It’s Twitter… but with more shirt. Augmented reality gets it’s tweet on thanks to @Squidder and the FLARToolKit.
Think of the potential! Brands can now put their twitter feeds on garments… distribute a feed via a badge, sticker or pen. Really brave? Twitter tattoo! My mind is racing.
Now all we need to do is figure out how to make the viewer mainstream. Have a look:
Much of what interests me these days is seeing the new twists that help to bridge the gap between technology and business. Innovation doesn’t always take us in the correct direction - the correct path is often only possible to identify once the destination has been reached. Woah, deep!
Video advertising is about to take an evolutionary step forward…
There are so many good things to say about this short film. Possibly the most telling is that I’ve now watched it half a dozen times… and in an Internet age when everything is old after 15 seconds, that’s quite an achievement.
It’s very likely that the plot and theme are striking quite close to home - but let’s move beyond that. The crafting of the characters and materials, the simplicity of the storyline and the obvious style of the artist combine to create a truly enjoyable experience.
I find stop motion animation to be a curious beast - shunning technology to, quite literally, add texture to the story - the medium seems out of place and somewhat outdated. Nevertheless, I think producing this work in any other way would have been an injustice. The execution exhibits a purity and innocence that mirrors the magic of the story… what a pleasant surprise.
Make sure your sound is on and click through to have a look.
Here’s a quick note to plug BCM’s newest site, BigBrownbox.com.au’s Shoot And Win Contest.
It’s an interesting case study as BigBrownBox.com.au is a new brand so there was a significant opportunity to make an impact - and an obvious requirement that we deliver the message in a memorable fashion.
I’ve done my best to balance the excitement of a competition site with the potency of the brand icon and display the key messages in a friendly and intuitive fashion. Have a look and tell me what you think - after the jump is a brief discussion of some of the key screens and technologies used… yes, we’re talking Papervision3D… you know me too well.
I highly recommend this site!
Watch the whole video - and pass it on.
Link: www.whatdavoloves.com
I don’t know why (I suspect that it’s probably due to advertising - you’ll soon see that there’s a big dose of irony here) but lately I’ve been thinking a lot more about how much useless _stuff_ I have.
I’ve always been a quality-over-quantity guy… I prefer to not have something for another week or year until I can afford the exact thing I will treasure forever. I now have a TV that I think makes the act of watching TV more enjoyable. I drink from wine glasses that help me to enjoy the wine. I have furniture that I look forward to sitting in/at/on… yada yada yada.
I also throw out a lot of stuff… most of it is packaging. Sure, we recycle - but I’m starting to question whether I’m doing enough… whether we as a collective are doing enough. It is a crazy, mind-bending problem and whilst I’m doing my best to figure out how I can minimise my impact, I can share the message with you.
Check out this site: www.storyofstuff.com. I’m sure you’ll learn a few things; if nothing else, it’s a first class example of viral marketing.
Just a quick plug for a recent TV commercial produced by the gurus at work.
I don’t want to give too much away here because I think much of the fun/experience is in the discovery of the concept. Click through to watch.
Here’s another inspirational video, straight to you from the deep end of the genius gene pool…
Take a dodgy old video and spice it up with some high-res photos using this revolutionary software.
From the site:
The work presents a system for automatically producing a wide variety of video enhancements and visual effects. Unlike traditional visual effects software (e.g., After Effects, Shake, Boujou, etc), the system is completely automatic and no manual labor is required from the user.
The demos that really made an impact on me were the last couple where he experiments with synthesising alternative textures within the 3D scenes.
Something in this for everyone:
There’s something about seeing a regular video visualised in three dimensions, stretched across space and time, to make sure you never forget that we are only ever a few clicks away from absolute genius.
From the site:
The work presents an interactive system for quickly creating alpha mattes for objects in a video. Unlike previous techniques commonly employed in the visual-fx industry (e.g., rotoscoping) our system can help novice users create professional quality mattes with very little manual effort.
These alpha mattes can then be used to cut out objects from one video and composite them into another video. Alpha mattes can also be used to apply image filters selectively to objects in a video.
Even if you’re not into video, you’ve got to check this out.
Thanks to my friend, Rob “Finger on the Pulse” Barnett, today has started off on an inspirational note.
Italian group, “TODO, interaction & media design” have created an installation that is the Pavlovian bell to my salivating dog. We’re talking boids, Processing, intelligent agents, simple vector creatures and classic architecture as a canvas.
I’ve got two videos for you. The first shows the installation from the perspective of the viewer, the second is a behind-the-scenes synopsis of the software and flocking methodologies.
About a year ago, a friend of mine foretold that, in his opinion, Flex would be dead in about 5 years! (No, I haven’t forgotten!!!). So, it is with a barely concealed rippling undercurrent of ulterior motives that I’m making sure you all know about The Adobe Developer Connection’s “Flex in a Week” site.
I admit, I haven’t really bothered with Flex yet. The crazy thing is that I’m really interested and keep wanting to dive in - I guess I just needed a hand… and an excuse. If you end up having a go, let me know and we’ll keep the world updated with your progress and comments.
They’ve only got 3 days worth of videos to wade through (so far), but these are punctuated by exercises to help cement your knowledge.
I sincerely think…. nay, predict…. that Flex, along with Flash and AIR will take over the world. Not exactly a bold prediction, I know. Help me to help you… to help me…. get started now: the first video is embedded after the jump - “Comparing Flash, Flex, Flash Player and AIR”.
Newbies, start your engines.
Like you, I found the experience of playing Portal to be a digital highlight of last year. The game itself was such a welcome diversion from the usual zombie fodder.
Similarly, I’ve enjoyed the spin-off ideas and implementations that have emerged. One of the more clever examples is the following AR Portal experiment. Watch the following video for a scenario in which two cameras can copy and paste content in real-time. Technically this is an Augmented Reality experiment… but let’s just pretend that it’s real.
Well, Mozart it aint… but, you know what, Mozart was never this pretty.
There’s something quite hypnotic about watching a flocking simulation. The pseudo-intelligent behaviour that we witness so often in nature, which can be mimicked with just a few simple rules, is really quite compelling regardless of the canvas on which it is presented.
From the site:
Phlock is an interactive installation that allows viewers to sequence sounds and create music using the emergent behavior of digital creatures.
Enough said. Now watch:
For the fellow Twitterholics out there, here’s a quick look at a visualisation concept that does justice to each and every one of your 140 characters.
Titled, “Twitter Conversations Map”, Walter Rafelsberger’s attempt at making your chit-chat pretty is commendable indeed. In his words:
“A visualization showing conversations of about 1500 users from microblogging service Twitter. The arcs link the locations of users who talk to each other.”
Yeah, this is very cool. It’s difficult to describe why I like this so much. No doubt it has a lot to do with the use of particle effects throughout!
Radiohead’s new music video takes geometric forms and describes them with animated particles which results in a 3D sculpture/silhouette effect. I’m sure you’ll agree that watching their interpretation of real-world data is quite seductive and satisfying.
