Above, a letter written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1956 predicting, quite accurately, aspects of the future of communications.
Link [via Letters of Note via dvice]
Archive for the ‘Google Reader’ Category
Arthur C. Clarke predicted satellite TV and GPS in the 40s and 50s
26
Jul
Judge rules that circumventing DRM is not illegal
26
Jul
In what will surely become a landmark case -- or at least a massive thorn in the MPAA and RIAA's clubbed, pygmy feet -- a judge has ruled that bypassing DRM via hacking, reverse engineering or any other means is not in itself illegal. The case itself ruled that General Electric, in using hacked security dongles to repair some uninterruptible power supplies produced by another company, did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Why? Because the end goal was legal. If the hacked dongles had been used for the forces of evil, the story would be different.
While this doesn't sound immediately applicable to DRM-protected software, music and movies, bear in mind that the DMCA is the foundation for every spurious copyright claim made by RIAA, MPAA and the myriad of other digital rights groups. In essence, this ruling means that you're free to break DRM on media that you own. No longer is it illegal to rip your own DVDs or crippled audio CDs onto your hard disk. I think there might also be some implication for the godawful DRM used on contemporary games like Assassin's Creed 2 (and if you're a lawyer, please leave a comment!)
In case you were wondering, this doesn't make piracy legal. It just means that bypassing DRM to reach a legal goal -- i.e. fair use of things you own -- is now protected by common law.
[via electronista]
Judge rules that circumventing DRM is not illegal originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Dystopian Utopia
25
Jul
Radoslav Zilinsky’s 2007 artwork “The Worldâ€
A stunning painting of a possible future (or present depending on how you look at it)… walled cities of techno-utopia surrounded by the rest of the world living in the middle ages. Here is a link to the large version on Zilinzky’s site. (Found via Coolvibe.)
10 Interesting CSS3 Experiments and Demos
25
Jul
You’ve heard it plenty of times before: We’re at the precipice of a transition in the way we, as developers, do things. Leading the way are future standards like CSS3 and HTML5, both already partially implemented in 4 out of the 5 major web browsers, with IE9 promising support, empowering us with new ways of making interactive and rich user experiences.
Just how awesome is CSS3? Find out by checking out these 10 experiments and demos that push the capabilities of the specs.
1. Our Solar System
This experiment presents our solar system’s planetary orbits (fast-forwarded, of course) by utilizing CSS3’s border-radius, transform, and animation. Additionally, hovering over the names of each planet on the right displays an animated tooltip using CSS (learn how to make CSS3 animated tooltips). You can read about how this experiment was developed from this walkthrough by Alex Girón, the creator of this stellar CSS3 demonstration. The animation, at the moment, only works on the WebKit browsers (Google Chrome and Safari).
2. CSS3 Ads Versus Flash Ads
Flash animated web banners are notorious for being intrusive in the user’s experience. Ad-blocking apps can turn these off by looking for all embedded Flash objects on a web page and hiding them. However, using CSS3 animation, these Flash ads can be mimicked in functionality, but will be harder to disable with third-party software. In this experiment, several ads were recreated using CSS3, and the results are almost identical to their Flash-constructed counterpart.
3. CSS3-Man
This is a robust animation sequence inspired by the Spider-Man animated television series in the 60’s. Making the sequence work involved using CSS3’s transform, @key-frame and rotate; a bit of jQuery was used to preload the images as well as HTML5 for the audio. The creator wrote an explanation of how the CSS3-Man animated sequence works, which will give you a general idea of the level of effort involved in this amazing experiment.
4. The Man From Hollywood
This demonstration is an animated sequence (based on kinetic typography) that explores a way in which we can replace rich animation components such as Flash or After Effects. This proof of concept chiefly utilizes advanced CSS selectors and CSS3 animation, however, it’s not purely CSS since JavaScript was used to toggle element classes on and off.
5. Anigma
We often use Flash (or Silverlight) for rich and interactive web-based video games. This CSS3 demonstration is a puzzle game and a proof-of-concept of how we can use open standards to create games — though admittedly, not as facile as Flash yet if you compare it to Flash games on sites like Kongregate. HTML5’s <audio> element was used to embed the sound.
