If someday the lead singer of German rock band MIA., Ms Mieze Katz, decides to leave music business, she could easily open up her own motivation camp. I can’t remember seeing a person spreading so much positivity over thousands of people like she did last night at their concert here in Vienna.
Certainly one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen!
One highlight of their show, both tour and album are called “Zirkus” btw, was her artistic trapeze act. Nice to watch and considering that she’s no acrobat and learned it only for the show it was quite impressive. See yourself…
[youtube aPjDCbdlK_U]
The Telegraph article Terrorists ‘use Google maps to hit UK troops’ sadly reads like a bad joke:
Soldiers from the Royal Green Jackets based at the Basra Palace base said they had considered suing Google Earth if they were injured by mortar rounds that had been directed on the camp by the aerial footage.
Is the army seriously thinking about suing a mapping service because they got attacked in a war?? Can’t be true…
Update
Stefan from Ogle Earth has posted an excellent analysis of the story.
Yet another proof to read support documents more carefully:
This week I received an invitation for The Venice Project™ and tried to install the client software under Parallels on my MacBook. Vainly, as it turned out…
Does The Venice Project™ work on the Mac or Linux?
We’re working hard on a native Macintosh Intel version and expect it to be available in the next few months. Currently the application works fine under Bootcamp but not under Parallels; it needs to access the graphics processing unit (GPU) for some of its operations, and Parallels does not support that at the moment.
A Linux version is also in the works.
The recently launched Austrian public transport directions search named Scotty (german only) has been slightly updated (via Interaction Blog):
By clicking the buttons Karte right next to the search form fields, a map will open where users are able to pinpoint their start and end addresses. So no need to enter the addresses any longer, keep your hand on the mouse and ask Scotty by clicking on maps.
I prefer that method a lot over entering addresses and then getting options of possible addresses because of misspellings or double street and place names.
There is still some potential for usability improvement left: it would be easier to merge the currently two necessary steps into a single one by showing only one map where users can pinpoint both, start and end point. And of course, a bit more fancy AJAX mapping would be nice in 2007 too…
Sometimes creative industry does live up to its name. A friend sent me this beautiful TV ad:
[youtube 7hV37GXyEEY]
See in the making of how to splash around 70.000l color:
[youtube 754BNILQaXc]
Everybody talks about it, the much anticipated Apple iPhone!
I just had a quick look at the Quicktime movies on the website and this thing must be a true masterpiece of interaction design! Unfortunately it won’t hit European stores before Q4 2007. So enough time to safe up some gadget-budget for Christmas 2007…
I’m pretty proud that a map we did before the Christmas holidays appeared today in an Austrian newspaper. It wasn’t a big deal at all, just collecting data from eligible federal states and visualize it in a single image. More interesting was the sensible political aspect of the content. The map basically shows the allocation of 680 mill. EUR regional aid across Austrian municipalities. So it means a lot for regional development if a municipality is colored or not.
However, the certainly talented designer of the newspaper deleted the legend, changed some colors, reduced the source information and therefore added a questionable 3D effect. Actually there is not so much left of our map…
Like every year right before the infamous Macworld Expo in San Francisco, many rumors about what’s next coming out of Apple’s pipe are making the round. As Mac user it’s pretty hard to stay out of this circus.
Anyways, especially this rumor, about integrating GPS technology in Apple products and making their devices sort of location aware, has called my attention.
What could it mean?
GPS technology, besides its use in industry and in-car navigation systems, is currently an alpha geek gadget. There are a few early adopters, like the geocaching scene or OSM, who enjoy playing around with GPS. But it’s still a small user group and not ready for the mass market.
As seen many times before, Apple’s marketing department can easily stamp the word COOL on a product and turn an alpha geek gadget into a lifestyle product.
I think if Apple would suddenly start integrating GPS in Mac OS X or any other Apple product, it would
- bring considerable attention from the entertainment sector to that technology,
- probably trigger development of new (entertaining) GPS applications and
- GPS would definitely become a COOL thing.
So, this year again, I’m anxiously looking to San Francisco on Tuesday.
In times where appearance and self-marketing have become indispensable, well demonstrated by a certain Austrian minister (even though he obviously doesn’t need to read the entire article before quoting it on TV), I would suggest our honorable president a face-lift. Nothing serious, no plastic surgery, just a few modifications on his outfit. Maybe towards a more martial style.
Like the stencil on left for instance. Dark cop sunglasses and stars on the shoulder seem to suit him very well!
I’ll see on Yahoo! Maps to find the dopest route. I prefer MapQuest. That’s a good one too. Google Maps is the best. True that. Double true!
…and more in this hilarious lazy sunday skit!
[youtube SRkFW1gjeL8]
