Song Networks

With over six million views in six days, OK Go ’s video for This Too Shall Pass is the latest in the band’s unprecedented string of viral hits. Lead singer Damian Kulash shared OK Go’s video philosophy—and history—with Gizmodo. Q: At this point, OK Go may have the best track record of anyone at creating these incredible viral music videos . Why are yours able to stand out? A: I think it has become increasingly clear to us, as we have chased our most exciting ideas, that there’s been a dissolution of the distribution system for music. That seems really depressing when you see that records aren’t selling, there’s no way to make any money, the system’s falling apart. But if the system itself is falling apart, then so are the rules wrought by it. Videos evolved in this very restrictive environment of MTV. There were only maybe 100 that would play at any time, and labels weren’t willing to invest in them. So now that the system is falling apart, there’s also no reason to stick within the confines of the definitions that were built up during that system. This sounds heady and pretentious, but it means for us the ability to chase our most compelling ideas. We don’t have to think so much into the box of “Will this song work on this radio format?” There’s an infinite world of possible audiences out there for whatever you’re making now. It’s not like we sat down one day and the brain trust came up with idea for ” This Too Shall Pass .” Tim [Nordwind, the bass player] and I have known each other since we were 12, and it’s always been the animating passion of our lives to make fun projects together. Everything from making home videos to recording songs. So the fact that the band got signed and gets to make records is all well and good, but that’s all just a part of our creative relationship. Now that we have an outlet for these other things, all the better. The video for ” A Million Ways ” [below] was originally just a practice run for a live show. When that catches fire… We’re now in a position where we don’t see restrictions on what we can do at all. Q: So “A Million Ways” wasn’t even supposed to be a video at first? How’d you stumble onto that dance? A: Before we were even signed, we were all living in Chicago and there was this incredible public access show called Chic-a-GoGo. It’s like a lo-fi Soul Train. You bring a five year old in and an art student with a gorilla neck and everybody has a dance party. We only had one song at that point. We got a chance to perform there, which was great, but it was so low budget that they couldn’t record our audio. We decided if we’re going to lip sync let’s swing for the fences, and we came up with this totally ludicrous dance routine to the only song we’d at that point recorded ["C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips"]. Tim worked at NPR at the time, and Ira Glass was a fan. He took us on tour as his opening act for “This American Life,” and we kept the dance routine. Rock shows are such a known quantity. The band does this, the audience does that, and there’s a particular range of emotions people go through. But when you bring something people don’t expect, it really shakes it up and is very different and weird and fun. As for the dance for “A Million Ways,” we’d come out with our second record and we didn’t want to do the same dance that we’d done for our first. My sister choreographed a new one for us, and we worked on it in our backyard. The video was a practice tape, but there was something so funny and awkward and weird about it that we just sent it around to friends. Then it suddenly had 500,000 hits, which was more records than we’d ever sold. I truly and honestly did not believe that numbers close to that video’s were achievable again. A lot of it was dependent on YouTube being brand new at the time, and people discovering the service when the video came out. Q: Do you feel pressure now for every video to go viral? Especially one that took as much time and effort as “This Too Shall Pass”? If “This Too Shall Pass” could have a broader footprint than “A Million Ways” or ” Here It Goes Again ” did, that’s great. But that’s definitely not our intention. From our perspective, the upshot of these things being successful is the ability to do a lot more of them in the future. We’ve done a lot of videos in the last few years. I’m definitely happy with the video of “WTF?” and this latest one, but when these videos do well it makes it so much easier to get the other ideas we’ve conceived done. Saying “I’d love to do this thing [in a video] with six cars” is tough, but now it’s more likely that someone will actually give us six cars. It’s less that they’re designed for viralness and more that the operating principle of our creative life is chasing down those ideas. Q: Where did “This Too Shall Pass” come from? Do you consider it a continuation of your previous efforts or a jump forward? A: “This Too Shall Pass” is a combination of a bunch of things. Making the treadmill video ["Here It Goes Again"] and the wallpaper one ["WTF?"] after that, I just got really obsessed with these contingent systems. Looking at choreography not as dance or movement but as a performance or a system that requires lots of disparate elements to work in perfect synchrony, or sometimes imperfect semi-synchrony. I was thinking a lot about loosely choreographed pieces. What sort of systems can you do that aren’t specifically dance, but you get the effect that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because everything works just where it should. Rube Goldberg machines are also, I think, universally magical. Our label, bless their moronic hearts, was given our record nine months ago. It kept getting pushed back. We basically wound up with several months of our lives to just get in trouble. If we’d had to go into promo land and get on tour we wouldn’t have time to do this kind of stuff. Basically I got home when the record was done and wrote down my dream list of videos. This whole project started with a two-paragraph description that I put down online as a job post, essentially. I asked for two creative engineers, because I figured that’s about what it would take. Two engineers, and a couple of months. It ended up being more like 60 engineers, and five months of work. Q: The set looks like a walking death trap. Did anyone get hurt, or were there any close calls? The camera man was actually hit by the giant blue barrel that falls from the ceiling. You see the camera takes jolt at the end, right around the time the airplanes take off. That’s the big blue barrel running into him. Otherwise, there were a few bumps and scrapes and bruises. Brett got hit by the bowling ball when it didn’t stay on the ramp once. But none of the super dangerous things every hurt anyone, that I know of. In terms of putting ourselves in harm’s way, what makes these things exciting is the experience quality of it. The essential element of this would be lost if we made a film that depicted all these components but didn’t actually have them. I can think of other music videos that show Rube Goldberg machines, but they’re all carefully edited things. It loses the