So far we’ve looked at UpNext, Centrl, and NYSenate.gov in the June recap of NY Tech Meetup. In part 2 we’ll be looking at LiveStream, MakerBot, Mahalo, Aviary, and the Personal Democracy Forum.

LiveStream

Once they hit the stage it was apparent LiveStream was a different kind of animal when it comes to live video and online broadcasting. There are a few notable players providing realtime streaming video services such as USTREAM.tv and Qik (mobile-only), but these services are comparatively pretty bare-bones: shoot a video, post a video, done. A bit utilitarian, but they do the job. Where LiveStream shines is in the robust editing capabilities and flexibility available to content creators and editors.

The first thing I noticed about a LiveStream feed was the impressively low latency. As they began broadcasting the presentation, they were simultaneously displaying the live feed on a second screen, stage left. The lag was perhaps a few seconds, at most. The feed was being delivered via their desktop client dubbed, Procaster. So what’s Procaster?

Procaster is a Windows app (Mac version coming soon) which provides a set of tools that allow you to combine a live stream simultaneously with a screencast of your desktop. The controls consist of a thumb view of your broadcast, a playback clock displaying connection speed and frame rate, 2D & 3D PiP options, and zoom controls for zooming into a specific area of a page. Procaster is an intuitive app and the camera-to-screen swapping is seamless.

On the LiveStream site broadcasters have access to a pretty robust editing suite called the “Studio”. There are a range of options for creating storyboards, managing your video assets, integrating twitter feeds, creating custom effects like lower thirds and corner bugs, cueing videos for a broadcast, and more.

There were a fewy quirky things about the Studio which took me a minute to figure out. First off, it’s all in Flash, and if you navigate around the tabs and options and click your browser’s back button you’ll be thrown out to your main account profile. That’s a bit jarring, and there are methods to support browser Back/Forward buttons functionality in Flash applications. I think it’d be time well-invested for them to support this.

Another thing that’s a bit strange are the UI controls. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for challenging the status quo on UI conventions, but some of the form controls just don’t feel right. Take the “Channel Page Layout” option in the Channel Configuration tab. It’s essentially a radio control with the options of “Big Screen” and “Normal”. But instead of a standard radio button they use this weird slider control that implies you can select varying levels of “Big Screen” or “Normal”. These aren’t huge issues, mind you. This is about as good as live streaming gets right now, and I’m merely pointing out areas that might benefit from a little usability testing.

LiveStream offers free and pro versions of the service. The pro version gives you the ability to broadcast in widescreen HD, bypass ads or create your own, white label the product, access analytics on your broadcasts, and create private channels.

MakerBot

What is a MakerBot? As the name would imply, it’s a friggin robot that makes stuff! That’s right, this demo consisted of showcasing a CNC device that uses a method known as “automated plastic extrusion” to fabricate objects out of ABS and HDPE plastics.

Unlike the other “rapid prototyping” solutions out there, MakerBot Industries has taken a totally different approach to this niche market. Rather then selling a customer the service of printing their 3D models (e.g. Shapeways.com), MakerBot Inudstries is selling the actual device to print the models. When you consider that the most affordable 3D printers easily skyrocket into the price range of tens of thousands of dollars, MakerBot is a steal at $750. Not to mention, it’s a tinkerer’s wet dream. Based on open source software and built with easily-upgradeable and replacable components, MakerBot is “built to be hacked” – and it looks the part.

Watching this demo made me feel like a kid again. As they booted up the device, it went through a series of chirps, whirs, and beeps that would make Robert Moog green with envy. The guys at LiveStream assisted in the demo by streaming this funny little machine to the secondary screen on stage. Unfortunately, the demo hit a bit of a snag when a stray widget fell into the MakerBot’s inner workings and brought the demo to a premature conclusion.

Regardless of technical hiccups, this was an inspiring demo. MakerBot represents more than just the novelty of creating a widget or figurine. MakerBot Industries is empowering anyone with some imagination and creativity to do what has only been in the realm of commercial manufacturers for decades. If you can think it, MakerBot can build it – or at least a scale replica of it. Currently this is called rapid prototyping, but it doesn’t take too much effort to drift off in daydreams of Star Trek’s replicator. When you’re witnessing a machine that can simultaneously produce a replacement widget for your lawnmower AND frost a cupcake, you know you’re seeing something special.

I haven’t actually been able to test a MakerBot because, unfortunately, my robot fund is running a little low in these hard economic times. Oh well, it’s sold out anyways. Hopefully the warehouse at MakerBot Industries is outfitted with enough MakerBots to fulfill the demand for more MakerBots.

You can check out some of the creations people have already made at MakerBot’s sister site, Thingiverse.com.

Mahalo

In its second incarnation, Mahalo defines itself as a “human-powered search engine built collaboratively by a team of editors and a community of dedicated users.” The idea is that, rather than relying on software algorithms to dredge up the information you’re looking for (ala Google or Bing), users have access to the collective knowledge of crowdsourcing to find the answers they’re looking for.

The whole system is based on incentivizing the Mahalo community to deliver reliable information in return for cold, hard cash. Content managers accrue what’s called “Mahalo Dollars”. A Mahalo Dollar is worth $.75. It seems the dollar is weak even in Mahalo land.

There are a series of parameters for providing information and rating information provided by others. The higher your rating, the more content you’re able to manage and contribute to and, theoretically, the more money you make. For a complete breakdown of the content management and payment structure of the system, click here.

When conducting a search users are prompted to complete a few brief questions on what the content of their search pertained to. This helps the system “learn” about the content being searched for. Mahalo’s approach to delivering search results is to go deep rather than wide. Instead of competing against the Googles and Bings of the world in sheer volume of search results, Mahalo’s strategy is to offer more quality content up front on a given subject. The idea is that a human being has the ability to connect more of the abstract concepts and points of interest on a subject than a search algorithm is capable of.

In my brief tests with Mahalo, I found the results to be pretty decent. Most searches deliver a nice blend of direct links, images, videos, social network content (Twitter & blog results), and related pages. The problem I had with the whole experience is the presentation of the result set. It feels like one long, continuous text ad; in other words, something I’d ordinarily ignore. Not to mention they intersperse the result set with actual banner ads – by Google nonetheless. Having been diagnosed as legally ad-blind about five years back, I find the pseudo-text-ad feel of Mahalo search results challenging to view.

There’s a certain search engine’y feel that’s missing from Mahalo results. Although this may seem trivial, and one might argue that Google’s UI is incredibly basic and unadorned, it’s not a small issue. The quality of the content may be fantastic, but if the UI feels even a little askew, then the people that made “google” an official entry in Webster’s Dictionary aren’t going to be “Mahaloing” with nearly the same fervor anytime soon.

Mahalo’s method for delivering search results is much more organic to be sure, but will the humans beat the machines in the race for supreme search glory? Whatever the outcome, it’ll be interesting to watch it all unfold.

Aviary

Aviary is a name I’m sure many are already familiar with. Awesome stuff… I won’t go into too much detail since I’ve got a video, albeit grainy, covering the presentation.

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