Broadcasting from Austin and ready to achieve geekgasm, this year is sure to be as overwhelming as the past. Shake Well Before Use has admittedly been slacking on blogging in the last few weeks due to all the excitement and anticipation. Regardless, come join in the nerdfesticle that is SXSW at these two events:

How to Rawk SXSW: Achieving Geekgasm

16bit Pownce Party

Created for compatibility with MSN Messenger, the i-Buddy appears to be a watered-down wannabe version of a Nabaztag. The device connects via USB and reflects emoticons received from your friends. If a happy emoticon is received, the gadget will flap its wings and light up, however if a angry emoticon is received, it will turn red. If only the device wasn't output only, we'd love to try it out as a tethered voodoo doll against our friends who are too stubborn to switch to Gtalk.

Text mining for large bodies of literature, Tim Walter created Textour, an interactive tool that visualizes text in radial patterns.

"...it is possible to discover certain rules which show that every text is a system of words where length, position and frequency do not appear at random."

For fairly complex blocks of text, the process involves an intricate system based around sentences, words, and letters. Filters also help aid the process by providing text restrictions, lengths, and frequency.

"Every time a letter, word or sentence is entered into the program, the visualisation integrates the new item and the elements appear on the right point of intersection of line through the center and the circles and re-arranges the rest of the elements in a clockwise manner."

Walter's site includes the detailed documentation for Textour in German.

InteracItive LED kit in Evil Mad Scientist Auxiliary photo pool. [via]

Vertically engineered, an interactive project called "Electric MoOns" produces a massive 10x10 3D physical display. The display uses 100 white balloons in a dark room to create the illusion. From Make:, "When music is played, the balloons synchronize their movements and their interiors are illuminated by dimmable super-bright LEDs". A screen-based UI allows for a user to tweak the movement and lighting of each balloon.

GUIs, ZUIs, and all the WIMPs in between, interfaces of the present don't meet the expectations of movies from the past. In 2006, a column by Nielsen outlined the top ten "bloopers" of using fictional interfaces in film. Highlights include "You've Got Mail is Always Good News" and "Access Denied / Access Granted". Visual designers such as Mark Coleran are responsible for what appears on the shiny computer screens for the big screen. 2007 certainly was no stranger to the foreign interfaces of the future. Ocean's 13 saw a text field with no buttons, where the user would be forced to type everything out without even the slightest usage of txtshorthand (e.g. "search for a good movie" or "zoom in to photo"). Hopefully, the interfaces of fiction don't have an IRL future.

Made for traveling or long-distance lovers, the Hug Shirt helps you feel warm and fuzzy in more ways than one. The shirt consists of multiple sensors that react to SMS by way of Bluetooth.

"Embedded in the shirt there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one."

Nominated as one of the best inventions of 2006, this mobile-focused fashion line has yet to hit the mainstream, but is currently debuting new models for 2007.

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Mobile and multiplying, rabbits and robots have merged together. Created a couple years ago, Robbits is an interactive exploration between humans and robobunnies:

"The project aims to explore emotional qualities of interactive objects by inviting a human audience to interact play with »electronic creatures«. Robbits works as an installation consisting of a community self- and location-aware mobile robots.

Robbits is a comment to the phenomenon of »humanization« of electronic products. It refers to people’s tendency to project their idea of »life« or »personality« onto complex and thus mysterious electronic or digital devices, when they seem to carry out, what is perceived as »intelligent behavior«."

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Taking and giving information from surrounding ecosystems, an installation creates awareness among users of their immediate environment. Called HouseSwarming, the "environment-sensing device" was created for an Art Center presentation. Designed by Jenna Didier, Oliver Hess and Marcos Lutyens, their site for the display explains how it works:

"During the day, the “swarm” of green ambiguous forms, both biomorphic and geometric, accentuates the South Campus’s main entry. At twilight, the swarm comes to life, telling visitors and passersby about the current air quality around the building. Electronic sensors perceive air contaminants – such as tobacco, benzene, carbon monoxide, even perfume – and separately inform the outside and inside swarms, which sets off signals. These signals are interpreted as changes to the natural rhythm that the network has established based on the number and distribution of nodes connected to the cable net. Flashing cells on the exterior faÁade indicate air quality inside the building. Conversely, pulsating effects in the interior entry inform visitors about the outside air quality."

