by eunmac on August 27, 2012
Here’s a quick guide to making your very own ’3D’ Wigglegrams or Lenticular photographs. We used three GoPro Hero’s, some elastic bands, a couple of rulers and some chopped up erasers. It will take about an hour to create your first Wigglegram.
Firstly, what is a Wigglegram? Basically it’s an animated gif which moves quickly between a number of frames taken from slightly different angels to create a 3D effect. In reality it’s a bit like a poor mans bullettime. You can learn more about the science here:
OK, here’s some Wigglegrams we made around the office today:
That’s Brady. He makes creative technology stuff happen.
Johnny, our ever so awesome Barista. He might be hip. We’re not sure.
Ben trying hard to stand still. Apparently that is hard thing for strategists to do.
How to make your own Wigglegram:
We were lucky enough to have 3 GoPro’s in the Office but you could use any matching cameras. You will need a minimum of two, but the more the merrier. In general you want the lenses closer together. The effect may have been slightly better if we had put the GoPros vertically (but then we couldn’t have pressed the buttons!). Note: We pushed the GoPro’s tight as possible against each other to keep everything sturdy.
Step 1 – Construction:
1. We mounted the GoPros on two stiff rulers using elastic bands.
2. We taped 3 small pieces of eraser chopped up just big enough to press the camera buttons simultaneously.
3. We stuck the chopped up eraser onto a stiff flat object (we used a random bit of scrap metal we found lying around). lining up the erasers exactly with the GoPro buttons. This was loosly attched to the rig using elastic bands again (not so tight that it pressed the buttons)
4. We attached the rig onto a Tripod.
Step 2 – Taking shots:
1. Make sure you have a “centre subject” (see the flowers below in our reception area as an example). Having nothing in the middle of your shot makes it hard to align things, and also lessens the 3D effect. Tip: Don’t have too many objects close up or in front of your ‘centre object’.
2. Keep your rig nice and steady.
3. Avoid anything moving (unless you have a better way of getting each of the cameras to trigger at exactly the same time).
4. Click away… making sure all three buttons are clicked at the same time (although a little bit out is ok if your subjects are still.
Step 3- Making the Wigglegram Gif
-We put out photos into three folders named LEFT, MIDDLE, RIGHT
Next we imported Left, Middle, Right frames into a layer in Photoshop (Fig 1) – one shot at a time.
- Next step is alignment. The easiest way to do this is to make the bottom layer (eg: left) 100% opacity, then make the next layer (eg middle) 50% opacity. When you do this the two images will look blurred and the trick is to get the ‘centre subject’ of the images in focus.
- Now move the 50% layer so your centre subject matches up with the bottom layer. Repeat this for each layer then turn them all back to 100% opacity.
- Crop your image to dispose of missing or overlapping areas.
- Test your Wigglegram by flicking the layers on and off.
- If you’ve done everything right you can now animate. Turn the Animate menu on under ‘Window’. Make sure you have frame animation on. It’s easier than using the timeline).
- You’ll need four frames (if you took three shots). Start with left, then middle, then right, then middle. Set the interval between 0 and 0.2 seconds and you are ready to export.
-Set the loop to ‘forever’
- Go to File/ Save for web and devices and export as a gif using a selective pallete.
-Done! Enjoy 
Posted by @eunmac
by Jacqueline.La on August 21, 2012
Amnesia Razorfish is the home to some of the brightest digital media minds in Australia and has a proven track record of effectiveness and ROI for our clients. You have the opportunity to join this amazing team of digital natives on a 12 month contract. We are looking for a Senior Account Manager (SAM) to join our team based in Melbourne.
The SAM will oversee and handle the day-to-day account service, fostering mutual trust and developing great relationships with clients. The client is an iconic Australian brand and progressive commercial corporation.
Responsibilities include:
- Driving the business and grow the nominated accounts by working strategically with clients across the entire business.
- Understand from a strategic point of view how digital plays a role in a business growth & future
- Maintain a focus on short term deliverable, concurrent with a firm understanding of the client’s long-term strategic goals and ROI objectives
The successful candidate will have solid experience across a diverse range of digital marketing channels including (but not limited to) creative development, social marketing, e-marketing, online tactical, brand and viral campaigns, affiliation marketing, search marketing and strategic consulting. Proven experience in a leadership role is a must to motivate and lead others in the development, direction and executive of marketing projects and campaigns.
