Visual tool for your HD

WinDirStat. I keep using this. It's great. And I don't want to forget about it so thought I'd make a note. The original post was from Gareth Bowen (ex-Dare and Xbox fiend): Nice visual tool to show where all your disk space has gone. Have used a number of similar tools, but I particularly like the way this does things.

Awesome game

A rather addictive puzzle game with a simple and original idea. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz

Image display and networking

Bit old now (ho ho) but this is an amazing TED presentation of some Microsoft projects (inherited by acquisition it seems).

The first is a way of managing the display of enormous amounts of visual data simultaneously (think Picasa) but without any slow-down in performance.
Why should it slow down when it's the same number of pixels in use?

The second is a new presentation showing Seadragon but in much greater details than I've seen before. It's now linking enormous numbers of pictures of Notre Dame Cathedral (including representations within a photo such as a poster) and has had quite a bit of work done on the interface.

You've got to watch both of these.
The audience are astounded.

Digital Fire Extinguisher Training

Rarely do I display an opinion about posts, but I think this is great. There are a number of things that we may be called to do during our lives that saves the lives of others; a) first aid and b) fighting fire. I hope this helps the latter. Digital comes good. Source: The Raw Feed

No A’s, no Halo 3

Brandon Scott, manager of GameStop in southern Dallas, will only sell games to children who are doing well at school. And aren’t showing their underwear.

Link

Source: Gaming Today

Play with Paper!

These free templates from Readymech are simple and sweet - just print, cut up and stick together.

GPS made easy-ish

GPS integrated into a USB stick from Trackstick. Just carry it around to track your route. Then plug in and plot using Google Earth.


The site tells us that it "comes equipped with the highest technological features available on the market today". This includes a "detachable magnetic mount and belt clip".
Blimey.

Groovy apple catalog

Groovy apple catalog
Originally uploaded by hobart65.

Yes, all brands need to evolve. Given Apple's position as the touch stone for product and branding, it comforting that their early advertising proves to be such an endless source of mirth

No smile, no picture.

Sony release a camera that will only take a picture if everyone is smiling.




Source: gadgetell via The Raw Feed

Tron 2.0

They're making a sequel to Tron... Hollywood Repoter via BoingBoing.

Is this an incentive to cheer up?

Innovative use of voice recognition/analysis.
The sadder you are, the more ice-cream you get.

Source: boingboing

Mouse wheel icon branding!

I was just perusing our lovely aegon.co.uk and noticed that when you click the middle mouse wheel to scroll around the page they have replaced the usual icon with their own branded scroll icon complete with aegon favicon style logo.

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