The Fish’s Friday Five

Well, it’s the last Friday of the month and I thought I’d share what I think are the best and worst television commercials going around, for a bit of fun.

So, I give you ‘The Fish’s Friday Five‘. I encourage you to let me know what you think. Do you love any of these, hate them with a passion or have others you want to share?

The Best Five:

1. Nike’s Write the Future TVC

Facebook listens to backlash, and changes the ballgame (again)

Mark Zuckerberg, hero or villian?

“We missed the mark” said Facebook founder, and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday 24 May. Fast forward to Thursday 27^th May, and Facebook have announced their new, improved privacy controls.

Much has been written on Facebook’s privacy calamity lately. Perhaps signifying Facebook’s break into mainstream culture (rather than just a fad), even the New York Times, the BBC and the Washington Post have dissected the issues around Facebook’s open graph, security breaches, advertisers gaining access to user information, and even Zuckerberg’s purported delve into the private email accounts of detractors.

Samsung 3D Projection Mapping In Amsterdam

Samsung have just run three nights of an amazing 3D projection mapping installation in Amsterdam to promote their new range of 3D LED TV’s.

Perfectly mapped to a historic building in Amsterdam, the projection realistically cracks the building in half, sending debris shattering down before it fills up with water and then drains into a rain forest revealing the new Samsung 3D LED TV!

How Exciting: Algorithm Detects Sarcasm

The amusing nerds over at Geekosystem, and the more serious nerds over at Slashdot are reporting in that someone has created an algorithm capable of picking sarcasm in written statements. Great, just great. That immediately ruins the chance of ever messing with some straight-laced, sensible robot slave in the future.

It’s called SASI (semi-supervised sarcasm identification algorithm), and apparently “SASI achieved a precision of 77% and recall of 83.1% “on an evaluation set containing newly discovered sarcastic sentences, where each sentence was annotated by three human readers.”” More info and a couple of thoughts after the jump.

The future of the touchscreen

Imagine being able to feel the buttons on your mobile when you slide them across the screen or feeling the material as wood, metal or stone.

Toshiba’s working on just such a project, which operates on the basis of a film affixed to your smartphone’s touch panel. Electrical currents are sent through this layer, and your fingers are shot up with the simulated sensation of touching those various surfaces.

And it is not fiction anymore as they have a working prototype and they weren’t shy to show it off.

@maniac13

Google showing off Android 2.2

At Google I/O in San Francisco, Google unveiled its new version of the Android operating system, 2.2, dubbed “Froyo.”

One impressive improvement is its speed and Google isn’t shy to show it off and compare it to, let’s say the iPad

In the video after the jump, 2.2 is the phone on the left, 2.1 is the phone on the right. And on the other side of the stage on the other screen is the iPad. All the devices have a 1 Ghz chip, and all are running the same (web-based) app (in which a creature races around a screen).

check out the video after the jump

New Facebook Privacy Tools: A Cunning Ruse?

Everybody is mad at Facebook for destroying privacy all the way across the Internet. Here’s the thing though, they’ve recently had this meeting, right? You’ve probably heard about it. Only two things appear to have come out of this meeting so far, and neither address the issue at hand.

In essence, the two new tools described here allow you to give specific devices (your phone, work computer, and home computer for instance) the authority to log-in to your Facebook account. While this is fantastic for account hacking prevention, and are therefore important for privacy, they’re barely related to the reasons an angry mob has formed at Facebook’s gates.

My rant after the jump.

Disney Star Wars Weekend Posters

Like every year Disney is promoting their Star Wars weekend with some awesome posters:

Here are some from this year:

 

 

Alan Wake – The Project

Here’s a little something we worked on recently for Xbox Australia that was pretty fun. We kidnapped a bunch of Xbox gamers, stuck some probes on them and then left them alone in various locations at the Quarantine Station at Sydney’s North Head. Oh, yeah, they got to play Alan Wake before anyone else in the country.

Interesting to see how the body responds to intense situations in games. Alan Wake has its share of them too. I’ve had a go myself and I’m in no hurry to go wandering in the woods at night any time soon.

Check the site out at http://www.xbox.com.au/theproject/

There’s some more videos you can check out and a bunch of pics on Flickr.

Social Media Win: A Radio Station That Listens

It’s far too easy to focus on all the negative things in life, especially in this slippery social media scene that people are still getting a handle on. As a friend of mine quite wisely observed just yesterday – “social car crashes are compelling.”

