img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/gizmodo_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compNEW YORK – Popular technology blog Gizmodo has set up shop in a Manhattan art gallery to showcase some of the rarest and most intriguing gadgets from the past hundred years or so, including never-released Apple prototypes, the first Sony Walkman, a flying aerial surveillance camera and more./pp The Gizmodo Gallery opened Thursday at the Reed Annex (151 Orchard St.), but we snuck in Wednesday night to photograph the most fascinating stuff on display here. The show runs through Sunday afternoon, giving New Yorkers, tourists and gadget freaks a chance to gaze upon important pieces of our technological history, and interact with some more recent gadgets. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/dragan_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compNico Reyes of the Reed Annex sits blissfully unaware of the Draganflyer X6, a flying surveillance device that "makes crane shots obsolete," according to its creators. That may be the case, but we can't fight off our initial impression that this could be the last thing we will ever see. /pp With an expert at the remote control, the aerial carbon-fiber shutterbug navigates tight indoor spaces with ease according to Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam, who said the beast is capable of holding steady in winds of up to 18 mph. A "failed motor logic" system keeps the system in operation even if two of the motors crap out. /pp Lam said the Draganflyer X6 accepts a night-vision camera or HD camera in addition to the vanilla flavor, and communicates its location to the remote using a GPS. As great as this gadget is for filmmakers and photographers, its potential application as a weapon is a bit worrying in a Terminator sort of way. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/sony_walkman_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compHere's the portable audio player that started it all: the original Sony Walkman, on loan from Sony's archives in Tokyo. Initially panned by critics, the Walkman became a worldwide sensation, eventually selling 340 million units. /pp Oddly, the device that kicked off the portable-audio revolution includes two headphone jacks for sharing music mdash; surely, unintentional prescience on the part of Sony, which could never have predicted the later connection between portable music formats and music sharing. /pp Model Alyssa Miller holds the original-model Walkman./p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/apple_tablet_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compLegendary Silicon Valley design firm Frog Design lent Gizmodo a couple of Apple prototypes to display, including this MacBook Tablet mock-up, modeled here by Paulo. /pp Apple and Frog Design conceived this prototype using their Snow White design language, according to Gizmodo's Brian Lam. Although this portable tablet computer never saw the light of day, echoes of its design can be seen in the Apple IIc. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/atari_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compAtari never released a portable version of the Atari 2600 game console, but if it did, it may have ended up looking a lot like this Atari 2600 VCSp, seen here in the hands of writer Lisa Katayama. /pp The Atari 2600 VCSp is the work of hacker extraordinaire Benjamin Heckendorn (better known online as Ben Heck). This model is the first Heck ever made; he went on to build scores of vintage gaming mods that earned him a following among geeks and fans of vintage gaming. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/tenori_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compThis double-sided MIDI controller allows musicians to build loops of sound by pressing LED buttons arranged in a 16-by-16 grid. /pp This a href=" http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/10/tenori-on-lite-.html "video/a explains how it works, but the gist is that you control which loops play, and when they start and stop, by activating and deactivating the lights. /pp Unlike some of the other gear on display, the Tenori-On will be playable by gallery-goers who can listen to their own performances through a pair of headphones. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/dyson_level_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compGizmodo’s Brian Lam told us that the original Dyson vacuum cleaner was initially crippled in the U.S. market because manufacturers were worried it would cannibalize the multimillion-dollar market for replacement vacuum bags. /pp Luckily for inventor James Dyson, this version of his design was manufactured in Japan starting in 1983, giving Dyson the financial wherewithal to start making them himself. Twenty five years later, the descendents of the original Dyson are probably the world's most coveted model mdash; itself something of an accomplishment. Who would have predicted that vacuum cleaners could become such a hot topic? /pp Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan wields this original Dyson./p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/death_star_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compOne of the largest Lego sets ever released, this Death Star was destroyed on its way from Lego to the Gizmodo expo. Luckily, the company introduced Gizmodo to Lego enthusiast Jonathan Lopes of Brooklyn. /pp The self-described "Lego nerd" arrived on the scene to perform a reverse Luke Skywalker on the Death Star, rebuilding it in time for it to be displayed Thursday morning mdash; no small feat, considering that it's made from 3,800 pieces and that he worked only from a picture of the fully assembled version. