A neat little digital crossover activity monitoring device that rewards you for… activity. Aimed at the kids, Switch2health makes these little coloured bands with a small insertable device/pedometer that generates a unique code which you then punch back into the site to redeem your points/rewards. Great! It will also give you a smiley or a frowny based on your current activity. Russell writes a great little thing about it here… where I may or may not have pinched the pics from…

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Another interesting AR concept. Not sure how well Flash can handle a full-blown 3D car models, but we might be able to do something simpler for… Lexus?

Found an interesting experiment with AR. Definitely can be achieved inFlash 3D and FLARToolkit But the idea of putting it on the back of a cereal box is creative.

Friday 15 January

Beck’s Festival Bar w/ Music

Malian guitarist/singer/songwriter Vieux Farka Toure is the son of African music legend, the late Ali Farka Toure.  Drawing on Malian traditions and incorporating his father’s signature desert blues style, Vieux’s ear for the future also sees his music traversing reggae, funk, rock and RnB.

Playing no-frills blues rock, Sydney duo The Mess Hall are renowned for their raw, explosive live performances.

With a sound that is equal parts blues, soul and country, Dan Sultan’s songs showcase his knack for storytelling. DJ Russ Dewbury mixes up the heaviest Afro-soul sounds.

When: 8pm

Cost: $38

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Music/Vieux-Farka-Toure-The-Mess-Hall-Dan-Sultan/

Saturday 16 January

Circa 1979: Signal to Noise (A day of free talks)

From 1979 to 1985, parish halls, abandoned warehouses and run down apartments rumbled and screeched with new sounds during one of the most creative periods in Australia’s music history.  Avant garde, post-punk, new wave and early electronic styles of music cultivated a thriving underground scene, heard on Sydney-based labels M Squared and Volition. Circa 1979: Signal to Noise is a celebration of this unique and influential period.

(Excerpt from http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/)

Cost: FREE

Where: The Seymour Centre, Cnr City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Talks/Circa-1979-Signal-to-Noise/

Sunday 17 January

Lynette Wallworth (Sensory Exhibition)

A little too real to be dream-like and a little too dream-like to be familiar, Wallworth’s environments are an exercise in unexpected concentration and unusual exploration, often involving wordless narratives that attempt to emotively fertilize a sense of intimacy and empathy between the moving image and the participants moving body. And although the Wallworth experience is usually no roller coaster ride, it may offer a moment of sensory gratification and some time for healthy reflection.

(Excerpt from http://concreteplayground.com.au/)

Where: CarriageWorks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh

More Info: http://concreteplayground.com.au/event/483/lynette-wallworth.htm

Monday 18 January

Joanna Newsom @ Sydney Opera House (Concert)

“This extraordinary harpist has a glorious, untamed voice and a sheaf of tricky song-poems…conjuring one startlingly vivid image after another.” – The New York Times

After beguiling audiences with her performance with the Sydney Symphony last year , California-based harp virtuoso Joanna Newsom makes a much anticipated return to Sydney Opera House for one Sydney show only.

Cost: $49-75

Where: Sydney Opera House

More Info: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/joanna_newsom_2010.aspx

Tuesday 19 January

Tot Mom

Steven Soderbergh has created Tot Mom – a compelling look into how a crime can come to grip an entire nation through intense media and public attention. Tot Mom seeks to hold up a mirror to our society, raising ethical questions about the way in which such a case is dealt with in the public domain.

(Excerpt from http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/)

Cost: FREE

Where: The Seymour Centre, Cnr City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Talks/Circa-1979-Signal-to-Noise/

Wednesday 20 January

Where the Wild Things Are @ Moonlight Cinema
as recommended by our very own Siouxzi Mernagh

The highly anticipated adaptation by director Spike Jonze (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ADAPTATION) of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s story. When Max, a young boy acting out, is sent to bed without his supper, he creates his own world – a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.

(Excerpt from www.moonlight.com.au)

Where: Belvedere Amphitheatre, Centennial Park

More Info: http://www.moonlight.com.au/main.php?location=Sydney

Thursday 21 January

Dark Matters (Dance)

Dark Matters is a haunting portrait of the unknown, a performance that pulls itself apart in an attempt to discover what it’s made of.

When: 8pm

Where: Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay

Cost: $55-$70

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Dance/Dark-Matters/

Ongoing Exhibition

Seen and Heard (Film Festival)

A free film festival that battles the celluloid ceiling, celebrating the diverse and extraordinary work of women filmmakers and their not-to-be-underestimated diverse and extraordinary audiences. Seen and Heard in 2010, its second year, will follow on from a showcase of questions on class, race, ability/disability, gender and sexuality.

