damien stolarz blog

I’ve lived in short walking distance from the Topanga Westfield mall for nearly a decade. I have been there literally hundreds of times with my daughter. They recently doubled the size of the mall, adding an Apple store, a 2-story carousel, a Target, and a bunch of amenities.

The problem is, it has always been hard to walk to the mall, and now it is getting harder, and the architects of the mall don’t seem to have foot traffic TO the mall in any of their plans. The parking lot is being constructed as a huge moat of fast moving SUVs, and there aren’t even any designated crosswalks - not even some painted lines - to permit pedestrians to approach the mall on foot, perhaps from the increasingly popular public transportation that Los Angeles has developed.

Here’s a video showing the difficulty of walking/rolling to the mall:

Technorati Tags: ADA, cars, disabled, mall, suv, topanga, westfield

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A recent article I wrote, Monetizing Podcasts & Videoblogs, was just published in Streaming Media magazine and has now been reprinted on streamingmedia.com.

“Any business built around podcasts and videoblogs has to start with the fundamentals: Compelling content that can be exchanged with an audience for their attention. Still, the past two years have taught us many lessons about how we can turn that exchange into a successful business model.”

Read the article

Technorati Tags: emerging media, podcast, videoblog, video

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Hi, I’m Adam Stolarz, Damien’s brother and carputer hacker cohort. We just got done showing off our restored and computerized Nash at the Maker’s Faire.

So I was in charge of demonstrating the Nash’s computer features and GUI, and quite a few people said they had seen the original Nash blurb page but didn’t feel like they actually learned anything about it (which was a neat trick in that it gave us the element of surprise, but I imagine some people went “Oh old car I get it” and thought nothing more about it).

Our 1950 Nash Ambassador is rigged up with two computers: One for “audiovisual infotainment” as my brother would say-Streetdeck, and its complete in-car media and navigation features (so many demonstrations…)- and one dedicated to Skype video conferencing. It also has two wireless hotspots, pulling down internet over EVDO, one using Sprint, the other using Verizon, which provided us with wireless connectivity and satellite images for our navigation all the way up from Los Angeles. (With impressive speeds, I might add).
There are three screens in the front: two on the dash, one on the windshield. The left one is a touchscreen for controlling the media/nav computer, the right one a smaller ultra-bright screen for video conferencing. Those can be hidden by the original roll-down metal radio cover, leaving just the rearview screen (which mirrors the image on the touchscreen). This was a feature we used on the drive up. Once we had our music playing we turned on the nav screen with a GPS-based speedometer, trip meter, lat/long etc., shut the window, and relied on the rearview monitor. (The speedometer, incidentally, was much preferred over our authentic but woefully inaccurate steering wheel speedometer.)

All in all, the Nash exhibit was a rousing success. Last year we had a similar set-up, only in a hybrid Toyota Highlander. One thing we learned in comparing that year and this year, is that it’s more impressive and eye-catching to have an old restored car rigged with computers than a new hybrid. Even though the Highlander was pretty, it was not as interesting as the Nash with computers run all through it. Also, it gave the wrong impression that we were a custom shop pimping out cars with computer system, as opposed to carputer hackers and makers, there to spread the message of “Yes, you can also do this in your car!”

And, to spread that message, here be some links:
Streetdeck - The software used in our Nash, with it’s in-car loveliness.
The Mp3Car Forums - The biggest carputer community in the tubes that I know of.
Car PC Hacks - Damien’s book, of course, and my reference of choice.
Now that the senseless plugging rampage is over, I’ll bid you all adieu. We had a long exciting six hour drive up, and have another six hour drive back down to LA ahead of us. For all those who saw us at the show and all those simply reading about our car, thanks very much for the interest.

-adam

Technorati Tags: car pc, carputer, cars, in-car computing, infotainment, make, makersfaire, nash, nash ambassador, navigation, streetdeck

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I’ve been watching a bit of the evenly-bilingual TransitTV content since I’ve been commuting on the Los Angleles Orange Line across the San Fernando valley. I seem to be one of the few who uses a laptop/EVDO combination on LA rapid transit.

The system cycles through a lot of short form content, weather, news clips and also shows a map (powered by Microsoft’s Live Maps) so you can see where the bus is. I believe the content refreshes over WiFi when the bus is in the station.

But it doesn’t always go according to plan. Last time I took the bus, the video was having stuttering problems. You could recognize the cause - it looks like some background process was flailing in the background, causing everything to stutter once every few seconds on whatever linux or windows machine was doing the playback. The period of the stutter was just long enough to let you get interested in what the talking head was saying, and then punish you by pausing painfully.

I build those same sorts of systems for cars and online, and I certainly sympathize, but I didn’t know how to let the TransitTV people know that bus number whatever was going to have an inaccurate count of ads served that day.

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In the early ’00s I had a company that developed P2P streaming software that powered Internet radio broadcasts. At that time, there was a big risk that Internet radio would get shut down. It didn’t - but it was burdened with regulations that made it pay MORE fees than terrestrial or satellite radio. (Net radio has to pay composer and performers, whereas, due to it’s roots as a promotional vehicle, terrestrial radio only has to pay composers).
Anyway, it’s very important that Internet radio survives. A new proposal is trying to vastly increase the fees in such a way that all the indie stations that are paying hundreds to several thousands a year would go into 5 digits - i.e. they would have to shut down their stations and cease to exist.

This issue has nothing to do with digital piracy or anything exciting and contentious like that; it’s just standard incumbents vs. upstarts, with Internet radio fighting the uphill battle for over a decade now.

In a few years, your car and mobile phone will be bathed in ubiquitous broadband. You’ll be able to tune into any station you’d like, anywhere around the world. The promise of this is great - but some ill-conceieved regulation could establish too high a bar - and prevent the kind of independent communication essential to a healthy culture.

You can call your representative and say Support H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act, if the issue is important to you.

Technorati Tags: car pc, emerging media, emerging technology, infotainment, legislation, activism, congress, radio

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Will you be coming to the Maker’s Faire?

http://www.makerfaire.com/

Technorati Tags: AMC, car pc, carputer, cars, damienstolarz, emerging technology, in-car computing, nash, nash ambassador, navigation, make, makersfaire, streetdeck, telematics

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I commute a lot in Los Angeles, and I have noticed an intriguing but literally disturbing trend: Mobile epitaphs.

No kidding, these are short dedications to the deceased on the rear windows of my co-commuters.

I have to say, as an observer and writer on emerging media trends, the mere fact of this emerging medium for paying respect does not bother me. If someone can propose over IM or a text message, I see no reason why someone else can’t honor their loved ones on their hatchback, minivan, or SUV.

What I do question is the wisdom of presenting reminders of death to other drivers. Most of the dedications I have seen were, sadly, of people who died young - perhaps early to mid 20’s. One I saw showed someone who must have died as a teenager. I also question whether having a daily reminder of someone’s passing is a good way to deal with the event and move on - usually, you want to find things that don’t remind you of the person who left your life. You wouldn’t have a tombstone in your front yard would you?

I remember I used to get a bit sad when I walked through the University of Oregon campus - which had an old graveyard in the middle - and I would see the children who only lasted a few months back in the 19th century.

If an accident on the side of the road can slow down traffic - even just a car on the side - I wonder if these kind but oddly mobile sentiments have an adverse effect on drivers other than me.

It’s not like I veer off into the shoulder when I see them - but I can’t help but think about who they are. And I don’t think I should be contemplating death while driving.

Technorati Tags: cars, emerging media, epitaph

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