My favourite blogging tool has shipped their latest release. Features include:

• Native tagging support (and imports UltimateTagWarrior)
• Plugin update notification (time saver!)
• Canonical URLs (SEO’s rejoice)
• Libraries updated: jQuery, TinyMCE, Prototype and script.aculo.us
• New taxonomy system (beware plugin authors)
• Improved Post and Draft Management
• Pending Review (great for multiauthor blogs)
• Unfiltered uploads (smells like security trouble)

Don’t forget to check plugin compatibility, if you’re planning to upgrade.
Looks like i’ll be having a busy weekend.

It’s not a real manta, but a remote-controlled robot driven by water hydraulics

Watch this and more beautiful innovations by German engineering company Festo.

Via Digital Experience

Image resizing by seam carving generated a lot of buzz last month. It was just a matter of time until someone ported it to Actionscript 3. Joa Ebert and then Mario Klingemann posted their Image Resizing classes.
Perhaps it’s time to start hacking those images and CSS, in a similar way to sIFR and SWF address.

Watch it in action at Quasimondo.

Tomorrow the adventure continues.

[Feed readers: 6 min preview video above]

Andre Brunetta worked with Euro 4D Digital London and brought to life a new Papervision3D powered website for Peugeot 308.

We’re starting to see a trend towards Papervision experiences, adding a third dimension to creative concepts. Time to dump shockwave and other cumbersome plugins.

My mind is in awe with the preview site for Halo 3. What a superb work from AKQA.

I Believe. In great online advertising experiences.

Update: Meanwhile, i’ve digged a little and found some interesting facts:

• The video soundtrack is Predule in D Major by Chopin
• Estimated ad budget: $10 million
• Pre-sales have reached 1 million
• Diorama is 12 Feet Tall and 1200 Square Feet
• The 360 degree panoramas and digital compositing displays the war-torn landscape of the Battle of New Mombasa. (Creativity Online)
• Diorama characters were created by Stan Winston, creature designer for Alien and Jurassic Park
• Film direction by Rupert Sanders; ad campaign by McCann San Francisco
• There’s another related video, Museum

Enjoy.

Fashion & clothing companies are using the web to escape from the limitations of beauty magazines and their fatigued classic glamour ads. Great sites such as Diesel or Issey Myake are amongst the finest examples of web design in this category, but usually we are bound to US or global brands, so it was interesting to find Apartment.com.com, developed by CuartoPiso from Colombia.

Each new collection has a brand new hotsite, with illustrations that spawn somewhere from Peter Gabriel to the world of TV series “Carnivale“. Even the corporate website has a wicked brit punk feeling !

This work awarded Cuarto Piso with Lapis de Acero, giving more visibility to the company that brought to life the website of renowned illustrator Catalina Estrada.

Upgrade! is a international network of new media artists that gather regularly to discuss and showcase art, technology and culture.
The Lisbon edition takes place tomorrow at Lisboa 20 Arte Contemporanea gallery, with 4 projects from N.I.P. (New Interfaces for Performance):

• “Struct 7”, by André Sier (PT)
• “Falling Angels”, by Isaac Carlos (NL)
• “Rave Kettle”, by Torsten Lauschmann (UK)
• “Crackle Canvas”, TokTek (NL)

More info here and here.
I’ve been postponing a visit to the gallery for ages, so let’s hope this time i’ll make it.

From the code monkeys, animation masters and geek cartoonists of Nectarine.

© Nectarine blog