Slithering into the Chinese New Year 2013

Beijing, China -- This year started off in a traditional way with a technology twist.

I learned that by respecting the traditions of China, and hiving efforts to be a part of them can open doors. The 360Fashion Network team and I made a really cool Chinese New Year card with augmented reality. It made a big impression on our clients and partners.

For the festivities I was invited into the home of one of our local partner, Miss Yan, and made a western salad for dinner, and watched them cook Chinese veggies for me.

At midnight, the blitzkreig started with fireworks that I'm sure you can see from Saturn. We started making dumplings that we ate together after midnight. I asked what was the meaning of making them together. Miss Yan told me that it is so we will know that we will never be alone. We make them together and eat them together so we know that no matter what happens we have a family to back you up.

You can tell which dumplings I made because they look more like ravioli than little bonbon packages.

At the table we all took turns giving speeches and toasting to each other. Many of the people toasted to me saying they greatly admired that I was a woman alone, in a foreign country, where I did not speak the language, and doing business successfully. They said they would never do that, pick up and leave their homeland alone. The key word being "alone". Funny, how what seems strange and slightly uncomfortable to me, is being "together". Its a concept that I can't get my head around but that my dear friend Joanna Weidenmiller has spent a great deal of time teaching me to better interact with humans than computers. Mostly, I have found, if you want to make your dream come true exactly as you see it in your head, you have to go it alone. You rarely find some people who want yo do the same thing, especially if it involves risk. At the same time my yogi says that there is not one single thing we can do on this planet that is not without the help of another. Go on, try it, I dare you. I am sure that someone along the way had to be involved to make it possible. So this illusion that we are alone is so great its a mass hallucination.

So making dumplings is a good way to give thanks to all the parts of the puzzle that come together to make us eat.

Happy Chinese New Year 2013.

Chinese New Year 2013

Beijing, China -- So no one thought that we could survive the Mayan calendar end, but who anticipated surviving the Chinese AIR...

You really have to keep an eye on things. I started to question why I am in China and how much damage I'm doing to myself and is it worth it? I look at my friends in NYC and I think of those 4th Avenue Days & 14th, fresh juice bars every block, yoga every 5 minutes. I dont have to stop to think about my friends in Los Angeles, how they wake up every day with the SUN and just stepping outside their door is pure heaven of nature within 1 hour in every direction, rock climbing in Yosemite. I understand why people choose to work in a grocery store instead of a skyscraper, and instead scrape by because they can then dedicate their weekends to camping, hiking, rock climbing. So what am I doing this for? For getting rich? For protecting myself in my old age? I have seen some people who did that then get sick and they had nothing to fall back on except their friends and asking them for money because they could not pay for that operation etc. That somehow doesnt seem right. I dont want to be like that.

At the same time, I wonder what I'm doing here in China. Joanna got out with her husband Ryan and went to Silicon Valley. I thought they would be here forever--especially since he has a big fund here that he has to run. How can he do it from overseas? And Joanna jetting back and forth across the ocean also must wear on her body. I cant figure out what is worse--pollution or planes? How does it all balance out? And how do the carbon miles add into the equasion? I guess when she and her husband go for a walk along the water and dip their toes in, the salt wipes it all away. I see the lovely photos on facebook of all the nature they enjoy. I cant remember the last time I saw pure nature.

Maybe, I should want for less. Opa Art always says "Less is more."

My friend Thomas Reemer, his wife, and I went out to Ying Ying's birthday party and afterwards I showed them the private club. We had a great time talking and Thomas said there was a book that was pretty short that summed it up that most likely the Earth will be hit by a commet so you'd better enjoy it all now. We talked about his two children and the type of life they are being born into--what is that going to be like in 2030 when they are older (they are 12 and 15 now but looking more like 15 and 17!). Thomas says that the world will be full of people and that we had better come up with synthetic food to subdue the masses. That there will be a war of food soon. Funny, there was exactly that being developed and won the technology award in France was the synthetic protein being developed from mushrooms and insects to feed animals instead of feeding the animals what we feed them: their own bodies. Makes me glad to not eat meat that thought. Mushrooms are a great solution though. I wonder if it can be one day for humans. The whole conversation with Thomas reminded me of the movie Daybreakers--and how the movie showed me what would happen if the world ever got into food problems. I recommend it, one of my favorite movies.

Ok, back to work...it's 0:22 and I have to meet the Chinese government tomorrow to give them a demo of our AR app and MobileMags. They are going to sell it to their clients--that's why I'm here, because who else is in position now to create such massive change to move the fashion industry away from paper? 360Fashion Network MobileMags awesome do-it-yourself flyer app solution and 360AR.

Lets see what the future holds...

3D AR

I've been working with our 360AR app and I've been doing a lot of 3D AR but I seem to be having some trouble seeing the trigger image...so ignore this post as I cant upload photos to the forum.

I see no trigger image:

I cant get the image to LAY DOWN...is that rotate around x axis, y axis, or z axis...none seem to work:

Here I cannot get it to fit the trigger image correctly. It either jumps too big or too small:

Very difficult to controll in the 3D viewer of Aurasma studio.