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New startup SceneTap aims to give singles looking to mingles a heads up on a bar's make up before they even leave the house. By putting a camera above the entrance to participating venues, the company can give you a percentage breakdown of the number of men vs. the number of women in the bar at any given moment.
Now, it's really easy to get your privacy fluster on, but this is basically harmless. Cameras outside tell the software weather a patron is male or female and then tallies the numbers. No pictures are stored of those going in or out. Judging the by the small (and getting smaller) list of bars that are integrating this technology, their effort may sizzle, so stop freaking out.
But, folks, remember this moment as a portent of the future, which is now. Sure, we don't have flying cars and talking robot maids, but we have Minority Report style gesture computing (XBOX Kinect), computers we can (sort of) talk to like Siri, and now the possibility of a dating service that finds EXACTLY what you're looking for.
Imagine the future application of this technology. Specifically, these types of cameras integrated with a dating website. Cameras inside venues could you tell you virtually anything about the patrons inside. It could tell you general disposition by comparing how often you're smiling vs. how often you're not. It could determine how funny you are by analyzing how often the people you're with are laughing. It could determine if you have piercings, perhaps even small details like smoking habits by analyzing the particles in the air. It could use the same theoretical method to tell if you're a pet owner or not.
But most importantly, it could do this all objectively. Unlike current dating profiles where people present themselves, more often than not, as whom they would like to be, not who they really are. They may think they're funny, or tall, or in good shape, but none of that may be true. In this scenario, there's no lying to the camera. It can tell exactly how tall or how athletic or how good looking you are without ever even asking you.
Say you're looking for a tall, funny, cute, no piercings, non-religious, non-smoker with cats type partner. If such a person wandered into one of these bars, you would get a notification that EXACTLY such a person is around the corner and they're likely, based on their current alcohol intake, to be there for another 45 minutes. Here's a picture of them and a list of their favorite drinks (based on their purchase history) and a band they like (based on a t-shirt they once wore).
Is that creepy? Sure. Does it make life easier for finding a significant other in San Francisco? Absolutely. As someone who met his fiancé on OKC, I can't tell you how easy it was to find a meaningful relationship. More and more idle interactions, like waiting in line at the bank or renting a movie, that could lead to a chance encounter all take place on the Internet, so it only makes sense that dating would follow.
I, for one, realize the future is here but still want my flying car.
Amid the sea of useless iPhone apps and silly time wasting mobile games, sometimes there is a shining star just waiting to be plucked from obscurity and downloaded right onto your pretty, unsmashed iPhone. This app isn't shaping up to be one of them.
Dolo supposedly helps you find your friends in Dolores Park. Awesome! We need another "where is everyone having a bitchin' time without you" app in the mix. Also, finding people in the park is hard.
First, you have to sign on through Facebook, which makes sense since it needs to populate itself with your friends list, but still annoying because it's Facebook and I'm a hater (who uses Facebook all the time regardless). Also, the tagline for the app is really unfortunate: "Finding Friends, And Being Scene, At Dolores Park"?
Putting aside the horrific grammar and awful landing page pun, this app could have potential. Could this finally be the app that geo-locates your friends in Dolores so that you no longer have to stand in the middle of Hipster Hill waving like an idiot trying to find your already tipsy friends? Is this the day when you can beeline it straight to your crew, avoiding dudes masturbating under blankets and gnargle-infested drum circles?
No, not today. Once you're logged into the site, you only see which of your friends have checked into the park via Facebook. I hate to break it to you, young app developers, but this app already exists, and it's called foursquare.
(Also, it would totally help any app trying to pinpoint your homies in Dolores Park if anyone actually got cell phone reception there on a Saturday afternoon. Amiright AT&T?!)
Photo via Mark Pritchard
Previously on Uptown Almanac
Dear Kixeye,
I am writing you regarding your the advertisements that you have elected to put on the side of every BART and Muni car in the Bay Area. You know the one--the one with the wolf? And its mouth is open? And it's shouting "WORK AT KIXEYE / BE AWESOMER." You know the ones.
Yes! Those.
First of all, congratulations. Congratulations on pioneering the exciting new frontier of memevertising. In this frantic and confusing age of holographic dead people and glasses that teach us to play ukelele, it's hard to break through to your average mama-grizzlybear consumer. BUT YOU DID IT! You said, "let's take jokes from the internet and use them to get people to come work at our startup!" A week and a half later, your very well-conceived ads were gracing every Muni bus, light rail train, and BART train in the city, extending an invitation to tens of thousands of commuters to seek employment at your startup.
But there are a few problems with your campaign, Kixeye. You see, when you exercise esoteric facets of internet culture to promote your recruitment campaign, you separate your potential applicants into two kinds groups of people:
- Those who understand the reference.
- Those who don't understand the reference.
The latter contingency are people who are just confused about why a wolf is shouting at them to work at your company and are nonplussed by your ploy to be "awesomer." This ad is not for them. Clearly.
The former category, the small group of people that will have any idea what this joke is alluding to, will understand that you have very aggressively misappropriated this peculiar segment of internet humor. What you wanted to use was the "Courage Wolf" meme, where you do something that results in being successful by being courageous. But, Kixeye, the joke you made was created using the "Insanity Wolf" meme, where the joke is that you do something excessively insane or irrational (to quote, "Insanity wolf tells his viewers to rape, kill, and commit other acts of insanity"). What you basically ran is an ad telling people that they would have to be insane to work at Kixeye. I'm guessing that it's just a happy coincidence that anyone would have to be totally insane to want to work at a ding-dong startup that simultaneously boasts an obscure reference to something on every bus and light-rail in the city, but somehow misses the joke that nobody got in the first place. Maybe one would have to be insane to work at a company with whatever knuckleheads thought that it was acceptable to pollute the city with this ad.
Anyway, good luck in the coming business quarter!
Sincerely,
Sam Bartos
Previously on Uptown Almanac
I'm up in Portland right now for Stumptown Comics Fest and was too busy getting ready for it to illustrate a Missed Connection for you heathens, so here's a SF Bay Comic that I've been holding onto for a time like this. It's based on a poem that a buddy of mine, Chris Kalman, wrote while he was staying on a friend's roof in the Mission. He didn't have a pen or notebook on him at the time and so this is a poem about having to write a poem by texting it to yourself on a cell phone.
Previously on Uptown Almanac
When Mark Zuckerberg started turning up at Mission bars such as El Rio, The Royal Cuckoo, and pseudo-dive bar Dolores Park, we kinda dismissed it because everyone goes to those places. Then he acquired Instagram, making us scratch our heads just a bit.
But last night, the 35th richest guy in the world was spotted slamming drinks at the notably cheap and filthy dive Phone Booth and making a 2:30am Farolito burrito run. Which begs the question: was Mark just trying out his billion dollar toy in its native habitat, or is he attempting to rebrand himself as just a regular ol' Mission hipster?
See, he actually drove 45 minutes north from his fancy Palo Alto HQ to hang out at a bar known for its questionable indoor smoking policy and access to shitty last-call coke dealers. That's not to say we don't like The Phone Booth, because we do. But to claim the place is a "destination bar" for people coming from out of town is a bit of a stretch.
Unless he was trying to score some blow...
[Photos by PX Anon & Meesha | Thanks for the tips, Jason and Lindsey!]
Previously on Uptown Almanac
This is only a sampling of all the Pac-Man characters and icons currently painted and glued to the Valencia Art Wall. To see the rest, you'll have to head over and see it for yourself.
(Also, apologies for the desecrated image of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in the second picture. I'm sure that sonuvabitch would shoot himself if he knew some punk compared him to Nixon.)
Previously on Uptown Almanac
If you nerds haven't already heard, Google's big April Fool's joke was to make their maps all 8-bit NES like. And they totally pranked me; I woke up this morning terrified I entered into some sort of Hot Tub Time Machine situation after attending a questionable hot tub party at Jello Biafra's condo.
Turns out everything is cool--good on you Google (and bad on you, Jello Biafra--everyone agreed the "you"-themed Jell-O shots were in bad taste!). Even Google's directions still work:
So if you need me, my bros and I will be at my house trading Pogs.
Previously on Uptown Almanac
Who wasn't in the park this weekend? Even the billionaire boy-king of the internet turned up this weekend, presumably to reconnect with the masses and spend his fortunes on a lifetime supply of truffles and SpongeBob popsicles. And while this registers as a "meh" on the celebrity-sighting scale, he is pretty much the most famous person to ever squander a beautiful afternoon in the best 14 acres of grass this city has to offer.
UPDATE: Proof, via SFist:
[Twitter]
The final taboo of Mission drinking has been broken:
It remains to be seen whether this a classic case of "do as I say, not as I do" or, in fact, proof that Zeitgeist is finally abandoning their ironic "no photos" policy so the bartenders can tweet out pics of their tats. No matter, this whole "social media" push, coupled with their removal of the disgustingly endearing portapotties last summer, leaves me worried that the Zeitgeist I once knew is hanging up the sleeveless jean jacket and getting a desk job.
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