Iphone friendly version of this blog cast42

Apple's Iphone and Ipod Touch can render this blog using mobile Safari out of the box. Unfortunatly, this might not really what you want. Webservice DoYouFeed.com allows for for an Iphone friendly rendering. Fill in the feed address of your blog, choose a theme and click. Et voila, a link to an iphone optimized rendering appears. You can see the result for this blog at http://tinyurl.com/4cgap6 . It looks like this :

Attending Google Developers Days in London

Google is doing a tour around Europe to get into contact with the developers. Today, I'm attending the developer day in London at the Wembley station. More later.

Added Google Followers to this blog

Google has released a feature that allows you to subscribe to a blog and appear in a public list of all other followers of it. More info by Ionut Alex Chitu on his Google Operating System blog. As an experiment, I added this feature to my cast42 blog. Currently, it looks like this:

A bit sad, zero followers. Probably, this fact, that you have to start from zero, will hamper the adoption of this new feature. Who likes to admit there are no followers ? Secondly, I now have to take the risc that no people are willing to follow cast42 via this new feature. That's a kind of social popularity test. Let's hope that you, yes you, my dear vistors, quickly change that for me ;-) If not, i will have move the followers gadget down under the horizon on the sidebar of this blog and eventually remove it if this social feature doesn't gain traction. So lets see what happens.

UPDATE Sunday 7 september 2008, 21u51: Thx to Hendrik the count changed from zero to one. And you can follow yourself. So now we are with two.

Spore arrived in Belgium, workaround for @ sign on mac

After years of salivation, dreaming and projecting, the mother of all games finally arrived. I just walked into the Fnac of Leuven in Belgium and bought the galactic version for 64,99 euros (the standard version was 54,99 euros). My collegues warned me that I was expecting so much from the game that I could be nothing else but dissappointed. However after the first few hours of play I'm still very excited by the game. It could very well be that Will Wright and his team created another master piece.

Installation on the iMac went smooth. Registration didn't succeed. First, the bug that prevents entering the @ sign on a belgian / belgium keyboard was not solved yet. Just pressing the key with the @ sign doesn't work. A workaround is to use another key shortcut. Type the option ⌥ key and the ` key (that's the key left of the enter key and above the shift key on the right, the superscript is the £ sign). That resolved entering the email addres but then Spore refused to register. Trying a previous account created with the Spore creature editor also failed. Probably, the Spore servers are overwhelmed. Lukily, you can start to play. My seven years old son claim: "dad, this is much better then runescape" !

UPDATE: sunday 7 september 2008:19u30, I got an confirmation mail from EA stating that my registration was successful.

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

presented by Michael Wesch at the Library of Congress, June 23rd 2008. He decided to forgo the PowerPoint and instead worked with students to prepare over 40 minutes of video for the 55 minute presentation. This is the result:

An anthropological introduction to YouTube
I already builded the insight that it's not technology that shapes the future. More important is what people do or don't do with it. It is basically the message of Clay Shirky's book "Here comes everybody". Still I found the video of Michael Wesch presentation more insightfull if you're interested in media as cultural and social phenomenon.

More info: http://mediatedcultures.net

QR codes for mobile tagging

A "Quick Response" or QR code is an image that can be decoded into an text. It's like a two-dimensional barcode. Here's an example:

Scanning this picture resolves into the URL of this blog: http://castfortwo.blogspot.com .

This kind of pictures are typically used for tagging. Add the QR code picture to a thing, take a picture of the thing, decode the picture on the thing and there's the text. For example, a link to a website with product information.
You can make your QR code yourself here : http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

Using the Google Chart API, you can also generate QR codes. The URL

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=300x300&alt;cht=qr&alt;chl=Hello|World

generates a QR code for "Hello World":


Changing the parameter chl to the URL of this blog:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=300x300&alt;cht=qr&alt;chl=http://castfortwo.blogspot.com/

gives:


Every BBC programme has also an QR code. Just add /qrcode to the URL.
For example, the URL of the Top Gear programme is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj59
Adding /qrcode gives:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj59/qrcode

which render to:


There are several free applications on the iphone that can decode QR codes:

• Barcode


• NeoReader


• iDecode


• 2D Sense

Several other mobile phones have such application to.

The BBC has even succeeded in tampering the QR code for the bbb.co.uk/programes URL such that the BBC text is clearly readable:

Eric Schmidt at the Management Lab Summit

The ceo of Google, Eric Smidt, was announced to speak at a management summit on May 29, 2008. But instead of speaking he just opens the floor for questions. If you're interested in innovation, this "converstation" is a must see.

Video: Eric Schmidt at the Management Lab Summit

Dilemma

Nice short movie:



Dilemma

About brands, strategy and innovation

I'm often involved with strategy and innovation affairs of the public broadcaster that employs me. But branding was something I walked around and left to the professionals. Since I saw the presentation of Marty Neumeier titled "Brand Gap: how to bridge the distance between business strategy and design" :

it all ties together. Strategy, branding and innovation fit into a bigger picture. Thank you Marty for providing your presentation. I'm considering buying your books.