idea of being there for the people doing it or the people watching it. I pushed the design team to make the ways the machine treats us stranger, rougher. I was hoping the part where I get rocketed across the room would be a catapult. The professional circus riggers who set that up said we couldn’t do that. I was pretty insistent, but they were very clear that no, making you airborne is going to hurt you. And I was like, don’t people do this all the time? And they said sure, there are stunt men who train for years and/or do this with a lot of CG. I wanted to do it, but apparently this is as dangerous as it gets. Q: Wait… you had circus riggers on-set? What other professionals came together to help build this thing? A: It was such an incredible group of people. The doors that fall at the end were designed by a rigger/builder guy who everyone called “The Pirate.” His mains source of income is working on longships, so he’s actually literally a seaman. The person who painted them is the guy who designed the most recent Coke bottle. It was a crazy group of people. The reason we got that spread is we didn’t walk into USC and ask for their brightest engineers. We posted this stuff on the MindShare Labs list. I think they’re called Syyn Labs now. They’re basically a community of nerdy, creative folks in Los Angeles. Anybody who was wont to go to a lecture series as a drinking venue had access to this. Basically anybody who sees the smart/fun/creative side of engineering. Q: Why such emphasis on “old-school physics” and practical effects instead of CG? A: On the basic level, this whole project is only exciting because it is real. It’s not a labor of love for anyone to go make a commercial. This is an art project for all these people. If it ain’t the real thing, it’s not worth it. They’re not there to make a video that promotes a band. They’re there to make this awesome project. Any time someone suggested a way to do something easier, I gently pushed them away from it. What makes Rube Goldberg machines so universal is very hard to describe and very easy to lose. If you make it failproof, the thing completely loses its magic. Q: Would you say that’s how you’ve historically approached your videos? A: Across our videos in general, it’s not really a requirement but it’s something that attracts me. I once wrote out a list of 20 things that make a good video. One of them is that it’s something that anyone watching could, with enough time, have done themselves. Treadmills and choreography and all the things in “This Too Shall Pass,” none of those are specialized access. A broken piano costs like 70 bucks. It’s not like you have to be an engineer to get that. Look, we were working with engineers from NASA. Three people who worked on the Mars Rover worked on this machine. And it was wonderful getting people to stop using the specialized part of their skill and get them to use the inspired part. A lot of times I had to explain what “magic” was and what they weren’t allowed to do. You want to use optical gates? Okay, but it has to be followable for the audience. What about lasers? You can’t use something from your lab you worked in, but you can use a laser pointer from a gas station. What if you dissected a Blu-ray player? Fine, but only as long as people can tell it’s from a Blu-ray player. You’d be surprised how much communication it takes. Q: Any parts in particular stand out where you could’ve been spared a lot of trouble given a CG or manual assist? A: Almost every point in there could have been cheated. There’s no way to cheat the table I’m sitting on in the beginning. I suppose you could maybe put together that machine and then animate the balls but that would’ve been incredibly difficult. Almost everything else would have been a lot easier with a manual cheat or CG cheat. The timing on everything was critical. Take for instance the sunrise contraption, the umbrella that comes up as the sun. The timing delay between the sun coming, the flowers coming up, and the birds coming down—we could have just triggered all that stuff electronically or manually. The way it was actually done is changing the fulcrum of the 2×4s that those things were spinning on, so the weights on the end would spin around more slowly. A hammer gets hit on the fulcrum on the back, and by changing where that hammer was, you change the delay until the release of the flowers. That kind of stuff, there’s no reason we couldn’t have cheated all this, but the 60 people who built this thing wouldn’t have had the challenge and the satisfaction of the finished product. Q: So what’s next? Do you feel pressure to keep topping yourselves? Mostly I’m just excited because I think this makes it more likely that we’ll be able to do more in the future. Finding people who will help us pay for some of these things should be a lot easier right now. And finding collaborators. As wonderful as the team was, there’s no way that those people—no matter how compelling an internet posting I’d put up—there’s no way they would’ve signed up to do this if we hadn’t already done the treadmills. The success of any particular project is that rather than lifting the bar and creating pressure to come up with new ideas, it opens you up to more and more of them. Now it’s more likely that when we call to find an anti-gravity chamber in NASA, it’ll happen. Q: Ha. Is that something we can expect to see at some point? A: Oh, man. Weightlessness would be the final frontier, I think.

With over six million views in six days, OK Go ’s video for ” This Too Shall Pass ” is the latest in their unprecedented string of runaway YouTube hits. Lead singer Damian Kulash shared OK Go’s video philosophy—and history—with Gizmodo. Q: At this point, OK Go may have the best track record of anyone at creating these incredible viral music videos . Why are yours able to stand out? A: I think it has become increasingly clear to us, as we have chased our most exciting ideas, that there’s been a dissolution of the distribution system for music. That seems really depressing when you see that records aren’t selling, there’s no way to make any money, the system’s falling apart. But if the system itself is falling apart, then so are the rules wrought by it. Videos evolved in this very restrictive environment of MTV. There were only maybe 100 that would play at any time, and labels weren’t willing to invest in them. So now that the system is falling apart, there’s also no reason to stick within the confines of the definitions that were built up during that system. This sounds heady and pretentious, but it means for us the ability to chase our most compelling ideas. We don’t have to think so much into the box of “Will this song work on this radio format?” There’s an infinite world of possible audiences out there for whatever you’re making now. It’s not like we sat down one day and the brain trust came up with idea for ” This Too Shall Pass .” Tim [Nordwind, the bass player] and I have known each other since we were 12, and it’s always been the animating passion of our lives to make fun projects together. Everything from making home videos to recording songs. So the fact that the band got signed and gets to make records is all well and good, but that’s all just a part of our creative relationship. Now that we have an outlet for these other things, all the better. The video for ” A Million Ways ” [below] was originally just a practice run for a live show. When that catches fire… We’re now in a position where we don’t see restrictions on what we can do at all. Q: So “A Million Ways” wasn’t even supposed to be a video at first? How’d you stumble onto that dance? A: Before we were even signed, we were all living in Chicago and there was this incredible public access show called Chic-a-GoGo. It’s like a lo-fi Soul Train. You bring a five year old in and an art student with a gorilla neck and everybody has a dance party. We only had one song at that point. We got a chance to perform there, which was great, but it was so low budget that they couldn’t record our audio. We decided if we’re going to lip sync let’s swing for the fences, and we came up with this totally ludicrous dance routine to the only song we’d at that point recorded ["C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips"]. Tim worked at NPR at the time, and Ira Glass was a fan. He took us on tour as his opening act for “This American Life,” and we kept the dance routine. Rock shows are such a known quantity. The band does this, the audience does that, and there’s a particular range of emotions people go through. But when you bring something people don’t expect, it really shakes it up and is very different and weird and fun. As for the dance for “A Million Ways,” we’d come out with our second record and we didn’t want to do the same dance that we’d done for our first. My sister choreographed a new one for us, and we worked on it in our backyard. The video was a practice tape, but there was something so funny and awkward and weird about it that we just sent it around to friends. Then it suddenly had 500,000 hits, which was more records than we’d ever sold. I truly and honestly did not believe that numbers close to that video’s were achievable again. A lot of it was dependent on YouTube being brand new at the time, and people discovering the service when the video came out. Q: Do you feel pressure now for every video to go viral? Especially one that took as much time and effort as “This Too Shall Pass”? If “This Too Shall Pass” could have a broader footprint than “A Million Ways” or ” Here It Goes Again ” did, that’s great. But that’s definitely not our intention. From our perspective, the upshot of these things being successful is the ability to do a lot more of them in the future. We’ve done a lot of videos in the last few years. I’m definitely happy with the video of “WTF?” and this latest one, but when these videos do well it makes it so much easier to get the other ideas we’ve conceived done. Saying “I’d love to do this thing [in a video] with six cars” is tough, but now it’s more likely that someone will actually give us six cars. It’s less that they’re designed for viralness and more that the operating principle of our creative life is chasing down those ideas. Q: Where did “This Too Shall Pass” come from? Do you consider it a continuation of your previous efforts or a jump forward? A: “This Too Shall Pass” is a combination of a bunch of things. Making the treadmill video ["Here It Goes Again"] and the wallpaper one ["Do What You Want"] after that, I just got really obsessed with these contingent systems. Looking at choreography not as dance or movement but as a performance or a system that requires lots of disparate elements to work in perfect synchrony, or sometimes imperfect semi-synchrony. I was thinking a lot about loosely choreographed pieces. What sort of systems can you do that aren’t specifically dance, but you get the effect that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because everything works just where it should. Rube Goldberg machines are also, I think, universally magical. Our label, bless their moronic hearts, was given our record nine months ago. It kept getting pushed back. We basically wound up with several months of our lives to just get in trouble. If we’d had to go into promo land and get on tour we wouldn’t have time to do this kind of stuff. Basically I got home when the record was done and wrote down my dream list of videos. This whole project started with a two-paragraph description that I put down online as a job post, essentially. I asked for two creative engineers, because I figured that’s about what it would take. Two engineers, and a couple of months. It ended up being more like 60 engineers, and five months of work. Q: The set looks like a walking death trap. Did anyone get hurt, or were there any close calls? The camera man was actually hit by the giant blue barrel that falls from the ceiling. You see the camera takes jolt at the end, right around the time the airplanes take off. That’s the big blue barrel running into him. Otherwise, there were a few bumps and scrapes and bruises. Brett got hit by the bowling ball when it didn’t stay on the ramp once. But none of the super dangerous things every hurt anyone, that I know of. In terms of putting ourselves in harm’s way, what makes these things exciting is the experience quality of it. The essential element of this would be lost if we made a film that depicted all these components but didn’t actually have them. I can think of other music videos that show Rube Goldberg machines, but they’re all carefully edited things. It loses the idea of being there for the people doing it or the people watching it. I pushed the design team to make the ways the machine treats us stranger, rougher. I was hoping the part where I get rocketed across the room would be a catapult. The professional circus riggers who set that up said we couldn’t do that. I was pretty insistent, but they were very clear that no, making you airborne is going to hurt you. And I was like, don’t people do this all the time? And they said sure, there are stunt men who train for years and/or do this with a lot of CG. I wanted to do it, but apparently this is as dangerous as it gets. Q: Wait… you had circus riggers on-set? What other professionals came together to help build this thing? A: It was such an incredible group of people. The doors that fall at the end were designed by a rigger/builder guy who everyone called “The Pirate.” His mains source of income is working on longships, so he’s actually literally a seaman. The person who painted them is the guy who designed the most recent Coke bottle. It was a crazy group of people. The reason we got that spread is we didn’t walk into USC and ask for their brightest engineers. We posted this stuff on the MindShare Labs list. I think they’re called Syyn Labs now. They’re basically a community of nerdy, creative folks in Los Angeles. Anybody who was wont to go to a lecture series as a drinking venue had access to this. Basically anybody who sees the smart/fun/creative side of engineering. Q: Why such emphasis on “old-school physics” and practical effects instead of CG? A: On the basic level, this whole project is only exciting because it is real. It’s not a labor of love for anyone to go make a commercial. This