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/apple_phone_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compAnother Apple prototype loaned to Gizmodo by Frog Design, this early '80s conception of an Apple phone featured a handset and a monochromatic screen and stylus, allowing the device's potential owner to sign checks electronically over phone lines. /pp When Apple finally released its first phone in 2007, it didn't even come with a stylus, and the screen was much smaller. /pp Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan picks up the handset. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/thanko_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compOne of the most useless pieces of electronics we have ever laid eyes on, Thanko's USB tie and gloves provide you with heat or cool when they're connected to your computer's USB port mdash; perfect for commuting and outdoor sports, assuming your USB cable is long enough. /pp The gloves heat up, while a compact fan located in the necktie's knot generates a gentle breeze mdash; worthwhile in theory, if not in practice. As Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan points out, "All USB gadgets are awesome in some way." /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/picturephone_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compWhen this Bell Labs Picturephone debuted at the 1964 World's Fair, many of those who saw it in action, paired to an identical model in Disneyland, probably thought that every phone would feature video by the year 2000. They were close; instead, nearly every modern computer is capable of live videoconferencing, while home phones still largely resemble the models of the past. /pp A 1956 version of the Picturephone was capable of transmitting one picture every two seconds. This one apparently improved on that frame-rate by adding another two lines to the connection. This (nonfunctional) unit was borrowed from the ATT Archives and History Center. /pp Adam Lam uses the Picturephone pictured here to attempt contact with gadget freaks of the past, or so we imagine. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/zeiss_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compGoggles that let you watch video on a little virtual screen have been around for years, but many of them are plagued by poor image quality, low resolution and headache-inducing optics. /pp This pair, from the widely respected camera-lens manufacturer Zeiss, is an exception, with 640x480 resolution and an individual diopter for each eye that allows eyeglass-wearers to use the goggles. Battery life is four hours mdash; enough for all but the longest films. /pp In this shot, Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan watches a video stored on a video-capable iPod Nano. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_gizmodo/brian_lam_stomping_clear_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.compWe wondered why two hunks of red foam and metal were included in the gallery, until Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam took a break from overseeing the construction of displays to demonstrate them. /pp With each step, a thunderous, robot-stomp sound emanated from his slippers, and by the end of his demonstration, we were convinced that they did in fact belong in the gallery. Sometimes, technology is as much about whimsy as it is about scientific progress. /pbr style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:6b9e18984a73592ea4d308fe6242b56b:bTtmJVCxJ9lGNc4OZMi7nnDNfdRSNp7qHeDFRgF27EMqaT5ihPZywp9fWgh8%2BBsCPALBu3%2BCpZUBKQ%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:59d2ed89e629e65ca1b7133c227d957d:IIEgq%2F2BEVxp47B87r28xAHNpCMX3nYRI%2BWU5Zja287G4fyYuK6VZaeP0PySF1r79pXUPNmU5sPf'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:60e104de3882cacf238e898f5c7dab09:U4zOXtQdArUrg9rZLrAT8dcdMMU0kDA%2B231aA85E7Pc3biZ%2F%2FZlJrq9MNCMt9ygVKjf%2B8IaYqUx3'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:10e8898809c081d1154ac9c9c2c43b99:7RQ1Hv22YI2WI24avRIuzZH7U1S3pwjVIXJqPmDTufk5ODGH2h1wn9YAn0Ehb1kMJZefKc9vNwMA'img border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=7b501d3d90521f2989f5f32410ca9edap=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=7b501d3d90521f2989f5f32410ca9edap=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=7b501d3d90521f2989f5f32410ca9eda" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=JhSVew"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=JhSVew" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/475367649" height="1" width="1"/

