LEGO is celebrating 50 years of selling their iconic chunks of plastic in Australia with the Festival of Play. The latest attraction starts next week with 10 unique pieces of brick art being installed along Macquarie St, Sydney, to brighten up the winter streets.
Here’s a cute, and really quite excellent, video telling how LEGO was first introduced to Australia.
What I was trying to find was a newly released PC-on-a-stick mentioned by Engadget today. $74 for a computer little bigger than a USB-stick. I’m not even sure why I’d need one beyond the thought that there has to be something I could do with one of these.
Anyway I then got completely and entirely distracted by the Ali Express site: ‘Buy direct from China’. It’s just like the market in an Asian city taken online. There is so much stuff in a wide range from cheap, to cheap and weird. From a $15 3D model of the Opera House to a $89 outdoor misting system to keep your patio cool. It’s very hard to stay focused on the job in hand when wandering these virtual isles.
But where I got really stuck, really really stuck, was the advertisement for Brazilian virgin human hair. I mean, who knew it was possible to buy something like this online?
Of course if you don’t want some poor Brazilian woman’s hair in a wig you could always go the geeky route and use Lego.
Hey, you know a couple of days ago I penned a letter to Telstra complaining about a few things. Well I just got an email entitled: “Your Telstra Experience. You speak, we’ll listen.”
Cool, I thought, someone’s really paying attention here. That’s service for you. I complain about their poor service and annoying approach to asking for feedback and within a couple of days I have a response.
Or a letter asking for feedback…
Just sigh.
And, by the way, I think it’s interesting that the Telstra logo colour chosen for this message is green. When I bought my SIM the branding was all a go-getting, cool blue. Now when they are looking for feedback it’s moved to a lovely calming green. This is an organisation that leaves nothing, except perhaps its actual service, to chance.
The Sydney Morning Herald uses the first few pages of today’s edition to announce AirLink – a way of linking to additional information from the paper using photographs.
So you download the latest SMH app from the App Store. Find a photo in the paper marked with the AirLink logo and fire up AirLink from within the SMH app. Point your iPhone’s camera at the photo and it will recognise what you are looking at and pull in additional information such as videos or pictures. From a technical point of view this is presumably using a picture-recognition facility similar to, or the same as, that used by augmented reality programs such as Aurasma. The clever bit is the fuzzy recognition of the picture rather than using a more explicit link like a QR-code.
I quite like the idea here. In theory you don’t need to print anything explicit on the page, all the work is done electronically. The page can be designed simply for best presentation rather than to include links. Of course they will need to print the AirLink logo all over the place to indicate which photos it will work with: But that’s one static logo, which I guess will shrink in size over time as people become used to seeing it.
The process appears to work quite well, although it is a bit unforgiving if you don’t get yourself aimed at the picture correctly. One of the pictures I tried it on required you to frame just a bit of a larger picture. I failed to do it correctly several times and each time had to start from scratch rather than just re-framing the bit required for AirLink. Not a big deal, but lacking a bit of polish.
The real test here though will not be the technology, which is pretty much well-tested in other applications. The test is whether the SMH editors can use the technology to add real value to the newspaper experience. Once the initial thrill of using the technology because it is new has worn off, it will entirely come down to AirLink leading to worthwhile content.
Note if you are downloading the app, AirLink is a pretty popular name. You actually want the SMH app which, sadly, gets pretty badly reviewed in the iTunes Store.
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No matter how geeky I am it sometimes just amazes me how much information is freely available in the world today. I’ve recently spent some time recently playing with the RTA’s Live Traffic website and app.
I started out looking for cameras showing traffic conditions around Sydney and the site certainly has those available for the major spots. But it has much more than that too. There’s notification of accidents and road works in real-time. There are indications of traffic-flow conditions on major roads. You can also superimpose your standard Google Maps journey-planning over all this.
