Google Goggles is a visual search app for Android phones. It does internet searches using pictures you take with your Android phone, instead of you typing in words or using voice recognition. It attempt to recognize the object, and return relevant search results. Goggles also provides information about businesses near you by displaying their names directly in the camera preview.
Not really that into war documentary photography but Ashley's POV shown through his work is Simply Amazing.
Art of the Trench is Burberry's brand experience that has built a community around their most well known product. The integration of social engagement functions and the use of The Satorialist as the photographer is a nice touch to generate buzz.
http://artofthetrench.com/
Bieke Depoorter was born in Kortrijk and graduated from KASK in 2009 with a series on Russia, which won the Magnum Expression Award and the Photo Academy Award for GUP magazine. Of this series, Oe Menia, Depoorter writes: ‘For three periods of one month, I have let the Trans-Siberian train guide me alongside forgotten villages, from living room to living room. Some Russian words scribbled on a little piece of paper allowed me to be welcomed and absorbed in the warm chaos of a family. Accidental encounters led me to the places where I could sleep. The living room, the epicentre of their life, establishes an intimate contact between the Russian inhabitants. In this room, they sleep, eat and drink, as well as cry. For a brief moment, I was part of this. Their couch became my bed for one night. This way, I experienced transient, but very powerful, shared moments. We communicated without words. We understood each other somehow’.
via featureshoot.com
The Japanese retailer targets bloggers with this new widget-based campaign
It's been almost 6 months since we've reported on an interactive initiative from UNIQLO; the last campaign which caught our eye was UNIQLO CALENDAR by Japanese agency of choice, Projector, Tokyo. This utilised tilt-shift videos to create a customisable calendar which doubled as an interactive clothing catalogue (see link below).
This new initiative, much like the Calendar, is embeddable in blogs but focuses more on a complete audio-visual experience. Called UNIQLO TUNES, it allows users to grab a video widget (in two sizes) from the website which then reacts to whatever music they choose to upload. The song's rhythms are reflected in an assortment of quirky, mashed-up video loops which feel suitably reminiscent of the Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix-winning UNIQLOCK - also via Projector.
The campaign is in promotion of UNIQLO's HEATTECH thermal undergarment range which launched last winter and has proved an invaluable addition to the brand's range of basic essentials. In Japan alone, UNIQLO sold over 20 million HEATTECH units in the first year - that's 1 item for every 3 people...
www.uniqlo.com/utunes
www.uniqlo.com/calendar
For those of you not familiar with this brand's trademark fusion of addictive branded utility and entertainment, it's worth noting that such campaigns are not to be underestimated. For example, the aforementioned UNIQLOCK (which one could argue offers less utility than the new widget) has been viewed over 70 million times in more than 209 countries around the world.
If you’ve been considering the new Droid phone, then this is going to be your new inbuilt GPS app! Google Maps streetview GPS is in beta and should ship with the new Droid phone on the opensource Android 2.0 platform. The video above is a demonstration from the Google product team running the navigation project and includes some of the tech on exactly how it works along with a pretty good visual demo of what to expect!
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/google-android-streetview-gps-navigation-demo-video/#
In August, Toyota released a free Prius Experience [iTunes link] app for the iPhone. The app lets users explore the Prius, look at the print ads, and play little mini games.
This week, the interactive element is jumping from small screen (the iPhone) to the big screen. Digital billboards from Reuters and NASDAQ are putting content that users create within the Prius Experience app on display on a Times Square billboard.
One of the options in the app is to “draw shapes to interact with the Prius.” Users are given instructions to “draw a tree” (but you don’t have to draw a tree), and can use their finger to draw an image on the screen. You’re limited to a single continuous movement (so you can’t get that intricate with your drawings unless you are very skilled). When done, you’ll see your drawing populate the digital plane of the app. Then, you will be presented with an option to submit your creation for broadcast on one of the digital displays in Times Square.
prius-lg
Digital creations will be updated on the live displays in realtime throughout the day, and you can check out the different artwork via the livecams on the Times Square website. The app warns that because of high volume, all artwork might not be displayed and that drawings will go up in the order in which they were received. It’s a pretty cool concept to get people to use an iPhone app and in the process, learn a bit more about a car.
Master of composition, father of street photography.
"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life."
REJOICE! Because what was old is new again.
That's right, our good ol' friend Polaroid - the one we all thought had left us forevermore - is officially back and (quite possibly) better than ever.
The brand that pioneered polarized lenses and instant photography is not only set to return in 2010 but looks set to extend into an array of innovative, digital instant products too.
