David Emery Online

Olympus and Panasonic have just announced a new type of sensor for digital cameras, which is probably the biggest innovation in this space we’ve seen in a very long time. It means that they can now make interchangeable lens cameras without the bulky mirror box, meaning (hopefully) we will get much smaller cameras that retain the image quality (and lens swap-ability) of an DSLR.

Put another way, if you have to ask for better design, you will lose. You need to be in a position to demand it.

Very true, in my experience.

Teen girl: I was so mad at him that I unfriended him on Facebook.

Friend: What does that mean?

Teen girl: I was mad, but not mad enough to break up. This way we can still message each other, but he can't poke me anymore.

Friend: So, technically, would this be symbolic or metaphorical action?

Teen girl: What?

Friend: Nevermind.

I know I'm late to this party, but Overheard in New York is my new favourite blog.

It would be unfair, I think, to only link to one side of this story so here’s Chris’ take as well. A thoroughly modern affair.

We’ve just launched this simple site for The Horrors – we’ve put a web cam in their studio and it makes for strangely compulsive viewing:

Photographer Phillip Toledano documents a series of photographs of his elderly father; beautiful and heartbreaking.

I’m really quite interested in the potential side effects of all this internet openness, especially with things like Twitter and Facebook where people seem to reveal a lot more then the would have previously.

It’s a temporary phenomenon, though – the kids growing up don’t live (and have never lived) in a world where this doesn’t happen.

“to: half machine records
subject: new wave hippies ep

dude, got the ep’s today, what the fuck is with the spaces in between the tracks. they were strung together with care. THERE ARE GUITAR AND DRUM PARTS CHOPPED IN HALF. i am beyond pissed off. this is why bands are supposed to get test pressings. this thing is a piece of junk now, completely worthless, and all copies must be burned or otherwise destroyed. i am deadly serious about this. if this gets out i will personally make it my job to see to it that every copy is retreived and destroyed. starting at yr offices.

-matt horseshit”

They’re going to burn all the copies; I love music industry stories like this…

I would encourage everyone to go to this – looks like it’s going to be good fun.

One of the many, many things I’ve been working on recently. The album is amazing, by the way, and the BBC are going to use some of the music and animations as part of their Beijing Olympics coverage so you’re bound to come across some of it soon.

Featuring a certain Miss Natalie Portman:

I think the new version of Last.fm looks and feels a lot better then the outdated, slightly haphazard old one. The comments on this post are massively revealing, however – people really (really) don’t like change.

No, of course blogging is not dead. It’s almost like saying writing is dead. No, what might be seeing something of a decline is this concept of ‘rockstar’ blogging – your Scoble’s; your Kottke’s; your Denton’s.

Blogging has gone mainstream, and the rockstars just aren’t relevant anymore.

For a mass-market orientated web service such as MobileMe, not fully supporting any form of the most popular web browser is pretty poor form, isn’t it? Sure, I think you can just about get away with it if you’re a niche start-up aiming at early adopters, but not when you’re selling your product in cardboard boxes in retail stores.

Lazy arrogance, pure and simple.

(Oh and Ben, would you please finish your site? It. Hurts. My. Eyes.)

Very much mirrors my experience – I got to my local O2 store at about 7:50 to be greeted by a queue of people about 70 strong, with a couple of O2 employees looking like they’d expected 2 or 3. I gave up empty handed after about half an hour when it became clear that they both didn’t have enough iPhones and their systems had crashed – in the half an hour I was their they managed to process 5 people.

The queue:

I couldn’t agree more. I am sick and tired of the continual ridiculous posts about music appearing on TechCrunch; I appreciate that Michael Arrington has a certain point of view on the topic, but he obviously has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

Pretty nicely sums up why I don’t like going in indie record stores. They should be some form of capitalist urban mecca to me, full of interest and discovery, but instead they’re intimidating and impenetrable.

A great insight into the world of coding and bug hunting – well worth a read if you’re not a coder and want a glimpse behind the curtain.

Nonesuch Records have just launched a new site, and very good it is too – really love the clarity of information (that is so often missed on record label sites). While I’m at it, take a look at the new Domino Records site – the design is maybe not quite as nice, but the use of colour is lovely and I particularly like the user controlled ‘status’ at the top.

Well worth a read – I particularly like the automatically generated life stream stuff.