So you reckon you can run as fast as an Olympic Marathon runner do you?

Well after watching this you might think again. For the 2011 New York Marathon people in New York were given the chance to see if they could keep up with Olympic Athlete Ryan Hall over just 60ft.

How on earth does someone keep this pace up for over 2hrs?

Stop the presses.
Microsoft finally produce a good advert for a great product!

Credit were credit is due I think, Kinect is pretty amazing (it sold twice as fast as the iPod when launched) and since being hacked is being used for some amazing things way out of the gaming sphere.

Check out kinecthacks.net to see how people are pushing the technology.

Nice behind the scenes video from The Mill NY. Mill Touch shows the creation of their interactive multi-touch, smart glass display showcasing The Mill’s body of work. Located in The Mill’s NY office it’s sure to impress clients.

My good friend Henry Iddon has been a busy boy of late, he’s been photographing across the globe from the wilds of Kendal, Mont Blanc in France, Iran all the way to China covering an incredible diverse range of subjects. He’s created a great portfolio of work which can be seen over at henryiddon.com.

He’s a multi talented chap is our Henry, he has been a member of the Great Britain Speed Skiing Team (pb 176kmh), has been involved in mountaineering exploits in Europe, Asia and Alaska, and has had success at an elite level as a racing cyclist.

He’s a thoroughly all round good bloke as well.

His personal work is held in collections by ; Kraszna-Krausz Collection, National Media Museum, UK; The North West Film Archive, Manchester Metropolitan University; Scottish National Screen Archive; George Eastman House, Rochester, USA; State Library of New South Wales, Australia; Banff Centre for Mountain Culture, Canada; Centre for Contemporary Photography, University of Arizona, USA.

Great digital evolution of the humble car brochure. Executed as an app (for iPhone and Android) that recognises traffic signs and transforms them into features of the new Punto Evo.

Take a picture of a regular road sign and the app recognises the sign if it was a QR code, it then associates each sign with a feature of the car directly related to that sign. The app also doubled up as a game where the user could find and win hidden prizes.

If you can get over the really cheesy voiceover it’s a nice idea!

A very nice infographic to start the week off!

I have discussed the rise of mobile platforms before on this blog (A mobile future) and this infographic takes a look at all the major digital networks and their current mobile user base. View more from JESS3 the original creators.

I have been researching mobile platform penetration for a couple of projects and pitches I have recently been working on. This also forms part of a series of future thought pieces I am creating concerning the development of the online experience that is evolving beyond the notion of a web site or single destination to include multiple touchpoints.

Here’s a couple of interesting points I have recently found:
• According to eMarketer the tablet market will grow 400% by 2012
• Mobile internet devices out sold computers in 2009 by 144 million units*
• It is predicted by 2012 more smartphones will be shipped than PC’s
• There are around 650 million 3G/3.5G subscribers worldwide**
• By 2013, people using their mobile device to search the Internet will overtake desktop Internet users for the first time

What does this mean?

Well, as consumers continue to expand their media consumption across a variety of devices and platforms marketers and advertisers will need to rethink measurement approaches and marketing strategies in order to engage with different audiences and deliver on their needs and behaviours.

* Source: Gartner, Jan 2010. Information week Dec 2009.
** Source: ChinaCCM.com

Alex Bogusky one of the world’s most awarded creative directors surprised many when he quit what he called, “the best job on the planet,” at his own agency CP+B to create his latest venture The Fearless Revolution.

This new venture sets out to explore new agreement between consumers and corporations.

A nice film exploring the principles behind the The Fearless Revolution and who wouldn’t want to go to work at the Fearless Cottage – great name!

I can’t wait to have a play with this new iPad app, LetterMpress: A Virtual Letterpress on Your iPad from bonadiescreative.com

This is a great project on two levels.
I think I am probably one of the last group of people to have had a traditional graphic design education. My initial introduction to design was using type gauge rulers, learning about pica m’s, drawing serifs and sans serifs with Rotring pens etc. lots of work training the eye to understand positive and negative spaces, lots of type paste-up work and using small letterpress machines. So I love rolling up the sleeves for a bit of hands on design work.

Also, before seeing this project I hadn’t heard of Kickstarter but what a fantastic idea!
If you don’t have funding for your dream project then Kickstarter enables you to reach out to the wider creative community to get them involved to help fund your project. Great projects from across the globe that before would never have seen the light of day are being funded and developed by very generous backers. Actually the generosity in these hard times is pretty staggering.

In the case of LetterMpress the project has received more than double it’s required funding within half the allotted time.

A great concept, great platform coupled with great support and backing.

Ever wondered how on earth some projects have been created?

If you’re a creative, designer, developer or techy working in one of the many creative disciplines then no doubt you will spend a good deal of your time researching campaigns, sites, virals, social media etc from your peers, competitors and rivals.

In my experience of working in agencies there are normally two responses to viewing other peoples work. The first and most common (if creatives and designers are involved) is unfortunately to go straight for the jugular and start pointing out flaws, describe in detail how badly it’s been executed, wonder if they didn’t have the budget to finish it or explain how you would have done it differently and obviously better.

The other response is to sit in awe, to call colleagues over, send an email and to say under your breath “I wish I’d thought of that” or “how on earth have they done that?”.

North Kingdom frequently fall into the latter category, they appear to have won just about every major award possible and now they’re giving everyone an insight into how much work they put into their projects. They’re obviously working with considerable budgets but there is no denying the amount of work and detail that is executed at every level.

If you have a bit of time to kill then I suggest you give their site a visit and have a good study of the behind the scenes.

Recently I’ve blogged a lot more about mobile devices, software, apps and in particular gesture driven technology and interfaces.

I am a fully signed up fan, champion and user of these devices and spend more time than is healthy researching and future thinking how all of these converging technologies and platforms will change what we currently perceive as digital.

All major hardware and software companies are now developing for mobile devices and the market is expanding at an incredible rate. You obviously have Apple with the iPad and Samsung with the Galaxy but both Blackberry and Microsoft are now taking serious considered steps into the tablet arena, and we know how much market share these brands currently enjoy.

MIcrosoft partnering with Samsung have developed the Surface technology into a very powerful platform. Microsoft also recently signed a deal with ARM and demonstrated it’s Windows OS running on ARM mobile chips.

Apple are taking the best elements of their iPhone and iPad OS and interface and integrating them into their latest Mac OS X Lion operating system. We also know how copied Apple are so expect other brands to follow (cue Microsoft).

There are lots of developments behind the scenes too, the likes of Google with the development and merger of AdWords and Analytics, Apple also introduced the iAd platform and with these developments brands will find more clever and innovative ways of connecting to audiences and consumers.

So what does this mean for the end user?

Well if you couple the above (which is only scratching at the surface of what’s happening) with the advances in browser standards, HTML 5, WOFF, JS, etc then websites will go through a huge change in the next 2-5 years. This will be prompted both by technology advancement and user experience and behaviour patterns.

Make no mistake this is already happening! The debate on Web ‘v’ Internet currently rages.
Get ready, the future of digital is changing right before your eyes.

Post Digital? – Rubbish.