David Emery Online

Possibilities

Mobile phones currently have a rough idea of where they are, and soon GPS is going to start becoming a standard feature. Couple with this the addition of a simple compass and gyroscope set-up, so the phone knows which way it’s pointing.

Add to this a large screen, a camera and a high speed internet connection – many mobiles have all this already.

Then you’ve got something that could change the world.

Imagine holding up your phone, and seeing information being overlaid in real time over the top of the view from your camera. You might be walking down a high street; holding your phone up could overlay street names and directions above roads, show star ratings above restaurants and highlight prices and stock levels of a shop without you even having to go in.

Think of the possibilities this opens up – combine it with IM and have a visual indication of where your buddies are on screen; think of when you’re trying to find someone at a gig, for example – it’s loud, dark and busy. You could just hold up your phone and see a big arrow floating over their head.

You could very easily couple this with RFID to allow you...

Art Comment

Revisiting my recent post Art is Bollocks I visited the Turner Prize Exhibition this weekend. As for the art, their were few surprises – Rebbeca Warren and Mark Titchner’s work were both inconsequential; nothing special; nothing interesting. Tomma Abts’ paintings were probably the highlight – their abstract nature combined with the layered and built-up texture inherent with the medium was really something special.

Phil Collins’ work was sadly incomplete; as I was visiting on a Sunday the office he’s constructed as part of the exhibit was empty, leaving the focus being on one of his video works focusing on the effects of reality television on it’s participants. I think his work is probably the most innovative of all the nominees – the most deserving of the prize – but personally I have a real problem with video work presented in a gallery setting; to me, it’s just not the right atmosphere to experience tele-visual arts. You inevitably don’t see the piece from the start, joining it halfway through, and often (as with the exhibit at the Turner Prize Exhibition) you have to stand – or worse, loiter as people mingle past.

The most interesting thing to me was not, however, the...

Scenester

As pointed out by Ian there’s an article on the recent BarCamp London in this months .net magazine.

Yes, that is me taking up most of the page.

Yes, I do look quite a lot like a chipmunk.

Yes, they do use the picture three times.

It’s certainly nice to be in the pages of a magazine, but they could have used a nicer picture. Oh well. For some context, it was taken during my talk on Digital Music, and left to right that’s Matt Patterson, Ben Ward, Steve Marshall and me (the chipmunk).

Photography aside, it’s really nice to see BarCamp London being featured in the pages of a magazine – it was a really great event and deserves more publicity. If you go and check out Ian’s blog you’ll see that at the moment there’s a huge amount of activity in the UK “geek” scene – this week I think there’s an event every evening, and looming on the horizon is another BarCamp and and Christmas Geek Party.

I think all this activity is indicative of a very interesting “movement” happening here in the UK. Recently it’s often been pointed out that London – and the UK in general...

Koko in Camden has a stupid camera policy

This post is mostly going to be for the benefit of Google as I checked on Google first and turned up nothing.

Koko in Camden has a pretty stupid policy and what cameras it lets in; basically, if you’re camera looks “professional” you can’t take it in and it has to go in the cloakroom. “Normal” cameras are let in fine.

For reference, my camera is a Minolta Dimage 7 – these days you certainly wouldn’t class it as a professional camera (it’s only 5mp for a start) but it does look quite “pro”.

So to all you gig-going photographers – beware!

It’s a shame really – I was hoping to post up some pictures of the rather excellent Rapture who played tonight, but not to worry. They were very good, though – it’s always nice to see a band where you know all the songs. Interestingly, they were much, much better the Klaxons last week.

Make of that what you will.

Less Less

More is always better.

We want less less.

Waste fewer.

Greater sales.

Up.

Up. Up.

“We not going to sell many of this.”

“How else shall we make the money?”

Reward.

Recompense.

Importance

Yesterday, amongst all the millions of things that happened two things which you’ve no doubt all ready heard about occurred: Firstly, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. Almost simultaneously, North Korea conducted their first nuclear weapons test.

