Monday, October 30, 2006

Freesound

Pretty useful library of sounds. No songs. Freesound

Friday, October 27, 2006

Ghost and vampires aren't real!

Not particularly digital, although it is displayed on a web page: "Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month -- turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire -- after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 million humans on Jan. 1, 1600 and shows that the human population would be down to zero by July 1602."

MTV Sticky


MTV Sticky
Originally uploaded by hobart65.


MTV go beyond listening, and start hoovering for youth trends. Worth registering to look at the intersting free form interface and nice blog design.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Unyte

Signalling two things....

1. The Skype plugin
2. The end of the dreaded livemeeting? Maybe? Please something lighter?

Unyte

Skype offer

This Skype offer is pretty decent. I'm a big Skype user. Bro in NY, parents and sis in Eire with various others dotted about the globe. Its simply the easiest and cheapest way to call them.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Taking thumbnails of Websites

Interesting little website / tool to snap a website and give the output in a couple of sizes... http://webthumb.bluga.net/

Friday, October 20, 2006

Strange landscapes in China...

Someone browsing Google Earth recently found what appeared to be a huge scale model of a strange landscape in the Hunagyangtan province of China. It turns out it was a military installation, and the landscape is a model of a disputed area on the Chinese/Indian border. Check this Google Earth Community post to download the placemark, as well as the full story (and other intersting finds). there's also a Google Earth Blog post.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Great video of Wii gameplay / interaction

This demo really helped me understand just how revolutionary the Wii controller is going to be.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Font hit parade - September

1. Neue Helvetica™
2. Helvetica
3. Satisfaction
4. Univers
5. Linotype Zapfino™
6. P22 Cezanne™
7. Frutiger™
8. Trade Gothic™
9. Witchfinder
10.Boycott™

Witchfinder? It's obviously due to the Da Vinci Code

Thursday, October 12, 2006

How Rich Are You?

A neat and effective interactive tool for raising awareness about poverty.

(Created by Poke)

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Martin Sorrell on Google, China and the internet

Interview with Martin by E-consultancy.com

"It’s important we have the ability and the facilities to [to figure out what works]. It’s no different to Murdoch investing in Myspace or Jamba, or ITV doing Friends Reunited. We have to position ourselves and understand what’s going on."

stunningnikon.com


stunningnikon.com
Originally uploaded by hobart65.
At last, someone does a great flickr based campaign idea. Like all great ideas, it seems horribly obvious when you see it. Perfectly executed, nice to see they can get the url right on the posters.

We gave them the new Nikon D80, what they gave back was stunning.

They shoot for photo sites like Flickr. They shoot for family photo albums. They shoot because they're passionate about taking pictures. What did they capture with the new Nikon D80? See more of the jaw-dropping highlights at stunningnikon.com/dsir" www.stunningnikon.com

Monday, October 09, 2006

Flash website flowchart

"The process of making the decision about flash web sites for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes is actually quite difficult, so I took the time to create a flow chart on whether or not you should create an all flash web site." http://www.thegooglecache.com/?p=46

Cedega - Narrowing the gaming gap

Mac and Linux gamers might want to check this out - Cedega

Friday, October 06, 2006

HDR - Building Site



Here is my first attempt at HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. HDR works by taking several exposures of the same scene, from over-exposed to under-exposed, and then using software to combine the exposures to bring out as much detail as possible in every part of the image.

High Dynamic Range refers to the range of light in the image. You can see in this Low Dynamic Range image (one of the three exposures used to create the HDR image above) that to get good definition in the foreground, the exposure has quite a lot of light, meaning the sky is way too bright. However, the trees are still too dark, as the camera is incapable of capturing a wide range of lighting in one image, as the dynamic range is too low. With the HDR image, (although far from perfect) you get good definition in all parts of the image, from the dark trees, to the lighter sky.

You can see lots more HDR in the Flickr HDR and True Tone HDR groups.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Line Rider Helicopter Escape

This is google video of someone playing 'Line Rider'
This is destined to be one of those simple but brilliant flash games that everyone will know in a few days - interesting that viral effect is now driven by 'replay' videos on Google and Youtube.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

How do consumers find web sites in 2006?

According to a new report from Forrester, it's via search and powerful yesteryear media sources. This intuitively rings true, most people seem to start with Google, but also treated the BBC and newspaper sites as key touch points. e.g. FT / Guardian etc. The way of looking at it helps to explain the radical differences in 18-26 year olds, who haven't experienced a media landscape dominated by a few dinosaurs, so they are much more driven by word of mouth (WOM).

Executive summary

"The majority of today's Web users have been online seven years or more, and their site-seeking behavior has become familiar to marketers: search dominates, word of mouth follows closely, and traditional advertising comes in a healthy third. But is Web users' behavior really so routine? Forrester's North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study data shows that, while all users rely on search, generations show strong affinities for media that were in their heyday when they came of age. To plan effective integrated campaigns, marketers must start with search and layer on site messaging in the media that resonate with target consumers: buzz, blogs, and banners for Gen Yers, deep search and word of mouth for Gen Xers, print and product packaging for Boomers, and the written word for Seniors."

Monday, October 02, 2006

Robot answers age old question

For some reason, last Friday, the topic of discussion was briefly 'What do people taste like?'

Apparently a 'tasting robot' has the answer: Bacon.

Read more