6. Animated Polaroids
This demonstration is of stacked images that look like Polaroids. Hovering over a photograph transitions it smoothly to the front of the stack, making for an interesting interaction for presenting your photo gallery. The demo was made by leveraging transition, transform, dynamic psuedo-selectors (to animate the target element), as well as stylistic properties such as box-shadow for visual effects. Read the tutorial on how this was constructed if you’d like to learn how this was developed.
7. CSS3 Music Player Menu
With HTML5’s <audio> and <video> APIs, which will enable us to utilize multimedia without dependence from proprietary plugins, we’ll eventually have a need for GUIs that provide our users with controls for the media we serve them. Though we could use static images in conjunction with other HTML elements (such as buttons) to build these interfaces, using just HTML and CSS to render media controls mean we’ll have a more malleable solution. This user interface for a music player was built using only CSS3 (gradient, border-radius, box-shadow and all that good stuff). Read the explanation on how this was contructed in this tutorial.
8. Sliding Vinyl with CSS3
This demonstration, found in the ZURB Playground, takes vinyl album covers that, when hovered on, animates the sliding out of a vinyl record that contains additional controls ("more information" and "play"). This proof of concept could one day be used as an elegant web-based interface for a site that plays music when combined with HTML5’s <audio> API.
9. Gabriel Sharp’s Small Planet
This animated cartoon sequence depicts a fast-forwarded cycle of day and night. It works on WebKit browsers (Safari and Chrome) using the @keyframes CSS3 property for moving and transitioning PNG images.
10. Falling Leaves
WebKit presents the capabilities of CSS3’s animate property with a spectacularly smooth demonstration of falling leaves. Tip: Use your browser’s "view source" feature to read the source code of the demonstration — the code’s well documented with explanations of how it works. Read WebKit’s blog post about the animate property to get a better feel for all the possibilities.
Related Content
- CSS3 Techniques You Should Know
- Basic CSS3 Techniques That You Should Know
- 20 Useful Resources for Learning about CSS3
- Related categories: CSS and Web Development
About the Author
Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.
Re: @Gillette | Old Spice
23
Jul
I liked a YouTube video: On Twitter, @Gillette wrote "@OldSpice what's up my friend...big fan :)"
50 Fantastically Clever Logos
23
Jul
I know everybody and their brother does logo roundups so you’re probably sick of them, but I don’t believe I’ve ever done one and there is a particularly impressive brand of logo design that I wanted to point out.
Today we’ll look at 50 logos that are the result of going beyond the typical thought process and injecting a little wit and hidden symbolism into the design process.
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What Makes a Logo Clever?
To explain what I mean by “clever†logo design, let’s take a look at a typical logo, (i.e. one that isn’t clever).
The logo above is a nice piece of work. The colors are perfect, the lettering is masculine, the overall feel is athletic and the glossy effect works well. It’s everything that it needs to be.
However, my favorite type of logo design is that which takes the assignment one step further. Rather than just making something attractive, these designers look at the design process with a pinch of added intelligence and a perspective that skewed enough to see things differently than the rest of the world.
These types of logos make you smile at the brilliance of both the idea and the execution and have several layers of meaning that can hit you in waves. Some are amazing in their obviousness to all who see them and some find excellence in hidden secrets.
I’ve broken down this collection into three categories: visual double entendres (two things in one), word and character art, and ambigrams. Ambigrams definitely also fall into the word art category but I wanted to give them special recognition because they’re so difficult to pull off effectively (if you don’t believe me, try to make one!).
Visual Double Entendres
Lion Bird
If you stare straight at the bird’s feet for a second, a stunningly clear lion’s face emerges. Brilliant design!
Chad 2010
I love this one. There’s a sort of ribbon theme that makes both a face and the continent of Africa.
Spartan
Simply beautiful use of negative space. The golfer and his swing double as a soldier’s face.
DesignTent
A tent and a pencil.
Pepperhorn
A pepper and a horn.
GreenLabs
Green here is symbolized by a tree and labs is represented by the brain. That’s a sharp looking tree brain!
