What's Hanging On The Vine?

Well not very much really.  As most people know Twitter recently launched its video clip service - Vine. To quote their blog "a new mobile service that lets you create and share beautiful, short looping videos. With Vine, capturing life in motion is fun and easy"

So  what are people posting? If you have a look at Vinepeek you can see the clips on their unmoderated service.

Source: VinePeek

Lot's of 'foodie' clips, warm cuddly pets, a guy who got 'in the money' and the occasional flash of the unsavoury.  it didn't take long for pornographers to realise the potential of Vine as Mashable  reports. So what's hanging on the vine might be not what you expect.

At least with Vine you now have the choice of sharing your communication on Twitter using 140 characters or with a six-second GIF-like looping video.  Available in Apples App store but no Android version that I could find?

Related articles

• Warning: Graphic Porn Invades Vine
• Twitter Buys Vine
• Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Site On The Internet

Wakey, Wakey

Every now and then I come across an app that is really useful, engaging and provides an incentive to use it. Perhaps surprisingly, very few on the market fulfill all three of these fundamental requirements.

Lufthansa's Anyawake app is one of the select few. As well as being an alarm clock it quizzes users on which city the alarm sound comes from? Naturally all are Lufthansa destinations. Each day is different so where will you wake up tomorrow?

Anywake is designed as an alarm clock that "takes you places". To take off you choose a standard sound and use Anywake every day. Every other morning you will wake up to the sound of a randomly selected city.

The trick is that to turn off the alarm, you have to guess which city the sound is emanating from? Now this might prove a little irksome if you are in a foreign land suffering from severe jet lag but to sweeten the experience there is an incentive.

If you choose correctly, you get a discount on a plane ticket to that city, flying with the airline. If you snooze you loose.

For those who travel a lot on business or for pleasure this might be just the ticket; make that two tickets! The free app is available from AnyAwake.com.

An App That Takes Journalism To Another level

The leading Swiss company Ringier have just launched a revolutionary and rather trendy 'Appazine'

An 'Appazine' for the unitiated is as its title suggests, a magazine styled app and Ringier's app is called The Collection.

The Collection is a multi-language offering, available currently in English, Chinese, French, German, with an intuivite user-interface.

As a monthly “appazine” The Collection will be exploring globally relevant topics which will excite and challenge top-tier audiences.  

The Collection

The first issue is covering a major upcoming event in an original and entertaining way.  The image from the apps screen shots (right) give a good idea as to what this event might be!

The experience guarantees to surprises at every swipe, tap or rub of the tablet screen.

This interactivity is made possible by a completely new 'Made in Switzerland' Content Management System.  Ringier's technology provides for a very dynamic and intuitive navigation within the app.

As with any publication it is the content that will capture and build an audience.  The Collection aims to have first-class articles, audio, photos and videos, inter-active elements will include panoramic photography, 3D digital animation, creative morphing, rubbing, X-Ray lens and much much more.

The Collection

With such a range of rich media to choose from The Collection should establish a new benchmark in inter-active design.  It looks as if Ringier is on to a winner with this app.  The ability to read the latest topics in such an exciting manner should guarantee its success.

Already users are giving it big wraps "This takes journalistic apps to a whole different level. Cool effects, new interface for a magazine".
2011 has been dubbed by the pundits as the "Year of the Tablet"  and as these devices become more part and parcel of our everyday lives, appazines such as The Collection will replace our more traditional reading matter.

I for one am looking forward to these exciting developments.



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A Street Paved With Culture

Google has put its street mapping technology to more high brow use.  Eighteen months in the making, the Art Project allows viewers to visit the great museums and collection of the world from the comfort of their computer chair.

There are17 art museums involved: Altes Nationalgalerie, The Freer Gallery of Art Smithsonian, National Gallery (London), The Frick Collection, Gemäldegalerie, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Museo Reina Sofia, Museo Thyseen – Bornemisza, Museum Kampa, Palace of Versailles, Rijksmuseum, The State Hermitage Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery, Tate, Uffizi and Van Gogh Museum.

This was the result of the company's 20% policy which encourages its engineers to develop their own projects in Google's time.

The website features famous artworks in super high resolution of nearly 7 billion pixels and the 360 degree viewing makes for a memorable experience.  As Google says “enabling the viewer to study details of the brushwork and patina beyond that possible with the naked eye.”

The curator inside of each of us is catered for as viewers are able to 'build' their own collection, create and share comments about any of the 1,000+ works on view.

YouTube videos and the 360 degree museum tours that display up on Google Maps complement the in-gallery presentation.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous - ever fancied walking from the USA to China?

Another Google application makes this virtually possible if not physically so. Go to Google Maps and 'Get Directions'.

Type 'USA' into Box A and 'China"' into box B. Click the walking man icon at the top and then the 'Get Directions' tab.

1,762 instructions later you will find yourself safely in China, although do note that the route includes a ferry trip, toll roads and restricted usage or private roads.

It will take you 148 days and 22 hours to accomplish this feat and you will have travelled 11,321 miles in doing so.

As the late Mr Ripley would say "Believe it or Not".

Related articles

• Google offers virtual tours of the world's top art museums (cnn.com)
• Factbox: Google launches online art gallery site (reuters.com)
• Google Launches Street View for Museums (mashable.com)

Now The Technically Challenged Can Build Apps

Want to build Apps but not sure how to do it? 

Here is an opportunity for the "technically challenged", that is those of us who are not developers, to build apps with ease.

Google has just announced the release of App Inventor for Android.  The burning question though is whether this Google Labs Project will remain in the lab or realise its potential  and revolutionise the web?

As it has access to a GPS-location sensor, you can build apps that know where you are. It's drag & drop making the app creation process very simple. These are a couple of the pluses, as is the ability to use this tool for educational purposes. 

The downside is that the market for Android Apps is now likely to be swamped by inane apps which will make it difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff.

To begin one needs to sign an online form to register interest.

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• Google App Inventor Wants to Help Non-Coders Build Android Apps [Android] (lifehacker.com)
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