Always stand in the sweet spot for your music

did you spend hours setting up your sound system at home to have the perfect tuned sound for your recliner in the living room?

Now the guys at the TU in Dresden, Germany, have developed a program that uses your webcam to determine your position in the room and automagically adjust the loudspeaker signals in real time to give you the best listening experience for your position.

And they called it sweetspotter – classic

you can download version 1.0 from here and give it a go

@maniac13

A bit of afternoon fun with a guessing game

I have already spent too much time on this, but it just brings back too many awesome memories of my childhood wasted time in front of the computer screen.

Here are the rules:

Click on the link and start the game

browse around and name/guess all 56 games and you win

have a ball remembering all your childhood games

Best time waster in a long time

have fun

@maniac13

voice controlled quad copter

we all want one of those AR.Dones that we wrote about previously here and here, but now there is a quad copter that does what you tell it to do and I really really want one.

created by the Robust Robotics Group at MIT it responds to natural language voice commands that are sent to the helo and off it goes.

check out the video

 

love it

@maniac13

Brandkarma: New brand tracking website.

New website Brand Karma, created by Craig Davis provides a fresh pair of eyes for peeking at the health of a brand, combining social sources, rss news feeds, a slice of ‘hot or not’ style voting, and a visualisation tool called the ‘brandkarma flower’ which quickly indicates how a brand treats investors, planet, employees, suppliers and customers. Best way to get started, type in a brand into the search box to check out a brand, then start voting on on the panel on the right hand side.

Examples:

Apple: http://www.brandkarma.com/brands/apple
Microsoft : http://www.brandkarma.com/brands/microsoft

Brandkarma produces comparative scorecards for each sector:

@eunmac

Showing off with a 22 megapixel interactive display

Here at Amnesia we come across great things all the time and if we would have the time we would probably write more and more posts about it for you to read.

So over the past few years I have been looking into interactive displays and we have collected quite a large collection of different ways on what is out there and what we can offer to our clients. but I don’t want to bore you with those as yesterday I came across this little project from Norway.

Students from the university of Tromsø developed an interactive wall, constructed from 28 projectors and driven by a display cluster of about 30 computers, each projector creates a 1024×768 resolution image, which when tiled together with the others form a 7168×3072 resolution display.

The cool thing is that it supports multi-touch, but you have to be careful using that term as you don’t actually touch the wall to interact with it. cameras on the floor determine the position of your hand and the movement and make things happen.

Another thing that is very interesting is that this wall is already 5-6 years old and it is using technology that only now seems to be coming into the markets.

if you want to read more, click here

Digital Traffic Update: AdNews Vs Mumbrella Vs B&T Vs Campaign Brief

Updated Mon March 24 2.31pm (Data now includes latest webstats as supplied by Mumbrella, Adnews, B&T, Campaign Brief, Inspiration Room).

Please note: This article is intended to provide a basic snapshot of trending traffic volume as supplied by publically available sources, it is not an in depth analysis of publisher content, audience, engagement etc.

There’s always a sense of irony about reporting on the people who report on you daily …but every now and then we’ll check up on  the trends for local ad industry publishers in the digital space. This is not an attempt to compare apples with oranges on who’s reading what (eg: clients vs industry readership) but 2010 is shaping up to be a more interesting statistical battle traffic-wise with AdNews changing their model last month posting substantial gains in February (reasons listed below).

2009 was definitely a big year for Mumbrella coming out of the blue and scoring a lot of digital traffic with its blog format site. In contrast AdNews 2009 website numbers were destined to be limited because of their online model which only allowed access to stories for paid subscribers (although it saw gains to the end of the year when it discreetly opened up stories to email subscribers). B&T saw good digital growth in 2009 opening up for comments in posts and interestingly they appeared to somehow ride the coattails of Mumbrella’s traffic with notably similar peaks and troughs appearing in the traffic data below.

Campaign Brief and The Inspiration Room were kind enough to send in their latest data following, again showing solid growth online in the last calendar year.

Above: Alexa data for Adnews, Mumbrella, B&T

Adobe Labs teases us with amazing content-aware fill feature that we can’t have yet.

Now the Photoshoppers among us are all very familiar with the Clone tool. Need to remove stuff from an image? Clone tool’s got your back.

Imagine if it was a little smarter. Imagine it knew how to get rid of things you just pointed out it it.