The successful candidate will have a minimum of four years of relevant progressive experience in the account services field within the industry.
If Digital is part of your DNA apply now!
by stephanlange on August 16, 2012
NFC or Near Field Communication is the big buzz word at the moment and everybody is talking about it. The truth is that the technology is nothing new and it has been around for a long time. Nokia had an NFC enabled phone in 2007, it was called the Nokia 6131.
Google has made the term mainstream with their announcement of Google Wallet and most people think of NFC as a way to pay with their mobile device. But that is not all.
At Razorfish globally we have been exploring NFC for a long time. Just look at the examples that we released in the past: The NFC gumball machine, BrandTable or Razorfish Digital Wallet.
We actually have a wall of NFC to showcase all kinds of uses for the technology right in our office.
So what else can you do with NFC apart from using it for payments?
There are already plenty of examples out there.
Below you can find 6 examples on how NFC can be used right now.
1. Use your NFC enabled phone as the key to your hotel room
For the recent Olympics in London a Holiday Inn Hotel gave their VIP customers a Samsung Galaxy S3 as part of their 40 VIP rooms. The guests were able to check in and out of the hotel, as well as change the AC, control the TV, and unlock their rooms with the phone.
Using NFC in your phone as a key to open doors has been used in the Enterprise world as well. The phones were used to enable physical access systems in buildings and track employee time-clock check-ins and attendance, access staff parking areas or cafeterias and pay for services.
NFC tags could be placed inside meeting or conference rooms, and attendees could tap their compatible devices to silence them or to turn on Wi-Fi, for example.
2. Use it as your travel pass
[click to continue…]
by stephanlange on August 14, 2012
tecEasy – you use infrared controlled Mickey Mouse ears.
The ears communicate with IR controllers and can react to certain parts of Disneyland. According to the video(s) below they have only scratched the surface and the ears will be able to interact with each other as well (they kind of do already as you can sync their lights with each other if you get them close enough).
The main attraction is the World of Colour experience where the ears are grouped into zones so the technicians can use all the “participants” to incorporate the ears into the show, think sweeping changes of colour running through the crowd.
Check out the 2 videos below
Now I just have to find the time and money to go to Disneyland myself
@maniac13
by Jacqueline.La on August 7, 2012
Amnesia Razorfish is the home to some of the brightest digital media minds in Australia and has a proven track record of delivering effectiveness and maximising ROI for our clients.
You have the opportunity to join this amazing team of digital natives as a Senior Account Manager. The position sits within the client team primarily working with one of Australia’s leading Financial Services providers.
The Senior Account Manager works in conjunction with the Account Director to fulfil client campaign planning, execution, management and analysis. This role interfaces with our clients on a daily basis, and is responsible for building and maintaining a strong working relationship.
Responsibilities include:
· Performs day-to-day client contact
· Coordinate deliverables for weekly status reports (projects, due dates, etc)
· Facilitates/leads weekly status calls
· Trains/mentors team members when necessary
· Provide project management on all projects within the account team
· Prioritises and sets expectations on deliverables
· Manages all tactical client communication and cross team coordination
· Multiple channel management as needed (branding, affiliate, search, email, web media, etc.)
· Provide POV’s in weekly client status calls/meetings
· Specific client requests: Competitive analysis, Research, Sample budgets, Media analysis
· Campaign Management responsibilities including: Forecasting & budget allocation, Campaign planning, Campaign execution, Creative optimization, Site optimization, Action tag strategy, Delivery of Q/A
· Strategy & Analysis responsibilities including: Campaign analysis, Forecasting, Support Media strategy, advanced data analysis and campaign reviews, Special reports builder pulling Atlas data, publisher reports, extended data, etc.
· Accounting responsibilities including: Quality assurance, Accounting reconciliation,
The successful candidate must have a strong knowledge of Display, Paid Search and SEO to be able to effectively coordinate the agencies specialists in these areas. Strong reporting and analytical skills are required, as is the ability to prioritise and partner with clients to achieve the best outcome. Some management experience is preferred.
The successful candidate will have a minimum of two years of relevant progressive experience.
If Digital is part of your DNA apply now!
by stephanlange on August 7, 2012
Have you ever been in the situation where you were cooking up a storm in the kitchen following your grandmothers 100 year recipe, your hands were covered in ingredients and you didn’t want to touch the recipe because you didn’t want to get it dirty.
Qualcomm comes to the rescue by showing off the power of their new Snapdragon processor and there practical integration of gesture and head tracking technology that hopefully soon will make it into your tablet.
The technology is not new, but as the videos below show, using the device’s front-facing camera, we will be able to control onscreen avatars, page forward and back through recipes, setup profiles and even wake their slates all with simple hand or head movements.
Check out the videos below
I for one wouldn’t mind having this little add-on on my tablet.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on July 24, 2012
Trash cans haven’t really changed much in the past, but this Japanese genius just made all the wait worth it.
He has created the Smart Trashbox, a moving can which uses a Kinect to track airborne garbage and make sure you’ll never miss ever again.
Check out the video of it in action.
A lot of work went into this project and the creator (Modder FRP) states that there is still a lot of work to be done, but right now it is pretty impressive.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on July 24, 2012
NFC is the big buzz word everywhere now and most people don’t even know what it is, what it does or that they already have it in their phone.
Will the new iPhone have it? Nobody knows until it is revealed, but that shouldn’t stop us from exploring it.
And that is exactly what Razorfish in Germany did with this 2 day project, coming up with the best idea on NFC usage I have seen so far.
The idea is simple, just like you used to get your candy from a machine you can now get all kinds of digital goodies: Apps, movies, songs, ebooks, as well as other exclusive and location-based content that can be pushed to a phone. Simply enter a coin and turn the lever – then follow the animation and tap your smartphone next to the release chute.
NFC Gumball Machine from Razorfish – Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.
In terms of hardware, we used a Samsung Galaxy Tab, an NFC shield, a simple reed switch and two Arduino microcontrollers – all nicely fitted into an original Gum Machine metal base.
Super awesome indeed. Nicely done Razorfish. You can read more about it here.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on July 18, 2012
We have been playing around with new ways of interaction for a while and touch and Natural user interfaces always played a big role in it.
Some of the work we can done can be found on our blog here and here, on the razorfish emerging experiences blog here and there is plenty more as well.
So we are always interested when this kind of technology and innovation makes it into the real world. Yesterday the Audi City in London opened up and is showing off how you will buy your next Audi by using touch, Kinect and RDID.
Audi at the moment sells 36 different new cars and with all of the customization you can do there are something like 200 million possible iterations of those and obviously you can’t have that many cars in the show room.
So what if you could customize your new car the way you want and then see if life size drive past you on a 210 inch screen – awesome, yes!
Audi City has multiple levels, with the upstairs level having 4 of those floor to ceiling screens. Check out their vision in the video below:
2 of the screens have kinect sensors connected to them so you can interact with it with gestures, a directional sound system makes sure you are not disturbed by other potential buyers on the other screen (or vice versa) and it lets you experience the engine sound and the sounds of closing doors.
A touch screen then takes over where you can easily customize every single aspect of your new car, down to the colour of your gear stick. Spin it, turn it, zoom it – all of that is possible with high resolution imagery and the touch panel.
Paint, leather and cloth samples on RFID-enabled swatches can be grabbed from the wall and placed next to the 32in touch screen, automatically updating your vehicle with the choice you’ve made.
Once you’re happy with your choices it generates a mood board with hi-res snaps and videos of your chosen car, which can be shared on Facebook and Twitter, emailed to a friend, or stored on a USB key.
Audi plans to roll the 3M multitouch screens out to dealerships all over the world, and to create 20 Audi Cities by 2015. I for one can’t wait for the one in Australia to be opened.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on July 10, 2012
GPS is great and has helped nearly everyone at one stage or another to find their way.
The problem is that it doesn’t work indoors and all the mapping companies are working hard on finding a solution so you can find your way around the shopping mall or the supermarket.
Now there is a new kid on the block called IndoorAtlas.
Developed by a team at Finland’s University of Oulu, their method relies on identifying the unique geomagnetic field of every location on Earth to get positioning through a mobile device.
It is very accurate, to less than 6.6 feet, and it can work without triangulations of wireless signals and at any location. IndoorAtlas has already conducted tests in a mine 4,593 feet deep.
Geomagnetic location-finding is already available through an Android API, so hopefully there will be plenty of apps coming our way soon.
Check out the video below for a brief explanation.
@maniac13