Here's the deal:
The brand's famous format has been given a second life by the folks at Summit Global, who not only have plans to re-launched the instant film, but have also announced a product line expansion into digital formats in an attempt to introduce the Polaroid brand to younger consumers.
"[It] will span a family of products and return Polaroid to a relevant industry participant” they have declared.
They plan to reconnect consumers to the "very soul of the Polaroid brand through the re-launch of instant photography" which will, conveniently, stimulate growth opportunities and allow them to diversify into exciting "relevant new product categories".
A full range of instant digital products are being planned for the marketplace. In addition to the Polaroid PoGoTM Instant Digital Printer, (which uses inkless printing technology all while fitting in to the palm of your hand) there is also the Polaroid "Two". The Two is the digital version of the traditional camera that will produce instant digital photos along with the Instant Digital Camera, which will produce 4" x 3" instant digital photos. Technology you are a cheeky minx, aren't you?
The future starts from... Now*.
*Actually, it starts in 2010.
Pretty amazing documentary photographer. Towards the end of this video Taryn talks about her project of shooting men convicted of crimes that they never committed. They all exonerated in the end but some had served more than 16yrs of their death sent...ence. The interesting thing about these photographs is that she would shoot them at places of significance that led to these men' conviction - place of arrest, place of alibi (which 13 people saw him), place where crime took place (which they had never been before) - all places which changed their lives forever....
This was sent to my Gmail account from 'Goole Email Team'. How stupid do they think I am?? They can't even spell Google right!
It might be hard to envision the gritty, weathered blocks of Manhattan and New York City’s outer boroughs as a canvas, but this weekend, more than 100 artists, urban explorers, interactive technologists and public space advocates will treat it that way. They are creating a citywide art installation as part of the annual geek-art event known as the Conflux Festival.
Conflux IPhone users will be able to play Gigaputt at Conflux.
Conflux was first held in 2003, when it was more of a festival on “psycho-geography, or the study on the geographic environment of behavior,” said David Darts, an art professor at New York University who is also the curatorial director for this year’s event. “Since then, it’s evolved to more of an art and technology fest, fusing urban public spaces with exploration and experimentation,” he said.
Events, which include workshops, performances, interactive installations and games, will begin Friday and run through Sunday.
Here are some of this weekend’s highlights:
Gigaputt: Avenues become fairways and a series of local bars are transformed into greens as New York turns into a giant 18-hole golf course and iPhones turn into golf clubs. Players swing their iPhone to take a shot and then examine a map on the phone to find their “ball” and continue through the course.
The Urban Disorientation Game: Players are challenged to find their way back to the Conflux headquarters after being blindfolded and driven to remote parts of the city. Players will be asked to create maps and explore their surroundings as they make their way back to the starting point.
Fish ‘n microChips: As part of an effort to spark public interest in New York’s waterways, a New York University professor, Natalie Jeremijenko, installed an array of LEDs and floating buoys at a site on the East River. The buoys have sensors to monitor water quality, temperature and activate the lights when fish swim by.
Waterpod: The photographer and sculptor Mary Mattingly’s 3,000-square-foot self-sustaining, solar-powered, floating living space and art barge will be on display and open for tours to help facilitate a discussion about living in a future where resources are increasingly scarce and eco-friendly habitats are a necessity.
Human Scale Chess Game: While two chess masters play an actual game of chess, each move will be mimicked by human players posing as knights, rooks and bishops. The photojournalist Sharilyn Neidhardt has mapped out an eight-block-by-eight-block section of the city, with each intersection representing a square on the chessboard. As the chess masters complete their moves, 32 volunteers equipped with cellphones and maps will move around to reflect the location of the pieces in the game.
Conflux
IPhone Drum Circle: Mike Koller hopes to create the “First, Possibly Only and Probably Last” iPhone drum circle in Brooklyn this weekend. The artist invites anyone with an iPhone to download a drumkit application and join him in an impromptu musical session. Mr. Koller plans to have amplifiers in place for participants to plug their phones into and play.
Will you attend any of this year’s festivities? Feel free to e-mail photographs and your written impressions to bitsfeedback@nytimes.com, subject to the note below. If we get enough submissions, we’ll post the best ones on Bits on Monday.
NOTE: If you submit anything to us, you are promising that the content is original, doesn’t plagiarize from anyone or infringe a copyright or trademark, doesn’t violate anybody’s rights and isn’t libelous or otherwise unlawful or misleading. You are agreeing that we can use your submission in all manner and media of The New York Times and that we shall have the right to authorize third parties to do so. And you agree to the rules of our Member Agreement, found online at http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/agree.html.
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