Who wants to win it?

What takes iSweep Panoramic photos? What has 10.2 Mega pixels, a 25 mm wide-angle lens, 3.5″ Xtra Fine LCD and Full HD movie capabilities? The Sony Cyber-Shot – that’s what!

Where can you get it you ask? Well, you could get it here.

Orrr…you could win one from ME! I am lucky enough to have a friend, Sukhjit, who works for Sony and was instrumental in letting me provide this give-a-way for you.

Those of you who know me, know I love to take pictures and love cameras, and this is hard for me to part with to be honest. I *so* want to open the box…but I won’t. Because, this camera is going to a very special person. Someone who will love it and cherish it and use it! Is it going to be you?

Taylor Swift herself appears in the new Sony commercials promoting the Sony Cyber-Shot! Here it is below if you haven’t seen them yet!

First a little behind the scenes!

Now for the commercial!

I just love Taylor Swift, and so does my daughter, Alexandra. Neither of us are traditional fans of country music, but her songs and sincerity really speaks to our hearts.

I’ve thought long and hard and well, you’re going to have to impress me with your comments…this baby retails at $399.00! So, what I would love to hear is:

1. What is your favorite Taylor Swift song?
2. Why do you like it?

Optionally you may karaoke the song! I may give extra points! (Doesn’t matter if you’re good or bad, as long as you’re sincere!) To post a karaoke song you will need to post the video on another site (youtube, vimeo, viddler, stickcam, etc) and then post the link to the video in the comment section.

The contest will run for one week, from Monday, July 5, 2010 through Sunday, July 11, 2010. It will end at midnight, Pacific standard time on Sunday, July 11, 2010. Winner will be chosen at my discretion based on their comment. The prize will be mailed or delivered to the winner within two weeks.

This should be fun!

UPDATE: A winner has been chosen! It was truly a hard choice for me as some of the comments were quite heartfelt, but…drumroll please! Congratulations to Brianna Layfield! I felt Brianna went above and beyond, being the only person to actually step up to the karaoke challenge! Also, Brianna not only sang, she also played the song acoustically! Congratulations again Brianna! Love your pink guitar!

June 23, 2010 – It’s iPhone 4 Eve, and all around the country, or maybe world, people are lining up and preparing to camp out to be the first or at least the front of the line when the Apple store doors open at 7 A.M. on Thursday, June 24, 2010.

What’s all this fuss about? Why are people willing to go without sleep and brave the weather to stand in line all night, hoping to be one of the chosen to receive one of the first iPhone 4′s? Well Apple itself says, “The future is in the details.” These details include special glass, the highest-resolution phone screen ever, a stainless steel band created with Apples *own* alloy, A powerful power-efficient A4 processor that lets you perform multiple tasks while maximizing battery life, A gyroscope plus accelerometer for advanced motion sensing to dramatically improve gaming capabilities, two microphones to minimize excess background noise, and all are contained in a 9.3 millimeters thin case, making it the world’s thinnest smartphone!

Now I left out the feature *I’m* most excited about – the camera! The new camera gives you 5-megapixel photos, and now we even have an LED light for flash or video illumination! Is that exciting or what??? There is even a camera screen on the front of the phone for those self-portraits, so that you can actually see if you’re in frame and get it right the first time! They even mention it can be used for FaceTime calls and I’m not really sure what that is, but it sounds like a video chat!

I visited the Emoryville, CA Apple Store tonight to see a Genius about my current iPhone. He was able to help me immediately and I was in and out of the store in about 15 minutes. I asked my Genius about the iPhone 4 and they said they were preparing for it and were going to open the doors at 7 A.M. He said that they were not going to be offering any Genius help in the store tomorrow due to the iPhone 4 frenzy, but gave me info how to schedule an additional appointment if I needed one. He mentioned that Bay Street is a private street and that people were not going to be allowed to line up or camp out overnight in front of the store, that the security guards wouldn’t allow it. This did not seem to deter the five souls standing in line as I left. One man told me that if they made them leave, that he would return at 3 A.M., he said he was staying at a hotel nearby and that it wouldn’t be a problem for him.

Am I going to stand in line? Well, no. Even though I’m excited for the new iPhone 4 and want one badly, I have a AT&T contract that is expiring in October, so I may as well wait for that and give them a couple of months to work the bugs out!

