Sponsored
Infiniti Curved Visions
May 4th
Following on from the "Inspired Performance" competition which I previously covered here, designboom and INFINITI are continuing their design and promotion competition with the new concept, Infiniti Curved Vision.
The international competition aimed at finding the best talent from around the world for design and digital art, focussed around various aspects of the INFINITI brand. The first part of the competition, Inspired Performance, attracted over 500 entries from around the globe, with people presenting the very best of their skills to showcase some excellent pieces of art. The competition for this new stage is expected to continue that high level of excellence, and attract even more interested competitors, and you too are invited to take part and show your talent.
The winner of the first stage, Japan-born Shinji Nukumi was was awarded €10,000 for his efforts, so the prize is certainly not something to be taken lightly! As well as the excellent prize money, the winning entries will be made into actual art installations at flagship dealers throughout Europe, so perhaps you could even use some of the prize money to travel and see your artwork in person!
The 6 finalists from the previous competition were:
For Curved Visions, the criteria is:
participants are asked to design an unforgettable experience that can be generated through a digital artwork, interior installation piece, or unique performance:
1 - digital artwork in the form of images and/or videos
you can (and are encouraged) to include the car or elements of the car as part of the artwork
2 - physical installation in the form of a sculpture, 3D mapping, or other exciting new media works
– installation should take up no more space than an INFINITI car – installation must work in ambient light
you can (and are encouraged) to include the car or elements of the car as part of the installation,
any form of installation that requires bespoke build must be provided by artist.
3 - INFINITI experiential cinema: unique curved cinema experience where you can create a 180° or 360° video installation
– sound and interactivity are optional but will enhance the experience
4 - interactive art piece that works with Microsoft Kinect.
– this can be a complete work or conceptual prototype and technology available will be Microsoft surface and Kinect sensors.
5 - live performances
– including dance, light, interactive music, body art, or another unique experience
So there is something for everyone, no matter what your area of expertise or preferred medium for producing art is.
If you'd like to Find out more click here or head along to Register now to be in with a chance of wining with Infiniti
Infiniti Reveal Gallery
Oct 17th
For those of you who don't know, Infiniti is Nissan's luxury and performance car arm to their business, based around high performance and high style in all the range. They're taking this a step further with their new digital art challenge in conjunction with global design magazine designboom. More info on the competition can be found on designboom's website at http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/13768/infiniti-digital-art-competition.html The first stage of the competition invited entrants to design a sculpture, projection or installation that would be entered into the competition and eventually whittled down to 6 finalists. These will be shown in the Infiniti showrooms around the country, helping them enhance and reinforce the message of the style and art these places bring, above that or a normal car showroom.
The bespoke boutique-hotel-style Infiniti Centre Stockport (Manchester, UK) is the latest of these showrooms and is in the middle of a week long promotion inviting people to come along and look at the art works as well as the cars. Art and high performance cars in one place means there has to be something for everyone there! The art works include the exquisitely crafted ‘Value Added’ monument by artists Jan Ziska and Juraj Rattaj; the ‘Synthesised by Nature’ sculpture created by English artist Jackson Tayler – a dynamic creation inspired by nature; and the work of Shinji Nukumi of Japan, entitled ‘Infiniti Passion’ – a design which expresses the potential of Infiniti cars from the inside rather than from the outside.
A sample of some of the works is:
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And the rest can be seen at: http://www.mikedodd.co.uk/othe/infinitiinstallationsfs/index.html
Visitors to the showroom can help take part in the competition by voting on which they think is the best piece, and ultimately what wins. If you can't get along to Stockport then you can also view the pieces in the Leeds showroom October 21st to 28th, and there will be other locations throughout Europe announced in the near future.
Early next year the artist who wins the competition will receive a prize fund over €10,000.
Register on www.infinitireveal.com for invitations to the gallery in Stockport and other future locations to make sure you dont miss out.
Know The Not Known – an interesting campaign
Jun 28th
Regular readers of this site will know that I have a great curiousity for the unknown, no longer seen spaces of the country, something I spend many hours wandering round and photographing in my hobby of urbex. One of the things that I have often remarked while wandering round these places is how it is such a shame to see these wonderful sites go to waste, left unloved and unused. For these reasons the new initiative by Tiger beer which is called Know The Not Known and one arm of this is the Vice partnership to create content.
As part of Tiger’s partnership with Vice, thety have created created 3 videos to reward consumers curiosity. The 3 videos are known as ‘The Found Series’ and hosted on Vice’s VBS.TV channel as well as Tiger’s YouTube channel.
This series of videos explores and charts the progress of a few groups of people who have worked to reclaim some of the forgotten treasures, and put them to more useful and modern utilisation, generating creative spaces as seen through the eyes of those who have helped to make them happen.
Take for example the 5000 tonne of what was once a rusting ship, now moored in East London and is quickly becoming one of the best recording studios in the area, helping new and established artists alike to record their music and get their songs out to a wider audience. Whilst some would have seen such a vessel as fit only for the scrap yard and the metal it was made of, the Lightship95 crew saw that it had much more potentitial and put in the hard work to turn it in to what it is today. With state of the art equipment, full time staff (that even live on the boat between recording) and a unique venue, they really are working hard to make it an excellent venture.
Have a look at Tigerbeer's Youtube channel to see more, or get over to their facebook page to see some of the other projects going on.
~Shepy
Honda, providing info and engines
Jun 14th
As some of you may already know. Honda sponsor a lot of Channel 4 documentaries – something they are planning to continue into the next year of programming, but now it is going to add in some extra content about ways in which people have used Honda cars and vehicles in unusual ways. One such documentary will be about Philippa, an alpaca breeder in Oxfordshire, who tends to the animals on her farm using her trusty Honda ATV.
I remember when i used to work at Warden Law Go Kart Track and ATV centre, we would use a Honda Big Red as the staff vehicle for getting about the site, towing customers back to base if there was a problem and such like. Amazing powerful and versatile machine (and shedloads of fund, especially to 17 year old me!)
They'll also be backing this up with a site at www.honda.co.uk/stories as well as facebook and twitter feeds for the shows, so if you are a bit of a petrol head, like a bit of edutainment then this is probably right up your street. It's going to have a load of mini-documentaries that people can vote on, and the winner will be turned into a full length documentary, so you get a chance to have an influence and find out more about the stories that particularly interest you. Find out more at http://hub.honda.co.uk/?s3campaign=Cars_Channel4Outreach&s3advertiser=eBuzzing&s3banner=Alpaca
Here is a taster video to get you started:
New immersion game on the horizon
Jun 10th
Ubisoft's latest game, Child of Eden is the latest action game by Tetsuya Mizuguchi. A wonderfully immersive and surreal expereince, the game strives to bring new ways of interacting and playing to the console market, using the Xbox's Kinect controller to remove the game pad barrier between players and the game.
The storying of the game is: Project Lumi, a project to reproduce a human personality inside Eden, the archive of all human memories, has begun. As the project nears completion, the archive is invaded by an unknown virus. The Player’s mission is to purify the virus and restore hope and peace to Eden.
As you can imagine, a game that is set inside the human mind, it's memories and personalities will by it's nature take on some almost psychedelic situations, interactions and sounds to fully set the scene of the world in which you are playing. You can watch a video to give you an idea of what you can expect over at http://www.childofedengame.com
Eagle eyed readers may recognise the creator, Ttsuya Mizuguchi, from the earlier gam Rez, which was hugely popular in Japan, and hopefully he can follow up this sucess with Child Of Eden.
~Shepy
Live Streaming the easy way
May 31st
If you're looking for an easy way to make a Channel with your own tv content, then Streamago from Tiscali might just be the way. They offer live streaming of your content, with a great community of other users to make the whole experience a lot easier and a lot more friendly.
Whether you're looking to stream your own shows that you make, videos you have created or perhaps even a live event that you'd like to share with others on the web, then Streamago should be just what you're looking for, all you need is a PC with an internet connection and a webcam. It even has the ability for you to be able to stream directly, in real time, straight from your smartphone for those roving reporter moments! Imagine being able to share the concert or festival you are at, live with your friends, with minimal fuss and setting up?
As well as the ability to actuall stream the video, you can also add things like overlays, subtitles, title screens and much more to make your video and channel look like a much more polished production. You can stream live, or simply stream into your account for editing and broadcast later, and with free space of 10Gb you can make sure you've got a nice buffer of content waiting to go out if you want to try and keep to a release schedule. You can even publish direct to facebook, saving you the time and effort of having to upload it yourself.
You can find out more about what other users are saying at their facebook page, and I'd love for you to post more ideas below on how you could use the service.
~Shepy
Holiday with a difference
May 27th
If you’re looking for inspiration for a holiday, and want to try something a little different, then you might want to have a spy at the Atlantis Hotel
at the Palm Resort in Dubai. This gargantuan resort (over 1,500 rooms!) is as impressive in it’s list of rooms and facilities is it looks in the picture over on the right there. Boasting a 17 hectare water park (which is 1/3 of the entire site!) stuffed full of action rivers, waves slides and pools you can be sure of some fun for the kids (and the adults who refuse to grow up too).
There are rooms of varying levels of opulence, from the deluxe rooms right through to the Bridge Suite, which means you should be able to find something to suit exactly the kind of budget you hope. There is even the chance to win a 5 day break at the resort for you and 3 of your friends, through the new interactive advertising campaign that Atlantis are running. Simply head over to their site www.SpottedInAtlantis.com and use the system there to include yourself and friends in the interactive video, and you could be experiencing Atlantis sooner than you think!
Some of the entertainment you could look forward to at the park includees:
Waterpark
– 700 metre beach with sun loungers
– 27.5 metres down The Leap of Faith through a shark filled lagoon
– The highest free fall waterslide in the region
– 2.3 km long looped river ride
Marine Life
– 90 minute shallow or deep water Dolphin interactions (new experience Royal swim)
– Over 65,000 marine animals
– 10 metre long viewing panel
– Over 20 marine exhibits
Food & Drink
– 17 unique bars and restaurants with different themes and cuisines
– From fine dining to family dining
– 4 Michelin starred chef restaurants
and there is even a spa with 27 treatment rooms to help you unwind after all that!
Get yourself along to the site, which again is www.SpottedInAtlantis.com and see if you can win that trip :)
~Shepy
Wireless HD TV Streaming from your computer
May 16th
As more and more people come to rely on their computer for their viewing needs, with services such as iPlayer and movies downloaded through the various services, there is a growing problem of how to watch the resulting video. Most people are left with two options:
1) Watch the movie on the tiny computer screen and let their 50" TV in the lounge sit idle.
2) Connect the computer to the TV with unsightly and awkward cables.
A new product called the Veebeam HD aims to do away with both of these, and let you play your videos and streams straight from your PC, on to the TV. You simply plug in the USB sender to your computer (Provided it meets the modest system requirements, after installing it's software) and then as long as your receiver is connected to the TV (through a choice of HDMI or composite, even optical out if you want the audio through your surround system) and you're ready to watch your video on the TV. The sender manages to maintain a signal even through a wall, and unlike some problems you can have when straming HD content over your wireless network you'll get smooth flawless playback on the TV.
One of the additional benefits of a system like this over simply connecting the computer to the TV is the fact that it allows you to still continue to use the computer, even while streaming a video file out to the TV, so no more worrying about not being able to get online if someone is watching a movie!
The unit does introduce a slight delay between what may be showing on the computer screen and what is showing on the TV screen, as it creates a 2 second buffer to help ensure you get smooth playback, but this would only be an issue if you planned to use the device for gaming or other high speed interactive uses, for general internet, watching movies and similar uses then it's ideal.
You can find out more by going to the Veebeam site, or you can click straight through to Amazon if you would like to Buy it now
~Shepy
New appazine bringing feature rich content
Apr 18th
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I'm a big fan of innovation in computing and the mobile space, and there has never been a better time to innovate with such a wide spread and varied array of options with todays devices, something that swiss company Ringier has obviously not missed.
As you can see from the screen shots on the right here, there are no pries for guessing what the main content of the first issue is. Combing the excellent screen of the iDevices, with the added interactive features and appazine like this really will allow people to find out more about the events and topics covered than previous possible. Whilst some of these features are available on websites and flash, the user would then be tied to only viewing it where they have an internet connection or mobile signal, where as an appazine like this can provide that rich user content without being tied to a wifi connection or mobile signal. The makers also promise to deliver pleasant surprises with every tap, swipe and rub of the tablet screen.
Some other promised features include panoramic photography, 3D digital animation, creative morphing, rubbing, X-Ray lens and much much more. Although none of these are new technologies in themselves, bringing them all together in one media-rich magazine is a first as far as I'm aware.
If you're interested in the app, you can head on over to iTunes where you can find out more info, view more screenshots and most importantly download the app. It can be found in the iTunes store by clicking here.
~Shepy
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Sony – make:believe
Apr 1st
As anyone who knows me will already know, I'm very selective about the games I play. I'm usually too busy with photos, editing, seeing friends and such like to invest the time in some of the more in depth games to make them worth while. One game I did enjoy recently was LittleBigPlanet however, which i got sucked into a little bit when an old housemate of mine was playing it.
To me it was the kind of fun, quirky yet still challenging game that I really enjoyed. One of the most impressive things about LittleBigPlanet was the sheer amount of user created content, the levels that other players had created and which anyone else could play. By making such a game engine the designers had made it possible for anyone to become a bit of a bedroom games designer, and some of the levels were seriously impressive! Granted, some of them were just impossible, or pointless, but the majority of them were great fun. Sony have made a little documentary about a guy who was working as a builder, and then on the back of LittleBigPlanet actually moved into working as a games designer, you can watch it below:
It is impressive the speed at which you can throw together a level, and strangely unlike a lot of games with level creators, even the creation is a bit more fun than some tedious systems.
Well, LittleBigPlanet 2 is coming out soon, and again I'm likely going to find myself breaking from the usual lack of gaming time, even if just for a quick cheeky wee game to see what they have done with the new version, what new features it has brought and such like.
If you're interested in finding out more, get along to the LittleBigPlanet facebook page which is found at: http://www.facebook.com/SonyUK?sk=app_195690167129863 and make sure you watch the video above, it's really quite insipiring about following your dream.
~Shepy