Crowdsourcing start-up aims to change the world

Crowdsourcing start-up aims to change the world
Want to change the world but only have 99 cents? Armchair Revolutionary is here to help.Set to launch into beta on Tuesday, Armchair Revolutionary is a Web-based social activism platform designed to harness large-scale crowdsourcing and the boom in social gaming in a bid to support a wide variety of science and technology ventures that could benefit the world at large.Started by the founders of The Hollywood Hill, said to be the largest social change membership organization in the entertainment-industry, Armchair Revolutionary is meant to bring people's interest in helping support worthwhile causes and the iTunes-era simplicity of spending 99 cents on something intriguing together with innovators who need funding to get potentially world-changing projects off the ground.Built around a series of eight social activism tasks--gifting, VoIP phone calling, e-mailing, uploading, downloading, voting, forms, and quizzes--Armchair Revolutionary is seen by its creators as a one-stop shop for today's Web savvy and altruistic communities to make a big difference, one small step at a time.The value proposition? That today's existing Web-based social activism efforts suffer from a combination of being boring; of wasting too much money on transaction fees and asking for too much to get mass participation; of not rewarding that participation and much more. By contrast, by building a substantial competitive game element into Armchair Revolutionary, limiting gifts to 99 cents and providing plenty of participatory opportunities and rewards, the platform's founders believe they have found a way to support the "super geeks" who are developing the science and the technology that could help humanity dig out from some of our biggest problems."Every generation or so, new groups of people come around who find a way to make a difference," said Lawrence Bender, the producer of films like "Pulp Fiction" and "Inglourious Basterds" and an Armchair Revolutionary adviser. "And a couple generations ago, it was Lew Wasserman here in Hollywood, and Arianna Huffington is one of the leaders of that now, and it goes on. So this is an example of a group of young people coming together, using Hollywood and Silicon Valley as a launching point to engage people, and I think it's exciting. That can only be good."A substantial gapThese days, it has become widely recognized that the people who are doing the work that could best solve the biggest problems in problem areas like health care, the environment, education, water, hunger and the like are scientists and engineers. And while that increasing awareness has brought those innovators together with wealthy benefactors, particularly in environments like the TED conferences, there remains a substantial gap between many of the people researching ways to impact our biggest problems and the funding that can help them manifest their visions.In general, said Ariel Hauter, one of the three co-founders of Armchair Revolutionary, independent researchers are often unable to make their world-changing ideas a reality because of weaknesses in the systems for financing, commercializing, and deploying and marketing such work.Yet, in order for these types of projects to attack enough problems to make a difference, Hauter continued, it's necessary to find the financial support to get behind many dozens of projects a year. "One or two is not enough to change the world," Hauter said. Hauter, a former agent-trainee with United Talent Agency, and his partner at The Hollywood Hill, Ori Neidich, who works for DreamWorks Animation, were inspired by the ability of organizations like MoveOn.org to raise substantial amounts of money in very short periods of time over the Internet, as well as by the exponential growth of social networks like Facebook. And two years ago, the partners, along with fellow co-founder and former Wall Street CPA Paris Hauter, set about to build Armchair Revolutionary as a way of crowdsourcing microdonations and supporting the super geeks with the best ideas but not enough money.Besides Bender, the project's other advisers include Scott Burns, a producer on "An Inconvenient Truth" and the screenwriter of the movie "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "The Informant;" Robin Hunicke, the producer of Electronic Arts' MySims and the Steven Spielberg project Boom Blox; and Susan Bonds, the president of 42 Entertainment, long one of the best-known makers of alternate-reality games.On the one hand, it's hard to imagine what good a bunch of 99-cent gifts can do. But at that price, Hauter suggested, large numbers of people could decide that it's worth opening up their pocketbooks. And if Armchair Revolutionary is right and millions of people join up, it could be easy to raise the kind of money that will help get a significant number of the projects the organization wants to fund off the ground.To begin with, however, it will focus on three projects. First, a video game called "Make Waves" that is designed to provide users with real-life social activism tools while they manage part of the ocean in a virtual environment modeled on the real-world. Second, "Hack Your Body," a three-part effort designed around the "fast approaching genomics revolution" that includes the Personal Genome Project; the development of commercial software that will allow users to analyze their own DNA; and a full-length commercial documentary film about genomics. And finally, "End of Darkness," a publicly financed company that aims to build clean energy infrastructure for the poor.It's a gameOne way Hauter hopes to achieve that goal is by designing Armchair Revolutionary around a social game system and tantalizing members with a never-ending series of tasks and a point system that could keep them constantly in search of the rewards that come with greater participation. To begin with, members will find a basic dashboard that presents them with their level, how many points they have, their overall community ranking, and a series of available tasks. At launch, Armchair Revolutionary is pursuing