Tech-Me

I've been meaning to transfer my blog over from Windows Live Spaces for ages now. Trouble is, there wasn't a simple/quick way to do it, so I've spent a little time copying and pasting some of my archive over manually. It's not done yet, as there's still the whole of 2007 entries to be copied over. I'll transfer them all over eventually, even if some are incredibly cringeworthy to read back I want to preserve them all together. It's been kinda interesting for me to see how much my opinion's changed over the past 2 years though.

I'm not going to delete the old archive on Windows Live Spaces, even after I've transferred them over to Wordpress. However, I won't be updating it anymore after this last post.

I've neglected blogging over the past few months, partly due to lack of any real inspiration and working on other projects. On the plus side, I do plan on blogging more frequently; so watch this space.

My new blog can be found here.

I recently saw The Day the Earth Stood Still, which heavily features product placement for Microsoft Surface and Windows. Surface pops up every once in a while in movies, and unlike Vista can help to drive the narrative, even if only for it's cool, interactive, aesthetic appeal. It somehow more seamlessly integrates into the narrative, helping to visualise what's going on. Choosing to show Vista running on government PCs is odd considering it's usually a much more sophisticated looking interface (probably running on Linux) that doesn't degrade from the narrative; or is it just me that thinks seeing a glowing Vista badge on the back of a laptop sticks out like a sore thumb?

Product placement usually doesn't come across well, unless it's subtle and has an Apple logo. The recent Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, goes almost out of its way to emphasise the exact contents of Bond's drink. Although perhaps like the Vesper drink in Casino Royale, was akin to what was described in Flemming's novels. The gadgets that Q offered Bond in older movies used to be imaginative and awe inspiring; like the coating on the Aston Martin Vanquish to make it appear invisible. It's still good advertising for Aston Martin, but isn't there for the sake of it. Now, the abundance of normal, everyday Sony Ericsson phones, Cybershot cameras and Vaio laptops popping up in Bond movies is comparatively boring.

I just received an email from Google Video informing me that one of my videos had been disabled due to copyright infringement; likely because of the audio track (Queen's Don't stop me now). I'm not too fussed, I mean who even watches Google Videos anymore? Besides when this happened to some other videos of mine on YouTube, they just placed an advertisement on the page and left the video live; which actually makes sense for both parties. One of the most frequently asked questions in comments is what the song is called, so surely it'd be beneficial to promote the songs.

Worryingly though, the email went on to say that if any more violations are brought up, my account would be suspended Because I use Google for other things, like their productivity suite of online applications, this is actually quite disturbing as presumably I'd lose my saved work. So, I guess I'm gonna delete those Google Videos; they're all on YouTube anyway.

Trouble with that is, the video is oddly still live and there's a server error when I try to delete the videos.

Here's a copy of the email:

Dear member,
This is to notify you that your video "A Mini Presentation, Russ Swift at
Meadowhall Shopping Centre, Sheffield" from your Google Video account has
been disabled because it has been identified by our Content Identification
tools as potentially lacking the necessary copyright authorization for use
on the Google Video site.  Content Identification is a program that
analyzes similarities in audio or video between user videos and a library
of reference content provided to us by copyright owners.  When a video
matches a reference file, that video is automatically disabled.
If you believe that this identification is a mistake, please click on the
following link to learn how you can dispute this
http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=82442
Please note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the
deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account.  In
order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any
videos to which you do not have all rights, and refrain from uploading
additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others.

Recently, T3 published a story claiming to have stumbled across a revolutionary new phone concept; dubbed the 01phone. It was supposedly fully spec'd out with a 5MP camera, touch screen and LASER projected keyboard. It didn't take a genius to work out however, that this product was completely faked; by T3 themselves. They even included a screenshot of their own website on the screen of the device itself, and hosted the site on their publishers (Future) servers.

Despite this, they claimed that they aimed to revolutionise the phone market by launching a campaign to better the phone market, since all of the technology in the mockup actually exists. Along with others, I remained skeptical and still see it as a publicity stunt for T3. One which I hope loses some of their readership. I haven't signed up since I don't particularly want T3 spamming my inbox.

Today, The Corporal from the Stuff.tv forums thread tipped me off about my opinion being quoted on the follow up article; featuring some responses to the 01phone. Despite this being one of the most ludicrous and daring cry for attention from a technology magazine in recent days, it was a fun ride while it lasted.

Get Closer is a new social networking site from HMV. The aim seems to be to make the most of people's interest in music, video and games to help promote their own wares. Similar to social music site, last.fm, I can see where they're attempting to go with it. The ability to 'plug', rate, tag and review often helps people to choose what media they'd like based on people's recommendations who share similar taste.

^ Plugging an album brings up this popup to review in no more than 10 words

YouTube videos and other related media can also be linked to directly, helping to build up profiles for artists through the userbase. You can connect multiple items together, presumably to eventually help create a user generated network of related content; akin to how musicovery displays related playable media with links to purchase.

^ Get Closer

^ Musicovery

I'm not convinced this necessarily beats last.fm or musicovery, they're already far superior services with a large user base. Instead I think HMV are taking advantage of their customers who thrive on social media to create a fully up to date listing for their products. The site is currently in beta, and should go live this autumn.

Here's a fantastic video promoting Geoff Smith's latest song, Ones and 0s.

 
Ones and 0s by Geoff Smith from Cali Lewis on Vimeo.

I recently endured a pretty long train journey to and from London. I couldn't manage without something to keep me entertained. The iPod works just fine for me to watch the occasional movie on. The screen might be small, but it didn't bother me so much as it was better than staring out at the plethora of ongoing trees, plants and animals. I didn't really want to hold the iPod in an uncomfortable position for so long, so decided to modify the purpose of the Gorilla Pod; a tripod with legs that can bend. Considering it wasn't designed for this, and with the right positioning of the legs, it is quite effective. It works perfectly on the train tables, it only fell over once in around 6hrs worth of train time. It probably wouldn't work in car though, since the train doesn't move as much.

above left:Regular photo | above right: Photo taken with filter

I recently picked up a tip from photographer Chris Marquardt about using filters to change the look of a photo. Translucent objects like sun glasses work particularly well for this, so whilst on holiday the other week I thought I'd try out the tip for myself. The results varied greatly, but I found that the glasses worked quite well as a shield from the sunlight; reducing glare from the direct sunlight. The difference can be seen in the two photos above and although I think the lens of the glasses was slightly smeared, the filter seems to warm the colour.

However, holding the glasses and camera together proved awkward at times. This often resulted in part of the glasses lens appearing in the shot itself or being shot at a weird angle as I struggled to hold both the camera and glasses steady. Whilst I took the image above using the glasses as a filter, I still prefer the one below that I had applied a digital in-camera effect to before taking the picture.

Kid Rock encouraged his fans to download music illegally in a BBC interview. He claims that the most popular download store, iTunes charges about the same amount in royalty fees as traditional media. Tech Digest report this as a bad publicity stunt, but I disagree. As Kid Rock said; he wants people to hear his music so that they will go and see him play live. Whilst I might not be a fan of Kid Rock, I do support his case. As do many other bands. Coldplay, Radiohead and CSS are just a selection of bands which have offered their music for free online to promote their new material. Ultimately through this method, they raise their publicity via word of mouth across the Internet. A growing number of fans are then more likely to attend the bands tours and/or buy subsequent music released by the artist. The way we consume music is changing and it's finally favouring the consumers and artists; not the record companies.

Just saw an RC car with a twist on The Gadget Show. It's a standard RC car with a VGA cam on the head of the driver. With the aid of glasses with an integrated display, it relays the perspective that the driver would have. If the user turns their head, the driver does the same to change the perspective to look side to side and up and down. It looks pretty neat.

There's a video of it in action and more information here.