Photojojo gets Haunt Tech

For those of you not familiar Photojojo is a super awesome newsletter that goes into depth about how to take great photos.

Photojojo also carries unique photography related products, and this time one of them, The Zumi Digital, is haunt tech. It's a digital camera that takes pictures that look like your grandparents 8mm. I had the opportunity to interview Jen Giese, Photojojo's store manager, about this wondrous device. Without further ado, here is the mini interview.

1. When did photojojo first come into contact with The Zumi Digital?

I found it on a blog when I was researching Toy Cameras and was immediately in love. It couldn't be more perfect for Photojojo because it's unique and digital but has a really fun and playful side.

2. Who makes it and what inspired them to make it?

It's made by Powershovel they also make the Black Bird Fly (really popular twin lens camera that takes 35mm film). You should talk to Nick for the inspiration, he's a really great guy and is super passionate about the camera.

3. Why is it important to infuse nostalgia directly into products, and do you consider this product retro, or futuristic?

I think its both retro and futuristic. If that's possible :)
Society is all about recycling things, it's almost like there is no original nowadays. The Zumi is all about nostalgia, it's a throwback to the good 'ol days of shooting with film. I think people miss the unpredictability of it sometimes. Digital can be too clean and easy, the Zumi puts flaws back into the picture. It challenges the now highly adopted notion of perfection where now, to be a really good photographer, you have to know Photoshop or Lightroom or all these other programs to alter your images and make them more perfect. It's too sterile.

4. Do you think products like The Zumi are a fad, or are we reaching a point where culture in electronics is a lasting trend?

Kind of what I said above. At this point in time there are hundreds of thousands of gadgets out there. So what makes something stand out from the rest?

5. What is next thing you will film with The Zumi (I vote disneyland)

So funny that you say that. We actually just took a bunch of cameras to try out to Disneyland. They were all film though, and we didn't have the Zumi at the time. Otherwise I would have :)
A lot of the Zumi videos on the site were taken on a trip to Los Angeles. I'm headed to Palm Springs, CA in a few weeks to stay in a beautiful Mid Century Modern house and lounge poolside. I imagine there will be some great videos/photos from that.


Don't forget to pick up one of these dandy devices in Photojojo's online store. They're selling like hotcakes and getting a new shipment in September.

140 is a Magic Number

I am the one billionth four hundred and seventy ninth person to use Twitter. Just kidding, I've been on the service since 2007. Pretty much every press explanation has gone over the fact that Twitter has a character limit.

So what?

Well in 1985 the GSM standards were being drawn up and provided for the ability to send short messages up to 160 characters.

In 2006, Twitter was born.

So, some engineer somewhere over 20 years ago decided that 160 characters would be acceptable for text based communication and as a result twitter designed itself around this standard. Now millions of people are using a system that arguably is successful in part by the focus on brevity.

That my friends is haunt tech. Twitter is not retro, but it's functionality is constrained yet catalyzed by technology that is far passed in technical obsolescence.

The next time you send out a tweet, thank 1985.

Around the Bend

The 1970s saw the advent of the personal computer. The PC was Punk Rock, DIY, and Self Actualized.

The device was the grandchild of old school engineers who had geek kids in the 50s and 60s. They created 'far out' technology with parts that were available off the shelf. These hackers were motivated by the ability to build something at home that was larger than life. It was the equivalent of discovering how to build your own personal space shuttle.

Today it is seemingly more difficult to create groundbreaking electronics in you garage, but that may prove to be a false assumption. For many years software was the obvious method for digital tinkering. A complete mini computer that fits in a womans purse can be picked up for two hundred bucks, and you could feasibly create the next Facebook prototype. However, we are instead haunted by the desire to tinker with physical bits rather than digital bytes.

Enter hacker spaces. Hacker spaces created an environment like a ceramics class, except the clay is transistors and CRTs. Rather than being hindered by theoretical engineering best practices, and a requirement to build something practical, most of what is created in a hacker space bears resemblance to art more than anything else.

