#ted2013

Great guy, great moment

Two things stick out in my mind about getting in touch with Cesar Kuriyama. First, I'd seen his Ted2012 talk, really impressive. Check it out if you haven't seen it (also check out his bio, can't wait to see what's next from this guy):

The second thing was that not only did I get along with Cesar right away, but I got one of those great New York compliments. I found out that everyone he spoke to in tech told him he should talk to us about building a premier Android app. Very grateful to all the great people who recommended us and thanks so much Cesar for putting it in writing on your kickstarter page!

  One Second Everyday

1SE already had a great iPhone app and we were really happy to bring it to Android. After the initial discussions, we got the opportunity for our creative director, Paul, to really dive into the design and make sure it was a true Android experience (not just a ported iLook).

Cesar is presenting the app tonight, June 11th at the New York Tech Meetup (congrats Cesar!!) but in case you miss it, here's a few screens for you:

Solving development challenges

The types of projects we like at Touch Lab are the ones where we get to push and make things happen that no one else could. Luckily the 1SE app gave us a few major challenges to solve. Here's three, for those of you that like this stuff:

iOS has libraries for cutting and pasting videos; Android, not so much. We had to pull together various utilities to get that sorted out. Because of that, cutting the 1 second clips is a little slower than iOS, but compiling videos on Android is MUCH faster ;) 

Audio actually ended up making the compiling even more difficult because while the video cuts to exactly 1 second, the audio has a few ms left over. That's fine with a few videos, but with hundreds, it adds up. The solution is took a while, but it works great now.

Because of the way video is encoded on Android, it doesn't start exactly when you want. When you say "start at 21.43", Android finds the next key frame, so maybe it'll actually start at 21.57 and play for a little under a second. Our team did a little movie magic and got that video to start exactly when the user wants and play for exactly a second. 

The app is still in beta, but as soon as it's on the Play store, we'll update here with a link.

Congrats again to Cesar on One Second Everyday! We'll be keeping an eye out for your next amazing project.

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If you’re at the epicentre of South African technological development and entrepreneurship, then you probably already know about JoziHub.  If you don’t, but aspire to moving and shaking with the local shapers of tech innovation, then you’d better brush up on your knowledge quickly.  JoziHub could very well be the new Nirvana for geek innovators.

JoziHub, a sparse yet casual space nestled amongst the cafes and shops at 44 Stanley Avenue in Milpark, Johannesburg, might belie its cutting-edge function at first glance.  This hub of technology exists through the collaborative effort of big tech players; it is spearheaded by Praekelt Foundation and backed by the likes of Omidyar Network, Google, ISlabs and Venture Solutions.

Disappointment and Disillusionment @TED - Allan Savory TEDTalk @TED2013

I have waited a couple of weeks after returning from TEDActive to write this post. I had hoped that my feelings of intense disappointment and disillusionment would dissipate, but they haven’t. Can anyone explain the selection of Allan Savory for a TEDTalk at The 2013 TED Conference, knowing that he had systematically exterminated 40,000 elephants, as a result of his erroneous hypothesis? He did not even consider minimizing his recklessness by testing his theory on a much smaller scale. He removed native people from their land, ordered the shooting of 40,000 elephants, and THEN discovered he was wrong. HOW could this barbarian be invited to speak at TED?!

Mr. Savory’s newest theory for solving desertification is to hire herds of nomadic livestock to trample the land, defecating and urinating as they go. His hair brained hypothesis flies in the face of the widely accepted research about the root causes of desertification, which include global warming, unethical and short-sighted over-planting, feeding methane releasing livestock instead of adopting vegetarianism, and deforestation.

I am a foster mother to a couple of orphaned baby elephants at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Both of them were rescued after having witnessed poachers murder their mothers for their tusks. Some of the orphans die of grief. The ones who survive are greeted and surrounded in a literal circle of love by the other orphans, trunk to tail.

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is the only organization that releases orphaned elephants back into the wild. After two years of care, they are ready to return to the African wilderness. The Sheldrick graduates send a subterranean message to each other, and then arrive from miles away to pick up the newest member of the herd.

If Allan Savory is sincerely remorseful for his grievous crime against nature, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust needs help with continuing their heroic efforts. http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

Stewart Brand talks about reviving the passenger pigeon at TED2013

Bringing back extinct species -- this Friday, TEDxDeExtinction discusses how we'll do it and whether we should

An endangered species is like a very sick person: It needs help, desperately. An extinct species is like a dead person: beyond help, beyond hope

Or at least it has been, until now. For the first time, our own species—the one that has done so much to condemn those other 795 to oblivion—may be poised to bring at least some of them back.

--National Geographic, "Species Revival: Should We Bring Back Extinct Animals?"

This process, the process of bringing an extinct species back from once-certain oblivion, is called de-extinction. As reported on the TED Blog, "The first de-extinction happened on the bucardo, a type of wild mountain goat. The last bucardo died out in 2000, but its ear was preserved, and in 2009 DNA from the ear was planted in a mother goat. The engineered bucardo died after 10 minutes due to a defect in its lungs."

But is there hope for de-exintction to continue? With other animals? New Techniques? Could we someday see the wooly mammoth in the flesh? At TED2013, scientist Stewart Brand gave a introduction to the possibilities, and now he wants us to talk about it.

This month, along with his foundation Revive & Restore, with the support of TED and TEDster Ryan Phelan, and in partnership with National Geographic Society, Brand is convening a day-long conference -- called TEDxDeExtinction -- to showcase the prospects of bringing extinct species back to life, along with a discussion of the ethical issues involved.

On Friday, March 15, 2013, TEDxDeExtinction will bring 25 renowned experts together at National Geographic headquarters to contribute ideas to these four sessions:

WHO:  Who among extinct species should be revived first?

HOW: How can extinct species be revived?

WHY AND WHY NOT: Should we bring back extinct species?

WILD AGAIN: Could resurrected species ever be wild again?

Speakers include:

George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and director of PersonalGenomes.org, the world’s only open-access information source for the human genome .

President of the American Ornithologists’ Union Susan Haig, whose specialization is working with species facing the brink of extinction.

Director of Genetics at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation and Research Oliver Ryder, who oversees research efforts in cell culture and cryobanking, cytogenetics, population genetics, conservation breeding, evolution and systematics, and applications of genomics technologies to conservation efforts for managed and wild populations of threatened and endangered species.

New York Times, National Geographic, and winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award journalist Carl Zimmer.