May 2012
1 post
10 tags
Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 Trailer Revealed
April 2012
2 posts
14 tags
Why Modern Art Is Actually Quite Important
I was pretty amazed by these photos taken from atop the Shard - which at the current state of completion is the tallest skyscraper in Europe. The stunning snaps are thanks to a plucky group of ‘urban explorers’ who (mostly) made it past security to climb a thousand feet all the way to the crane at the top.
Alongside the stunning images, the blog post’s author takes the...
12 tags
Google Launch Project Glass: A Computer In Your...
Today Google announced Project Glass - an ambitious augmented reality project which they’re asking for our help with here. The hardware (spectacles) and software (a simplified Android variant) work together to add the best of today’s web services to your field of vision. Sound like hell or the most useful thing ever? I’m certain this will be part of our lives within 10 years....
December 2011
2 posts
8 tags
Independent voices of 2011: Most influential...
The Independent listed their ‘voices of 2011’ today, highlighting the non-celebrities on Twitter who are ‘setting the news agenda’. Pretty stoked to learn that I’m included in the Technology list. Being listed alongside the other eight in that list is an honour indeed :)
Read: Independent voices of 2011: The most influential non-celebrity users of Twitter
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Stunning Timelapse Film Shows How Beautiful...
Watch this in full screen and enjoy! If you’ve never visited the American south-west, I’m pretty sure you’ll want to go after watching this amazing film, shot in the extremely high-definition video standard ‘4K’.
November 2011
1 post
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The Odds That You Exist Are Zero [Infographic]
Ali Binazir calculated the probability that you came about. And finds it is mind-meltingly slim!
October 2011
1 post
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Best - and Creepiest - Siri Responses on My New...
Here are the 12 best responses I’ve received from my new iPhone 4S today. I’ll upload more as they come but the first few will be hard to beat in the creepiness stakes.
Just to note that when you ask #2 about anyone else it refers you to a web search like when it doesn’t really get what you’re asking.
September 2011
2 posts
10 tags
Just watched all 6 Star Wars. Formed some...
With yet another re-release of the Star Wars films, this time on Blu-ray, it felt like a good time to watch all six films from 1 (1999) to 6 (1983), ie in the order Lucas would have us watch them. I recommend it if you find the time.
I tried to see the series with fresh eyes and keep an open mind. Guiltily, I made the following observations. Please don’t lynch me!
Dialogue and Narrative
The...
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Multiplayer World...
8th November 2011. That’s the release date for what looks like an awesome follow-up to the game that kept us warm all through last winter. The trailer shows some of the London multiplayer map, peeks at new weaponry (what’s that rotary blade sticky bomb?) and is that blood I see splattering gloriously out of downed tangos? The pressure was undoubtedly on Infinity Ward to come up with...
August 2011
1 post
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Mad Men Season 5 Teaser Video
June 2011
2 posts
10 tags
First Live HD Video of Earth To Become 'Live...
According to this dramatic trailer by Canadian company UrtheCast, two HD cameras will be installed on ISS (International Space Station) and be streaming back to Earth in real-time by 2012, giving the rest of us non-astronaut folk the ‘life-changing experience’ of seeing our planet as one object before us.
It’s apparently going to be ‘Google Earth on steroids’,...
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Twitter Unveil Native Photo-Sharing Feature
Twitter will soon be adding the ability to add a photo to a tweet without having to use third-party services such as popular options TwitPic and yfrog. They’ve partnered with former Myspace favourite Photobucket to offer the service which will launch in the next few weeks according to Twitter COO Dick Costolo.
I think I’ll still use Flickr and Instagram so I can keep my photos in...
May 2011
3 posts
30 tags
Change: A World In Flux - My #CogsTalks @ The...
Here’s the presentation I gave this week at The Hospital in London, showing my take on how the digital world is changing and why this constant change shouldn’t scare us but rather is an endless source of opportunity.
Here’s the presentation I gave and below is the full video of my talk:
Visit My SlideShare
Video courtesy of VideoJug
Any questions, feel free to comment,...
