Digital Prolixity
"There is no real life; you're either online, or AFK"- Ramzi Yakob
3D Cameras, TVs and Arguments
Feb 23rd
It has been a particularly busy week in the world of 3D – I thought I’d summarize the good stuff for you here.
- Sony is ‘keen’ to release consumer friendly 3D cameras – how long do you think it’ll be before people start uploading their 3D holiday pictures to Facebook? Obviously there’s 2 sides to the technology, people need to start buying 3D ready displays / computer systems so the desire to post 3D pictures won’t come until there is greater incentive for people to buy all parts of the tech chain.
- Sony has also announced that Playstation 3 owners can expect a FREE firmware update which will enable their consoles to play 3D Blu-Ray discs. With over 33.5 million Playstation 3 owners globally, this will boost 3D tech adoption and could potentially give Sony a competitive edge in the on-going console war.
- Samsung has announced that they’ll be giving away free copies of Monsters vs Aliens on Blu-Ray 3D with their latest line-up of 3D TVs. We can expect these to launch in the UK as early as March ’10.
- Odeon UK are boycotting ‘Alice In Wonderland’, a new Disney Film; over a dispute with the film’s director, Tim Burton. The typical arrangement between theatre chains and film makers includes a stated 17 week delay between a film’s release in the cinema and its initial release on DVD, however Tim Burton is insisting on a shortened delay of only 12 weeks. Odeon are taking a financial hit, to make a point – having invested heavily in 3D projection technology they expect to be able to generate a decent return by allowing popular 3D films run for prolonged periods. This unfortunately means that distribution for the film in the UK is going to be gimped and people might struggle to find local theaters that are capable of 3D showings of the film.
Konami showcases 3D arcade game
Feb 19th
Akihabar News has posted videos and pictures taken at this year’s ‘All Nippon Amusement Machine Operators’ Union Exhibition’ (AUO Expo for short) – detailing great excitement at Konami‘s stand in particular. They’re currently showcasing a 3D arcade version of the massively popular Metal Gear Solid series. As you can see from the image above – the standard 3D glasses are accompanied by a head-mounted sensor that will interpret your head movements, giving you the ability to widen your peripheral vision within the game.
As with any content – not all games will be suitable for 3D rendering (really… would anyone WANT to play Bejeweled in 3D?) but for immersive games which generally capture the biggest market share such as Modern Warfare 2 – 3D will be a perfect accompaniment.
Increasingly, gamers are using headsets for voice communication in games like this anyway – so having to wear headgear won’t be a problem, and integration of earphones + microphone into 3D headsets should be simple enough.
Digital print finds a friend in Apple’s iPad
Feb 17th
Until I watched this video – the iPad didn’t really excite me in any way. I think everyone felt a bit underwhelmed by it – and indeed there was a lot of satirical commentary around it being an iPhone that won’t fit in your pocket. Even though it is important to remember that the demonstration is of an Adobe Air app, making this tablet PC agnostic – as we’ve seen in the smartphone market – Apple’s user interface and touchscreen technology will probably outclass its competition for some time to come (a recent post on Crunchgear highlights how ridiculous it is that Apple’s iPhone touchscreen from 2007 still can’t be matched or bettered by smartphones from 2010).
Looking at the video – it becomes clear what these tablets are for. I can’t think of a better way of consuming ‘print’ media.
Is 3D going to revolutionise the web?
Feb 9th
Google in 3D
I’ve been thinking about this blog post for a long time now, and originally had hoped to write up the ideas in a polished deck to share on slideshare. Sadly, after 4 years in the industry – I’m still rubbish at making beautiful decks and prefer explaining things in long hand written format. Unfortunately for you (and me), this means it has now turned into a monster of a blog post.
Over a year ago – I posted about 2009 being a turning point for 3D technology adoption on the basis that CES was teeming with news about 3D technology and because Activision Blizzard had released a patch for World of Warcraft which allowed players to experience the game in 3D if they had the latest NVidia technology and a compatible display. At the time, I wasn’t certain that 3D was really going to take off – and thought it could go the way of the HD-DVD format. Even after the first few feature length films came out in 3D, it was a guessing game as to whether or not people would enjoy the experience enough to pay the premium ticket prices which in turn would justify cinemas investing in 3D projection technology. After all - throughout the 2000′s, there had been a few sporadic 3D outings such as ‘The Polar Express’ in 2004 – but these visits to the 2D world were few and far between; nothing hinting at 3D becoming a common part of life.
