Yahoo Pipes

Heard about this on a TWIT podcast, worth having a look at.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes

Proper web 2.0 stuff!

Cool website!

Saw an Addidas advert on TV earlier “Impossible is Nothing” showing these 2 young lads that have conquered Everest already at 18! Now they have set off on a trip from Pole to Pole, saw the website address and had to find out more about their advertures.

Website is excellent, love the way you can select an item and be taken to a different area on the same page. This is perhaps a consideration for navigation on the DVD Studio project in fact.

http://www.180degrees.co.uk/180degrees.html

Web Design

Have followed this design companies work for quite a few years now and some of the stuff he has done is quite nice, I find their style pretty good… hey it’s pretty corporate (with a little funkyness) alright, you know me

http://www.dreamshock.co.uk/

Just found this area on their website with links to some of the latest work. I particularly like elements of the BP Title Sequence.

http://www.dreamshock.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.pl

Most of the recent work seems to be combining digital creations with TV and with Interactive TV only likely to get bigger in the future I think this could be a key area to be working in. Question is, shouldn’t this sort of thing be looked into more than Director (I know director teaches us different things about interactivity and CDROM development) as part of the Digital Media course?

Hosting recommendations

Evening all…

Does anyone have any hosting recommendations? Looking for something not too pricy but allows php, around 1gb storage (dont need too much really), and enough bandwidth to last the month (no more than 10gb really required).

Want to start thinking about building a personal portfolio etc…

Cheers
James

Interactive Screen

Found this on a forum a few days ago, this is a good use of interactive screens, especially great with using mapping technology such as Google Earth

“In this video, Jeff Han and Phil Davidson demonstrate how a multi-touch driven computer screen will change the way we work and play.”

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid271543545/bctid422563006

Couldn’t embed as its not a google or youtube vid unforunately, worth a click though!

Google Earth – Web 2.0 Application

Google earth, I think just about everyone should have heard of this application?! If not, go download it…

http://earth.google.com/

GE used to be an application you were unable to do anything with apart from check out various places around the globe, some places in fantastic hi-res detail, but it has changed recently with integration with wikipedia and a photo storage website (Panoramio) to allow users to contribute to the system.

http://www.panoramio.com/

By creating an account with Panoramio, you can upload your photos to the website and by using Google Maps you can select where this image was taken. These images (after a length of time) will be uploaded to the Google Earth application, until then you can get Panoramio to link your pictures to Google Earth so you can view them on a temporary basis. I’ve done this and uploaded a couple of pictures and with screen shots shown that it works well. Over the course of time Google Earth should become well populated with pictures from all over the world.

This screen shot is from inside the Google Earth application itself.

I have some thoughts about this application (and the web based Google Maps) and the future and wonder how far it could actually go. Could we one day see Sat Nav in vehicles using Google Earth that is always kept up to date with the ability to see information about that area from wikipedia with images?

Other web 2.0 applications that I have been looking at…

www.dpchallenge.com
Upload images for photo competitions, other users cast their votes and leave general feedback about an image, a winner for each competition is decided by the total votes.

http://live.xbox.com/
The Xbox website is linked directly to the Xbox Live online gaming system, if you have a Live account you can log into the website and compare your gamerscore to other Xbox gamers, see if your friends are currently playing online, or contribute to the forum. This system works very well, but with plenty of M$ money behind it it should do!

Prototype Research – Interactive Screens

This is a posting for the Year 2 Multimedia Project (assignment 2) showing some research for the next assignment…

I have decided to look at Estate Agents and how they display properties to passing customers when the shop is open or perhaps more importantly, closed. A current shop window normally features a number of property adverts (note ‘a number’ and not all adverts) via a photo and a few details about a property on a piece of paper no bigger than A4, this is great but for more details you need to go into the agents and ask for more details or if the agent is closed, go home and find out more details online.

Some agents are lucky enough to have a plasma/lcd screen displaying different properties through the window; this is good but as its non interactive, it doesn’t really allow you find out more details about a property.

My idea is to think of a better way to display more properties in detail to passing customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I’m therefore looking at ways to create an interactive system that can sit in the agents’ window/wall to allow customers to find the property they are looking for quickly and easily.

I came across plenty of information for Interactive Shop Windows, this sort of system would be perfect for an estate agent considering the amount of window space they have available. These are links to developers of the product with pictures and videos available:

http://naturalinteraction.org/
http://www.ydreams.com/ydreams_2005/index.php?page=224
http://www.visualtec.es/index2.htm
http://www.displax.com/

This interactive window technology quoted from Displax comes in two different types:

“Displax® Interactive Holo Foil – flexible interactive and holographic technology foils, polyester-based with a self-adhesive surface to be installed onto a glass, acrylic or directly in a shop-window”

“Displax® Interactive Holo inGlass – glass with embedded holographic and interactive tecnologies, making an elegant product, easy to install, ready to be moved or transported from place to place”

More videos of the Interactive Shop Window can be found on YouTube:

Below are some other styles of display technologies that could do a similar job but in a different way, perhaps not entirely suitable for this project however.

‘Minority Report’ style interfaces
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7271&feedid=online-news
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bn-zZX9kdc

Helio Display – Air Video Screen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zRmffRIifE

Samsung 12mm-thick 17-inch OLED TV
http://aving.net/usa/Exhibition/default.asp?mode=read&c_num=26591&sp_code=35&btb_num=232

Any feedback welcomed