pstrong1901: /strongAnimation pioneer Walt Disney and nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg are born. So, if you've ever thought the Uncertainty Principle was a bit goofy, you may be onto something. /pp Disney was born in Chicago, but spent much of his childhood on a Missouri farm. He sold his first sketches to neighbors at age 7. Rejected for military service because he was too young, he drove a Red Cross ambulance at the end of World War I. He covered the entire vehicle with cartoons. /pp Disney went to work after the war as an advertising artist in Kansas City and sold his first animated cartoons. He went to a href="http://www.norsknettskole.no/fag/ressurser/itstud/fuv/gunnargrodal/bio.htm"Hollywood/a and partnered with his brother Roy in 1923. /pp Mickey Mouse debuted to the public in the first sound-synch cartoon, citeSteamboat Willie/cite in 1928. /pp Disney added Technicolor to animation the 1932 Silly Symphonies cartoon citeFlowers and Trees/cite. This first full-color animated cartoon mdash; and first film of any kind to use the new three-color Technicolor process mdash; won Disney his first of 32 Academy Awards. The 1937 cartoon citeThe Old Mill/cite was the first short subject to use the multiplane camera technique, with foreground, mid-ground and background on separate animation cels at different distances from the camera. /pp Disney's pioneering continued. 1937's citeSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs/cite was the first full-length animated musical feature mdash; produced at the outrageous cost of $1.5 million ($22.6 million in today's money). /pp In 1940, citeFantasia/cite combined some live action with animation, a process Disney had been working on since his Kansas City days. He used it extensively in citeThe Three Caballeros/cite, citeSong of the South/cite and citeMary Poppins/cite. /pp Disney introduced time-lapse film photography to a wide public with films like citeThe Living Desert/cite and others in his award-winning True-Life Adventure series. Disney also produced pioneering TV programs in black-and-white and then color. /pp Southern California's Disneyland, opened in 1955, led the shift from generic amusement parks to theme parks. It included a futuristic sci-fi Tomorrowland. Disney conceived EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow near Florida's Disney World, as a showcase for applying technology to improving people's lives. It was under construction when Disney died Dec. 15, 1966, at age 65./p p- - -/p pHeisenberg was born the same day as Disney, in Würzburg, Germany. He began playing the piano early, mastering difficult pieces by age 13. He taught himself calculus and then worked on a farm for three summers to earn tuition to study physics at the University of Munich. /pp He studied with Arthur Sommerfield, Max Born and James Franck and earned a doctorate in 1923, the year Disney went to Hollywood. a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1932/heisenberg-bio.html"Heisenberg/a went to Copenhagen to study under Niels Bohr. /pp Heisenberg described a method for calculating the energy levels of "a href="http://www.notablebiographies.com/He-Ho/Heisenberg-Werner.html"atomic oscillators/a" in a famous paper, "On Quantum Mechanical Interpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations." It brought him immediate fame. /pp A second paper, "On the Visualizable Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics," explained his famous Uncertainty Principle: It is impossible to specify both the exact position and exact momentum of a subatomic particle at the same time. /p p- - -/p pFor his contributions to quantum mechanics, Heisenberg received the Nobel Prize for Physics at age 31. It was 1932, the same year Disney won his first Oscar. /pp During World War II, while Disney was making military-training and civilian-propaganda films for the U.S. war effort, Heisenberg was director of Germany's uranium project working on an atomic bomb. He was arrested in April 1945 and remained imprisoned in England until the summer of 1946. /pp After the war, Heisenberg worked on a unified theory of fundamental particles and on plasma physics and thermonuclear processes. He was director of the Max Planck Institute and headed a program to invite visiting scientists to work in Germany. /ppHeisenberg retired in 1970 and died Feb. 1, 1976, nine years after Disney. /pp emSource: Norsknettskole, Nobel Lectures, Notable Biographies/em /pbr style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:07524b2ebae54497f53876c85dd3da5a:z1cdUxsRm8MU%2BiDwzN1iW%2FyHQfW3dd17cSyYZLqJaSqkAXXhRBZCxkivdLQjRt0pGSXOEWLUzcJsNw%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:d17bda05564fc46939021aa7b79004ef:ikQtZqELCUBUkD%2FWJs8Ide8%2For%2B1%2B%2FuYigO2ZkDJvkErjabeAQgE1zP%2FtsdWUbD%2B4bqW6TZOjKAu'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:0105399b0a6090a0212d062c984e7ec9:tCFqIVZRJjcSMej7VmtADQ0ZI6fhI4x17ljMaUjK6O6M1yAYQLPTYtMJ86bWOZGgrd%2FFdRPCYdy%2B'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:373edbcc71739c87ebf41d103df3226c:tP1m6nY6Z%2B%2FoWbEzTXsKTuvt%2F%2BkThxVCQ11NhGuZFnG6DzZXQdz8%2B5LDtkSA3bmQVf6GP3UxPOI2'img border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=eea228f65efba9a695c7d8df29c32aa7p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=eea228f65efba9a695c7d8df29c32aa7p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=eea228f65efba9a695c7d8df29c32aa7" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=qQLx47"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=qQLx47" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/475367650" height="1" width="1"/