Which one of these was more important?

Which one of these is going to have more of an effect on the world?

I think it’s the Google-YouTube deal.

Put down that rotten tomato; let me explain!

Obviously, the possibility of North Korea becoming a nuclear power has a huge knock-on effect to the rest of the world; as we’ve seen with the current mess in Afghanistan and Iraq it really doesn’t take much of a reason for one country to invade the other. A nuclear arsenal is a pretty big reason.

We’re not, surprisingly enough, talking about America invading North Korea – Iran is next on their list”. We’re talking about China, which is possibly even worse. I see this playing out like this (baring in mind I-am-not-a-military-tactician): North Korea keeps on with the nuclear testing, as military might is the only things the North Koreans have left – from what I can tell they’re not much better of then Iraq was before the war (not as...

All opinions here are mine

A couple of times in the comments on recent posts people have been calling me out on only giving my opinions on this blog; I should – at least according to them – be trying to write from a neutral-bystander point of view.

They are, of course, wrong.

This blog is here as a form of expression; a way for me to express my thoughts, views and ideas. It is not trying to be a news source, or a specific niche blog – this is all just my views, and while I may elaborate on opposing viewpoints for the sake of interesting discourse, equally I might not mention them at all.

I have also been called arrogant and self-centered, and those accusations I agree with; on this blog, I write about what I want to write about. As you may be able to tell by glancing at the recent posts to the right, I’m interested in a whole host of things ranging from the future of music and web development to the mac and mac development.

I’m fully aware of the conventional blogger notion that focusing on one topic brings both more readers and also more respect in your chosen field; but that’s simply...

Robot Arms

Jack Schulze and Matt Webb have just launched a new blog, Pulse Laser and I think it’s already one of my favourites – the level of creativity and thought behind the posts is stunning and I can’t wait to read more. This quote from Drawing Phones sums it all up quite nicely:

“Definitely needs to be more exploration of robot arms in the future.”

There always needs to be more exploration of robot arms.

Anyway, after reading Pulse Laser and instantly wanting to post a link to it I realised I haven’t posted any of my favourite sites in quite a while; my Bloglines addition has now got to the point where I’m reading about 500 sites a day – I’m sure there must be something in there that’s interesting!

2lmc spool – Always interesting tech/mac/uk blog that is slightly unique in that it’s a joint blog where both people contribute to all the posts.

Ben Metcalfe – Often outspoken, but always interesting.

A VC – Very insightful writings of a venture capitalist based in New York.

BlackRimGlasses – Blog of the Senior Director of Technology at Warner Bros. Records. Interesting reading for anyone interested in the future of music.

Read more ➔

Art is bollocks

Not all art.

Some of it is brilliant; Kandinski, Dali, Magritte, Mondrian.

But some – most – is pitiful. While it may have thought and reasoning behind it, that by itself does not make it good.

Creativity by itself does not good art make. Creativity is only useful if you have a problem to solve, not an idea looking for a problem.

The incredibly intricate reasoning behind most modern art is quite simply bollocks – simply the by-product of a broken schooling system that is breeding ever large quantities of “artists” that have been trained to come up with bullshit that justifies whatever technically simple work they have come up with. Not that the “difficulty” of a piece is what justifies it or makes it brilliant, but the idea has to be interesting; unique; innovative.

All of this bollocks really is art, however – unlike the Daily Mail et al I’m not trying to decry things as “not art” – but it’s simply bad art.

Art is not good just because it’s art.

On Monday the shortlist for the Tuner Prize went on display. Rebecca Warren’s exhibit and Mark Titchner’s exhibit are both quite obviously utter bollocks. They both show no creativity, and prop up...

Just say no

“No” seems to have been banned.

No-one seems to be prepared to say it anymore.

Even at the most preposterous idea.

It’s bubble side effect #324.

Just say no.