po-bo

If Saul Bass did the titles for Star Wars

A nice little genre mash up :)

Singularity

"Singularity  is the first large-scale online web conference in the world.

Singularity is over 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities.

Singularity is three days of talks over multiple tracks.

In 2008, Singularity will define Web ‘08."

More here...

Oi! Microsoft. No!

This brought some mild amusement this morning, the Flickr communities reaction to the recent interest from Microsoft to acquire Yahoo

Also, a question that popped into my head, will Flickr lose its Flashyness and been done in Silverlight!?

Lightwriting

Graffiti artists in Berlin are replacing spray cans with torches, glow sticks  and digital cameras. The results are stunning as proved by Flickr user, lichtfaktor. The technique loosely involves setting the cameras to over expose and painting with various lights in the shot. Essentially a form of stop  motion animation, light writing employs a phenomenon known as persistence of vision which creates the optical illusion to the viewer.

Some companies are even employing the technique to form the part of their visual identity, Joost for example.

Top 100 User Centred blogs

As the links says... Go read.

And for the lazy among you, here's the Top 10.

1. Signal vs. Noise
2. 456 Berea Street
3. ./with Imagination
4. Functioning Form
5. This is Broken
6. Adaptive Path
7. Boxes and Arrows
8. A List Apart
9. UX Matters
10. UX Magazine

Adobe Media Player

Adobe have a pre-release of their Adobe Media Player software available for download.

 

 

Here's the official word on the product from Adobe Labs:

Adobe is driving the next generation of internet video delivery with the Adobe Media Player (AMP), Flash® Media Server software, content protection technologies, and a broad and powerful ecosystem of partners providing key solutions from content creation through delivery and monetization. AMP brings the best of both the broadcast television and web video worlds to your desktop—providing high-quality content both online and offline, with a wide range of business model possibilities.

Also, its built using Adobe AIR, Adobe's cross OS runtime for building and deploying RIAs to the desktop.

After downloading I took it for a spin and noted a couple of thoughts on the UI and functionality from a customer experience point of view:

Good times :)

1. Strong visual layout that was simple to navigate within a couple of minutes of clicking about. Look and feel is understated and not fussy or complicated which is a good thing.
2. Catalog was where I headed first. I like the tag cloud for searching content by genre.
3. Labeling of the links in the l/h navigation are easy to understand, My New Episodes, My Favorite Shows, etc.

Bad times :(

1. I couldn't search the Catalog using a keyword search.
2. I couldn't  open video files other than FLV. Other file types should be considered, perhaps, otherwise it does become limiting factor.
3. If I had content, is there anyway of submitting it to the Catalog?

Obviously this is a way early release with debugging and tweaks to make along the way. Looking forward to the next version.

Flash vs Silverlight

Is this new kid on the block a contender to the established heavyweight? 3D and streaming video look like M$ way in to the market... Could it be some healthy competition to Adobe's dominance?

Read the report from Seb Lee Delisle's visit to Microsoft's Mix07 conference, here and here.

Thermo @ Max

Is this a dream product???

You will lead a highly motivated team developing an innovative new tool, codenamed Thermo, that will enable designers and creatively inclined developers to easily build rich internet applications and interactive content. “Thermo” will streamline the process of adding interactivity, behavior and motion to creative assets and will work seamlessly with both Adobe’s Creative Suite tools, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks and Flash, and with developer oriented tools such as Flex Builder.

Thermo is a strategic project for Adobe. It will enable designers to more efficiently build the richer experiences that are reshaping the internet and give developers greater control over creative assets without leaving the development paradigm that fits the way they work.

Found while having a nosey here.

And it looks like the cats out the bag... Thermo will be forming a big part of the keynote at Adobe Max (Europe) in a couple of weeks.

Depth of Field with Papervision 3D

mrdoob has been playing with Papervision 3D in his lab and the results are very nice indeed. Stunning in fact.

Papervision3D is an open source 3D engine for the Flash platform, written and maintained by a small core team, and contributed to by a growing community.

A real world example of the engine in action is Paper Critters, an online application for creating and sharing 3D paper toys. Its a polished piece of work that uses Papervision 3D to display content created in 3DS Max.

Coincidently the guy behind mrdoob, Ricardo Cabello has just been hired by the agency Hi-ReS! A longtime fan of their work I see they recently did the movie site to Darren Aronofsky's time traveling tale, The Fountain. Which kind of makes sencse as they did the movie site for his earlier film, Requiem for a Dream. Quality Flash work.

Meet Diane

I've been reading up on Second Life  and Linden Lab  recently to see what all the fuss is about and wondering whether I should get me an avatar and enter the "Metaverse".

Nah! I prefer my RL thanks.

Anyway, I found Orange.fr using an avatar called Diane. She's there to provide a bit of help with your internet woes. A nicely executed guide I thought.