Live Traffic is updated by the minute and has a series of Twtter feeds pushing updates out (rather sweetly, the site explains that Twitter “is a real-time information network made up of instant messages called Tweets.”).
The iPhone app does much the same things with cameras and map views. If you are interested in the app get the free one called “Live Traffic NSW” – there’s another one just called “Live Traffic” which you pay for and which is another thing entirely. A separate mobile site caters for other phones.
I’m happy that all this information is available should I want to use it, especially for free. But would I use it?
If I was a regular commuter I might find all this useful as long as I had an easily accessible alternative route to switch to in case of problems. So if I have a look before leaving home and see congestion on my primary route, I could decide to go another way. That, however, seems unlikely to happen a lot. If I was stuck in a traffic jam it might be useful to be able to find out what’s going on and, perhaps, get some idea of when the jam might clear. Of course for that to work I’d have to be looking at my phone in the car which might not be the most brilliant, or legal, idea.
So I’m struggling to find the information as useful as its first blush indicates. But if you’re the sort of person for whom this would be useful information, the website and app are just great. I’d certainly recommend popping the free app onto your phone just in case.
Thinking about it though, what I would really like to see is not the real-time information but historical information. I’d love to be able to see average travel time on major roads by time and date, how many accidents there are on the Bridge, things like that which would demonstrate how the road network is running over time. But that, I would imagine, is not driven by technology allowing access to information – the roadblock there would be all about politics.
Image: Australian Museum.
June the 16th will see the opening of the Australian Museum’s Deep Oceans Exhibition. The exhibition sounds very interesting especially as it focuses on those deep-sea creatures that, for some reason, always generate an atavistic shiver up the spine.
I love the fact the Exhibition website features a blog with background information on the creation of the models and exhibits. Even if, for some peculiar reason, you’re not that interested in the deep oceans, it’s fascinating to see how the models are crafted.
According to the advertising, highlights of the exhibition include:
Full details at: http://www.deepoceans.com.au and, if you have a moment, ponder the rather surreal introductory video.
In a sort of related idea, the following picture has been bopping about the interwebs. It shows what would happen if you took all the water in the world and rolled it up into a single sphere and did the same with all the air. Thought provoking.
Image: ADAM NIEMAN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
A man walks into a bar… he pulls out his iPhone and listens to an excerpt from a book as part of the Sydney Writers Festival competition. Hmmm… not bad but the punchline lacks a certain something; it’s just not as funny as the one about the atom.
So a couple of weeks ago I reviewed the absolutely excellent Sydney Writers’ Festival app. My only gripe was the inclusion of a button labelled ’Play’ which did nothing: Well now it does.
The app has been updated to include a game “enticing audiences to the heart of Sydney’s coolest bars. Part bar hop, part book quiz, the Sydney Writers’ Festival iPhone game challenges you to unlock some of the stories of the 15th Sydney Writers’ Festival.”
Players receive a map with the location of four bars in central Sydney. When the player goes to one of the bars, stories held within the app become unlocked. Each ‘story’ is an audio excerpt from a recent book by a Sydney Writers Festival author. Listening to these stories enables iPhone users to enter the Sydney Writers’ Festival competition by working out which author and book the story comes from.
Overall it’s a clever idea. The game fits in well with the private/public/secrets theme; it’s a good use of the medium in that it actually makes use of the iPhone’s GPS; and it’s simple enough to be fun. And on another level it’s basically a pub crawl made clever, so there’s little room for it to go wrong. So yet again kudos to the designers for coming up with something interesting.
Oh and the funny geek joke… An atom walks into a bar, sits on a stool and breaks down in tears. The bartender comes over and asks what’s the matter. “I think I just lost an electron.” says the atom. The bartender asks, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “Yes, I’m positive.” Boom, boom.
Dear Telstra,
I’m writing to tell you that your cornerstone is crumbling. According to your website:
Satisfying our customers… is the cornerstone of our business. We want to stand out for superior customer satisfaction.
