FFFFOUND! is a web service that allows users to post and share their favorite images found on the web. The newest are always on the homepage, and there’s some interesting stuff on there so add the Feed URL if you wanna keep updated.
Struggling with the changing desktop market and lagging behind Google on search and internet apps, today Microsoft forked out $240m (£117m) for a 1.6% stake in Facebook today. That values the hugely popular social networking site at $15bn (£7.3bn). Also to note is that Facebook had previously turned down an investment offer from Google; who are developing rival network Orkut. After Google beat Microsoft to the massively successful YouTube, i reckon the boys back at Redmond will be out for a few beers tonight.
This is an interview with Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google; taken from a conference held by the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. There’s a lot of theory here, but also some info about how Google are teaching their machines to learn.
You’ve probably heard this track all summer getting caned by Radio 1, XFM, Captial, etc… but keep an eye out for the re-release. It’s got a ‘cool as’ remix by OrtzRoka.
Listen to Young Folks (OrtzRoka Remix):
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There’s been a lot of fuss kicked up recently about the new Bunnies ad from Fallon for Sony Bravia. The general gist is that an independent illustration agency submitted ideas to Passion Pictures; the animation house behind the bunnies; in 2002. There were a lot of similarities.
You can read more about it here, and here’s the ad in question.
Turns out it’s not just the visuals that are in question. Turns out the music has already been used in another seminal ‘Colors’ commercial.
I love the iMac ad. It’s classic Apple. No specifications, just a beautifully shot selection of the new machines spinning around each other. Mind you, does that look familiar?
Remember kids: Recycle… The possibilities are endless!
Music:
The Rolling Stones - Rainbow [iMac Colors / Sony Bravia Bunnies]
Honeycut - Exodus Honey [iMac 2007]
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The BBC are to offer their online service for free through The Cloud Wi-Fi network. This follows an annoucement that from O2 that the iPhone will be given free usage of the same hotspots, although the highly unclear “fair usage” policy applies to the iPhone.
The BBC also confirmed that Mac users will be able to use its iPlayer TV catch-up service from the end of the year. Interestingly though, the official annoucement added that “The broadcaster has signed a deal with Adobe to provide Flash video for the whole of the BBC’s video services, including a streaming version of its iPlayer.”
So hopefully that’s a final goodbye to Microsoft DRM and the wobbly RealPlayer technology. As Flash Player adds new codecs and keeps improving quality surely a cross-platform solution was the only way to go.
Time Machine is the backup software which will ship with Apple’s new Leopard operating system. I was one of the people who was pretty underwhelmed when it was released as a major new feature. Yeah.. it’s a backup?!
Well done. I stumbled across this article today, giving me a new found respect for the engineers and programmers who made this feature a reality.
Appleinsider has written a fascinating 4-page article about the history of back-up, and exactly what Time Machine aims to do.
Aaron Koblin Aaron Koblin is an Artist / Designer / Researcher focused on creating and visualizing human systems. Currently working out of San Francisco, California, Aaron creates software and architectures to transform social and infrastructural data into artwork. Koblin's work has been shown internationally and is part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Internet key to Obama victories The internet has been moving to the mainstream of political life in the US for some years.
But in this presidential cycle it has been particularly important for the Obama campaign, which was starting from scratch with few resources and little name recognition.
BBC NEWS | UK | Online lessons for UK in Obama win The internet is widely accepted to have played a huge part in the election of Barack Obama. Now one of Obama's web team is setting up business in the UK.
Code: Flickr Developer Blog » Lessons Learned while Building an iPhone Site Developing this site was very different from any other project; there seems to be a new set of frontend rules for developing high-end mobile sites. A lot of the current best practices get thrown out the window in the quest for minimum page weight and fastest load times over slow celluar connections. Here are a few of the lessons we learned (sometimes painfully) while developing this site.
New York Times - Visualization Lab Welcome to Visualization Lab, where you can create visual representations of data and information using the "Many Eyes" technology from IBM Research.
Where is Your Username registered Thinking of doing a social-media campaign. Chosen your identity / campaign name - got started, only to find it taken on some sites. Worry no more.
Rubiks Cube + Pantone = Rubitone Concept by Ignacio Pilotto. Not intended to be a commercial product. There is no affiliation between Pantone, Inc. and the Rubitone.
New electric vehicle with an unusual form factor - Core77 Canadian teenager Ben Gulak has invented a rather unusual vehicle: a unicycle with two wheels. Well, isn't that just a bicycle, you say? Not if the wheels are next to each other.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Can robots 'think' like humans? The Turing Test - Judges having IM conversations must guess whether they are talking to a human or computer. If a computer is mistaken for a human more than 30% of the time it passes the test and can be assumed to have passed a significant milestone in artificial intelligence.
Candidate Supporters' Use of Gadgets as Symbols Reveal Power of Brands | Gadget Lab from Wired.com A thread on Fark produced a series of images that compare the presidential candidates to one another through their perceived symbolic equals. A close look at the images reveal that they are more than a just meaningless, amusing outgrowth of this crazy election. They suggest that people who demonstrate their enthusiasm toward the candidates in this way mirror the enthusiasm of gadget lovers in their personality traits, obsessions, and political leanings.