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Pressure-sensitive and ready to play, an interactive ball responds to crowd participation. Called the Zygote, these inflated spheres contain LEDs that react to touch. Each time the ball is played with, the graphics change, creating a "shared experience". While watching a massive ball change colors across a crowd may only keep the attention span of the heavily induced, there seems to be potential in how the object stays connected:

"Each ball also can act as both an input and an output device by being networked to a central computer. This allows for more complex interaction, as the crowd can modify the graphics on a screen, make the balls light up in unison, or even affect the music."

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Email is quickly becoming one of the most hated methods of communication amongst any tech-savvy community. Perhaps by accident, a new visualization tool reflects email's repulsive nature quite accurately. Creepy and certainly crawly, bacteria-like bugs representing different types and statuses of emails infest themselves into your inbox and onto your screen. One "animal" represents one received email and one category represents one "species", while the status and age of an email affect the appearance and motion of an "animal". Called Anymails, the prototype effectively makes opening your inbox on Monday mornings feel even more vile.

See the visualization in motion.

Interaction between man and machine has sometimes been a contrived courtship. A new experiment aims to build the bionic bridge by exploring the boundaries between skin and screen. Delicate Boundaries (video), is an environment created by Chris Sugrue in which "lifelike digital animations swarm out of their virtual confinement onto the skin of a hand or arm when it makes contact with a computer screen...". Using infrared illuminators to openFrameworks, Sugrue claims the screen-to-skin system is not terribly complex.

A project originating from Burningman 2006 caught the eyes of Phil Torrone recently. Playaflies is a kinetic study in glowing orbs. By using LEDs embedded within wired up ping pong balls, the experiment captures some beautiful somewhat abstract motions. At night, the ping-orbs were placed on bicycles to outline a mimicking motion of the riders. The official site for Playaflies outlines a DIY version, in case you want to recreate some of the Burningman magic back at home.

Experimentally interactive, Blubber Bots are sci-fi-esque helium-filled robots that seek out interaction from light, humans, other Blubber Bots, and cell phone signals. Humming through open air, the bots operate in a networked habitat. The balloon-like creatures also feature an interactive voice recognition system as a way of increasing human/bot connectivity. The video is a little on the long side, but definitely has intriguing interactions.

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Trend Hunter recently rounded up their Top 20 Graffiti Innovations. Paired down to the top five "techie" tag trends here, it's apparent that geek goodness has penetrated the paint.

1. Geek Graffiti - vintage video games in pixelated paint
2. LED Throwies - ferromagnetic surfaces + rare-earth magnets
3. Dot Matrix Graffiti Bike - interweb connected and sidewalk suitable
4. Pixel Roller - paint-by-pixels
5. Automated Graffiti Robot - "a tele-operated field programable robot which employs a custom built array of spray cans to write linear text messages on the ground at a rate of 15 kilometers per hour."

Watch out Wii, in two decades this "knockoff of Breakout" could be the new video game fitness fame. Developed by researchers at the University of Udine, the game uses a pulse oximeter sensor as a body-based controller. The pulse oximeter measures the heart rate and physical qualities of the player and adjusts the game correspondingly. What this creates is an extremely slow wayback machine to early 90s computer games. Perhaps it could transform from Breakout to Lumines as a motivator to get your game in shape.

Probably best that they launched this after Easter. A not-so-adorable Flash game challenges you to save a cute bunny from going to hop-hop heaven. By shocking, shaving, and slicing him open, you have 60 seconds to save his life. That's only the length of the last disappointing Super Bowl commercial you saw! Then again, 60 seconds can drag on. The play-doctor game was created by 10mg interactive, that has a client roster including: Agency.com, JWT, Tribal DDB, BMW, Canon, Coca-Cola, Intel, and Sony Ericsson.

