“the Flyfire project sets out to explore the capabilities of this display system by using a large number of self-organizing micro helicopters. Each helicopter contains small LEDs and acts as a smart pixel. Through precisely controlled movements, the helicopters perform elaborate and synchronized motions and form an elastic display surface for any desired scenario.”

Ok then.

flyfire

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

Not only was he EOTY (employee of the year 2009) he’s also the only person from outside of the creative department to do his own white agency home page... Nice work MB.

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.

As mentioned previously… here is our little aggregation experiment… ladies and gentlemen… whitegoods.

So you thought search had all but been wrapped up by the folks @ 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California. Right? Well think again. The thinkers @ One Microsoft Way, Redmond thought they might reinvent the “I’m trying to find something on the internet” wheel. Those crazy Microsoft tinkerers felt that the internet has well… evolved (overloaded). So why shouldn’t search? The result is badda boom, badda bing. Mmmm many have tried so let’s wait and see on this one… anyone remember cuil?

And in other search news (not really in the same space… and released a little while ago) is the nerdtastic Wolfram Alpha. As they say “Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone” Go on give it a tickle.

A search engine with a sense of humour… what?

PS: More Easter Eggs here…

PSS: Wonder if Google has anything up their long sleeves?

A top post from Mr Iain Tate (9 reasons japanese interactive work is awesome) who after Judging the One Show Interactive Awards recently became a little bit of a Digital Nipponophile (that sounds much ruder than it really is). I don’t agree with everything in this post, but its good to take a step back and look at digital on this scale sometimes. I rate the politeness and craft as the two most distinguishing features – they just don’t throw stuff in your face as much, and they always seems to have incredible polish on their stuff.

Speaking of things from the land of the rising sun, these guys are one my top 5 digital agencies in the world… informationarchitects (iA) The digital trends maps they out are amazing, next one due out soon, but latest one here.

The Times on line have recently reported that based on visitor numbers, Sydney is the 11th most popular city on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/glossary:

1. TWEETUP – a physical gathering of tweeters
2. TWEEPLE – Twitter people, users, etc.
3. DWEET – a drunken tweet
4. OH – short for “overheard”, aka “hearsay”. Used at beginning of a tweet, followed by a colon, then what was overheard.
5. RETWEET – the Twitter equivalent of “forwarding”, abbreviated “RT”
6. TWIT – the act of sending a tweet, as in “twit this”
7. @REPLY – a public message that is directed to someone in particular, usually in reply to one of their tweets
8. DIRECT MESSAGE – a private message sent to someone’s “inbox” on Twitter
9. FOLLOW – to subscribe to someone’s stream of tweets
10. TWEET – a short 140 character message sent on http://twitter.com
11. TWITTER – an awesome microblogging site found at http://Twitter.com that allows short messages called “tweets” using 140 char each

A neat site for Sprint’s mobile broadband product… this is now.

Is NCF the next missing link?

Wiki: Near Field Communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimetre (around 4 inches) distance.

Kinda like a mash-up between a RFID Chip and a smart card but a little bit smarter than that. Locally Telstra and NAB have been working with it to develop contactless mobile payments (here). You know buy some “stuff” at the “supermarket” and instead of using your “plastic” to “pay” for it, you just “swipe” your “phone” past their “thing” and hey-ho you’ve just “paid” for it. Now it can go a little bit further than this as people have been using the technology in smart posters, so the user just waves their phone past the poster and “holy-digital-content-delivery-system-Batman”

Hat Tip: Rubbishcorp