High-Definition Video -- Bad For Consumers, Bad For Hollywood

Cory Doctorow has written this article about DRM and the future (or not) of of HD television. There are details about technologies that Hollywood wants to put (or is already putting) in that expensive TV you just bought, as well as the numerous drawbacks (ie. "Sony's first generation of Blu-Ray DVD drives *won't play Blu-Ray movies*") of the DRM future...

Wikimapia

You might think that google maps is pretty hot but Wikimapia have put a little bit of a spin on things. Check it out over here. Looks pretty normal right? Well there are two things in the menu that make it that bit better.

• You can search via TAG
• You can link it to your GPS

Im sure as I get used to it there will be more. But looking good so far.

If you like Simpsons...

You'll also like:

Futurama - allfutus.com

Family Guy - all-fg.com

South Park - allsp.com

...

Any bets on how long until this, and Daily Motion (the host of most of these), gets shut down with a nice fat lawsuit?

All Simpsons episodes ever

www.allsimps.com

What's playing on US radio - mapped in realtime

Cool visualisation. Be nice if you could click the titles though.

 

 

 

Olympus Makes World's Smallest DSLR

(not actual size...) "With the release of the E-400 Olympus has announced the smallest and lightest DSLR ever made. At just 130 x 91 x 53mm and a bulimic 380g it is around two thirds the width and half the weight of a regular DSLR" No price yet, but interesting: click click

Ipod PRO 2005 XP - Human Ear Professional Edition (With Subscription)

Excellent video made by a Microsoft employee. It imagines the design process that would take place if Microsoft were to design the iPod box. Although it pokes gentle fun, the video is pretty well made, and genuinely interesting from a packaging and branding point of view.

Warchalk

Where to find some free Wifi in London... http://www.warchalking.org.uk/ For example it seems like youre sorted if you are near to Upper street in Islington. Its now one long Hotspot provided by the council.

7 ways people search the web

7 ways people search the web
Originally uploaded by hobart65.

OK, it's a digital team challenge. Please email me 1 or more pictures of what you think these people look like...best pic wins a £2 item of choice from the local newsagent

The Pornhound - for porn
The Manhunter - for people
The Shopper - for deals
The Obsessive - for specific things, repeatedly
The Omnivore - for a little bit of everything
The Newbie - by accident
The Basket Case - for therapy

www.slate.com/id/2147590

Dogs + Cars = Barking

www.dogsbarkingincars.com See also: www.dogsincars.co.uk

Light emitting textiles!

Phillips have come up with these light emtting textiles by sticking LEDs into fabric or something - see internet for more info.

Microsoft Max

Still in beta, but worth noting that Microsoft is trying to compete with Picasa... http://www.microsoft.com/max/download.html you can read a bit more about it here... http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/09/microsoft-launches-desktop-feed-reader/

amazonunbox launches

Download TV and film from Amazon in the US.
Proprietary software and DRM alerts all over the shop - check Digg for more.

Swimming Pool

The 21st Century Museum of Art of Kanasawa Permanent installation Leandro Erlich

Google Earth in the ads

New BA campaign

Inspirational business posters

I've actually seen the originals of these in the offices of a well-known online travel company (air, hotel, car etc.).



From:


 

Make your official seal here

Motorhome with built-in garage

Blimey.

The record store is dead

Tower records have filed for bankruptcy blaming the downloader’s. I think it's more an appalling retail experience stuck in 90s - I've found it's just not worth the bother going into that type of store. There’s simply a total lack of any attempt to help you navigate to what's good. Tower Records Files For Bankruptcy - CBS News

Wikipedia considering restrictions

BBC News
Wikipedia is considering introducing a form of prior restraint on edits.
"Since Mr Siegenthaler Sr was neither controversial enough to merit consistent attention, or interested enough in what happened online to bother to Google himself regularly, his biography simply sat there unremarked, although we have no way of knowing how many school essays mention his entirely fabricated involvement in the assassination of Robert and John Kennedy."

Found by Chris Park

SyncToy

Many of you might know this one already but some of you might not, there is an excellent little bit of Sync software out there and guess what it's free! Guess what else... Microsoft make it :) http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx No doubt there are others out there, I for one have used another that needs no install (and so is useful for bringing about on a keydrive), but this one is the current favourite.

