Mobile phone data projectors out this year?

This technology was presented to the world about a year ago now, old news. The new news, Microvision, developer of ‘pico projector displays’ is working with Motorola to change the way we interact with media through our phones. The embedded data projector (which in prototype phase was about the size of the original iPod) is now small enough to fit inside mobile phones.

So fingers crossed for some yummy new Motorola’s with this fun toy coming our way some time in 2008. Check out Microvision for more information, pictures and press releases.

Head tracking using the Wiimote

Johnny Chung Lee of the Human-Computer Interation Institute at Carnegie Mellon has become quite the overnight sensation with his MacGuyver-like applications for Nintendo’s Wiimote.

His latest idea - posted in late december - is using the Wiimote to track a viewer’s position to create immersive VR displays.

You can see his other Wiimote experiments at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Kick a migrant – Adnews article 23rd January 2008

SYDNEY: Controversial is one way to describe it. Highly effective is another. Amnesia’s response to an AdNews mock-brief is causing quite a stir in adland and beyond.

Late last year AdNews asked a number of agencies to suggest how they would develop a campaign to combat negative stereotypes of immigrants, with the results published in the AdNews Annual (14 December 2007).

Instead of submitting screenshots of a proposed campaign, Amnesia actually built a viral website. The site, www.kickamigrant.com, allows visitors to “kick” a bunch of migrants out of Australia, one at a time, with visitors competing to see who can throw the migrants further. The catch, is that after throwing a migrant out to see, visitors are served a results page, showing the cost to Australia’s economy of losing that migrant.

“We’re deliberately targeting people who may be more anti-migrant,” said Amnesia managing director Iain McDonald. “The message is delivered at the end - where we reveal that migrant are real people that play a vital role in society and have a big effect on Australia’s GDP.”

The site was launched in late December, with no publicity beyond the AdNews Annual. But a “back-end” was not integrated until mid-last week - meaning stats on user-numbers and game plays were not readily available.

In just six working days since the back-end was completed, the viral has racked up over 56,000 “kicks”. Not bad for a mock-campaign with no paid-media support.

But then Amnesia knows a lot about successful virals. It’s Paper Plane viral for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X computer game, which Kick a Migrant is partially based on, has racked up an incredible 211 million game plays from around the world.

While the Kick a Migrant viral has elicited an overwhelmingly positive response from the industry, some say the play on racist attitudes fails to achieve its stated purpose.

“Sadly, in my personal experience this debate highlights a great deal of racism in our industry,” was one response, while another commented: “I think it’s only clever in that it’s tapping into Australia’s deeply entrenched racism and therefore getting traction. Surly if the education program at the end was working there wouldn’t be 11,000 [at the time] migrants already kicked out and the option to Kick Again on the information screen.”

Others take a more light-hearted approach: “Hilarious. Being a pom, originally from Pakistan, now living in Australia . . . I find this particularly amusing!” and “That’s brilliant, I’ve just kicked out 10 migrants and cost Aussie about 4 million bucks.”

And finally: “I must say it took everything I had to over-ride the initial repulsion I experienced on the invitation to kickamigrant (migrant father and all) and so was pleasantly surprised with the unexpected outcome. Very clever.”

Story by: Mark Chenery
23 January 2008

WordPress Tags: amnesia, viral, migrant, kick

Video game helps save car crash victims

A tragic car crash scene in the USA late last year, luckily, saw an avid gamer show up on the site. A 28 year old man was first on the scene and recalling the virtual medical training from ‘America’s Army’, dragged the two passengers to safety, applied emergency treatment to their injuries and likely, saved their lives.

Assess the situation, prioritize actions and apply the correct procedures.

http://www.americasarmy.com/intel/article.php?t=271086

Creative out of office alert

Our Creative Director has got creative with his out of office alert. This got me wondering what variations on the out of office alert there are out there??

Variety is the spice of life

Check out this new drinks brand from Singapore. It’s for those with a non-committal attitude to placing a drinks order … “I’ll have anything … whatever”. Anything is the fizzy brother and you get it in Cola, Apple, Fizz Up (whatever that is), Lemon and Root Beer flavours. Whatever is the still variety and comes in Ice Lemon Tea, Peach Tea, Jasmine Green Tea, White Grape, Apple Tea and Chrysanthemum Tea.

The genius bit is that you don’t know what you’re getting until you take a swig. Cool huh? I reckon other brands could take this concept to a new level. What brands do you think would work well with this idea? Answers on a postcard below.

Here’s the TV ad:

The early bird catches the worm

fig 1.

I joined a Corey Worthington facebook group (… or Delaney whatever he is called) and two days after he appeared on the TV I get a message from the group creator offering me this T-Shirt (see fig1). Man that guy is quick off the mark and from the looks of it he’s made a fortune out of the little scally . Just shows you there’s money to be made on this interweb thing if you’re quick thinking and got cash to burn. They’re available on ebay if you fancy one.

Watch this space for spit bridge traffic t-shirts and other t-shirt worthy news subjects.

