A new technology is about to come out that will make it a breeze to get connected online. A consortium that includes Intel, Cisco, and Apple is set to release new technology called Wi-Fi Direct that will turn a slew of gadgets into hotspot.

Going Wi-Fi is about to get a lot easier. For many consumers, setting up an in-home Wi-Fi connection point is something of a hassle. Before you can enjoy the convenience of logging onto the Web without cables and wires, you need to hook up some gear and create your own "hotspot."

But that's set to change come mid-2010, when a tech upgrade will make it easier for users of consumer electronics to exchange files between electronic gadgets.

The new technology, called Wi-Fi Direct, will be built directly into consumer electronics and automatically scan the vicinity for existing hotspots and the gamut of Wi-Fi equipped devices, including phones, computers, TVs, and gaming consoles. Owners of most existing Wi-Fi-enabled devices will be able to upgrade to Wi-Fi Direct with a simple software download.

This technology will effectively turn gadgets into mini access points, able to create wireless connections with other Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets or broadband modems within a radius of about 300 feet. The alliance includes Intel (INTC), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Apple (AAPL), and more than 300 other makers of the equipment that runs Wi-Fi networks, often used to provide wireless Web connections in homes, cafés, hotels, and airports.

Reference: Business Week

3D graffiti, whether it’s in chalk or paint, on walls or the street, represents a new way of combining the mastery of Renaissance art techniques with the gritty, ephemeral qualities of amazing street art. These 3D street artists gives graffiti a whole new meaning one that departs from the conventional interpretation of graffiti as vandalism in the form of images and letters scrawled on public property. Check out some of these talented artists and be awed by their works of art.

Kurt Wenner

Julian Beever

Tracy Lee Stum

Eduardo Reler

Daim

Reference: WebUrbanist

Adobe, which makes Photoshop, introduced Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone, a Photoshop Lite program to tweak and add effects to camera phone shots on the iPhone. It's not to be confused with its big brother Photoshop desktop application, which sells for $599.

The Photoshop iPhone app also lets users access photos stored on Photoshop.com and view them on the iPhone, but Adobe has plenty of company with that feature.

Said features include in the app are rotating, cropping, using filter effects, and adjusting exposure, tint and saturation. Photoshop mobile includes "sketch," to make pictures look like drawings and "soft focus," for a slight blur.

Take a listen to the New Damion Mix "A New Change". It has some sick tracks that are worth taking a listen to. If you like some Nu Skool and Progressive breaks this is a mix for you. Get ready to get your dance on.  Go ahead and start rocking out! Download it on Soundcloud


Cover art by: Damion Schweizer

Technology is a fast moving and growing industry and marketers are now starting to utilizes the potential of some of these mediums of technology to there advantage. One that I will be talking about is video's in print.

In a marketing stunt to promote its fall TV series, CBS Corp. has inserted thousands of tiny screens in copies of the Time Warner Inc. publication Entertainment Weekly for the month of September 2009.

The screens measure two and a quarter inches diagonally and play about 40 minutes of clips from new and old CBS shows.

The video begins with a cheeky intro to the "video-in-print" technology, starring characters from the show "The Big Bang Theory."

After that, the reader/viewer can push a spot on the cardboard insert that holds the screen and watch a clip of the sitcom "Two and a Half Men." Push another to see a preview of the new crime-investigation spinoff "NCIS: Los Angeles." Another delivers an ad for PepsiCo Inc., which is helping fund the promotion.

The player, developed and made by Americhip Inc. of Los Angeles, is much like the chips that play music in some greeting cards and magazine ads and is rechargeable.

The audio quality is good, but beware: There are no volume controls, and in a quiet environment, it’s prettyloud. This is surely a intentional design feature, aimed at getting the attention of people nearby.

Upon getting to the ad, there is a 5-second delay before anything happens — there is enough on the page to probably hold the unassuming reader’s attention for that long, if nothing else the eerie stare from Neil Patrick Harris — and then a 5-second still promo before the promo for the player’s developer, Americhip.

As impressive as this step is, the true marriage of print and digital multimedia still seems quite far off, and eons away from the streaming updates in the newspapers of Minority Report fame.


Side Note - My last name is used in this video.

Reference: Wall Street Journal, Wired

Sony's new "bendable" and transparent organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology is being shown in prototypes featuring an OLED a mere 0.2 mm thick. The prototype devices are a Vaio notebook, a flexible e-book, and a Walkman bracelet.
The OLED screen is transparent and flexible, and the viewing angle range is almost unlimited. OLED technology has a number of advantages over LEDs, including higher efficiency, faster response times, and no requirement for backlighting. The devices also have very low energy needs.

Sony demonstrated an OLED television in 2008 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a flexible 0.2 mm thick OLED audio player at this year's show. Several other companies, such as Samsung and LG, are also working on flexible OLED displays.

The devices on show at CEATEC JAPAN are all at the concept stage and there is no indication of when, or even if, they will ever be marketed.

The Sony Reader and Walkman redone with flexible OLED technology.
(Credit: Scott Ard/CNET )


Vaio with flexible OLED screen.
(Credit: Scott Ard/CNET)



Reference: CNet, Physorg.com

So I am sure that you have all noticed the bar code doodle logo that Google is using today. They are using it for the celebration of the 57th anniversary of the invention of the bar code.

On that note, have you ever even thought about how the bar code was invented? This intrigued mind did and this is what I found out about the creation of the bar code.

Their research began in 1948 after Mr Silver, a graduate student at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, overheard a local food chain boss asking one of the institute's deans to design a system for reading product data automatically.

Mr Silver and Mr Woodland, a fellow graduate student and teacher at Drexel, first tried using patterns of ink that glowed under ultraviolet light, but it proved too expensive and unreliable.

Mr Woodland then came up with the linear bar code, and later replaced the lines with circles so that they could be scanned from any angle. The pair patented their “bull’s eye” design the next year.

The bar code was first trialled in 1966, and in 1970, the familiar Universal Product Code (UPC) design, still used around the world, was agreed on as an industry standard.

The first item to be scanned using UPC was a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, in June 1974.

Neither inventor made a fortune on the idea because they sold the patent in 1952 for a moderate sum before it was commercialized.

Mr Silver never even witnessed the bar code’s success, having died in a car crash in 1962.

Reference: Telegraph.co.uk

In today's world of computers there are hundreds of different tutorials out there on Photoshop manipulation. More than likely you have seen different styles in which have inspired you and your creativity. However today's post is going to be on some photos that look like they have been Photoshoped but are not. The photographers just took different approaches and angles to achieve their results.

Typography is the a form of science meeting art. Space, size, type treatment/effects, contrast, color selection – and much more – go into every piece of design that involves the use of type. The impressive works of art below are all focused on typography art that are guaranteed to inspire your next typography project.

Lyric portrait

Ash Dreams

Chinad0ll

Steven Paul Jobs

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke by Steve Yee