Portal to the Real Universe – There’s an App for That [Video]

These days there’s pretty much an app for everything. Well now there’s an app that’s creates a “portal to the real universe”, allowing you to see ‘invisible space’ and the ‘vastness of the Universe’ at your fingertips. Yup…the ‘Invisible Universe App’ is impressive!

Joshua Peek, an astronomer and Hubble Fellow at Columbia who works on research for NASA,  collaborated on this new Android app which allows the ‘Average Joe’ to see the universe in a new way through their smartphone, even if they can’t see the stars in their city.

Check out the video and see why I now want a ‘productivity hat’!

Interactive Video Wall Gets Yahoo! Moving

Waiting areas can be uber-dull. A couch, some industry magazines, that day’s paper and…if you’re really lucky…a TV which is audible. Yahoo! have taken the waiting area and corridor at their California offices to a new level by installing an interactive ‘video wall’ which reacts to the movements of passers by.

The wall, which consists of six plasma screens, was developed by Tronic and features a large Yahoo! logo which is made up of movable tiles. The display features no instructions as it’s designed to pique the interest of people and watch them intuitively interact with the display. As people pass the screens, the tiles mimic their movement and grab their attention. The tiles represent key Yahoo! brands such as Yahoo! News and can be selected and enlarged through hand gestures, allowing people to read that tile’s information which is drawn from live feeds.

Nifty or what?! Here’s a short video showing the creation of the video wall and peoples reaction to it…

This isn’t the first time Yahoo! has tried something like this. A couple of years ago they installed an interactive display called “Shadow Mosaic Four by Five” which combined a video projector and camera to capture and replay people’s silhouettes. Not as slick but definitely more interesting than the average lobby!

Turning Tramp into Lady – Introducing Cami Secret

Are you self conscious wearing low cut tops in the office? Feel your boss is oggling ‘the girls’? Now there’s a product for you…the Cami Secret…and it comes in a ‘range of designer colours’! Unbelievably this is not a joke. Who the hell would buy this?

People better start hoping they don’t get me as their Secret Santa!

First spotted here.

Press Conferences Apple-Style: Criticise the Media through Song

So incase you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks – newsflash – there’s a problem with the iPhone 4. Essentially the issue is with the phone’s antenna which means if you hold it the way you would a normal mobile phone, your signal drops off. A phone without phone signal. A phone that you can’t hold and make calls on. That’s a pretty big problem eh?

In a moment that could win awards under the dual categories of: ‘Customer service disaster’ and ‘The stuff PR people’s nightmares are made of’…Jobs acknowledged there was a problem with the phone at the end of June, telling an Engaget reader: “it is an issue, but just don’t hold it like that.” That’s right fool…don’t try to hold your phone and make a call…duh.

So after coming under increasing pressure from angry customers and the media, Apple held a press conference on Friday to resolve the problem once and for all. No doubt this press conference was the culmination of much strategising and planning. A chance to regain Apple’s ‘PR Golden’ status. So what happened? Did they roll out an apologetic Steve Jobs talking about how they’re sorry, they’re going to fix the problem, yada yada?

Nope. When you do a press conference Apple-style, you start with a song:

Steve Jobs felt the media had unfairly criticised the iPhone 4 and chose to start the press conference telling them all in a not-so-subtle way, exactly what he thinks through the medium of song: “The media loves a failure in a string of successes / the fact won’t ever matter if they can make their bigger messes … in terms of daily usage / I’ve yet to drop a call / so this whole damn thing is stupid.” Continue reading »

I Need an iPhone 4 but Don’t Know Why

I’ve watched this video a few times now and the nerd in me had a good ol’ snort each time. A clever video which highlights the power of brand ‘iPhone’ and the Apple marketing machine: