As it appears, the Chief Scientist of the company who actually makes this friggin funky stuff, Mr. John Underkofffler (what’s in a name), was the science advisor during the making of Minority Report.

The company, called Oblong Industries, Inc, describes its product as follows:

The SOE’s combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984; starting today, g-speak will fundamentally change the way people use machines at work, in the living room, in conference rooms, in vehicles. The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.

While this explanation might not give you all the clues you need to understand… you better watch the video:

Very impressive and a very dynamic way of handling data. What do you think? Is this the future?

Filmmaker Dennis Liu has combined his love for music, filmmaking and Mac in this high-wow!-factor music video, that he made for The Bird and The Bee.

Fully understand that he has gotten major attention and nods from the hotshots of both Apple/Mac and the film industry. Compliments!

Enjoying every moment… playing around with my Canon 40D… drinking too much coffee…

There are days though, that I leave my laptop at the office (have not switched to a lightweight Macbook Air yet!) and in that case I have no alternative computer to tune in to Last.fm… till now!

I just discovered a small application called Mobbler.

Mobbler is a Last.fm player and scrobbler for S60 devices and although a bit limited and buggy, it works perfectly well.

I downloaded the app directly on my N95 over wifi from the Google code page, installed the app, logged in with my Last.fm account and there you go! Hooked it up to my stereo set and had all I wished for.

Interface is a bit strangely designed and is messed up in landscape view, but it does the job. It even runs in the background, yet does not display the current track in the standby screen then, which would be a nice feature.

While posting this I see the Pound Sterling character on the left d-pad click and realise I have not tried that yet. Will update when I know what it does.

To use it over 3G (also possible) is maybe a bit too costly, but in a wifi environment, this is a perfect solution. Moreover, with this radio on your N95, you have no need to hook up the headphones.

Great app, great solution.

I want to mention 3 premium and 1 free WordPress themes that caught my attention and that show that next level.

One Theme [premium WordPress theme]

Our customers enjoy the knowledge that purchasing a license for One Theme will save them the hours it would take installing and implementing a competitor’s theme. One Theme’s backend is so powerful that it requires absolutely no web design experience, which means absolutely no hacking around in files you don’t understand. Sporting an unrivalled list of features, and rock solid stability, its easy to understand why purchasing One Theme is the popular choice for professional web masters.

One Theme for WordPress is as the name says: One theme that has everything you need and is easy in use even for those with no previous experience with WordPress themes.

Thesis Theme [premium WordPress theme]

I built the Thesis Theme because I wanted a framework that had it all—killer typography, a dynamically resizable layout, intelligent code, airtight optimization, and tons of flexibility. Now, after months of field testing, I’m confident enough to offer it to those of you who have come to expect nothing but the finest themes from me.

When you purchase a theme from DIY Themes, you are essentially getting a lifetime subscription to that theme. This means that you’ll be able to login at any time and download an updated version of the theme—it’s how you’ll keep your Website up-to-date and on the digital edge.

Thesis Theme for WordPress is yet another great piece of coding of Chris Pearson, who took up the challenge of creating the finest theme of them all.

Although this theme is great out of the box, it will even display more power in the hands of the creative blogger that has some styling knowledge as well. See what results you can get: Visit the Thesis theme showcase.

Themes by Thad Allender - GraphPaperPress [premium WordPress themes]

Graph Paper Press is a repository for Wordpress themes created by photographer and multimedia artist Thad Allender. Graph Paper Press pedals sophisticated modular designs that can transform your blog from a tubular list of posts into an aesthetically-pleasing news magazine website.

Currently there are 5 base themes, enough for a total of 14 variations.

View all themes by Thad Allender (you can buy all themes (14) now for only US$ 99,99 !) and you will understand what I am talking about. I came across his themes while drifting away from some flickr photos, when looking into sports photgraphy. His pictures caught me first (they really are amazing) and then I almost fell off my chair when seeing the superb themes he produced.

To take it a step further… he also developed one hell of a great gallery plugin for WordPress, which you will find here.

