Hello from Austin! For professional and personal reasons, the ARphabet Tour has been postponed. Once the Bubiko Foodtour app is out, we will focus on how to get the ARphabet Tour in motion.
Hi! There will soon be an Indiegogo campaign for the ARphabet Tour.A
The ARphabet Tour is a 100 day tour of the U.S. and Canada by Stephen Black. The ARphabet Tour has three components: AR, Readings and Writing Workshops (based on SB's books) and the Mango Sticky Rice Experience.
The ARphabet Tour starts with a presentation at ARIA @MIT.
Update: Kabaq will be provide the tour with AR Mango Sticky Rice!
What is the ARphabet Tour About?
Support/ Join the ARphabet Tour......................sign up on Indiegogo.
Why is this happening so fast?
The Augmented Reality aspect is explained here.
The Readings and Workshops aspect is explained here.
The Mango Sticky Rice Experience is explained here.
Eight reasons to SPONSOR the ARphabet Tour
The ARphabet Tour in your town: how to schedule it.
AR Characters: Bubiko Foodtour
AR Characters: Secret Donut WorldA
Posted in AR, Book Merah, ebooks
Hi.
This is outdated. For my startup plans, write to me directly at bubikofoodtour at mark gmail.com. Please look for more recent posts. This, for example, is an overview of the first three months of AR activities in 2019. Thank you. SB
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January 21, 2019 Update. Magic Leap/ATT... now that the MIT Virtual RealityHackathon is over, am getting ready to restart this Indiegogo campaign for a tour of AR evangelism... https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-arphabet-tour#/
12/30/18 NEWS ABOUT THE ARPHABET TOUR
Hello Magic Leap and ATT ,
I hope this finds you well.
As tomorrow is the deadline for Magic Leap's Independent Creator Program, I would like to bring my work, research and time investments to your attention.
I believe my project has the potential to be a unicorn.
ARPHABET TOUR
100 day tour starting with ARIA/MIT January 14
Two different topics: AR presentations, as well as Readings and Workshops
AR collaboration with Dominique Wu, founder www.hummingbirdsday.com/
AR/book project with Sayuri Okayama, researcher/co-creator of Bubiko Foodtour
Secret Donut World - Characters co-created with David Severn http://david-severn.com/
The Doughbots- - Characters co-created with David Severn
The Dundercats-Collaboration with Six Cat Studios http://www.thedundercats.com/
Schedule now being determined, planned stops include: Boston MA (ARIA /MIT), NYC, Washington D.C., Rochester NY, Toledo OH, Detroit, Ann Arbor MI, Chicago, Natchez MS, Denver CO, Boulder CO, New Orleans, Austin (SXSW), Los Angeles, San Francisco(GDC)
Sponsorship opportunities now available
Supporters: Trouble Maker https://troublemaker.site/
T40GROUP http://www.t40group.com/
Book Merah www.blacksteps.tv/book-merah-giveaways-discounts-hong-kong-book-fair/
BUBIKO FOODTOUR SHENZHEN BOOK
The first food guide to Shenzhen, by Bubiko Foodtour, AR character and amateur chef.
Forward by Stephen Black, author of the best seller, i ate tiong bahru
Graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, director/writer/producer for Cartoon Network, Fox, Fuji TV and CNN, Stephen Black was involved with a $3.2M gaming startup, from 2002-7. He then became a writer/artist while waiting for mobile spatial computing(AR/VR) to mature.
That time is now.
www.blacksteps.tv bubikofoodtour at gmail dot com
The ARphabet Tour was prompted by my last minute addition to the ARIA event at MIT next month.
Also, FWIW, I have many years of experience in Singapore, and surely we could arrange some things there, as well as other cities in Asia.
Thank you very much, Magic Leap, for your time and consideration. OnwARd,
Stephen Black
Posted in AR
This post is interesting, valid...and outdated. Contact me at arphabettour at gee mail if you'd like to hear about my latest plans and activities. This post is also informative.
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Hello to those who attended my 2018 AR workshops and presentations! And, hello to those who are interested in my AR startup plans! Thanks for stopping by!
