Computerlove™

Mobilia fireplace

Alexa

The ash and inox Mobilia fireplace from Alaxa uses bioethanol, which does not produce any smoke, gas, soot or ash. The flame can be viewed from both sides of the fireplace on wheels, which is easily moved.

via:Moco Loco

New Kleber work for November

We may be quiet, but we keep pushing 'em out:

Nest gets some more Kleber love.

Novation Music gets the Kleber treatment

Pressure Sounds gets a timely(ish) redesign

Robots inspired by animals

via: New Scientist

Walk2Web

This might even be a re-post, but it´s surely fun enough to deserve a re-visit...just pop your website into the form and check your linkage :) Turn your speakers loud ;)

Walk 2 Web
Cpluv at Walk2web www.cpluv.com

Earthrise and Earthset from lunar orbit.

To those with an ego problem, you better check this out to remember how insignificant you really are.
This is truly the beginning of a new chapter in space exploration, with plans to build a permanent Lunar base before 2020 and with Japanese, Chinese spacecraft already orbiting the moon.

Full article here.

Somewhere over the mountains

Tony Espeset from Electric Oyster developed this amazing Flash 3D engine that allows you to fly over the moutains. Put on your anorak and click here.

Typeflash

Typeflash make for you animated typefaces designed by Peter Vajda. Is already awarded by WDA and DOPE. I love the German version of the type.

Seeker

Seeker Images + Info - Seeker Video lx.sysx.org/?page_id=64

The Myth of Web 2.0

As controversial as this title might sound, the more I think of it and the less far from the truth I believe it to be.

Much is made, particularly these days in advertising agency and marketing circles, of Web 2.0. Browsing through job adverts, and I'm confronted with the requirement to be a supposed 'Web 2.0 expert' for certain job roles. Though I agree those of us in the industry should be fluent in current methods of using the internet or its emerging technologies, referring to it by its buzzword isn't doing anyone any favours.

Web 1.x

Wikipedia's article on Web 2.0 opens with:

'Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. The term became popular following the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the internet. According to Tim O'Reilly, "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."'

As avant garde and cutting edge as this so-called revolution might sound, it's actually pretty old hat. Most of what we use on a daily basis on the net is really just an extension of what many people were already doing in the days of the acoustic coupler modem. Remember the BBS? That's early information exchange and collaboration. ICQ in the 1990s? Same thing. The whole point of the modern, publicly-accessible internet was to facilitate these things, and that's exactly how people have been using it, from the early days up to now. Fundamentally, the internet's raison d'être was to make information sharing and collaboration on a massive scale, that crossed and ignored physical borders, as easy as anything else. What is a blog other than a 2000s version of the 1990s website guest book implementation, where someone would post content and others would comment on it? And what about sound, video, Flash and user-generated content? It's more refined, but we were still doing it ten years ago, with exactly the same goals in mind.

Getting The Story Straight

Part of what makes the whole idea of Web 2.0 the myth that it is, is the fact that no-one seems to agree on what Web 2.0 actually is. Much like people of different religious persuasions who can't agree on the nature of god, there is no single common agreement on what Web 2.0 stands for. To developers, it represents new scripting and server-side technologies, such as Ajax; to network administrators, it's a workflow platform they have to manage like their servers' OS; to advertisers and marketers, it's a new way of reach an audience that have been exhibiting similar internet usage behaviours (albeit with antiquated technologies) for — at the very least — the last ten years.

The key in all of these cases is this: the ways and means to access this supposed Web 2.0 marvel are precisely and exactly the same in 2007 as it was in 1997. You need a mouse, you need a keyboard, you need a monitor and you still need a modem. You still need to access this wonderful new, revolutionary content over HTTP. Developers and content providers still need to upload the same through FTP.

How the Myth Was Born

Users, from the very beginning of the internet, knew exactly what its potential was, in terms of making the world smaller in very real terms and how to exploit the inherent power of information exchange. Advertisers knew that a gold mine was there, if it was exploited properly. However, those of us in the advertising agencies made a crucial mistake: we didn't grab the opportunities given to us at the right time. The web — specifically, its users — outpaced the advertising industry in the way it was being used to a degree that it took us several years to properly grasp what was going on and to figure out how to go beyond the venerable banner advert. Second Life was already long established and in full swing (in internet years, anyway) before the advertising industry asked itself how it could be exploited. And this is where the Web 2.0 myth really began; not with O'Reilly's 2004 proclamation, but with the industry in which many of us work finally getting it. Thus, we had to dress it up and sell it, but for once, the ordinary user was way ahead of us on this one.

Did We Screw Up?

Not so much. We might have been late finally realising how the internet was actually being used, and how to take advantage of that, but as the expression goes, 'better late than never'. Indeed, many of our clients — I think we can all agree — have been perfectly willing to accept our recos to add blogs and community-building features on their web presences, and to take advantage of interesting new technology, as well as other aspects of the modern internet known as Web 2.0. However, to the long-time users who have been exploring all of these things long before we caught on, I think there's a lot of laughter in our direction.

We'd best stop using the buzzword.

What Will Web 2.0 Be?

As exciting as Vint Cerf's idea of extending the actual framework of the internet into space might be, it's not Web 2.0 either, because the way one would access it remains the same. No, the real Web 2.0 is going to be frightening in many ways, largely because it will become perceptual and truly experiential. As Gibsonian as that sounds, I think it's really the natural evolution of how we access the sheer flood of information, content and other data already available, and that's when the real new Web will manifest itself, in the way we get to it. Whether it's by direct neural link or by other means is up for a debate by people far more qualified than me to speculate, but I do know this:

If advertisers and designers and other content producers are to stay relevant, we collectively need to be less shy or even dismissive of new technology, trends and usage habits, and embrace them where they make sense for our clients, at a time that makes equal sense.

Source: pdeniger