Compared to the traditional paint-and-stencil graffiti, light graffiti (also known as light art, light writing and light painting), may seem minor to some of you if not entirely esoteric. Yet, this emerging concept, described by the Guardian as a new wave of ephemeral street art, is a most fascinating zeitgeist phenomena. Light graffiti can also be described as an organic, environment-friendly yet non-vandalistic channel for self expression in public. In most cases, no public space is being "liberated" for more than 30 seconds. Here, wall paint is replaced with flash lights and laser pointers, street walls - with megapixels. Naturally and as expected, where creativity, innovation and buzzy weather meet major companies (and their finest creative teams and branding divisions) can also be found. They are here because their job is to tag along the hype but with their corporate media power they also fuel the trend and make it stronger. The result: a new colorful scale of innovative human expressions such as the following selection of seven light art projects.
1. Lichtfaktor
The German collective Lichtfaktor has been well known for pioneering lightart photography since 2006 after, according to Wired.com, Marcel Panne - a video mixer with a background in photography - was approached to produce new material for an event themed "Energy in Motion". In the past two years major brands such as Absolut Vodka, Mark Ecko, Audi, Phillips and PlayStation have already paid Panne and his partners David Lüpschen and Tim Fehske to participate in a few innovative print campaigns. The above image, for example, is of a set recently shot in London and Brighton for British TV channel current.
In March this year the first ever Lichtfaktor TV commercial was released and included some of the most high-budget light art images ever created. The commercial was made for the BEKO ALL-STAR brand in Istanbul and includes music by Jingle Jungle. See selected snapshots above or just watch the whole clip here:
2. Illum
Conceived in summer of 2007 Illum is the brainchild of Sean Nelson and Chuck Grimmett - senior high school students from Amherst, Ohio, USA with a strong passion for photography art experimentation. Focusing on long exposures and different kinds of light art, light graffiti and light writing the Illum portfolio includes astonishing nature shots, self-brand signatures such as above, winter images and more.
Nature and Light Art shot
Circles
Winter shot
Urban shot
3. The Path of Light
Another creative two-man project started in Aalborg, Denmark in summer 2007 is The Path of Light. Using "the cityscape as a playground and flashlights as toys" Long Shutter and his (unanimous) are officially inspired by the works of Lichtfaktor. With pieces such as Satan's car, Turning on the lights (above) and Thoughts away (below) The Path of Light let their imagination "fill the streets with flowers and creatures" giving life to static environments.
The following is a recent stop-motion clip released by The Path of Light:
4. robokon_gt
Also with his own personal vision for car photography robokon_gt's "Getting chased..." and "The chaser becomes the chased..." (above) are excellent examples of how composition and motion vectors can be used cleverly within this medium. Other sets from this artist such as Gabe vs Gabe! and Feb light graffiti 010 (below) show a sense of humor is also on the checklist.
5. MRI
Ryan Warnberg and Michelle McSwain from Queens Brooklyn, USA turned their light art fascination into a local New York metro area business branded MRI, also known as M::R::I. Other than peculiar brand signatures such as the above ("m r i i n m n") the couple go with the slogan "Long exposures. Bright lights." and make unique kaleidoscopic portraits with original look and their own slightly sexy style. Version and Saint (below) are two excellent examples.
Above: items from the Version set. Below: Saint
If you happen to plan an odd drunken bachelor party or are otherwise interested in your own personal light session you are welcome to pick up your favorite email application and contact Ryan (the weird one) or Michelle (the pretty one). Worried about technical aspects of the production? There’. According to the MRI fellows Cameras, lights, cables and other must have accessories are all included. All you have to bring for a successful light event is yourself and your wildest ideas. See also the MRI Light Painting blog.
6. Luke Doyle
Luck Doyle from Oxford, UK uses acid purple lights to manipulate human figures into glowing super high-res light art photos. The above, titled Light people in bed, is in my humble opinion a true light art masterpiece. Click for image for a higher-resolution version or here for huge super high-res one. Another interesting set by Doyle that utilizes his branded purple is Glowing guitar. Super high-res version here.
7. Graffiti Research Lab: Night Writer
Another emerging method of using light to make your voice heard is using low-power led technology. Graffiti Research Lab, a division of the Eyebeam R&D OpenLab run by a couple of NYC-based artists who like projecting light beams onto buildings, had developed the LED Throwies as an inexpensive way to create a less temporary draw in light.