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Intimate interaction is no longer reserved for avatars and vibrators. Jennifer Chowdhury introduces a new way to be playful with your partner's privates by placing game controllers in intimate apparel. The Intimate Game Controllers were created in attempt to bring gamers and girlfriends together in a touch-sensitive way. Chowdhury's research began with a bra padded for Pong, where groping a right or left breast controlled the game.

"The woman's controller is a bra with 6 sensors. The man's controller has 6 sensors as well but in a pair of shorts. Man stands being woman and each has access to others sensors."

Wmmna also directs us to the similar Pong Dress, aimed to "dissolute the boundaries between body and screen." Here's hoping your boyfriend doesn't treat your cleavage controllers like a game of Whac-A-Mole.

IKEA shares their bed with you by sensing your position. Using an interactive projection of a sleeping man (or couple) on a mattress, he kindly rolls over when you approach to try it out yourself. Perhaps it's that Swedish charm, but some customers might claim they don't receive near the same courtesy at home. Sheet stealers and bed hogs may soon be one-upped and outed by holograms.

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While Guitar Hero has invaded everything from consoles to androids, it's kept the keyboard-crazed community out of the liner notes. Thankfully, Frets On Fire takes aim at the otherwise ignored audience. Frets on Fire remains open source and is able to import Guitar Hero playlists as well as offer community-composed tracks. With Windows, Linux, and a "coming soon" Mac-compatible version, the guitar game kicks "monster ass" by Transbuddha standards, and it's sure to entertain laptop lovers across the board.

Connecting distances at a push of a button, a new outdoor campaign aims to bring unfamiliar sounds to familiar sidewalks. Solo Mobile, a Canadian competitor to Virgin Mobile, placed a series of bus stop walkie talkie billboards in the public for sampling. The displays act as a real-time walkie talkies to other cities, connecting commuters across the country. Though talking to strangers is a common occurrence online, it'll be interesting to see the behaviors behind an offline conversational platform like this.

As if embarking on a journey in adolescence, pixels may be sprouting hair in unusual places. Philips recently filed a patent for a screen panel of "furry pixels". Not referring to the unusual animal avatars you come across in virtual communities, these "furries" involve an intricate design of fabric that responds to electrostatic charges. The interaction allows for perceived changes in color across the fabricated pixels.

Online communities set to surpass porn? Is porn losing popularity or has the internet finally reached pressure equalization? A recent article in the Economist examines the trends in adult entertainment and online communities.

"In America, the proportion of site visits that are pornographic is falling and people are flocking to sites categorised “net communities and chat”—chiefly social-networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Traffic to such sites is poised to overtake traffic to sex sites in America any day now (see chart)."

Perhaps less about a popularity contest, porn has in fact penetrated online communities since their conception. Charts like these fail to recognize that the interweb can't be compartmentalized by just sex or information. The lack of recognition for an ongoing intimate interaction slightly skews the data, especially with the induction of communities like Second Life. To quote Kyle Machulis of Linden Labs, "if you put two people together in a game, they're going to find a way to fuck".

Virtual breathes vitality back into art. Based out of Italy, OrganisMuseum is a three dimensional art gallery online that allows users to "walk" through a gallery and focus on pieces of artwork. Like any other museum, it features exhibitions of work spanning periods of time. Supposedly the first of its kind, don't be surprised if virtual art galleries become more popular over time as artists attempt to build up their global microbrands. At the very least, no avatar is required for access.

Proposing to join the real world with the "www" to create a psycho-geographic experience, Ideas On Air wants to rename streets with Net-Art web addresses. Equipped with paper and glue, the high-tech experiment would paste street plates with web addresses.

"It’d be better to cover the streets (maybe, comfortably by the taxi) with a pc equipped of wireless device to watch the websites. Anyway, you’d also walk on the streets watching at the Net-Art web address and subsequently to see the relative websites."

Kids love their mashups [ Nike: The Second Coming - via]

Experimenting with analog [ Roy Block - via ]

Tell kids to stick their heads in it [ Plastic Bag Chandelier - via ]

Sure you can take it, but can you dish it out? [ Dishmaker - via ]

[Sidenote: A guest blogger may be on the way for the remainder of this week, so stay tuned]

Joost, the interactive software that allows for peer-to-peer TV content sharing via web makes its debut with a bit of awkward advertising. While most commercials strive for clarity, Joost apparently wants to woo their audience with charming confusion. Attempting to enamor their viewers with special effects and aspirational gospel, the commercial involves an old man double-dipping his fingers in jar filled with Joost's hopes and dreams. Here's hoping he washed his hands before contaminating them.

Tutoring for twittering teens and prude prom queens now comes in an accessible format. The USB-driven finger DDR teaches those flirtatious fingers some moves outside of the T9 temptation. As if you didn't feel dirty enough by sliding two fingers into a cardboard cut-out, the finger DDR then prompts you to move them around. Admittedly though, the flashing lights may be more direction than you could ever weasel out of your ex-girlfriend, so take notes.

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As flight delays scroll across screens and text messages taper off, SXSW negates to close its doors, yet gives a swift slap to attendees as it dismounts from Interactive. As stated up front, most of the interaction happens outside of the panels and what happens in SXSW, stays on Flickr. With leftover hand-stamps from nights before, attendees gingerly, yet somehow still enthusiastically dragged their feet into morning panels over the few days. While the main word on the carpeted streets was 'overwhelming', the plethora of things to do and people to see kept the crowd's stamina.

Friday night kicked off with the traditional Break Bread With Brad ceremonial drinkfest and introductions. One would think that after a few drinks, the crowd would begin to tangent off of social technology topics, however with the circulating video bloggers stumbling within the crowd and the lively debates over Technorati and Twitter (which becomes a more flexibly applied verb with a few drinks) the physicality of all the usually online activity takes tangible form.

With Treo and Blackberry ornaments hanging from every messenger bag pocket, and laptops all in a row, it was no longer business or pleasure, personal or professional. Threadless shirts and logo-ed tattoos pwned all. While parties like Dorkbot, Fox Interactive, 8-bit, LAist, Mashup, Blogger, Lifehacker, and SXNW played venue to a meeting of interactive minds, it was the actual interaction that made and continues to make SXSW a unique, sometimes awkward, but always appreciated, online to offline experience.

Will Wright, the famed game designer behind SimCity, The Sims, and the yet to be released and highly anticipated Spore, flipped through pages of storytelling to an audience of all ears. Linking stories with the shift from passive to interactive media, Wright outlined the social and biological differences between games and film. While games utilize our basic instincts within the brain, film typically provides a rich emotional palette. Rather than push for the complete adoption of one or the other, Wright integrated the two into a cohesive experience.

Relating to a computer mainly consisting of two parts, calculation and communication, Wright's games involve the possibilities of storytelling as well as the experience of sharing it. Wright explained that people enjoy playing with boundaries and then reporting back on their experiments, a theme that had been mentioned at an earlier panel discussing hacktivism and DIY culture. Most notably, this was seen in The Sims, which was regarded as a musical instrument of a game, where people truly became the storytelling tools.

While expression plays a big role in gaming, it's just as significant that the computer also participates. In this sense, story-listening becomes just as active of a component as any other, teaching the computer how to listen to the player's story. While many love to share stories and content, there's always the issue of quality over quantity. Wright believes that by creating better tools, you can increase the quality of content in the community. Example given was Spore, where users could create their own creatures in, what used to take Pixar artists several days, nanoseconds. Wright concluded that by making the player George Lucas and no longer the protagonist Sky Walker, the experience lends towards greater creative amplification and deeper interaction.

Television today is no longer the elephant in the room. Similar to global warming, it has increasingly been gaining momentum and awareness as well as technological contribution. However, while content is king, the overall experience is moving in to claim checkmate. How we interact and interpret television currently is on a static plane of directional geography: surfing channels up, down, left, and right. Helping break the tangible and virtual norms, David Merkoski (Frog Design) narrated the audience through an up and coming product yet to hit the markets.

Appropriately titled Mondrian, the product set to go public next year, is a TV navigation and recommendation Zoomable User Interface (ZUI) that atte