2009 saw a change in tempo. In late 2008, the first 3D film I had ever seen (not including 3D films watched in Disney World Florida as a child) was an animated feature called ‘Bolt’. In 2009 this was followed in quick succession by Aliens vs. Monsters, Coraline, Up and of course… Avatar which has broken more box office records than I knew existed. Little did I know as I watched the film – that this was anything but a bit of good luck. An article in Wired explained that James Cameron has spent the best part of a decade amassing teams to make 3D technology GOOD whilst convincing the cinemas across the US that they needed to start installing 3D projection technology (which he helped to pioneer), and it worked. Despite James Cameron’s tale feeling a bit like every sci fi film from the last 20 years mashed together with a pinch of Pocahontas’ plot thrown in for good measure – I’ve not met a person who’s seen the film who didn’t feel a bit like they’d experienced something wonderful and the interwebz has buzzed with news stories of people actually suffering from depression after watching the film due to real life suXX0ring compared to the Avatar universe (although many people think that these people were depressed before seeing the film and are using Avatar as an outlet to express their dissatisfaction with life… a bit similar to people who spend a lot of time playing MMORPGs).
To top this off – technology blogs as well as CES (for the 2nd year in a row) have started reporting on new 3D technologies with increasing frequency over the last year, noticeably accelerating in the last few months. Brands with influential reach such as Sky, have announced 3D products to be launched in the UK in 2010, and if they can achieve a similar adoption curve to that of HD – then we can expect 3D channels on Freeview within a few years when the passive massive will truly be tempted to go out and buy 3D ready TVs. Of course these possible futures hang in the balance. People might decide that 3D porn isn’t a good thing and it could easily go the other way with the technology bombing.
However… thinking about what could be if the technology does take off. Imagine we get to a stage where 3D tech adoption reaches the levels that HD has today (which still isn’t great by the way). Imagine… 3D glasses are cheap, and a dozen of them lying around the house.
How long would it be before 3D technology jumps to the web? I’m not talking just about YouTube, and BBC iPlayer in 3D – I’m talking about a complete overhaul of the user interface of major websites to incorporate interactive 3D elements.
This idea kept me thinking for a while. In fact for the last couple of months, a I’ve still not thought of a comprehensive answer to this question. I’ve finally accepted that it isn’t on my shoulders to do so – this is an idea that needs to be interpreted by the masses, by the web developers of tomorrow, and the Twitter founders of next year.
What I have been able to do is ask more questions.
- Will Google Chrome be the first web browser which renders 3D websites?
- Will Adobe Flash natively support 3D (if the platform is still used by then)
- How would website navigation work in 3D? Will it be the death of the top and left hand nav bars? If not – will the way these nav bars render change drastically?
- How will 3D affect social networking? Will it be as basic as people posting 3D photos (taken with cameras you can already buy today) or will it change it on a more fundamental level?
- How will the public react to 3D images on major news portals of events around the world (imagine the aftermath of earthquakes, images of war etc)
- Who will make themselves famous by creating the first 3D YouTube viral video?
- Will 3D banner ads create a mini boom in the digital media industry due to a spike seen in click through rates that they would generate
- Mini boom due to the CTR’s being inflated by the novelty factor – similar to the high click through rates being enjoyed by mobile banner advertising today (they will decline steadily over time)
- Will Google offer 3D Sponsored Links (as crudely illustrated in the main image for this post) and charge a handsome bid premium for it, adding to the digital media industry boom?
I’m sure there are more questions – and I’m sure there are people out there who can answer them.
For the foreseeable future, I’ll be spending part of my time at Hyper investigating 3D technology and keeping abreast of developments as they happen – hopefully by talking to the right people I’ll be able to help answer some of these questions or hopefully ask even better ones. Ideally, I’d go to organisations like Google and Adobe and be able to ask some of these questions directly. If they can’t answer them – I hope they spend some time thinking about them and are interested enough to escalate my search.
