Personal tracking with Ed Hunsinger: part big data, all man

Playing with your own big data: Ed Hunsinger at South by Southwest Interactive 2013.

Ed Hunsinger: part man, part machine; does this equal…cyborg? Not quite. It’s all perfectly normal and you will see more and more 2000 Men and Women soon, tracking their bodies’ performances with data selfies, using such devices at FitBit,( http://www.fitbit.com/ ), Storm, latitude tracking, RunKeeper (http://runkeeper.com/ ), Foursquare (https://foursquare.com/‎ ) to post and track your own whereabouts, and a blithering host of apps that allow you to monitor every square inch you occupy and every breath you take.

Hunsinger is tracking his body and everything he does, and he’s leveraging SPlunk, his company’s IT log analysis software, in this project. He’s pulling down Twitter data and analyszing it with SPlunk.

There’s tons of apps that you can use to gather data, Hunsinger said, highlighting Bioblogger as one app worth testing out. The challenges lay in pulling the date out of the apps and tracking sites and massing it to measure and track the aggregate data.

“I want millions of data points, ” Hunsinger said, darkly hinting at APIs and ISO time-date stamps and a script he wrote to pull data from FitBit. For those who want to play along, check his Github, which is under the name Ed Rabbit. Look for biblogger.

Hunsinger noted that the act of tracking data affects the data. So he tries to work with trackers that collect data passively, as much as that is possible. He directed interested parties to look into Lumo (LumoLift, LumoBack) and ZEO (now defunct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeo,_Inc. ).

You put on the headset, hit button, and the device knows when you dreams at night and when you are awake. Hunsinger uses a six-month battery on the device so that it runs passively without needing his attention.

He challenges developers to come up with more effective tracking and reporting software, apps that work silently to gather data.

May the best software win. And let the Data Hunger games begin.

Links

More images from 2013 South by Southwest Interactive
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clairwiloh/sets/72157632980772104/

http://eventifier.co/event/sxsw13/clairwil

2013 SxSW Interactive Presentations on Soundcloud

Find out more about the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas

http://sxsw.com/interactive

March 5, 2014

Katie Covington: Making fun with Open Source for Makers

Katie Covington at the 2013 South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas

DIY API open source

For Makers. #futureDIY

Katie Covington quit her job and started Open Source for Makers (http://www.opensourcemakerlabs.com/ ), where makers gave designs away for free. She explained how those interested in developing the project figured out how to share their designs for physical things, while still generating revenue.

By sharing ideas for projects, she generated a demand for source materials through sharing the knowledge. She realized that makers wanted to create and, once inspired, they want good sources of raw materials for their creations.

Covington explained how the makers jumped in with suggestions on new projects and products – and then they bought materials through the website from advertisers to use in the making.

Katie Covington quit her job and started Open Source for Makers.

Open Source for Makers works with suppliers, such as companies in the New York fashion district, offering materials that makers can order online. Her “tribe” helped her build the Open Source for Makers brand. And she connected them with unique materials that can’t be found at more traditional suppliers, such as Hobby Lobby or Michaels.

She described the way the website “takes away the friction” of hunting for materials by offering materials online in a way that is pleasing and useful for her website makers.

Covington’s advice for how to start your own company:

Go where your customers are (for her, this was Instagram and Pinterest)
Create content for that medium
Keep it fresh
Go offline
Work with users and test quality of tutorials, materials, etc.

Links

More images from 2013 South by Southwest Interactive
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clairwiloh/sets/72157632980772104/

http://eventifier.co/event/sxsw13/clairwil

2013 SxSW Interactive Presentations on Soundcloud

Find out more about the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas

http://sxsw.com/interactive

March 5, 2014

Shut up and take my money: John Biehler and 3D printing

SxSW 2013 John Biehler on Pre Pettis & MakerBot

What John Biehler said when he saw Pre Pettis and MakerBot on The Daily Show

How 3D Printing Changed John Biegher’s Life

John Biehler bought a 3D printer as soon as he saw one demonstrated on The Daily Show. He’s been experimenting with it and extending what can be done with it ever since. Biehler formed a forum for 3D printers – 3D604.org (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/3d604 ) – and the forum is burgeoning with inventors and interesting conversations about the endless possibilities these devices present.

SxSW 2013 Connor Zwick: hardware is the new software

John Biehler at the 2013 South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas

He brought a 3D printer to the 3D Printer Village in Vancouver at the 2013 Maker Faire (http://www.vancouvermakerfoundation.org/events-and-programs/vancouver-mini-maker-faire/ ) and particularly enjoyed the reaction children have to the device.

“They see it and realize it can make toys and parts to build with. Then they basically say ‘get out of the way’ start they start using the printer. They want one now.”

It turns out that an Xbox with Xbox Connect can be turned into a 3D scanner. This is a good thing. Connect a 3D scanner device to a 3D printer device and what is the first thing you do with it? Apparently, you make people; that’s what Biehler did.

“We scanned people and printed their faces and heads.”

SxSW 2013 Dita Von Teese in 3D printed dress

Dita Von Teese in a 3D printed, fully articulated printed dress.

Links

3D604.org group https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/3d604

More images from 2013 South by Southwest Interactive
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clairwiloh/sets/72157632980772104/

http://eventifier.co/event/sxsw13/clairwil

2013 SxSW Interactive Presentations on Soundcloud

Find out more about the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas

http://sxsw.com/interactive

March 5, 2014

Conner Zwick: sweating the small details for hardware innovations. Hardware Kicks Software’s Butt at SxSW Interactive 2013

College dropout whiz kid Connor Zwick. Hardware is the new software. Presenter at the 2013 South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas.

Hardware Kicks Software’s Butt at SxSW Interactive 2013

Conner Zwick has one word for you and the word is not plastic..it’s hardware. He dropped out of college, armed with the basic skills of CAD and a knowledge of electrical engineering, and went to work on high-quality prototyping. To those who want to follow in his footsteps, he says there are tons of tools out there to work with and resources to help you learn.

He set out to design something that would be a “joy to use.” But, to get to the prototype, there were design dilemmas. Hardware start-ups are the sweet spot for profits and this has big implications for new things to come to market in 2014.

More images from 2013 South by Southwest Interactive
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clairwiloh/sets/72157632980772104/

http://eventifier.co/event/sxsw13/clairwil

2013 SxSW Interactive Presentations on Soundcloud

Find out more about the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas

http://sxsw.com/interactive