is an art project for all these people. If it ain’t the real thing, it’s not worth it. They’re not there to make a video that promotes a band. They’re there to make this awesome project. Any time someone suggested a way to do something easier, I gently pushed them away from it. What makes Rube Goldberg machines so universal is very hard to describe and very easy to lose. If you make it failproof, the thing completely loses its magic. Q: Would you say that’s how you’ve historically approached your videos? A: Across our videos in general, it’s not really a requirement but it’s something that attracts me. I once wrote out a list of 20 things that make a good video. One of them is that it’s something that anyone watching could, with enough time, have done themselves. Treadmills and choreography and all the things in “This Too Shall Pass,” none of those are specialized access. A broken piano costs like 70 bucks. It’s not like you have to be an engineer to get that. Look, we were working with engineers from NASA. Three people who worked on the Mars Rover worked on this machine. And it was wonderful getting people to stop using the specialized part of their skill and get them to use the inspired part. A lot of times I had to explain what “magic” was and what they weren’t allowed to do. You want to use optical gates? Okay, but it has to be followable for the audience. What about lasers? You can’t use something from your lab you worked in, but you can use a laser pointer from a gas station. What if you dissected a Blu-ray player? Fine, but only as long as people can tell it’s from a Blu-ray player. You’d be surprised how much communication it takes. Q: Any parts in particular stand out where you could’ve been spared a lot of trouble given a CG or manual assist? A: Almost every point in there could have been cheated. There’s no way to cheat the table I’m sitting on in the beginning. I suppose you could maybe put together that machine and then animate the balls but that would’ve been incredibly difficult. Almost everything else would have been a lot easier with a manual cheat or CG cheat. The timing on everything was critical. Take for instance the sunrise contraption, the umbrella that comes up as the sun. The timing delay between the sun coming, the flowers coming up, and the birds coming down—we could have just triggered all that stuff electronically or manually. The way it was actually done is changing the fulcrum of the 2×4s that those things were spinning on, so the weights on the end would spin around more slowly. A hammer gets hit on the fulcrum on the back, and by changing where that hammer was, you change the delay until the release of the flowers. That kind of stuff, there’s no reason we couldn’t have cheated all this, but the 60 people who built this thing wouldn’t have had the challenge and the satisfaction of the finished product. Q: So what’s next? Do you feel pressure to keep topping yourselves? Mostly I’m just excited because I think this makes it more likely that we’ll be able to do more in the future. Finding people who will help us pay for some of these things should be a lot easier right now. And finding collaborators. As wonderful as the team was, there’s no way that those people—no matter how compelling an internet posting I’d put up—there’s no way they would’ve signed up to do this if we hadn’t already done the treadmills. The success of any particular project is that rather than lifting the bar and creating pressure to come up with new ideas, it opens you up to more and more of them. Now it’s more likely that when we call to find an anti-gravity chamber in NASA, it’ll happen. Q: Ha. Is that something we can expect to see at some point? A: Oh, man. Weightlessness would be the final frontier, I think.

As the clock ticks down on Verizon’s opening salvo of commercial LTE availability, PR noise is growing into a dull roar — not to say we necessarily mind, considering how desperately we’re looking forward to more 4G footprint in the States. Today, the company is reporting that engineers have managed to coax up to 40-50Mbps down and 20-25Mbps up out of its test networks currently deployed in Boston and Seattle — not what we can expect in a real-world environment where you’re on a train surrounded by obstacles and other people trying to use the network, but a pretty nice, round set of numbers nonetheless. In actual usage, they’re reporting more down-to-Earth figures of 5-12Mbps down (count on 5) and 2-5Mbps up (count on 2), which still bests EV-DO Rev. A by a healthy margin. Of course, this is just the beginning — LTE will get better over time — so this sounds like a nice start. Verizon plays the obvious card: its 4G trials are faster than 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Localism – the idea that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people they affect – has gone from rebel insurgency to ruling orthodoxy without any intervening phase. Four years ago, when I and a group of newly elected Conservative MPs contributed to the publication of Direct Democracy: An Agenda for a

Panasonic has pulled the sheets off two new Lumix Micro Four Thirds cameras: the touchscreen DMC-G2 and the super light G10. Both shoot 720p video, but the G2’s bendy, touch control screen makes it a Micro Four Thirds stand out. The DMC-G2 is the direct descendant of the Lumix G1 , the first ever Micro Four Thirds camera. It has a 12.1MP Live MOS sensor and shoots 720p video in AVCHD lite, activated by a dedicated video record button. But its real claim to fame: being the first interchangeable lens system camera with a bendy, twisty touchscreen that can be used to control the camera. The 3″ LCD screen has that 460,000 dot resolution goodness you’re looking for and some neat features you might not be expecting. Focus can be adjusted by touching the desired subject on the screen, and photos can be snapped giving it an additional tap. It rotates 180 degrees side to side and tilts 270 degrees up and down—basically you can get to it no matter how you’re holding the camera. Also, it’s available in black, red, and blue. Cool. The G10 is more of an introductory affair, boasting the claim as the lightest micro four thirds to still sport a digital viewfinder. To make things easy, G10 offers a bevy of beginner friendly settings: Intelligent Auto mode, MEGA O.I.S. for eliminating shaky hand-blur, Intelligent Exposure and more. The G10, like the G2, has a 12.1MP Live MOS sensor and can grab 720p HD video. The camera has a 460,000 dot 3″ LCD as well as a 202,000 dot equivalent viewfinder. Both the G2 and the G10 come with the new Vario 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 compact zoom lens (35mm equivalent to 28-84mm) as part of their kit. Pricing will be announced a month before the cameras ship. Check below for full press releases. LUMIX DMC-G2, WORLD’S FIRST* INTERCHANGEABLE LENS SYSTEM CAMERA WITH TOUCH-CONTROL MOVABLE LCD Panasonic LUMIX G2 Features a 3-Inch Touch-Screen, Allowing for Quick and Intuitive Setting Changes, such as Focus, with a Single Touch Secaucus, NJ (March 7, 2010) – Panasonic today announces the LUMIX DMC-G2, the world’s first* digital