Ahead of the Remix conference in May 2014 - Mitch Parker at VICE wrote up a really interesting hour that we spent discussing the Lab in Sydney. He managed to distill an insightful essence of what my team does and how we self-organise down here in Sydney. It's pretty useful to have your own rhetoric read back to you sometimes.
Read the article on VICE: http://t.co/EmJ2C5wJlk
Read MoreThis is an interview I did with Imperica Magazine in the UK about Watershed's Playable City
You can read the original article here: http://goo.gl/86wZEe
Sometimes entire projects revolve around a bug. Bugs are problems, and problems are often a failure of perspective. Speakeasy is basically Marcio's response to me asking him to play about with the Voice API, and the problems he has had to overcome. So we crafted a video to show him, the dev and how we tweaked Google’s Voice and Dictionary API’s to make a problem into a solution!
Adrian & Siobhan have posted an interview I did with Siobhan as part of their terrific Out the Front podcast series. A meandering and occasionally mumbly podcast on creativity and culture and why I choose to work on the other side of the world from all the important people.
Full transcript is here: http://outthefront.com.au/2014/tom-uglow/
Read MoreLive streaming 3 concerts at Sydney Opera House where you could frame the shot, move, focus & take photos of the band, then share, from inside a banner ad.
Yeah, well, it was cool back then.
In 2010 I wrote a description of a thing I wanted to do... it looked like this:
Here you go... you're welcome. It just reminds me how far odd ideas can go if you don't pay attention.
Eventually: It became an 'Interactive Museum Exhibition' for the Science Museum in London [with Tellart] called Web Lab. Mainly thanks to Tellart, Max Madile, Steve Vranakis and the London Creative Lab. I basically abdicated all responsibility which is why a) it did so well, and b) the video is so pretty.
Web Lab connected a physical real-time experience within London’s Science Museum to the virtual workings of the internet.
WIRED, June 2103
On June 21-23 2013, the Royal Shakespeare Company produced Midsummer Night's Dreaming in collaboration with Google Creative Lab. The RSC staged A Midsummer Night's Dream in real time in Stratford accompanied by a panoply of new characters online on Google+.
Explaining the future of internets, information and devices to a bunch of 17yr olds
Notes on the future of information, about the last 20yrs and the next 20 years; differences between old-school served pages and fluid big data; move from websites to streams, tools and signals; move from machines to wearable technology, enchanted objects and totems; about the difference between integrated and disintegrated models for all this and finally on the possibility of openweb and multiweb scenarios.... and why this is cool.
[A marvelously well organised and enjoyable affair at Scotts School, organised by a student Lachlan and his crack team. It was just great to be a part of. I ended up giving a rather loose rendition of some thoughts on the future of the internet and I thought I'd put them up here].
via berglondon.com This is an excellent account by Matt Jones of a project that I was very lucky to work on with BERG, well, I say lucky, I asked them to do it - so not exactly lucky - but I was lucky that they found such beauty and poetry and mag...
Read MoreIn 2011 I wrote a mock-up of a long-form advert about how Google might work if we charged users rather than selling their data.
Dear Google User.
I'd like to take this page to ask you a question. Imagine Google told you you are worth 5¢ a day. To them. Would you be insulted? Imagine tomorrow Google charged you to use Google. Say, 5¢. Is that a lot? What would you get for that? So imagine Google offered to remove all the adverts. Even the ones on YouTube. For 5¢ each day. That's 35¢ a week. $1.50 a month.
You probably use apps and websites everyday; just like everything else you either pay for them with money, or with your information. Google is sometimes accused of selling your information. We don't do that. But we are in business, so we want you to be able to choose, fairly and simply, how to pay. So we're thinking, maybe, for a nickel a day, you could try Ad-Free Google. No ads in your GMail, no more ads in YouTube, no more ads when you search, no ads in our glasses. And Google will give you 200Gb of free space for your apps, music and docs using Drive & Play. But mainly you will know that you are in control of your data. You'll have peace of mind that the words you search with are only used to make your experience of Google more helpful. The more you personalize your Google, the more personal it becomes. And if removing the ads helps, well, we're keen to help too. We're not an advertising company, we're an information company.
