FastCompany Videos

The Videos are up!
Go here to read the article.
Go here to see video. (Watch watch watch... it's about Spies and You Tube and a bunch of other stuff you know you love.)

Here's the old article which explains what this is all about

I will be shooting a story in Cambridge, MA next week. The story follows the release of a new internet technology called Podzinger. From the Podzinger website:

PodZinger is the only search engine that allows users to find audio and video content based on keyword searches and then skim the results for relevancethe same way they would for text.

This means that Podzinger can transcribe video and audio into text. The applications for this are rooted in the Defense & Security industry’s need to transform audio conversations intosearchable text. It’s a lot like magic, and our video is going to try and capturethat magic.

I saw ‘our’ because I will be working with Adam Penenberg for this project (Thanks Anne!). From Adam’s website:

A journalism professor at New York University, Penenberg is the assistant director of the Business & Economic Program, heads the department's ethics committee and teaches investigative reporting, magazine writing and media ethics to graduate students.

Prof. Penenberg is also a writer for a magazine called Fast Company and he wrote a fascinating article for their February issue. The article follows Jeff Han, the engineer behind a new, multi-touch computer console. This might sound familiar to people who watched any of the Apple iPhone keynote (Use Podzinger to search YouTube for the iPhone and this is what you get). That new toy is essentially using Jeff’s technology.

You can watch a beautiful clip of Jeff’s Multi-Touch Platform at Fast Company.

The upcoming video (the one I will be shooting in Cambridge) is an attempt by Fast Company Magazine to integrate print and internet resources. You know I am going to love anyone who says that sentence out loud.

Alright, so this is all getting a little bit scattershot, but there is a unifying thread here. Each of these toys, the Podzinger, the multi-touch, they are all elements. Tiny steps. None of them are paradigm changing, but they are all paradigm shifting. It takes many tiny steps to create a revolution, and the more of these technologies we have, the more opportunities we have. True, some will fail, but neither of these toys seem likely to become dust collectors.

The Podzinger, for example, has applications totally unrelated to the web, or to government snooping. Imagine an application that can transcribe tapes for you, without you logging them yourself. Won’t get a spy excited, but spend a few hours looking over tapes and you will see why I can’t wait to get my hands on Podzinger.

My point is, integration is key. We are constantly trying to find ways to make technology increase our production. But we are also looking at technology as a way to open new, previously unimagined doors. It’s like we are floating up a mountain and each new technology has the potential to see on top of the next precipice.