Video Tracing To Create 3D Models

This is a neat way of simply and quickly building 3D models by using video of the object you wish to create a model of.

“VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video—models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modeled over one or more frames of the video.”



Link to the video trace site.

Found on DesignVerb .

BBC iPlayer - BBC's webTV platform also available in YouTube

The BBC launched it's peer to peer TV software 'iPlayer' two days ago as part of a large scale beta test. Only currently available to UK residents using the PC platform, the software allows users to download programmes broadcast on the BB over the previous seven days. These programmes are stored on the users computer and can be watched within the next 30 days. Once watched the file cancels itself, so it is not clear if a programme can we rewatched once seen. Being based in Italy, I do not think that I will be able to see the service in action yet. The programmes on offer do not include all programmes broadcast by the BBC, but only ones that the BBC has the rights for. An interesting annoucenment from the BBC also claims that the service will also be integrated within YouTube - though it is not clear exactly how this will be done.

Who Had The Most Tedious Job?

An impressive animated video for Fujiya Miyagi, by Wade Shotter. More of his work can be seen here, at Factory Films.

Was this done by hand or generated by computer? If I had directed this, and the animator had complained at the tedious nature of manipulating each dice by hand, I would have told them to check out Google's latest addition to Google maps, and told them to think themselves lucky that they are not the individual that has to photograph every street in the world.



Check out the new amazing functionality here, and go to San Francisco to see it in action. How cool to see a real image of the exact place you are going to have to find - like this you will know that you have arrived exactly where you meant to go. Super useful!! And try clicking and dragging the image - you can pan around the image like a QTVR, and zoom in also.

Audi TT Viral Video by Universal Everything

This is a really beautiful animation created by Univeral Everything for Audi Australia to announce the launch of the new Audi TT. It is wonderful in the fact that it does not actually show the car itself, but through the abstract and fresh modern elements the video really conveys the sleek and aerodynamic car design and leaves people wanting to actually see the car. The particles were actually generated by a specially created softwear to dynamically recreate a simulation of a wind tunnel. I am not sure that it lives upto its viral name, but it is certainly a stunning piece. The animation is too long in my opinion with the final part dragging on. The particles may have been better off forming the famous rings that make up the Audi logo. Check out more work by Univeral Everything here.

iLike - The Future of Music Communities?

iLike is a relatively young music community based software service, having only just reached the rip old age of four months, but I predict that this is going to become a very popular service, and the principles on which it is based will be adopted by many other music services.

It is wonderfully designed service with a very fresh, clean and modern interface. The service itself is very simple in concept - to help you organise and share your music, allow you to interact with people who share similar music tastes and recommend new music. While many other sites and services are setting out to do similar if not exactly the same things, iLike combines so many of the best concepts and in such a well designed package that it stands out from the rest.

iLike sets out to introduce you to music that you will like but have not yet listened to and combines several simple methods.

First you must create a profile which can be shared among the rest of the iLike community. You start by manually describing the genres and actual musician that you like. This creates a crude profile of your music tastes. But by downloading a small software gadget that analyses what you play in iTunes or Windows Media Player the service it able to get a realtime view of your music preferences, initially taking a snap shot of your music library and then starts an ongoing analysis of your music listening habits in the most logical way, by making a note of every time you listen to music on your computer or iPod. Continuing to build up and ever more perfect picture of your listening habits.

Users of iTunes software also have the benefit of having a user interface directly in the iTunes browser, that gives you access to your profile and community features of iLike. It shows you similar songs to the ones that you are currenly playing - so if you like Muse but want something similar, simply start playing one of your Muse tracks and it come immediatly back with recommendations similar to Muse. The recommendations all link to 30 second previews accessed via the iTunes store. You can also rate the songs in your library so iLike can determine which ones you like over others. Being embeded in iTunes and so always there when you are playing your music, with no need to remember to login to a website is a strong feature. We all have far too many sites to surf, to remember to come back to so many sites we have registered with. Once registered you are likely to continue to use the service as it is also very unintrusively implemented. The concept of dedicated software to access web content is going to be a strong trend in future.

Interesting are the complex algorthms that they use to determine what you would like to listen to. The most successful services in the future will be those that have alorythmns that are able to search massive quantities of data and deliver you only a few, but highly relevant results. While is can be easy to relate certain bands with others, the software that calculates your recommended suggestions is far more complecated.

iLike also harnesses the community of users and networks you to people that share similar tastes in music. By being able to easily browse other peoples libraries that share similar bands, it bives you a less mathematical and more human way to discover new music. You can build up lists of friends and see what they are listening to, what is most popular and recommend tracks to them.

This is the future of tracking and understanding trends and analysing music consumption. Bands can find out exactly who is listening to their music and which songs are played the most. This must be really interesting to base understanding on the actual listening rather than on record sales.

iLike seems very heavily geared at providing an excellent service, with the aim of generating revenue from providing traffic and sales to the iTunes store. The strong links between iLike is also apparent in it's design, as it seems to have been designed specifically to fit in with the iTunes software. I ask how long will it be before iTunes buys iLike or releases their own version of this community software.

A really great aspect of iLike is that it not only recommends establish artists, but is a forum discovering new music talent. Capitalising on the content of their sister site Garage Band, it acts as a filter on the many thousands of unsigned artists that have submitted their music to Garage Band. So through iLike you are also recommended new unsigned bands who's music is easily downloaded for free with one click straight to your iTunes library.

The service requires so little effort, yet delivers good value. you do not need to make friends, build pages, maintain blog etc, but you can do all of these things with it if you wish.

Download iLike and join the community HERE.

Search By Sketching

This is a fun new experimental service which lets you search and explore a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch.

It will not recognise what you are drawing - say a corporate logo or a face for example, which would be a very interesting way of searching (although if you are searching for a chair, whiy not just type in the word chair) - but rather examines the colours and composition, delivering you results that are similar to your sketch. Draw a big red circle and you will get cherries and strawberries. Draw a yellow rectangle under a blue one, and you'll get images of the sea.

This is a great way of searching for images that you want to match certain colour ways or moods. Possibly one day it could be a way of searching for that elusive image in your collection that was not tagged in a searchable way.

What ever it's practical applications, it is a fun tool to play with. Have a play here.

Thanks to Peter for the link.

UPDATE:
This is another nice search tool for Flckr - where you can search by predominant colour of the image. View Here.

Joost - Will this revolutionise TV?

Stay tuned. This just might be the NEXT thing. From the founders of SKYPE, this new project Joost (previously code named THE VENICE PROJECT aims to revolutionise television (and the way we consume TV content), in the same way as Skype revolutionised the way we make phone calls.

It delivers FREE content in broadcast quality. I have heard from beta testers that there is no lag or buffering!!

Sign up to be a beta tester here.

iPod shuffle Reset Utility 1.0 for Mac

Recently while upgrading to iTunes 7 for Mac and subsequently upgrading the software of my iPod Shuffle, the iPod would no longer function. It would not play music, the green and red lights flashed and the computer would not recognise the device. Apple have just launched a download that will recognise the iPod and will restore it-s factory settings. I downloaded it and now my iPod shuffle works. Not a normal experience that I have had or would expect from Apple...but thankfully I have my iPod back!

Download it here.