Adidas has launched a range of men’s trainers in the US that transform into a branded virtual world held in front of a computers web-cam.

The five different trainers will enable Adidas to introduce three games developed by game developer xForm into the virtual neighborhood. The games will include a skateboard game, where the trainer acts as the controller to navigate the virtual city’s alleys, along with a Star Wars themed game and music based game.

Last Monday Alberta Cross released their incredible debut LP, ‘Broken Side of Time’ and, with it, were the first band ever to use ‘Augmented Reality’ technology within their album artwork.

Lead vocalist Petter Stakee commented

“The album is pretty haunting in itself, we wanted the videos to show it and put that across” Stakee continues “Brantely and I talked about ideas to match the video with the music so he went to Salt On Sea in California, which looks like a ghost town that’s been blown up by a nuclear bomb to shoot the videos. It was on old posh Hollywood star’s getaway, they all bought houses there, and one night the whole place sunk into the sand because of a chemical reaction… Some of the old shit like old cars, houses, broken vinyl records are still there, half buried”

The content of each marker/code will be changed regularly and Alberta Cross will be uploading special videos, competitions and other content throughout the year, which will only be available to those who own the album artwork.
‘Broken Side of Time’ was released last Monday through Ark Recordings and

Did You Know 4.0?” has now been created for the Economist’s Media Convergence forum in October:

The original ‘Shift Happens‘ presentation by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman was turned into a video and uploaded to YouTube in June 2007. The video was then remixed and became a serious YouTube hit called ‘Did You Know?‘ and attracted over 6.5m views.

Intel’s latest campaign celebrates Geek’dom and Tech’head culture. This appeals to me – I take pride in being a geek – and although the wider audience may not immediately recognise the achievements of the ‘rock star’ engineers – and OK, the ‘rock star’ comparison is tired, and actually, are ‘rock stars’ cool anymore?  –  the overall treatment focuses on the Intel folks’ talent; their pride and their immersion in what they do -  this is communicated to everyone.

Microsoft’s 2019 Future Vision Montage: Envisioning the Future. This is an enticing show-reel; some beautifully visualised themes and ideas. If only Microsoft could realise some of these ideas. Will they ever? Well, Microsoft Surface is a fully realised interactive experience…

There are warehouses full of them.  Poor little :CueCats™ motionless on dusty shelves fooled into believing Barcode scanning Nirvana was their destiny.  Alas the 1990’s :CueCat concept was a commercial failure. ‘CRQ’ (a word play on ’see our cue‘) is software developed by Digital:Convergence intended to convert ‘Cues’ from television signals and the :Cuecat bar code reader into URLs.   Apple laptopPro users are using ‘declawed’ :CueCats with the movie/book/music catalogs program Delicious Library.  They can also use the :CueCat with the Pedia (Bookpedia, CDpedia, DVDpedia, Gamepedia) line of applications from Bruji.  Thanks to folks over at the Social Book Network LibraryThing it is now purring, clawing and devouring it’s way through my books with gusto.  I wish it’s tail would wag…

Starting with a raft of digital marketing, web-build and film work for Graham Coxon, the time is nigh to launch a company: head, heart and feet first – curled up foetal position – into the crunch. We Are Humans.

MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables – cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?

The “Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop” scheme on European Amazon outlets has made the XO model available at a £268 cost. Buy one and receive one – the other will be donated to a school child in a developing nation.

When it was launched the XO originally cost $188, but 650,000 have now been sold, OLPC claims. Children in Peru, Mongolia, Rwanda, Haiti, Afghanistan,  Cambodia, Ethiopia and Iraq are already using them.

According to The Telegraph:

“OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte revealed the plan to extend the scheme, run in America last November and December, in a speech to the World of Health IT Conference in Copenhagen. The company will be hoping to sell more than the 190,000 units it sold then, because its deal with Amazon should make the units more visible to consumers who might already for shopping for similar ‘netbook’ style machines.”

The project has become mired in controversy and sold fewer machines than it initially anticipated. Unfortunately rival companies and changing technology trends have also made the company’s core XO model less unique than it was when first mooted. It is a brave and visionary idea. I really feel the European Goverments should be more proactive with initiatives like this – a much worthier cause than The Millennium Dome…