This one goes out to all the web nerds out there! For anyone whose ever designed a website you all know that using flash is almost turning into a modern day faux pas. In recent months the release of updates and new browsers (FireFox 3.5, Safari 4, Google Chrome and Opera) means the need for this outdated form of web design seems to be finally diminishing. As a test of this new technology 9elements have created a little experiment which loads 100 tweets related to HTML5 and displays them using a Javascript-based particle engine. Through an extremely beautiful and minimalist playful format each colored particle represents a tweet. Most interesting: modern mobile devices like the iPhone or Android-based phones also support new standards in favor of Flash. The future looks bright for HTML5. Launch the canvas experiment here.
WIRED asked Density Design of Italy to draw a map based on the future scenarios, developed by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, to aid the reader in grasping the ideas and hypothesis built by 7000 influencers from all over the world(easier said than done!). The result is a both beautiful and engaging vision of cultural trends to come. Check it on behance or explore the whole thing here.
I’m not big on my American stand-up. I tend to find it a series of ever increasing loud noises full of sound bites and a general lack of lateral thinking or irreverence. Massive sweeping statement, I know, wanna fight about it? I just had a listen to Aziz Ansari’s new album(is it classed as an album when just comedy??). You may have seen him in Funny People and some other U.S stuff I don’t know about. He’s in the Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow crowd …so you probably get the picture. Basically what I am trying to get across is that this guy seems a cut above the rest, he definitley has that brash American style, yet his delivery is bang on. Check the Kanye material near the end, it is frikin priceless. Spotify
Following Phaidon’s success with the Wallpaper* City Guide print series, their “top 10 bestselling Wallpaper* City Guides” are now available on iTunes as apps. The international cities include Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Milan, Rome and Tokyo. The retail cost for one Wallpaper* City Guide is £2.39 but the Berlin edition is currently offered as a free download.
Did you know that the Hippopotamus is related to the Sperm Whale? Or that the Ostrich and the Tyrannosaurus have common links? Explore the connections in the natural world, and learn about evolution with the Tree of Life. To coincide with the BBC Life documentary series The Open Universiy are giving away a beautiful ‘Tree Of Life’ wall poster free of charge. View the whole poster and find how to get yourself one by clicking the link below.
There are a lot of reasons to love Christmas, I love it for two reasons, giving presents to people, and German Christmas Markets. Nobody does Christmas quite like the Germans, wasn’t it Prince Albert who introduced the tradition of Christmas trees to the English? I checked, it was. Yup Christmas and building time-locked dungeons in their basements, but I don’t think there is a market for those yet… In London there are three German markets, THREE! The purveyors of Bratwurst and mulled booze all start this weekend. Christmas is the only brightspot in the bleak tunnel of winter, we may as well go crazy and partake in some merriment. The one I have my eye on is on the Southbank, and it has a carousel.
TED is a small nonprofit organization started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TEDTalks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker “ideas worth spreading,” the talks were released online to share with a global audience of millions. With a database of hundreds of jaw-dropping videos the above video of is just the tip of the iceberg and the key to many hours being spent in front of your computer. Bill Stone, a maverick cave explorer who has plumbed Earth’s deepest abysses, discusses his efforts to mine lunar ice for space fuel and to build an autonomous robot for studying Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Before I go on about the history of Skateboarding, my childhood and nostalgic ramblings of better times, bigger decks and softer wheels. Let Johnny Rad, Powell and Peralta’s Bones Brigade and Rodney Mullen do the talking. And the doing. If you’re over the age of thirty and it’s been a while since you’ve seen “The Search For Animal Chin“, this is like watching a Muppet Babies version of your heroes. Click below to Watch, SK8, Destroy + Enjoy.
China formally kicked off its mass celebrations of 60 years of communist rule with a 60-gun salute that rung out across Beijing’s historic Tiananmen Square earlier today. Hundreds of thousands of participants marched past Tiananmen Square in costume or uniform, with floats and dancers mingling with soldiers and military hardware. Collected here are photographs of the once-in-a-decade National Day parade in Beijing, and of others commemorating the anniversary elsewhere.
Try this unique little Flash game, where your charged with ridding the world of various pandemics in this ingeniously colourful graphics filled time killer. Link.
