Type by Hand

Sometimes you need to just let go of the mouse and grab a good old pencil or pen. And bang out out some lovely “Type by Hand“. Three of us signed up for this endeavor last weekend and had a blast. Run by Wayne Thompson (of the Australian Type Foundry) and Gemma Eaves (of For the love of type fame), it consisted of almost non-stop 4 hours of fast-paced drawing. What a nice change to all the computer work we are doing day in day out.

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Shapeways – The 3-D Printed Object Shop

Last month we highlighted the revolutionary move by piratebay to allow the downloading of physical objects via pirated 3D print designs. This time it’s all legal and consumer friendly via the NY start-up shapeways. Shapeways is a shop for 3D objects and an instant route to market for, well, anyone.

In their own words:

“With a growing online community and marketplace, we’re a NY start-up that harnesses 3D printing to help you make, buy and sell anything you want.By providing a platform for our community members to share ideas and gain access to cutting edge technology, we’re bringing personalized production to everyone—whether you’re already designing in 3D or are just looking to buy something completely unique. We print everything on-demand, which means that every order is customized and personalized.

We’re working to democratize creation by making production more accessible, personal, and inspiring.”

Shapeways recently ran a competition for 3-D designs inspired by SIRI and here’s the winner:

Amazing to think you could get hold of this by simply sending it to print..

Title Scream

Simple and cool idea, a collection of 8 and 16-bit video game title graphics.

Title Scream

@danKrause

We like the UNIQLO Voices Website

Video content tends to play a standard role in most websites. The functionality is seldom messed with : Users click a play button to start (or get annoyed it played without your permission) and play only one video at a time. Normally video sits in a fixed position and will be of a set size. Indeed, screwing around with ‘standard video UI design’ can be a dangerous game but when it’s done right, it’s easy to start believing that video should be some much more in so many sites. Check out the Uniqlo website… it’s cool, fun, breaks some boring old rules and is our site of the day.

http://www.uniqlo.com/nyc/voices/

 

HT to @lyndonjhale

Very cool project! Mill Touch ‘Behind the Scenes’

The Mill

Arguably the best post production house on the planet have put together a project that documents the back catalogue of their work into an interactive touch experience.

Apart from being a brilliant project I thought the documentation of the process was handled brilliantly and makes a great case study.

Congratulations to Billy Blue’s Class of 2011

On July 1st I had the pleasure of attending the Vol No 1 exhibition where this year’s graduate class showcased their design skills prowess. To say the least, the exhibition was beautifully executed, and refreshingly current. This year’s exhibition was purely digital, a telling sign of the times as many of the graduates came from the communication design school, traditionally non-digital. Special congratulations to Lina Hallberg, Rasmus Rennerfelt, Sofie Johansson, Phil Sheather, and Nitesh Asrani.

The welcome room of the exhibition had a giant interactive wall (shown below). The wall was not only controlled through an iPad application but also through a mobile website.

Other rooms had mini-walls where the work of a group of designers was showcased further. Again the wall was controlled by an iPad application.

For more information, please see the official video below, or visit the official site http://bbex1101.billyblueinteractive.net/.

Ecotab

This is the tablet of the future as it recharges just by touching it! No more running out of battery, looking for the power cable or charger everywhere! this new tablet is also very ecologic as doesn’t need electricity! You just need to press your fingers or hand on the touch screen and it transform the finger interaction into energy!
Can’t wait to have this in market!

This Clock Tells Time Better Than You

Just tell me you’ve seen something as amazing as this. Go on. No really, I’d love to know!

The Clock Clock by Humans Since 1982

Ultimate list of Cool Touch and Gesture Based Video Walls

So who has the best interactive walls? Here’s some of our picks below. As we move into a world which is transitioning to devices using the NUI (Natural User Interface) there’s a lot to keep an eye on. If you know any more please post them in the comments.

1.University of Groningen:
Pros: Looks awesome, very responsive. Multi-user capable.
Cons: You can’t go out and buy one off the shelf. Touch based only?

2. Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect AND Windows Phone 7, working together!
Pros: Kinect SDK on the way for PC (fingers crossed) so a very affordable way to develop. Multi user. Facial recognition. Supports second screen in this video.
Cons: None. Seriously! SDK pending, this will be the easiest entry point to start building your first video wall.

3. Toyota Vision Multi Touch Wall:
Pros: Massive 82 inch screens at high res. Very responsive.
Cons: Expensive setup.

4. HD 18 Screen 20 ft Paint Wall with iPad integration.
Pros: Very cool. Huge. HD. Responsive. Works with a second screen (iPad)
Cons: Looks a bit like a one off application for now. Can’t go out and buy one.

5.Yahoo’s Gesture based Video Wall. http://vimeo.com/19177169
Pros: Looks good, hi-resolution and seems responsive.
Cons: Tiled screens. Looks like only one user at a time?

6. Microsoft LightSpace
Pros: It’s a true 3D interface for an entire toom. It projects working interfaces onto your arm/ hand.
Cons: Early days. Long way to go here (but still very cool).

7. Hard Rock Cafe Vegas:
Pros: Multi user. Smooth and responsive. Great content.
Cons: Looks expensive?

8. Ring Wall http://vimeo.com/6648869
Pros: It’s a massive 425 square metres in size. Enough room for everyone to play.
Cons: With 15 HD projectors we’re betting the ongoing running costs might stack up? 

9. The Schematic TouchWall with RFID
Pros: It recognises RFID cards allowing you access to personal info. Social integration.
Cons: Nothing obvious. This wall is pretty cool.

10. The BendDesk.
Pros: It’s horizontal AND vertical.
Cons: Not quite wall sized! It’s a prototype so a little rough round the edges.

 

11. Canon’s big wall – Expo 2010
Pros: It’s looks big and multi user.
Cons: We can’t quite tell if this is a ‘smoke and mirrors’ job. This video is more about the camera than the wall itself.

12. HP’s video wall of touch (link):
Pros: Nice tight looking tiled screens. Cons Already looking a bit dated compered to the others. Touch only. Touch looks a little laggy.
 

13. The Giant iPhone – Table Connect
Pros: Pretty simple concept. Just plug in your iphone and mount it on a wall!
Cons: Do they make a wall sized one yet?

We’re pretty sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of these soon. Please send us any good ones we might have missed! 🙂

Wonderful Computer Graphics seem almost too real…

This is 10 minutes of your time you won’t regret spending. Breathtaking CGI / animation meets architecture and photography. Hard to believe this is all computer rendered. Quite stunning – just watch it:

The Third & The Seventh by Alex Roman. “A FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.”

Awesome work. http://vimeo.com/7809605

Project launch: The Fresh Start Project

“We wanna make this digital” is the cry of many a client when they enter their ‘digital’ agency with a shiny new TVC and poster under their arm. Too many agencies will take a client’s TVC (and money) and make it ‘digital’ simply by putting a browser around it or sending it’s animated cousin off to Double Click.

I’m proud to say that’s not what we do here at Amnesia Razorfish. When our client, realestate.com.au, shared their really nice ATL spring campaign with us, we got really fired-up by the challenge of making this campaign come to life in the digital space. We didn’t want to simply TELL consumers that realestate.com.au helps give people a fresh start, we wanted to actually GIVE someone a fresh start. Some one that really needed a fresh start.

Say hello to The Fresh Start Project from realestate.com.au.  The aim of the campaign is simple. Build a a new home, for a family in need, through people’s use of realestate.com.au. As users interact with realestate.com.au they collect ‘bricks’ which they can donate to the 1 million brick target. In partnership with Habitat for Humanity Australia, the house will be built. There’s no augmented or virtual reality here. Sure – it won’t cause world peace, but it will make a real difference to a real family in real need. And that’s why I love this project so much. Hope you do too.

Visit the site >

The Designer Energy Saving Light Bulb

Plumen is the antithesis of low energy light bulbs as we know them. Rather than hide the unappealing traditional compact fluorescent light behind boring utility, Plumen 001 is a bulb you’ll want on show.

The Plumen bulb uses 80% less energy and lasts 8 times longer than incandescent bulbs, giving you the opportunity to purchase an ecological product with style. It works just like any low energy bulb but it has a lot more presence.

Plumen Bulb Loop from Plumen on Vimeo.

 

@danKrause

Custom Built Tron Light Cycles

Tired of playing Armagetron and wishing you had your very own Light Cycle to blaze a solid trail through cyberspace on? Wish no more! At least, wish a little less.

You won’t be cruising the innards of any computers on this baby, but you can definitely cruise the streets. As long as you’ve got a spare $35,000 USD, you can pick one up on eBay right now.

If you feel like buying me one for Christmas, I’m completely okay with that.

@tali3sin

[HT @bluerandom via Technabob via Geekologie]

Original 1979 Pac-Man Drawings

Toru Iwatani created Pac-Man. He still carries top secret documents with him to game conferences. No, really.

Iwatani was a speaker at the recent Festival of Games. To the surprise of the conference’s host, Iwatani was carrying the original Pac-Man sketches with him.

via Kotaku

ESPN’s brilliant, possibly borderline offensive 2010 World Cup Posters

On the eve of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, this brilliantly executed set of 33 posters (including 1 from each of the 32 nations competing) is sure to cause a stir and hopefully a laugh or two.

 

Australian poster

Why pantless?

 

French poster

Note Henry’s glowing hand. Cheeky. (nicely spotted Stephen)

See them all here or download them from ESPN’s facebook

[via World Cup Buzz]

Another Way To Hang Your Hat

If there are better ceiling lights than these, I don’t know what they are – though I’m willing take take suggestions.

Designer Jake Phipps came up with these classy creations a little while back, and I hope was duly rewarded for bringing a bit of dapper to the lighting scene. He calls them the Jeeves & Wooster – click through for cultural reference.

Honestly, is there anything a distinguished hat isn’t good for? If you’ve got some other well designed or wacky hat uses, or lighting solutions, it would be great to see them in the comments!

@tali3sin

WIN an exclusive Razorfish iPhone cover

We’ve been asked to submit an A4 image for the Digital Who’s Who of Australia. It would be boring if we just submitted the image so in true socialist media stylee, we thought we’d throw it open to you to pick an image.

Here’s the brief:

‘Lastly, please provide a single A4 image (at 300dpi) that you feel most effectively communicates your strengths to prospective clients.

The content is absolutely up to you, as long as we can print it on an A4 page.’

Submit your entry in the comments below.

Best image wins one of these snazzy Razorfish iPhone covers:

@handypearce

Street Fighter IV iPhone Covers are Win

If you’re reading this blog you’re probably a tech, or design nerd of some kind, and if you’re a nerd there’s a pretty high chance you’ve wasted (read: appropriately utilised) a good portion of your time playing Street Fighter in its various incarnations. Regardless of whether or not that’s a broad generalisation, these Street Fight iPhone covers are totally rad.

Click to see that exact same picture, but larger.

Oh, and enjoy this video.

Personally, if I wielded an iPhone in my daily life, I’d have a hard time not purchasing anything that made it look like Ryu. Got a favourite?

~@tali3sin

[Source: Capsule Computers Australia]

Official iPad Apple video showcases broken NY Times Site

I spotted a few Twitter users talking about this: The official Apple iPad video actually shows the NY Times site with a broken area of the page (apparently a flash video) which is caused by the lack of iPad support for Adobe Flash.

Why is this an issue? Well according to HP (here) 85% of the top 100 sites on the internet use Flash and that 75% of all video on the web is flash based. That’s a lot of missing content for a device that is supposed to be the ultimate content aggregator.

Freezeframe at 1m17s
http://www.apple.com/ipad/#video

 

This space looks set to hot up. Here’s HP’s own version of the iPad out this year demonstrating how Flash should work in a tablet PC:

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