Test sites on OS X browsers

1. Enter URL 2. Choose browser window width 3. Select quality of output 4. Click View It returns an image of the page requested within the browser chosen. Free test in Safari. Pay for others on a per-day subscription model. Found by Rob

The 50 Coolest Websites - According to Time

Hmmm.
I'm not sure.



time.com

Don't wait for the render - outsource online

Post your file.
They do the render - fast.
And return the files to you.

No more all-nighters. Or fewer at least.

RenderCore

Steal a logo, sell it online

Logoworks.com rip offs
Credit: Post from Sean Rees, Enterprise IG London

SD with WiFi

Eye-Film: SD-Card with 802.11g Wifi Built-in

Small but powerful

Sony Memory Stick Mini

Video games recreated with cakes and stuff.

http://eatpes.com/game_over.html

Cockroach controlled robot

You heard. http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot/

How MS Word should look

Innovative packaging.

Music licencing - quick start

Have published notes from a recent presentation from Warner Chappell on music copyright.
Will help you get a quick idea of what you need to consider when using music for presentations, events etc.

Simple Flash Video Player

Script as used by YouTube, Nintendo and others. Source code also available.

Logos 2.0 style

Flickr set

Interactive Bar

More technology to confuse beer swillers iBar - intelligent surface system - interactive bar: Info

Surf'n'Work

If you would like to surf the web while pretending to work, try out the Work Friendly proxy. Type in a URL and the site turns the page into a word-like browser, adding an emergency 'boss' button to boot. workFRIENDLY - BETA

Brand 2.0

Ted Nelson on branding 2.0 - why don't customers care anymore? 50 minutes of talking head might make you skim the digest instead FutureMonitor™ Webcast

Super Serif Brothers

Who needs images, colour and sound for games? Super Serif Brothers

Video Game Stats

VideoGameCharts.com
Western-centric data on US hardware and software. Also info on Japan.
PS2 still rules the roost on hardware.
But it's an N64 game that comes in second on units sold 95-04!

Clutter Magazine - Issue 08

Now available with all the other magazines in the corner by the scanner on the 3rd floor.

Ooh, a fun Flash 3d interface

If you like that sort of thing http://cmd9.com/

Survey Monkey and Opera browser

I'm a big fan of Survey Monkey the tool we use for online surveys, but even I have to admit that it's a real pain editing a large survey. Shadi nearly went insane on the LDA survey. The answer is the opera browser. Opera is currently the fastest browser at executing JavaScript. (Geeks - look at this script speed test table) Survey Monkey is JavaScript intensive, so using Opera makes editing forms less like walking through treacle. I'd highly recommend you install Opera, if only to use with Survey Monkey

Users are funnier than you think...

Turn your laptop in a TV / PVR

I've been looking for cheap / easy way to turn my laptop into TV / PVR (Personal Video Recorder) and finally it's arrived. With an electronic program guide etc, plug this into into the USB and watch / record digital tele. Price $99! Elgato Systems

Amazon Mechanical Turk

I can't quite believe this isn't a hoax. But Amazon is now offering a virtual sweat shop for boring repetitive tasks that require a bit of human intelligence. It even has an API! I read about a guy who had used this to pay people to draw sheep, and then sold the sheep drawings as hand made 'one-offs'. Amazon Mechanical Turk - Welcome

Fly around london

'Flight sim' using google maps http://www.isoma.net/games/GogglesBeta09.swf

Stroke It - Go on, ya will ya will ya will

Nice little productivity tool. Sits in the system tray and does what it says on the box. http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/ No tweaking is necessary to get a lot out of it as you can see from the default gestures here. http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/actions.shtml?app=./files/actions/Default.cfg

OK Go - Excellent video on YouTube

8 treadmills. 4 men. 1 take. This video is a masterpiece of coreography.

TED Talks podcast

TED Talks podcast
Originally uploaded by hobart65.

