A Source Of Inspiration

How about a LCD Soundsystem powered lava lamp? Well, that’s exactly what Park Studio did for Nokia Trends Lab.

The site has some groovy music visualizations, using the Actionscript 3 SoundMixer class. And altough i don’t understand a word of Russian, it seems to be a localized version of the global Nokia Trends Lab, “a physical and virtual hub of mobility experiences”.

Sorry for the triple edit on the latest Beowulf post, but with 3 hours of sleep it’s hard to review titles or use spell checkers.

The reason is quite simple: Sapo Codebits, the programming contest i was in the last 3 days, helping out a Prt.sc team last night.

Master coders and blog mates, Samuel and Luis (photo by JPAntunes)

Our project “Sapo Boa Vida” (Sapo Good Life) was a winner in the Mashup category, an idea of social recommendation based on geo data and Sapo webservices.

Time to get some sleep now.

Tomorrow, the nordic epic premieres. And if the website is an appetizer for the movie, then I’m already a fan.

A gothic atmosphere is sucessfuly achieved, with dense photography, a intense soundtrack, and simple but effective transitions between sections (specially the Grendel’s Mother Lair at the Special Features area). The whole interactive experience has several cinematic effects, a lot like the movie’s recently released video game.

The online strategy features the regular movie website gimmicks such as wallpapers, ringtones, and e-cards, and surprise, surprise, had also a Second Life presence. Screenwriter Neil Gaiman appeared last week (slurl) in the virtual world to talk about the new film and offering a free Beowulf avatar.

Other interesting additions include UGC, with a branded Machiminima video trailer contest, and a series of podcasts to download.

If you still haven’t, watch the latest trailer above, unfortunately without hot Angeline Jolie CG footage.

Having just read The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda, it was a strange coincidence that he’s announcing the Reebok TimeTanium Limited Edition, available at RbkCustom.

The design on the shoe surface was generated by his code, also printed on the outsole. A colorful product design made for those who feel that a shoe is a personal item.

In his book, Maeda makes a point on the role of emotion, that often surpasses our efforts to simplify things. It’s our natural instinct to look for products that we feel emotionally connected, are unique or have character.

Product personalization is now ordinary, with examples spanning from popular shows like Pimp My Ride or the recently launched Zune Originals.

The mass customization trend is stronger in online marketing, with widgets for social network profiles, facebook apps, and personal aggregators. Similarly, sites like Etsy allow users to pick unique items that relate to their personality.

With the recent launch of Google’s Android, the open mobile platform, developers and users can now create their own applications, and apply the same web principles to their cell phones. Again, pimping their product.

Sapo Codebits is an event inspired by Yahoo HackDay, bringing together web developers and tech entrepreneurs from Portugal, sponsored by Sapo, a portuguese ISP and tech company.

I’ve been invited (along with other screeners) but just got here late, and missed the opening. Mike Culver was next, evangelizing Amazon Web Services and the EC2 platform.

Keep tuned with more live blogging until Wednesday.

Interesting article at Colour Lovers, with an historical perspective on the use of color and education degrees.

They start by referring the portuguese University Of Coimbra as the first record of connecting academic practices to color. This was a topic that always confused me when i was a student, as sometimes i met colleagues from other universities that had different colors but were studying for the same degree.

Help me out (and Colour Lovers) to find out the right color degree.

International:

(w/ Sergio edit @ 22:05, 2007/11/11)

Portugal

This is the first post on my brand new Macbook. I’m still loading this beauty with apps, so if you have suggestions, feel free to drop a list of your favourite application, tips and tricks in the comments.

With this laptop i’m currently switching between Ubuntu (home desktop), Windows XP (office) and OsX (home).
Next step: install Windows Vista. Ok, just kidding :)

Good things come to those who wait.

Guiness comercial via Andre.