The British Library have scanned tens of thousands of books in their fiction archive from the 19th Centrury and are preparing to make them available for free download.
Users of Kindle and other ebook readers will be able to access over 65,000 books initially, including works from Charles Dickens, Jane Austin and Thomas Hardy.
Over 35% of the works being released are believed to be unavailable in other public libraries and difficult to find in second-hand or internet bookshops. Whilst such scarcity may reflect poor quality in the literature in many cases, The British Library recognise that publishers and marketing influence the public’s taste for fiction. So there may well be hundreds of literary gems amongst the huge hoarde of content that is being made available.
The works are digitised from the original books, rather than scanned and re-typeset via OCR software. So the digital versions should retain some of the look of the original printed pages.
The collection is to be made available for free download by the public from this spring.
Read more in The Times Online: HERE
The British Library online is: HERE
Filed under: 2010 February | Leave a Comment
Tags: The British Library, The Times Online
While few brands have so far employed augmented reality as anything other than a digital media novelty. The kid’s fashion brand Brights and Stripes are now embracing the fun aspect of augmented reality in a new clothing range.
Does this result in what the brand claim is Experiential Clothing? Or simply a fun gimmick to amuse the kids? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in between the two?
Check out the article and video: HERE
Filed under: 2010 February | Leave a Comment
Tags: Augmented Reality, Brights and Stripes
The Obama camp famously embraced social media in helping build the support that led to victory in their Presidential campaign.
But the newly installed team in the White House soon found out that when you invite people to tell you what they think, their thoughts may not be quite what you had in mind.
One of the pre-election tools for the Obama campaign included the facility for people to propose new legislation and then have others vote on the ideas put forward. The hope was that popular causes and issues would be easily identified and perhaps become part of the campaign pledge.
This unfortunately backfired, when the wish to legalise canabis for medical use become the suggestion with the most votes of support.
Over a year later and Citizen Tube have released their Top 10 for the strangest questions people wanted to ask President Obama. Citizen Tube interviewed the President yesterday on YouTube and invited the public to send in questions for the interview.
They received over 11,000 questions. The most bizarre are: Here
The Top 10
- Most colourful questions the public wanted to ask President Obama:
1. “For most of my life I was raised in West Philadelphia. Finances forced me to move to Bel Air with my Aunt and Uncle. What are you going to do about areas like the one I lived in?”
- William Smith, Los Angeles
2. “How do you feel about Nancy Peloci capturing our attention with her cat cam, then rick rolling us in the end?”
- Anonymous
3. “Why did you name your dog, Bo, after yourself?”
- Mary Smithiers, Seattle
4. “Why does God hate the Vikings?”
- Depressed, Minnesota
5. “Could you win in a fight against Wolverine? Don’t even pretend like you could, you totally can’t.”
- Jack, Redding, CA
6. Mr. President, when are you going to stop the war between ninjas and pirates? Surely it is in your hands to stop such a crisis. The war has been going for trillions of years and it needs to be put to a halt once and for all.”
- Daniel, New Zealand
7. “Do you play World of Warcraft? If yes, which class and faction do you have?”
- Gustaffa, Slovakia
8. “I know I speak for a lot of Americans when I say we love you and believe in you. Do you pinky-swear to try your hardest to push through some of the legislation you talked about last night? Remember: the pinky-swear is binding in court.”
- Justin, Carmen Sandiego
9. Mr. President, there is no doubt that you are a busy and stressed man. My question relates to your “down time”. I just want to know if you like to go fishing and if so, would it be possible for me to go fishing with you one day?”
- Robert B., Keller, TX
10. “Mr. President, I just want to tell you how I’m feeling, America is not gonna give you up, nor let you down. We are not going to desert you. How do you feel about Internet censorship?”
- Broghan, Virginia
Filed under: 2010 February | Leave a Comment
Tags: Crowd Sourcing, Digital, Obama, President Obama
An interesting article on best practice in mobile crowd sourcing from Global Intelligence Alliance: HERE
Filed under: 2010 February | Leave a Comment
Tags: Crowd Sourcing, Digital, Mobile
Nokia unveil the digital campaign that allows consumers to participate in SMS messaging onto the world’s largest signpost.
See the video: HERE
Filed under: 2010 February | Leave a Comment
Tags: Digital, Largest signpost, Nokia
Internet Stats 2009
90 trillion emails, 30 billion photo uploads to Facebook, 1.73 billion internet users, 234 million websites, 187 million domain names, 126 million blogs. Yes, the numbers behind digital activity in 2009 are simply astounding.