TED is legendary ‘invite only’ conference attended by the digirati of the globe. It's always been one of my life's ambitions to go – it’s reputed to have immensely costly conference freebies. They are now releasing some of the talks as podcasts. The latest video cast released is by the guy who did the multi-touch user interface that was popular a couple of months ago on Youtube

Half Wasted

Thanks to the power of the internet, advertising is becoming less wasteful and its value more measurable. http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7138905

Javascript Showdown: Speeds of Opera 9, IE6, and Firefox 1.5

How fast is your favorite browser's Javascript engine? After creating a Javascript benchmark tool and testing Opera 9.0, MSIE 6.0, and Firefox 1.5, you might be surprised to see which one came out on top...way on top.
http://celtickane.com/projects/jsspeed.php

From Digg

Gamers vs Avatars

Great online gallery of gamers alongside the avatars that they use to represent themselves. Bilder-Galerie

Windows Video Conversions

Built on the shoulders of the OpenSource video manipulation giants its a (kinda quirky) GUI that makes life a little bit easier. http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

Flash painting thing

There's quite a few of these types of things around, this one's good because you can replay your painting. For example, here's a robot I painted earlier - don't be disheartened by my immense painting skills, not everyone can be this good: http://artpad.art.com/?j3blbu191h5c

Ewan - Voiceover Artist - Glittering Debut

Ewan Ferrier debuts in his new role as "the voice of Enterprise IG", adding gravitas and panache to a demonstration of technological wizardry.

Exploding paint: The new Sony Bravia ad

Jonathan Glazer (he of the Radiohead videos, and Sexy Beast) has been directing the latest Sony Bravia TV ad. There's some on-set footage here, and a Flickr picture set here.

South Park and the music industry

See the damage caused by illegal downloading of music.

Love To Hate This Game

Designed, I'm assuming, to promote the Peugeot 107, this stinker oozes bad-brand vibes.
I hate this car.
Hate this game now.

Watch Digg digging in real time

Digg Spy
Brings home how active the site is - and the variety of topics. Hasn't been that long since they expanded to include topics outside of Technology.

IDEO Method Cards - spruce up your brainstorms

"IDEO Method Cards are intended as inspiration for parcticing and aspiring designers, as well as those seeking a creative spark in their work. These cards show some of the ways IDEO keeps people at the center of the design process." We have some. Pop down, have a look and put them into practice. Their quite fun actually.

iEatBrainz - Stupid Title, Clever App.

I've been using iEatBrainz for a while now, and it does a really good job of tagging all those unnamed or badly named tracks in iTunes. It uses audio matching to check your songs against a CD databse called MusicBrainz, and then updates your iTunes library. Unfortunately, it's Mac only at the moment, but there seem to be some other interesting apps for Windows users over at the MusicBrainz products page.

CG Transformation - Bill Nighy ->Octopus-faced bad guy

USA Today
Actually it USA a few days ago.

Netvibes - Enterprise IG digital page

We've put together Netvibes page for most of sites that we use day to day.
Naturally I won't post the email and password details here.
If youd didn't get the email, just send me a message:
daniel.lewington@enterpriseig.com

StumbleUpon - SHOCK! - browser bar actually worth installing

StumbleUpon It works a bit like Google's "I feel lucky" but with a bit of focus: - you can choose the category of site you're interested in - the sites are ranked by other visitors so the quality should be high (and this seems to largely be the case) It's informed browsing without the hassle of actually having to think. Very quick and easy: 1. Download and install the bar. 2. Sign up (very few details) 3. Choose areas of interest e.g. media, health, outdoors, arts/history 4. Now when you click on the button, you'll be taken to a site that is within your areas of interest. 5. Once there you can rank the site just by clicking 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' buttons. 6. Move on There are lots of other things you can do with it (add comments, email links, wiki lookups etc) but I'll leave it there. It's a 2.0 take on Web Rings.