Geek Porn 3.0
Jan 8th
- My Precious
Back when the original Asus Eee launched in the UK – I snapped one up as soon as I could get my hands on one. The specs were… terrible. It was immensely satisfying to have for all of an hour before the novelty wore off and you realised that the tiny screen, cramped keyboard and poor ability to render flash actually made for a terrible user experience even if it did have 9 hours of battery life and was very convenient to carry around. Ultimately it just wasn’t very good.
It was the first laptop I’ve ever owned, and only on the basis that I had convinced myself that it wasn’t a laptop. The idea of paying a premium for compact technology that can’t come close to rivalling their desktop brethren in terms of performance and satisfaction irks me substantially you see. A netbook however is cheap and doesn’t pretend to try to do what a desktop does. A netbook doesn’t pretend that you might be able to play games on it and it doesn’t pretend to be portable whilst actually being heavy and cumbersome, especially when you have to carry a 2Kg charger around with it which is even more awkward to carry around.
As netbook technology has progressed, they have become less shit than the original Asus Eee which was undoubtedly terrible. In fact they’ve evolved into something mildly decent. However, there is a price to pay for this progress. Good netbooks now roughly cost the same as a low-mid weight laptop, but at a vastly lower spec and ability. So having kept my eye on the netbook market for well over a year to dip my toe into this world once again, I was disappointed to find that netbooks are the new laptops. They are the highest tier of evil with regards to price to performance.
This got me thinking. Now laptops were the lesser of two evils – maybe it was time to take another look at them seriously. Naturally, I was drawn to the Dell website where I found this beauty which is an Studio Inspiron 15. The specs are below – and in my eyes were impressive for the money.
Having spent a great part of the last 6 months researching e-commerce practices dedicated to increasing the value of online transactions and indeed informing the architecture of an insurance e-commerce platform with this in mind – you would think that instantly I would be looking for ways to ensure that I was getting the best value I possibly could. Sadly this experience wasn’t what spurred me on my search for a cheaper price – it was in fact the words of a budding social media strategist from New York called Rosie Siman who mentioned over Thanksgiving dinner that she didn’t buy ANYTHING these days without looking for discount codes online.
So I went out into the Deep Web – and looked. Eventually I found a Dell specific affiliate site that offered discounted Dell equipment. What this site does is link to exactly the same computers that you can buy directly from the Dell website – but slightly different models which don’t automatically include the bloatware you usually get when you buy a manufactured computer. So instead of being forced to pay £90 for 15 months of Mcafee’s Antivirus – you just get a £90 cheaper laptop. When I paid £587 inc VAT instead of over £700 – I smiled and thought of you Rosie.
| Item |
Description |
| Base |
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T4300 (2.1GHz, 800MHz, 1MB cache) |
| Memory |
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048] |
| Keyboard |
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Backlit Keyboard |
| Video Card |
512MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4570 |
| Hard Drive |
320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive |
| Microsoft Operating System |
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English |
| Optical Devices |
Fixed Internal DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive including Software |
| Wireless Networking |
Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g) |
| Cables |
1 Meter Power Cord (3 Wire) – UK |
| Shipping Documents |
English – Documentation Studio 1545 |
| Gedis Bundle Reference |
N0153502 |
| Standard Warranty |
1 year of coverage included with your PC |
| Enhanced Service Packs |
1 year of coverage included with your PC |
| PalmRest |
Palmrest Standard |
| Bluetooth |
No Bluetooth Upgrade |
| Order Information |
Studio 1555 Order – UK |
| Primary Battery |
Primary 6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery |
| Carrying Cases |
No Carrying Case |
| Dell System Media Kit |
Studio 1555 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers) |
| Camera |
2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera |
| Colour Choice |
Red Swirl |
| Accidental Damage Support |
No Accidental Damage Support |
| Online Backup |
DataSafe Online Backup 2GB 1 year |
| Theft Protection Solution |
FailSafe® Theft Protection – track and protect lost or stolen laptops – 30 days free trial |
| Call Dell Experts |
One free Dell Expert call to help with your PC queries within 60 days of purchase |
| Labels |
Wireless Label – Pentium Dual Core |
| LCD |
15.6in Widescreen Full High Definition (1920×1080) WLED with TrueLife |
| DataSafe (Services Owned) |
Datasafe Local 2.0 Basic |
| Microsoft Application Software |
Microsoft® Works 9.0 / English – (Does not include Microsoft® Word) |
| Protect your new PC |
No Security/Anti-Virus Protection – English |
| Power Supply |
90W AC Adaptor |
Hello!
