When in Japan...

I found this great video from Eric Testroete over at We Made This. It's a collection of 3340 photographs documenting Eric's recent trip to Japan. Great idea and definitely something I'll do on my next holiday. Enjoy.

Dancing Matt a fake!

Well, not quite. Matt Harding speaks at 'The Entertainment Gathering 2008' (11th December 2008) about the continued online accusations that his video's were hoaxes, part of an elaborate viral campaign that was faked.

Nice candid insight into the man that created, what Time magazine called the Best Viral Campaign of 2008, and the New York times called 'an almost perfect piece of internet art'. Speaking about the responses he received he mentions the feeling of connectivity that people found through his video. A connection to the rest of the world.

Concept Japanese Pedestrian Lights

A friend passed on these photos to me of a concept design for pedestrian lights. There was no information with them but I presume this is more fantasy then reality. To the best of my knowledge there are no technologies out there even close to this level of free floating capability. Unless anyone out there knows better?

Panasonics new Gel Remote (possibly)

Panasonic have released details of new concept remote they have on the development blocks. When unused and sitting idle the remote takes on a gel-like, non-rigid form. However, when the remote is activated or picked up, it becomes fully rigid just like a 'normal' remote control.

Personally I'm unsure of the advantages this is proposed to give but it looks kinda cool. Something I'd have imagined sitting around in Minority Report or iRobot.

Evil Dead - The Musical

Perhaps the one of the funniest ads of 2008 (imho). Check it out:

New Heineken ad

Someone said to me over Christmas, all the best ads are for beers and spirits because they can't show the product really being used, it's more about the benefits of having the product. I know what they meant, and I can agree on principle that the limiting factor of consumption is a driving force to have especially creative and off-the-wall concepts but truth be told, I think any agency or brand that approach an advertising campaign with the notion of mundane or a gp-with-what-works attitude, deserve to fail.

Advertising isn't just about selling. It's just not. Advertising is part of the marketing suite and as such it lends itself to being more then just a sales tool - it builds trust, awareness, identity and character for the brand/product.

At least that's what great advertising does. Thankfully I have just the clip to demonstrate my point...

Top 100 sites for the year ahead

The Guardian have done an amazing job and put together a list of the top 100 websites for the year ahead. They're broken down into the following categories:

• Blogging
• Browsers
• Cartoons
• Create/collaborate
• Gaming
• Geek squad
• Government/public services/politics
• Location, location
• Maps
• Money/finance/ consumer fightback
• Music
• News recommendation
• Offbeat
• Photography
• Physical from virtual
• Reference
• Search
• Social software
• Twitter, and associated
• Video
• Virtual worlds/MMORPGs
• Visualisation