I’m helping my pal Tom Bondurant out with annotations for the latest issue of Trinity. I’ll also be hosting Tom’s annotations for Trinity for the rest of the month until he and the Blog@ crew get set up in their new digs.

This issue seems a bit light on trivia (like last issue, as well, really), but we shall see what we shall see!

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

LEAD STORY

“Time to Suit Up” was written by Kurt Busiek, pencilled by Mark Bagley, inked by Art Thibert, colored by Pete Pantazis, and lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.

In Brief: Charity and Rita discuss their next step while Morgaine and Konvict strike up a bargain.

Page 1

The book opens in the Arctic, where Konvict is on his way to meet up with Morgaine, who summoned him last issue. Morgaine and Enigma are in the Harteigen Mountains in Norway, and Konvict was in Mass-a-chu-setts, so he’s made up a lot of ground already.

We cut to Opal City, the home of Starman, where Rita and Charity O’Dare are dealing with the magic energy from last issue.

Page 2

We get a reminder that Charity is a fortune teller. Charity was an older DC character that James Robinson made into a supporting character in the pages of Starman, ultimately marrying her off to one of the O’Dares - a family of Opal City residents who were major supporting cast members in Starman.

Rita, our Tarot-reading heroine, is worried about the Worldsoul, the living embodiment of Earth, which is in bad shape due to the disappearance of the Trinity.

Page 3

St. Roch was the home base of Hawkman during Geoff Johns and James Robinson’s Hawkman series from a few years back. Carter Hall’s museum, Stonechat House, is in St. Roch.

The bad guys remind me of the Millenium Giants, but they are probably just nameless extra-dimensional bad guys.

The heroes on this page, courtesy of Tom’s annotations for previous issues, are:

– Vibe, a/k/a Paco Ramone, was created by Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton and first appeared in the aforementioned Justice League of America Annual #2. Vibe was killed in the line of duty in JLofA vol. 1 #258 (January 1987). He was survived by a brother, Joey ... I mean, Armando, who also became a superhero (Reverb, then Hardline) with similar vibratory powers.

– Space Ranger, a/k/a Rick Starr, was created by Edmond Hamilton, Gardner Fox, and Bob Brown, and first appeared in Showcase #15 (July 1958). It’s a little surprising to see him in this context, since (in regular continuity) he lives in the 22nd Century. Either this is an ancestor or time travel was involved; and he’s visited our time previously, so it’s not out of the question.

- Triumph’s pedigree is a little tough to figure out. Wikipedia credits Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Howard Porter with creating him. The Unofficial Triumph Chronology gives his first appearance as Justice League Task Force #16 (August 1994), which was written by Waid and pencilled by Sal Velluto. However, his 3-part “origin story” — the first one I remember where he really played a major role — was written by Christopher Priest and appeared in the September 1994 issues of the League’s books (Justice League America #92, JL Task Force #17, and Justice League International vol. 2 #68). Triumph, a/k/a Will McIntyre (sometimes MacIntyre), was a superhero with energy-based powers who, but for a quirk in the timestream, would have been a founding member of the Justice League. That’s right, he was the Sentry before the Sentry was cool. Also, he’s usually drawn with blond hair.

– Skyrocket, a/k/a Celia Forrestal, was created by Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett for their original super-team The Power Company. She first appeared in the Power Company preview story in JLA #61 (February 2002).

- The Flash (Wally West) you all know.

Page 4

The Heywood Corps are a reference to Hank Heywood, Sr., a Golden Age hero known as Commander Steel who had powers due to mechanized components. He used those same components to keep his grandson alive (and also to make his grandson the hero known as Steel). Here, Heywood is using mechanized components to create the Heywood Corps of cyborg heroes.

Page 5

Carter Hall watches as various heroes try to stop the invasion of multi-dimensional baddies.

The heroes on this page are pretty straightforward - Luthor, Atom-Smasher, Power Girl, Hawkgirl and Black Orchid.

The only one I am unfamiliar with is Sky-Knight. Anyone know who Sky-Knight is?

Page 6

I don’t think we need annotations for Konvict meeting up with Enigma and Morgaine.

Page 7

Morgaine is most likely discussing her communication with Konvict in last issue’s second story, where Konvict discovered that the human he killed is alive in this reality.

Page 8

So we finally have a name for Konvict! Xalitan Xor, Warhound of the First Array!

Xalatan is a brand name prescription eyedrop. Xalitan’s eyes are so red he could probably go for some eyedrops.

Xalitan Xor is a pretty cool name - suitably pompous.

Page 9

Here we learn that the Trinity being taken from reality is not the ONLY thing messing with the Worldsoul. The Worldsoul could probably heal from simply the Trinity being yanked from it, but Morgaine and her terrible trio are still messing with reality, so it is like a wound that keeps getting poked at, never allowing it to fully heal.

Page 10

Here Rita confirms that the bad guys need her, so she and Charity have to figure out what to do next.

Page 11

I don’t think I need to annotate Carter’s nice speech debating whether it is a smart idea to risk this reality for a possible better reality.

Page 12

The Thanagar outfit that Gangbuster gives Carter here - where is it from? It looks different than Hawkman’s standard outfit.

In any event, there is a Troika once again - Morgaine, Enigma and Xalitan Xor!

SECOND STORY

“Here and There and Everywhere” was plotted by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza, scripted by Nicieza, pencilled by Scott McDaniel, inked by Andy Owens, colored by Allen Passalaqua, lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.

In Brief - The Trans-Volitional Man, Swashbuckler, Primat and the Tattooed Man escape captivity just in time to be recruited by Morgaine for her army.

Pages 1-2

This is the return of the Dreambound, first with Michael Cannefick, the The Trans-Volitional Man, who we first met in Trinity #8. We get some background info on Michael here.

Page 3

Here we see Michael slowly connect with the previous reality and his fellow Dreambound (nice little touch - unbound dreams, dreams…bound).