As compelling as an epic fail may be, it’s still important to shine a light on all the little wins. Here’s one I prepared earlier.

A few days ago one @chess65 decided to share something of interest on the ABC Radio National Facebook Page. This was not a spammy comment, or something completely out of context – it was a link to Sounds of Australia content – something that may well be liked by people who like Radio National.

Moments later it was moderated into oblivion. How this turns into a win, and what that says about ABC social guidelines after the jump.

My Gadget wish list for 2010

In my line of work (and because I love it) I come across a lot of cool gadgets and usually (at least if you ask my wife) I spend too much money on them.

So this year I will follow my moms advice and make myself a list.

Usually I start these lists with the least and work my way up to the best, but I want to start with the device I really really want this year.

1. Samsung Galaxy S

I have been using my 8310 blackberry for too long and for a while there I was carrying around 3 devices to do my phonecalls, emails and browsing and gaming, but the Samsung will be able to do all that.

So why do I want it?

for a start I don’t like the iPhone (don’t get me wrong I think it is a good phone for “normal” users), but it just doesn’t do what i want from a phone.

apart from that here is my  shortlist on why I want it:

* 4 inch WVGA Super Amoled screen (finally a device i can use outside)
* big (as in big capacity) battery – 1500mAh
* 16GB internal memory + extendable with micro sd
* wireless n
* camera capable of 720p video @ 30fps
* support of MPeg4, H.263, H.264, WMV, RV, DivX, Xvid and MKV – no more converting movies
* Samsung Social Hub – no more opening up app after app after app – I just have it all in one inbox – sweet

 

2. Tablet

I had a chance to play with the iPad for a few weeks now and I have to say I am not impressed – especially since Apple announced the AU pricing for it today and again, Australia gets screwed – all you really get is a big iPod

so what do I want in a Tablet?

iPad Australian pricing, release date announced.

The iPad is finally coming to Australia. The release date – May 28th. The price – starts at $629 for the 16GB Wifi model and goes all the way up to $1049 for the 64GB 3G.

If those prices agree with you, then you might want to preorder one fast.

“An unbelievable price” says Apple.

Life Beyond Social: The Next Big Thing?

Now the wheels are finally in motion on the Social Media train, I find myself becoming increasingly keen to focus on the next big thing, and the approach to make it all a reality.

But first thing first: what IS the next big thing?

For me, the next significant phase in marketing is a [much deeper] convergence of the real and digital worlds, in a way that will not only amaze, but adds value to our every day activities.

OK, before I go off into crazy ideas land, I’d like to say that Real:Digital Convergence isn’t a diversion from Social Media. It’s a build on it.

Social Networking has enabled us to locate and connect with many more like-minded people than would be possible for the majority of us in the real-world. And thanks to that, we’re able to efficiently distill the masses of information on the internet, through [explicit and implicit] recommendation from those like-minded people, on what’s worth a look/read/buy and what’s not.

R:D convergence simply extends the ability to do the same distilling of information [to aid fast & informed decision-making] in the real world.

So now to the fun part: what it could look like.

Sixth Sense
If I were a VC, I’d be backing MIT labs’ Sixth Sense, which conceptualizes R:D Convergence exceptionally well.

I imagine being out shopping, seeing a product that I like but am unsure about, and using a ‘reviews’ gesture to project the latest reviews [from my social networks and beyond] on the product or my hand; and a similar thing when out looking for a good restaurant to eat at. Of course, you could do this research at home, but this doesn’t work for spontaneous decisions. A critical success factor of this then, would be the speed or returning the relevant information, and displaying it in a way that makes it quick and easy to absorb – you are, after all, out and about and unlikely to have the time to read a novel to inform that spontaneous decision.

I then drift off on thought-tangents, thinking about the introduction of unique product/service codes (perhaps in place of bar codes, and on business cards) that are instantly recognised by your Sixth Sense-style device: simply give it the reverse-review gesture and up pops the ‘what YOU will love / hate about this product/service/company’ [based on a personal profile, built on your internet behaviours, previous reviews, diggs, likes, blog comments, etc]. You can later tell it how accurate it was in guessing, which teaches it to adapt for later reverse-review requests. Ooo, this would be good!

Augmented Reality
And then there’s the combination of real world image recognition [eg, building outlines etc] combined with mobile + internet capabilities (location + web content/data] to provide a situation contextual internet… and it’s already starting to happen, with early Augmented Reality applications starting to appear: check out this Real Estate AR app from Holland.