Electronics as expression is likely to become the norm as physical devices will allow us to express ourselves more dynamically in fashion.

Take a look at the video documenting a Canadian hacker space below. It is sure to draw up sprits of inspiration on the ghostly picture of a black and white TV. Hacker spaces are growing, and the soldering iron is Haunt Tech.

Boo.

Tape is so 2009

Once upon a time people purchased music on audiocassette. This media was novel for a couple reasons. One, it was much smaller than an LP or 8 Track. More importantly, it was recordable.
This of course spawned its own form of hysteria in the recording industry not unlike the one we face today with digital downloads.

However, audiocassette tapes brought with them not only a technology, but a few cultural norms. Portable antisocial solitude in music with the Walkman was one, and conversely music mixtape sharing was another.

With the popularity of the essential technology of tapes waning, the cultural need for the mixtape is not forgotten.   Two new forms of mixtape have emerged.

One is muxtape.  Muxtape started out as an online mixtape you could share with friends.  It's popularity exploded so quickly that the RIAA took notice and shut it down.  It has since one legal and is a place for musicians to promote music legally.

The other is more of a meat and potatoes offering for the haunted technology lover.  MIXA is a reinvention of the mixtape in digital form.  Still technically obsolete, but socially relevant.   With MIXA you can deliver a mixtape your friend with glorious presentation and evoke memories of a future gone by.

Once again modern technology is haunted by its predecessors.  Record companies find it harder to monetize their content as their media becomes obsolete.  Opportunists monetize media that is even more obsolete.  It's not just retro, its haunt tech. 

Zines are Dead, Long Live Zines

Print media continues to be disrupted by online media, and openzine take another step in that direction.

One of the benefits that print media has thus far held over online content has been the level of design and detail that goes into a layout.  If you open a copy of Wired or Fast Company you will see beautifully illustrated pages with excellent photography.

Contrast this with your average blog where each post shares a similar aesthetic to the hundreds of posts that came before it.

Openzine seeks to play Robin Hood with this advantage that print publishers have up until held onto up until now.   Now an upstart online publication can express itself in each article not only through word but also through visual communication.  Obviously wordpress themes and the like have been around for some time, but they merely skin the tool.

Openzine is another example of how past technology is haunting our current reality.  It is only a matter of time before we see more exploration of dead media be replicated online.   Hopefull that we get to open up liner notes, and blow on our video game cartridges and keep our haunted past alive.

The Caveman Test

If you have an idea and are taking critiques, make sure it passes the Caveman test.

Demo is Haunt Tech

The Mac's 25th anniversary has brought tons of attention to Steve Job's original introduction of the device, and with it another experience into haunt tech.  If you are not familiar the video it is posted below:

Ever since Doug Engelbart's Mother of All Demos there has been a tradition in silicon valley tradition to show your product to a select group in order to ignite interest in your product/work.  

What is interesting about a successful demo is they are held in some people's minds to an event similar to Michael Jackson's first moonwalk or The Beatles first performance on the Ed Sullivan show.  Demos capture a moment in time where people's perception of what is possible with technology changes.

A more recent example of this phenomenon was the demo of Microsoft's Photosynth:

In the end of the video, you can hear a questioner repeating his new reality though a question of what the new reality of images is as a result of watching the demo. Photosynth has now gone on to be used for the presidential inauguration and has become mainstream.

So how is the Demo haunt tech?  Haunt tech could be described as technology that has been made 'obsolete' by a new technology yet retains its importance in the minds of people well beyond its 'technological' lifespan.

This can be easily evidenced in situation Steve Jobs faces today.  Despite the fact Steve Jobs has  now built up Apple to be a very self sufficient company, the history of his showmanship through demos now haunts him.  Customers and followers of the company want to canonize him prematurely, and the stock price is receiving the punishment.

The solution may be simple.  Perhaps companies need to pay even more attention the metanarrative that their customer's write, and provide even more fodder for the captalist canon.