Earlier when I was looking into Michel Gondry’s curation of the YouTube homepage last week I stumbled across this demonstration of the ‘Assist Sketch Understanding System’ from MIT in 2006. It’s definitely the most impressive physics engine I have come across since we saw the Soda Constructor at college! Via illustration blog drawn.

Secondly, Asi introduced me to the new visualisation layer which has been added to the video’s to introduce you to related clips, it’s accessed via the network icon when you go fullscreen. At first I thought that it was an interesting way to discover stuff, but when I clicked on a video balloon and the mind map of sorts started to grow, ‘interesting’ became ‘confusing’ very quickly. My confusion is with the outline colours of the bubbles, as there is no suggestion to why the clips are grouped by a certain colour, is it just me or is the relationships between the clips unclear?

About a month or so ago, before the chaos of December arrived I was queueing this post up - a selection of 5 sensational experiences I had in the festive build up which I hope will still satisfy all your senses, even if they are well past their posting date!

1.Eastern Promises at the Rich Mix
If you haven’t seen it yet, do, it was one of the best films I saw last year for sure. A combination of tough Russian gangsters, young Eastern European girls tragically failing to make a better life for themselves in London, a midwife, a baby and the best fight scene of 2007 make this gruesome thriller led by Viggo Mortensen a stunning watch from start to finish. Be warned though, after viewing you may have violent dreams.

2. Eating great food and getting crack
At some point I paid my second visit to the mighty Great Queen St gastro pub in Covent Garden. Between the four of us we had excellent vension, burger on dripping bread and a barley, squash and mushroom risotto, all very tasty indeed! To complete our inner glow we took a stroll down the embankment towards the Tate Modern where we saw the crack before going up to level 7, where we shared four amazing desserts whilst London’s skyline became illuminated in front of our eyes.

3.James Murphy + Tom Mahoney = Fabric live 36
After a hectic electronic start to the mix (which isn’t too studio friendly late morning I’ve found) things calm down and slip into a funkadelic, disco experience that makes you want to dance sexy.

4.International Lefthanders Day
At the time I wanted this poster a lot, it’s been made with Scandinavian skill.

5.Apple iPhone
It’s not about what this first generation product can’t do, it’s all about the amazing things it can do. The touch screen interface is absolutely superb, you consume lots of stuff, you stroke it alot, it’s incredible. I have had iPhone-itous for two months and it feels great.

Here are two rather pleasant things that have been launched into the world wide web from Poke towers recently;

1.Orange Unlimited is a never ending page of interactive flash fun that brings to life the Unlimited campaign tag line ‘Good things should never end’. The characters you will meet were illustrated by the awesomely talented Rex, my favorite bit is the beat juggling musical characters on a washing line - it’s abit like a simpleton’s version of the incredible tenori-on.

2. Spinvox is a clever little thing with a tidy new website…’SpinVox is a service that can be accessed from any phone. Speak Freely and SpinVox will convert your words into text and send them wherever you decide: mobile, inbox, TV screen, blog and more. Give it a try now’

“…why context is more important than consistency. It’s ok to be inconsistent if your design makes more sense that way. Give people just what matters. Give them what they need when they need it and get rid of what they don’t. It’s better to be right than to be consistent.”

The iPhone keyboard’s spacebar is replaced by web-centric options when you’re entering a URL. URLs can’t contain blank spaces so the iPhone gets rid of the useless key and replace it with ones that add value. Great example of context over consistency.

Via 37 signals

The product launches in the US later today, which means the world wide web is going to be reviewtastic very soon. Here are a couple to get you started…

David Pogue from the New York Times
Walter Mossberg, Wall Street Journal Personal Technology Columnist

Is the theme for this years Architecture Week. Last week I attended the AW onedotzero evening event, which showcased sustainable design work from Jason Bruges Studio, XCO2 and DIY Kyoto. The showcase reinforced the need for artists and designers to produce work which is powered by renewable forms of energy, aswell as create products that support us in our efforts to reduce our consumption of non-renewables.

Jason Bruges took centre stage first, starting with a quick introduction of the studio’s work, which for me is a mixture of information design, architecture and interactive / art installations. Following the intro Jason proceeded to present a series of the studio’s projects that have explored visualising prevailing winds, which have culminated in the studio’s RIBA London and onedotzero comissioned ‘Wind to Light’ installation at the Southbank centre (pictured above). Wind to Light uses ‘500 mini wind turbines to generate power, which illuminates hundreds of mounted leds, creating firefly-like fields of light, with wind visually interpreted as electronic patterns across the installation’. It will be onsite until September, to find out more read the project blog here. Following on from Jason, XCO2 (a group of engineers and designers) also spoke about the use of renewable energies to create function and aesthetic value in their work.

Finally, Greta from DIY Kyoto (who’s name is a reponse to the Kyoto protocol) presented the Wattson, a product which simply makes your electricity usage tangible. I first read about the Wattson in the papers a while ago, but what I didn’t know about was the development of a Wattson online community. This is a place where users can register and track their electricty consumption, a place where international comparision can take place. It was also suggested, tongue in cheek on the night that a dating group could be developed in the community where users could pursue those who used attractive amounts of electricity, now that would be sexy!

Ok, a geeky one here… A couple of months back I noticed a job going for a graphic designer for Propellerhead’s Reason software.

“Tasks will include interface design of devices, interface widgets, icons and other graphical elements for our software applications as well as graphical elements for the web.”

I started thinking.. what a mental job!! Apart from being one of the most extensive and painstakingly accurate pieces of metaphorically designed software ever, it is also one of the greatest audio experiences. Designing it well is a real interface design challenge.

Well months have past, someone got the job, and a new version is on the horizon. Version 4 Looks like the designers have once again had their work cut out, cramming those tiny buttons in. I don’t think they’re recreating any more real devices now, all that’s left is to invent new ones.

Can’t wait to get my mits on this!

Read more at createdigitalmusic.com

Click To Play

‘There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don’t. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don’t know where to start.’

Would of been useful for clients in the past, and I’m sure it still could well be in the future.

via Commoncraft.com

Jeff Han presents the produce of his multi-touch interaction research here. The presentation is nearly a year old, full of great stuff, stuff that perhaps contributed to the iPhone interface?

As I write this people seem to be linking more recent Jeff Han presentations, so go here and enjoy more skill demonstrations.

London buses are to be fitted with GPS advertising, as Yell.com in parnership with AKQA are set to launch a campaign to raise awareness of its local search facility.

Leading the campaign from the bus lane is a fleet of intelligent buses, which have been fitted with digital LED panels that display messages highlighting local businesses based on the bus’s geographical position.

The campaign also includes interactive bus shelters, online ads, posters, TV sponsorship and cinema, read more here.

Lots of interesting stuff going on at studio Trokia, where product designers are exploring creative technologies to develop a new approach to advertising and branding.

There is fun to be had with their ‘SMS Guerilla Projector’…

‘A device that enables the user to project text based SMS messages in public spaces, in streets, onto people, inside cinemas, shops, houses etc.’

Trokia recently spoke at the We love Technology gig in Huddersfield, looked like a great event.