If Saul Bass did the titles for Star Wars

A nice little genre mash up :)

Singularity

"Singularity  is the first large-scale online web conference in the world.

Singularity is over 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities.

Singularity is three days of talks over multiple tracks.

In 2008, Singularity will define Web ‘08."

More here...

Oi! Microsoft. No!

This brought some mild amusement this morning, the Flickr communities reaction to the recent interest from Microsoft to acquire Yahoo

Also, a question that popped into my head, will Flickr lose its Flashyness and been done in Silverlight!?

Lightwriting

Graffiti artists in Berlin are replacing spray cans with torches, glow sticks  and digital cameras. The results are stunning as proved by Flickr user, lichtfaktor. The technique loosely involves setting the cameras to over expose and painting with various lights in the shot. Essentially a form of stop  motion animation, light writing employs a phenomenon known as persistence of vision which creates the optical illusion to the viewer.

Some companies are even employing the technique to form the part of their visual identity, Joost for example.

Top 100 User Centred blogs

As the links says... Go read.

And for the lazy among you, here's the Top 10.

1. Signal vs. Noise
2. 456 Berea Street
3. ./with Imagination
4. Functioning Form
5. This is Broken
6. Adaptive Path
7. Boxes and Arrows
8. A List Apart
9. UX Matters
10. UX Magazine

Adobe Media Player

Adobe have a pre-release of their Adobe Media Player software available for download.

 

 

Here's the official word on the product from Adobe Labs:

Adobe is driving the next generation of internet video delivery with the Adobe Media Player (AMP), Flash® Media Server software, content protection technologies, and a broad and powerful ecosystem of partners providing key solutions from content creation through delivery and monetization. AMP brings the best of both the broadcast television and web video worlds to your desktop—providing high-quality content both online and offline, with a wide range of business model possibilities.

Also, its built using Adobe AIR, Adobe's cross OS runtime for building and deploying RIAs to the desktop.

After downloading I took it for a spin and noted a couple of thoughts on the UI and functionality from a customer experience point of view:

Good times :)

1. Strong visual layout that was simple to navigate within a couple of minutes of clicking about. Look and feel is understated and not fussy or complicated which is a good thing.
2. Catalog was where I headed first. I like the tag cloud for searching content by genre.
3. Labeling of the links in the l/h navigation are easy to understand, My New Episodes, My Favorite Shows, etc.

Bad times :(

1. I couldn't search the Catalog using a keyword search.
2. I couldn't  open video files other than FLV. Other file types should be considered, perhaps, otherwise it does become limiting factor.
3. If I had content, is there anyway of submitting it to the Catalog?

Obviously this is a way early release with debugging and tweaks to make along the way. Looking forward to the next version.

Flash vs Silverlight

Is this new kid on the block a contender to the established heavyweight? 3D and streaming video look like M$ way in to the market... Could it be some healthy competition to Adobe's dominance?

Read the report from Seb Lee Delisle's visit to Microsoft's Mix07 conference, here and here.

Thermo @ Max

Is this a dream product???

You will lead a highly motivated team developing an innovative new tool, codenamed Thermo, that will enable designers and creatively inclined developers to easily build rich internet applications and interactive content. “Thermo” will streamline the process of adding interactivity, behavior and motion to creative assets and will work seamlessly with both Adobe’s Creative Suite tools, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks and Flash, and with developer oriented tools such as Flex Builder.

Thermo is a strategic project for Adobe. It will enable designers to more efficiently build the richer experiences that are reshaping the internet and give developers greater control over creative assets without leaving the development paradigm that fits the way they work.

Found while having a nosey here.

And it looks like the cats out the bag... Thermo will be forming a big part of the keynote at Adobe Max (Europe) in a couple of weeks.

Depth of Field with Papervision 3D

mrdoob has been playing with Papervision 3D in his lab and the results are very nice indeed. Stunning in fact.

Papervision3D is an open source 3D engine for the Flash platform, written and maintained by a small core team, and contributed to by a growing community.

A real world example of the engine in action is Paper Critters, an online application for creating and sharing 3D paper toys. Its a polished piece of work that uses Papervision 3D to display content created in 3DS Max.

Coincidently the guy behind mrdoob, Ricardo Cabello has just been hired by the agency Hi-ReS! A longtime fan of their work I see they recently did the movie site to Darren Aronofsky's time traveling tale, The Fountain. Which kind of makes sencse as they did the movie site for his earlier film, Requiem for a Dream. Quality Flash work.

Meet Diane

I've been reading up on Second Life  and Linden Lab  recently to see what all the fuss is about and wondering whether I should get me an avatar and enter the "Metaverse".

Nah! I prefer my RL thanks.

Anyway, I found Orange.fr using an avatar called Diane. She's there to provide a bit of help with your internet woes. A nicely executed guide I thought.