Consisting of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused led and a rare-earth magnet taped together, The Throwie's functionality was recently extended by the Night Writer – a cheap easy way to make 12-inch glowing letters setup. With Night Writer letters are placed up on an iron or steel surface forming the coolest low-budget neon-style sign or a shockingly prominent activist electronic billboard - make your own choice. Just two important notes before you consider setting your Night Writer up:
The first one is that according to the GRL folks it's hard to conceal a 10-foot pole.
In addition: please note the NYPD vans are ferromagnetic. The GRL are also a prominent player in the fields of architectural light graffiti and projection bombing - another two forms of lightart utilizing more advanced yet still pretty simple accessories. Here the creation takes the form of realtime or pre-planned sequences of light, feed through high-powered digital projectors and projected on public buildings and walls. Check out WebUrbanist for more architectural graffiti and projection bombing on urban surfaces.
Shine in the Dark: From Light Graffiti and Light Writing to Bachelor Party Installations and Activist LED Signs
The UN Voices Project: Print Advertising That Talks
A truly groundbreaking advertising campaign titled 'The UN Voices Project' was launched by Saatchi & Saatchi Australia earlier this week. Tailored for the United Nations, the new campaign combines innovative creative thinking with cutting edge mobile phone and image recognition technologies. According to Saatchi & Saatchi The UN Voices Project is probably the first attempt to make outdoor posters and press advertisement voice communicating with their targeted audience. Here is how this is done according to bestadsontv.com and four examples already printed (Click images for high-res versions).
"The campaign features outdoor posters, print and online elements. These are combined to reinforce the message of giving a voice to those whose plight normally goes unseen and unheard."
"People around Sydney are encouraged to take a mobile phone photo of the featured person’s mouth and send it to a number on the poster as a text message."
"Using digital image recognition technology and an Australian first call back service, the sender receives a return phone call with a pre-recorded message from the person they have photographed, giving a brief insight into how they live and highlighting some of the issues they face."
"The message then directs people to a UN website where visitors can leave their own comments and thoughts, turning the original seven voices into thousands."
Credits
Product: United Nations
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Sydney
Creatives: David Nobay and Steve Back (Creative Director), VINCE LAGANA (Creatives), Steve Jackson (Creatives)
Two-edged Media Sword: 10 Examples of Counteradvertising, Commerce Jamming and Propaganda Remixes
A plan to allow "domestic view" of data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can "see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers" has been recently approved by the USA government. For the good and bad of it, Information age enhances the ability of states to control citizens and of business corporations to enlarge leverage our privacy into profit: better security means more information in corporate hands and less privacy. Furthermore, Information age allows business corporations and states to deliver their message more efficiently than ever before. This means more products, more advertisements and less free public space. Yet, Information age also allows activist groups and their counter messages to be heard by millions. Following is a fresh collection of popular and particularly interesting strategies, case studies and resources demonstrating the two-edged sword face of new media - where counteradvertising, commerce jamming and propaganda remixes make a stand.
1. The Blackspot Sneaker: Cutting Through the Hype of Mediated Reality
According to AdBusters Media Foundation, publishers of the most popular subvertising magazine in the world and a leading activist group based in Vancouver Canada, well made subvertisments need to efficiently "mimic the look and feel of the targeted ad, promoting the classic 'double-take' as viewers suddenly realize they have been duped". With a list successful media projects such as the TV Turnoff Week which was aired on CNN, the Buy Nothing Day videos of 2006 and 2007 and a series of viral TV subvertisments titled The Product Is You, AdBusters continue to demonstrate how TV commercial language can be altered and manipulated to "cut through the hype and glitz of our mediated reality" and reveal "a deeper truth within."
The Blackspot sneaker, designed by John Fluevog, is Adbusters' recent Commerce Jamming project, a first Anti-Brand and your chance to "unswoosh Nike's tired old swoosh and own one of the most Earth-friendly shoes in the world": 100% organic hemp upper, recycled tire sole, made by Vegetarian Shoes in a European union shop including a hand drawn (!) logo plus.
2. Busting Phillip Morris: Why are you buying your food from a tobacco company?
In fact, some culture jamming ads carry indisputable facts about their targets making some disturbing unfamiliar truths to be a little more familiar to the public. "Why are you buying your food from a tobacco company?" showcased a list of popular food products owned by Phillip Morris, the world's largest cigarette company: "...Chances are that you've been helping to promote Marlboro cigarettes without even knowing it. You can withdraw that support by personally boycotting these products" the ad said. "It's like giving money to a health organization that is working to find a cure for cancer - but in this case you are taking money from a corporation that causes it. So next time you go buy food- try it. You'll like it."
