The inaugural edition of Geek Girl Con was the place to let your geek flag fly this early October weekend, a distinctively different kind of convocation, not a “Burning Man” in the dessert, but a sizzling hotplate of topics orbiting around geekdom and womanhood under the Space Needle of the Pacific Northwest rainforest.
The two-day confab sold out quickly, yet the event was still human-sized enough to allow attendees to mingle, shmingle and truly engage. Highlights for one attendee included “seeing Felicia Day in the wild’ on the show floor, the Wil Wheaton panel, the concerts, the cosplay, and altogether shorter lines.” From the The Women of Star Wars to the sold-out Whedonesque Burlesque, the event drove home the rallying cry “you don’t put geek girls in a corner.”
You can keep up with Geek Girl Con updates by following the #geekgirlcon hashtag on Twitter. We look forward to next year’s edition of GCC. You should too! [24×7]
Seattle Interactive Conference Gets Ready to Rock the Region
The first Seattle Interactive Conference (SIC) will feature more than 50 visionary speakers in areas ranging from online commerce and social media to gaming, interactive advertising, entertainment, and more.
One of the more tuneful highlights will be “Transforming the Digital Music Frontier,” a lunchtime keynote featuring Sir Mix-a-Lot, Death Cab for Cutie bassist Nick Harmer, KEXP’s Aaron Starkey and Tim Bierman, manager of Pearl Jam’s immensely popular online fan club.
On the social music front, “Battle of the Geek Bands” and the SIC Opening Party on Tuesday evening, November 1 featuring a special concert by The Presidents of the United States of America: Sponsored by FILTER and set for 8:00 pm (doors at 7:00), in Seattle’s Showbox SoDo, Battle of the Geek Bands was developed to showcase the many great musicians who happen to work throughout the vibrant online technology sector.
Five qualifying bands will get to perform on-stage at The Showbox SoDo that evening. The performances will be judged by a celebrity panel of music industry luminaries and geek VIPs including the iconic Sir Mix-a-Lot, along with Jason Finn and Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America. The evening’s emcee will be John Roderick, lead singer/guitarist for the Long Winters and an entertainment media veteran. Winners get an SIC trophy, bragging rights and a cash prize. For more information on how bands can enter: http://bit.ly/pBkKHv .
Following the contest, The Presidents of the United States of America will perform a special set for all SIC attendees. There’s more than music to fill your ears and inspire your momentum at SIC. A Windows Azure (Microsoft) track will provide SIC attendees with two days of technical sessions for those who want to learn how to leverage the cloud for mobile, social and Web application scenarios. Gnomedex is coming out of retirement for a day on November 2, to join the SIC experience and further engender this community’s spirit. On November 3rd, SIC is co-producing TechStars Demo Day, which targets the investment community and which will unveil ten exciting new companies from the TechStars class of 2011.
More than a standard exhibit hall, SIC://City is being designed as a showplace of truly unique spaces, not standard booths, but “blank canvases” companies can transform into a space all their own for use throughout the conference’s duration. Pick up your tix with a Seattle24x7 special discount code at this SIC Discount URL. [24×7]
No Hype Swype Sale Is Nuanced
Nuance, a name best known for their voice recognition software, like Dragon Naturally Speaking and OmniPage OCR software, has bought Swype, the Seattle born text input tool that works by sliding one’s finger between characters, for $102.5 million dollars. Nuance is powering the new Siri Assistant in Apple’s upcoming iPhone 4S with its voice recognition technology. So does that mean that Swype could be coming to the iPhone as well?
“I’d love to be able to see that,” says Swype CEO Mike McSherry, adding, “There are certainly lots of requests to see Swype on the iPhone.” Maybe Nuance can help with the negotiations. As of now, Swype is on 19 million phones overall, including 9 of the top 11 phone manufacturers. It is especially big on Android. Bringing it to the iPhone would be a very popular move all around. TechCrunch has posted a Swype vs.iPhone video. [24×7]
