Here's the first of what I hope will be a series of audio posts from the Conference on World Affairs. It's an annual conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder which brings together about 100 people from all professional disciplines to talk about Various Issues Of Interest.

Naturally, they put me on the panels about geeky stuff. I'm probably not the best person to offer ideas on how to fix the Libya situation.

Some necessary background: this conference is like the Food Network's "Chopped", except the ingredients are ideas. I don't know what I'll be talking about until two weeks before the conference, when the schedule is posted. And the title is all I have to go on. "Your ingredients are: Social media; centralized monopolization of communication; and injustice. You have ten minutes. You may begin."

You can try to write up a formal talk, but the only preparation that really works is to arrive at the session with just a set of signposts that I want to follow and points I want to make. These talks of mine are about 50% off the top of my head. Sometimes, I'll be speaking last on the panel and I'll throw out everything I'd planned because the other three speakers took the topic in a much more interesting direction than anything I'd considered.

So, no...these are never the most polished talks I give over the course of the year. But it's a fun -- and often humbling -- challenge and I keep coming back for more every year.

This was recorded on my iPhone and the only edits I've made were to clip out PA feedback or any other kinds of noises that might me medically-incompatible for anybody listeniing on earbuds.

Visit the CWA's site for more information, and a list of the other folks who spoke this year. 

I know. It's a sickness. You can't review the iPad 2 and not use it as an excuse to show off a demo track from your awesome band and hope that it becomes an Internet sensation and you'll have so much power in the industry that the next time you hit an open mic night, the management won't make your band perform in the alley.

And by "perform in the alley" I of course mean...well anyway.

I have no band. I have no talent. I don't even have this iPad. It's a loaner. But I'm posting this to give a sense of how great the software and the hardware is.

It's got a ukulele track, a lead vocal track and two backup vocal tracks, all performed by me (recorded with a Blue Yeti USB mic plugged into the iPad 2 with the Camera Connection Kit's USB adapter, via a USB hub for microphone power). Plus a Smart Bass and a Smart Drumkit performed by the iPad.

Hard Times by Andy Ihnatko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Edit:

Posterous seems to have screwed up the audio upload. Here's a link to the same audio, hosted on SoundCloud:

iPad USB Audio demos by Ihnatko

 

 

Well, my iPad Camera Connection Kit came in this morning. And I wouldn't have believed it, but yes indeedy: if you plug (almost) any USB audio device into the iPad Camera Connection Kit's USB adapter, you can use it with the iPad! Witness a little burst of live music:

...Followed by about 7 minutes of "Holy jumping prophets on a unicycle!" commentary:

...All recorded on my $150 Blue Yeti USB microphone.

Kudos to Glenn Fleishman over at TidBITS for being the first to point this out. I'd like to think it would have occurred to me to try this...but I'm pleased that none of us will ever know how long that would have taken. :)

Audio of my first panel at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder. I explain Twitter and how it makes sense to me.

-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

Brunching at Yer Man's Irish Pub in Glendale, NY. I'm told that this place (in its 1990's incarnation) was the establishing shot for the neigborhood bar in "The King Of Queens."

Sent from my iPhone

-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

Just in case you missed it, my review of Google Maps Navigation went up on the Sun-Times site on Friday:

http://bit.ly/4dS2fC

My verdict? I liked it a lot. It's not a great navigation app, but it's a good one. And as a free download or an app that comes pre-installed on your phone, it defines the minimum number of features and minimum level of usability that all commercial GPS systems must have from this point onward. Even if you don't use it yourself, you'll benefit from its presence in the marketplace.

(Assuming that Google Maps Navigation doesn't drive all commercial GPS apps out of business. Which it won't.)

My biggest complaint about the app is the voice it uses for the turn-by-turn directions. It's utterly horrifying. It's flat and robotic and it mispronounces things like crazy. I quickly went from "what was that?" to "what the **** was that?!?" and often, I had to look at the screen to find out just to figure out what my next turn was supposed to be.

Worst, it's painful to listen to. An hour or two of driving actually left me with a headache. No adjustment of volume in the Droid phone or my car stereo could help this voice any. The only solution was to turn the damned feature off completely.

It's not really the Google Nav team's fault. It relies on the built-in speech synthesis of the handset the app is running on. And apparently, whoever did the speech system of the Android 2.0 OS never bothered to actually listen to its output.

("Why bother?" he said, tapping an enormous spreadsheet with one hand while gesturing towards the Ph.D on his wall with the other. "The math says that this voice sounds exactly like Kathleen Turner in 'Romancing The Stone'. You can't argue with numbers.")

It ignores a crucial lesson of software and hardware design. The closer a feature is to the user, the more important it is. As the developer of a new word processor, you might be very proud of a feature that highlights phrases like "...you lying, two-faced, pigeon-toed sock-knocking dwit-wad" and suggests softer language. But it shouldn't be buried inside a pane inside a dialog under the "tools" menu. Unless there's a nice button in the toolbar labeled "Extend Career..." your work was a complete waste of time.

The speech system in Google Maps Navigation is technically more informative than that of my favorite iPhone app, Motion-X GPS. Motion-X will tell you "Turn right in 200 feet." Google Nav says "In 200 feet, turn right onto Washington Street."

Ah, but it'll be "Washing-STONE Street." And I probably won't even hear it because I would have turned the sound off to prevent me from twisting the steering wheel and crashing into the closest bridge abutment. An expensive move, but far less painful than listening to Google Nav's voice.

Motion-X is sweet, soothing, mellifluous.

"Thank you, Magic Voice," I say, after a contented little sigh.

On paper, it's inferior. But in practice, it's absolutely better than Google Nav. It's a primary means of interaction between the software and the user. It's an area in which "limited features DONE EXACTLY RIGHT" is better than "more features, executed in a half-assed manner."

I'm catching up on Project Runway as I write this. I know that I would pay good money for a Tim Gunn GPS voice module. When you're late for an appointment and tearing though a complex tangle of streets you've never seen before, what you want most of all is something that's supportive, encouraging, optimistic, and helpful. That's Tim Gunn, down to the leather soles of his simple but stylish shoes.

Dinnnng!

"I love the fact that you're a risk-taker. But you've sort of lost me here. Can I offer some advice, which you're free to ignore? I'd proceed 200 feet, then take a right onto Moody Street. ...All right? I'll let you get to it. I have _complete_ confidence in you..."

Yes, these lines were all taken verbatim from the past ten minutes of the show.

If Tim Gunn can't record a custom voice for my GPS app, can I at least pay him a retainer to simply call me every week on Deadline Day, and ask me how the work is going?

-- A.

Sent from my iPhone