Page 4

We see Primat, also of Trinity #8, who was previously shown to be quite the reader, so it makes sense that she’d be reading in jail.

Page 5

Here is Swashbuckler, who first popped up in Trinity #9, working for Morgaine.

Page 6

Mark Richards, the current Tattooed Man, first showed up in Green Lantern Vol. 4 #9, by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver and Prentis Rollins. Richards was a former U.S. Marine who became a hit man, who claimed he was “redeeming” the sins of the men and women he killed. He showed up in Infinite Crisis as a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains, and he recently popped up in Final Crisis in a nice story with Black Lightning in Final Crisis: Submit.

Page 7-8

Here we see the others use Richards to bring back Hemi Kiwara, also introduced in #8, who was transformed in #10 to Sun-Chained-In-Ink, thus completing the four Dreambound members.

Page 9

Morgaine brings them back into the fold.

Page 10

Now we see the Dreambound leading the new army, including a number of major villains like Doctor Polaris, Eclipso, the Brain, Poison Ivy, Parasite, Gorilla Grodd, Ace from the Royal Flush Gang - who are the other three guys?

Okay, that’s it!

Tom, come back, Tom! This is hard!!

 

We don’t do too many interviews here at Friedbeef’s Tech, but social entrepreneurship on the web is something I’m passionate about.  Here are some quick insights on what drives a social entrepreneur, and the challenges they face, and for that we’re talking to Mike Tee from Elevyn.com.

Elevyn helps to connect poor artisans and villagers directly to customers around the world, and effectively cutting out middle men and ensuring higher returns to the poor craftsmen.   This also allows poor artisans to reach a worldwide market previously unattainable to them, and to create a sustainable income and raise themselves out of poverty.

You may have heard of Etsy.com, a community specialized in selling hand-made items directly on the Internet. Think of Elevyn as Etsy for the poor.

Meet the founders of Elevyn…

 

1. Why this cause?

Our work is largely inspired by the Gerai OA - a non-profit, volunteer-driven stall that sells crafts sourced from indigenous groups of Malaysia.  Gerai OA plays a very important role in connecting the poor rural artisans to the urban Malaysian market. Being tech geeks with interests in social issues, both Devan and myself constantly salivated at the thought of an online Gerai OA!

At the same time, we had Sze Ning who had, over the years, been volunteering with Gerai OA and involved in various indigenous group projects. In early 2008, one of the projects took her to a village deep inside rural Sabah, Malaysia.  The locals there were subsistence based, and had no electricity nor piped water supply. Imagine this in Malaysia! However - she was surprised that they had high speed Internet in their schools or clinics - powered by solar power and satellite! It immediate struck her that something could be done with connecting the artisans to the world via the web.

So a lot of it goes down to having things "coming together at the right time". Sze Ning shared with us her experience, we decided to try our luck with MDeC Pre-seed, and the ball really started rolling when we won the grant so a lot of credit goes to MDeC as well for making things possible. (MDec is a Malaysian Government linked VC).

2. What obstacles did you face getting this off the ground and what are you doing about it?

Very much like traditional IT projects - a major challenge is getting people to buy into the idea. In our case, it’s many parties:

A. Getting shops to come online - as our objective is really to empower communities is rural areas to start selling online, a lot of groundwork is needed to share with them the idea, and to gain the communities’ trust to join this new initiative. And then there’s the "capacity-building" work needed to get the artisans organized as a group, and producing quality crafts that the market demands. So in this, we work with various field partners who are already established on the ground, and have a few advisors who give us their thoughts on the many issues that we encounter.

B. Getting people like you and me to buy and contribute. One major challenge is how to get people to buy the crafts, and to learn more about the Causes.  It’s very hard to get people, especially the urban ones, to relate to the plight of a rural artisan like Aunt Imboi for instance, for her world is so far away from our every day lives.

So we’re thinking hard on how to bridge that gap - and one thing we’ll be doing is start a blog and start writing on specific themes that people can easily understand, such as Indigenous Peoples. On top of that we’ll also be embarking on traditional marketing methods like Google ads, etc.

3. Which other socially beneficial web sites are close to your heart?

The one that totally blew me away is KIVA.org. Many have heard of this - taking microloans online, but the scale at which it is being done, and in spite of the fact that it started out as a 1-programmer initiative - is amazing. There are few others, but none truly groundbreaking in terms of idea or execution that I’ve found so far. I like to follow the Springwise.com website - they sometimes showcase some truly great social business ideas.

Actually this is one issue that I’ll be addressing at BarcampJB (come to the event if you live in South East Asia). We’ve yet to see much exciting web projects come into place. Maybe the social entrepreneurship field is relatively new, and not many have even heard of it. So a lot of startup ideas are urban-targeted and profit-oriented.

