Producer, musician, rapper and Intel’s Director of Creative Innovation will.i.am is the centrepiece of the Ultrabook Project that launched at CES earlier this month. The project sees will.i.am taking an Ultrabook (in this phase it looks like the Toshiba Z830) to 12 city locations over the course of the year. At those location he’ll be taking part in charity activities, producing a track for the Ultrabook Project and starring in a video about each event. Part 1, Tokyo Japan, is now live.
The Ultrabook Project website includes images, videos and music (go quick because there’s a limit on the number of track downloads) but the complete Tokyo video is also available on YouTube, and embedded below. There’s also an accompanying application, willpower360, on the Intel AppUp store which you can install from the AppUp website.
I’m personally a big, big fan of computers and music so this project has already got me excited. Ever since I saw Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode) playing keyboards live at the Ipswich Gaumont Theater I’ve been listening to and messing about with the tools of electronica on PCs. I’m looking forward to learning more about the tools he’s using, whether he’s tried different Ultrabooks, how he thinks they could be better and of course, listenting to the productions.
I know #willpower isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that it won’t gel with your idea of an Ultrabook but for many this project is going to really help build the Ultrabook brand, make it desirable and link it with creation, art, music and fasion. Dare we say that the Ultrabook is getting cool?
Next up – Mexico City, and will.i.am will be live! We’ll bring you details as soon as we have them. In the meantime we’ll work on Intel to see if they’ll let us ask him some questions in Europe when he comes here!