Invisible Sphere

Video of Johnathan Schipper make a sphere from 215 cameras and screens Cool Hunting Video: Jonathan Schipper

Websites as graphs - an HTML DOM Visualizer Applet

Cool online toy to make graphs of sites. Check out the flickr tag websitesasgraphs Websites as graphs - an HTML DOM Visualizer Applet

Cloth UK - Bespoke printing for upholstery, furniture

"Cloth takes cutting edge print technology and allows the addition of any image, photograph, pattern or design to be added onto a range of contemporary products." Cloth UK - Bespoke printing for upholstery, furniture

rendr

Rendr is a live CSS and HTML rendering tool. It displays what the page would look like as you type, making it great for rapid testing of page designs. rendr

The recipe for success in China: Brand down, not up

Report from a Tom Doctoroff presentation on what big brands can do in the face of china making the same stuff but cheaper These common sense strategies include: Clearly separate differentiating needs from generic needs Brand the benefit Expand the brand portfolio Maximize the perception of public consumption first Nigel Hollis » Blog Archive » The recipe for success in China: Brand down, not up

PCWorld.com - The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

Very funny, if nothing else read the the first two, AOL and Real Player PCWorld.com - The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

Global, Online, On-demand Cinema Library

"This is a chance to take back control of what you see," added Hussey. On-line cinema library unveiled at Cannes - Yahoo! News

Demand for TV on the net

"Viewers have watched ABC television shows available online about 3 million times since the Walt Disney Co. network launched the free service just over two weeks ago, Disney's chief executive said on Thursday." Technology | Reuters.co.ca

Google swallows Pot Noodle in battle of UK's brands | The Register

Google swallows Pot Noodle in battle of UK's brands
Article based on research by WPP agency Joshua. Love this articles use of google trend to raise the question "Why is portsmouth a pot noodle hotspot?"

Three earns from user generated video

3G Mobile operator 3 earned over £1.2m in just four months from its See Me TV channel for user generated video content. It's seen 4 million downloads and 30,000 submissions. Submitters are paid each tome a clip is views (1p for standard and 10p for adult!) The most popular clips include; * Hot dog boy – the quickest frankfurter eater in town! * Pretzel girl – a real-life office contortionist * The World's first wedding proposal over video mobile – customer proposed to his girl friend on Valentine’s day (Dating Game) * Tornado chaos – footage of the aftermath of the tornado that hit Birmingham (24 Hours) They are planning to roll out the service to news, making their subscribers citizen journalists Welcome to 3

Yahoo! Design Pattern Library

Interesting collection of user interfaces tips for ajax like interfaces Yahoo! Design Pattern Library

BBC Radio 4 - Reith Lectures 2006 - Lecture 1: In the Beginning was Sound

"Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm perfectly aware of the great honour to be asked to deliver the Reith Lectures. It is with some slight trepidation that I do that, because I firmly believe that it is really impossible to speak really deeply about music. All we can do then is speak about our own reaction to the music. So maybe the honour is dubious, or maybe the BBC thought it would be very short." BBC Radio 4 - Reith Lectures 2006 - Lecture 1: In the Beginning was Sound

The ROI Of Web Redesigns Made Simple

Interesting article from Forrester about justifying the expense of site redesigns in terms of ROI. The ROI Of Web Redesigns Wonder what we could cull from this to justify redesigning brand space sites? It make a strong argument for doing better user research upfront, which is something we could try and develop into a generic section for pitching.

New blog from Fram Fab

I highly rate Fram Fab in terms of their thought leadership in the digital marketing space. The usability and analysis documents they produce for clients are a league above the output of competitors. e.g. Usabaility Company

They have started a really good blog, FramFam Stream, which is a great source of industry opionion and debate.

For example, I am currently obsessed by Social Computing. This concept is largely driven by the web 2.0 hype sweeping the silcon valley developer and investor community. Forrester have just published a great 'Big Idea report on Social Computing which you should definately read. I have a copy on my desk.

Framfab have organised and international CHI workshop on the topic and gathered the 'social computing' thought leaders. It's in Montreal, Canada on April 22nd. I would love to go! Trust in brands will keep dwindling if brands do not evolve in repsonse to fundamental changes in the communication ecosytem. Social computing gives consumers far more power and brands have to adapt themselves to see this an opportunity rather than a threat.

Songbird - open-source media player

"A team led by ex-Winamp-er Rob Lord today released a preview edition of Songbird, a desktop media player that offers an open source alternative to services like Apple's iTunes and the Windows Media Player. Instead of connecting to one locked store full of DRMmed goods, it can connect to any and all available music (and video) on the internet.