3. The Reality of War: Vertigo vs. Australia's Department of Defence
In March 2003 Australia's Department of Defence has withdrawn advertising from all student media across the continent in response to a controversial full-page parody of Defence recruitment advertising published on Vertigo, a student newspaper at the University of Technology, Sydney. The spoof ad satirically portrayed the Department of Defence as "a political tool of an Australian government intent on participating in an unsanctioned invasion of Iraq" and was followed up and reprinted by other student publications.
This act of solidarity was like a golden medal to the Vertigo activists who saw the fact "students are no longer being inundated with inaccurate representations of the Defence Force" as a great victory. Vertigo spokesperson, Jano Gibson argued that "the 'exciting', 'inspiring' and 'feel good' Army ads that appear in uni diaries, on billboards and television differs extremely from the reality of participating in a war" and that Vertigo's parody "simply corrects the omissions of the Department of Defence." Click any of the above pictures for a larger version or download the pdf here.
4. Volkswagen vs. a Sick Joke: The Suicide Bomber Polo Driver
Sometimes facts are not the issue neither is the spoofer's opinion and the busted ad is made either "for" a non-existent product, or with a real one simply as parody of advertisements. Rarely, a familiar brand language is mimicked so well that the entire world is successfully fooled. In January 2005, managers at German car manufacturer Volkswagen found themselves in the center of a global row after a meme hack sick video joke featuring a Palestinian suicide bomber in a Polo car was virally distributed across the world via the internet.
The spoof TV advert showed an "oriental" looking man stepping into a Polo car wearing a keffiyeh scarf, known as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. After driving around the city for a while the driver stops near a resonant populated with lots of innocent civilians and detonates, yet leaving the car intact.
The video was punched-lined with the familiar style slogan announcing "Polo: small but tough". Check it out and see for yourself: Even though it is not very clear which "deeper truth" is actually being revealed here, this culture jammer was mimicking the familiar Volkswagen language so well it simply got people to believe it’s a real one.
5. Excuse me - Is that blood in your gas tank? Dave Ward vs. Hammer
"Please download the large version and pass it along to forums, websites and other people who might appreciate it. Spread the meme!" – Those were the words of Dave Ward, a professional photographer who in 2005 created two anti-Hummer spoof ad campaigns. Suggesting the real reason behind the ongoing blood shed in Iraq is to support America's oil demand fueled by manly Tofu hater ego-driven cars of the Hammer type, Ward's anti-war eco-friendly spoof ad became almost as popular as the originals and were massively and virally distributed on Internet.
In July 2006 the second Hummer ad titled "Excuse me - Is that blood in your gas tank?" showed up on Ads of the World, a commercial advertising archive for the best and most interesting creative work worldwide. I bet they didn't like this so much at Hammer's headquarters but in light of recent developments in America's approach to international global climate responsibility you might say this culture jamming attempt might have had some part in making a change.
6. The Madeleine Spoof: Extremely Hurtful and Not Funny
Not all ad spoofs are made with humanitarian causes in mind and some are made for profit or publicity and leave a very bad taste behind. An 'advertising' spoof published in a German satirical magazine named The Titanic included an allegedly double-spread ad for a supermarket, depicting a number of products promoted with the image and name of Madeleine McCann's. This poor-taste parody was later described by Madeleine's parent's spokesman as "extremely hurtful". Not much to say about this one. Perhaps just that it's a good example for a 'not very funny' spoof.
7. Doctors Ought to Care: I smoke for smell
Other spoofs can be very funny and can hardly defined as unjustified by anyone, that is unless you are a lung cancer tycoon. The idea to sabotage the interest of cigarette corporations using their own media weapons is far from being new and came up almost 30 years ago when the Doctors Ought to Care (DOC) organization was pioneered countered development and jamming tobacco ads. In a 1980 paper published in JAMA, DOC founder Alan Blum, MD, wrote that "humor can be an effective tool" in this war. Thus, in one of its poster series, the DOC parodies the classic I smoke for taste advertisement with a picture of a similarly defiant, macho character with a cigarette dangling from one nostril and the caption I smoke for smell.
