Mapping the Future

If you haven't come across this site, you must check it out. Basically it's a timeline charting the progress and development of various aspects of society through to the end of 2012. Each node is clickable and gives a wealth of industry informations.

How To Do Digital

Check out this fantastic post over on Scamp, by guest writer James Cooper, creative director of Dare. It's funny but ultimately completely true.

1. Keep it simple
2. Be original.
3. Doing digital is harder than TV.
4. Great digital work usually comes from teamwork.
5. The digital equivalent to ‘Balls’ is Nike +.
6. It’s actually easy to win an award if that’s all you want to do.
7. If you are going to use celebs, do it in an interesting way rather than just plonking them on a site.
8. People talk a lot about community and social networking.
9. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
10. What’s with this conformity?

YouTube removes Satriani/Coldplay videos

It’s been a rough year for Coldplay. Sure they’ve managed a hit number one album but they’ve also encountered two separate accusations of plagiarism. First up was Andrew Hoepfner, lead singer and songwriter of the Creaky Boards, who accused Chris Martin of stealing elements of their song 'The Songs I Didn't Write'. The case was shaky and was quickly put to rest. Unfortunately it didn’t stop there. Next came Joe Satriani. He accused Coldplay of plagiarism for lifting elements of his song "If I Could Fly" for its hit song "Viva La Vida". The Satriani case is still pending resolution.

What’s interesting is that it has emerged that the many videos, which show the similarities between the songs have started disappearing from YouTube. All this is apparently the work of Coldplay's label, EMI, who claim the videos infringe on its copyright. That would all sound very plausible except that you can still hear Coldplay songs elsewhere on YouTube, including in user-generated videos. So is it one rule for one and another for the other?

It therefore looks most likely that EMI is removing these videos due to their embarrassing nature to Coldplay. It’s not hard to think that a court would think if it saw one of these videos.

Luckily, here’s one that is still live (for the time being):


The even more shocking is that all three bands, Coldplay included, may owe something to this guy, Günther:


All this aside, what is most interesting here is that EMI are using copyright as a way to remove certain videos that it doesn’t want to be seen, while allowing other versions to remain online.

Toshiba announce a 512-GB solid-state drive for notebooks

On Thursday InfoWeek reported that Toshiba have announced the first 2.5-inch, 512-GB solid-state drive for notebooks. The devices will start to roll out as samples in the first quarter of next year, with mass production scheduled for the second quarter. Toshiba have not mentioned pricing to date

These second-generation SSDs utilise a multilevel cell controller that can give read/write speeds of 240 MBps and 200 MBps, respectively.

A Night At The Movies

A huge thank you to The Chancer, Rick O'Shea and Una Rocks for putting on an invitational screening of Role Models at Cineworld last night. Not only was the event well staged and completely trouble free (we all know how lesser Irish mortals have a tendency to screw up event organisation), but it was a hilarious movie - really, really funny.

I didn't know what to expect but according to IMDB it's a 7.9 movie, and that's an extremely high rating from the movie snobbery of IMDB, so I figured there would at least be a chuckle or two. Or one hundred! I generally don't recommend movies to people (different tastes and all that) but I think the world should see this film. Absolutely brilliant!

An odd one from Deloitte

I found this odd viral that Deloitte did for a recruitment campaign they ran. Pretty strange.

Top 10 Viral Ads of 2008

Many thanks to The Guardian for this, here is the top 10 viral ads of 2008:

1. Wassup anno 2008
Disclaimer: Budweiser's parent company, Anheuser Busch, which originally licensed the concept for five years from Stone, was not involved in the production of the ad

2. SFW XXX Party Invitation
Diesel's naughty montage of 1980s porn films using cartoon animation to cover up explicit scenes, just, for its 30th anniversary

3. Kobe Bryant jumps over an Aston Martin
Nike's clever "did he or didn't he" actually clear a car. Probably not, but it got people talking, and watching

4. Extreme Street Football
Electronic Arts trickery masterpiece featuring kids with football skills – and parkour and capoeira – using a football like you ain't never seen

5. Take it to the next level
Guy Ritchie directs this shot-in-first-person tale of a teen footballer's hardcore ups and downs from being discovered to losing teeth to playing for a national team

6. Tiger Woods 09 – Walk on Water
When a fan of EA's golf game pointed out a flaw that Tiger Woods could play a "Jesus Shot" from on water, the game manufacturer's response was this viral featuring the man himself

7. Bean Counter
One of those Mac vs PC ads where Apple prods Microsoft over spending loads on advertising

8. Samsung Omnia i900 Unboxing
Samsung spoof of the tech-fan trend of filming opening the box of a new gadget for the first time

9. Fate – Leave Nothing
Emotive Nike fare of lifelong rivalry of two NFL players featuring version of sound track from the Good the Bad and the Ugly Vista when it should be fixing it

10. Adam and Eve
Insurance company ad featuring a gay Adam and frustrated Eve that found life online after being banned from TV