Whomwah.com

Google have released their own IM service Google Talk. If you have a PC, you can download your own google client otherwise you can use the service via other IM clients. I have it running with iChat although I don’t know anyone else who has it running yet so don’t really know how good it is. I’ll hopefully have checked it out by the end of today.

I have finally managed to get RMagick installed and working correctly on my Powerbook. This post is just a little heads up for people who are having trouble and had not realized that the RMagick tarball has a README file explaining the procedure in detail. This is were I should have gone in the first place, duh!

In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, Google added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Try a full zoom for the comedy effect.

This is a great example of Maths creating wonderful visuals. Its a Java based artificial intelligence chess program that uses visuals to display the computer’s thought process. This is then sketched on screen as it plays.

Some of the visuals it creates are loverly. Thanks to Miles for the link.

I got sent this link today. I can’t begin to explain what it does, but here’s what is says on their site. It seems to work it’s way through your source code and build a tree like structure based on it’s findings.

Tree is a translation program. the simulation of real space by software as a starting point and basic question characterizes the search for an algorithm (design specification) which illustrates a real tree. tree interprets each html page as a design specification; the html space determines the algorithm and generates the visual world of the translation beyond simulation.

The screenshot above is what the result of typing whomwah.com in. I think the results are beautiful.

I managed to get to go to this event at short notice yesterday. I was initially interested because they had Neville Brody speaking, but as a result he was not as interesting as expected and some of the other speakers were much better. It was basically an event that had a selection of inspirational speakers in to talk about a broad range of subjects. Heres a quick rundown:

Brian Collins
Brian came across as very passionate, and also told a great story about branding and pirates.

Neville Brody
Neville seemed not that interested about being there from the start. His presentation was based on one he had done 2 years previous so I was unsure of the relevance. He did make some interesting points I thought though on city cloning and how everything is becoming a copy.

Lisa Strausfeld
Lisa comes from a information architecture viewpoint and although seemed completely dis-associated from what she was saying, showed some great visualisation work they had been doing.

Paul Mijksenaar
Paul was without a dowt my favourite. Paul’s company do wayfinding. He is responsible for the signage at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and various other airports around the world. He was very easy to listen to and what he said made a lot of sense to me who although has studied design is not a designer.

Marco Susani
Marco currently works for Motorola as the Director of advanced concepts. He had just flown in and had loads of information to tell us. It’s just a shame that he did not have enough time to tell it all.

Bill Drummond
What can I say. He was as abstract as I would have expected. The former money burner and KLF guru talked about some the 25 or so projects he is currently working on. He also handed out daffodils at the end and I was one of the lucky recipients.

Here are all the photos I took on the day.

First day at CeBIT today. After the traumatic journey from Braunschweig where the train was as full as a tube train in the rush hour, I finally changed trains and got to Hannover Messel Station where CeBIT was taking place. First thing that struck me, it’s massive. 27 Halls. I only really had to check out a few of them though as finance and business etc are stuff I have no interest in.

I just looked at phones really on the first day. There were many. I had been asked to look at DVB technologies, and a few manufactureres were showing this in use. Sumsung for example had loads of DVB-H phones working.

Second day I checked out mp3 players, of which there were hundreds, and other electronic gadgets really. There was actually more bits that make bits rather than consumer goods on show so it all got a bit dull after a while. I have a link below to all the photos I took. I will add more descriptions to these over time. All in all it was an interesting trip if not a bit tiring and maybe a bit too business and marketing specific for me who just wanted to play with cool things.

I’ve uploaded all my photos of the event on flickr for everyone to see.

I’m on a two day event starting tommorrow bringing together leading international figures to review the emerging fields of locative and pervasive media.

The event launches a new international network (PLAN), bringing together artists, activists, hardware hackers, bloggers, game programmers, free network people, semantic web coders, economists, architects, and university and industry researchers.

I’m not 100% sure what that means but in layman’s terms, it’s about what cool things people can do with mobile and wireless technologies in the future. Looks like there will be some experimental music going on too afterwards.

I read that Motorola’s accessories division will soon unveil a line of winter clothing with built in controls for cell phones and portable music players. Motorola has joined up with snowboard company Burton to develop Bluetooth-enabled jackets, helmets and hats.

The jacket features a device on the sleeve that uses Bluetooth to make and receive calls, as well as change songs on a music player. Removable speakers are built into the hood for easy listening while riding the slopes. Pricing has not yet been announced, but the clothing is expected to hit store shelves in the second half of 2005.

After Burton’s Ipod jacket with remote built into the arm, I look forward to seeing the end result.

The Mac mini, Apple’s latest offering has really blow the socks of the competition. It looks great, is small, and for the price packs some great features. No, it’s not the fastest computer out there but for the prive I guess they can only offer so much for the money.

I think this might be the machine thats makes me convert back to apple for home use. Terrific.