I truly *love* my current iPhone. It is almost like a friend to me. I seriously had no concept of how much I would love it until I had it. I’m constantly checking my Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, texts, SMS messages, playing games when I’m bored, checking voicemails, calling friends…with just a touch! The smartphone capabilities make it just like carrying around a mini computer! It’s all that and a bag of chips! And, I can’t wait to see all the fun I’m going to have with the new iPhone 4! (Especially the CAMERA!!!)

So what about you? Are you going to wait in line?

For more iPhone 4 details, please read Apple’s iPhone 4 page here.

Hi, I’m Laura Iriarte the Julie McCoy of the Bay Area Social Media and Art Scene! Following are events and happenings for the coming week and beyond!

Meet me here:

So, so far for this week:

Saturday, November 14, 2009 — Three Art Openings Saturday!
Yumiko Kayukawa, ESPO, and Erik Foss all under one roof!!!

ESPO at White Walls:

Steve Powers (aka ESPO) isolates moments, images and phrases of daily life to create an emotional revelation within the viewer. This exhibit brings attention to matters of love, life and all the complicated situations in between. Notorious for his dark humor combined with eloquence ESPO’s paintings create a dynamic synthesis of words and images.

Yumiko Kayukawa at The Shooting Gallery:

As a recent transplant to the US, Wild Wild East reveals Kayukawa’s mixed feelings about “surviving” in two very different societies. This exhibition expresses a new perspective by melding both traditional Japanese cultures with her enthusiasm for American pop culture.

Erik Foss at Gallery Three:

This overflowing, compulsive accumulation of works mirrors the chaotic conditions in which they have been made. Unseen on TV symbolizes the irony of our culture’s founding beliefs and ideologies, revealing America uncensored.

Time: 7:00pm – 11:00pm
Location: White Walls, The Shooting Gallery and Gallery Three
Street: 835 Larkin St
City/Town: San Francisco, CA

For more info see: 3 Artists!

Also the Blog: Shooting Gallery News
and
Also the Blog: White Walls News

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 — Viewpointr Preview Release Meetup

Event details:
We’re new in town and we wanna meet the neighbors. I suppose we could tag along to a bunch of startup/tech meetups, instead, I figured since a lot of you guys know each other already, you may as well come to an event we host for you, kind of like a house-warming party, that the new neighbors throw.

What to expect:
Free drinks, cool people, music, good conversation.
We’re geek folk so naturally we’re throwing a geeky event.
The dress code is geek-chic + no laptop no entry.

Startup ID and other proof of geek credentials required for entry.

About the hosts:
We like to meet new people. Community is a big part of who we are and what we do. We’re here to work amongst people we admire and respect. We have a fab little company of which you’ll come to learn more about, but more importantly we wanna shake a few hands and share stories with outgoing people who naturally like checking out the “latest thing to hit the bay area”. In this instance, us @Viewpointr
Feel free to pass this along to your friends.
We look forward to seeing you there!

RSVP here: Viewpointr

Thursday, November 19, 2009 — Tech The Halls: The Technologizer Holiday Bash 2009

7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Marie and Harry are throwing a holiday bash and I’ll definitely be there in my red velvet dress! And…bonus points! It’s at Varnish Art Gallery! If nothing else, you can definitely meet me here this week!

It’s time to celebrate the holidays and check out the latest in consumer tech gear before we head into the new year and head off to CES. Technologizer invites you to its Tech The Halls Holiday Bash. Join us for good company, delightful conversation, and great food and drink at Varnish Art Gallery, a cool venue conveniently located in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood.

Technologizer founder/editor Harry McCracken, Domingo Communications principal Marie Domingo, and our sponsors look forward to meeting you to talk personal technology, Web services, social media, and more.

Plan to Tweet the event? Please do! Our hashtag is: #TechTheHalls

RSVP here: Tech The Halls

Friday, November 20, 2009 — Real-Time CrunchUp SF

I’m not planning to go to this event, but I wanted to share!