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Master Yoda Reads SatNav Instructions
I can’t believe I only just saw this year-old viral ad for Tom Tom SatNav. It’s a brilliant and rare example of someone using a LucasFilm licence in a way that doesn’t make me want to rewrite my childhood. Indeed, it’s a great example of brands colliding in a witty way.
P.S. The Darth Vader one isn’t as good.
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AV Referendum Results Map
From light green for ‘no’ through orange for ‘no, but only just’ to purple for ‘yes’
That’ll be a no then…
Fullscreen version here
Loading…
March 2011
2 posts
18 tags
How To Create a 'Welcome' Landing Tab for New...
On 10th March 2011 Facebook will upgrade all pages for brands, companies and organisations to a new version of Pages, bringing the design in line with personal profiles which were upgraded in December 2010. For details about the changes read my last blog post here.
‘Static FBML’ tabs, with which you could quickly add extra tabs containing basic HTML to show text, images and videos...
20 tags
Facebook Pages Upgrade - What You Need To Know
The old, and new Facebook pages at a glance
On 10th March all Facebook Pages - i.e. pages which are not for personal accounts but for brands, businesses and organizations - will be upgraded to a new style consistent with personal profiles, with a picture gallery across the top and ‘tabs’ now linked to in the left-hand navigation menu as opposed to across the top. You can manually...
February 2011
5 posts
20 tags
Mobile World Congress: 5 Things We Learnt About...
Now that the dust has settled and everyone has returned to Asia and Scandinavia with their red lanyards no doubt still swinging round their necks it’s a good time to look back, take stock and reflect on the big takeaways from Mobile World Congress 2011:
Phones don’t have features, operating systems do If you were bored within an hour of looking round the conference I’m sure...
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Mobile World Congress 2011 So Far
I’m here at Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona, Spain for the mobile communications industry’s big annual bash. It’s a time for phone manufacturers, app developers, accessories makers and anyone else who gains in any way from people using mobile phones and computers to show off their latest innovations and forthcoming product launches. It’s also a place for the big...
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First 3D Video Taken With LG Optimus Pad
I cheekily took the following footage with a demo model at the LG booth then emailed it to myself.
3D options only available if you watch the vid at youtube.com. Click here to do that!
Stay tuned at twitter.com/willfrancis to see the latest cool stuff from Mobile World Congress as it unfolds here in Barcelona.
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LG Optimus 3D and Pad: Hands On
Having had a thorough play with LG’s Optimus 3D - the first smartphone to shoot in 3D and with 3D screen - as well as their tablet the Optimus Pad which shoots in 3D I’m definitely feeling a little more agnostic about my technology choices (I’m a staunch iPhone, iPad and Mac user because they make my life easier). So can LG tempt this Apple fanboy away from his beloved...
30 tags
Mobile World Congress: Top Things To Get Excited...
This Monday, 14th February, will see 50,000 people descend on Fira de Barcelona in the centre of the Catalonian capital to gather at Mobile World Congress, the biggest date in the mobile communications industry’s calendar. It is typically where the big players like LG, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Samsung et al announce new technology, phones, tablets and gadgets. LG are kindly whisking myself,...
January 2011
2 posts
22 tags
New Com Truise Track: Colourvision
Colorvision (WIP) by Com Truise
As I mentioned in my rundown of the best music of 2010, Com Truise has good times up ahead of him, whoever she/he is. Yes, there’s an awful lot of crap styled around the 1980s but Com Truise have nailed that particularly hot, euphoric, swelling synth sound reminiscent of the decade that brought us home computing and Pop Tarts so I’m signed up as a...
16 tags
UPDATED: Maps Of The Week's Mystery Mass Animal...
Click for larger image
Following the mystery large-scale animal deaths that are sweeping the globe, Canada’s National Post has compiled this handy map for us.
UPDATE: Google have created a real-time map…
Mass Animal Deaths map courtesy of Google
Yesterday io9.com offered some rational explanations for the dead birds but as more cases come to light of whole flocks, some...
December 2010
6 posts
10 tags
HOW TO: Customise New Facebook Profiles (With Free...