interchangeable lens system camera with a movable LCD that allows for touch-control, and the successor to the award-winning and revolutionary LUMIX G1, which was the world’s first Micro Four Thirds digital camera. The intuitive touch-control shooting elevates the camera’s operability, letting the user adjust auto focus (AF) simply by touching the subject on the large 3.0-inch 460,000-dot high- resolution LCD. The LUMIX G2, also shoots 720p High Definition video using the AVCHD Lite format, and joins the LUMIX G10, also introduced today, as the latest models in the LUMIX G Micro System. With the touch-screen operation, users can even snap a photo by touching the LUMIX G2’s screen. Additionally, the touch-screen operation excels not only for shooting but also during playback. Users can touch one thumbnail viewed among many to quickly and easily see the full size of the desired photo. Also, to view images one-by-one, photos can be dragged across the screen to browse as though flipping the pages of a book. “With the LUMIX G2, Panasonic is pleased to continue to lead the evolution of the Micro Four Thirds platform and also be the first in the industry to offer a touch-screen interchangeable lens system camera,” said David Briganti, Senior Product Manager, Imaging, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company. “Touch-operation is a user interface with which many consumers are both familiar and expect, and we think the LUMIX G2’s touch-operation makes it easier and quicker to take photos and videos that have professional-like effects.” Using the touch-screen operation, once a user locks onto a subject, the LUMIX G2 enables AF Tracking and will track the subject as it moves within the frame. Then, with a touch on the screen, users can select the part and the size of AF area with the 1-area AF. The Multi-area AF sets a group of AF points according to the composition. While using the manual focus, users can enlarge a subject by touching it and then choosing to enlarge it by 1x, 5x or 10x and then smoothly moving the part by dragging it on the screen. With this touch operation, menu settings can be changed quickly; cutting the time it takes to navigate using standard cursors. However, all setting changes can still be done using the control pad, if preferred. The LUMIX G2 records 1280 x 720 HD videos in the AVCHD Lite format, which increases recording capacity and is highly compatible with audio-visual equipment. With a dedicated video record button, users can easily start recording a video. To complement its high-quality video capabilities, the LUMIX G2 features advanced audio options, as sound is recorded with Dolby Digital Creator and an optional accessory stereo microphone can be attached. A Wind Cut function further enhances the sound as it helps reduce noise caused from background wind. The 3.0-inch touch-operation LCD has a wide-viewing angle and rotates 180° from side to side and tilts 270° up and down, providing approximately 100% of field of view. This free-angle LCD with a touch-screen operation makes it possible to both view and touch the screen from any angle. The double Live-View function offered by the high-resolution, 460,000-dot free-angle Intelligent LCD and 1,440,000-dot 1.4x (0.7x) Live View Finder allows users to see the settings’ results before pressing the shutter. The 12.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor featured in the LUMIX G2 offers the best of both worlds – the outstanding image quality of a CCD sensor, and the lower power consumption of a CMOS sensor. Advanced technology enables it to read four channels of data simultaneously, helping the LUMIX G2 to deliver 60 frames-per-second Full-time Live View images, while faithfully reproducing high-resolution images with fine detail and rich gradation. Plus, with the high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine HD II, which has been re-engineered to further improve image quality. The new high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine HD II supports the new image processing technology Intelligent Resolution, which enables the recording of beautiful photo and HD video with high quality signal processing. With Intelligent Resolution technology, three areas – outlines, detailed texture areas and soft gradation – are automatically detected. The outline parts are enhanced effectively to give edges increased clarity, while simultaneously giving a moderate accentuation to the textured areas so they look finely detailed. For the soft gradation areas, the improved noise reduction system of the Venus Engine HD II is applied to achieve a smoother effect. Apart from the uniform enhancement of sharpness, the innovative technology Intelligent Resolution precisely performs signal processing pixel by pixel in the most effective way, resulting in images that are naturally clear. For users looking for additional creative options for both photos and videos, the LUMIX G2 delivers. While shooting HD video, users can set the camera in “P” mode – to change the aperture for professional-like movie effects where the images blur into focus. For still photos, the LUMIX G2 features the My Color mode with a total of seven preset effects – Expressive, Retro, Pure, Elegant, Monochrome, Dynamic Art, and Silhouette while also keeping the Custom mode, which lets users manually set the color, brightness and saturation levels and save their favorite settings into memory. On the other hand, for beginner users not yet ready for manual modes – the LUMIX G2 features iA (Intelligent Auto), a popular setting in the LUMIX point-and-shoots that automatically engages features and settings for optimal image quality by detecting the shooting environment. Panasonic iA is available in both still photo and video recording settings and a new dedicated iA button, which illuminates in blue when engaged, makes it even easier to use this handy feature. Other features of the LUMIX G2 include: • Dust Reduction System: If dust or other foreign matter gets inside the camera when you’re changing lenses, it could cling to the image sensor and show up as a spot in your photos. The Dust Reduction System in the G2 helps eliminate this possibility by placing a supersonic wave filter in front of the Live MOS sensor. Vibrating vertically around 50,000 times per second, the filter repels dust and other particles effectively. • Included Software: PHOTOfunSTUDIO 5.0 HD Edition makes it possible to sort and organize photos. Videos can be uploaded directly to YouTube using the built-in YouTube uploader – even in HD quality. It also lets you create a 360-degree rotation panorama file in .MOV files. The software is compatible with the Windows 7. The Panasonic LUMIX G2 will come equipped as part of its kit, with the newly announced LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens. The new lens offers a versatile zoom range of 14-42mm (35mm camera equivalent: 28-84mm), making it suitable for a wide variety of scenes, everything from dynamic landscape to portrait. Additionally, the LUMIX G2 is compatible with all Micro Four Thirds System lenses, allowing users even higher levels of performance in a digital interchangeable lens