Archive for the ‘Stuff’ Category
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, June 14th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: apple, camera, input, interactive communicaton, kinect, microsoft, video, wii
Input devices have been the standard connection to technology so far. Think of keyboards, mice, touch screens and camera.
So far the world has known the first two the most. But now two companies are challenging this paradigm. Apple with the touch screen and Microsoft with its revolutionary concept – the Kinect. While Apple has chosen touch as its bet Microsoft went bold and set new grounds for human-computer interaction.
What both of these have in common? They use the human body as the ultimate (for now) controller.
As I’ve said earlier – my bet is on motion detection and processing. Earlier experiments involved Camspace, an interesting technology that would enable web users to play games using the camera. Wii is another successful technology that set the standard for gaming a few years ago.
While these are fine examples of technology I expect the world to ask for, and receive, more intelligent technology, technology that understands and reacts.
Ultimately, we will probably have technology able to interpret thought not farther than 10 years in the future.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Friday, April 30th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: digital elections, intenet, politics
IAB UK publishes a fine report on the state of politics and elections in the Internet Era.
It’s interesting to see that the web brings power back to the mases and politicians down to ground level in the fight for power. What will the future bring? A total democracy? Rise of social power? Who knows…
What we do know is that the internet is changing all aspects of human interactions. Including structures of power and long lasting written and unwritten laws.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 ( 5 responses )
Tags: adobe, apple, flash, thoughts on flash
You may have heard that Apple has made quite a vocal comment on Flash. They actually posted it on their front page. In case you haven’t read it – here it is: Thoughts on Flash.
In my opinion these views are clearly biased. Of course Flash runs badly on mobiles. Of course it’s not suited for the iPad. But that doesn’t mean it’s actually “bad”. It’s just useful for a particular set of things.
Is Flash perfect? Probably not. How about useful?
There is a whole industry built on top Flash technology. It does its job. Some things built in Flash are masterpieces of art and programming. For example – what would you call these things? They don’t use HTML 5, they are not open, they probably don’t support touch. But we like them. They are expressions of human creativity. And maybe, just maybe, Apple should not be so quick to label and dismiss a technology that proved itself useful so far. Not perfect, just useful.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: experiment, facebook, myoritza, share, social media, twitter
My friends, today we made art. Mixed art. Transmedia art. Call it whatever but we took one of the oldest Romanian poems (Miorita – romanian for The Sheep – an allegory of life and death, crime and betrayal), mixed it with a little twitter API voodoo, added some cool and fresh design, social media sharing features and made it sparkle: I give you Myoritza 2.0.
The four characters in the Poem were given Twitter accounts and through a little programming magic we made sure they say their part just when they were supposed to.
It was really successful but stay tuned for this result. We had fun doing it, I know people had fun watching it.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: internet, new-age, social system, utopia
Or rather … the country. The continent. The world of the Internet.
A rather interesting idea crossed my mind last night. I was thinking about the global challenges that humanity is facing today. The ones we all know about: global warming, crash of the economy as we knew it, globalization, unequal distribution of wealth (read some about it here) and many others.
I thought about the ants. As individuals they are insignificant. As a group they are amazing. They construct structures we are not able to (maintaining the proportions). They are organized and act as a whole organism.
So do humans, but with one big issue – the communication. We worked pretty well in tribes, cities but now we have to communicate globally. Our social structures are expanding. The rules we use to organize do not apply any longer. What rules should we establish now?
The mind of the many
The internet is a chaotic and at the same time a self organizing thing. A brain if you like. Its neurons are the people that use it. The connections – its synapses. We started thinking globally and not just as a metaphor.
We might now use this concept and develop it. We could create a new country, a new continent, with new rules that apply to new times.
This structure would not be one led by governments but by the best performing citizens, just as our brain controls our body. There won’t be any taxes that we don’t already pay. The economics would be self balancing and self adjusting.
Social status would not matter. What would matter would be the outcome of one’s efforts. The best intellectuals, the best concepts would rise to the top, no matter the race, sex or ethnicity.
The system would be called Internetism, the social system that gathers the best of previous ones.
Is it an utopia or a reality we are yet to accept?
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, January 18th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: infrastructures, Interactive Advertising, new media, social media
I have been studying the whole concept behind Zynga’s recent success (Farmville, Mafia Wars etc.) and I just can’t stop thinking about how interesting it is.
Basically all of the other online games used to draw users to a social infrastructure (user accounts, social networks etc.) build on their own. The great thing about Zynga is that it targets already built social infrastructures (like Facebook, the iPhone AppStore). It lowers costs and it increases exposure and potential revenue.
What if brands would use the social networks to market products just like Zynga markets their games?
Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 ( One response )
Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, future, Interactive Advertising
Artificial Intelligence, in the sense we hope for and expect does not exist at the moment. At least not available to the general public (there are rumors of Google, the military and others building such a thing).
It has been the dream of advertisers worldwide to communicate one-to-one to potential consumers and I assume that we are not that far from reaching it. We have the tools to build it. The general public wants it.
I expect this to be the main feature of communication worldwide (not just advertising) in the century to come.
However – limiting such a thing to just advertising, or advertising as we know it, sounds ridiculous to say the least.
For more info have a look at:
Written by Mihai Dragan on Friday, November 20th, 2009 ( One response )
Tags: future of television, predictions, television
While reading “Five predictions on the future of TV” I thought to myself – I have to disagree with this.
First of all I think always is a very long term 
. So long that we should take into account the possibility of television disappearing. Even video as a concept. Secondly I believe watching TV passively is not the peak of human civilization. We would at least socialize television viewing.
Therefore I have to disagree with points 1,2 and 3.
I have to agree to points 4 and five and would add:
- TV channels, in the way we see them now, will start disappearing in the next 15-20 years, which would be the moment the “dotcom boomers” (those born after 1990, well accustomed with internet media consumption) will reach consumer maturity and will dictate a new marketing and media approach.
- We will see the rise of small and medium media producers (teams of 1-5 people), flexible, niched and adding up to a Long Tail of media that will rise up to challenge media conglomerates. News Corp. – watch out!
- Mobile television will be more and more popular. Internet connected mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous. So will streamed mobile television.
- We will see the rise of television syndication. Passive viewing will not be that passive. We will be able to mix many televisions, ignore shows we hate, watch shows our friends recommend, mix and mash up as we want.
- User Generated Television. This is not a new thing but the Internet adds traction to it. Think Candid Camera Home videos meets YouTube.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Friday, August 21st, 2009 ( Start discussion )
Tags: art, interaction, longest poem in the world, social media, twitter, ugc
My colleague, Andrei Gheorghe (@idevelop), got featured on CNN and The Telegraph with his latest social media experiment, The Longest Poem in the World.
The experiment gathers status updates from Twitter users, mixing them in a 347430 verses (so far) piece of art.
“I soon found that people were very excited to be part of this and consider it some form of artistic expression of the collective consciousness of Twitter.” declared Andrei for the Telegraph.
This is not the first time Andrei experimented with social media interaction. His Quizoo game was a hit when launched.
If you find the idea interesting, don’t forget to digg it.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 ( Start discussion )
Tags: creative, interactive, unconference, webdesign, webstock
Webstock, the local Internet UnConference has now a brand new look, thanks to … us.
It’s fun, funky fresh and friendly. Just like it was supposed to be.
Users can view news and info on the event, interact, subscribe as participants to Webstock Awards ‘09 and during the event view the live stream on Webstock TV.
Creative direction done by Alex Buga.
