Content-Aware Image Sizing

I'm going to do a terrible job of explaining this so I'd recommend watching this video. But here's a go. This technique/application allows the user when rescaling an image to prioritise the content within the image. Therefore all elements within the image are not uniformly rescaled but the less important stuff, often something like sky, will be scaled to a greater extent. This is known as retargeting. Hmm. Reread that. Not brilliant. Watch the video. You can see scary implications if this was in the hands of the paparazzi. Found by: Rob

Flash is going hi-def

"Adobe, the San Jose software maker, will announce that it is integrating a standard format for high definition video into the newest version of its immensely popular Flash video player."

New York Times article, via kurzweilai.net

Download beta Flash player update here: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/

Some demos here:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/fullscreendemo/

http://marcelfahle.com/2007/08/21/first-h264-demo-in-flash-player-9

http://www.ericd.net/2007/08/h264-playing-in-flash-player.html

Very reasonably priced rack (flight) cases

Flightcase Warehouse.
Found and purchased by: Martin Roche

Musika - game for the 5th gen iPod

Paul downloaded it. Worth a play.
Created by the maker of PaRappa the Rapper.



Paul found it a bit easy. I enjoyed the letter-build effects.
Could have done with some more 'special' characters.
Would have liked to have moved on to the next letter when I'd got it right (hence forming an extra penalty for guessing too soon).
Would also have liked it to speed up as the song progressed.

Story on webware.

Brilliant site tours

Here's one for Flickr:

Made by Common Craft.

The Onion

Now available on MySpace.
Video not so hot but Top Story deliver laughs.

From the press release:
"The news business is like the tobacco business: you want to reach new readers at as young and impressionable an age as possible," Sean Mills, president of The Onion, is quoted as saying. "MySpace was, of course, a natural partner in that regard."

Music video using Flickr

This music video pulls in photos from Flickr to represent the words in the song. Changes every time because it randomizes the search. A really nice idea.

http://www.avoision.com/experiments/astronaut/

via Infosthetics

Build your own 3D printer

RepRap is an open-source, low-cost rapid-prototyping machine. Version 1.0 is currently in development, but once it's finalised, will become a blueprint that will allow people to build their own machines themselves, with the parts costing about $400.
Many of the parts of the machine can actually be 'printed' by the machine itself, and the goal is (eventually) to make the machine completely self-replicating.
You can listen to a talk about the project here, or visit the site here.

BBC iPlayer

The mythical iPlayer (that's been talked up for a good couple of years now) is the BBC's video-on-demand service. It lets you download most BBC programmes from the last 7 days and watch them back on your PC. As it's not Mac-friendly, I can't vouch for the quality of the video, but you can sign up for the beta testing phase now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta/, and find out for yourselves...

Lightbox 2 - just out

We liked the first release of this.
And now comes Lightbox 2.

May come in handy sometime.

Liking the ability to use left/right arrows to navigate.

Found by: Conor

New Release

Congratulations from everyone to Chantel and Conor on the arrival of their son, Cillian.
All are well.

Conor also took a moment in his email announcement to tell us about the new Google Maps direction finder (see story below).

Google Maps - "raising the bar" with some super AJAX

Customisable driving directions. Great interface and integration with live traffic conditions (US only and selected cities on).
Still, it's pretty excellent.

Published as a video demo.

Conor's review:
"There is only one word for that. Awesome (said with American accent). Probably the best single Ajax feature that I have ever seen."

Found by: Conor