Mike will be speaking at BarcampJB on ‘Web 2.0 & Social Entrepeneurship -  Changing the World’  at 12pm Dec 7th.  If you live in Singapore or Malaysia, come join in!  If you live elsewhere, find a barcamp happening in a location near you.

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Related Articles at Friedbeef's Tech:

photo by julia Krash

The bit-blissful sights and sounds get going tonight and continue through Sunday @ The Tank, NYC - Archaic game and home computer hardware is recast into the unlikely role of musical instrument and motion graphics workstation in the BLIP FESTIVAL 2008, a four-day event showcasing nearly 40 musicians and visual artists occupying the international low-res cutting edge. The Blip Festival takes place DECEMBER 4—7, 2008 at The Bell House, and is presented by Manhattan art organization THE TANK and NYC artist collective 8BITPEOPLES.

Highlighting the chipmusic phenomenon and its related disciplines, the festival aims to showcase emerging creative niches involving the use of legacy video game & home computer hardware as modern artistic instrumentation. Devices such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Nintendo Game Boy and others are repurposed into the service of original, low-res, high-impact electronic music and visuals — sidestepping game culture and instead exploring the technology's untapped potential and distinctive intrinsic character. When: Friday, December 5, 6-8p
Where: 149 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215
2008 Blip Festival

a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/blip_festival_is_bleeping.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/blip_festival_is_bleeping.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" / Permalink/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/blip_festival_is_bleeping.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890#comments" /Comments/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/events/?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more articles in Events/a | a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=blog.makezine.com%2Farchive%2F2008%2F12%2Fblip_festival_is_bleeping.htmltitle=Blip%20festival%20is%20bleeping%20this%20eve%21bodytext=%20photo%20by%20julia%20Krash%20The%20bit-blissful%20sights%20and%20sounds%20get%20going%20tonight%20and%20continue%20through%20Sunday%20%40%20The%20Tank%2C%20NYC%20-%20Archaic%20game%20and%20home%20computer%20hardware%20is%20recast%20into%20the%20unlikely%20role%20of%20musical%20instrument%20and%20motion%20graphics...topic=tech_news" /Digg this!/a

pimg alt="opera_logo_dec08.png" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/opera_logo_dec08.png" /Opera today a href="http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2008/12/04/"released/a a sneak peek of the newest version of its desktop browser, a href="http://www.opera.com/browser/next/"Opera 10/a. At the center of this new release is Presto 2.2, Opera's new rendering engine, which, according to the company, offers a considerably faster browsing experience when compared to Presto 2.1./p pOpera has had to face stiff competition in the desktop browser market from a href="http://www.google.com/chrome"Google's Chrome/a, and the company is clearly looking to gain back some ground by emphasizing the speed of the rendering engine over new features in this release./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.openx.org/ck.php?n=12816amp;cb=12816' target='_blank'img src='http://d.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=861amp;cb=12816amp;n=12816' border='0' alt='' align="right" //a/p h2Features/h2 pIn terms of its user interface, the changes between version 9.6 and this alpha of Opera 10 are minimal and mostly cosmetic. /p pimg alt="opera_10_acid_100.png" align="right" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/opera_10_acid_100.png" /As for new features, Opera finally supports inline spell-checking. This feature had been sorely missing from Opera until now. Opera 10 can now also auto-update without giving notification to the user, similar to Google's Chrome. /p pOpera 10 also still includes all the major new a href="http://www.opera.com/browser/features/"features/a of Opera 9, including Feed Preview, Opera Link for bookmark synchronization, and the updated version of Opera Mail./p h2Presto 2.2/h2 pThe rendering engine easily scored 100 out of 100 on the a href="http://acid3.acidtests.org/"Acid 3 test/a (and easily passed the Acid 2 test as well). We benchmarked this alpha version against Opera 9.62 using the a href="http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html"Sunspider/a and a href="http://dromaeo.com/"Dromaeo/a benchmarks. In both cases, Opera 10 was clearly faster, but the performance gains were typically around 10-15% and nowhere near the 30% claimed by Opera (though in their defense, Opera's PR material talks about the faster 'browsing experience,' not about benchmarks). Presto also wasn't able to come close to our benchmarks for Chrome./p pimg alt="opera_10_alpha_screenshot.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/opera_10_alpha_screenshot.jpg" //p h2A Capable Browser/h2 pOverall, Opera 10, at least in its current state, looks like an evolutionary update to previous versions. This preview version, however, was mostly meant to showcase the new rendering engine, so chances are that Opera will roll out additional new features and changes to the user interface in upcoming alpha and beta releases./p pWe have always had a soft spot for Opera, but somehow, the browser never quite found the sweet spot between speed and functionality that Firefox (in large part due to its extensions) and Chrome have. /p pOpera 10 is a capable browser with a number of very interesting features. However, when compared to Google's Chrome, with its unified address and search bar, as well as its speedy rendering engine, Opera 10 still has a bit of ground to cover before it will be able to challenge Chrome and Firefox./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/opera_10_sneak_peak.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/J2iYOtmsbvONk7qbGYfNyvfMT0g/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/J2iYOtmsbvONk7qbGYfNyvfMT0g/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=zMarJvd5"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1035" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=hSHtOTvO"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=QEaOjgOM"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=QEaOjgOM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=QnGt8MtT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=QnGt8MtT" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=QlNcgCaK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=QlNcgCaK" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=1JKsGxSo"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=WBQ6vk5n"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1034" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/OV9c8LEPrDU" height="1" width="1"/

