by amnesia on September 18, 2008
I would never tell a client that they should reduce their budgets in order to make us more creative, because quite frankly it isn’t true. A bigger budget obviously always provides you with greater opportunities but I love this idea posted by Howies that suggests when budgets are smaller it makes them think harder about what they should be doing with the money. As well as making people more creative and accountable it sort of makes the idea that much purer.
With free off the shelf tools and open source applications all you need is a bit of a technical aptitude, something interesting to talk about or show and voila, you have yourself a digital presence. If it’s good enough people will find it. It strips everything naked down to its barest form. It forces you to make sure you really do have a good idea before you start splashing your cash.
On a slightly different tangent but still using technology other people have built to tell your story is CCTV ‘video sniffing’. Essentially people use government CCTV networks to create mini productions. The UK has CCTV cameras pretty much everywhere, but what is interesting is that if you have been filmed, you are entitled to the footage. So essentially people are coming up with a concept and performing it in front of CCTV cameras, applying for the footage and editing it accordingly. Pretty damn clever in my opinion. The only down side is that it took one guy 5 years and over 200 applications to local councils to finish the project. But it shows what can happen if you put your imagination first before assigning your budget.
by buckles on September 11, 2008
Last night we came into possession of what we believe to be a beta-release for a new kind of 3D Mouse from Google. Whilst we can’t disclose exactly who gave this (because they work at Google) it certainly raised a few eyebrows in here when we opened the package. We’ve never seen a mouse like this before and has a couple of really WOW features (check out the last image).
EDIT: Just uploaded a quick video (this was right after we took it out of the box).
So our second unboxing in a month (*)… unfortunately we missed the opening of this box initially because it was totally unmarked so we didn’t know what was inside until we saw the mouse through the plastic …at which point we got the camera out. The mouse was well packed with inflated pouch to avoid any damage.
Confirmed: It is green and has see through bits showing the Google logo.
Underside: Marked (A) is likely part of the 3D accelerometer. This lets you lift the mouse up an use it pretty much like like a Wii controller (see shot of screen below).
(B) seems to be part of the Wii-like 3D system for when you’re waving it about – yes you can actually see the yellow sensor inside moving as you move your hand.
(C) – Appears to be the Biometric reader (nicely branded) and (D) seems to control all the 3D movements but doubles up as a really comfortable ergonomic gel to prevent RSI.
Above: The mouse in action – after the mouse drivers install you get this pretty neat affect as you lift the mouse up; the cursor lifts up and becomes huge, casting a shadow on the desktop. We haven’t figured out what the use for this might be yet but it was fun.
We were a bit disappointed that the mouse is not wireless, but seeing there was no battery compartment it probably needs to get power from somewhere.
Incidentally it’s Google’s tenth birthday, and we know they love a good old joke down under 
…Happy Birthday Google, and thanks for the mouse – already put to good use.
Birthday wishes, @ Amnesia.
by eunmac on September 2, 2008
Here’s an article I wrote for AdNews last month – it was edited down for publication so here’s the full thing. Uncensored:
We all keep hearing about the pace of change and how much we need to constantly shift our businesses both as agency or client. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to look with so much going on; an ever expanding web and new devices appearing daily in the consumers lounge and pockets … all places we need to harness for marketing success.
Batteries… soon to have a 30 year gap between recharging?
One thing’s for sure, it’s going to get more complicated, not less so I thought I would share five of the key technologies that are set to change the digital landscape in a significant way within the next ten years… here’s my TOP 5:
[click to continue…]
by amnesia on August 5, 2008
Obscura Digital have recently demoed a pretty extraordinary piece of technology – using their reportedly proprietary multi-touch tech and Musion’s Eyeliner 3D “holographic projection system” (quote unquote), the following demonstration comes to life.
Legions of fanboys will soon be able to finally touch Princess Leia.
by eunmac on August 4, 2008
This is a classic example of things going wrong for a brand. I just watched a Top Gear clip of the Audi R8 which inspired me to do a quick search in Google for “r8″…
Oh dear… it’s an SEO (Search engine optimisation) branding nightmare – the first image that jumps up is a burnt out Audi R8. Given that around 97% of car purchases now involve some online research, this is not what you want people to see straight up.
The unfortunate Audi R8 image that would send shivers down the Audi marketing team’s spines…
So what do you do when Image Search Results go bad?
Here’s some small tips for a healthy life in the chaotic land of Search / SEO:
1. Listen | Observe – this means keeping an eye on what’s coming up in your search results. If you don’t know about it, you can’t fix it.
2. Play a role in the community especially the blogosphere – make sure high ranking sites carry correctly named/tagged images that will index in search. Know the bloggers that influence your results.
3. Optimise your own site as much as possible for images, meta data and other techniques. There are many companies (including ours, plug plug) that can help with this.
4. SEM – Make sure your search engine marketing is in place (in the instance above I did not receive any SEM ads whatsoever.
5. Run a Digital PR campaign. There are various creative techniques which could encourage a large amount of people to get involved with images that are positive for your brand.
6. Provide assets to the masses. Allow users to take your images (the ones you want seen) and distribute freely.
7. Use the social networks. Nothing stopping brands playing a role in the community in an open transparent manner.
8. Create an official Blog. A properly maintained, healthy blog by a brand can do wonders in search. Bear in mind a blog needs to work (have great content, audience participation and avoid the corporate BS).
9. Talk to Google. Whilst they’re not going to change their indexing algorithms they are a helpful and good natured company and may be able to offer advice.
10. Talk to the site which houses the bad image/content. They may be quite happy to run another more positive story to help, without compromising or asking them to delete their original content. (Avoid censorship – that would be a big no-no).
Unfortunately bad news is big news. If a big ranking site pushes something you don’t like in Search, the only surefire method is to outgun that site in the digital space …and this is a time consuming game.
The lowdown for brands to prevent a search disaster:
Make sure you have a digital strategy, an SEO / SEM strategy, the assets to make it work, a team that is watching …and get it in place as early as possible.
by amnesia on May 2, 2008
Imagine…
a lot of computers, let’s say several million. They can include desktop PCs and workstations, mainframes and supercomputers, and also data vaults and instruments such as meteorological sensors and telescopes.
Imagine these computers are all over the world and belong to many different people (students, doctors, secretaries…) and institutions (companies, universities, hospitals…).
And imagine that you connect all of these computers to the Internet.
So far you have imagined nothing new: this is pretty much what the world looks like today.
But imagine if all of these computers could be connected to act as a single, huge and super-powerful computer. Wow! Now that really is different. This huge, sprawling, global computer is what many people dream “The Grid” will be.
More about The Grid
Who stands behind this?
CERN has a reputation for being at the forefront of networking technology – “where the Web was born” is the lab’s motto. When it comes to Grid technology, this is particularly true: CERN is leading some of the most ambitious Grid projects in the world.
More about CERN
by amnesia on March 31, 2008
This is so cool. I think this will be as important one day as “Come here, Watson, I need you.”
