southwest

Egad! Has SXSWi lost its edge?

These days, Twitter is a worldwide phenomenon, a household name, and has even spawned a verb, "to Tweet."

But before the second week of March of last year, when thousands of geeks began arriving in Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest Interactive festival (SXSWi), few people had even heard of the nascent microblogging service. Within days, however, Twitter had taken the conference by storm. The story of how Twitter took over SXSWi, and how it spread to the outside world because of the many influential early-adopters in attendance, is well known.

"People see what happened with … Read more

'Make' editor tempts fate with handgun-embossed carry-on bag

One of my favorite people in the world of tech culture has always been Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

Over the years, I've done a number of stories about his various exploits, including Roomba Frogger at South by Southwest 2006, his laser-etching business, his jamming of TVs at a hotel in Austin, Texas, and his work in helping organize Maker Faires. Beyond that, I've always enjoyed talking with him, as he's a world traveler, a top-notch intellect, and a world-class culture jammer. He's just my kind of guy.

And there's certainly one thing about … Read more

SXSW Interactive 2008: Who will be this year's Twitter?

Next weekend, just a couple of days after the dust of the primary campaigns will have settled, national media attention will return to Texas as Austin is turning into party central for the annual South by Southwest Festival (SXSW, March 7-16). SXSW Interactive, added in 1994 to the music festival, has evolved into one of the most influential tech conferences in the country and beyond. While somewhat geeky in its first years, SXSW Interactive is now considered a must-attend venue for big tech players (Google, Microsoft, Seagate, etc. all have a strong presence at the show), start-ups, creative agencies, software … Read more

Southwest plans high-speed Internet trials

Southwest Airlines announced Wednesday that it plans to begin trials of satellite-to-airplane broadband Internet service sometime this summer.

Spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said Wednesday morning that initially Southwest plans to test the service on four planes. But because the airline's planes fly many different routes, she did not anticipate--at least not yet--that travelers would be able to plan to fly on one of those planes.

That means that in the early going at least, the service--which will allow passengers to access the Internet if they have their own Wi-Fi-enabled laptops--will be available at random.

McInnis did not say if Southwest'… Read more

NYC's pre-SXSW party: What the heck is the next big thing going to be?

I've heard people refer to the South by Southwest Interactive Festival as "spring break for geeks." I guess that means Monday night's pre-festival networking event in New York was the equivalent of those on-campus mixers that travel companies hold in December and January. But instead of learning just how all-inclusive that rum-soaked Caribbean getaway will be, I was trying to figure out exactly what's going to happen at this year's SXSW. Are we going to see the emergence of the next big thing in social media?

The organizers of SXSW Interactive have been throwing … Read more

Useless PA system on Southwest flights

Once, when I was waiting on a subway platform in New York, there was a fire of some sort in an adjacent tunnel. Presumably, subway officials issued directions for what those of us inside the station should do to get away from the smoke.

But neither I nor anyone around me would have benefited from those instructions because the public address system in the station was so bad that all we could hear was garbled, voice-like sounds coming from the speakers. I remember bewildered people looking at each other to see if anyone could divine what was being said.

I … Read more

South By South Text

A few years ago we may have asked, "How did we ever live without cell phones?" Now we ask the same question about text messaging. It was indeed a lifesaver last week at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. With live music ringing throughout the city 24/7, it was hard to find a quiet spot to make a phone call. So, along with thousands of others, I found myself obsessively texting to stay in touch with my cohorts about great shows (and to find ways to escape the bad ones). Cryptic messages such as &… Read more

The singing tesla coils

AUSTIN, Texas--If you happened to be in Brush Square Park Saturday evening for the South by Southwest edition of Dorkbot, the gatherings of artists and engineers in various cities that work with electronic art, I sure hope you saw the singing tesla coils.

I did, and it was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. First of all, I love tesla coils--disruptive discharge transformer coils that shoot out bolts of electricity--to begin with. But this took the concept to a whole new level: Two small, side-by-side versions of the electricity-spewing devices that were working in … Read more

Sex alive and well in video games

AUSTIN, Texas--There's one thing that was clear after the "Secret Sex Lives of Video Games" panel at South by Southwest here Tuesday, and that's that there has never been a better time to be designing sexually oriented games.

To be sure, there has been sex in video games almost since there have been video games, but to hear the panelists--a collection of bloggers, journalists, magazine editors and game designers--talk about it, there's more interest and fewer roadblocks today to such games than ever before.

In one sense, that's surprising, since the political firestorm surrounding … Read more