8. Constitutions Matter: Billboard Liberation Campaign
A very popular form of adbusting, sometimes referred to as Billboard Modification or Billboard Liberation, takes the form of alternation of public space commercials and billboards to make a spoof or parody of the original corporate or political message. Usually it is the company that pays for the advertisement that is being under the attack. In some cases, however, the target can be the medium itself.
It was August 1, 2007, when the deadline for all billboards in the city of Tacoma, Washington to comply with a (ten years old) law requiring the removal of all (well defined) disruptive billboards. Three days later Pranks, a popular blog by Joey Skaggs dedicated to culture jamming and reality hacking published this follow up about hundreds of billboards in Tacoma which "have sprouted a scary blue and red message reading "Constitutions Matter". All adbusted billboards were left carrying the name "Clear Channel Outdoor", a company of Clear Channel Communications and one of the world's largest outdoor advertising corporations. Photos are taken by Pranks from a local city blog named exit133.com.
9. The Li Peng Story: Step Down to Appease the People’s Anger!
Politics, anti-war and freedom fighting were always of the most inviting countermessage battlefields for artists and writers. The story of the Li Peng poem is an extraordinary example of how mass media can be hacked to deliver political counter-messages even under extreme media control standards as practiced by Chinese government. In March of 1991 the overseas edition of the People’s Daily - China’s Communist Party newspaper - featured the following patriotic homesick poem, written by a graduate student from Los Angeles aliased Zhu Haihong. Apparently the poem was a brilliant "qianzi shi" also known as "inlaid-character" poem. Thus, when read diagonally from upper right to lower left the words "Li Peng must step down to appease the people’s anger!" could be interpreted. Li Peng, for those who don't know, was the Premier of China between 1987 and 1998 and the "chief architect" of the 1989 Tiananmen square massacre.
10. The Propaganda Remix Project: YOU Back The Attack! WE'LL Bomb Who We Want!
Lastly, and with no intentions of getting into any blue-red American politics, here is another great example for political counter messages targeting war propaganda: Micah Ian Wright is an American author who works in film and television and also the person behind YOU Back The Attack! WE'LL Bomb Who We Want!, a compilation of his Remixed War Propaganda with introductions by Howard Zinn and Kurt Vonnegut.
Other books from Wright include If You’re Not a Terrorist... Then Stop Asking Questions! and Surveillance Means Security! and hundreds of posters are available on his site The Propaganda Remix Project. When you are there, make sure you don't miss Wright's amazing collection of Hate Mail. All typos, errors, odd word choices, logic leaps, ad hominem attacks, homophobia, and delusions are claimed to be "quoted verbatim". I've found myself spending some time reading there. It's nice to see some folks know how to take some criticism :-)
iMedix: New Social Network to Help You Feel Better
Want to know more about your headaches or caffeine addiction? Searching for symptoms, diseases, treatments, or any other health related info? How about collaborating your efforts together with many other folks interested with the very same stuff?
iMedix is new social network helping people finding and sharing health related information. Members of the iMedix community use a spacial search engine that mixes results from the open Internet with user profiles, tags and recommendations and thus, assist each other by sharing their experiences and ranking medical content. According to iMedix their patent-pending search technology provides highly relevant results in response to health related queries. The engine "analyzes users’ feedback against millions of medical articles, pictures and videos in order to provide the best answers for health questions and concerns."
Concerned about your privacy? Uploaded content including text and images is of course accessible to other users and may appear in search results on iMedix. Yet, claiming for a 100% security and privacy procedures, iMedix enables you to upload your content and share it with other users without revealing your identity.
iMedix was co-founded in Israel by Amir Leitersdorf - and avid entrepreneur with strong Internet technology background who also co-founded and held the position of VP of Technology at Movota, which was sold to Bertelsmann Group in 2005. The iMedix start-up was just reported to raise $2M from private investors.
http://www.imedix.com
OpenSocial Alliance is here. Social Internet has changed.
It was just the end of October this year when we learned about another open standard alliance led by Google a move that was described as a "FaceBook killer". OpenSocial provides a common set of Application Interface (API) tools for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can now create rich interactive web applications, accessing data from other social networks, update feeds and create new mashed-up content.
Aiming for every social driven and user generated content website out there to implement the new standards, the OpenSocial alliance seek to change the way people are interacting with each other on the internet by removing some of the boundaries set by a chaosed freedom and commercial interests. Websites already implementing the new OpenSocial tools include highly popular websites such as MySpace, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle and Orkut. Members of the alliance also include Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, XING and many others. See them all here or check on the video below for interviews with some of OpenSocuial early industry adapters.