It's a serious offer. Let us know.*
--- OR ---
Google will always remain free, and committed to making the world's information universally accessible and it will fund that by showing adverts to you, paid for by advertisers, just like the ads on TV. And even though we make Google free *you* are the most important people in the world to us, so you must feel in control of how Google uses the information you share with us. You can track your history, change preferences, manage the kinds of ads you see, or just delete everything, as often as you like. And if you're not happy about that then you must tell us. Here**
Google's approach is based on security, transparency and control. We protect your data from those who might abuse it, tell you what information we're collecting as clearly as we can, and give you meaningful choices so you can feel comfortable when using Google. We'll keep trying to make this all as simple and intuitive as a search query.
So nothing will change unless you want it to change. But the question remains: for 5¢ a day, would you turn the ads off?
Thanks for reading.
Larry Page @ Google
"The YouTube Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra assembled by open auditions hosted by YouTube, the London Symphony Orchestra and several other worldwide partners. Launched on December 1, 2008, it is the first-ever online collaborative orchestra.
- Wikipedia
It was with some trepidation that I was asked to talk by Adam Scott of Free State at their inaugural Zeitgeist Project 2012 . The event was a fringe event / curtain-raiser for CMO's and CTO's from a range of global brands attending the IFA Consumer Electronics Fair in Berlin in September and I was asked, in the spirit of free thinking I guess (certainly not because I know what I'm talking about) to choose a piece of consumer technology that represented the zeitgeist. THere is a nice overview of the whole thing here.
Obviously for me the connection between the online world and the physical was the direction I immediately headed in: (these are the notes from my talk - the video is below)
I wanted to talk just as an enthusiast about an area of the digital world that's undergoing significant change mainly due to the democratization of funding mechanisms like kickstarter and more fluid production processes.
Another important aspect is a psychological one. We live in a post digital world.
This is a term coined a while ago to describe the point in time when we stop being awed by the power of computing in our lives… and just like cameras or combustion engines this is true. we no longer marvel at all the astonishing technology that you will se, we simply demand more.
We expect our phone to allow a three way international video-conferencing call with no latency and for it to be free.
It isn't normal. It's extraordinary.
So I am more interested in places where the interface between the real world and this magical one.
There's a term called biophillia which is a hypothesis that states we have an innate connection with nature. WIth trees. wood, organic materials.
And our lives have become ephemeral. Invisible.
For example we listen to digital music, play online games, take digital photos on digital phones that are saved invisibly into the sky, we go to work and we do this and we don't actually make anything.
I think others this evening have or will talking about our innate need for patina and physicality, to create deep and longer lasting memories and how this is best effected by sensory mash upß sonic/visual/taste&touch etc but predominantly organic - innate and
- cross-modal experiences
So we love that damage, distress, residue and patina caused by physicality and we want to see it in digital as well as traditional consumer products .
Scratches on a record.
creases on a book.
the crack on your android. the dent on your macbook
the trace of the hand.
this organic complexity is more authentic and in a world of ephemeral magic I find that authenticity is lacking.
So my examples are grass-roots projects, I'm afraid several are prototypes, but increasingly they indicate the need to move digital into physical, instead of augmented reality, we want reality augmented.
little printer from berg is a physical box that creates a thermal printed newspaper from the internet for you each day personalized to your world.
We have heard about 3d printing technology for a while. But with printrbot we are finally seeing them in homes and offices. I have one on my desk, unfortunately it's still in 74 separate pieces, but it is there. and it was about $500
tableau by Jon Kestner is a beautiful model of how you can bridge the divide between the digital and analogue generations using some affordable gadgetry, a drawer, and a touch of showmanship.
Jon Kestner is a partner at super mechanical who also produce twine - a piece of consumer electronics that lets you program with your phone to tell you when things happen - i.e. you want to get a tweet when your laundry's done, an email when the basement floods, or a text message when you left the garage door open. THis is the 21centuries equivalent of programming the VCR. You may not be able to do it - but your kids will.
pebble is a watch that tries to harness the computing potential of your phone in a more convenient consumer device. They made 11m dollars on kickstarter when only asking for $10000
Consumers want these things. I want one.