Airtistic
Another pencil idea very similar to the one above. This one is a parachute and a pencil.
Ecotaste
A tongue and a leaf. A little creepy but a great idea!
Guitarshop
The letter “G†and a guitar. Simple but effective.
Mr. Couch
This is definitely one of my favorites. The couch has cleverly been crafted to also be a face with a mustache. Excellent work!
Eco Pup
The dog’s ears are leaves. Sometimes subtle is better.
Mailhouse
The open envelope creates a house shape.
WordRefuge
The open book makes a tent. Not my favorite but it makes for a good visual read.
Australian Pork
This one makes me laugh. Australia has been turned into a pig’s snout!
MetroMobile
The city skyline doubles as a row of cell phones.
PokerHills
I love that the shape of the hills genuinely matches the shape that cards make when you peak at them while they lie face down on the table.
Match
This one goes on and on. The matches come together to make a heart. There are two of them (they match). Fire represents passion. etc. etc.
ThinkTank
Ideas are often represented by lightbulbs. Turning the phrase “think tank†into a lightbulb tank was genius.
Rockit
This one is an excellent piece of art. The rocket blasting off and leaving smoke trails clearly makes a guitar shape.
Suitcase
This one is simple but so incredibly effective. It looks like both a suitcase and a folded dress shirt with a tie. The latter really emphasizes the “suit†aspect and therefore represents professionalism.
AirTime
Another really subtle double entendre. The hands on the clock make an airplane.
Uptown
The buildings in the city skyline are all arrows pointing upward.
Country Living Dentistry
The white picket fence is a perfect picture of country life, here it’s been turned into a toothbrush to symbolize dentistry.
Push the Bottle
Another excellent use of negative space. The hand pushing a button makes the shape of a bottle. Notice how the fingers of the fist create the liquid in the bottle.
Pencil
It’s amazing how little had to be added to make a pencil appear (just a triangle!). Some logo designers really have a gift for simple touches that change everything.
Spice Mountain
It definitely looks like both a mountain and a pile of spices.
Night Golf
Not only does the round shape of the golf ball reflect that of the moon, the little dips look like craters! A great visual simile.
Maritime Law
The logo says everything it needs to. Scales are a clear representation of law and justice and the bowls have been turned into boats to represent the maritime aspect.
GradBooks
This idea seems a little obvious but I’m sure it took a lot of tweaking to get to this point.
Antisocial Network
The sort of abstract skyline design is a cliche for community and has been transformed into a familiar hand gesture.
Mars
Another one of my favorites. The carrot has been beautifully crafted to make a rocket ship.
Nurd
The car’s headlights make it look like a big nerd with glasses. Yet another example of the use of subtlety in wit.
Bananas Films
The film strips have been hung to mirror the shape of a group of bananas.
Food Writers
The negative space in the tip of the old style fountain pen has been turned into a spoon.
SparkPlug Creations
This is definitely not the best logo in the world, but the whole lightbulb spark plug idea is pretty clever.
Word and Symbol Art
Fish
The word fish has been crafted into the form of a fish. What more could you want in a logo?
Bipolar
A few simple typographic characters that perfectly represent the word below.
CodeFish
Coding is all about characters so it was perfect to build the fish out of typography.
Inequality
The equality symbol has been slightly modified so that the bottom is shorter than the top; a perfect statement of inequality.
Fuel Quoter
The quote has been simply turned on its side and it looks remarkably like a gas pump.
Infinity Crime Studio
The symbol for infinity has been altered to look like pair of mischievous eyes.
Octave
If you’re at all familiar with music theory you know that an octave has eight notes (hence “octâ€). Here the “o†and “c†have been stacked to make an eight.
Nosey
The impressive part here is how naturally the word seems to make a face. It’s an excellent designer that makes complex ideas look effortless.
Twins
The two has been pushed over to look like an “n.†Since the word is “twins,†hiding a two in the logo was a great decision.
Upside Down
This one you have to stare at for a second to really appreciate. All the letters are upside down. The “w†is an “mâ€, the “d†is a “pâ€, etc.
Spork
The obvious solution was to make a spoon and a fork illustration. However, putting the ampersand in represents an extra step in the thought process that makes the idea really unique.
