Every year, Poptech features artistes with a global flavor, for instance, this year’s conference will include performances by the Sinkithemba choir from South Africa. I have no doubt many attendees will leave inspired by the performances and will perhaps want to learn more about African music.

I highly recommend three websites that will introduce you to the best of African music…from traditional to contemporary. Not only will you find fantastic audio clips, but you will also get the stories behind the music and in the process learn more about Africa and its enormous diversity.
Benn loxo du taccu is THE African music audio blog, Afropop is THE African music website (check out their podcasts) and Obi’s coverage of African music for Global Voices is simply an auditory delight.

Happy listening.

Last year, University of Indiana economist Ed Castronova (Ted to his friends) opened the eyes of many Pop!Tech participants with his guided tour of the collapsing distinction between virtual and real-world economics. Ed showed how ‘real money trade’ — the exchange of virtual items in videogames for real dollars on eBay — is blossoming, and how the per-capita ‘GDP’ of some online games now exceeds that of many real-world economies. (We streamed the entire speech into SecondLife, into a virtual replica of the Camden Opera House.)

Now Ted has founded the Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana U., a permanent institute to promote innovative thinking on all things virtual One of the Institute’s first projects is the creation of Arden, an immersive world built around the narrative, language, and culture of William Shakespeare. It will also “serve as a laboratory for research on macro-level social phenomena, and the impact of the technology on those who use it”.

To stay on top of the latest research into virtual worlds, read the SWI’s introductory research papers, and sign up for the announcements list.

One way to calm a crying baby or a whining puppy is to wrap an alarm clock in a blanket and let the seemingly inconsolable babe or pup snuggle up next to it. The *tic toc tic toc* of the alarm soothes their nerves, reminding them of their mother’s heartbeat in the womb.

Designer, inventor and award-winning artist, Yury Gitmanhas taken that same idea and created My Beating Heart. Sometimes adults need a good cuddling as well and sometimes uber-geeks need to cuddle with AI and Haptic technology.

My Beating Heart is a heart-shaped plush toy with a small computer placed inside that generates a unique simulated human heart beat using programmed algorithms. Hug the heart and it produces a soothing heartbeat as well as employing tactile technology, or haptics, to add a subtle physical heart beat.

Yury was inspired to make My Beating Heart when, in meditation, he became keenly aware of his own heartbeat and noticed his state of calm and relaxation from focusing on the “rhythm of life”. He then employed his background in design technology to create the toy.

And each Beating Heart is a true labor of love — handsewn by Yury’s partner then handstuffed and handprogrammed by Yury himself.

Now that’s technology that makes you feel soft and fuzzy inside.

Software developer and Pop!Tech team member Greg Elin has put together a fantastic online widget for the Sunlight Foundation, a new DC-based foundation dedicated to bringing transparency to our all-too-opaque democracy.

The widget creates a context-based popup window on a blog whenever a US Congress Members’ name appears and is clicked. The popup contains links to the politician’s page on Congresspedia, a new wiki covering US Congress members, as well as links to OpenSecrets.org, a site that lists each politicians’ campaign contributions, and links to their voting record.

Go here to learn how to integrate this elegant tool into your blog.

Researchers at Akishima Laboratories in Japan at have recently developed a very cool device that can draw and write on water.

How does it work? 50 wave-machines set up in a circle within a pool generate specifically timed currents that meet up to form temporary images in the water. So far, the machine is able to produce the entire alphabet as well as some simple kanji characters.

How are the waves timed? According to calculations based on Bessel Functions too complicated for me to paraphrase, so you can click the link and look at scary equations, if you are so inclined.

The lab is expecting the technology to be used at amusement parks and hotels. I am forced to imagine the branding potential of this technology. The world is 3/4 water…that’s a lot of free billboard space.

We’re happy to annouce the next book in the PopTech Book Club, The Long Tail by Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief (and upcoming Pop!Tech 2006 speaker) Chris Anderson. (Registrants for the 2006 conference have just received a pre-publication advanced copy.)

At Pop!Tech 2004, noted Internet Analyst Clay Shirky noted that blogs follow a power-law distribution of interlinkage — with a few “broadcast”style blogs dominating, and an infinite ‘long tail’ of “conversational” blogs stretching to the horizon.

Anderson expands and generalizes Shirky’s observation to encompass commerce and culture generally, and shows how a range of businesses, from eBay to Google, are embracing the long tail. These companies aren’t just finding revenue on the tail, either: they’re finding innovation, insights, and new approaches to product design among the tail’s passionate and engaged amateurs.

The Long Tail is a great, accessible read — and, ironically, destined to be a blockbuster.

The Biomedical Image Awards 2006 is given out by the Wellcome Trust Medical Photographic Library. The winners, chosen by a panel of expert judges, present the artistic side to their research by capturing the excitement, elegance, colors and patterns that are found in all living things.

On the website you can listen to audio clips of each microphotographer talking about their work, you can vote for your favorite image and even submit your own. The site also gives a nice overview of the different imaging techniques used by the artists/scientists.

Is it wrong that since looking at the gallery of breathtaking photos, I’ve made an electron microscope scan of mouldy bread my desktop image?

In 2005, Technology Review and the Methusalah Foundation put a whopping $20K on the line for any biologist to prove wrong biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey’s anti-aging hypothesis. de Grey spoke at Pop!Tech 2003 on his “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence” (SENS) describing aging as a biomechanism that can be more than just slowed down, but can be reversed. de Grey is effectively looking to cure aging.

Five submissions and a series of rebuttals later, none of the papers were considered to have adequately disproven SENS. Technology Review says that the challenge still stands.

One paper, however, was deemed most scholarly and eloquent and was awarded half of the prize money. Preston W. Estep submitted a dissent to judges decision.

To read the full article and Estep’s rebuttal click on the image below.

While de Grey’s ideas have yet to be proven “right”, it is often in the struggle to disprove that the most interest discoveries are made.

We are delighted that Pop!Tech Balladeer-in-Residence,Jonathan Coulton, will be making a triumphant return to Pop!Tech 2006.

But if you just can’t wait those 3 months, we’ve got something that will satiate that JoCo craving. Jonathan has now made his songs available as ringtones on his website www.jonathancoulton.com.

The confluence of Science and Religion is an often discussed relationship. Less common is the interplay of Technology and Religion.

The Prayer Antenna is part of a larger series of Religious Technical Artifacts created by Canadian-born artist Paul Davies.

The installation consists of a painted motorcycle helmet adorned with antennas that use “sufficient surveillance technology to receive signals from the gods”. This is actually what is happening: The antennas pick up ambient sounds within the gallery space, people talking and walking. These sounds are amplified and fed into two speakers in the helmet.

The work is currently exhibited at BAPLab in Brooklyn, NY.