Ikarus Theme [FREE WordPress Theme]

Ikarus is my dream of a Wordpress Theme come to life. I’ve spent 3 months developing it and it’s absolutely perfect, with over 2,000+ user selectable variations and options all managed from the admin area. Four (4) homepage layouts (magazine, list, blog and magazine lis), over 10 colors that you can mix and match, left or right layout and tons more.

Without exaggerating, this theme gives you a very lot for a FREE theme. It has all the functionality you will need, ease of use and a very professional lay-out.

Furthermore, it is great to read that this theme is already receiving updates and additions and a lighter “white” version is coming up!

You can see all features (lonnnngggg list!) and updates in this post, over at the creator’s site, wpthemespress.com

—

Think these themes are great… what do you think?

PS Oh, in case you are wondering, this blog uses used a tweaked premium theme also: WP-Magazine Theme by Solostream

It occured to me that I really need to look into tripods and stuff. Results are quite satisfying though!

Another thing is that I keep the feeling that the possibilities of Twitter are still limited, while the idea are out there… with its users and developers.

So, what do think? Vote for or against this statement.

Always being busy with different websites, I notice that my management of plugins is not a very efficient one. Most important reason for this: I do not use 1 place to store them. As it appeared to me, this is a problem that more people encounter, especially webmasters and webpublishers that work on multiple blogs.

The idea of WP-plugin favorites is something to work out, so I think I will kick off with a few suggestions for this:

Add to plugin-favs

Now it should not be too difficult to add a tiny heart or other button to each plugin page over at WordPress.org and linking it to the user-database… As soon as you have logged in, this option is being displayed for each available plugin. That way you can easily and quickly select the plugins you require and add them to your personal favs.

Manage plugin-favs

Now after having selected a few plugins that you need, it would even be better if you can make different sets of favorite plugins… It could be as easy as tagging them, but in this case you the tag represents a “set”.

You make a set for “ipears.com”, a set for “multi-media blogs”, for “family blogs” and for instance “that super secret highly sociable blog project”.

The total of plugins in your favs stays the same, but you can have different sized sets, depending which of the plugins were “tagged” for that particular set.

Export plugin-favs in a zip-file

I am using Terminal more and more. Whenever I need 1 plugin quickly, I copy its download link location, switch to my terminal window, change the directory on my server to wp-content/plugins, type wget and paste the link location for the plugin download… downloading straight to my server is always super quick. Then I unzip the plugin file and remove (rm) the zip file.

Now this is handy for 1 plugin. But in an ideal situation, I would like to have the option to do this for a zip file that contains all the plugins I need for a certain project. So… in come the sets! It would be verrry convenient if each set I have created has a link to the zip file that contains all the plugins in that specific set.

I think this is something that can make many WordPress users very happy.

Maybe… there is even a better option! ↓

Import plugin-favs set into WordPress

How cool would it be if you could actually link your WordPress.org account to your standalone WordPress blog, go to Admin / Plugins and choose something like “Import Plugin-favs set”, select the set you want and import all the plugins in that set in one go? Seeing how easy the plugins are being upgraded from within WordPress admin…

…there must be a way to do this.

Share plugin sets?

Maybe a step too far, but I can imagine that there are moments that you would like to share a set of plugins that you think are unmissable for any blogger. Come to thnik of this after reading the article “WordPress SEO - The Definitive Guide to High Ranking for Your Blog” by fellow Dutchman Joost de Valk (aka Yoast).

Throughout this article he mentions multiple plugins that could be helpful to take your blog to a higher SEO level. It would be really convenient (for him and his readers) if in the end he could mention something like: “Get all the above mentioned WP-plugins together. You will find them in this plugin-favs set”

In the same line, it would be easy for podcasters to share what they use to optimize their blogs for letting hear their (literally) word of mouth. Or for more multimedia related blogs to share what plugins they use to get that viral video going. I think that there are enough ways to implement this.

Furthermore, it is a great way for plugin-writers to get some more exposure and feedback.

Plugin-Favs for WordPress?

Final question of course: “Will this be added to WordPress?”

