SF is having their big 7 Year Anniversary Party this Saturday, June 20th at Kraftworks in West Oakland. Guest speakers include Keith Johnson and Greg Solberg (Building Electric Cars from Scratch), Jon Sarriugarte (Giant Iron Snail Car, Golden Mean, 1928 Hogan Tesla Coil, Power Tool Drag Racing, Volt-Aged Whiskey), Mike Winter (Interrogation by Robot) and Omega Recoil (Wireless Transmission: How Did Nikola Tesla Do It?). Check out Jon Sarriugarte’s write-up for more info.

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photo by Alan Rorie

The Neuron Chamber by Alan Rorie is an electro-kinetic sculpture of a steel and glass frame that contains hand-forged steel and copper model neurons. Even better, the neurons within the chamber create and send beautiful electrical arcs down the interior of the sculpture. These arcs do more than merely look pretty, but they have changed the sculpture itself by oxidizing its innards, giving it a new layer of color and depth.

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photo by Scott Beale

Dorkbot SF is celebrating their 7th year this month. To kick things off they are having a 7th anniversary meeting this Wednesday, June 3rd at the Nevada Lightning Lab (409 16th Street in San Francisco) and features presentations by Jonathan Foote – Ghostmaxtrix, Marc Powell – Exploring the Food Genome and Greg Leyh – current research at the Lightning Lab + live Tesla Coil testing.

The big Dorkbot SF 7th Anniversary Party is coming up on June 20th.

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guest post by Jackson West

A Reddit regular with the handle HolyJuan posted a phone number and asked folks to leave messages to see how well the Google Voice computer transcription service works.  Everything from the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to tongue-twisters like “unique New York” were tried.  Hilarity ensues.  The only one that came through 100% correctly?  “Hi honey.”

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SanFran MusicTech Summit takes place Monday, May 18th at Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. It’s a gathering or music technology developers, musicians, investors, labels, service providers, and others with a vested interest in the technology behind music creation, distribution and monetization.

Panels include “Music in Audio Visual Works” moderated by Joshua Wattles of deviantART, “Efficient Digital Delivery” moderated by Tom Conrad of Pandora, and a discussion of Monetization of moderated by Celia Hirschman of One Little Indian records (with Fred Von Lohmann of the EFF on the panel – interesting).

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Augmented Reality Scratching is an utterly awesome little hack that Todd Vanderlin came up with. In short, Augmented Reality is a technique where computer graphic is transposed onto real footage in real time. One way of doing this is to use markers that the computer will track on a coordinate system.

So by figuring out the velocity of the records rotation and applying it to the payback of the audio you can scratch. There is some digital noise that needs to bee worked out, but sounds pretty good. Its still really hard to scratch, it takes some practice but is super fun. The next step is to figure out some nice triggers for different modes. I like the idea of not needing a turntable but the actual spinning of the record helps with the scratching and playback. I made a couple modes, one where the record is paused and you can just scratch through the song. The other looks for zero velocity for x time and then continues on with the song. If there is velocity you then are scratching and the audio is affected. I think that this project has some legs can’t wait to play more.

photo by Todd Vanderlin

via Waxy

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