Google’s own social network, Orkut, is of course the one that Interests them most but a-la Google's style this is used mainly to give (a limited sandbox for OpenSocial development) rather than take (users from other websites by closing their cross platform communications capabilities). Furthermore, unlike Facebook which uses a proprietary language for their widgets, once you chose developing your new widget with OpenSocial you are totally free to use the best stuff Internet has to offer nowadays including Flash, html and javascript, or in other words - Ajax.
Even though latest figures show the impact on FaceBook's application market is yet minor, the OpenSocial alliance is just one of those things we can't understand how they did not exist until they did and it seems that Google just changed the rules of the game once again. Social Internet has changed. Adding the numbers and including the vast member pool of MySpace - FaceBook's mightiest competitor and an avid OpenSocial integrator - we get a "completely different picture of the combined OpenSocial sites compared to Facebook". A swift look at the above chart posted about a month an a half ago by Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise, tells the whole story in short: FaceBook - you took the closed course and got knocked out by the open one. Just like your Microsoft partner.
http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/
http://opensocialapis.blogspot.com/
Access Denied: Twitter joins blocked site list in the United Arab Emirates
If you made a reactionary old fashioned stuck in the past bad guy angry you must have done some good. Thus, my congratulations go to Twitter this morning for joining the lauded halls of the sites banned for speaking too freely. As reported by mashable.com, the United Arab Emirates has just decided that its residents shall corrupt their souls no more and avoid tweeting with each other as much as they probably have until now. Anyone attempting to access Twitter's website from the UAE gets the above message, translated as follows:
"We apologize, the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates. If you think this site should not be blocked, please visit the Feedback Form available on our website."
Other than newly added Twitter, mashable also mentions some other members of this respected list including MySpace, Facebook and of course devilish YouTube that got himself banned from Beijing, Thailand, Morocco, Australia, and others. Should we be surprised? Not necessarily. Apparently there are even some American folks struggling to block MySpace in schools and libraries. I wonder if that's due to their ability to spread ideas freely, having such a horrible interface or simply the number of female silicon body parts one must observe every time he opens his MySpace inbox.
For more information and a detailed list of other Internet destinations being "inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values" of additional bad guys check on Access Denied Map: Mapping Web 2.0 Censorship from globalvoicesonline.org, who also offer the following show your support badge.
Annapolis Conference: all eyes are on, but also the doubts
Could it be that this time, the who know which time, some real good will grow out of the current global penguin politicians parade? Looking at what is still going on in the West Bank and listening to what the Israeli settlers and right-wingers have to say, watching the way the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are divided over the meeting, allow your humble servant to share his skeptic doubts with you on the subject.
This said, lack of vision has always been one of the worst problems of my country so, with everyone spilling his skeptic doubts all over I know I should do the opposite: According to a statement published at the Annapolis conference today Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed on launching a new round of peace talks with the goal of "reaching an agreement by the end of next year." I think that is very good. lets all cross our fingers see where this is heading to.
Meanwhile, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli TV that the "Annapolis conference is a continuation of one-sided concessions by Israel" the Associated Press reported, and earlier today Israeli officials said they will "begin reducing electric power to Gaza next week in response to rocket attacks launched against Israel from Gaza".
"Begin reducing electric power to Gaza"...? Providing the Israeli government has serious intentions towards Annapolis, this must be a way to educate the Palestinian people for something but I am not sure for what. Perhaps for how to continue manufacturing bombs using less electricity and lower carbon footprint. Perhaps this is why baltimoresun.com says all eyes are on the Annapolis summit. Low-power consumption manufacturing is a hot subject nowadays.
Images courtesy of baltimoresun.com
The end of advertising as we know it
According to a recent IBM Institute for Business Value study titled The end of advertising as we know it, and based on IBM global surveys of more than 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising experts, it seems the Advertising industry is about to be changed completely in the near future when: "spending on interactive, one-to-one advertising formats" will surpass traditional, one-to-many advertising channels and a "significant share of ad space will be sold through auctions and exchanges".
Furthermore: according to the study, Advertising will be viewed and acted on an "ad, and pay based on real impact" rather than "estimated impressions". Consumers will "self-select" their advertising and "share preferred ads with peers". User-generated advertising is also expected to gain more attention becoming "prevalent (and appealing) as agency-created spots."
Thanks to Greg Verdino for his useful lead.
Download complete IBM Institute for Business Value study (302KB)
Download executive summary (104KB)
Japanese Puzzles by Hands-On Mobile: are Paint-by-Number puzzles going mainstream?
Seven years ago when I started collaborating with Dave Green and Conceptis, the company had just this one picture logic puzzle type they called Pic-a-Pix and it only came with black and white pictures. It was year 2000 but in the west no one had a clue what we were talking about when we showed him our samples. It was a long way from that point to nowadays when eleven puzzle families, dozens of variants and hundreds of different puzzle models are published in more than 30 countries across the world. This includes Japan, where Pic-a-Pix and other other picture logics as Link-a-Pix and Fill-a-Pix are published by G-Mode (Japan's leading mobile phone game provider).
As opposed to Japan, In the west picture logic puzzles are still a rare product when it comes to mobile but, along with Sudoku becoming the world's most popular puzzle, even this is starting to change and people become much more familiar with other language independent puzzle types. It seems that the way for the world to realize Sudoku is a very boring game comparing to some other logic puzzles is getting shorter every day. Take Hands-On Mobile, for example, a developer of connected games and applications that released a mobile game package earlier this week dedicated to what they refer to as "Japanese Puzzles".
Following-up on their claimed to be successful Sudoku Garden game from 2006, the new mobile puzzle package includes both Sudoku and Kakuro puzzles as well as some Paint-by-Number puzzles, also known as Pic-a-Pix, Nonograms, Griddlers and in this case referred to as "Tenpenki".
Hands-On Mobile's Japanese Puzzles seem to be a feature rich application and claimed to support:
- Multi-player puzzling of up to four players competing against each other wirelessly.
- Up to nine pencil marks
- Hint lookup
- Beginner tutorial mode
- Back statistics for skill improvement monitoring
- Save solution status and reload later
- Voyage mode allows players to take on all three games and unlock more content
- Access to additional content by downloading new puzzles every day and by competing for the fastest time against other puzzle fans from around the world.
According to Eric Hobson, President and General Manager EMEA, Hands-On Mobile “the puzzle sector is a vast market, and one where demand still exceeds supply.” I agree with that claim and, even though you might say Mr. Hobson and myself are in a way competitors in the market, I would like to wish him success with his new game. Picture logic puzzles as his Japanese Puzzles Tenpenki are on their way to consensus and mainstream entertainment and there will be enough business for everyone.
Hands-On Mobile
Amazon Kindle: read on the go with a wireless high-res e-paper display
Amazon made a big move today with the official release of Kindle - a new wireless portable reader that downloads books, blogs, magazines and newspapers to a high-resolution electronic paper display. Claiming to look and read like real paper even in bright sunlight, this new gadget from the largest book shop on earth is available starting today for $399.
Even though you couldn't get any Kindle shipped during last weekend's Black Friday or otherwise get an overnight shipment of your piece. Yet, Amazon still managed to generate a powerful buzz utilizing some journalists who got to play with the Kindle before the holiday. blog.scifi.com published this nice list of opinions regarding the new gadget.
To me the most amazing aspect of this major move is how the folks from Amazon appear to be well tuned to the growing public interest in Internet blogs. Apparently, more than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics are constantly updated wirelessly on Kindle devices throughout the day. This is a very interesting feature in my opinion as it emphasizes what every print publisher knows by now - public attention is shifting as more people become familiar with digital life.
Amazon Kindle includes a 6" diagonal E-Ink® electronic paper display and offers 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi, 4-level gray scale.
http://amazon.com/kindle
More technical info about Kindle on this pres release
From Columbine to Kaarst: the new nihilistic terror wave
We, the real people who send our children to school don't have any ECHELONs, CTUs, SD-6s or 8200s units to inform us when a new type of threat emerges, but we still have to realize the sad news: As if we didn't have enough of them already, a new form of anomic or nihilistic terror came into our world. It is very different from the common political / religious / military ones we know, it uses common Internet communication platforms as YouTube channels and Chat rooms. And its targeting our children when they are in school.
According The Guardian, following a tip-off from the Finnish police still investigating the murder of eight people at a school in Tuusula, Finland by an 18-year-old on November 7, 2007, German authorities closed a secondary school in Kaarst, Düsseldorf yesterday after being warned about:
"evidence on a closed internet chatroom conversation between several parties which pointed to plans for an attack in Germany [...] a plan to carry out a massacre, in the latest of a string of violent plots believed to have been hatched by students in internet chat rooms."
