Collaborator(s): John Karahalis, Mark Newell, Matthew Bernius, Patricia Albanese (Pitkin), Robert J Whitney

Goal: To create a virtually instantaneous, cross media newspaper platform to document the Imagine RIT festival, and facilitate the creation of new models for news publishing, and event coverage.

Website: opl.cias.rit.edu/inews

On May 3rd 2008, the Rochester Institute of Technology hosted its first ever Festival of Innovation, Imagine RIT. The OPL documented this event by publishing content as it happens, across various media. Utilizing new concepts and technologies, Innovation News was simultaneously published in print, a constantly updating website, and within a virtual realm as part of a partnership between the OPL and RIT's Collaboritorium.

Photographers and writers worked as "backpack journalists," in the field, reporting in on the days events. The content was pushed to the web via computers, wifi camera's, iphones or other smart phones, on a constantly updating basis with the help of Drupal, a free and open source modular framework and content management system. This content was available via the web, or smart phone.

Drawing from the same content, a team of editors and publishers automatically re-flowed the content to produce and distribute print editions, in runs of 2500, throughout the day. RIT's PAL and HUB have generously agreed to do the printing free of charge. As all this was going on, the content was also published via RSS to the Collaboritorium's Immersive Virtual Reality project being showcased at the festival, where attendees interacted with the content via the virtual environment generated by the group, utilizing Google Map and GPS.

Collaborators:
Collaboritorium
Department of Communication
Printing Applications Laboratory
RIT Print and Postal HUB
School of Photographic Arts and Sciences
School of Print Media
SPM Digital Publishing Center

Technologies Utilized:
Drupal
Xinet
Dalim
Nikon's Wifi Transmitters
Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card
Adobe InDesign
Javascript and XML
RSS
GPS

Distribution sketches by Shawna Haberer: