Tweet your way out of the slammer

I heard recently that anyone joining Twitter now is officially no longer an early adopter, yet when I ask people if they Twitter the response is usually no, followed by “what’s that then?” When I explain what it is people often question the point of it and simply fob it off as a gimmicky “waste of time”. Well, I wonder if they’ll think the same way after they’ve heard the story of a journo named James Cark Buck.

James was in Egypt covering an anti-government protest when he was arrested along with his translator and shipped off to the local police station. En route he took out his cell phone and sent a tweet stating one word only - “arrested”. Back I cyberspace his followers on Twitter were immediately alerted to his predicament and started to rally the troops to come to his rescue. Throughout his incarceration, James continued to Tweet to keep his network updated. Eventually his was released and sent another one word tweet “free”.

CNN.com reported that: ”Although the Twitter message helped him find contacts to get out of prison, he says it was more the power of the network he had as an American that enabled him to be released so quickly.” And James himself stated "The most important thing on my mind was to let someone know where we were so that there would be some record of it ... so we couldn't [disappear]…. as long as someone knew where we were, I felt like they couldn't do their worst [to us] because someone, at some point, would be checking in on them."

MyTake: Wow……Now I admit that I was a doubter when I first came across Twitter, but once I started using it I soon released its potential. In my own twitter group I see some amazing insights shared on a daily basis and often think that the journalists of the world should all be on Twitter to watch-out for early leads and commentary. In this instance a virtual network did more that just share insights and ideas, it helped keep this guy safe. So in conclusion, you might not be an early adopter anymore, but this could just be your “get out of jail free card” – some come and join the Twitter revolution http://twitter.com/digiwedo

Anybody want to go shopping?

Going to war with Iraq has proven to be a hugely unpopular decision on a global level. However, the most unpopular man involved has to be the US president, George Bush, and the fact that some parties are estimating that the war could cost US$3 trillion probably isn't helping him much.

A new group called the 3Trillion organisation have set up a website called "The 3 Trillion dollar shopping spree" where you can attempt to spend the US$ trillion that they estimate has been spent on the war. The main message on the page states:

"The occupation of Iraq will cost $3 trillion, America's most expensive conflict since WWII.
Can YOU spend that money better?

Here's your chance to go on a virtual $3 trillion shopping spree and prove it! First watch the commercial on the left. Then browse our online store, fill up your cart, click the checkout button, and send virtual gifts to everyone you know.

One interesting item for sale is healthcare for all Americans: "You could provide Medicaid Level Health insurance for one uninsured American. But with $3 Trillion to spend, why not cover all 45 million Americans who are uninsured with high quality healthcare.

MyTake: Consumer action on the web has long been commonplace, but this takes it a step further. It really uses the web and the medium to its full extent. It has a deep (and you could say disturbing) message at its core, but the medium used fun and easy, I don't want to say the word juxtaposition, but I will.

To vote for Corey......

Big Brother, love it or hate it, it’s still here…and it just won’t go away. I don’t want to use the word enduring (manly because I can’t stand the show) but as one of the first reality TV shows, it kind of is. I remember the first series when I was living in London - it was new and everyone loved it – the pubs even had to start showing it because customers where leaving to get home to watch it.

The point of this post is the “rumour” that Corey Worthington is going to be a housemate in the upcoming series of Australia Big Brother. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Corey have a look at some of my earlier posts here and here. But, as a quick recap, he posted details of a party he was having on his MySpace page and invited all his MySpace friends to come. The result was 500 teenagers in a small Melbourne street, a police response unit and a rather embarrassing interview on ACA (for Leila McKinnon, not Corey)

MyTake – This is a great way to reinvigorate a boring, boring show. I have a friend that works in TV production, so I know how hard it can be to come up with new concepts for a show, and this is probably one of the best ideas yet. The interesting thing is that kids such as Corey can launch TV careers using MySpace and that virtual stars are becoming mainstream stars. In a show that is quite literally all about TV, it’s funny that a web star is needed to save it.

IPTV me baby!

I got pretty excited when I heard the news that Video Ezy-Blockbuster is planning to launch an IPTV movie rental service, probably because I'm a bit of a geek, but mainly because it represented a big step forwards for an industry that has changed very little since its inception.

As a parents, the better-half and I don't get to go out that much, so the DVD shop is our friend - such a good friend that we often get the odd free rental because of the sheer volume of DVDs we rent....OK, a little bit sad I know, but I don't care. I actually like getting home on a Friday and settling in to a beer and watching a good movie, so the idea that there could be an IPTV movie rental service about to launch here in Aus is pretty appealing.

For those fellow DVD-a-holic parents, the main issues are always the same: What are we going to watch and who's going to get it? It seemed to me that the answers to both of these questions had been supplied by our new "friend", the IPTV movie rental service, but then I went digging around the net to find out a bit more. The service requires you to rent a Java-based set-top box so that you can play the movies - which is fair enough, but I'd probably prefer to by a box myself - however, the absolutely ridiculous thing is that you still need to go to the actual store to get the movie! Basically, you go to your nearest store with your iPod or other storage device and you download the movie you want and take it home, which is just - let's face it - ridiculous. Having said that, the one problem the may have solved is the availability issue, the "sorry, we're all out" response...but we don't know for sure.

MyTake - People of Video Ezy-Blockbsuter, thank you for doing this and for pulling the movie rental industry into the 21st century. But, we're big, grown-up people and we can be trusted to download the movies from a website straight to our IPTV set-top boxes. I've been saying for a while now that the future of movies is not in discs and that the video industry is going to have to do something if it is going to survive - a move like this is not only logical, it's smart. But.....why do we have to go to the stores? The only reason I can think of is the cross-sell and up-sell, i.e. the chips, soda, snacks and other movie offers. Come on guys, live the broadband dream!

Have you been RickRolled?

I think my sister was a big Rick Astley fan, but I don’t think even she would take it this far. To give you a bit of background, a trend has emerged known as “RickRolling”, where blogs and forums trick innocent readers into clicking on a link. This link then takes them to videos of Rick Astley’s song, Never Gonna Give you up (and sometimes their own lip-synced versions of the dubious 80s hit) before finally putting them out of their misery by informing them, "You've been RickRolled".

The trend recently hit a crazy high when a group of 500 people turned up at London’s Liverpool Street Station for a one of “RickRolling” type flash mob (see movie below) after the event was publicised on Facebook. As you can imagine, the regular commuters at the station were a bit baffled by the whole thing, but still entertained – after all, it is a Rick Astley number.

The most interesting part of the story is Rick’s response to the whole thing: "If this had happened around some kind of rock song, with a lyric that really meant something ... I could kind of understand that, but it's a pop song; do you know what I mean? It doesn't have any weight behind it….. But maybe that's the irony behind it." – You reckon Rick?




MyTake – Things like this pop up all the time on the web, but this is so bizarre that it’s funny. What it does demonstrate is the power of a really good web-based idea, it can go on and off the web and become ownable by so many different people and communities. In this case, it started on the web, went around the blogs and forums, then went offline with the Liverpool Street stunt, and is now back online being talked about by a bunch more bloggers – including me!

Just off to Pompeii dear, be back in an hour

Could you imagine it? You’ve just finished you dinner, you clear your plate away and jump on your CyberCarpet for a stroll around the lost city of Pompeii. Alright, so I’ll rewind a bit.

This “Cybercarpet” I am talking about is a new invention made up of several conveyor-type belts that all combine together allowing you to go for a virtually endless walk in any direction – think of it as a treadmill, but one where you can travel in any direction.

The boffins over at Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics that invented this have combined it with virtual reality headsets, which gives you a much more immersive experience than ever before - the first of which is a tour around Pompeii.

MyTake – the applications for this technology are virtually limitless – games, weight-loss regimes, training programs and so on. The really interesting thing for me would be combining the likes of this with a Second Life, sure it’s a bit of an indulgence right now when you consider the money involved, but perhaps this is the way we’ll be interacting in the near future…. “Darling, I’m off to the virtual pub”….

Is that a sparkle in your eye, or....

I love this story and simply couldn’t resist posting about it. OK, so here’s the story in a nutshell – there’s a picture on the web of US VP Dick Cheney fly-fishing, which in itself is pretty dull, but it’s a certain reflection in the VP’s sunglasses that has everyone talking.

Have a look at the pic to the right (or here for a bigger pic) and check out the reflection in his glasses – what do you reckon it is? Well some seem to think it’s a naked woman and you can see why.

The amazing thing about this is hat the whole web is buzzing about the story with bloggers and surfers all over the world offering up their own opinions on what it is: "Naked woman? That explains his heart problems!!", "Clearly the picture shows a hand casting a rod".


But one digital expert came along and spoilt the fun by stating "In one lens of his sunglasses you can clearly tell it is a sleeved arm of Mr Cheney or a fishing companion. The other lens has an extreme distortion that, without looking at it closely, could be misconstrued.”

MyTake – There’s nowhere to hide for public figures. In a week where a UK court ruled in favour of a British tabloid’s battle to post a video of Formula one boss Max Mosley in a somewhat compromising position with five…erm…lady friends, famous people of the world should sit up and take notice – you make for juicy online content! The point is that there IS a story here, even though there isn’t – once again the power of gossip combined with the web has taken it to prolific proportions.

MySpace goes retro with shows

MySpace has announced a deal to put its web-based shows on TV. Thanks to a deal with the Shine Group, you’ll be able to see MySpace shows such as Quarterlife, Roommates and Special Delivery on your TV. According to MySpace, it’s developing local versions of its current shows with plans to develop some new concepts. However, reports from NBC in the US, who broadcast "Quarterlife", reveal that the show ranked last among all shows aired in that slot – not very encouraging numbers.

MyTake – Isn’t this supposed to happen the other way around? It seems a bit odd to have shows that are web-based moved to TV – you’re going fro a highly flexible and accessible medium to a very rigid and closed medium. Surely the appeal of these shows is partly to do with the accessibility of them – you don’t need to make an appointment to see it. With more and more content shifting from the TV to the net, this can only be move to get big TV money, but the figures (as our pals at NBC found) don’t lie.

YouTube gets Flickrd

News is that Flickr is going to go up against YouTube and start hosting their users' home-made videos in addition to their pictures. You might not think that this is overly exciting at all, but when you think about the way that people use flickr to share content across a whole range of social networks and blogs – it kind of is.

The new development is aimed at amateur movie-makers who want a better way to share their content with others. Although it’s only available to Pro members at the moment, the service allows users to share movies up to 90 seconds in length.

MyTake – the point I’m trying to get at with this is that publishing is becoming so simple, that anyone can become a content-king. With the addition of video to the ever-popular Flickr, people have another choice when it comes to video sharing. This enables them to offer a richer experience to their readers - whether that’s their facebook friends, loyal blog readers or Mom and Dad back home.

The Social kids at South Park

Saw this (below as well) on Mathew Packers blog - an awesome example of why people would be taking the power of social media seriously. OK, so the clip isn't serious at all, but when you've got the star wars kid in a show that also extracts the Michael from the likes of Tom Cruise - you can see what I'm getting at.

Wii wanna play too

I 've been a bit slow on the uptake on this on - but better late than never. Apparently, Microsoft is developing its own version of the Wiimote controller for the Xbox 360. It's just rumour and speculation at the moment - but it's exciting to think that the console that was supposed to be lagging miles behind in this generation race is now influencing the likes of Microsoft. But - should we really been surprised? Out of all the consoles, they have the most experience and despite the technical leaps made by Xbox and Playstation, Wii is the console of choice.

Back to the Xbox 360 Wiimote, the aim to go bigger and better with reports that features could include an analog stick, a microphone, four face buttons and there is even talk of some kind of inclusion of the Xbox Live Vision Cam.

MyTake - Every now and then, something truly awesome happens in the gaming industry - the Dance Mat, the EyeToy - that changes he way we game. The Wiimote did just hat and more. Admittedly, Microsoft have very rarely been the innovative first to market type, but when they do get on board, take-up is pretty certain to be phenomenal

Google me and I'll sue you

The world has officially gone crazy. A couple in the US are sing Google because they say pictures of their house that appear on Google Maps “Street view” function caused them mental suffering….oh, and devalued their property as well. According to their law suit: a "considerable sum of money" was spent and "A major component of their purchase decision was a desire for privacy."

Google have offered to take the images down, but that apparently doesn’t under the damage – remember, that mental suffering part? As you can imagine, Google are a bit perplexed by the whole thing.

MyTake – Personal privacy on the web has long been an issue, but this is probably taking it a bit too far. The nature of the web today allows for a high-level of collaboration and we’re all able to help content that directly affects us, we shouldn’t abuse that.

MySpace pokes Apple in the iTunes

So, MySpace comes out and tells the world that it’s set to take on iTunes and Apple does the cultural equivalent of bending down and patting it on the head. The men in white wasted no time in telling the world that Apple iTunes sales have now exceeded that of Wal-Mart stores, putting them in the number one spot in the US – some of you may have read my last post on the Apple Vs Wal-Mart battle where Apple came off in second spot.

Back to the MySpace offering - MySpace Music is a partnership with Universal Music, Sony BMG and Warner Music and although they aren’t talking money, they did say that it would be ad-supported to some extent. In terms of making money, they were quite forthcoming with that detail, stating that they would be selling digital music downloads, ring tones, concert tickets and t-shirts.

MyTake – MySpace is a massive network and the different content flying around is amazing and obviously very appealing to its audience. As for taking on iTunes, I reckon that’s a bit of a stretch. iTunes can be anything to anyone and the important thing is that it acts as your library and your music store. If you think about the demographic for MySpace and then the penetration of iTunes, I think you’ll agree, it’s a bit of a redundant debate. Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome that MySpace is doing this, the more interesting and appealing content the better. As time goes on, I think we’ll see more and more individual ways of searching, finding and consuming content.

Megabytes for pearly whites

I had to post about this, as the father of a (nearly) 2 year-old I know how hard it can be to get them to brush their teeth. At the moment, my daughter is going OK, but to be honest there are some days that she loves brushing her teeth and others when she doesn’t. We try a lot of things to get her brushing regularly – encouragement, letting her do it all on her own…

But, our tooth brushing prayers could be answered thanks to some researchers at the National Taiwan University, who have invented a cool webcam based video game. Using a camera mounted above your bathroom mirror and a toothbrush with LEDs on the handle, the game uses the camera to sense where the movement of the child’s hand through the LEDs and integrates the movement into the gameplay via an LCD display – check out the video.




MyTake – Cute, perhaps a bit of an over-teched solution to a traditional problem, but at least someone is thinking about it. It’s quite cool to think that practically anything can be turned into a piece of personalised content – even if it is just brushing your teeth.

Out of Wile E Coyote's league, that's for sure

You remember that joke from the 80s – “High five, up above, down below! Uh-oh, you’re too slow!” – that’s Australia when it comes to Broadband. It really is dreadful – I recently read somewhere that we have even slower broadband than Brazil. But, the point of this post isn’t to bash Aussie Broadband, it’s to talk about something called “The Grid”. Sounds awesome what is it? Well, it’s a high-speed Internet connection that is more than 100,000 times faster than your average broadband connection, to put this into perspective movies, music and games could all be downloaded in seconds, not hours and hours….and hours….

“The Grid” is based on a series of fibre-optic cables and routing centres and can handle huge amounts of data. There are already more than 55,000 servers out there with 200,000 expected by 2010. The really awesome thing about this technology is what we could do with it – according to the boffins that invented it, we could be storing gigabytes of info on the net as well as transmitting holographic images and getting high-def video calls for the price of a local call.

MyTake – I read that one of the guys behind it said that it could revolutionise society. It could. Look at what we’ve done with web 2.0 and broadband, you’ve got to wonder how the traditional record store or video hire chains are going to survive with the speeds they are talking about for “The Grid”. True content-on-demand AND content that people want – “The grid” could be more than just an evolution of the Internet, it could be the biggest and most powerful distribution channel and outlet ever seen.

N-Gaging times ahead

First-up, I wasn’t that big of a fan of the Nokia N-Gage device(s), but I am a massive fan of mobile gaming – whatever form it takes. The guys over at Nokia have stuck with the market for quite a while now and I think they’ve come good with the N-Gage service. If you remember the original device and have a few dubious memories, think again, the device is no more but the games remain as a service.

Gamers can log on to the N-Gage site and download a software link that connects them to Nokia’s library of games, which they reckon will be around 30 by the middle of 2008. They already have the likes of EA, Gameloft and Glu Mobile making titles for the service, and who knows, they could get a few killer franchises on board – Spore maybe?

MyTake – Nobody really “owns” mobile gaming, it’s an open field for any brand to go in and do something great. Sure, we have handhelds from Nintendo and Sony, but a solid content-based system with some appealing titles? Not yet. With Apple getting further and further in to the mobile space, I think a true games service isn’t far off for them either. Nokia beat them to the punch on this one – can they make they most of it?

What the future holds?

An awesome piece of future punting from the BBC based on a Microsoft-backed report. According the article, in 2020 we'll be more integrated with computers and terms like "interface" and "user" will be obsolete.

So what do they reckon the future holds - no more keyboard and mouse as there will be a more sophisticated interface. In addition, computers could be embedded in our clothes and even our bodies. Well worth a read, check it out here

Xbox to trim the waistline and go Blu?

The Blu-ray train rumbles on with rumours that Xbox 360 is about to get its very own Blu-Ray drive. Even though Microsoft has constantly denied such claims, the rumour mill is once again running hot. One such claim is from a manufacturer called Lite-On, who is supposedly developing built-in Blu-ray disk drives for the “next generation” of the Xbox 360 console. Personally, I don’t know which bit is more exciting – the fact that Blu-Ray is coming to Xbox or the fact that we could be getting a slimmed down 360 sometime soon.

MyTake – Never forget that success in the games console industry comes through mass-market saturation – obvious right? But, you only get that when you get the console to a price that is right for the average Joe/Josephine and that’s just what Microsoft could be doing here. As the PS2 and the PS1 before it underwent a face lift and price drop, so too could the Xbox 360. The genius part will be if they can get Blu-Ray drives in a slimmed down machine and still come in at a lower price point than the PlayStation 3 – then we’ll have a fight on our hands!