Code brains behind the project include people who helped build Winamp, Muse, Yahoo's "Y! Music Engine" media player, and developers from Mozilla Foundation. Initial release is for Windows only, with editions for other OSes to follow in the coming weeks.

Built on the same platform as Firefox, Songbird acts like a specialized web browser for music. It sees the online world through MP3-colored glasses -- it looks at an archive of public domain sound files or a music store's catalog, and displays available media for you."

It will definitely crash though. So, interesting, but. Would be cool if it worked as a player for embedded content too on a web page. Not sure if it does though. here's a download mirror, and another. Some early reviews on this digg thread.

Word of Mouth - you can't ignore it

There's big things happening in 'word of mouth' measurement. Nielsen just bought two of the biggest players to form http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/ It even has it's own acronym CGM (consumer generated media) Nielsen are selling this as a brand reputation and marketing effectiveness tool. i.e. a monitor of what's going on with customers in the offline world - ratings tell you how many, buzz tells you what they are saying. It's essentailly viewing blogs, boards, forums etc as a massive real time focus group The companies really picking this up in the states are PR companies. For a quick overview have a listen to the start of the company announcement / podcast. Agencies take note - which discipline owns this area?

Web2.0 Hall of fame on Flickr

Web2.0 Hall of fame on Flickr! Don't know waht half of these are for, but a least there are less swooshes this time around

How to fix a dead pixel on an LCD monitor

1. Turn off your computer.
2. Get yourself a damp cloth, so that you don't scratch your screen.
3. Apply pressure to the area where the dead pixel is. Do not put pressure anywhere else, as this may make more dead pixels.
4. While applying pressure, turn on your computer and screen.
5. Remove pressure and the dead pixel should be gone. This works as the liquid in the liquid crystal has not spread into each little pixel. This liquid is used with the backlight on your monitor, allowing different amounts of light through which give off different colours.

http://wiki.ehow.com/Fix-a-Dead-Pixel-on-an-LCD-Monitor

Top blog for web 2.0 / startup news

Techcrunch is a great blog which seems to be the first to know about everything web 2.0. Many of articles give a great overview of all the sites within a particular sector. Michael Arrington is deeply embedded in the silicon valley scene, for instance going to the invite only E27 Summit - a conference at Stanford university for entrepreneurs age 27 or less who have a startup company. I assume door to door squegy sellers need not apply, what ever their age. An ex-lawyer, his connections are mainly due to a number of key barbeques given at his house (no really)

AJAX WHOIS lookup

http://www.ajaxwhois.com/

Tilt-shift photography

http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1760

http://www.gerardpetremand.ch/Html/aut.html

http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/photographers/barbieri/ob-virtual.html

Really wonderful photography that makes real-life situations look like models because of the extremely short depth of field.

Mobile-review.com

I love mobile-review.com
Badly translated mobile phone reviews, done in painstaking detail. They use russian coins as indications of phone size - how big is a 10 rubels coin? And various other bits of Moscow ephemera appear.

"Now you can obtain only one colour solution – that is black. And then at least one operator version in another colour will appear which is typical of Sony Ericsson. The body plastic is dull-black, it is like coal and resembles graphite. No lacquer glow, the body is not easy to soil. That is the first time the company uses various colours for asymmetrical areas (different colours for various buttons). The central part of the phone features an orange Walkman button, which attracts our attention. A silvery Activity Menu button is to the right. And a-la metallic navi button divides the composition in the center. Such colour scheme makes a new youth phone style. We could call this a brave experiment, but then experience with Sony Ericsson K700 comes to mind, that model was both successful in business society and among youth audience despite decent design. And here the company stakes on this experience. The back of the phone also features two orange insertions, a Walkman logo, a self-portrait mirror is painted in orange. Nevertheless it acts perfectly, however it is not demanded much. But its colour is an integral design element."

Englishman in New York » Blogarithms: Rocketboom

Englishman in New York » Blogarithms: Rocketboom

Cat chasing the tail

Worried geek blogs about his server preparations just in-case he ever gets slashdoted or dugg - the obviously immediately gets digged, dug, slahed dotted etc. etc.