Throw in 1 billion video downloads each day on YouTube for good measure and you start to wonder if people have time to keep up with their digital lives?
Read all the details at Royal Pingdom: HERE
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: Internet Stats, Royal Pingdom
A new report from RJMetrics has indicated 83% of Twitter accounts were inactive in December 2009.
While Twitter is still attracting around 6.2 million new users each month, the report also found that 80% of Twitter users had Tweeted fewer than 10 times.
Let’s hope the inactive accounts belong to those who only Tweet the banal and trivial; such ‘going for coffee’ or ’stuck in traffic.’
If you spend time hunting down appropriate sources to follow, you may learn many new and interesting things from Twitter users. But there is an ocean of triviality for every drop of wisdom.
Read Robert Moore’s report at RJMetrics: HERE
Read comment from Furlong PR: HERE
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: RJMetrics, Robert Moore, Twitter
Ortery have launched a new tool for businesses that wish to record showcase photo-animations of their products being displayed and rotated from different angles. The machine is called the Photosimile.
The system creates movies in flash, GIF or Silverlight formats; with 72 pictures per 360-degree rotation, from zero through to 90 degrees.
At around US$17,000, the system is clearly priced out of reach for smaller businesses. But design studios, photographers and high street copy & print retailers maybe interested in considering renting out the service to others.
View a demo video and review: HERE
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: 3D Photography, Ortery, Photosimilie
Quick someone, invent a UV lamp that plugs into a USB or your X-box. Video games are being blamed for a rise in Rickets (Vitamin D deficiency) in the UK.
Read more: HERE
While the rise in myopia in the eyesight of kids has been proven to relate to the decrease in natural daylight they are experiencing; from increased hours of tuition and play indoors. It seems poor eyesight isn’t the only risk to kid’s health from extended interior living.
Is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 worth risking Rickets and poor eyesight over? Possibly. It’s certainly cracking fun.
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, COD4, Eyesight, Rickets, videogames
My client has announced that they have now sold over 100,000 iPhones in the first 8 days since their launch on the network in the U.K.
Read more: HERE
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: iPhone, Vodafone
2020 Mobile Trends
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: 202 Mobile Trends, Future Trends, Mobile, Trends
Today the UK is crisper than a tube of Pringles.
There’s a great satellite photo in the press, copied : HERE
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: Snow
http://www.insideyoursearch.com/
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: Google, Insideyoursearch.com, Viral, Weetabix
3 examples from recent discussions
Hermès Tokyo:
Hugo Boss, Black Magic, London:
Louis Vuitton, New York:
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: Hermès, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton
Joker quote
I’ve been dipping into a book on Behavioural Economics and Human Motivation called Exotic Preferences (edited by George Loewenstein, published by Oxford University Press).
It’s a heavy tomb, but I’m hoping some the quotes it contains may make it worth the search. Reading it today reminded me of the line Heath Ledger says, as Joker, in The Dark Knight:
“See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.”
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: Behavioural Economics, Exotic Preferences, Joker, The Dark Knight
Another great Ted Talk. VS Ramachandran discusses how neurons help people empathise by copying each other.
Ted Talk: HERE
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: TED Talks, VS Ramachandran
This story is interesting as a PR stunt, as well as a bizarre piece of brand protection.
BeautifulPeople.com is an online dating agency that claims to only allow the most attractive members.
The service claims to have expelled 5,000 of its members for putting on weight over the recent Christmas/New Year festivities.
The quote from the site founder, Robert Hintze, is the headline grabber:
“Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”
Read the article on BBC News: HERE
Filed under: 2010, January | Leave a Comment
Tags: BBC News, BeautifulPeople.com
Recent Entries
- British Library release 65,000 works of 19th Century fiction for download
- Adidas, Nike and Puma produce originals for Valentine’s day
- Augmented Reality Clothing For Kids
- The 10 Strangest Questions For President Obama
- Best Practice in Mobile Crowd Sourcing
- Nokia launch the world’s largest signpost
- Internet Stats 2009
- 83% of Twitter accounts inactive in Dec 2009
- 360 degree product rotation animations made simple
- Prolonged videogaming blamed for Rickets
- Vodafone UK sell 100,000 iPhones in 8 days
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