But apparently I have to pick one thing.
Well it's a close run thing between twine and my winner - because I really feel the remote controls of the future are going to allow us to program environmental triggers into our lives and we haven't even begun to really think about what that means.
In the meantime my award goes to makeymakey. That they call an invention kit for anyone but could be equally described as a way to program physical objects to do digital things. It's really easiest to show rather than tell so here's a great video that they made for kickstarter that to me is the future of consumer electronics.
One of the things I love about working at Google is watching small teams create incredible work (often on passion alone). Projects like Art Project, YTSO, or ReBrief spring to mind. And to that list I'd add BUILD - which I am incredibly proud to have been involved within my little way. Meanwhile huge kudos to Tom, Lockey, Lucinda and Gabi, Mark Sydney, North Kingdom for amazing work.
And of course LEGO for their courage, creativity and enthusiasm. And for letting us do it.
Build With Chrome is the largest LEGO set the world has ever seen. It brings bricks to the browser in nifty 3D thanks to the magic of WebGL and lets users build a new world of LEGO creations together online. We launched and were immediately overwhelmed by the response - we have medieval castles, a kangaroo, giant mouse cursors, waterfalls, nyan cats and kiwi birds. My favourite headline came from WIRED :
Lego Build With Chrome Wins the Internet But most of all we were reminded that the best marketing markets itself.
Give it a go at buildwithchrome.com. You can build on over 8 billion plots in Australia and New Zealand at the moment - and hopefully the world soon.
I am probably more personally connected with this than anything I actually worked on at Google. It's a true story from a NY Googler about losing his phone shortly after the birth of his child (it was stolen) and all his photos but he remembered he had turned on Instant Upload. So it was all OK.
Made by Lorraine, Leslie, Sara, Josh, Trumbull and Jon in the NYC Lab. The story is true, the photos are mine however... I hear it is perfectly normal for a new dad to take 14gb of pics and vids in the first 6wks after birth.
UPDATE: The video has now been localised into a number of languages and seen millions of times around the world. It aired during the 2012 Grammys, the 2012 Oscars, and the season finale of a show called Revenge, which I understand was about young, glamorous New Hamptonites killing each other at beach parties. So a perfect placement.
UPDATE 2: The UK localisation with a Scottish V/O has caused much merry confusion about the identity of the real dad.
UPDATE 3: I am now able to have conversations (with Americans) on planes, that go, "You know that kid in the ad about the guy who loses his phone? That's my kid". Nina is mortified.
Just for the record we only really did this to be able to play it at his 21st birthday. I like to think long.
Challenging 14-18year olds to come up with an idea for an experiment that an astronaut can carry out in space, for the chance to watch NASA astronauts conduct it aboard the International Space Station live on YouTube next year. - it genuinely managed to hit my only real goal - get EVERYONE excited about space, from geeky kids to arty, vegetarian, middle-aged creative directors.
Getting your business online is now global and growing with more than 40 campaigns running around the world and more to follow. Wonderful to think that we built the engine (and the campaign) that has allowed more than 200k small businesses to create their own websites (and so in our own small way help them grow)
Life In A Day is a historic global experiment to create the world's largest user-generated feature film: a documentary, shot in a single day, by you. Executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.http://youtube.com/lifeinaday ...
Read Morevia youtube.com This was a project that I thought had no hope of ever coming off with any class. Huge respect to Alexia Merrington and the ATP team for proving otherwise. Funny and on point.
Read MoreCommunity response site to the earthquake in Italy, allowing people to post imagery and messages that we are now scaling as part of Google crises response.
In 2010 I went to Cannes.
It kinda sucked that I couldn't get on to a beach. (Although I did get a cool pair of Yahoo! thongs.)
It’s hard to imagine but before we launched the Google beach in 2011 every beach was corporate and private. You, weren’t invited.
The following year I had Amy Brown and we wanted a free beach. For every one. Like Google. With free wifi, free smoothies, free t-shirts, free yoga, and free from attitude. It was awesome. And I don't think I am alone in thinking so. Personally I think we changed beach culture at Cannes Lions forever :)