The state-of the art AR blog posts of last summer are now ancient history! The following eight blog posts are a glimpse into the latest AR developments and opportunities.
WakingApp/Vuzixhttps://www.wakingapp.com/blog
Now is the time to produce AR content for industry, art and entertainment- and games.
I have been involved with games/spatial computing since 2002, and am now ready to launch an AR startup that involves games, filmmaking and video/content production. If you, or someone you know, is interested in investing, I hope we can talk.
I can share the successful pitch I used at TechCrunch Shenzhen a week ago. As positive as the response was, it never hurts to share a vision, especially if that vision includes a unicorn. onwARd,
Stephen Black
PS The flyer below is a bit out of date; the startup idea mentioned below includes games.
This blog has many posts about AR and startup plans, all of which are outdated, but do provide insights.
360VR video of the event is here!
360VR video of this is here.
Day 2 is here.
Posted in AR, Art, Contemporary Lens-Based Imaging, Contemporary Photography, Photography, virtual reality, VR
Tagged AR, collaborations, network art, VR
Ai Wewei, Yesim Agaoglu, Stephen Black, Eugene Soh collaboration in gallery.sg
Nhung: Floating
Works created with ink
If one person can be said to symbolize the Tiong Bahru Market, it might be this guy in the hat...
Posted in Art, Artists, SPOKEN
Tagged art, artists, authors, collaborations, creative writing, network art, SPOKEN
THIS post was written before SPOKEN started. SPOKEN is a project I am doing with Eugene Soh, an experiment in which art, text, virtual reality and social media intersect. Learn about SPOKEN here.
To enter gallery.sg and experience SPOKEN, click here.
Here is the extremely short version: from 2002 until 2008 I was involved with a visionary virtual reality project that combined educational practices with gamemaking and multimedia. However, the spiritual captain of the project was part Disney, part Microsoft and part Sex Pistols. An unexpected death, treachery, incompetence, inexperience, bureaucratic boondoggles and more made my life "interesting"... I have pages of notes about the events and the spirit of the times. We were doing things like Youtube and Second Life before they started. The project was so close... and yet so far away. (Actually, now that mobile technology has settled down, I hope that the lessons and products of that experience can be revitalized. But that's yet another story.)
In 2006, as a way of showcasing our technology, I entered a gamemaking hackathon. A theme was given on a Thursday morning and the next day at five the results were judged.The theme was something about healthy eating, I think. Working with my programmer in Hong Kong, we made a game in which the viewer learned about the calorie count of certain foods. The player competed with an AI character. It was fun to do.
However, what I remember most was a team that made an incredible flash game. I don't remember if they won or not, but I do remember two guys on that team very well. George Parel and Eugene Soh were full of energy, knowledge and bursting with creative ideas.
They still are.
I've been lucky to work with George and Eugene on a few projects since then. In 2008 I finally had to put the educational gamemaking project on hold while I waited for a programmer and the mobile device situation to stabilize.I put more time into writing and art projects. George and Eugene (that dude from Singapore) however, have kept on doing remarkably creative things with IT, art, design and more.
Virtual reality may seem to be an artificial place, but the gallery Eugene has created fills me with memories and hope. I am honored and very thankful for I Ate Tiong Bahru to be on display in gallery.sg
Cheers, Eugene! Cheers, George!
Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. Stephen KingBased on my experiences, the work breakdown of an 88,000 word novel looks something like this: 1000 words a day (88 days) or, more likely, 500 words a day (176 days). Call it 200 days to prepare something for a proofreader. Two months for corrections, art, and ebook conversion. So, a book takes about 300 working days to finalize. About... And then there are the thousands of actions needed to connect with readers... The title of Guy Kawasaki's excellent book says it all: APE, meaning Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur This document, by Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, is a data-based analysis of the ebook market. Highly recommended, it covers topics important for newbies and veterans. It touches upon issues like word count, pricing, marketing and more. For instance, his research shows that the average bestseller on Smashwords is 100,000 words, and the average romance is 112,195 words. (There are more links to resources at the end of this post.) Very few traditionally published authors became bestsellers; the same is true for ebook publishing. My goal is not to become a bestseller, but to connect with the largest possible community of people who enjoy the art of reading. 2. A great writer or a great marketer... ....or, the frustration of being caught between not doing enough writing and not doing enough marketing. A writer writes, a salesman sells. Self-publishing does not equal self-marketing. Spending money wisely on promotion money means income and time to write. (See the links below) Twitter, Goodreads, FB, LinkedIn and blogging? All have their advantages and disadvantages... 3. There are no independent, hugely successful ebook-only self-publishers. Note: Two days after this post went up, I became aware of this great piece by Dana Beth Weinberg on Digital Book World. Thank you Jacqueline Church! Amazon is huge, Apple is huge, Kobo and Smashwords are very big. Unless you are selling from your own website or the back of your car, you're not truly independent. OK, A bit of an attention grabber there...but the author's need for a partnership with Amazon and ebook distributors is a dependence that cannot be overlooked. These "automatic partners" will always protect their interests first. They call the shots. Amazon is a business, not an author. Amanda Hocking is a hugely successful author. At one point, the average daily sales figure of her self-published ebooks was 9000. Again: average DAILY book sales: nine thousand! Her success was based on hard work, technological first mover advantage and an indirect tie-in with Hollywood. Consider: -the successful and pioneering integration of ebook readers into tablets and mobile as well as the launch of the Kindle (2007) and the iPad(2010) -the large demographic of young women who bought readers and tablets - the fact that, having written many books, Hocking could quickly provide a new and large market with a variety of new titles - writing books about the paranormal when Hollywood is pushing the same cannot hurt. Twilight, the hugely successful series of movies about teen vampires began in 2008. Hocking's first book, My Blood Approves, began selling in 2010. E.L. James' book phenomenon began in the fan fiction chat rooms for Twilight. The characters in Fifty Shades of Grey were originally the characters from Twilight. Could Master of the Universe, as her series was originally called, have achieved its success without an existing network of thousands of Twilight fans? These two women made their mark upon society in two different ways. As shared, collective book-based experiences: WOW! However, the writing is..."not terrible" or worse
I remember SF/F authors complaining (back in 2011) that their readers hadn’t switched to e-books yet, casting jealous eyes at the outsized romance audience. But as readers did move across, we saw people like David Dalglish and BV Larson breaking out, and the rest of “genre” fiction soon followed. http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/amazon-makes-life-easier-for-authors-of-historical-literary-fiction/There are "indie success stories" about authors who "rode into town" on the backs of traditional publishing. Funded by Big 6 money these "indies" were advertised and publicized, sent on book tours and given things like business cards. Possibly, audiobooks were made. Hundreds, if not thousands, of their books were given away, many to reviewers. As the 'first mover'possibilities of the ebook market became clear and realistic, these authors, knighted by the Big 6 and armed with credibility and connections, rode onto a battlefield with little opposition... Undoubtedly hard work was involved, but to label them as indies brings to mind the quip about George Bush: "...was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." There certainly are "ebook only" indies connecting with many readers and enjoying sales. I just don't know of any. (FOUND SOMEONE: LINDSAY BUROKER Please tell me about others!
Posted in ebooks
Tagged Amanda Hocking, E.L. James, ebooks, experiences, Fanfiction, Fifty Shades of Grey, history, self publishing resources
I had the chance to talk to Chris a bit. Wish we’d had more time. I admire his project, especially the self-published aspect. Chris will be in Port Clinton tomorrow night, I will be there Tuesday. http://goba.com/goba-portclinton/
Posted in Uncategorized
A list of all of my AR+bike blog posts is here.
ARBICLE- A piece of bicycle equipment, with partial or total augmented reality functionality. A bicycle light with some AR functions is an arbicle. A device which acts as a "AR computer", exclusively managing AR functions for the bike, traffic and rider is also an arbicle.
The word "arbicle" was coined by Stephen Black in 2019, in response to a perceived need for AR-compatible bicycle gear.Stephen Black is a writer, a visual artist and an AR/VR producer.