9:00 AM – 7:30 PM (PT)

TechCrunch says:
One of the benefits of covering new technology and startups on a daily basis is that you can see trends as they begin to swell and repeat themselves. One shift we’ve been keeping a very close eye on is the rise of realtime streams, and how they are fundamentally altering the way we communicate and interact with one another.

We are not the only ones who think this is a big deal. Back in July, TechCrunch editors Erick Schonfeld and Steve Gillmor organized a Realtime Stream CrunchUp. It was the first major realtime conference (there are a bunch of them now), and the response was overwhelming. It attracted 650 people and ended up as a launchpad for about 20 new realtime products, from Seesmic’s Web client to Pubsubhubbub (PuSH) to Brizzly (read more here).

A lot has happened since then: Facebook bought FriendFeed, Twitter raised $100 million, Google Wave launched in private beta. So Steve and I thought it would be a good time for another Realtime CrunchUp. The next one will be an all-day-event on November 20 in San Francisco.

Hope you can join us.

To register: Saturday ONLY, 2-for-1! Real-Time CrunchUp SF

After Saturday, register at: Real-Time Crunchup SF

TechCrunch proper: here

November 27-December 20, 2009 – The Great Dickens Christmas Fair

I attend the Dickens Fair everyyy year with my kids! It’s a holiday tradition of ours now…and I can’t wait to go again! It’s like the Renaissance Fair, but set in the time of Charles Dickens. The Cow Palace is turned into Merry Old England and every effort is made to make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.

Get a peek at the fair costumes and setting as Amanda Palmer & Vermilion Lies wander through the Dickens Fair singing, set to “What’s the Use of Won’drin’?” (featuring Annie Clark of St. Vincent) in their video: watch!

The fair is held on weekends only!

FOUR WEEKENDS
including the FRIDAY
after Thanksgiving!
Fri. Nov. 27 thru
Sun. Dec. 20, 2009
11am-7pm
In the Cow Palace
Exhibition Halls

For more information see their website: The Great Dickens Christmas Fair

And, follow them on Twitter: @DickensFair

They even have a Facebook page: The Great Dickens Christmas Fair

Now thru December 10, 2009 — The Art of Zen: Landscapes Inspired by Japan
Essential photographic and painted landscapes

Location: Elastic Creative
Street: 550 Bryant Street
City/Town: San Francisco, CA

Dear Friends and Art Aficionados,

You are invited to the art exhibition: “The Art of Zen: Landscapes Inspired by Japan”.

Victoria Vedell and I are having a two person show for three months at Elastic Creative in SOMA. We both lived in Tokyo, and simultaneously were Artists-in-Residence at KAIR, in Tokushima, Japan in 2004.

In June, I returned to Tokushima with my camera to walk from temple to temple and photograph the Shikoku Pilgrimage, which is the oldest and longest pilgrimage in Japan. It is over 1,000 years old and a 1,000 miles long. The photographs I will be exhibiting were shot on the pilgrimage deep in the heart of the Japanese countryside. Victoria will be showing her lush landscape paintings inspired by her time in Japan.

Viewing by appointment, Monday – Friday 9am- 6pm. Please contact Andre: andre@elasticcreative.com.

More info here: The Art of Zen

Now through March 28, 2010 — Tutankhamun at the De Young Museum!

Don’t miss this!

de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94118
415.750.3600
www.deyoungmuseum.org
Exhibition Hours

Through September 30, 2009:
Monday through Sunday, 9 am to 9 pm (closed for maintenance August 3 and 31)
Oct 1, 2009 through March 28, 2010:
Tuesday through Sunday, 9 am to 6:30 pm; until 8:45 pm on Fridays.

for more info: http://www.tutsanfrancisco.org/

December 19, 2009-April 18, 2010 — The Legion of Honor Museum presents: Cartier and America

Cartier came to fame as the “King of Jewelers” during the Belle Époque for his beautifully made diamond and platinum jewelry created for the courts of Europe and Americans of the Gilded Age. With an extensive variety of jewelry forms—ranging from traditional white diamond suites to the highly colored exotic creations of the 1920s and 1930s—Cartier made its mark with the ingenuity of its designs and its exquisite craftsmanship. Cartier and America celebrates the imagination and creativity of Cartier in the 20th century. The jewelry and works of art include pieces from the private collection of Cartier.

for more info: Cartier and America