New 2.0 firmware for Ipod Touch

I'm a happy owner of an Apple Ipod Touch 16GB. Today, the new Iphone 3G is launched. With it comes new firmware. The firmware is also available for the Ipod Touch. You can buy it for 10 dollar. Iphone firmware 2.0 is for free (meaning Apple is getting 10 bucks from you in an other way). I bought the 2.0 version because my employer uses Exchange. Until now I was using Google but small details prevent me to transparently interact with my work collegues.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Before you upgrade to version 2.0 you must upgrade Itunes to 7.7. One of the nice features, that comes with Itunes 7.7 is that it allows syncing your Google Mail contacts with those in Addresbook and on the Ipod in both ways. Just connect the Ipod with the USB cable to your labtop, fire up Itunes and go to the info tab :

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Now we have to wai untile the Itunes server become available. It seems they are flooded massively by al the new iphones. Let's hope Apple sorts this out soon.

No download mac version of Spore Creature Editor

UPDATE sunday 14 september 2008, 22u08: A download of the complete Spore game for mac is available here : http://www.gametreeonline.com/product.php?productid=16168
(Thx, matt)


UPDATE za 21 juni 2008, 11u30: A download version will become available by Gametree (hopefully soon).

Being delighted with EA's Spore Creature Editor free demo (I excuse them for the bugs), I preordered the full version for 6,99 euro. When the transaction was cleared, I got an email with a download url of the PC version instead of the MAC version. Moreover, it turned out that I had to use EA download manager that is only availble for PC. Today, I got an EA support mail stating that the full version of the EA Spore Editor is only for PC. Lukily, they kindly suggest a refund. I guess EA is more concerned with the Take-2 takeover than building support for games on mac.
Fortunately, this is now cleary indicated on the spore website (it was not when I preordered the full editor):

No download mac version is available. Only the box version is for mac.

Spore Creature Editor Demo is available

Here you can download the free demo of the Spore Creature Editor. This is what my nine years old son made:


I preordered the full version of the Spore Creature Editor for 6,99 euro. For the moment, I can't find the download link. I think it has something to do with the clearance of my visa card.

Also in the free demo, I could not type the @ sign. Very inconvenient because you need to enter an emaik adress to register. This does not work from an Belgian keyboard. A first i8n bug ??

Making popcorn with a gsm is a spoof

Also three bananas are extremely dangerous ;-) :

(thx, bnox for the tip)

The gsm-popcorn movies are viral marketing from a bluetooth vendor Cardo Systems:

How to make popcorn with a GSM ?

On youtube,

four people phone to four GSM phones that lie around some corn seeds. As a result of the GSM's going off, the seeds turn into popping popcorn. Peter Van De Veire, a popular radiomaker in Flanders Belgium, conducted the same experiment :
but corns stayed corns. Did the radiostation stubru something wrong or are the youtube movies spoofs ? I think they are but I'm not sure. The question is relevant because lot of people will takes those popping popcorns as proof the GSM harm our body. And that conclusion is entirely unscientific.

Violin virtuoso plays a theme from Zelda Ocarina of Time

Blogmeet leuven

I went to the blogmeet in leuven on saturday 24 may 2008. I encountered Dries en Carolien, the guys's from Stew, Pietel, Maarten Schenk, lime, boskabout, kikkertje-s and some other people. You can find reactions about the event here (in Dutch). The event matched a pattern: newly formed online networks leads to the urge to meet offline. The offline meeting grows the online community. I saw that with the online communities formed around the TV formats "Debby and Nancy" and "Emma". Similarly, I belong somehow to the network of blogger in Leuven and was interested to meet them.

"VRT and 3D" slides presented at Multimania 08

On Friday 23 may 2008, I was invited to talk at Multimania 08. Here are the slides that I presented:

| View | Upload your own

Speaking at multi-mania '08 in Kortrijk

Next, Friday 23 may 2008, the multi-mania one-day free conference is organized for the 8th time expecting about 800 attendees. The conference is targetted at multimedia addicts. I'm one of the 30 speakers invited from around the world (but actualy I was born in the place of the venue ;-) ). I'll present in Session 4 at 14u in the red room about the "VRT and 3D". I intend to tell about our virtual world in 3D for kids, ketnetkick, that has been recently launched in the UK by BBC as Adventure Rock. Next, I will elaborate why VRT is considering 3D virtual worlds and it's challenges for a public broadcaster (cost to make, flash crowds, from hard core to casual, ... Items discussed in a IBBT research project called Teleon.) I'll hope to see you there if you're interested but the organisation tells me that the session is already fully booked by 120 attendees. But maybe there will be some people that don't show up. So if you still have to sign up, there maybe still hope to get in.

Unboxing Nintendo Wii Fit

Some two weeks ago, I got an SMS that my preordered Wii Fit balance board had arrived. Here are some pictures when unboxing the new thing:





An yes, just in case you might dought, I set a goal to lose some weigth that was nicely met this weekend...

The Force Behind Star Wars: Turning Design Ideas into Reality

I just found this presentation and found it awesome. He refers to the book "Good to great" by Jim Collins in how to assemble teams. The book is from 2001 and reviews are not that enthousiastic. For the rest, a must see presentation! I hope I can find the links to the video fragments.

May that force be with you !

From: stephenpa, 5 months ago

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You’ve got an idea. Maybe it’s a new idea for a web application. Maybe it’s a new product idea you need to push through your organization. The question is: How do you turn an idea into reality?

To answer this question, we’ll look at the making of Star Wars. We’ll look behind the scenes at what it took to get George Lucas’s space fantasy from script to screen. From assembling the right team to navigating the Hollywood corporate studio environment to tapping into powerful universal patterns—this presentation suggests more than a dozen lessons UX designers (and developers!) can all learn from this adventure.


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