Truly Interactive Advertising

In a similar vein, I see new forms of advertising developing too, along the lines of an ‘integrated sponsor’ model. For example, in TV, the products and services (whether a car, clothing, furniture, or even fast-food) used in the program could be clicked to get info on that product, including the ability to ‘[Facebook] Like’ the product, and even purchase it direct from your screen.

In this model, the retailers loan the products for the TV program rather than paying for traditional advertising; the production company no longer has to buy the products in, and; the consumer gets an opportunity to have a richer experience and the ability to build stronger association with their favourite shows, by ‘owning’ the lifestyle it represents, as well as benefitting from fewer interruptions during the show. The retailer also could benefit from increased exposure [no ad skipping] and measurability [click-thru; 'like'-ing etc].

OK, I’m going to stop there before I get tangled up in my own thoughts. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – what do YOU think the next big change in marketing will be?

@jbewes

Anybody in need for some sexy superfast storage?

then check this DIY project out

Will Urbina put 16TB of RAID 5 magnetic media and a 1.66GHzAtom N270 CPU into a completely hand-built Lexan, aluminum and steel enclosure.

 

It writes at 88MB per second and reads at a fantastic 266MB per second which is nearly as fast as current SSD drives.

Will is the guy that modded a Xbox to run OSX and windows 7 called osxboxpro

or how about a “portable” video edit suite with dual screens? yes he has done one of those too – called the CinematographHD

 

 

But enough of his older mods and back to his resent one. Like always, he makes time-lapse videos of his construction and these 2 are worth watching.

So take some time, sit back and enjoy the magic:

 

I don’t know about you, but I want one

@maniac13

Moshtix Needs To Sing Their Sorry Song

Update 17/05 at bottom of post, after jump

Splendour in the Grass went on sale today, and Moshtix had a pretty good go at ruining absolutely everything. Quick summary for the uninformed:

• 8:45am Everyone in Australia who loves music preps their computer
• 9:00am 32,000 tickets go on sale
• 9:01am – 2:14pm It all goes horribly wrong, site outages, mass complaints, Aussies take their complaints to the social space, Moshtix disable comments on Facebook, realise their mistake some hours later and switch comments back on
• 2:15pm All tickets are sold out, thousands of people are filled with rage

After the jump I’m going to lay out a few examples of the kind of negative sentiment Moshtix have been receiving over the course of the day, and then lay out some blunt advice for what I’d like to see them do now. Yes, there will be swearing.

Google Chrome vs Lightning, Sound and flying potato

Sounds weird – well it is.

Google is showcasing that its browser can take on some really fast things and compete with them.

they are using their latest beta of Chrome and check its speed of loading/rendering web pages against a flying potato, sound waves and lightning.

check out the video after the break

Indie Game Bundle – Choose Your Own Price

Everybody likes finding a good bargain, and that’s exactly what this is. Wolfire Games is an excellent indie game developer, with a couple of wins tucked under its belt. All five games are cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux) and DRM free. This is a sales model that’s becoming established, and I like it – more on this after the jump.

The games they’re bundling are:

• World of Goo
• Aquaria
• Gish
• Penumbra
• Lugaru

Best Homes of the Year crowned – and I want one

every year for the past 5 years Electronic House has run a contest for the best electronic houses out there. From home theatres to ultra-connected kitchens over 250 projects were submitted and out of 15 categories 43 winners were chosen.

Here are some of my favourites:

The BatCave meets Home theater

closed with a secret button hidden in the fireplace to open a new world

 

The Teminator doesn’t like Apple

or has Microsoft paid him to destroy it?

Leon Wang created a story about a Terminator that needs energy to blow up an apple store

check out the really well done video after the break

Sony vs Microsoft or Atrac vs Surface

Swiss company Atracsys sold its tech knowhow to Sony and the company is today informing the world that its atracTable is ready for mass production and commercialization this June.

The system is a dual camera-based system that tracks and analyzes body movements in three dimensions, in real-time. Initially designed for use with a computer in a sterile operating theater, the interface not only notices subtle changes in the position of your body, arm, hand, or finger position, but it’s also determine rough age, sex, or facial expression of the user.

of course nobody knows a price yet, but they promise a high-contrast, Full HD screen, which is already better than the surface table from MS.

It will be able to communicate with your mobile devices or respond to motion input, which is picked up by a pair of Sony camcorders.

Here is another video of it in action: