Archive for Technology and Gadgets

What Do People Talk To Me About?

// August 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // General, Music, Technology and Gadgets

As a web-type-person, I often find myself in conversations with friends or new acquaintances who either:

  1. Have the bestest idea ever, ever, ever for a website that they want to make.
  2. Are curious about what stimulates my technological erogenous zones.
  3. Think I’m a gamer who can recommend the best video game to buy at any moment in time.

I don’t want to pick on my friends, (I value my friends dearly so would never) but a bit of chagrin on their part every now and again is an intrinsic element of the makeup of any 21st Century man; so a little ribbing here is fair game.

I’ll address point 3 first of all.  I know NOTHING about gaming (outside of the iPhone gaming world of course).  This is because of two reasons; one, I just don’t have the time to waste and two, I’m absolutely rubbish at most games (I blame my unwieldily large hands and small controllers). I of course pick up on the buzz that surrounds new games, platforms or emerging technology,  however I’ve only ever completed two games in my entire life: Splinter Cell and Silent Hill on the original Xbox. The only thing that compelled me to do such a thing was to test out the Dolby Digital surround system I bought around the same time.  I loved the fact that you could hear things creeping up on you and react to it.  It was an immersive experience that I found interesting.  However it soon wore off and my XBox and PS2 were again reduced to dusty ornaments on my TV cabinet.

Since then I’ve tried hard (for the millionth time) to get into games, buying a PS3 in the process and the only thing I spent any notable time on was Call of Duty 4.  The PS3 is still with us but now only gets rolled out at parties when my fiancé insists on getting SingStar going.  So to conclude, if you want games advice I suggest a visit to IGN would be much more valuable than a chat with myself.  One day though, I’ll find the time to get into it… one day.

Now onto the good stuff.  Every other webby or venture capital person will probably chuckle to themselves recognising this familiar situation.  Everybody I know has a great idea for a website, and naturally I’m their first port of call.  The only problem is that 99% of these ideas have already been done, and 70% of them have already been done well.  Being a person who spends at least 2-3 hours a day digesting something in the region of 300 individual tech, gadget, innovation, design and development RSS feeds I tend to have a good idea of what’s happening, what’s new and what works and doesn’t on the web.  So if a friend suggests an idea, chances are if it’s been done I’ll know about it.

The problem with this is that often you have to shatter dreams. :(  A lot of my friends don’t use the internet much, so they don’t see everything and aren’t aware of some of the great sites out there.  It’s not easy to tell them that something has already been done or that it might not work, but if someone has an epiphany and decides that what the internet needs is somewhere you can go and buy books then you have no choice but to point out Amazon.

I’ve had the odd idea suggested here and there that have been genuinely innovative, some of which are in my development pipeline, but the majority are unfortunately already out there.  I would never suggest that people stop approaching me with ideas though as you never know, they may hit a home run. There are a also a hell of a lot of sites out there that could be done better.

The final thing people talk to me about, and this is often the point where I somehow manage to bore and repel people at parties.  That is: what sites and technologies do I admire on the web?  I could (and often do) go on for hours about my favourites.  I’ll try and give a brief summary of typical daily web activites and favourites to save you all the boredom.

First of all, as previously mentioned in my RSS reader (NetNewsWire) I have something in the region of 300 RSS feeds.  The majority of which are technology and gadget blogs; Engadget, Gizmodo, Geekologie, Slashdot, The Register are typical examples.  Then there’s the meme, viral and web buzz sites like, Digg, Buzzfeed and Urlesque.  To top it all off there’s a bunch of fashion, design, style and trend sites like PSFK, Retro to Go, Springwise etc.

The upside to all those feeds is that I get a pretty good picture of trending technology, design, and development techniques.  Keeping me on my toes and ensuring I don’t get left behind.  The downside is that I end up seeing the same stories posted over and over again on different blogs.  I should at least delete two of Gizmodo, Engadget and Geekologie but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

As for my favourite sites that I actually visit… Well, I can’t resist a bit of time here and there on the Manchester United Red Issue forums (is it bad form to release football allegiance to potential clients?)  if there was ever a site not to be taken seriously then the Red Issue Main forum is it.  But it provides me with an entertaining source of United news and many comedy moments.  Weirdly I have no traditional news sources in any of my RSS feeds so I visit the BBC, Guardian and other major news sources on a regular basis.

Somewhat unsurprisingly to regular readers of this blog, the sites I spend the bulk of my none-work-related online time (I actually think all my time online is work related as seeing what the internet does is what I do) is spent on music sites.  I visit Metacritic, Pitchfork, RCRD LBL and Vice Magazine Music at least every other day to get a fix.  I always want to know what’s new, what’s great and what’s bad so these sites are an essential resource.

When working from home like I do your only company is often just music, therefore it is a huge part of my life.  Those sites make sure that the music I work to keeps me lifted and engaged, rather than bored and searching for something to listen to.  I also love to visit my last.fm profile every now and again to see what’s made it to the top of my chart that day, week or month.

But, the question I hear you ask is what is my favourite website?  Well, in all honesty it changes on an at least a weekly basis if not daily.  However the site I can’t pull myself away from at the moment is the Hype Machine.  The Hype Machine indexes a whole bunch of the best music blogs looking for reviews and tracks.  It then pulls the tracks into its own embedded media player and the reviews end up in their homepage stream.

There are many great things about The Hype Machine, for instance you can seamlessly go from page to page without interrupting the music player, it loads in new blog posts in real time via ajax, it auto tags tracks and artists to create charts and other dynamic content and of course it creates it’s own charts based upon popular songs played that day.

In my opinion the people over at The Hype Machine completely ‘get’ music online.  They even recently launched a new chart which monitors Twitter looking for song mentions: a great example of their ability to latch onto and integrate happening trends.

Creating your own profile allows you to feel a part of the site as your played tracks contribute to the overall charts, it even updates your last.fm and twitter streams with your recently played and loved tracks. I think it is a perfect example of how user generated content should be done.  You may – correctly -assume that Twitter and Facebook are great examples of UGC, but with Twitter and Facebook your activity and content is limited to your own pages and networks, but with Hype Machine you affect and decide the overall site content.  I believe it is one of the few “perfect” user-generated-content sites out there, the fact it is music related just makes things better for me.

So there you have it.  A little insight into my daily tech activities interspersed with some hardcore evangelism for my current favourite website – I did warn you I could go on a bit about my favourite things online!

There Are Many Reasons to be Rich, The Hotelicopter is Not One of Them

// March 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Design, General, Technology and Gadgets

Like many others before me I have often pondered what amazing and exclusive doors would be opened should I happen to find an extra million pounds in my pocket.  Should I find myself in that position I might for instance buy myself a Lamborghini Gallardo, this house and perhaps if I was feeling particularly flush a nice Rothko to adorn my huge new pristine walls.

I’ve also often thought about the benefits of owning one of the ridiculously impractical, but jaw-droppingly beautiful WallyPower boats.  But even during my most extravagant travel fantasies I can’t recall imagining cruising in a flying machine such as this thing…

No, no, no, no no.

No, no, no, no no.

Not only is it obscenely ugly it’s based on a 40 year old design that was rejected by the old Soviet Military which leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to feeling reassured by the latest technology and highest build quality.

The makers of the Hotelicopter are promising to take up to 18 “lucky” (they’d probably have to be if they expected to survive the trip) passengers on short stop cruises across the US beginning on June 26th.

Thankfully though, this abomination is just a clever hoax.  It’s actually part of a little viral campaign to generate buzz around the new Yotel chain.  This imaginary sasquatch of the skies gained coverage on all of the leading tech and lux blogs picking up thousands of comments, a few hundred Twitter followers and a couple of thousand Facebook Fans along the way.

The clever part of this campaign is that the first time people saw pictures of the Hotelicopter rooms, they did so expecting to see rooms fit for the rich and famous, the fact they were in a helicopter explained why you were only seeing a plasticy, but funky little cabin.

By looking at these exclusive but tiny rooms you were unconsciously convincing yourself that these rooms were cool and luxurious despite their small size.

Now the news has broken that this was just a hoax, the real Yotel cabins don’t look so bad all of a sudden, in fact they look positively inviting.

Overall, this is an amazingly well thought out and executed viral campaign that goes well beyond the typical and run-of-the-mill loopy advertising that is the norm for less creative agencies.  Maximum kudos to the creators.  One small suggestion though…  the Yotel site itself should be next on the agenda.

2009, the Year 3D Got its Groove Back

// March 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // General, Technology and Gadgets

I know there’s been a bit of an 80’s revival going on in pretty much every part of daily life this past year or so. The latest music, movies and fashion all seem to take at least some cues from the neon decade.

But for me, perhaps the most surprising, and welcome revival is the resurgence of the 3D experience. Before the pedants attack I am aware that 3D was around many years before 80’s, but I think it’s fair to say that the technology hit its peak in the early 80’s with the 3D-IMAX presentations of Jaws.

Then it all went quiet. Perhaps because as awe-inspiring as the film was to a kid like me, it was clearly a gimmicky attempt to make people go and watch what were quite frankly, terrible movies so it was never going to last.

Recently though, seemingly out of nowhere there’s been a spate of 3D releases in movies and TV. Pixar are making all future releases in 3D after helping Disney release Bolt earlier this year, George Lucas is rumoured to be working on a 3D redux of the Star Wars movies and there are a whole host of other 3D blockbusters planned for the next 18 months.

It doesn’t stop with the big screen either. Over in the US, NBC recently aired the season premier of the geeky spy-fest “Chuck” in 3D and some Superbowl 2009 ads also made use of 3D. Over here in the UK Sky TV are promising current HD subscribers 3D content by the end of the year. The guys at Stuff Magazine were invited to try it out and they seemed to like it, although it does sound like it needs a bit of work still.

We’ll even be treated to a 3D gaming experience if Namco get their way. They have been demoing their new 3D gaming engines for the Xbox and PS3 at the Games Developers’ Conference in San Francisco this month to very warm applause.

Personally, I couldn’t be happier that 3d is making a comeback, I love the giddiness of childhood that I feel whenever I slip on a pair of those red and blue glasses. I think I might pop a pair on now actually and look at the real world in 3D for the rest of the day.

Further reading for fellow nerds
History of Stereoscopy
Next-gen, no glasses 3D technology
Gizmodo 3D Tags

Addict+ iPhone Application Development Video Demo

// March 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Design, General, Technology and Gadgets

Not got an iPhone, but want to know more about how the Addict+ iPhone app looks in real life?  Simply watch the video on this page!

If you’ve been wanting to “dip your toe” into the iPhone application water, but don’t know where to start or if you are just looking for a competitive quote then get in touch and I’ll hopefully be able to help you.

Addict+ was developed in collaboration with fellow genius and code monkey Richard Morton. We are available as a team for any iPhone Application development projects.