(Excerpt from http://seenandheardfilms.com/)

When: 14 – 17 January

Where: Red Rattler, 6 Faversham St, Marrickville

More Info: http://seenandheardfilms.com/

A testament to how effective this interactive piece is from Intel is whether you feel like touching your computer screen when you’re watching it…

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/01/intel_1.php

Direct You Tube link:

Intel InfoScape Double HD Touchscreen Internet Experience

Creative Director of Google Creative Labs… Ji Lee on doing your own thing. Watch. Listen. Then go do something
Via: SwissMiss

a message from ‘dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity’ 

http://dorkbot.org

I want to invite you all to an exciting event taking place at the Powerhouse Museum at the end of this month. Over the weekend of Jan 29-31 forty game designers, developers and artists will volunteer to be locked away in the basement of the PHM and not allowed out until they have made a game! 

That’s right: its Game Jam Sydney, part of the Global Game Jam that is
taking place simultaneously in over 100 locations around the world. It’s 48 hours of intensive game development with an aim to produce innovative and exciting new games. It’s also part of the Powerhouse’s “80’s Gamer Weekend”so there will also be talks and presentations by some veterans of the Australian game industry, and some up-and-coming indy designers.

To find out more, visit http://www.gamejamsydney.com/

Spread the word!

 

 

SPECIAL REQUEST: We will need some tech-savvy people to volunteer as network administration for the event. Do you have familiarity with running a LAN of 40-50 computers? We’d like to hear from you. Even if you can’t make the whole 48 hours, having you to help with setting/packing up or being on call for some of the time would be really valuable.

Contact: dorkbotsyd-blabber@dorkbot.org

So what was that?

That was 2009, sunshine.

But it kinda went by so quickly I missed most of it…

Too late, anyway we’re steaming on with 2010, Krubrick style.

C’mon just a recap?

Nup… listen every man and his social media NOOB has done a yearly wrap up and most have already pumped out a 2010 trends/predictions/tea leaf futurism piece…

Please?

Psssssffffff… OK just a quick one then let’s you’ll have to let go, it’s over.

First.

Banner Ads.
Banner ads are still alive! Yes of course they are and here’s a great article about the constraints they’re breaking out of… Beyond the banner And probably the most simple banner and “yet” most engaging banner ads of the year this little cracker for Pringles…

Right here, right now and in 3D.
Location based services and Augmented Reality… how many times did we hear those buzz words last year (and the year before that)? Well we did because they’re starting to make (or have well made) the leap from gimmick town to useful utility city… and we’re holding it in our hands Layar (now 3.0) probably being the leader on this front and the platform seems to be expanding… (see also: wikitude & twitter-360). Need to find a Stellar quickly… you might need this…

Then there was the foursquare too much info weirdness, which will make more sense when you’ll start getting free beers…

Plenty of brands had a dabble in the webcam augmented reality space with very few producing anything of real value… there were some exceptions such as… this

The Cloud brought to you the Googles.Realtime Search, Chrome, the Wave… next up the the android explosion and the OS. When do we wave the white flag? Maybe when their interfaces get a little prettier. Seriously the Cloud is a great thing and products/services such as Google Wave (although slightly over-hyped and a little lonely at first) are/will get us working as collaboratively as a finely tuned beehive… it’s like all my wildest hopes for yammer coming true… remember yammer? er… no…

Memes
These things power the internet… last year we had Kayne and “I’mma let you finnish” but the winner had to be… Keyboard Cat. What will the memerverse throw up this year?

Semi-Translucent Aggregation
Everything from anywhere, anytime for anyone overload. First we had skittles.com which was basically an overlay interface (where have we seen that before) on top of various social sites, so if your tweet contained “skittles” it would basically end up on the skittles home page. Which is great when people are saying nice things… to their credit Skittles let go of the fear and the site is still up. The never media shy Crispin Porter + Bogusky took the concept a little further and turned their own agency site into an aggregation portal. So if you were talking about the agency it would end up on their homepage etc… the neat thing they did though was to have a filter where you could select individual clients and then get a live social media snapshot of the buzz around that brand (buzz that they’re generating apparently).

A couple of weeks before they launched theirs tho’ we squeezed our own aggregation baby out of the coding test tube… and introduced Whitegoods

Here you can follow the twitter, delicious, flickr and blog feeds from le white agency… sweet.

Decks of the year (or presos that were worth while sitting through).

Or Aaron Koblin’s amazement.

The best by far… by a long shot… by a country mile was this WHY I LOVE THE INTERNET… there’s no pictures tho’

Campaigns N’ Stuff

This was a great simple one Shocking Barack (electric motorbikes) I wrote some words about it here.

Nikes Chalkbot got talked about (almost rhymes).

+ (nice pun) Although it was done a little while ago Adweehnamed this as “Digital Campaign of the Decade”

Now does that look like an ad to you?

Mos Def released an album as a Tshirt

RA DIOHEA_D and google made a film clip with LAZERS!

Something Something Twitter.

The White Stuff

I wore a the same t-shirts a lot.

So did some other people.

@kukestar produced a stellar performance for our Christmas Card…

Our peeps in Melbourne moved into a new Crib.

We cut a tralier… a first!

We made a showreel! woot!

B&T rated our site numero uno of digital agency sites… not bad if that the sort of business your in

We got all data vizzy for our super swell friends at The Commonwealth Bank (+ commbank.com.au won yet another round of awards)

We went hybrid in the pursuit of perfection for Team Lexus (+ we gave their site a super tune up)

We gave parents a helping hand when it comes to talking to their kids about drinking.

We helped people to “choose pink” for a good cause

And did we mention Whitegoods?

So kinda there it is…

Done.

This year tho’ is going to be another whole level of awesome… grrrr.

Worth reading the Videonuze article below on the race between Google and Apple for supremacy in Mobile…gives some nice insights into how all this is poised to affect the future of Video:

Google and Apple both unveiled key mobile initiatives yesterday, underscoring the collision path the two companies are on, and how long-term, video is poised to benefit from their battle.

First, as you no doubt already know, Google introduced the Nexus One, an Android-powered smartphone that it is selling directly to consumers. It is Google’s first foray into consumer devices and many more products sure to follow. Meanwhile, Apple, in a rare significantly-sized deal, acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising company, for around $300 million. Quattro represents Apple’s first real push into advertising, an important shift from its traditional iTunes-driven paid media model.

With its own device, Google is primarily looking to compete against Apple’s iPhone, which has practically owned the U.S. smartphone market since its introduction 2 years ago. And Apple, with a toehold in the exploding mobile advertising market, is positioning itself to disrupt Google’s planned dominance of mobile advertising through its pending $750 million AdMob acquisition. If Apple were to make additional acquisitions, particularly in the online video advertising space, that would further strengthen its position.

Mobile video is poised to be a real winner in the Google vs. Apple face-off. At a minimum, the two companies’ considerable marketing spending (plus those of competitors Palm, RIM, Nokia and others) will mean smartphones in millions more consumers’ hands, dramatically expanding the video-ready universe. In addition, the experience of watching mobile video will just keep getting better. For example, the Nexus One’s screen resolution (480×800) surpasses the iPhone’s (320×480), which only means Apple will need to up the ante even further with its next generation. The range of video applications is sure to surge as more and more players stake out their ground.

Importantly, because there are no powerful incumbent distributors in mobile video – as there are in the living room, with cable/satellite/telco – I believe there is more flexibility in how premium video can be distributed to smartphones. Until recently mobile was an “on-deck” world where everything had to be approved and carried by the wireless carrier. But mobile is quickly evolving to take on open Internet-like characteristics, where applications and services are not gatekeeped by a distributor. In short, mobile looks to be more like online distribution than traditional video distribution. As power in mobile shifts to players like Apple and Google, it should also be a wake-up call to the FCC, whose planned wireless carrier-focused net neutrality paradigm already looks out of date.

While there have been recent rumbles about Apple doing something with subscription video for the living room, instead the company likely has more latitude in mobile to go well beyond the pay-per-use iTunes model, especially if it can also bring in advertising. Meanwhile, by having its own device and operating system, Google is optimizing the YouTube mobile experience. As this YouTube blog post points out, the Nexus One is an improved way to search, view and upload YouTube videos. With YouTube enjoying such benefits not just on Nexus One, but on all Android phones, YouTube becomes an even more valuable partner for premium content providers looking to generate mobile usage.

Google and Apple will be jousting for years to come in the mobile space. The opportunities for growth for both companies are sizable. I fully expect that video is a going to be an increasingly important part of the battle.