camera. The LUMIX DMC-G2 and other LUMIX G Micro System digital cameras can use any interchangeable lens that complies with the Four Thirds standard via an optional mount adaptor DMW-MA1 and with the prestigious Leica M/R Lenses via DMW-MA2M or MA3R. Other accessories include external flashes, filters, a remote shutter, HDMI mini cables and a variety of stylish straps and bags. To learn about the Panasonic LUMIX Micro Four Thirds System and all the available accessories, visit www.panasonic.com/lumix. The Panasonic LUMIX G2 will be available in red, blue and black models and pricing and availability will be announced 30 days prior to shipping date. PANASONIC LUMIX G10, WORLD’S LIGHTEST* DIGITAL INTERCHANGEABLE LENS SYSTEM CAMERA WITH A VIEWFINDER Compact and easy-to-use, the LUMIX G10 shoots high-quality photos and HD video and is an approachable alternative for users new to system cameras Secaucus, NJ (March 7, 2010) – Panasonic today introduces an addition to its Panasonic LUMIX G Series, the LUMIX DMC-G10, the world’s lightest* digital interchangeable lens camera with a viewfinder, which packs a host of advanced digital camera functions designed to be easy-to-use for users new to system cameras. The new compact and portable LUMIX G10, which can record High Definition (HD) video in addition to high-quality still images, joins the LUMIX DMC-G2, also introduced today, as part of the Panasonic LUMIX G Series. “The LUMIX G Micro System has revolutionized the photography industry ever since the release of the Panasonic G1, the world’s first interchangeable lens system camera based on the Micro Four Thirds System standard,” said David Briganti, Senior Product Manager, Imaging, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company. “We continue to expand this award-winning LUMIX G Series, and with its easy-to-use features and compact size, we expect the G10 to attract a lot of new users who want to step-up from their point-and-shoots.” The LUMIX G10, with its incredible compact body and portable design, uses a mirrorless structure as part the Micro Four Thirds System standard, eliminating a number of components that are found in a conventional interchangeable lens camera, including the mirror box and optical viewfinder unit. This innovative structure allows for the LUMIX G10 to be the world’s lightest system camera in a compact digital camera design that is a desired feature for new users. Adding to its lightweight body, the LUMIX G10 will come equipped as part of its kit, with the newly announced LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens. The new lens offers a versatile zoom range of 14-42mm (35mm camera equivalent: 28-84mm), making it suitable for shooting a wide-range of scenes, from dynamic landscape to portrait. Panasonic designed the LUMIX G10 to be easy to use offers iA (Intelligent Auto) mode – with its shooting assist functions that have proven extremely popular in LUMIX compact cameras. Panasonic’s iA (Intelligent Auto), an easy shooting mode with automatic optimization according to the scene in either photo and video recording, is helpful to beginner users unfamiliar with an interchangeable lens system camera. With the new dedicated iA button, which illuminates in blue when engaged, activating this mode is even easier and can be used to shoot both photos and videos. When shooting still photos, iA offers the following: MEGA O.I.S., which helps prevent blurring from hand-shake; Intelligent ISO Control, which reduces motion blur by adjusting the ISO sensitivity if the subject moves; Intelligent Exposure optimizes exposure for each part of an image, preventing blocked shadows and blown highlights and helping ensure that gradation and details are reproduced properly; Intelligent Scene Selector detects the most common shooting situations – Portrait, Night Portrait, Scenery, Night Scenery, Close-up and Sunset – and switches to the appropriate Scene mode automatically – no setting changes needed. The LUMIX G10 can record 1280 x 720 HD video in Motion JPEG, QVGA, VGA and WVGA formats. Users can enjoy recording HD videos while taking advantage of the high quality lens and the flexibility to change to other lenses. Even users new to recording videos will find the LUMIX G10 makes it easy. Panasonic’s iA for video offers the following: Optical Image Stabilizer (O.I.S.) helps prevent handshake when using high-powered zoom; Face Detection** automatically detects a face in the frame and adjusts focus, exposure, contrast, and skin complexion; Intelligent Exposure continually checks the ambient light level and adjusts the exposure setting as conditions change to prevent blown highlights and blocked shadows; Intelligent Scene Selector automatically switches between Normal, Portrait, Close-up, Scenery, and Low Light modes according to the situation to optimize visual quality. With AF Tracking, the LUMIX G10 can lock onto any subject and keep it in focus even if it moves – making it easy to get beautiful, clear shots of moving subjects, such as children and pets. Simply aim, lock, and shoot. The Face Recognition function remembers registered faces to give an appropriate AF/AE on the people. In playback, you can choose to display only photos that contain a specific registered face using Category Playback. The contrast AF system adopted by the LUMIX DMC-G10 is not only accurate and easy to use, but also very fast. Users can choose from a wide range of AF modes, including AF Tracking, 1-area AF, Face Detection AF/AE and 23-area AF. The LUMIX G10’s Live View Finder, with a resolution of 202,000-dot equivalent, 1.04x (0.52x*) retains the viewability of an optical viewfinder and displays information about its settings that users can see without removing their eye from the subject. The 60 fps Live View is powered by the Live MOS sensor, which takes signals directly from the image sensor and sends them continuously to the LCD, in real time. Both the Live View Finder and LCD provide approximately 100% field of view. This allows the user, when composing a shot, to check the framing accurately from corner to corner. The 3.0-inch large 460,000-dot high-resolution LCD with wide viewing angle automatically controls the brightness according to the situation as an Intelligent LCD. The 12.