No evidenced link between the Finland case and the plot in Germany was reported but it does clear that both attacks appear to be "inspired by the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado". Now I don't know if you happen to watch Michael Moore's excellent documentary Bowling for Columbine (if you haven't I suggest you should), but to me, it becomes pretty much clear that we are dealing with a phenomena which will only become stronger over time.
The Internet as we know it was at its early stages when the Columbine terrorists, seen in the above security camera picture (source: movies.lovetoknow.com), had done their did but the message was still strong enough to get through. Pekka-Eric Auvinen could already post his plans on the web before going on a rampage at his school. Under the YouTube pseudonym Sturmgeist89, he posted a video entitled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007" in which he pretty much informed us all about his plans. In addition to a YouTube channel, Sturmgeist89 was also posting to a MySpace page prior to his fatal attack. It should not be so hard to believe that if such an Internet platform was already active, it would obviously might have changed a lot for many Finnish families that don't feel safe anymore.
They say there is some good and bad in just about everything and at least in Germany, where - for the good and the bad - they always have been a model for efficiency, a new Internet platform is now reported to be in planning process, aiming to allow the public sharing information about possible attacks of the new nihilistic terror wave type. I am not sure how much would this system really be a transparent user data sharing / collaboration platform, or just a new way for people to deliver information to police authorities. I hope it's the first, rather than the later, but anyway I am glad its happening and hope this would turn into a global effort, not just a German one. If you are not convinced yet, perhaps you should spend 5 minutes watching the above video posted by YouTube user phoenixgenesis.
The worst school attack in Germany's history took the lives of eighteen people - fourteen teachers, two students and a policeman - in Gutenberg high school in Erfurt, eastern Germany Friday April 26, 2002, but it seems that what this attack didn't do, the recent events do.
The "Not for Public Use" photos above courtesy of nancarrow-webdesk.com
Redmond, fasten your seat belts: Firefox 3 Beta 1 now available for download
The Microsoft IE7 folks at Redmond must be fastening their seat belts at these moments, getting ready for their largest challenge ever as the world's most superior Internet communication software has just been released as a public Beta. Firefox 3 Beta 1, AKLA 3.0b1 is now available for download with 3 operating systems and more than 20 languages already in supported list.
The rumors about Firefox 3 have been with us for a long time and a lot has been written about the third version. This Internet tool is not going to be just another crappy recycled version of the previous engine with additional bells and whistles and a few "new exciting features" stolen from others and implemented badly (have you seen the exciting new tabs on IE7? how exciting). Firefox 3 is developed as a completely new software, with much of its core re-designed from scratch. The Beta 1 is the ninth developer milestone and includes many new core functionality features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3 (see 3.0b1 release notes).
New Firefox 3 Beta 1 features:
- Improved security features such as: Better presentation of website identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager, and version checking for insecure plugins.
- Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading, full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows Vista and Mac OS X.
- Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart search bookmark folders, direct typing in location bar searches your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types.
- Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, major changes to the HTML rendering engine to provide better CSS, float-, and table layout support, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support.
- Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 300 memory leak fixes, and a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks.
Important notes:
The Mozilla folks say they do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release as it is intended for testing purposes only. In addition, If you blog this new further (you should!) please do not link directly to the download site but to this Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone announcement so that everyone will know what this milestone is, what they should expect, and who should be downloading to participate in testing at this stage of development.
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3
Magicmirror: Enhanced consumer experience
As Internet begins to fulfill the expectations it failed to answer prior to the dot com crisis of 2000, brick-and-mortar retailers feel threatened, not say pushed to the wall. Thus, after long years of "easy life" retailers need to consider some new ideas such as this Magicmirror for example, from an RFID retail installations company in Italy named Thebigspace.
Expected to appear in a select group of retailers’ stores early next year, this hi-tec mirror provides "an enhanced consumer experience” by playing tunes and displaying "promotional graphics" for the particular item in try, product information and suggestions for matching items. Put your finger on the touch-sensitive glass and a salesperson will be right at your service with a different size or color.
I agree with that there might be some privacy issues and concerns here but also that people will get used to it. I remember when visiting Japan in 2004 it looked funny how things were talking to me everywhere I go... People will get used to it. Via portfolio.com