Adobe Labs teases us with this video demonstration of how we might tidy our images… in the FUTURE.

Hat tip to @VinnyCaravella and @dannyodwyer

Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash?

With the impending launch of the Apple iPad, the Cupertino-based company’s shunning of Adobe Flash technology has been brought to the forefront of technological discussions. While it was one thing to forgo Flash on a small, mobile device such as the iPhone or iPod Touch, some are questioning whether lack of Flash support is going to be a make-it-or-break it feature for the new slate devices arriving next month – devices which, if you believe Apple CEO Steve Jobs – are "better than netbooks."

Interesting read and question to think about. Does anyone have any experience with testing the two?

Read more on The New York Times…

Also Flash Player 10.1 pre-release software demos and interviews the upcoming Flash Player 10.1 on mobile devices.

@dankrause

Google Map iPhone app. Australia live traffic updates

For those who haven’t seen it here’s a quick look at ‘live traffic’ function for Sydney on the iPhone Google maps app. Screenshot below.

So how good is it? Well, it’s ok but a long way from perfect. Driving around on a busy Saturday afternoon there were a lot of yellow roads which should have been red, green ones that should have been yellow etc. I don’t blame the app or Google for the quality of the data – I’m sure pretty the info is from the RTA 

Marks out of 10 = 6

Red=congested, Yellow=slow but moving, Green=all clear.

Tip: Google maps app with GPS and traffic updates drains your battery… make sure you have a power source in the car.

Slow motion pedigree dogs ad? Who’s idea was it?

Yesterday I tweeted what I thought was a superb new ad for Pedigree Dog food (below). It was SO good I almost felt like serving some up with my meat and 2 veg evening meal (which I did not before someone says something). Sadly, (thanks to @commuter_dirge and @juliancole for the HT) my enthusiasm was short lived… because it transpires that a 2006 French techno outfit Vitalic may have been more than just a bit of inspiration for this ad. Watch, compare, judge for yourself…

The Pedigree Dog food ad 2010

Vitalic / Birds Music clip 2006

Any tips on agency, whether they used the same director etc appreciated.

Where is the person that I am talking to on chat roulette?

By now we all have probably given it a go and we have already blogged about it here.

But when you use it, do you sometimes want to know where that person is?

Somebody had that question and decided to create a world map that you can drill down to – http://www.chatroulettemap.com/

When you go to check it out, make sure that you understand that some content on this site may not be suitable for minors.

have fun.

@maniac13

Battle of the Big Thinkers

If you consider yourself a ‘thinker’ then this forthcoming event in Sydney looks set to be a blast – and all for a good cause. 15 Speakers set to battle it out and plenty of audience participation. Go on, click the link and book yourself a ticket.

http://www.accountplanninggroup.com.au/pls/apg/apg.showPage?in_session=&in_page=ideasExchange

A SPECIAL EVENT – APG PRESENTS BATTLE OF BIG THINKING
Battle of Big Thinking celebrates big thinking that leads to big ideas.
What’s Battle of Big Thinking all about?

>> Big ideas and spiky topics! 15 world class speakers, across five topics; Marketing/Advertising; Business; Media; Storytelling; Government/Social
>> You – the audience – get to vote for the biggest thinker
>> Julian Morrow described it as "a cut-throat reality show for brainiacs – we should have called it "So You Think You Can Think"
>> Fast, furious and lots of fun – at only $260 a ticket, this is a fraction of the cost of other conferences and proceeds go to a great cause…The Inspire Foundation
Fifteen speakers packed into one afternoon of inspirational thinking, new ideas and entertainment.
Aviational-jazz-hop masters The Conscious Pilots will perform for spectators following the match.
Your battle referee is Julian Morrow, Co-Founder of The Chaser.
DATE: Wednesday 17 March 2010
TIME: 12.30pm – 8pm
VENUE: Bay 20, Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St Redfern Sydney.
TICKETS: $260 per person, purchase through Ticketmaster here >>
Speakers preparing to do battle include –
- Tim Gartrell, CEO, Auspoll
- Nic Mackay, Managing Director, The Human Race
- Abigail E Thomas, Head, Strategic Development, ABC Innovation
- Richard Slatter, General Manager, We Are Hunted
- Jon Wilkins, Global Founder, Naked Communications
- Antony Loewenstein, Author of My Israel Question
- Tim Noonan, Director, Vocal Branding Australia
- Peter Williams, CEO, Deloitte Digital
- Richard Sauerman, Brand Strategist, Brand Alchemy

Battle of Big Thinking is sponsored by Fairfax Media and supported by the Inspire Foundation.