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor and the new Venus Engine HD II help to separate chromatic noise from luminance noise and apply the optimal noise reduction to each, so users can capture clear and beautiful images even when shooting at high ISO sensitivity levels. The high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine HD II, which has been re-engineered to incorporate the new image processing technology, Intelligent Resolution, enables the recording of beautiful photo and HD video with high quality signal processing. With Intelligent Resolution technology, three areas – outlines, detailed texture areas and soft gradation –are automatically detected. The outline parts are enhanced effectively to give edges increased clarity, while simultaneously giving a moderate accentuation to the textured areas so they look finely detailed. For the soft gradation areas, the improved noise reduction system of the Venus Engine HD II is applied to achiever a smoother effect. Apart from the uniform enhancement of sharpness, the innovative technology Intelligent Resolution precisely performs signal processing pixel by pixel in the most effective way, resulting in images that are naturally clear. All Panasonic LUMIX G Series digital cameras are equipped with the highly-efficient Dust Reduction System. If dust or other foreign matter gets inside the LUMIX G10 while changing lenses, it could cling to the image sensor and show up as a spot in your photos. However, with the Dust Reduction System, it helps eliminate this possibility by placing a supersonic wave filter in front of the Live MOS sensor. Vibrating vertically around 50,000 times per second, the filter repels dust and other particles effectively. Other features of the LUMIX G10 include: • My Color mode with a total of seven preset effects – Expressive, Retro, Pure, Elegant, Monochrome, Dynamic Art, Silhouette. Also includes Custom mode, which lets users manually set the color, brightness and saturation levels. For beginners, the LUMIX G10’s full-time Live View function lets users see how these settings will affect the images before they shoot, making it easier to capture the exact mood or atmosphere desired. • Scene modes total 26, including the Peripheral Defocus mode, which lets users take a photo where the foreground is in focus and background is blurred – or vice versa. This popular effect can be intimidating for a beginner, but in the Peripheral Defocus mode, by simply selecting the objects to be blurred and focused using the camera’s keypad, it is simple for photographers of any level. • Exposure meter can be displayed in the P/A/S/M shooting modes. The correlation between shutter speed and aperture is shown, with a color-coded warning system that alerts users when the settings are not in the proper range. For those new to system camera digital photography, this makes it easy to learn proper settings both visually and logically, enhancing their photography skills. The Panasonic LUMIX G10 is compatible with Micro Four Thirds System lenses, allowing users even higher levels of performance in a digital interchangeable lens camera. In addition to LUMIX G lenses, the LUMIX DMC-G10 and LUMIX G Micro System can use any interchangeable lens that complies with the Four Thirds standard via an optional mount adaptor DMW-MA1 and with the prestigious Leica M/R Lenses via DMW-MA2M or MA3R. Pricing and availability for the Panasonic LUMIX G10 will be announced 30 days prior to shipping date. It will be available in black. To learn about the Panasonic LUMIX Micro Four Thirds System and all the available accessories, visit www.panasonic.com/lumix. PANASONIC ANNOUNCES COMPACT AND LIGHTWEIGHT STANDARD ZOOM LENS FOR LUMIX G SERIES DIGITAL CAMERAS SECAUCUS, NJ (March 7, 2010) – Panasonic today introduces a new interchangeable lens for its LUMIX G Micro System, the ultra-compact and lightweight LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens offers versatile zoom range of 14-42mm (35mm camera equivalent: 28-84mm), making it suitable for a wide variety of scenes, everything from dynamic landscape to portrait. The LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens will be part of the kit lens for the latest additions to the LUMIX G Series of digital cameras: the LUMIX DMC-G10 and LUMIX DMC-G2, also introduced today. The new LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens incorporates Panasonic’s MEGA O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer), which makes it easy to shoot clear photographs, even in low-lit situations, by suppressing the blur caused by a shaky hand. Adopting an inner-focus system driven by a stepping motor, the superior optical design realizes outstanding smoothness to support the high-speed AF (Auto Focus) system of LUMIX G cameras. When mounted on any of these cameras, this new lens allows users to maximize all of the AF system’s functions. With its minimum focus distance of 30cm even at full zoom, this lens provides a maximum photographic magnification of 0.32x (35mm equivalent). Seven aperture blades make up a circular aperture diaphragm to produce an attractive smoothness in out-of-focus areas even when shooting at a large aperture. The LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S. lens system uses multi-coated lens elements that reduce blur, helping to deliver superior performance. This new lens system also features excellent contrast even at its highest zoom level. The inclusion of an aspherical lens improves optical performance by minimizing distortion, even at the 28mm wide end. For more information on the Panasonic LUMIX G Series digital cameras, lenses and accessories, please visit www.panasonic.com/lumix.

Sienna Miller has no regrets. The ‘Factory Girl’ actress – who recently rekindled her romance with actor Jude Law – is unhappy about the way she is perceived, but is glad she never changed her ways to suit other people.

1. What’s your backstory? I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to New York, where I’ve worked for a number of media companies, including MTV, Big Spaceship, a digital design agency, and Massify, a startup online production network. Now I have my own small media consulting business and I do corporate speechwriting. Oh, and I guess the interesting thing is that I was on Survivor last year and came in second. I was the first person ever to get shut-out by the jury in the final 2. 2. Everyone has a “thing.” What’s yours? My thing is losing a reality TV gameshow. 3. Everyone also has a karaoke song. Name yours (and don’t be shy). Master of the House ( Les Miserables ) and Don’t Be Shy (Cat Stevens) 4. Who are your biggest influences? Harold Bloom , who was my professor in college and really taught me to love literature. My former boss at MTV, who taught me how to be an effective cog in the corporate machine. And the training sequence in Batman Begins. “The training is nothing! The will is everything!” 5. What is it you most dislike? I hate when someone emails you asking how you are, and you write back a long and thoughtful response, and then you ask them how they are, and they never respond. From now on, if you want to know how I am, you’d better be prepared to do some soul searching. 6. Whose job would you like to steal? I would like to steal a professional thief’s job because that would be a real sign of talent – now the student has become the teacher. 7. What was your best date? The first time I hung out with my current girlfriend. We couldn’t hear each other at all, she poured all the drinks I bought her into a plant, I spilled a bottle of red wine everywhere, and I got rejected when I moved in too soon for a kiss. I mean the date itself was a disaster, but somehow it worked out. 8. What was your worst? The same date. No no, jk, that would be too cheesy. I got set up during a haircut once. This barber set me up, and the girl came and hung out in his apartment while he cut my hair. The best part was how the barber was trying to unobtrusively snip my bangs while I was like, “Sooo….what did you major in?” 9. When I wake up in the middle of the night its because I’ve had a nightmare that I’m ___ . I think hearing about other people’s dreams is inherently really boring. People are fascinated by their own dreams. Characters appearing and disappearing, random meetings with celebrities, being chased by monsters, flying, endless corridors, invisibility – these things would be fascinating IN REAL LIFE. But that shit is supposed to happen in dreams. 10. I feel my best when I’m wearing ___ . A helmet. Safety first! 11. Please settle the debate: New York or LA? Los Angeles: the weather is perfect all-year round, the people are more relaxed, and orange juice is cheaper. 12. What’s on your playlist at this very moment? This question is impossible to answer without looking like an asshole. But it’s the greatest hits of The Band. See? 13. What are you watching on TV? I’m pretty much obsessed with Jeopardy . Also, Craig Ferguson is freaking awesome, even if he is a little bit too aware of how awesome he is. Oh, and Survivor of course! 14. If you alone held the power to pick the Oscar for Best Picture, would you give it to Avatar or The Hurt Locker ? I would give it to the Hurt Locker. I haven’t seen it, but my parents tell me it’s very powerful. Also, Jeremy Renner used to be on reality television. 15. Given the chance, would you rather hang out with George Clooney or Robert Downey Jr.? Does anybody choose Robert Downey Jr? This may be a weighted question. It’s like – who do you want to hang out with, Jesus or Bob Jenkins in Accounting? A better question would be, “Would you rather hang out with George Clooney or Angelina Jolie?” Then I would have to choose – would I prefer a night of feeling inconsequential next to the most charming man in the world, or an evening of being snubbed by the most beautiful woman. A true conundrum. 16. If you were a character on any movie or TV show, past or present, who would you be? Treebeard the Ent in Lord of the Rings, because he moves slowly and is very thoughtful. Also, I have a tendency to misplace things, and he lost his WIFE. I feel you, Treebeard. 17. What is your drug of choice? Cookies. 18. What’s the last thing you think about before falling asleep at night? I go over different interactions I’ve had during the day and try to think of how I could have handled them better. But ultimately I fall asleep very quickly. I guess that’s because I handle every interaction perfectly. Post from: Crushable

Thanks to quick thinking and quick actions, this 12-year-old girl was able to save inhabitants of her tiny island off the coast Chile from a tsunami. After the massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck Chile over the weekend, Martina Maturana saw a wave approaching Robinson Crusoe island. Quickly, she ran to ring a warning bell, saving the lives of the people who live in the island’s low-lying areas. [ CNN ] Post from: Crushable

Cindy Crawford doesn’t have time to worry about her wrinkles. The 44-year-old supermodel – who has two children, Presley, 10, and Kaia, eight, with husband Rande Gerber – says fighting the aging process isn’t important to her because family life keeps her so busy. When you don’t have anything interesting to do, you start thinking too much about what you don’t have anymore. When you can appreciate fulfilling things like family, work, friends or the possibility of helping other people, you will have a focus. The list could go on. “But to be standing in front of a mirror and to moan, ‘Oh my God, I’ve just found another wrinkle!’ That’s embarrassing. I don’t have time for that.” The model – who quit modeling in 2000, but has since gone on to design her own furniture line – was always satisfied by her successful career, but her work successes do not compare to the joys of family life. Speaking to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, she said: “I enjoyed my life, but I’m happy my times as a supermodel are over. I had a great time and a lot of opportunities. But I’m a mother. When you have children you see the world with different eyes, that’s the wonderful thing about it. “Because of my children I live a completely new and different life – for me that’s worth a fortune. I still work a lot – for my own business though – which is really fulfilling.” Not many models will ever have Cindy’s career. It’s nice to hear how down to Earth she really is.

This Fit-U mouse from Spanish peripheral designer Rainbow has a neat idea. Its top is a detachable plate, allowing you to switch back from a desktop-sized mouse and a travel-sized mouse easily. Too bad the mouse is so bad. The Price: TBD The Verdict: Bad mouse, but great idea. The concept of being able to take a regular-sized mouse (the Large plate, in their terms), swapping on another cover and turning it into a travel-sized mouse is a neat idea. Some days you want a large, ergonomic mouse like Logitech’s , but some days you want a smaller one to shove into your bag. The downside is how bad this mouse is at mousing. I placed it on two different mousepads and a desk, and it was never able to track half as well as the Logitech Performance MX mouse. Chunks and stutters were common, and most of the time I was fighting it like an old man new to computing in order for it to do what I wanted. The button presses were hard and clacky instead of being smooth and easy. Overall, bad times. On the other hand, the top plate is easy to pop off and easy to swap, which is a plus. Its only plus. You have to ask yourself what kind of bag you have that can fit a travel-sized mouse but not a slightly bigger mouse, and what kind of mousing surface really demands a compact device, and that extra 2 inches just won’t do. My feeling is that it’s really rare. So it if weren’t for the fact that this mouse doesn’t function very well as a mouse, it’d be a great mouse. But in the meantime, you should go with a Microsoft or a Logitech or a Razor; one of the people that have perfected mice sensors. [ Fit-U ] Interesting idea for a customizable mouse Large size plate not that comfortable for a desktop mouse Travel size plate is about the same as other travel mice Bad at mousing

I’m imagining a Venn diagram of 1.) People who’ve already built a PC compatible with USB 3.0 and 2.) people who are gravely concerned about data security. The middle section is quite large! Hence, the Super Talent SuperCrypts . These jumbo-sized flash drives , which are backwards compatible with USB 2.0, have been built around AES hardware encryption, with 128-bit ECB and 256-bit XTS encryption for the Standard and Pro Editions, respectively. Capacities will range from 16GB to 256GB, and while Super Talent hasn’t announced prices yet, don’t expect these drive to be cheap when they start selling later this month. Anyway, encryption and comically huge storage options are nice features and all, but this is a USB 3.0 drive, so tell me about the speed : This new drive supports USB 3.0 speeds of up to 240MB/s. Granted, that’s almost certainly a read speed rather than a write speed, but still, 240MB/s download put this in league with later generation SSDs, which is pretty amazing for a thumb drive—even a chubster like this one. [ PCPer ]