North by Northeast (NXNE)
Various Venues – Toronto, Canada
6/14 to 6/20/10

650 bands, 50 stages, 40 films, 15 conference sessions. Now in its 16th year, North by Northeast showcases great new music and music-related films. For seven days and nights in June, music takes over Toronto: live performances, films, the newest music-biz ideas, a digital interactive conference—all within a few kilometers of each other. →

Bloggomist: Today’s Dish / Yesterday’s Spam
Political Opinion

Two weeks ago, Canadian authorities were notified by an Xbox live gamer in British Columbia that one of his Modern Warfare 2 teammates had threatened to gun down classmates at his high school. According to Kotaku, the teen had planned to obtain weapons “from a friend in the Marine Corps,” claimed he would shoot a pregnant classmate and his best friend, and “make the headlines so that people would remember him forever.” →

Dutch engineer/designer/philosopher Theo Jansen provides a new world of possibilities. A place where machines openly “live” within nature and contribute their presence to an existing ecosystem.

Scion is bringing it this year. In collaboration with XLR8R, Scion and XLR8R are proud to introduce the City Guide application for the Google Nexus One and Motorola Droid. XLR8R’s picks for the best music, food, shops, galleries and more in top cities across the U.S. What can phones NOT do these days? Just watch, there’ll be applications on our phone sooner or later that will automatically let our phones drive our cars for us and do our daily chores. City Guide is kind of like Bing or Yelp! for your phone, but better because of it connects you to the hottest joints around. Curious? Check it out for yourself, you can install the City Guide application now on their website.

Delicious Vinyl Workshop featuring Cut Chemist & Arabian Prince
Freak City – Hollywood, CA
2/20/10

Starting this month, Delicious Vinyl will be hosting a free monthly workshop and demonstration event for aspiring DJs, producers and moguls. The workshop will feature: Cut Chemist, Arabian Prince (NWA), DJ M Walk and Tony G. Located at Freak City, a collective storefront on 6613 Sunset Blvd. in the heart of Hollywood. The All Star Workshop will be a forum for DJs, musicians and engineers to come together and share new techniques and ideas. Participants will be encouraged to showcase techniques, secrets, tweaks and collaborate whenever possible. →

The Bloggomist: Design in the Blood
Design Opinion

We live in a branded world. It’s a phenomenon that is both glaringly obvious yet completely unnoticeable at the same time. A good brand experience can command lifetime loyalty, whereas a bad experience can do quite the opposite. If a company puts all its weight behind their brand image and something goes wrong, however trivial, they have much further to fall in the court of public opinion than a low-key competitor.
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The Smalls, a website for independent filmmakers, welcomes you to contribute personal audio clips to Street Sounds, a new site created with Scion to capture location-based sounds that reflect our surroundings and define our lives. Every month, the biggest contributors of sounds can win a free iPod. →

The Bloggomist: Design in the Blood
Design Opinion

Without a doubt, the Segway is a milestone in engineering. Yet all that is for nought, because you can’t help but look a complete tool when riding one. It’s this niche market that we’ve become obsessed with; it’s not a bicycle, it’s not a scooter, it’s not a unicycle or a skateboard…it’s a new type of transportation with an ‘intuitive’ mode of operation that requires batteries, motors and gyroscopes to function. A modern marvel yet at the same time utterly pointless. →

The Bloggomist: Design in the Blood
Design Opinion

Last week I used the MacBook Pro as an example of greenwashing with a spoonful of sugar,  so while on the subject I just couldn’t move on without discussing the current king of the eco-castle.

Right now I’m thinking of a car company. In 1973 they became the first automobile manufacturer in the world to introduce an environmental officer. They plan to reduce resource consumption and manufacturing emissions by 30% →

SERATO / ABLETON NAMM AFTER PARTY
Commonwealth Lounge – Fullerton, CA
1/16/10

Tonight from 7PM to 9PM Serato and Ableton, in celebration of their new technological collaboration proudly hosts a private event. The after party will be thrown after the NAMM 2010 convention at the stylish Commonwealth Lounge with special guests: KJ SAWAK  and JEFF MILLIGAN.  →