Well, my dear Telstra, it just isn’t working. But I think you already know that. Hey, the volume of dissatisfaction with your customer service is deafening. So that’s not really what I’m writing about.
No, I have one specific gripe, beyond the cavalier way you spend my time in any interaction. Beyond the fact that the first person I speak to never seems to be able to help. Beyond the interminable waits on hold. Beyond all those things. No, my gripe is the fact that you ask my opinion at the end of the call.
After spending another frustrating 30 minutes trying to get a simple problem fixed yesterday, the final very charming person ended the call by asking me to wait on the line and answer two simple questions about the call. I did so and found myself firmly fixed on the horns of a dilemma.
Did I give positive feedback about the last person I spoke to, who was perfectly pleasant and sorted my problem in a matter of minutes? Or did I rate the overall call which was annoying, frustrating and time-wasting? If I left negative feedback that would make me feel better; but would that, then, negatively impact on a performance appraisal for the last person I spoke to? But if I left positive feedback in the hope of doing the final person a favour, would Telstra use that as evidence of the high satisfaction in which their customers hold their customer service? You see the problem? The very fact you asked me for a simplistic response to a complex problem has left me even more frustrated and annoyed.
So I did the only logical thing: I opted for the third way. I hung up.
And you know what’s left me truly, really frustrated? Because I was calling on my iPhone I didn’t even get the satisfaction of slamming down the handset!
The Narnia Exhibition is … not bad.
I start from a position where I have little interest in seeing a range of props, so I’m a critical audience. I thought the Star Wars Exhibition a couple of years ago did a fine job of melding props, fun and science – and that remains my benchmark for this sort of thing. I thought Harry Potter was all props and nothing much else. Narnia has a bit of a bet each way.
There are a range of costumes and props from the movies. The treasure-room is pretty good as are the ice-queen’s various bits of equipment. If you are a movie fan there’s certainly enough there to keep you interested.
The interaction is pretty lightweight – it will appeal mostly to younger children. The one thing that sounds particularly cool in the advertising – firing a catapult at the castle walls – actually is pretty cool but you only get to watch someone doing it. Otherwise you can build an arch, and lift some armour; that sort of thing. Probably the most inventive display is the frozen waterfall. There’s a large wall which is extremely reminiscent of the back wall of an old fridge. There’s no defrosting on this baby, so you end up with a wall covered in light frost. That one really showed some imagination and was a big hit with everyone.
There is some science too. At least, there are some videos and panels making a nod to the fact that the Exhibition is taking place in a science museum. So, for example, they draw a conceptual line between the perpetual winter in Narnia and global warming. Good they’ve done it, but there is a feel that they are stretching a bit. There’s also some irony in an author creating a work that in some degree makes comment on the world about us, that book being made into a movie and then someone else writing stuff to use the movie to make comment on the world around us. Makes the old head spin.
So where does all this take us? If you are into Narnia, the Exhibition is definitely worth a visit. If you more just interested in seeing a big show I’d probably hesitate for a moment before forking out $45 for a family of four. That said, I just checked with my kids and they rated the exhibition far more highly than I did (which is not as often the case as you might assume) and would definitely tell their friends to go. So overall we’d recommend stepping through the wardrobe.
If you do decide to go, it’s worth remembering that the Exhibition is really about the first two movies rather than the books, and you’ll benefit from taking a look at them again before setting out. Also if you’re taking kids be careful with expectation management – the only place you see Aslan is in the advertising.
The opening event, by the way, was not so hot (and I admit may have coloured our view of the whole thing). Herded into a side-room where we were offered a small range of finger-food while standing around for most of an hour while a few good actors struggled to entertain the kids – what were they thinking? Quite a few people talked longingly of the opening of the Star Wars Exhibition back in the day. I do so wish the Powerhouse would lift its game.
In news just in… Apparently we geeks are holding an election and it has driven the Australian dollar down. Geek power!
