After Stephan’s post appeared on the blog yesterday, it reminded me of an amazing project called Back to the Future (and part 2) by Argentinian photographer, Irina Werning.

By taking a photograph from your childhood, she attempts to recreate the photo with extreme attention to detail. The surroundings, clothes, positioning and facial expressions are all carefully put together to capture that exact moment from your past, in what was your future.

Another couple to note are a ‘do it yourself’ project called ‘Young Me/Now Me‘ where you can submit your own attempts at reenacting your favourite childhood memory and Dear Photograph (below), a blog where you take a photo of an old photo that is perfectly lined up with the original photo’s setting (make sense?). Check it out:

Ulric Collette, canadian-based artist and photographer, put together photos of his family members and friends and photoshopped them together for his gallery of genetic portraits.

He calls it Research work on photographic genetic similarities between members of same family.

There are a lot more here

@maniac13

A great presentation by Brendan ‘Bob’ Forster last night @ Google with an awesome turn out of about 70 YoungBloods supporters from various agencies across Sydney.

First of all… YoungBloods is a platform for young advertising people to socialise, network and have a say on industry issues. The YoungBloods committee puts on a number of events during the year that anyone can attend. These events range from presentations held by leaders in our industry, trivia nights and industry themed parties.

Interested? Click here to become a YoungBlood or to be informed of these events.

Back to ‘Innovation @ Google’ presentation…

Bob (Brendan Forster), who is a Product Specialist at Google, spoke about Google’s innovation and various initiatives that have made significant difference to consumerism on a global scale.

The most notable of these initiatives would have been the Google Crises Response – a project which involves Google helping to connect people with information and their loved ones in times of disaster. For instance, during Cyclone Yasi and the Australian floods of 2011, Google provided a list of resources and phone numbers to facilitate emergency services, donations, volunteers and help people connect with loved ones.

Bob also explained Google X Lab, which is more or less a secret facility run by Google that works on ‘big ideas for the future’. He also gave examples on how Google has enabled previously unachievable ideas through technology eg The Johnny Cash Project, which allowed fans across the globe to contribute to a global art project which is ultimately a tribute to Johnny Cash. Bob also spoke about how Google has made significant progress in providing powerful consumer insights through search and further more, assisting consumers who want to engage everywhere at any time through mobile.

All in all it was a pretty inspiring presentation and well done to the YoungBloods team for organizing the event!

Social and search continue to be essential inbound marketing channels. And while Google’s generating a lot of discussion around its new social network, Google+, another website is actually driving more inbound traffic: Pinterest.

Read full article and view infographic…

@danKrause

We all know this moment where you are focusing on your friend while taking the perfect picture only to find out later that there is some tourist in the background, some weird looking stranger bombing himself into our perfect shot.

Now there seems to be a solution on the horizon, Scalado announced a technology called Remove that will make it very easy to remove unwanted photobombers from your holiday shots. Simply select and remove.

Don’t believe it? Check out the video:

So how do they do it? The technology takes a series of photos in quick succession and then pinpoints moving objects in the collection, giving you the option to remove them with a click.

Right now it isn’t commercially available, but I can’t wait to have this on my phone soon.

@maniac13

“I wish I could’ve done that when I started”

That is the standard response from most in the office who hear about my graduate program. Nine months of experience rotating through all of Amnesia’s departments, from Account Management to Creative, Strategy to Emerging Technology, and even a short stint with Finance (my apologies to the finance department in advance). Nine months of new and different. Nine months of digital, Amnesia style.

Of course it is an enviable program, and I intend to make the most of it. And whilst it may be all about learning the digital ropes, in a lot of ways it is a chance to show nine months worth of proof – proof that this little fish can swim.

So who am I? I am Dean, a new fish in the pond that is Amnesia Razorfish.
Seinfeld makes me laugh. I conduct limb transplants on gummy bears. I think great food is, well, great. A world map has pride of place on my wall. And I always “find the fun” in any situation.

I am a lover of media, both online and offline. My professional background lies within children’s television at Network Ten, where I worked as a Production Coordinator and freelance Scriptwriter, creating ‘riveting’ work such as this.

For me, it’s time for change and adaptation – from sleepy Brisbane to bustling Sydney, offline to online. I’ll be documenting my time at Amnesia Razorfish with a no holds barred look at agency and digital life. I have a lot to learn and you can read all about it here, or follow me on twitter.

Dean
@deanvowles

We have all been to a museum and had to fight the urge to touch the painting we are looking at.

That might have been what Petros Vrellis thought, so he went ahead and created an interactive version of Vincent van Gogh’s painting Starry Night.

Hi project is a flowing simulation of the painting that when you touch it reacts and synthesizes sound. If left alone it slowly returns to its original state. Displayed at about 30 frames per second at 1920 x 1080 I am sure Vincent himself would have been impressed by it.

check it out in action here:

@maniac13

What is WiGig you are asking? WiGig is an alliance that completed a multi-gigabit 60Ghz wireless specification.

It means that WiGig enables wireless transfer rates more than ten times faster than today’s fastest wireless LAN, and it’s completely backward compatible with existing WiFi devices.

Panasonic is now in the process of jamming the functionality into SD cards set to arrive next year and they already have a working prototype that they showed off at DigInfo.

Photos and videos were effortlessly send to secondary displays and played without any glitches. According to them a whole DVD can be transferred in under a minute.

But check it out in action here and be surprised by how much it looks like Amnesia Connect

@maniac13

Adobe released a sneak peek video of Photoshop CS6 on YouTube and it showed off a dark UI similar to Lightroom and After Effects.

Lots of customizations are now possible simply by context clicking and the rich cursor support is something that I have been waiting for a long time.

I definitely like it, so check it out in the video below:

PS: the Camera Raw 7 product looks quite nice too.

@maniac13

Researchers in Germany, Canada and the US may have come up with an elegant solution that can work with any smartphone and an external display: virtual projection.

The system works by using a central server that constantly takes screenshots of the external display and compares them with the images from the phone’s camera to track its location.

It then replicates what’s on the handset’s screen, while allowing you to add multiple image windows and position and rotate them.

Additionally, multiple users can collaborate and virtually project pictures or videos onscreen at the same time.

Personally I think your battery life will suffer the most, but in general it is a cool idea.

check it out in action below:

@maniac13

German Photographer Marcus Reugels takes pictures of water droplets refracting an image behind them, making them each appear to contain a world or Batman or Spiderman.

How he says on his website, every droplet is a unique piece of art. Pretty amazing

Check out his other work, which he says was not manipulated with Photoshop at all.

@maniac13

Being a gamer myself there is always that point where I could go and do exercise or I could finish that next level and then usually I end up not going to the gym.

Now there is a solution for my first world problem. BitGym has created a control system for playing iOS games while you are on your favourite exercise equipment. Right now it is a racer (that looks a lot like Outrun) and you control the cars steering with you head and your acceleration is based on your exercise rate.

Check out the video:

nifty little tool, but I am not sure if the movements you have to do to get through the game are good for your posture

@maniac13

CES in Las Vegas is on and like every year I am jealous of everybody who can go to it.

But nevertheless I still get to see all the cool new gadgets and while I have seen prototypes of this before, but this seems to be ready to be installed in my house.

The Samsung Smart Window – a transparent display that is touch enabled and a one sided pane which means people on the outside can’t see what you are seeing.

here are some videos of it in action:

I love the blinds, also word on the street is that mass production is starting in the next few month, but no word on price yet.

@maniac13

I am very excited about the forthcoming Windows 8 and I have been playing around with it since the Developer Preview was released.

We have a big touchscreen in the office here so it is perfect for the Metro UI, but I have to say that the mouse interaction on a laptop without a touchscreen is very average.

Along came Tobii and at first you think it is just another gimmick, but everybody on the net who has actually tried it is blown away by it.

Tobii comes with an eye control device, a rectangular glass obilisk that is attached to the hinge of the laptop. It requires a personal calibration and off you go. It also controls all the swipe gestures available in Windows 8.

But enough said, check it out in the video.

and another video of it in action

can’t wait to try it out

@maniac13

We have seen some cool stuff in the past that could bring us closer to the Star Trek HoloDeck, e.g. the HoloDesk

And now Microsoft Research has pushed a little further and gives us a 3D hologram that is floating in mid air at 15 frames per second and is viewable from 192 different points at a time.

reminds me of Star Wars

Of course Kinect is involved here and the depth sensor makes it possible to interact with the hologram – you can basically touch it.

It is still a long way off from 3D hologram telephony or a full size HoloDeck, but for now this is pretty cool.

check out the video:

@maniac13