Jan 6th
Hi there. My blog has moved home – it now lives here. This is in part due to the inflexibility of Blogger blogs, and also because change is a good thing. I always welcome feedback – so if there are elements of the blog design you aren’t keen on, let me know.
If you’re new to my blog and would like to learn a bit more about me – then visit the About section of the site.
Happy New year!
My first iPhone App
Dec 8th
I don’t often pimp out my own work. Much of it is behind the scenes stuff like PowerPoint documents, Information Architecture, and things that may or may not involve spending a lot of time on Facebook & Twitter (depending on if you’re reading this and are in fact my boss).
But today is different. Today I’m proud to announce something really tangible. Proof that my 4 years in digital marketing have not been completely spent on Facebook / watching the BBC iPlayer / playing Bejeweled on my phone (maybe).
Right now you can go here and download that proof.
It is an iPhone App (I can hear you all yawning already). But I’m exceptionally happy to say its not a waste of space / crappy game app which serves no purpose other than to fool people to ‘engage’ with my clients’ brands. It is in fact useful.
Research from MORE TH>N shows that a massive 38% of people who are involved in a road traffic incident do not have sufficient details of the incident when they phone up their insurance company to register a claim request. 38%?!! That’s a huge number of people paying premiums which they don’t benefit from because they don’t have the details they need to get money off of their insurance company. Crazy shit no?
MORE TH>N are a nice brand however. They want to do more… as it were, for their customers. So in response they briefed Hyper – “What can we do to make sure more people have the right details when making a claim?”
I had a think. We all had a think. Then I thought harder.
“How about a mobile phone app which makes it really easy to collect all the information needed by the insurance company and then sends it straight to the insurance company via e-mail, CCing you as well.”
And thus my first iPhone app idea was born – and I’m proud of it. Its only available in the UK – but people insured by ANY insurer can use it (although you will need to get some details like their phone number and any claims handling e-mail address to change the settings to ensure it is in fact your insurance company that you send the info to rather than to MORE TH>N who probably won’t be of much help).
I hope you decide to download it – hoping that you never need to use it.
-tobeconfirmed-
Hilarious use of Google Wave
Oct 16th
Just spotted this on TechCrunch. I burst out giggling in the office with 15 people staring at me with a ‘wtf? mate’ oO look on their face. I sent it round the office, other people giggled – some people didn’t get it. Sucks to be them.
In my opinion this is the funniest thing I’ve seen on the web for quite a long time.
Even though I’m on Google Wave now – its a lonely place as I imagine it is for many people who probably only have a small number of contacts who also managed to get an invite. Until Wave is rolled out with a wider release, it will keep on being a bit useless.
In the meantime however I look forward to seeing inventive uses of it like the above. It does at least illustrate how useful this could be for collaborative script writing if nothing else.
Battle of the Big Thinkers
Oct 12th
I recently entered into an APG competition of the same name as this blog post. You can find out more about it here – www.battleofbigthinking.com. Sadly my entry wasn’t selected to take me through to the live event where 3 lucky people get to talk about their idea for 3 minutes before the audience will vote for a winner. Its a bit of fun, and would have been great to get through to the live event, but sadly it wasn’t to be.
This was my entry:
“When we’re playing games, we’re not suffering.” – Jane McGonigal.
Jane argues that games such as World of Warcraft promote addictive behaviour through providing a level of fulfilment which is exceptionally hard to achieve in the ‘real world’.
I challenge the media driven brands of today to consider this statement closely if they want to be the brands of tomorrow. In an economy where attention is scarce, most brands will be fighting for attention scraps left over by the corporations who provide the most fulfilment. Without doubt, a gaming company will have the attention monopoly in the years to come.
Best Microsoft Ad Ever
Sep 11th
Just saw this new ad for Windows 7 and I absolutely love it. It made me smile and laugh out loud and feels deceptively non-corporate. Hats off to M$ for having a good sense of humour and letting such an awesome but non traditional ad pave the way for their biggest product launch in years.
Love it.
-tobeconfirmed-
