SensoryMetrics

Adobe launched Photoshop Express beta today. It’s a very “flashy” web-based consumer-oriented photo editing product. It integrates it’s own album sharing feature, and links directly to Photobucket, Facebook, and Picasa. The features are pretty basic – certainly not what I’d call a slimmed-down Photoshop. The flash interface is terrific. Simply rolling over editing options automatically shows you the effect on you photo. The price is also very un-photoshop: free!

The trial is only available in the US (although Adobe isn’t checking IPs)

Sign up here .

[tags]Photoshop-Express, Adobe[/tags]

Popularity: 25%

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Pirates, User Experience Adobe, Photoshop-Express

This comes from MIT professor John Maeda . He’s also the author of the book The Laws of Simplicity

[tags]John-Maeda, MIT, Simplicity[/tags]

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Usability, User Experience John-Maeda, MIT, simplicity

The interweb never ceases to amaze me. This blog is dedicated to the garbage left on New york City streets every day. What a great concept! Each day, Americans fill up 63,000 garbage trucks.

I can’t say I’m much better – although most of our garbage goes to recycling – it’s still waste!

[tags]Last’s-Night’s-Garbage,recycling,blogging[/tags]

Popularity: 21%

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Environment blogging, Last's-Night's-Garbage, recycling

Granted today by the USPTO, patent #7,349,830 describes a patent granted to Microsoft for Weather Profiling. And you thought global warming was going to be bad:

Sleet driver not found.

A problem has caused The Sun to stop Shining correctly. Windows will close the sun and notify you if a solution is available. Ok?

You may be a victim of Snow counterfeiting. This copy of Snow did not pass Windows Genuine Advantage validation. Click here to get help with this problem.

Here’s Microsoft’s take on re-inventing the weather:

Weather may be user-specified, computer simulated, based on periodic updates of real-world weather conditions, or based on a pre-existing or user-created weather profile. A weather profile may include a data structure that stores weather over a location neutral geographical space, which may subsequently be applied dynamically to any selected geographical space in a simulated environment. To dynamically simulate weather while conserving computer resources, a weather simulation manager may periodically alter temperature and dew point values and determine whether to render or dissipate clouds based on the current temperature and dew point values.

[tags]Microsoft, Weather[/tags]

Popularity: 28%

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Environment, Patents, User Experience Microsoft, Weather

As a kid I was a geeky audiophile. No speakers were ever large enough. No amplifier had enough RMS watts. No preamp had enough signal to noise. I dreamt of those large reel to reel tape machines, but lived on an 8-track budget.

Fast forward to 2008 where “hi-fidelity” is a nostalgic concept and the world has no choice but endure the crappy sound of mp3s. Even the vanishing CD sounds bad – mixed for the optimization of the mp3.

I’m surprised that this mass lowering of audio expectations hasn’t generated a wealth of alternatives. Where are the audiophile entrepreneurs? Well here’s at least one: The Tape Project.

These guys use original masters to create copies on 15ips, 1/4″ half track stereo tape. The claim is that the sound is as close to being in the recording studio as you’ll ever get. Of course these don’t come cheap. Each “album” comes on two large reels for $200. Apparently the cost of the blank tape alone is $100.

You’ll also need a machine. A refurbished Ampex deck will run you at least $10,000. The audiophiles also recommend that you use tube amplifiers. Your cheap Chinese-built iPod is probably blushing with shame right about now.

Finally, don’t expect the latest Crazy Frog or Timbaland in the Tape Project catalog. There’s currently 10 offerings – mostly jazz and classical. Some great bets though include Bill Evans’ Waltz For Debby, Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus, and Robert Cray’s False Accusations.

All I need now is $10,600, and I’ll be able to write a music review!