three projects, and each of the tasks members can attempt to complete are related to those major efforts. So, for "Hack Your Body," participants can send a customized e-mail about their feelings on whether people should or should not be required to share their DNA sequences. Or, they can take a quiz related to the making of the documentary. And, ultimately, they can make a gift to the team making the film.The Armchair Revolutionary dashboard, which shows off some of the game elements of the system, including what level a user is at, how many points they have and what tasks they can work on.At the earliest levels, the tasks are fairly simple and can be completed easily and quickly. But the goal is to get people playing enough and scoring enough points that they graduate to new levels and bigger and more interesting tasks. As they gain points, they'll also be able to purchase artwork with which to customize their Armchair Revolutionary user pages. And this system is at the core of what makes the larger project possible, Hauter said. Essentially, all transactions on the site are conducted in a virtual currency called Kredz. Users can buy Kredz for 33 cents each--or can buy them with a number of other major currencies--and make their gifts or their artwork purchases entirely with the virtual currency.That's important, Hauter explained, because Armchair Revolutionary was built around the notion that enough people will want to participate at a high level--not just gifting money to innovators but also buying the virtual goods for their own use--to pay the organization's costs and keep it self-sustaining.Investments in innovationAt its heart, Armchair Revolutionary is actually a sort of "public trust fund," Hauter said. That's because while individual participants are gifting their 99 cents to help support the variety of innovations it is promoting--none of the profits or equity investments are held by individuals, as Armchair Revolutionary is wholly owned by the nonprofit Social Change Innovators--the company itself is taking that money and investing it in those start-ups. "We are saying [to the public], you give us 99 cents for social good," Hauter said, "and if an investment project [succeeds], we have the potential to turn that 99 cents into $5 or $10 or $100 down the road and re-invest."So while participants won't personally see any material gains from their 99-cent gifts, they can have the potential benefit of watching the projects they choose to support blossom and the resources that flow back to Armchair Revolutionary be used to tackle the next important project.For its part, Armchair Revolutionary is technically a for-profit company, but Hauter said that it will be run entirely as a "not-for-profit." That means it is a "very unique hybrid legal structure" that will allow the company to invest in science and technology projects that, if successful, will be spun off into their own for-profit ventures. And, he continued, the legal structure Armchair Revolutionary's lawyers concocted allows the company to act as essentially a nonprofit but at the same time to take stakes in the ventures in which it invests. Still, since the money for those investments will be coming from the public, Hauter said the company intends to be entirely transparent and will regularly post as much information as possible about what amounts to the company's stock portfolio.High tolerance of riskWhile capping gifts at 99 cents was meant to incentivize the maximum number of users, Hauter said there was another reason for limiting the amount to less than a dollar: engendering a high tolerance for risk.That's crucial, he said, in an environment where a substantial number of the investments the company makes will fail. For while people may not miss their 99 cents, they will also not feel bad if the investment goes sour. The same would likely not be true at higher levels. "It allows us to get behind projects that are too experimental for traditional foundations," Hauter said. "We can go in where they're too chicken to, because they want to back things that are proven. We can be the incubator for ideas that are too experimental for the traditional nonprofit world and the traditional science world."And that means, of course, that if even 30 percent of the investments pan out, Armchair Revolutionary can exult in its success.E-mails and callsWhile investments are an essential piece of the Armchair Revolutionary puzzle, there are several other ways members can help out. One is using the built-in system to compose and send e-mails to influential executives regarding important innovations. So, Hauter said, members could be tasked with sending, for example, an e-mail touting "some new biodegradable plastic" to the head of plastics at GE. The system would hide the recipient's real email address, maintaining their privacy. The same is true of the system's phone calls element, which allows members to talk to someone in a position of influence by connecting the two people via a conference call.And users will also be able to upload things like images of potholes that need to be fixed--and later raise money to do the repairs--and download things like mobile apps. Similarly, there will be a regular series of quizzes, surveys and votes on issues.Ultimately, Armchair Revolutionary is aimed at engaging a large number of users by presenting them with manageable tasks, with a game that will keep them competitive and with the chance to make a difference with a low threshold of time and money invested. The goal--which is admittedly ambitious--is to get 10 million users and have a minimum of 5 percent participating on any given day. That, Hauter said, would likely provide the resources to keep about 250 projects going over the course of a year, many of which require a minimum of $500,000 to get off the ground."We are the first Web site to connect the public directly with the world's innovators and give them opportunities to support their projects," Hauter said. "And that's a very compelling proposition because the future of the world hangs in the balance. And these are the super geeks that are going to solve the problems."