The chart above is a hypothetical overview and no such network or devices now exist. LIDAR is used an example of a traffic monitoring system. In reality, LIDAR is heavy, delicate and extremely expensive. Unlike autonomous vehicles, bicycles must have an attentive human steering and braking. Thus,LIDAR would be unnecessary. However. sensors detecting objects within a range of 50 feet around the bike would be advantageous. An arbicle featuring a rear view camera with a feed into the visor or smartglasses is an obvious need. ARbicles specializing in emergencies would be another obvious need.
This chart is a result of research and thought related to the book I am working on about AR and traffic safety, focusing on bicycles. The working title is AR on Wheels.
I will be making a presentation about AR at the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure, in Port Clinton, on June 18. I
Also, if you are near San Francisco's Tenderloin District on June 28th, you are warmly invited to the world premier of Bubiko Foodtour!
Bubiko will be at the Novaby booth at the Tech in the Tenderloin Fair! her app will not be on dispaly, as we haven't made it yet, but Bubiko will be hosting an interactive event that is sure to be a crowdpleaser.
A collection of posts regarding AR and Bicycling can be found here.
Traffic planning in the age of the cloud. I have read a lot and talked to many experts, but the questions in this little chart still are unanswered. To me, at least. Any ideas or thoughts are welcome; just use the comments section. Thank you! If you are an expert and want to be credited, or interviewed for my upcoming books just let me know. One book is about AR and bicycle safety. the other is about AR and traffic. (Have not yet finalized the titles.)
Obviously, the following is hypothetical; I can't think of any existing city which could accommodate five one-way lanes of traffic.
CURB ACTIVITY: Pedestrians. Parking spots for ebikes,bikes, scooters, fire hydrants, subterranean electricty and water lines, wheelchair access, bus stops, taxi/Uber/Lyft pick up and drop off areas
BIKE LANE: Individual and groups of riders, ll requiring two-way communication for weather, traffic patterns etc.
AV LANE small and large vehicles, some functioning as mobile rooms (classrooms with remote teachers, discussion rooms, meeting rooms, chill rooms, even mobile workout spaces with offsite trainers)
EMERGENCY LANE/DELIVERY LANE/BUS LANE Could something like this be managed? By whom? Would involve communicating with AVs.
TRAFFIC SIGNAL With proper traffic planning, autonomous vehicles would not need to "see" a physical light. and in this slightly futuristic scenario, could the traditional red/green/yellow lights be replaced by screens? Not just colors could be displayed, but traffic information.
WHO IS USING WHAT KIND OF AR?
Pedestrians- shopping, entertainment and internet services/information and maps for walking.
Bicyclists- maps and traffic information, internet services, including music.
Autonomous Vehicle 1 Kids using smartglasses to watch Bubiko Foodtour AR movies, one parent uses smartglasses to plan the day's activities, the other parent, also with smartglasses, attends an AR meeting conference call.
Autonomous Vehicle 2 A regularly scheduled "classroom mobile"with four students, a human teacher and AR educational materials.
QUESTIONS/THOUGHTS:
Vehicle 1: the Bubiko AR movie is on Google Cloud, the AR meeting is hosted on Apple's iCloud service, the other parent is using Facebook's cloud service. The windshield display is by WayRay and hosted on Microsoft's Azure cloud service.
Vehicle 2 is fitted with a Sony mobile AR classroom and the windshield AR hosting software is by Kamatera.
Emergency Vehicles: capable of seeing and interacting with emergency situations before arriving. Connected to a central traffic planning system, emergency vehicles and AVs are capable of maneuvering so that emergency vehicles get to their destination as quickly as possible.
Autonomous Delivery vehicles can be programmed to deliver with minimum traffic interference; for example at specific low traffic times.
Curb Activity is monitored by Open Curbs, Populus and Remix, all of whom feed information into private and government service providers who then use AR to provide information to those in traffic.
Road surface conditions: Potholes, floods, ice and snow. Monitored and then delivered to a central traffic planning agency.
Underground: sewers, flood control, power cables and more. Information available by AR
Drones: somehow drones will enter into the mobile AR picture...
In researching the above, I just discovered n excellent article about MDS, Mobiliy Data Specification.Here is a excellent article by David Zipper about MDS. Also highly recommended: this presentation by Regina Clewlows and Don MacKenzie.
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AR and bicycle interaction: a collection of posts on this topic is here.
If you happen to be in Port Clinton, for the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure, stop by!
Bubiko's public AR debut! San Francisco! June 28! Bubiko's very, very excited! Tech in the Tenderloin
Thanks for leaving a comment!
The Blessed Sacrament Festival, June 9, 2019. Plus a surprise or two.
New York Times article: DIVERSIONS; Ardent Polka Fans Take to the Road to Pursue Their Irrepressible Music
A very pleasant time. Besides the people, food and music, there were the delights from the Earnest Brew Works!
More photos of Toledo here.
A very special thank you to Jackie Black.
Stephen Black: This post is a breakdown of my experiences with AR/VR/Spatial Computing. It starts with 2002, though I received a BFA in Photographic Illustration from the Rochester Institute of Technology well before that.
Before 2002, I lived in Tokyo, Manhattan, Paris and Hong Kong, and worked in network TV, fine arts, photography and music. A fuller biography can be found here. But AR is the topic of this post...
2002-2007. In Singapore I worked as a creative director for a 3D game making company that was also doing something like Youtube,-- but three years before Youtube. Although I was not a developer, I learned a great deal about spatial computing, and taught 3D gamemaking in Singapore, including classes at the Singapore Science Center. It was during this time, that David Severn and I developed the Secret Donut World characters.
2007- 2014 Singapore/Bali: wrote novels, including a bestseller, was involved with 3how and researched VR and AR.
2014 SPOKEN, with Eugene Soh; a curation of a wide range of artists.
2014 The Oculus signaled the emergence of VR, and I began notes for a book about VR cinematography.
2015 In Singapore, a chance meeting with Ender Jiang, the founder of Hiverlab, resulted in the opportunity to make my first 360 film. Ender provided me with technical support and creative freedom and I am extremely grateful for that opportunity. The resulting film, Beach Road, featured a soundtrack by Bani Haykal and Chen Yi Qi, and was selected as a demo VR film in the Hybrid Arcade session of the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival in November 2015, and was nominated as the Best Experimental VR Film in the VR Fest Las Vegas 2016. It was also fetured in a VR film festival at the Singapore national Museum. Beach Road was receiving a healthy number of views and comments before a technical change in Google Play took it off. At the time of this writing, Beach Road is on Veer and has received almost 5000 views.
2016 The year began with discussing a VR startup idea with VCs in Singapore. Though the discussions went well, the lack of a prototype slowed things down. Shortly after, the release of ARCore and ARKit resulted in a halt to VR the possibilities of AR were assessed.
By April, AR had become the focus and the decision was made to become the "Pixar of AR": original characters, stories and software. With Sayuri Okayama, Bubiko Foodtour was originated.
2017 Ipoh: demonstrations of AR, including what is probably the world’s first photo exhibition in AR. The photos also appeared in an ebook by Bubiko Foodtour.
2018 A presentation about AR was given at Sasin School of Business in Bangkok, later followed by two presentations and two workshops at Hong Kong PolyU, all at 80% capacity or higher.
2018 Lotus Mountain, a 360 film was shot and post production began including VR art contributions from Scobot and a soundtrack by Rei Shimizu. The film is at least 80% done and finishing funds are now being searched for. Lotus Mountain was supported by Kando, and 8K Obsidians were used for most of the shooting. Noted Chinese VR filmmaker Leo Wei co-directed and produced.
Bubiko at the Rise festival in HK
Hong Kong Comicon
2018 Cross-promotional and development partnership with Six Cats Studios (HK), focusing on their original IPs, Ollie and Charlie.
2018 Presentations in Shenzhen, including Le Wagon and Tech Crunch Shenzhen.
2018 In a partnership with Hummingbirdsday Studios, Bubiko appears in an AR game demo with Green Bean Boy.
2019 Presentation at ARIA, MIT, resulting in, among others, working relationship with Novaby and UARexperience
2019 Toledo, Ohio. Presentations, including coffee shops, libraries and a collaboration with sculptor Jack Wilson for the Old West End Festival.
