The Burger Force

My friend Omar shared this with me. Not sure if I need to be amazed or scared.

Celebrating Great Costumer Service

Great work by Mullen. Simple and well done.

The Power of the Pentatonic Scale

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus" at the 2009 World Science Festival.

Via DOI

Forrester's Social Technographics Ladder

Take a look at the updated Forrester's Social Technographics ladder. It shows how people use and participate with social media. Interesting how...

Keep in mind that every group is not mutually exclusive, which means that an individual can be in more than one group. Still, pretty amazing.
Via @anneegibson

Debunking the Myths

I'm obsessed with User Experience Design. That's why I like so much the above slide [I stole it from a presentation that Whitney Hess gave at the Pittsburgh Web Design Day about a year ago]. It truly simplifies what otherwise would be a quite complex concept.

AIDA - Your Digital Driving Assistant

This is how MIT envision the GPS of the future. Well, sort of.

"The AIDA project (Affective, Intelligent Driving Agent), a collaboration between Volkswagen of America and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SENSEable City Lab and Personal Robots Group of Media Lab), is a platform comprising of a personal robot and an intelligent navigation system that aims to bring an innovative driving experience. We envision a navigation system that mimics the friendly expertise of a driving companion who is familiar with both the driver and the city. Instead of focusing solely on determining routes to a specified waypoint, our system utilizes analysis of driver behavior in order to identify the set of goals the driver would like to achieve. Furthermore, AIDA involves an understanding of the city beyond what can be seen through the windshield, incorporating information such as business and shopping districts, tourist and residential areas, as well as real-time event information and environmental conditions.

Functionalities that gather information about driver preferences additionally help AIDA to behave more intelligently. One mandatory task for AIDA is to predict the destination of the driver as well as the most likely route that he/she will follow. This will in turn allow for useful reactions from AIDA such as proposing route alternatives when something unexpected happens in the predicted route, or providing the right information at the right time (e.g. a fuel warning before passing by a gas station) or even helping save energy."

Pretty amazing no? Check out how it works:

The Beauty of Data Visualization

Via @Omarquinone5

Just Do It

I'm on a Horse

I love everything about this spot. It is entertaining, smart, memorable and very well done. Acting is formidable and the art direction flawless. But by far, my favorite part comes once the main character delivers the - incredibly - witty line that I used as a title for this post.

That line is just brilliant. The way in which is being delivered is also brilliant. Certainly one of the best punchlines I've ever seen in advertising.

Yes, I have to admit that I was surprised when I first heard that the guys at W+K did this in one single shot, with no cuts. Really! And I certainly was skeptical when I read that there is no much CGI involved in this production. No way!

Well, now I'm convinced.

Take a look at this interview with W+K's creative team where they walk us through how they did it. My favorite part is when [after being asked if they considered how difficult to execute this project would be, before presenting it to the client], they said no. It reminded me about the importance of having a great idea first, and then work with the team in bringing it to life. The value of restrictions.

Here is when a great producer comes handy.



Thanks to Grant for sharing the video.

Google on Fiber Optic

Google is getting into fiber networks. They are planning to build experimental ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. Their goal is to make the Internet better and faster so they are looking for communities who would like to get involve.

"Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

From now until March 26th, we're asking interested municipalities to provide us with information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which we'll use to determine where to build our network."

World's Greatest Spokesperson

Most recent work by the guys at McKinney for Nationwide. Also check out the interview, it's a quite fun.

A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything

I stole this from Open Culture.

This imaginative bit was a student’s final project for an art course. The flipbook, made entirely out of biro pens, was created with 2100 pages of drawings and took about 3 weeks to develop. Needless to say, the student got an A.

Via @mcgarrybowen

Wired Goes Digital

Simple is Better

Spatial Streetside Photos on Bing Maps

This is quite awesome. Enjoy!