Robobrain vs. humanity- Discuss

Robobrain vs. humanity: Discuss
On Friday, the Reporters' Roundtable podcast tackles a simple question: what is unique about the human mind? As I write this, IBM's Watson project is doing a respectable job on the game show "Jeopardy." With one game out of three played, the machine is tied against human champion Brad Rutter. Does that mean Watson is as smart as Rutter? Watch this episode of Reporters' Roundtable live on Friday at noon Pacific time, on CNET Live, at live.cnet.com.At "Jeopardy," maybe. Or maybe Watson is just a cleverly programmed, pattern-matching supercomputer with an unfair data storage architectureadvantage. Certainly, Watson would never be able to hold its own at a dinner table conversation with humans.Or would it? Even back in 2008, a computer nearly convinced a panel of judges that it was more human than the flesh-and-blood people it was competing against in the annual Turing Test shootout called the Loebner Prize. And that was just a battle of wits: human versus machine, each chatting in turns over a terminal connection with human judges.Are we really so shallow that we can be imitated by machines? What is really different about the software or the hardware in our heads? On Friday's Reporters' Roundtable, we're going to tackle these and related questions with two great guests who have both written extensively about these issues.Brian Christian managed to convince a panel of judges that he was not a bot, at the 2009 Loebner Prize competition.Stephen Baker is author of "Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything." Baker reported on the development of Watson from inside IBM headquarters to write this book. Previously, he spent 10 years as BusinessWeek's senior technology writer. See his blog, Final Jeopardy.Brian Christian is author of"The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive" and also of the recent Atlantic cover story Mind vs. Machine, which is a great primer for this topic.Don't miss this show. It's going to get deep.Got discussion points you'd like us to tackle? Put them in the comments below or e-mail your thoughts to roundtable@cnet.com. Then be sure to tune in to the live show on CNET Live on Friday at noon PT. To create an e-mail reminder for yourself for 11:55 a.m. Friday, click here (courtesy Nudgemail; for more info, read our review). If you can't watch live, the show will be on iTunes and in the Reporters' Roundtable blog shortly afterward.