2019 SXSW during the 10 day event attended seminars and developed personal connections with AR and VR practitioners.
2019 AR presentation as part of GOBA-the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure. Premier of the AR and Bicycle Safety ebook.
2019 As part of Novaby’s presentation in the Tech in the Tenderloin Festival, the 3D version Bubiko will be making her public debut. The Black Hawk Jazz Club AR project by Novaby will also be presented-not to be missed!
We are now looking for funding for the Bubiko app... Stay tuned!
Posted in 3how, AR, Art, Artists, Bubiko Foodtour, collaborations, Lotus Mountain, Singapore, SPOKEN, Stephen Black, VR, VR
The first part of this post is here.
More photographs of Toledo: 419ness
About Stephen Black
More information about the Old West End of Toledo
A slightly futuristic, highly realistic series of posts…
Arbicle- a piece of bicycling equipment utilizing AR, augmented reality.
I created the word above. In this post, a number of possible ideas and technologies are mentioned. Some may already be in use. However, now, there are no pieces of equipment designed specifically for the uses I mention. So, I have created the word “arbicle”, a combination of AR and bicycle. A small word and easy to "handle", it resembles the word ‘article’: arbicle.
What I am imagining are devices (arbicles) built specifically for the purpose of displaying or generating digital information related to bicycling. (This series of posts focuses upon racing.)
Note: I am not a medical specialist of any sort, and the following are not to be taken as anything more than theoretical exercises.
In this theoretical situation, we assume the following:
The fatigue hawk analyzes all of the data that is presented. Customized algorithms are used.
Communicating with voice, symbols and messages, the fatigue hawk offers suggestions on how to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses of the team itself. Equally important, the fatigue hawk identifies opportunities, and weaknesses of opposing teams.
Data may reveal the leading team's difficulty with hills for example. By monitoring his/her own team's performance, the wind conditions and the gradient of an upcoming hill, the fatigue hawk can strategize and communicate so that advancement upon the leader can be made.
There are many uncontrollable factors in the Tour de France, but a strong collection of live data is information; and information is power. In the case of the Tour de France, the power is that of an athlete who cannot afford to waste a single kilojoule.
Studying the 1989 Tour de France, much can be learned about efficiency and power; the difference between first place and second was eight seconds.
The rider's arbicles would include a GPS tracking device and a visor capable of displaying the fatigue hawk's symbols and messages. Rearview and frontview cameras are also possibilities.
The fatigue hawk would need an arbicle capable of processing all incoming live data, storing records and communicating audio/visual data to the team members, individually and as a whole.
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I am a writer, researcher, AR producer and artist. No one is sponsoring this; I am now preparing a book on AR and Bicycle Safety. My other books are here.
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For further information:
https://www.dimensiondata.com/believe-in-greatness/tour-de-france
What is Fatigue? New Yorker article by Alex Hutchison
The Science of Running: How to Find Your Limit and Train to Maximize Your Performance by Steve Magness
Photographs by Stephen Black of the 2019 Old West End Parade.
A collaboration between the sculptor Jack Wilson and Stephen Black can be found here. The project is an augmented reality artwork.
419ness is a collection of blog posts of photographs of Toledo.
Hello to all.
The following image, when viewed with the free Artivive app, reveals "another dimension", a collaboration with the sculptor Jack Wilson.
The title: Falling Leaves in Spring.
Are you a resident of the Old West End?
Question: would you support a book about the Old West Side?
As you know, the Old West Side is a historical community full of distinctive architecture. Well... I have written a bestselling book about another historical community full of distinctive architecture.
That book is entitled i ate tiong bahru. It is one of my eight books. You can learn more about those books, and i ate tiong bahru, here. I should also mention Bus Stopping, a book of photographs.
Those books were written and self-published, mainly while I was living in Bali. To write about the Old West End would require time, and that means money. Do you think there could enough support for crowdfunding or other forms of support?
Also, any ideas on unusual exhibition spaces? I have a series of prints combine photography with text, and would like to present them to the public.
Thank you for your time and suggestions.
This is a collection of posts about Toledo: 419ness.
Happy to talk to anyone about video, photography, writing and AR.
onwARd,
Stephen Black
