Ever get "ghost hands," where you're always trying to take the smartphone away from a novice to show them how it's done? Well, Sony is working on something a little more polite. The company has announced Evolution UI, an intentionally hobbled Android launcher that forces you to perform perfunctory tasks before you can properly use the device.
"Ingress, the Alternate/Augmented Reality (AR) game from Google's Niantic Labs, is a major evolution of mobile gaming. Apparently, it's also a good way to get arrested.
According to a post on Reddit (I know, I know - but stay with me on this), an Ingress player in Ohio was detained by police for his in-game actions. Specifically, he was "hacking a portal" near a police station. His phone had technical difficulties, which led him to linger by the portal/police station for a bit, catching the eye of local law enforcement and leading to the detention.
After the original post, other Ingress players responded with similar stories. One aroused suspicions by wandering around an empty parking lot at night. Another, trying to hack a portal next to an air traffic control station, had to run from the local sheriff. A third was called in for questioning after hacking a portal outside of a "high-traffic drug area.""
"The video walls tell the Lacoste story, while promoting merchandise through the evolution of the product. The content tells the brand story from conception, to the first clothing line and materials used, and segues to current days where there are many colors available based on the original concept of René Lacoste. The content was developed by Lacoste and is updated remotely by Lacoste headquarters."
The sheer volume of images generated on social media is staggering. Between Facebook and Instagram alone, consumers are generating nearly 2.5 billion images every week. Images are becoming so core to the social experience, that Facebook just revamped its feed to be more visual. Add into the mix Pinterest, Tumblr, Polyvore and Wanelo, and it's clear that consumers increasingly prefer to communicate with pictures rather than words.
Flimmer's preliminary homepage includes the tagline "Earn Per View", and local media reports have quoted the company as saying it is "the first film portal where the user is rewarded for paying attention to the trailer". It all sounds a bit confusing, and Flimmer's press spokesman wasn't available for comment, so we'll just have to wildly guess that it's some kind of breakthrough in the evolution of the content industry. Or not.
Evolution and growth of gamification. "A world beyond badges: Badges will increasingly become less and less important, and the rise of true virtual currencies will become more prominent to offer users more than vanity accomplishments in the form of badges."
Pew Internet's Future of the Internet presentation from the World Future Society conference 2010. The presentation covers a few of the trends they've seen from 2000 to 2009/10 and then walks through the results of their annual "Future of the Internet" Delphi project - interviewing experts on tech, society, etc., about the plausibility of different Internet scenarios over the next 10 years.
In what's become a natural evolution from startup to mega-media company, Facebook hosted its first Studio Live agency event in New York today to teach creatives how to bring their clients onto the platform beyond free brand pages.
"Sort of like Dove Evolution...but not...at all...in the least...comes this new work from L'Oreal which is pimping Ask the Expert, a Facebook page on which you can find out how to craft the perfect profile picture"