Umbrella
At first glance this logo says “brella.†Can you spot the other two letters?
Ambigrams
In case you’ve never heard of them before, ambigrams are words or phrases that you can spin around 180 degrees and still read them. They often require quite a bit of work and thought in order to make them easily readable.
Awesome
That sort of Old English look is definitely one of the styles you see the most with ambigrams. Notice how the “e†and “o†have been heavily transformed but still read well in the context of the word as a whole.
Edge
It’s not easy to create an “e†that still looks like an “e†when you spin it around. Well done.
Eveva
This one feels like an ambigram, but as one astute commenter pointed out, it actually isn’t. The beginning “e†and ending “a†are the same, but the letters in between don’t work when flipped. Nice illusion regardless!
Conclusion
I hope the collection above isn’t just another “list post†but instead is a healthy dose of inspiration that encourages you to put a little thought into your logo creation process. When appropriate, consider how you can infuse something unique and witty to make the logo that much better.
Leave a link below and tell us your favorites. Also point us to any logos that match this style that you’ve seen on the web.
Cinnamon Challenge (Jesus)
23
Jul
I liked a YouTube video: Jesus tries the cinnamon challenge at Base22 MTY.
Cinnamon Challenge (Orlando)
23
Jul
I liked a YouTube video: Orlando tries the cinnamon challenge at Base22 MTY.
The Evolution of Commitment
23
Jul
The Evolution of Commitment
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Most of us want to sell something – want to get people to commit to plopping down the hard won cash in an exchange of value. That’s certainly one of the reasons millions of business folks have jumped into online networks and social platforms – to gain access to the hundreds of millions that hang out there and prospect for customers.
But while social technology has made it much easier to gain access to people, I think in some ways it’s actually made it harder to get those same people to commit to buy (or at least it hasn’t really made it easier.) While selling in the old days (2 years ago) was still very much about getting someone’s attention and making them an offer, it has now become much more of an intentional act of gaining trust and helping prospects evolve towards a customer commitment.
The Evolution of Commitment looks a bit like this:
- It’s pretty darn easy to get a fan or a follower, but what’s that really worth by itself?
- Using social media platforms to drive fans and followers to read your educational content furthers their engagement
- Encouraging that reader to subscribe to your email newsletter or how to series is the link to gaining permission to make offers
- Creating opportunities for subscribers to participate by evaluating, sampling and trialing your products and services is the key to demonstrating value worth paying for.
- And finally now you’ve got them hooked and it’s time to pay up – but wait, why would I pay for something I can get for free in so many other places?
The response in the last point above is the dilemma of the free online world that people have grown accustomed to. Scads of smart marketers have mastered the pre commitment dance of know, like and trust, only to fall flat when asking for the ultimate commitment – money.
So what does it take to get fans and followers to commit, take the act of paying for your offerings?
I asked some of my followers on Twitter that very question and receive responses like:
“there needs to have been serious “can’t live without†value on the free version that would make me test out the paid version.â€
“the idea that what i’m paying for has real life value, isn’t free somewhere else, or won’t lose half it’s value in < 1yr."
"add'l features get me from free to paid, as does a great free experience."
"It has to inspire me, be enjoyable and/or fulfill a true need."
As I look around at some of the successful freemium models, Basecamp, Evernote, and those that have experience challenges going to a paid model, Ning, I’m struck with the impression that commitment comes from an experience that so exceeds expectation, so motivates people to talk, and is so valuable that people actually feel bad not paying for the experience or come to understand their life will be better by making the commitment.
That’s a pretty high standard, but the clear message is this – people will buy anything that’s free, even crap, but they won’t commit unless it’s remarkably free and freeing.
But think about that for a moment – isn’t there a similar bar for any commitment? What gets someone to say yes to a marriage proposal? What gets someone to commit to giving up smoking? What gets someone to go after a job at a company with no current opening?
Commitment, and it’s semi-evil twin non-commitment, is all around us every day. What can we learn from it to bring to our business, culture and marketing? I think there is much to explore on this topic.
So, what tips you to a commit to something?
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