June 30 2009
Concepts
Billie Jean + YouTube + Twitter
A tribute (no doubt the first of many) to Michael Jackson, pulling tweets and syncing them to “Billie Jean” lyrics.
June 28 2009
Technology
Technology for Education Sector a Waste of Time
This great story in the Australian talks how "the rollout of communication infrastructure in the education revolution will be wasted if teachers do not know how to use it." There isn't much insight there but it does pose an issue which we certainly have found in our work at Portable. Most teachers are not resourced enough to be able to pick up and retain new technologies in an education setting. What do you think?
June 28 2009
Technology
Augmented Reality Shopping
Checking on the posts this week, augmented reality seems to be a strong theme. In the online retail space, Jeremy Weinstein pointed me in the direction of this application by Zugara.
June 28 2009
Technology
Rapid Share Forced to Actively Filter Content
The Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany, has ruled that file-hosting service Rapidshare must proactively filter certain content. Music industry outfit GEMA asked the court to ban Rapidshare from making 5,000 tracks from its catalogue available on the Internet. The court estimated the value of the tracks at $34 million.
That's $34 Million US, which makes it $42 million Australian dollars. Sounds painful, but the court hasn't actually fined Rapid Share - they have only estimated the value of the content they have been ordered to actively filter. GEMA (Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte - where did they pull this neat acronym from?) is a lobby group that represents 60,000 artists worldwide, protecting their copyrights.
The ruling follows Pirate Bay's closely watched court battles, but has a fair bit less bite. Rapid Share looks like it will be able to continue doing business, with no actual fine as yet. The biggest problem with the ruling is that the specified tracks can be renamed, disguised and posted again, making filtering and policing the content a laborious (and futile) process.
June 28 2009
Technology
Useful Examples of Augmented Reality
Lately I've been seeing some pretty good examples of webcam-based Augmented Reality (AR), but most of the time they serve as little more than an entertaining gimmick rather than anything really useful.
However, I recently came across this concept piece for a clever use of AR for Ikea. It builds on the premise that furniture, like fashion, should allow the customer to "try on" before they buy. And with nothing but a webcam, Ikea customers are able to see how every item of the Ikea catalog would look in their own home, to scale, and in any position.
The next example of useful AR comes from the US Postal Service. While it may be a little over the top given the level of physical interaction involved to make AR happen on your screen, they have used the technology to create a Virtual Box Simulator, enabling customers to gauge what size package or box they need.
Both these uses of AR are great examples of how brands can use the technology to engage with their customers in useful ways and enhance their experience. And now that the new iPhone 3GS has a built-in compass (which combined with its pre-existing GPS capabilities means the phone knows exactly where it is and what it's looking at), the door is opened to much more interesting live AR applications. What next?
June 28 2009
Technology
Amazing views from the International Space Station
Boston.com has posted 35 amazing images released by N.A.S.A taken from the ISS.
"Closer still to Sarychev Peak Volcano, pyroclastic flows can be seen tumbling down its slope (lighter clouds, bottom). Also visible is a closer view of the condensation cloud or "pileus", formed by the rapidly rising plume. (NASA/JSC)"
"Roads and circular fields in the desert in Egypt. (NASA/JSC)"
"The limb of the Earth, seen from the ISS when it was high above Arkansas on May 21,2009."
June 28 2009
Technology
Conroy wants to block any RC content on the net... might include WOW
Just when you thought it was safe to use the internet once again, everyone's favorite internet Villain is back with another plan of world domination screwing over our internet. This time it includes blocking any website that is classified as RC.
Let's start with the basics. Australia is the only developed country that doesn't have a R18+ classified rating for Video Games. This means that if there is any material deemed inappropriate for Australian audiences the game can't go on sale until the content is removed. Currently this means that gamers have imported the games online to work around this hurdle. (Keep in mind that the average age of the gamer is 30 years old in Australia).
Now introduce Conroy and his much criticized Internet Filter. At first the filter was going to be used to just block any content harmful to children (such as porn, extreme violence etc)... now Control's minions have released a statement detailing the new plans for the filter
"computer games such as web-based flash games and downloadable games, if a complaint is received and the content is determined by ACMA to be Refused Classification" - The Age.
So this means websites such as Amazon that sells any games that are rated RC - could be blocked by the filter - stopping anyone from importing these games.
Another interesting twist is - Australian's Classification Board doesn't have any procedures to classify online games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft. So in theory these could be blocked by the move.
Websites are also classified as well. So it might be wise to note that any website that is RC could be blocked as well.
One question we would like to ask is - why is Conroy trying to make everyone hate him?
June 28 2009
Technology
ShapeWriter
ShapeWriter Free is an amazing new iPhone application based on research that began in the late 1990’s at IBM. Its Almaden Research Center published the first rigorous mathematical optimization result of touch keyboard based on the Metropolis “random walk” algorithm — the same algorithm used by scientists to understand molecule structures.
Shape writing, based upon nearly 10 years of research and development, is an easy, fast, and fun way to write on a computer or mobile device. Instead of “hunting and pecking” letters, single gestures on a touch keyboard produce an entire word. For example: a stroke that roughly connects “w” to “o” to “r” and ends on “d” is recognized by ShapeWriter’s intelligent algorithms as the word ‘word’.
June 25 2009
Concepts
Mapping Time Based on Genealogy and National History
A performance art + information art. Graphic musician Huang Haohao created this amazing, yet beautiful piece of art through performance, and data representation with hand written time mapping and color coded circle based on Chinese Modern History. The whole process took place in 14 days. This is kind a artwork excites me!
Check out the video below and the flickr album of the project:
This art work reminds me one of my favourite work from Xu Bing in 1987, called the book from the sky. Check it out from his site
Images courtesy the both artists
June 21 2009
Technology
Pinax: a platform for rapidly developing websites
Pinax is an open-source platform built on the Django Web Framework that dramatically reduces the time it takes to develop Web sites. By providing a wealth of social and collaborative features out of the box, Pinax rapidly increases the speed at which your websites can be developed and launched. This talk will provide an overview of Pinax and how you can use it as the foundation for your sites.
Video of Talk on Pinax at PyCon 2009