[tags]The-Tape-Project, ATR, Reel-to-reel-tape, ipods, mp3-poor-quality[/tags]

Popularity: 23%

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Gadgets, User Experience ATR, ipods, mp3-poor-quality, Reel-to-reel-tape, The-Tape-Project

Forget everything you learned on Dragon’s Den and come hear the truth about VC financing. EventBrite is hosting a VC Roundtable event in Ottawa on April 16th. Featured speaker is Rick Segal – VC with JL Albright, SuperBlogger, and the man who brought us Chapters Online!

The event is free, located in a pub (The Clock Tower), and limited to 25 attendees.

BTW – JLA Ventures’ Toronto office has the most amazing view of the harbour, while the Clock Tower’s basement has a pretty good view of some beer taps!
[tags]VC-Roundtable, VCs, Rick-Segal, JLAVentures[/tags]

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Business, Events JLAVentures, Rick-Segal, VC-Roundtable, VCs

Long ago… if you were able to remove the label from a beer bottle – intact, it either proved you were a virgin, or brought you “sexual luck”. With Oxford Landing’s new labels, removing them won’t be as tricky! The idea behind the tear-away tabs is you’ll be able to remember and track your favourite wines.

Simple yet cool innovation!

via The DieLine

[tags]Wine-labels[/tags]

Popularity: 19%

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Innovation, User Experience Wine-labels

Burning Man 2007 – Apocalypse Stagecoach

According to the Whois lookup results from InterNIC it is said that God.org will expire on Saturday May 24 2008! For those of you who are not prepared for the world to end in less than 65 days, you might be relieved to hear that God.net will keep going until March 2011. Even better yet, God’s commercial site God.com is not set to expire until July 12 2014.

That’s well past the cataclysmic end date of the Mayan calendar which pegs it as December 21 2012. However, this probably only means the end of the 13th baktun period, not the end of the world. Well, I hope that clears things up for all. I’d say we should have enough time left before the end to enjoy this year’s Burning Man Festival and to also check out the puppet shows at the wonderful Apocalypse Stagecoach site.

[tags]end-of-the-world[/tags]

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Events end-of-the-world

The USPTO published a patent application from Apple today describing a “three-dimensional display system.” Pretty soon that Meatloaf video on your ipod will scream out at ya like a 3-D bat out of hell!

According to Apple:

Recent developments in computers and computer graphics have made spatial 3D images more practical and accessible. The computational power now exists, for example, for desktop workstations to generate stereoscopic image pairs quickly enough for interactive display. At the high end of the computational power spectrum, the same technological advances that permit intricate object databases to be interactively manipulated and animated now permit large amounts of image data to be rendered for high quality 3D displays.

There is also a growing appreciation that two-dimensional projections of 3D scenes, traditionally referred to as “3D computer graphics”, can be insufficient for inspection, navigation, and comprehension of some types of multivariate data. Without the benefit of 3D rendering, even high quality images that have excellent perspective depictions still appear unrealistic and flat. For such application environments, the human depth cues of stereopsis, motion parallax, and (perhaps to a lesser extent) ocular accommodation are increasingly recognized as significant and important for facilitating image understanding and realism.

[tags]Apple, 3-D-Displays[/tags]

Popularity: 30%

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Gadgets, Media, Patents, User Experience 3-D-Displays, Apple

The Dow’s VentureSource released this report yesterday stating that US investment in web 2.0 companies grew 88% in 2007 over 2006 to $1.43 billion. It warns investors that investment in this sector may have peaked because the total number of deals only increased by 25%. DJ also expresses a concern that Facebook is the hungry gorilla in the bunch – accounting for 22% of the total 2007 investment.

So what does the Dow Jones consider a “web 2.0″ company?

Companies included in this study
have a business model that revolves around a dynamic interface facilitating
participation through such methods as user-created content, networking, and
collaboration. Applications include podcasting, tagging, blogs, social
networking, mashups, and wikis. Technologies used in these applications
include: AJAX, RSS, SOA, CSS, XHTML, Atom, and rich Internet applications.

[tags]Dow-Jones, VCs, Web2.0[/tags]

Popularity: 33%

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Business, Web 3.0 Dow-Jones, VCs, Web2.0