Julie Urhman might be a great fundraiser, but she’s no saleswoman. The CEO of OUYA — the Kickstarter-funded wunderkompany that raised more than $8.5 million dollars to build an independent, developer-friendly video game console — thinks her product is incredible. But if you press her for details on why you, the consumer, might actually purchase […]
Raucous applause greeted guests of the 100 Year Starship panel at SXSW as they took the stage. It seems little introduction was necessary for this crowd to heap praise upon the panel, but the moderator Benjamin Palmer (of the interactive marketing firm The Barbarian Group) introduced the panelists anyway as: Dr. Mae Jemison (astronaut, first […]
Shadowrun may be the most popular geek franchise you’ve never heard of. The game started life in 1989 as a pen-and-paper roleplaying game, and while it never quite achieved the same notoriety outside of nerd circles as its distant cousin Dungeons & Dragons, or even it’s contemporary Vampire: The Masquerade, it’s always been much beloved […]
Sci-fi fans and computer users are always fantasizing about ever more advanced computer interfaces and Leap Motion is more than happy to provide. Leap Motion is a new 3D motion control sensor designed to put usability quite literally in the user’s hands. Compatible with both Apple and PCs, users need only to plug the three-inch […]
Dr. Mike North likes building stuff. A lot. At the start of his Sunday morning SXSW panel, North showed video of a trip to Lithuania, where he and a bunch of other engineers decided to build a snowbike by replacing the front wheel of a bicycle with a small pair of skis. North showed footage […]
To an overflowing crowd of devoted fans at the SXSW Gaming Expo, Axel Alonso (Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief), Arune Singh (Director of Communications at Marvel Entertainment), and Peter Phillips (senior vice president and general manager of Marvel Entertainment’s Digital Media Group) gave updates to existing projects and explained exactly what the teased Project Gamma is going […]
As the SXSW behemoth slowly awakened, Bill Gates gave the final keynote at SXSWedu. The host introduced Gates as a “modern day Edison,” an apt comparison in more ways than one, but if philanthropy redeems, perhaps we should forgive him. Gates described the explosion in computing power and the implosion in cost, telling an anecdote […]
Blacks in Technology (BiT) is a coalition of technology industry leaders committed to highlighting the black community’s impact in technology-related industries, products, and services. The result of this mission, increasing visible diversity in the tech industry, is extremely valuable on a number of levels. For many people, discussing race in any capacity is uncomfortable and […]
What is one to make of Al Gore? The former Vice President (introduced stumblingly by Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell as “Former President”) spent his SXSW Interactive address exhibiting a fire in the belly that has only manifested itself during his post-election career. To the democratic faithful, Gore was the profoundest of disappointments 13 years ago, […]
Ariel Waldman thinks that no matter how much you know about space, you can learn a thing or two more. And she’s right. Waldman has made her mark as an interaction designer and also as a research affiliate at the Institute For The Future, a group with the lofty goal to “turn foresight into the critical […]