The 404 888- Where you have a weak electrochemical bond (podcast)

The 404 888: Where you have a weak electrochemical bond (podcast)
You can stop holding your breath for someone to port Android onto the HP TouchPad--it turns out someone already has, in secret! This Reddit thread has pictures and video evidence of an HP TouchPad purchased at Best Buy on Saturday that boots up with Android already on it.And if that doesn't work out, Hack N Mod is offering a $1,500 bounty to anyone who can successfully achieve the five different tasks involved in rooting and booting Android.In other news, did you know that the "Fifth Element" movie was based on only the first half of director Luc Besson's original 400-page script? Reddit strikes again and tells us that the second story, called "Mr. Shadow," wasn't made, but we can't help but dream about its story...Also, PETA is launching a porn Web site that pulls the old bait 'n' switch by drawing in Netizens with dreams of dirty movies, then exposing them to gruesome movies exposing the mistreatment of animals. Those two things go together, right?The 404 Digest for Episode 888DragCloseThis content is rated TV-MA, and is for viewers 18 years or older. Are you of age?YesNoSorry, you are not old enough to view this content.A guy who gets a TouchPad at Best Buy discovers Android already on it.Modders offer a bounty for an HP TouchPad Android port.PETA plans to launch a porn site.Today I learned that "The Fifth Element" was based on only the first half of Luc Besson's original screenplay.Episode 888PodcastYour browser does not support the audio element. Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video  Follow us on Twitter!The 404Jeff BakalarJustin YuWilson TangAdd us on Facebook!The 404 Fan PageThe 404 GroupJustin YuJeff BakalarWilson Tang

Pioneer's in-car AVIC F-Series unveiled

Pioneer's in-car AVIC F-Series unveiled
Pioneer's AVIC Z-Series has set the standard for in-dash navigation devices over the past couple of years, and so the release of a new line of a new family of products in the AVIC series is big news for car tech fans.The line-up starts with the entry-level AVIC-F700BT, which features a single CD/CD-R/RW playback mechanism, followed by the AVIC-F900BT and the AVIC-F90BT, which are both capable of reading MP3, WMA, iTunes AAC, and WAV audio formats as well as DVD, DivX, and MPEG4 video files.AVIC F900BTPioneerAVIC-F700BTPioneerUnveiled this week, all of the F-Series include flash-memory-based navigation and the capability to deliver real-time traffic, weather, and gasoline prices via a connection to MSN Direct.Each of the three new in-dash units features a 5.8-inch high-resolution WVGA touch-panel display; a USB interface for quick connection to iPod music players, portable media players, and USB memory devices; and an SD-card slot for loading additional Points of Interest information or compressed audio and video files. The devices also feature an advanced speech-recognition interface for hands-free calling and media playback selection.Developed by VoiceBox, the voice-recognition system is able to understand conversational directions for making phone calls and selecting audio playback options.Pioneer claims that the interface can even discern a voice command that is complicated by pauses or hesitation, such as a command like: "I want to, ah, play artist, um, Black Eyed Peas." If it works as advertised, the technology will go one better than Ford's Sync system, which holds the current crown for voice-command usability.Look out for the AVIC-F700BT, the AVIC-F900BT, and the Premier AVIC-F90BT to hit the shelves in June with price tags of $850, $1,100, and $1,200 respectively.

Obama cites Steve Jobs' wealth, product success

Obama cites Steve Jobs' wealth, product success
Which segued into the comments about Apple."And something that's always been the greatest strength of America is a thriving, booming middle class, where everybody has got a shot at the American dream. And that should be our goal. That should be what we're focused on. How are we creating opportunity for everybody? So that we celebrate wealth. We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products. We expect that person to be rich, and that's a good thing. We want that incentive. That's part of the free market," he said.Obama also cited his confab with some of America's top CEOs on December 16, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Intel CEO Paul Otellini. "All of us have to be in a conversation with the private sector about what's going to ensure that we can export and sell our products instead of just buying exports from someplace else. How do we make sure that the green technologies of the future are made here in America?And how do we get all these profits that companies have been making since the economy recovered into productive investment and hiring? That's a conversation that I had with the 20 CEOs who came here, and that's a conversation I expect to continue in the months ahead," he said.