There have been some amazingly creative uses of Facebook’s new profile layout recently:
You can see more cool examples here and here. There are two ways to do this, depending on whether you have Photoshop or not…
WITH PHOTOSHOP
STEP 1: Download this Photoshop PSD file:
STEP 2: Drag a picture of yourself into the canvas and put that layer behind my layer (which is essentially...
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Playlist: Best Music of 2010
2010 has been another great year for new music, with fresh and original acts taking centre stage whilst many of our established heroes take a year out releasing albums forgettable or not at all. My fave tracks of the year are:
Click any track to play the whole playlist from that point on:
Warpaint - Undertow
This year has seen me fall for several female-fronted pop acts, in particular the...
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Best NASA Photos of 2010
Caroline Hirsch of the New Yorker has kindly compiled her favourite Hubble telescope images released by NASA this year and there are some stunners, like the one above.
Check more out at The New Yorker.
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WikiRebels - The Wikileaks Documentary
Unless you’ve lived in a cave recently (or in a country that restricts access to information!) you’ll have seen popular ‘information liberators’ Wikileaks thrust into the public eye over ‘cablegate’.
This fascinating Swedish documentary (it’s in English) throws some light on the site and its shadowy founder Julian Assange. Here it is in a YouTube...
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10 Years Of The Beatles' Styles
Illustrator Maxim Dalton has just released a limited run of 500 prints of this cool poster showing how the biggest selling band of all time evolved sartorially through the 1960’s in a fifteen-step change from all black Pierre Cardin suits to the confused, messy beginnings of the decade fashion forgot.
20 tags
Reeder For Mac Beta Released
The pretty-much-default RSS reader for iPad and iPhone - Reeder - has burst out of iOS and onto our desktops. My browser homepage is set to Google Reader, which even with performance-enhancing Chrome extensions is an ugly and unwieldy page, so this is real progress in my bid to stay fully abreast of the important things in the world.
It’s basic (which is great because it’s simple...
November 2010
2 posts
11 tags
Alan Partridge Returns. On YouTube.
Everyone’s favourite caractère tragique Alan Partridge (created and played by Steve Coogan) has returned after 8 years of absence from our screens, only this time round he’s fronting ‘Norfolk Digital Radio’ and we can see his hapless exploits in a Fosters-sponsored YouTube series ‘Alan Partridge’s Mid Morning Matters’ in which Alan and new, young...
21 tags
An American Werewolf in London Screening in London...
Last night I went along to ZSL London Zoo for an exclusive screening of An American Werewolf in London in the Mappin Pavilion, literally a few feet from one of the many scenes shot in the zoo (we were next to the spot where a naked David steals a lady’s red coat).
The agency I’m consulting for - DDB London - organised the event for Volkswagen as part of their See Film Differently...
October 2010
3 posts
22 tags
13 tags
Public Twitter Booths Installed In Russia
On the off-chance that you 1. feel the irresistible urge to tweet 2. reach into your pocket to find your phone is dead and 3. happen to be walking past one of these public Twitter booths recently installed in Russia’s tech hub Skolkova, all at the same time, then this might be of use to you. Though maybe ye olde public payphone’s fate awaits this fun experiment. My money’s on...
16 tags
Moleskine Bring Class To Your iPad & iPhone
If, like me, you have an iPad with the standard Apple cover, the one that looks scrappy within a week of owning it, then you’re always on the lookout for something better. It’s still the best option though in a market flooded with pointless covers that do little else other than actually cover it up, like if you put it in a shopping bag or old t-shirt.
The forthcoming offering from...
September 2010
1 post
7 tags
Game Center and Ping Prove Apple Can't Do Social...
So the last week or so has seen Apple unveil two big ‘social’ products - Game Center for iOS devices, and Ping for iTunes on desktop and iOS 4.
Both products lack any real link into the social web, and unless Apple are hoping to create their own universes so massive that this no longer matters (#unlikely), these services are going to chug along quietly like Apple’s other quietly...
