Augmented Mirror – The Future of Media?

The New York Times have taken the fairytale concept of turning to ‘Mirror, Mirror on the wall’ for insight and given it a 21st century makeover.

In an effort to show how facial recognition, voice commands and gesture recognition (using Micosoft Kinect) can combine to change how people consume content and go about their daily routine, the New York Times R&D Lab created the ‘augmented reflection’ and it’s pretty impressive.

I’ll take one please. Wrapped. For Christmas.

Reveal Project - Personal Data Mirror from NYT R&D on Vimeo.

Nike’s Latest Launch Goes off with a Splash [video]

Nike have launched a few shoes in their time but take a look at how they brought the launch of the Jordan Melo M8 to a new level using some impressive water projections.

Awesome Workplaces in Silicon Valley & Their Perks [Infographic]

Suffering from Mondayitis? Hugging a mug of coffee like it is the elixir of life? Reaching to turn up the office heating? Well make yourself feel better (or worse) by checking out some of this infographic from Resumebear.com, which outlines some of the ‘awesome’ places to work in Silicon Valley and their staff amenities and perks:

Think You Can Text Fast? Enter the World Texting Championships

I recently heard that kids as young as 7 are been given mobile phones now, with few reaching 12 years old before having the device glued to their palm. So what does the future hold for these children? Perhaps Ireland will top the rankings at a future Texting World Cup.

Yes there’s a Mobile World Cup that rewards the world’s fastest texter with $50,000. Not to mention there are national texting finals. Crazy eh? Apparently South Korea were the reigning World Champions until this year.

Sponsored by LG Mobile, the event has teams from 13 countries, texting in different languages – most of whom are teenagers. You have to text the 20 words that appear on screen as fast as possible – each word is assigned a score based on keystroke difficulty.

Portal to the Real Universe – There’s an App for That [Video]

These days there’s pretty much an app for everything. Well now there’s an app that’s creates a “portal to the real universe”, allowing you to see ‘invisible space’ and the ‘vastness of the Universe’ at your fingertips. Yup…the ‘Invisible Universe App’ is impressive!

Joshua Peek, an astronomer and Hubble Fellow at Columbia who works on research for NASA,  collaborated on this new Android app which allows the ‘Average Joe’ to see the universe in a new way through their smartphone, even if they can’t see the stars in their city.

Check out the video and see why I now want a ‘productivity hat’!