everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Category: Current Events

  • Uniqlock – Uniqlo’s Viral Advertisement

    The Japanese clothing store Uniqlo has burst onto the scene with a viral widget that features a clock interspersed with a robotic model featuring their new polo shirt. Click through to the site and explore the video in more detail as well as a cool, interactive map which features other blogs running the widget.

    The only thing missing is any clear “call to action” or even a description; it’s not entirely obvious that it’s a clock. But then again, this is Japan and if you’ve every experienced Japanese advertising – it’s all about the subtle, curious hook that draws you in.

  • Time Lapse Video of Bay Bridge Construction

    The Bay Bridge was closed this Labor Day weekend so we stayed close to home and didn’t venture across the Bay into the city. Here’s a time lapse video of what CalTrans was up to. The bridge opened this evening, 11 hours ahead of schedule. CC Myers was the contractor on the job, the same firm that rebuilt the destroyed 580 overpass in just 25 days.

  • Go! Go! Speed Racer

    Speed Racer

    Cool! The Wachowski Brothers (directors behind the Matrix) are making a movie based on Speed Racer. There is some whiz-bang technology in the cameras they use and how they are filming that is going to push the boundaries of what it means to use live actors to bring animation to the big screen.

    via The Raw Feed

  • Realtime Map Tracking

    Maybe it’s the air traffic controller in me but there’s something oddly compelling about watching little dots move across the screen when you know they represent objects in the physical world.

    TechCrunch posts about Bill from BitGravity is streaming his driving trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles over a live video stream showing the traffic out his front dashboard and a Google Maps tile showing his position as he drives down Interstate 5. He’s just south of Tracy as I write this so tune in now if you want to see it live.

    And tomorrow morning, before I head over to pick up my wife and kids as they return from Japan, I will fire up Google Earth and use Aeroseek to follow Northwest Flight 28 as it soars over the Pacific and make sure they’re coming in on time.

  • Crowdsourced Book Cover Art

    Remember Penguin’s crowdsourced novel? Looks like it’s done and getting prepped to go to print. They’re at it again. This time in conjunction with Piczo on the cover art.

  • Grim Visualizations : Crime Mashups 2.0

    We all remember the Chicago Crime Map which took Chicago police reports and overlayed it on top of Google Maps. For many, this was their first exposure into the world of mashups and to a large extent opened everyone’s eyes to the benefits of opening up your data. That was 2005. Now the UED crowd has taken a shot at the concept and are starting to publish their own versions:

    Oakland Crimespotting by Stamen Design
    LA Times Homicide Map
  • Speaking with a Hangover

    Speaking with a Hangover

    Brett Tabke has been running the PubCon/Webmaster world conferences for as long as I remember and posts a great piece on how to give a great presentation. Since the main PubCon is always in Vegas, he also rounds it out with some sage advice on how to prepare ahead of time in anticipation of having to give your talk after a night of drinking.

     

    • Lay out your speaking attire the night before going out to a fun PubCon bash. Put your PowerPoint on a USB stick and put it in the pants pocket. Make sure you have cab fare and directions prepared if you are staying away from the conference hotel.
    • Pack some eye drops in your overnight bag for every conference. Use ’em for the redness.
    • Light colored or clear alcohols are better. They have fewer byproducts. Milder hangovers.
    • Less than one drink an hour and skip the beer bongs, jello shots, and tequila twisters.
    • Fill up on as much food as possible while drinking. Multivitamins and especially Vitamin C are said to help some people.
    • Pain killers (aspirin tends to work better with hangovers).
    • Eat as soon as you think it will stay down.
    • Bland liquids – lots of water – caffeinate liberally – Gatorade if available.
    • Take a long hot – then cold shower.
    • Go last on your panel.
    • Warm climates like Vegas, make partying much easier than cold climates like – oh say – cold and windy Chicago.
    • Turn down the brightness on the presentation laptop then request the lights be lowered so people can see the screen better.
    • Buy a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses that look like real glasses.
    • Women – avoid high heels the day of your presentation. Men – clip on ties only.
    • If you expect a hangover, then bribe your chairman to put you last in the day very early on in the speaking selection process.
  • Facebook and RSS out

    Facebook and RSS out

    Dave Winer pointed out that RSS feeds are now available for your Friends Status, Friends Posted and Notifications pages in Facebook. The friends updates have been around for a while but the notifications feed might be new. An astute comment on the Techcrunch post about this news says:

    The news feed really was a stroke of genius. As simple of concepts as they are, the feed plus the simple little “X” that lets you remove an item from your history are the two most important features.

    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two feeds they’ve opened up have direct competitors. Status plays to Twitter and Jaiku, while Posted Items play to Digg and Pownce.

    Without any worthwhile competitor to a comprehensive news feed of friends, I’m betting Facebook will keep that info behind the wall.

    Facebook Opens up their Data Feeds

    There is no real competition to the comprehensive News feed and Mini-feed which is core to Facebook’s value as a destination site. Facebook’s FAQ on their RSS feeds explains the difference between the published RSS feeds and the News and Mini feeds:

    The Atom feed or RSS feed of your friends’ notes, statuses, or posted items or an individual user’s notes, statuses, or posted items contains that content only, whereas News Feed contains stories about photo postings, relationship changes, etc. Also, your News Feed won’t show a story every time one of your friends posts a note to Facebook; your News Feed only contains the stories we think you’ll be the most interested in. The RSS or Atom feeds of a user’s notes or your friends’ notes, for example will contain every note posted.

    There are subtle nuances in what Facebook shows you. There is some “special sauce” which calculates what “they think” you’ll be interested in. That’s not something an RSS feed can calculate unless it can be vectored against meta-data about your friends and your stated interests.

    This is where it gets interesting. Both Fred Wilson and Mark Mezrich post at length about yesterday. You can pull in all the status updates and news updates you want from all over the web but it’s all just noise unless it can be filtered in a unique and meaningful way. We’re approaching a world where you should be able to swap your friend networks in and out as a social filter on anything you look at online.

    Last.fm is great for finding people with similar musical tastes and finding new music you might like. What about using that same network to find something good to read? How about swapping out your favorite Yelp restaurant reviewers and directing them to pick out the best stove for your kitchen? Like the device used by the eye doctor when you get new glasses, swap in a new lens and make what is blurry today crystal clear. Is the solution to make social networks as interchangeable as the lenses at the eye doctor?

  • Chart your course with runningmap.com

    Just to see if I could do it, I went way beyond my normal running course and took the long way home. When I got home I used runningmap.com to measure the distance. Very cool tool.