Stickybits

This looks exciting.

It’s a network that allows you to attach photos, music text, PDFs, zips, etc to any barcode. Use existing barcodes or generate your own through the site. Think we may be seeing a whole lot more of stickybits.

@handypearce

Brain controlled pinball machine

Brain controlled pinball machine. NUI 2.0?

@handypearce

Best Music video ever

From the new album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky" OK Go on Tour. Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs. Produced by Shirley Moyers. The official video for the recorded version of "This Too Shall Pass" off of the album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky". The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The "machine" was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs ( http://syynlabs.com/ ) over the course of several months.

I think it it bloody awesome

Use your arm to play Tetris

Skinput is based on an armband straddling the wearer’s biceps and detecting the small vibrations generated when the user taps the skin of his arm. It measures the vibrations and differentiates them based on bone densities, tissue mass and muscle size.

You can use different parts of your arm and even fingers to interact with it.

According to them it is 95% accurate and you can combine it with a pico projector and get some display on your arm as well.

check out the video

definitely an interesting concept, but until it is integrated into my T-shirt I doubt I will be interested in wearing an armband.

Take your score wherever you want

At the TechEd Middle East Microsoft showed off a game developed in Visual Studio. The interesting thing about this is that it plays on Windows with a keyboard, on the 360 with a controller and on your Windows phone 7 series using the accelerometer.

The real awesome thing about it is that you can start the game on your phone, then keep playing (from the same spot) on your PC at work (in your lunch break of course) and then finish it on your 360 at home.

check out the demo here

A little dynamic content while you wait sir ?

The New York Times and RMG digital out of home networks have just launched a content partnership that will deliver Times content to screens in a variety of place-based locations, according to Dmnews.

RMG’s 850 screens are found in environments where waiting in line is common (coffee shops and grocery stores). The plan is to deliver content via the screen and to promote Times’ mobile content via SMS and Bluetooth.

The Times’ strategy shows a great understanding of environmental conditions and multi-screen media consumption habits; two key pillars to a successful digital out of home installation.

Valve Software is up to something. More cake likely.

It’s been a crazy week for fans of the Portal that have been following the gaming press. After last patching the game with minor fixes in June 2009, Valve have pushed two cryptic updates live for the game this week, both of which made changes to the game itself.

The first added several radios to the game’s levels in addition to the ones already present in the game. Usually these just play some fairly crazy, mexican sounding musak, but several forum-posters on various sites have found that placing these radios on the various red buttons scattered throughout the game as part of the game mechanics, causes them to broadcast a new series of signals.

Things only get crazier from there. Portal fans from a bunch of fan forums, bless ‘em, have examined the transmissions and managed to decode them into morse code and images of security camera footage from Aperture Labs – the installation the game takes place in. The rabbit hole went further, though, as an MD5 hashed phone number for an old-school Bulletin Board Service was found in the images which itself had MORE cryptic images.

Kotaku‘s Michael McWhertor has a great write-up of the findings.

I love that Valve put this stuff out there knowing that their fans are crazy enough to do the work. I guess that’s what happens when you have to wait so long for sequel announcements! <cough>Episode 3</cough>

The second update to the game, which JUST went live actually changed the game’s ending – albeit very slightly.

I’m not going to spoil it for you, but if you HAVE finished the game, you can see the updated ending over at Giant Bomb.

All of this looks like it points to an announcement for Portal 2 at the GDC next week where Valve’s Gabe Newell is receiving the Pioneer Award for the Game Developers Choice Awards 2010.

Oh, yeah. It also looks like we might have a Mac version of Steam soon. Awesome.

One thing’s for sure. These points of data make a beautiful line.

See the future at Microsoft TechFest

Techcrunch was able to get a preview of the upcoming projects that MS will show off at the upcoming TechFest.

As usual not all of these will become an actual product but most of them are definitely interesting.

Here are the once I like:

Immersive Digital Painting

The translating telephone

Cloud Computing

there are a couple more here if you are interested

@maniac13