TechCrunch » Del.icio.us Competitors Try Paying Users

TechCrunch » Del.icio.us Competitors Try Paying Users Two small startups trying to kickstart adoption

Geeky podcasts of interest

Robert Trivers - What Do We Know? Apparently the most influential evolutionary theorist alive today, it's a funny and profound talk on the theories of deception. Great factoid that, when asked if they believe they are in the top half of their profession, 94% of academics answer 'yes'. Digg.com, a links site where the users decide what's interesting. Ninja geek factor. Save browsing time and lisenting to the site founder Kevin Rose read out and comment on the top links via a podcast e.g. episode 30 He's joined by a friennd whoose name I can never remeber. One day search technology will be able to count the frequency of the words 'dude' and 'freaking' in mp3 files. When this happens, this podcast may well beat Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. TWIT - This week in tech I got into digg via this highly rated and very professional produced weekly show. Again, it an american geek fest, but it's saving factor is one of the contributors John C Dvorak. His function is the same as those two old grumpy blokes in the muppet show (Statler and Waldorf?). Although he's down on almost eveything, he's a great foil for the other windbags on the show.

Some interesting podcasts

Some podcasts (ugh, sorry) I've enjoyed particularly. From IT conversations. Reason for writing this is that I want some more recommendations really.

Steve Wozniak
He's a proper geek, but quite entertaining and has some good anecdotes about growing up as a phone phreaker.

Brewster Kahle
Also known as the guy who started the Internet Archive, working to provide 'universal access to all human knowledge'.

Ben Saunders
A guy who went to the Arctic by himself

Malcolm Gladwell
The guy who wrote the Tipping point, with some nice observations


Bruce Shneier
He looks like a total loser, but he has some interesting points about security. No, really

Roll your own maps

http://www.planiglobe.com/

Outputs to illustrator

And it's Web 2.0 too.

I've been looking for something like this for ages. They're adding more features and detail; at the moment it's pretty basic but it's still very useful if you just need a simple map for a country selector or other such rubbish.

On Performancing

I'm writing this using Performancing, which is a Firefox extension allowing you to add a blog entry without having to go and log in and wait and enter and etc. It appears as a pane in Firefox so you can just add a blog entry immediately. Awesome.

http://performancing.com/firefox

Airvertising takes off

The million dollar homepage moves into the real world. Yes, companies have discovered you can use google maps to place adverts . Hopefully the resolution will improve to the level where I can sell off my back lawn in East Sheen.

Download movies from Google video

Download movies from Google video, YouTube, iFilm] http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php Useful. especially if you like Backstreet Boys.

Play old console games in your browser

Very very good. Most games you can think of from NES, Genesis, Master system etc. http://game-oldies.com/

Every logo of everything ever

http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/ Pretty much every logo. That's where I got the 2012 one from by the way.

Web 2.0 roundup

What is Web 2.0? The best Web 2.0 Web 2.0 generator I'm using Netvibes now to bring all my favourite bits together (email, weather, flickr, bookmarks, rss feeds [including the one from this blog].

Backup all your mp3s. Ever

http://www.mp3tunes.com/ So you're at work, and all your mp3s are at home? Well, no they're not, not if you've uploaded them to your locker on mp3tunes.com. In that case you can download or stream them from wherever you like. $40 for a one year subscription. Split between 4 thats 4 times as many tunes for 4 times less. Interested?

Beware when ripping Sony CDs!

Looks like some sony CDs can infect your computer with a serious security vulnerability... http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,69559,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Aperture

Aperture is Apple's photo-processing app. Aimed squarely at the professional photographer, it offers powerful photo manipulation tools, as well as easy importing, organising and archiving of your photos. Aperture's workflow is where it differs rom other rivals (ie. Photoshop) - organising your projects is much more intuitive, allowing you to group photos into sets, and compare, duplicate, and alter photos, without affecting your original files. The interface is nice, too, although slightly reminiscent of Kai's Power Tools. (btw, don't go looking for a page curl filter, it's not there.)