SXSW, the largest new media conference in the country, gets underway this week in Austin, Texas, and Pittsburgh’s Deeplocal will be there in a big way.
The annual conference is a week packed with speakers, screenings, panels, performances and parties that pull attendees in many directions. In navigating the terrain, Mashable has selected 38 not-to-miss panels including one with Deeplocal’s Patrick Miller, senior creative engineer.
Miller will be one of several speakers addressing advances in wearable technology and questioning its impact on human life in “Glassholes: The Cultural Dissonance of Technology.” Are new developments like Google Glass positive for people or will it result in an epidemic of narcissists and voyeurs?
Miller was a force behind the Deeplocal’s Facebook “Like” Belt, a geeky utility belt that joined wearers at the hip with Facebook and registered likes online through a pelvic thrust.
DeepLocal CEO Nathan Martin is on the agenda for a SXSW meetup. He’ll be sharing the story of his teen days when he played with an underground punk band in suburban Pittsburgh in a session titled “90s Suburbia: A Revival of Letters, Tapes & Zines.”
The innovation studio in the Strip District continues to grow in size, having recently opened offices in San Francisco and Boston and adding several key staff members, several of whom have relocated from the New York City area. The company stands at 20 and will continue hiring, says Heather Estes.
“We’re a team of people who get bored really easily. We like to make things that haven’t been done before and move on,” says Heather Estes referring to the sheer volume of novel gadgets and robotic product ideas the company dreams up like Chalkbot, the robot that painted messages on the route of the Tour de France for Nike’s Livestrong campaign. “What we do is varied day to day.”