Unfortunate Advertising Placements

Some of these were posted on Digg over the weekend and a couple from bannerblog. Of course the advertisers would have had no prior knowledge or control of these less than desirable display media placements with the exception of the Shopping.com SEM ad, who might want to take a second look at their automated search terms.

 

Finally, not a display ad, but goes to show that anything can happen in advertising…

Master Chief guards Sydney Harbour - huge statue.

Some ideas from the Amnesia studio don’t always make it into production but we thought this would have been quite cool. We wanted one on the North and South Heads of Sydney Harbour guarding us forever… Next time maybe.

Harpooned - The Japanese Cetacean Research Simulator

Ever wanted to know what it was like in the exciting world of Japanese Whale Research?

Find out, with Harpooned!

Destroy whales for valuable scientific research! Keep away from activists though - the legal fees will affect profits!

You can download the game here. Windows only for now, I’m afraid.

Conor O’Kane, the Australian creator of the game told ninemsn:

If people [are] offended by the game they should be even more offended by real whaling,” he said.

I hope people make the next logical step and realise that reality is much worse than a video game.

The more people tell their friends about how disgusting it is, the better … it puts more pressures on the whalers.

Kind of like what we did with Kick a Migrant.

Slap Corey Worthington Delaney or sign up on Facebook to his next party

The choice is yours…

http://www.slapcorey.com/

Or join the group we set up on Facebook…
“I want to go to Corey Worthington’s next party”

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9090485989

Solar storms to knock out satellites?

A new cycle of solar activity is on the way. A lone dark spot appeared on the sun on the first Friday of 2008, signaling the beginning of the new sun spot cycle. Predicted to last for over a decade, this is it the first time in history it will happen when GPS is widely used.

“… solar storms causes power outages and disrupts satellite communications that can affect everything from taking cash out of an ATM to chatting on a cell phone.“

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080109-sunspots.html

Geneticists Discover a Way to Extend Lifespans to 800 Years

What am I going to do with all that time?

clipped from io9.com There is now a way to extend the lifespan of organisms so that humans could conceivably live to be 800 years old. In an amazing development, scientists at the University of Southern California have announced that they’ve extended the lifespan of yeast bacteria tenfold — and the recipe they used to do it might easily translate into humans. It involves tinkering with two genes, and cutting down your calorie intake. Tests have already started on people in Ecuador. Read more here.

Is the end in sight for Scrabulous?

Just in case you never see it again here’s a screenshot of Scrabulous. Facebook has been asked to remove it (by Hasbro and Mattel the makers of Scrabble). 594,924 daily players and about 2 million members mean it has become a little too big for them to ignore. Can hardly say it’s a surprise but why don’t they all go and have a hug and find a way for it to work for all of them?

As with most things like this, Scrabulous will almost certainly have another 500,000 subscribers by the end of the week thanks to the lawsuit.

So True

clipped from i16.tinypic.com

The lazy toads at Telstra

I’ve just returned from the Telstra Shop, with my Creative Director, after waiting 1o minutes for someone to serve us. Whilst waiting, I snapped these 4 lazy shop workers with a demo phone, emailed it to myself from the shop and hey presto - it’s up for the world to see. Hardly a tabloid scoop, but I quite like the idea of busting their idle asses with the product they should have been selling me.

Next time you’re near a telstra shop, go in, take a photo on the demo phone and let’s see what gems we can gather.

Wired - World’s Sexiest Geek 2007

So you thought they did not, COULD NOT exist, but Wired is determined to find the world’s sexiest geek. It kind of reminded me of my favourite Lynx Ad of all time (see video at bottom of page)
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/12/YE_sexy_geeks

Yes, the following are apparently real geeks…(?!)

 

The Lynx Perfect Woman Ad (video)

Lynx Perfect Woman

Microsoft’s Shopping Trolley

I thought I’d put this new system through it’s tracks. Let’s see if it works….

But if you do not have access to our dishwasher, then you can just read this… http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/microsofts-smart-shopping-cart/2008/01/15/1200159409129.html

KICK A MIGRANT - VIRAL GAME

Kick a Migrant - THE VIRAL GAME. In November 2007, amnesia was the first digital agency (ever) to be invited to participate in the ADNEWS MOCK ADS.

THE BRIEF:HOW WOULD YOU CHANGE THE PERCEPTION OF MIGRANTS?Australians are suspicious of migrants and more of us than not believe our intake is too high. A common perception is that migrants steal jobs from hard-working Australians. Create an ad promoting immigration as being of benefit to the country’s economy and/or cultural heart.

OUR ANSWER:KICK A MIGRANT - A game based on the extremely popular Flight Sim X paper plane game, (developed late 2006 by amnesia and has now passed 200 Million games played).

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, play through and see what happens at the end…http://www.kickamigrant.com

UPDATE: WE DARE YOU to join the Facebook group… remember this is an experimental viral campaign - we ask, “Would you be willing to say you’ve ‘kicked a Migrant?’” JOIN NOW!

Will Faulty Towers be High Defining?

Fun site from Foxtel Australia to educate people about the incoming High Definition TV revolution.

Same space, more pixels - check it out.