Tout juste détaillée par Qualcomm, la plateforme Snapdragon était pour la première fois en démonstration sous une forme fonctionnelle à l'European Innovation Showcase, organisé par le spécialiste des télécommunications [...]

Tout juste détaillée par Qualcomm, la plateforme Snapdragon était pour la première fois en démonstration sous une forme fonctionnelle à l'European Innovation Showcase, organisé par le spécialiste des télécommunications [...]

Category: Games
Released: Nov 17, 2008
Price: $1.99

Description:
Praise the Lord, iQuiz Bible is here! Do you have knowledge of the 66 books in the bible? Do you know who came first, Adam or Eve? Care to test yourself? If so, then this quiz was made for you... iQuiz Bible is a learning trivia game that gives you 20 challenging questions, pulled from a database of hundreds of Bible based questions... all you have to do is showcase your God-given knowledge. Test yourself over and over again. So, are you up to the challenge? Got faith in your bible skills? Let's play...

Website: http://www.thirtyninellc.com
Support Website: http://www.thirtyninellc.com

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: iQuiz Bible

On January 9, 2009 “Chicks Who Click,” the first event of its kind directed specifically at women entrepreneurs, will showcase female brand ambassadors and new media experts who use social media to create and promote lasting personal brands, make business connections and build long-term relationships with customers. (PRWeb Dec 4, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/metzger_associates/social_media/prweb1706714.htm

GM's Rick Wagoner to showcase Volt technology in his trip to Washington...

Institutions nationwide share IT approaches and advances to address major healthcare challenges including performance management, patient flow and chronic condition treatment.

a href="http://gramotunes.com/Falling_Stars.mp3"target="new"Sarah Siskind - "Falling Stars"/a It was through Bon Iver's self-damning a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8hnAY05A9PE"target="new"love/a for "Lovin's For Fools," the heartbreaking, "You Are My Sunshine"-jacking ballad by Sarah Siskind, that I learned of this talented songwriter. Sad music and production this present usually go together like tea and poison, though succesful meetings of the two are not without precedent. When, as a child, I first heard James Taylor's "Fire and Rain", I fell into an insufferable weeks-long funk that persisted until my father's repeated pleas of "It's just a song" finally made an impact. The impassioned, highly melodious babble of Al Green's "Simply Beautiful" has always floored me, despite its proper production, as have countless other soul tear-jerkers. Sarah Siskind avoids perfection's pitfalls by sullying her antiseptic sonic space with distortion and density and counterintuitive musical lines, and thus creates an ideal showcase for her pure, falling country cadences. [a href="http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Stars/dp/B001LEQF7G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=dmusicqid=1228357601sr=8-1"target="new"Buy/a] pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/saidthegramophone/stg?a=ktoXvl"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/saidthegramophone/stg?i=ktoXvl" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/saidthegramophone/stg/~4/474222740" height="1" width="1"/

div class="image"a href="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/big_show.php?/avaxhome/48/f9/0009f948.jpeg" target="_blank"img src="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/48/f9/0009f948_medium.jpeg" id="external_img_653640"//a/divbr/ div class="center"bMONTSERRAT CABALLE - SHIRLEY VERRETT: Great Operatic Duets/bbr/ b(Rossini;Donizetti;Bellini;Verdi;Puccini;Offenbach;Ponchielli) Rec. 1969/bbr/ Opera | EAC | FLAC | CUE | LOG | Covers | 220MB/divbr/ div class="justify"A friend recently gave me this CD and I fell instantly in love: Recorded back in 1969 when both artists were at their pic, this is one of the essential recordings of vocal music: The two voices blend magnificently and we can feel that they both enjoy the collaboration. There is no point highlighting this or that excerpt; Verrett has recorded Giovanna Seymour against Sills' Bolena, Caballe Norma with Cossoto: Just compare these quite famous versions and the excerpts here and you will understand what I mean: Two powerhouses. Perhaps some more dramatic elan (never Caballe's forte) would had made the Gioconda duet more exciting. Anyhow, it would be cheap to discuss this and that detail, when one can enjoy this impressive showcase of what two voices can achieve in romantic opera./divbr/ div class="center"bI wish to thank Audiomar for his most generous and invaluable help in EAC ajustments :-)/b/div

img class=face src=http://planet.ubuntu.com/heads/uupc.png alt= pLaura Cowen, Alan Pope and Tony Whitmore present the nineteenth Ubuntu Podcast from the UK Local Community Support Team.br / br / In this episode:-/p ul li Yet more upgrade woes from Tony/li li Alan comes up with ideas for improving upgrades/li li The news/li ul li Adobe release Flash for 64-bit platform/li li Handbrake now available with a Linux GUI/li li a href=http://pinaxproject.com/Pinax/a hold a a href=http://contests.pinaxproject.com/competition/a to promote their platform/li li Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha a href=https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-November/000513.htmlavailable/a/li li SCO emstill/em suck/li li a href=http://crunchbanglinux.org/Crunchbang/a relaunches with a new website/li li Human powered protien folding app a href=http://fold.it/Fold It/a/li li a href=http://fedora.org/Fedora/a 10 released/li li Mozilla a href=http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-250172.htmlannounces/a end-of-life of Firefox 2.x/li/ul/ul li Jono Bacon a href=http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1427announces/a the new a href=https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcaseUbuntu Free Culture Showcase/a/li li We talk about the upcoming events a href=http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJauntyUDS/a and a href=http://fosdem.org/FOSDEM/a/li li We discuss the a href=https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJauntyUbuntu Developer Summit/a and some a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/sprints/uds-jauntyblueprints/a which will hopefully be discussed at the summit/li ul li Encryption by default: a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/encrypted-home-directoryencrypted-home-directory/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/encrypted-swap-by-defaultencrypted-swap-by-default/a/li li Power: a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/power-cappingpower-capping/a /li li Boot Speed: a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/jaunty-boot-performancejaunty-boot-performance/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/jaunty-boot-performance-kerneljaunty-boot-performance-kernel/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/boot-profilingboot-profiling/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/boot-io-efficiencyboot-io-efficiency/a/li /ul li Finally we have emlots/em of your feedback/li ul li Plenty about what people do post-install. Alan mentions a href=http://popey.com/Ubuntu_Post_Installhis blog post/a where he outlines what he does/li li Friend of the show Andy Stanford-Clark sends us photos of his low power setup including a Viglen MPC-L and what it replaces./li pa href=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9072.jpgimg class=alignnone size-medium wp-image-180 title=img_9072-small src=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9072-small.jpg alt=A big mess of cables //aa href=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9074.jpgimg class=alignnone size-medium wp-image-182 title=img_9074-small src=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9074-small.jpg alt=Slightly fewer cables //a /p/ul li Following the recording of this episode we were interviewed by Leo Laporte and Amber Macarthur for a href=http://twit.tv/natn76Net@Night/a/li pComments and suggestions are welcomed to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.orgbr / Up to 30 seconds of voicemail can be left at +44 (0) 845 508 1986br / Follow our twitter feed a href=http://twitter.com/uupchttp://twitter.com/uupc/abr / Follow us on Identi.ca a href=http://identi.ca/uupchttp://identi.ca/uupc/abr / Discuss this episode in the a href=http://uk.ubuntuforums.org/Forums/a/pLaura Cowen, Alan Pope and Tony Whitmore present the nineteenth Ubuntu Podcast from the UK Local Community Support Team. In this episode:- Yet more upgrade woes from Tony Alan comes up with ideas for improving upgrades The news Adobe release Flash for 64-bit platform Handbrake now available with a Linux GUI Pinax hold a competition to promote their platform Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha available SCO still suck Crunchbang relaunches with a new website Human powered protien folding app Fold It Fedora 10 released Mozilla announces end-of-life of Firefox 2.x Jono Bacon announces the new Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase We talk about the upcoming events UDS and FOSDEM We discuss the Ubuntu Developer Summit and some blueprints which will hopefully be discussed at the summit Encryption by default: encrypted-home-directory, encrypted-swap-by-default Power: power-capping Boot Speed: jaunty-boot-performance, jaunty-boot-performance-kernel, boot-profiling, boot-io-efficiency Finally we have lots of your feedback Plenty about what people do post-install. Alan mentions his blog post where he outlines what he does Friend of the show Andy Stanford-Clark sends us photos of his low power setup including a Viglen MPC-L and what it replaces. Following the recording of this episode we were interviewed by Leo Laporte and Amber Macarthur for Net@Night Comments and suggestions are welcomed to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.org Up to 30 seconds of voicemail can be left at +44 (0) 845 508 1986 Follow our twitter feed http://twitter.com/uupc Follow us on Identi.ca http://identi.ca/uupc Discuss this episode in the Forums