August 2010
3 posts
12 tags
Freakonomics: The Movie
I only read this book recently (my first iPad book!) and I’m now on the recently released sequel ‘Superfreakonomics’. The widely worshipped tomes are a very interesting look at how human desire ultimately shapes how we as a society behave.
Look forward to the film which, it seems, premieres on iTunes on 3rd September (is that a first?)
15 tags
Microsoft Launch 'PC vs Mac' Site
Autumn is just round the corner and schoolkids, university and college students everywhere are dreading having to detach themselves from the comfortable life of luxury that is the summer break. Quite a few of them are also carefully weaving arguments supporting the vital need for their parents to buy them a shiny new computer to prevent them from failing everything and entering rehab or jail...
Twitter: The Future Is Here
Twitter’s New User Stream API In Action
The new API soon to be implemented by Twitter provides complete real-time updating of streams, whether that be your mentions, DMs, searches or timeline of those you follow. Check out the video above to see it running on my Tweetdeck.
A few days ago Twitter gave early access to Tweetdeck and Echofon, who in turn gave a few of their users access to...
July 2010
3 posts
9 tags
My Latest Posts For Brand Republic's Social Media...
In a bid to spread my blogging far and wide across the internet like a thick but rich pollutant I’ve become a contributor for Brand Republic’s ‘The Wall’ blog which covers the latest developments in social media, marketing and technology.
Here are my first posts. Please go and read them and more importantly share them. I will then love you for eternity :)
16th July 2010...
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New Xbox 360 S: [REVIEW]
So, after over five years the market leader (in serious gaming at least) gets it’s first major overhaul. New look and new good stuff under the hood.
I got my Xbox 360 S this week and immediately sat it next to my PS3 (original model). They go quite well together, and thank the Lord. The previous Xboxes have frankly been so ugly I’ve always tucked them away with other atrocities...
18 tags
iPhone 4: One Week Later [REVIEW]
After queuing last week at UK mobile phone carrier O2’s store on London’s Oxford Street for over 2 hours, I actually came away feeling a bit silly. As I weaved between the tourists, pigeons and ‘Golf Sale’ guys clutching my prize I thought to myself “I’ve just queued for 2 hours… for a mobile phone… have I gone crazy? Is my life so empty that I...
June 2010
4 posts
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VIDEO: E3 Day 2 Round-Up
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E3 Day 2 Photos
This morning saw me actually get out and play some games!! I combed the South Hall which is dominated by Xbox, Ubisoft, Konami and MTV/Harmonix making a total n0000000b of myself pretty much everywhere I went.
Nail’d on Xbox
I first played Nail’d, a Motorstorm-like dirt-racer only with even more mental landscapes. You weave through canyons, jump trains and dip through caves,...
8 tags
Xbox Kinect Hands-On Event & Chat With Kudo...
Last night (Monday 14th June) we went to a rooftop party courtesy of Xbox and their campaign around the release of Kinect, a peripheral for the console which allows you to control games with just your body. Cue flailing around and looking like a complete chump, albeit having a LOT of fun!
Playing Dance Central on Xbox 360 Kinect
Playing Joyride on Xbox 360 Kinect
KUDO TSUNODA CHAT
I also...
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Sean Kingston MySpace Webchat: Watch Again
May 2010
6 posts
27 tags
Why I Quit Foursquare and Gowalla (And You Will...
I recently had a look over my profiles on Foursquare and Gowalla (the latter always being my favourite on aesthetic grounds) and seeing my patterns of behaviour spelt out in check-ins made me feel a bit uneasy. Even though I was always careful to never check in at home, or any locations near home I could instantly see that every Saturday I go to the same organic deli. Once or twice a week I...
8 tags
Foals MySpace Webchat: Watch Again
The Oxford math-rockers dropped into the MySpace London office for a live webchat. Here are the highlights:
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Apple Release iPad TV Ad
If this doesn’t make you want one I don’t know what will :P
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Kids In Glass Houses MySpace Webchat: Watch Again
The Welsh rock phenomenons dropped into the MySpace London office for a live video webchat with yours truly :)
Watch Kids In Glass Houses Webchat on MySpace