Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Yahoo digital time capsule

I completely missed this digital timecapsule effort from Yahoo - which I saw while logging out
of Flickr.
For 30 days, from October 10 until November 8, Yahoo! users
worldwide can contribute photos, writings, videos, audio — even
drawings — to this electronic anthropology project. A mosaic of
revealing snapshots will be sealed and entrusted to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
based in Washington D.C., officially taking its place in history.
Of course ealier this week we had the UK's National Trust do something similar
by asking us all to blog our day - er yesterday. I love time caspules.

Letting people use images sound and video as well as text is a much better proposition.

Flickr tools (or those created out of Flickr's API) make it so much more of an attractive option
too imho.

So nice idea and lovely interface. Makes me feel like I want to contribute a picture and caption.

So I go to "contribute" and - eh? But what is this? What do you mean I have to load a photo from
my computer?

Why I use Flickr to organise my photos of course - a Yahoo company of course - not my bloomin
hard drive! It is full of numbered folders. There is no intelligent organisation there as such. It does
not even give me the choice to just drag in a snap from my Yahoo photo account. Nope. Oh dear. Wtf?



Second Life in Marie Claire

There I was in the hairdressers reading those hairdresser type mags (such as Marie Claire!) and lo and behold a wee article talking about Second Life.

Second Life surpasses a million

At 20.03 I went along to the front page a low and behold the number of accounts in Second Life had reached 1,014,617.

They did predict it would do it this year. I remember when WoW had done that. Now look at it.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Window shop live SL building

This is fantastically cool. Well-known Second Life builder Versu Richelieu is spending 72 hours in a shop window in the Big Apple while she builds in SL - all courtesy of Intel of course.
For 72 hours, Versu will eat, sleep, and live a completely digital life…all in a store window in New York City! Can she do it? Check out the live webcam and Second Life feeds below to see how she is doing! Or see the experiment in person at the Datavision Store on the corner of 5th Avenue and 39th Street in New York City.
I wish I could see this in NY for real - I am trying to think of who I know there who could go and take a photo or wave at me through the webcam. Any takers?

I am seeing more and more stuff happening which completely makes a mockery of our artificially divisive concepts of "real" and "virtual" life. Or at least, makes it apparent that these divsions have probably always been fairly meaningless.

Going to see if I can join her in SL. What would be great is if there was a Quicktime screen next to her in SL so that you could also watch her webcam live from within-world.

Checking out Muse Isle after just listening to their latest podcast. Live music and all sorts...


posted by Doctoe Schnook on Muse Isle using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Whack your boss and other violence

Manage Your Anger Safely
Brilliant if a little sick.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

South Park does WoW

Just watched the WoW South Park. Brilliant. Machinima and MMORPG go mainstream in one fell swoop
The Internet vs. Hollywood - The Ska Brothers

Heh. All they need is better lighting and sound. At least Hollywood can afford all that. Gets a bit cheesy towards the end.
Lonelygirl15 / Danielbeast interview on MTV

The young gent who "plays" Danielbeast who is YouTube LonelyGirl15's love interest in the "story" tells MTV how he auditioned for the part after seeing the part on Craigslist.*

*LonelyGirl15 is on there too
YouTuber LisaNova Does P Diddy

So you know P Diddy Daddy Dinkums whateverhisnameis has his own YouTube channel. Woohoo. YouTuber favourite has the downlowdownlow. Yo.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Line Rider

Line Rider
Line Rider,
originally uploaded by The Kitten's Toe.
Hours of fun for all the family. Honestly.

Google buys YouTube for $1.65bn

Well blow me. Google has bought YouTube for $1.65bn.

Phewie.

That is the value of people's gathering places nowadays? Just compare that amount to how much it would cost to give every child in the globe a laptop. Or free wifi for all. Or even just a better national health service. Incredible and quite wrong when you think about it - no matter how much I enjoy YouTube and the creativity it spawns.

And note: it is the creativity it spawns that is one of its biggest pulls for me. That can mean anything from teenagers in the bedrooms to video editing students cum comic geniuses to home-living inventors to 78 year old gripers to funny women to depressed men to machinima makers to pranksters to remixers making Bush and Blair do odd things while making a serious point at the same time.

Oh and after your fill of that (which can take hours frankly) you can sit back and enjoy a short trailer of the new episode of South Park (in WoW). Or other *very short and streaming* "TV stuff" which acts as a preview of what will be on my screen in the corner of the room soon.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Tube gossip

Something strange has happened. I went to themanwhofellasleep's Tube Gossip page, which I have talked about in the past, to grab some snippets of wit.

But, for some reason, I don't find it funny anymore. Maybe it is because I no longer take the Tube to work?

I dunno. Maybe it is because it is now featured in Time Out magazine and is too mainstream for me therefore? Hmm.

Catch me if you can

IMG_0117
IMG_0117,
originally uploaded by junku.
Lovely.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Hello Kitty Fire Extinguishers

hellokittyfireextinguishers
hellokittyfireextinguishers,
originally uploaded by eyemage.
Once upon a time, I struggled to find Hello Kitty ware.

Now just look at the endless possibilities for Hello Kitty. Fabulous. The way forwards to make us all "fire aware" in our own homes?
TheHill88 does The Producers

One of the channels I subscribe to on YouTube is TheHill88. She is a sweet Autralian girl - one of those kooky drama school types. She is unpolished, but very appealing. Her version of The Producers (not sure which song - something about being betrayed by an accountant - I have never seen it) whips the arse off of the Japanese Nsync lip syncers.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Wibree me

I have always been a fan of bluetooth technology, even though it seems to be thoroughly underused.

One of the reasons I like it is because of the wearable technology stuff it enables - bits and pieces on you all communicating with each other. I have used it a lot for zinging someone a picture, rather than using MMS (when we are in the same room of course).

So, I was interested in Nokia's announcement of the Wibree standard, in one of the worst press releases I have ever read.

It will be an open industry standard that will work with bluetooth - there will even be dual wibree-bluetooth chips next year. It hopefully provide a much better way to connect up mobile/portable devices, with small, button cell battery power devices - watches, wireless keyboards, toys and sports sensors, and the like.

It is much faster than bluetooth - 1Mbps - and eats up far less power, which has always been its drawback. It should mean a lot more social and practical applications and uses popping up around it. Lots of ultralocal personal networks. Hopefully. And it will be free.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Creative commons photos and Schmap

TED Global dinner at Keble
TED Global dinner at Keble,
originally uploaded by The Kitten's Toe.
So I had an email from someone at Schmap, freeware-based interactive mapping guide thing.

They wanted to use one of my photos from TEDGlobal (technology, entertainment and design conference) for the Oxford guide. They found it on flickr with a cc licence (attributable, non-commercial sharealike), so they are entitled to use it. I said, ok, that's fine. But then, I thought, is this strictly non-commercial use? Sure, it is freeware, but they must need to make money someehere, through ads or something. So does that count? I am not sure. It is the first time someone has asked to use one of my snaps.

Nice of them to pick it though.