Speakers in the News »

7/20/06
ANA MARIE COX

In her recent column for Time, Ana Marie Cox writes about how soldier-produced media gives us new insights into the current debacle in Iraq. While the Bush Administration contends that the mainstream press produces an unfairly negative picture of the war, Cox reveals that the reports filed by soldiers are equally dour: "Growing up in a world where they can swap MP3s as well as intimate details about their lives via MySpace or Facebook, American soldiers are swapping their Iraq experience as well. There's a byte-enabled intimacy to 'The War Tapes', the film that bills itself as the first documentary about the war filmed by those fighting it. Critics of the mainstream media's war coverage might hope that the soldier's unmediated view would be a more positive one. . . There's music in a lot of the soldiers' videos, but precious little uplift. In 'The War Tapes,' one soldier/auteur complains frequently about the risks he and his comrades take to protect the property of the Halliburton subsidiary subcontracted to feed the troops: 'Why the f--- am I sitting out here guarding a truck full of cheesecake?' he laments. After another guardsman supplies a Bush Administration-approved justification for their presence (freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people, stability in the Middle East), the cameraman asks, 'tell me how you really feel.' Deadpan, he continues: 'After that happens, maybe we can buy everybody in the world a puppy.'" Cox served as a keynote speaker at the 2005 SXSW Interactive Festival.

11:15am CST | +

7/19/06
KEITH ROBINSON

Former LifeHacker editor Keith Robinson knows how important is it to finish what you start. Read his insightful article "The Art of the Finish" for some good tips on getting to the end of what you begin. He stresses that what you seek is completion not perfection: "Sometimes you'll start a project with the best of intentions and it'll go south on you. You've got to know when to let go and give up. As you progress through a project you should check yourself and your progress to make sure it's still doable, etc. Don't be afraid to give up on something that's no longer worth the effort." Robinson helped organize the highly-rated "Design Eye for the List Guy" panel at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Fesitval.

12:20pm CST | +

7/18/06
WARREN SPECTOR

Highlights from an amazing speech given last week by Austin-based gaming visionary Warren Spector have now been posted on Next Generation. These quotes reveal that despite more than two decades of experience in this field, Spector still approaches his craft with a sense of naivete: "The starting point for me is always – even though I’ve been doing this for twenty-three years – this is still a new medium. And I’m getting a little tired of saying, ‘This is still an infant medium still trying to find out what it’s all about,’ but the reality is, we are still struggling, we are still trying to figure all this out. . . Clearly, if what you see in games right now, even in the best games, is all we’re capable of doing, then I’m getting out of the business. I don’t know about the rest of you…there’s so much more we can do.. . You have the opportunity, right now, to shape a new medium of communication. That is so rare. A couple of times a century you get this chance. And we’re there" Spector was part of the "Today's Games, Tomorrow's Virtual Worlds" panel at the 2004 SXSW Interactive Festival. He also participated on the "Can Austin Be the Hollywood of Gaming" session at the 2006 ScreenBurn Beta Festival.

11:58am CST | +

7/17/06
BRUCE STERLING

RFID tags will soon be embedded into United States passports. And, Bruce Sterling is one of the skeptics who have voiced considerable fears about the implications of this new technology. According to a recent report on CNNMoney, "Critics are concerned that the security benefit of RFID technology, which combines silicon chips with antennas to make data accessible via radio waves, could be vastly outweighed by security threats to the passport holder. 'Basically, you've given everybody a little radio-frequency doodad that silently declares 'Hey, I'm a foreigner,'' says author and futurist Bruce Sterling, who lectures on the future of RFID technology. 'If nobody bothers to listen, great. If people figure out they can listen to passport IDs, there will be a lot of strange and inventive ways to exploit that for criminal purposes'. . . . He compares RFID passports to a "nice yellow armband" -- a big sign on your body announcing your identity. "Would you pay anything for that device?" Sterling asks. "Would you buy it in a travel store because you thought it made you feel safer? Or would you conclude that this technology existed so that you could be treated like a can on a grocery-food shelf?" A former keynote speaker, Sterling talked about "The State of the World" at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival.