Everyblock is a very local news and info aggregator that tells you exactly what’s going on in your neighbourhood. USA only for now and no feedback mechanism for social/oral news and histories but I reckon this could be massive. Have a look at it here.
Title says it all really, but a nice little article for designers who use their phone for more than just calling (which is what they said to be honest) – post is over here…
Some lovely work over at Independent Studio – check out the SAMA Festival in particular
I’ve been looking at a lot of augmented reality stuff lately and am fascinated by the possibilities for live gaming involving mobiles and crowds. There’s been some great work done with augmented reality but it’s few and far between and I think the technology might be a bit limited right now, but I just know that an idea we pitched to the BBC a few months ago would be perfect for it…so more on that when the idea is bit more fully formed.
In the meantime, I’m going to buy some infra-red cameras this week and see if there’s anything in the thoughts I’ve been having about the effect of crowds and how they influence environments…a bit like digg-labs but with real LIVE people. Yup.
I’ve been looking back at some of my notes from my MA days and came across something on the origins of hypermedia and linked information.
In particular, I’d spent a lot of time looking into the peerless Vanevar Bush who had a great deal of amazing ideas but most notably (to my thinking) was his early conception of the memex – an early pre-cursor of the world wide web. A true heavyweight and a man who operated seamlessly across science and politics. His ideas of associative trails can be seen all around us – not just with the web itself but in smaller applications of his thinking with stuff like facebook, flickr, twitter etc.
And if you like that then have a go on Ted Nelson…he’s quite interesting too.
This must be the longest gap ever between posts. It’s not that I haven’t had lot to talk about, but more that I’m saying it out loud as opposed to writing it down…and that doesn’t really help. Anyhow, I’ll be back on track from now on and doing some regular posts that don’t actually involve telling you what my cat’s been eating or where I went for drink last night…I’ll bet you can’t wait. Later.