After I hit the publish button for this post, I will post this also to the ideas forum at WordPress. Furthermore, I really am interested to hear what others think of this idea.

So please comment and link and lets see where this idea can lead to!

The different trailers and vignettes are already grrreat… looking forward to the movie!

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• 5 influential books all bloggers should know
• Everything you wanted to know about simplifying your life… and way more
• 40+ most wanted Wordpress tricks and hacks
• Screenflow - Professional screencasting Studio
• Essential applications for your Mac OS X

Enjoy!

Although I keep Safari around for its speed, the many plugins and options of Firefox sure put it on the nr. 1 spot for me

Set a Guinness World Record - Enjoy a Better Web

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008.

I pledged to download Firefox 3 on the day of its release, will you?

Working this way and upgrading on a regular basis gives you some great insight (actually, you see the changes as they catch your eye by surprise) in the current development of WordPress.

I see some great and substantial changes coming for WP 2.6, as I cover right here:

FYI, the following details about the upcoming release of WordPress 2.6 are based upon unstable and development releases of WordPress. It is uncertain that these function actually make it to the final version.

In Short: Upgrading through SVN

Ok, for those who do not know how to put your site on the bleeding edge and update through SVN, here are some screenshots of the simple steps once you have set up everything.

As database upgrades might apply, I have a bookmark for the final step to upgrade WordPress.

Check the WordPress Codex for full instructions: Updating WordPress with Subversion.

Google Gears

While some sources mentioned that Google Gears would be implemented for off-line posting purposes, as it seems now, WP 2.6 will be sporting Google Gears in order to speed up WordPress.

In the upper right corner of your screen, the option “Speed up!” has appeared. After clicking it, you are taken through the following pop-ups:

While most other blogs focus on the fact that indeed it does “speed up” the performance of WP, I still keep in mind that it can relate to the possibility of off-line posting. As Chris Prince wrote on the Official Google blog:

The latest build of WordPress also integrates Gears, to improve performance, and to let users manage their blogs offline.

Well, we will see how it develops, but first impressions are great already.

Post Revisions

This is a one-man blog, but for the many multiple-writer blogs that are out there, this feature must be a true valhalla: Post Revisions.

Post revisions enables you to easily oversee changes in different versions of the same post by more authors, as well as the option to compare different revisions (with very nice colors! Yeh!).

For more information: check this post by WP-developer mdawaffe: Post Revisions in WO 2.6

Theme Live Preview

I noticed that a simple yet more user-friendly feature was also added to this future version of WordPress: Theme Live Preview.

So rather than that a theme is activated immediately when you click it, now you get an in-browser (without leaving the themes admin page) preview:

Shift-click selection

In this version, no matter where you are where you have checkboxes available in a list (comments, posts, etc), you can tick one, press SHIFT and tick another one way down the list in order to select those + those in and between. A nifty feature that offers some more flexibility while administrating your blog.

Press This

“Press-this” is a feature that IMHO will cause TUMBLR users to shift to WordPress.
Being an upgrade to Josh Kenzer’s “Quick Post” plugin and being integrated with WP, it offers some great extra speed to one’s blogging workflow.

Default Avatar Options

What wordpress.com already has, will also be available to the standalone versions of WordPress…

This will give some more color and variation to the gravatars! I have not updated my theme’s code to display them yet, but will do so soonest.

WordPress development updates

Some information on the development of WordPress and on running your blog with SVN (stable or a buggy yet interesting developers’ version):

• WordPress Development Updates (http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/)
• Using Subversion (http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Subversion)[for developers only]
• Installing/Updating WordPress with Subversion (http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing/Updating_WordPress_with_Subversion)
  This also covers how to update your current version to the latest stable version
• WordPress Blog (http://wordpress.org/development/)
  Here you will find the sneakpeaks and official release announcements

I look forward to how WP further developments… what would you like to see in coming releases?

An amazing piece of street art by Blu, found through Chris Brogan’s site.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

If you can create a viral with this duration that captures your attention till the very end, you are more than an artist… then you got skills that would make you a great marketeer too.

Deep respect for this and still wondering how much effort it must have taken to make such an animation.