Google to the rescue–simple flash to HTML5 conversion

OK OK that might have been a not quite true statement (yet), but the google labs have a little tool called swiffy that converts Flash SWF files to HTML5, allowing you to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player (such as iPhones and iPads).

Swiffy currently supports a subset of SWF 8 and ActionScript 2.0, and the output works in all Webkit browsers such as Chrome and Mobile Safari. If possible, exporting your Flash animation as a SWF 5 file might give better results.

check out the 2 different animations here:

SWF

HTML5

Still in the early stages, but definitely promising. Hopefully soon it will support Actionscript 3, slice scaling, Scenes, Filters and advanced text rendering.

@maniac13

Google Continues To Go Under The Knife

I am sure many of you might have already seen this today, but Google has launched a new looking home page, it is not another Google test. The new look home page which now includes a fancy grey stripe at the top, a smaller logo and the links moved to the bottom of the browser was introduced to streamline the experience across multiple devices such as the tablet and the mobile. It continues to focus on three core design principles: Focus, Elasticity and effortlessness.

They are continuing to make changes over the coming months with a noticeable change to the search engine results page (SERP). See below. Display URLs will be moved up under the headline, whilst it seems they are changing the colour on the left navigational menu (grey and red) and introducing a slight grey box across the search bar. I also noticed that the tiny blue line on the top navigational bar has changed to a tiny red line, could this mean Google is moving towards a dominate red and grey themed page, instead of the blue?

I personally like the new look, however, not everyone will be a fan.

Dancing in the air

cWe have all heard of synchronized swimming and we have all seen people jump out of planes and do some synchronizing.

But when you take the whole thing inside a smallish tube with lots of wind it somehow becomes a beautiful indoor ballet in the air.

Check out the video, it is pretty cool

Editing Audio the easy way

what if you could treat an audio file the same way you could treat a photoshop file?

Spectral Layers which at the moment is in Alpha Stage 2 promises just that. The software has the ability to use multiple layers, work with multi-channel audio as well as surround sound, and extract individual voices, instruments, or any other noises.

Check out the video and see for yourself

Spectral Layers from DIVIDE FRAME on Vimeo.

@maniac13

Great concept for an AR app

Always went to a place and thought “I am sure the filmed this movie here” but you weren’t really sure about it?

The Augmented Reality Cinema will come to the rescue.

The idea is simple, start up the app point it in the direction where you think they shot the movie and it will show you the scene on the screen.

Cool? Hell yeah.

hopefully whoever makes it is smart enough to include the community. Tag your favourite movie spot, add this scene to it etc. etc.

@maniac13

Never focus on the wrong thing ever again

 

We all had that issue at some stage where we took an awesome picture and when we looked at it on our computers the important parts were out of focus.

I have been talking about a lens developed by Adobe here, but now there is a competitor that says they will have a competitively priced consumer camera will be coming out later this year. They are called Lytro.

They are working on a light field camera that captures the missing dimensions of the light that flows into a picture. These cameras have been around for a while now, but they weren’t commercially viable.

With their product you can focus on the background, the foreground, somewhere in the middle or just make the whole picture in focus. There is also the possibility to slightly change the perspective of the shot.

check out the video

Pretty cool stuff and I hope it is going to be affordable, because I will get one.

@maniac13

May any screen be a touch screen

That’s what the ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) in Taiwan thought when they dreamed up this little hardware extension to any size screen.

a couple of right now still bulky attachments to your screen and suddenly you have a multi-touch display. Right now it is still a prototype, but hopefully it will make it into mass production sooner rather than later.

Check out the video:

The mouse 2.0

The mouse (first one ever displayed below) has been around since the first PCs hit the market and it hasn’t really changed much.

Now 2 German students sat down and started to think about how to improve the mouse and they came up with this prototype.

The roll of your mouse slows down, giving files the feeling weight based on the size of their contents. Depending on how much a given file has been used the mouse starts to breathe.

Check out the video. An interesting thing I thought is that they brought back the mouse ball – remember those – always clogging up with dust?!?

DataBot Mouse from Jan Barth on Vimeo.

 

They also dreamed up a hard drive concept which expands and contracts based on the amount of space being used up.

DataBot Harddrive from Roman Grasy on Vimeo.

 

Pretty cool concepts, I am just not sure how useful they would be.

Let me know what you think.

@maniac13

Finally, we can all see what our life would look like if it were a museum exhibit.

Yesterday, while sorting through my social interwebs – I came across a new Facebook app by Intel called “Museum of Me”. It promises to create a ‘visual archive of your social life’ by connecting with your profile and pulling out odds and ends, likes, photos and videos, even your most used status words.

The app has copped a bit of flak from the online tech blogs overnight; but narcissism and bad memories aside, I’m impressed.

Once the app has trawled your Facebook account, you are then taken through a 3 minute virtual tour of your social life in the form of a museum exhibit.

It’s pretty cute. And clever. And remarkably similar to Social Memories (but without the blatant profiteering).

(Happy now, Stephan?)