NYT demands Pulse app be pulled from App Store

NYT demands Pulse app be pulled from App Store
An iPad app called Pulse, a visual RSS reader for news headlines, shot to the top of the app world only to hit the bottom in less than 24 hours.On Monday, the iPad app created by a pair of Stanford grad students got special mention by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote speech. By Tuesday, the app had disappeared from the App Store. Why? Apparently one of the news content providers in the app objected.On Tuesday afternoon, New York Times reporter Brad Stone wrote that the Times Company, which owns several newspapers, objected to the Pulse app's use of Nytimes.com and Boston.com's free RSS feeds. The Times Company's legal team alerted Apple, which removed the app from its store.The objection is that the Times Company's RSS fees are free, but that Pulse is framing and repurposing the content and charging $3.99 for it on the App Store. Still, apparently the Times Company is open to making a deal with Pulse's creators, as it does with other paid RSS readers."We want to be clear that we are willing to work with Pulse, but only under our terms of use," said Robert Christie, a spokesman for the Times Company, to the Times.The situation grew more confusing when the app suddenly reappeared in the App Store, but Christie believes it was a mistake and is looking into it.

Yahoo iOS 7 app aims to be 'cleaner, faster' -- and easier, too

Yahoo iOS 7 app aims to be 'cleaner, faster' -- and easier, too
Yahoo on Wednesday unveiled a redesigned iOS app that makes it easier to access content, just in time for Apple's iOS 7 launch.For US users, Yahoo has introduced the ability to save content for later, Fernando Delgado, Yahoo senior director of product management, mobile, and emerging products, said in a blog post. Users simply tap a button and come back later to "My Saves." That feature will make its way to the desktop version of Yahoo in the coming days so users can save something on their computers and read it later on their phones. Yahoo also added a breaking-news category that allows users to follow a story as it develops. The news updates will appear on the app in a feed with time stamps to let people easily scan the latest information. Along with the new features, Yahoo tweaked the design to make it "cleaner, faster, and more engaging," Delgado said. That includes a redesign of the stream to make it more readable, as well as the ability to switch categories faster than before. Each article will include a photo relevant to the story, and some will have "cinemagraphs -- very subtly animated photos that bring the story to life," Delgado added. The Yahoo app redesign comes as the company turns itself around under the leadership of CEO Marissa Mayer. During her time at the helm, Mayer has made several bold moves, such as buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion. She also has led a redesign of Yahoo's home page, Yahoo News, and its Flickr photo-sharing site.It's vital for Yahoo to adapt to the changing world to compete with rivals such as Google and remain relevant for users.Apple plans to roll out iOS 7, the latest version of its mobile operating system, later Wednesday.

XP still top OS, but Windows 7 hot on its trail

XP still top OS, but Windows 7 hot on its trail
Windows XP is still the dominant OS worldwide after more than 10 years, but Windows 7 continues to narrow the gap.XP ended last year with a 46 percent slice of the OS market, according to December data from NetApplications. Although impressive after a decade, that number proved a hefty drop in use for XP, which kicked off 2011 with a 55 percent share and has fallen each month since then.On the upswing, Windows 7 rang out the year with almost 37 percent of the market, a solid gain from 22 percent last January and further proof of its ongoing monthly growth.In third place was Windows Vista, which dropped to 8 percent from more than 11 percent at the start of 2011.Related storiesWindows XP market share dips below 50 percentWindows XP usage dips but it's still top OSMicrosoft tells companies on XP not to wait for Windows 8Microsoft has been on a tear lately trying to convince companies and consumers alike to make the leap to Windows 7.The company has stressed that support for Windows XP will end in April 2014, making sure to give IT departments enough time to migrate their users to the latest version of Windows.Microsoft has even gone so far as to advise enterprises still on XP not to wait for Windows 8 and instead plan the switch to Windows 7 now.Meanwhile, over in the land of Apple, Mac OS X grabbed almost 6 percent of the operating system market last month. OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was the leading flavor with a 3 percent share, though it has gradually fallen in usage. Ending the year with a 2 percent share, OS X 10.7 Lion has risen in popularity since its release last summer.And still carving out a niche among its faithful users, Linux accounted for almost 1.5 percent of the OS market in December.

WWDC 2011- There's an app for that

WWDC 2011: There's an app for that
Ahead of next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple has published a full schedule of the show, along with a special iOS application for those who are attending.The application (iTunes), which works on both iPhones and iPads has a full conference schedule, which users can bookmark to create their own itineraries. It also has maps of San Francisco's Moscone West (where the conference is being held) so that attendees can find their way around. Additionally the app has a reservation tool that can get attendees a slot at one of the various developer labs, just like they'd book an open slot at the Genius Bar withthe company's retail store app.More interesting features include a photo viewer with official images from the show, and a news reader that reads like Apple's Mail application.Having a special app for a conference is not unusual these days, in fact Apple did the very same thing last year. And like last year, this one is also limited to registered attendees. Apple ran out of tickets for this year's show in less than 12 hours. By comparison, it took last year's show eight days.WWDC kicks off on Monday with a keynote address from Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The company has said it's showing off iOS 5, along with detailing more of Lion, the next version of the Mac OS. Apple will also take the wraps off iCloud, what it's only described so far as a "cloud services offering." (via Macworld)Apple's WWDC app.Apple

WSJ- Verizon iPhone in the works

WSJ: Verizon iPhone in the works
In addition to a new iPhone model that works on AT&T's network, Apple is also reportedly prepping an iPhone that is compatible with Verizon's network.The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources in a story Monday who say one of Apple's contract manufacturers--the companies that build the hardware according to Apple's specifications--is working on an iPhone that runs on a CDMA network. That's the cellular network that Verizon uses in the U.S. The sources said the CDMA-compatible iPhones will go into mass production in September, though when Apple would sell it wasn't mentioned. Apple has traditionally released new iPhone hardware in late June or early July.There have long been rumors that a Verizon iPhone was in the works, but Apple's exclusive contract with AT&T in the U.S. has appeared to be a roadblock. However, it's never been clear how long AT&T was granted exclusivity. Apple has added additional carriers in other countries but as recently as January has not sounded overwhelmingly positive about the possibility of doing so in the U.S.The Journal story says that while Apple's traditional partner for building iPhones has been Taiwan's Hon Hai, a different manufacturer, Pegatron, has been assigned to build the Verizon-compatible model. Pegatron is also based in Taiwan and is a subsidiary of Asustek. Hon Hai is said to be working on the next-generation iPhone that will operate on AT&T in the U.S. and on GSM networks in other countries.

WSJ- Papermaster left Apple over 'cultural incompatibility'

WSJ: Papermaster left Apple over 'cultural incompatibility'
Mark Papermaster is no longer employed as Apple's mobile hardware engineering chief. But is it because he failed to foresee the issues related to the iPhone 4's antenna? Or because he just didn't fit in at Apple? Perhaps both.When the news hit Saturday that Papermaster was no longer with the companyand his duties assumed by Mac hardware engineering chief Bob Mansfield, it was fairly easy to connect the dots: the guy in charge of the iPhone's design was ousted over the embarrassing antenna episode, and also perhaps the lengthy delays in shipping the white version of the iPhone 4. Both areas would fall within Papermaster's purview.But Papermaster only officially started working at Apple in April 2009 (after a legal battle with former employer IBM), and Apple has said it spent two years testing the unique design placing the phone's antenna in the metal strip on the phone's exterior.Turns out, it might be more than that. The Wall Street Journal cited several sources in a new report that Papermaster is no longer at Apple because of "broader cultural incompatibility."Apparently the former IBM employee didn't adapt well to the internal company dynamics at Apple, nor to the man who sets the tone there, CEO Steve Jobs.Papermaster "had lost the confidence" of Jobs several months ago and "didn't have the type of creative thinking expected at Apple," according to the report.But the timing is just too coincidental. Perhaps combined with Papermaster's falling out with Jobs, the iPhone 4 antenna problem was the last straw.

What Do Michael Bay's Friends and Coworkers Actually Think About Him

Everyone has something to say about Michael Bay. Even if you don;t watch his movies, you probably have an opinion of him, and that;s not something you can say about many directors in Hollywood. But what do Michael Bay;s actual peers think about him? GQ gathered together dozens of quotes from friends, family and fellow filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Will Smith, George Lucas, James Cameron and Shia LaBeouf to pool together a highly amusing portrait of the bombastic director. We have in turn pulled out some of our favorites below and separated them into categories: Praise for Bayhem Gabrielle Union:You know when people talk about the very first time they did drugs? Being in a Michael Bay movie was like my drug. It;s like I;m chasing the dragon—I;ve been chasing that experience ever since. Will Smith:My first impression of Michael was that he was like... you know how at the go-kart races, there;s always one kid who;s got real wheels on his go-kart and everybody else got the plastic baby wheels? That one kid who always had it elevated? That was Michael. I think he had just done the Meat Loaf video—this guy had aplane crashin amusic video. I was like,Damn. Robert Consing (Visual consultant on Pearl Harbor):One day, I was on the way to meeting with Michael on a battleship at Ford Island. Complete Bayhem. I passed a squadron of Zeros chasing two P-40 fighter planes40 feet above the deck, guns blazing, followed by the camera ship. Then watched fireballs exploding on a nearby frigate as burning stuntmen leaped into the water. Then saw another Zero come around and buzz our battleship as Cuba Gooding Jr. fired back with a .50 caliber15 feet over my head. It wasn;t even 10 a.m. Steven Spielberg:I couldn;t think of a better director to turn a truck into a robot and make us believe it was really happening. Backhanded Compliments George Lucas:Michael;s films are immediately identifiable. Jeanine Basinger(Bay;s film professor, Wesleyan University):I always tell my husband, My tombstone is going to say, ;She taught Michael Bay.; Shia LaBeouf:Mike is a vulnerable guy. He;s the guy who laughs at a joke, then asks you why it;s funny. ShiaLaBeouf:He;s not at all this alpha male, this machismo legend s**t—he;s not any of these things. You know what he is? New York. If you can make it on a Bay set, you can make it on any set. Yep, That Makes Total Sense Brad Fuller (producing partner):The first time I saw Michael on a bigger set, he was doing a video, and there was the hottest blonde girl I;ve ever seen in my life, and she;s got a wind machine on her. She;s dancing, she looks hot, she;s wearing a short skirt. He;s shooting her from a low angle. And he looked at a few of us, and there was this look in his eyes, like he had reached nirvana. It was childlike wonderment. Roger Barton (editor):My wife tries to limit my outings with him. Michael Bay:Some nights I sleep like a baby. Other nights it;s,Oh God, I just came up with a bomb shot. Scarlett Johansson:I ran into him leaving a party once and asked him if I could be the Easy-Bake Oven Transformer. He looked at me in all seriousness and said, There isn;t one. And then there;s this hilarious exchange, regarding a particularly nasty moment between Bay and LaBeouf on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon set. Michael Bay:She sent me a text three months ago. She said I hope you;re doing well. I responded, Who is this? She goes, Megan, you dork! I said, Oh, well, thank you, hope you;re well. When you;re days and months on a set, it;s like a family. You say rude things and you make up. Like, we were shooting a scene in front of the space shuttle and Shia called me a c**ksucker. Shia LaBeouf:Sometimes to make [a scene] real for me, I need to mindf**k myself. And part of that is having a speaker on set with an iPod plugged in so I can conjure emotions. And some of the songs that I like to play, Mike;s not going to have it. Michael Bay:So Shia;s gonna do his emotional scene. He gets out of his car and says, Michael, you;re gonna start with me first. And I said, No, we;re gonna start this way. This is a space shuttle! The United States of America! The last one to be launched! Shia LaBeouf:So I;m playing my song and he finally says to me, No, we;re not going to play that song. And he puts on some orchestralBatmansoundtrack s**t. Not for me, you know? Michael Bay:Then he called me a c**ksucker. But I knew that he had just broken up with his girlfriend. So I didn;t go after him. I just said, That;s rude. Don;t call me that. Head over to GQ for more hilarious quotes about Michael Bay. Also, did you know Bay directed the original Got Milk? commercial?