Defaultworld Radio keeps on comin’
Episode 006, for your listening pleasure…
iPad On Sale Today
(Pre-order that is… and only if you’re an American)
Our southern friends can go online to the US Apple store today and pre-order or reserve for store pick-up their very own first generation wifi iPad (3G iPads coming later in April). As announced, the iPads will range in price from a low of $499 USD for the basic 16gb WiFi only model to a high of $829 USD for the 64gb 3G model.
I’d expected some leaks from Apple about further features and enhancements not announced at the January 27th press event, but still no news. Sadly, the first generation iPad looks like not much more than a colour Kindle that shows movies and browses the web… hey, wait a minute – that doesn’t sound too bad! Anyways, from what I’ve seen, the iPad seems more like a prototype rather than a fully-functional product, but that probably won’t stop me from buying one the first ones when they become available in my region. Still no news about when pre-orders will be available in the rest of the world (and more specifically Canada), but shouldn’t be too long. Check back for updates!
3-D Newspaper Produced in Belgium
I was surprised to read about the production of a 3-D newspaper on the BBC World News website today. I suppose I shouldn’t have been all that surprised, as we’re inundated with a constant barrage of 3-D hype these days. In addition to recent 3-D movies such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, 3-D television seems poised to invade our living rooms with Samsung announcing recently both launch dates and pricing for their 3-D HDTV product line. Look for 3-D screens and accessories to hit the big box retailers sometime late this spring, along with Blu-ray releases of these 3-D blockbusters. Read more…
Quark Flashes!
Recognizing that the dissemination of information cannot be limited to print alone, Quark been hard at work growing their traditional publishing market into Flash™, interactive and web-based media. Quark’s had a tough go of it however, competing against Adobe’s Creative Suite and it’s full compliment of cross-media authoring tools isn’t easy. In response to this challenge, Quark Xpress v8 introduced basic Flash and HTML authoring capabilities into the application, allowing print designers to add interactive elements to their work for online publishing. Read more…
iPhone Apps I Actually Use: Part II
Whether to stimulate those flat-lining Alpha Waves or just simply relax, Ambient Music on the go is indispensable!
Music is a big part of my life. While the iPhone/iPod Touch already does an admirable job of catering to this need, sometimes my desire for audible stimulation goes beyond listening to the latest album by Yo La Tengo and towards something a little more interactive. My interest in ambient music extends back to the early days of electronica, initiated by musicians such as Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream. I’ve always found ambient to be an intriguing musical genre – the apparent sonic simplicity of the style masks an underlying structure of complex musical arrangements, often triggering deep states of relaxation and/or creativity in the listener (me). Read more…
Defaultworld Radio strikes again!
OK, I’ve been a slacker this week – only one post! What can I say? I got busy… BUT, I still found time to master another episode of Defaultworld Radio, chapter 005. This is a fairly electronic programme with the very longest mix of Underworld’s Born Slippy .NUXX in existence (this is at 1:15;35), thanks to the now deceased (thank gawd) DJ Spooge. If you were to click here, you just might enjoy!
Online resources for designers
Creativity on demand is a tough regime day after day! Even the very best designer can sometimes need a little inspiration to get those concepts kick started, or some fresh ideas for that next Photoshop project. Macworld magazine’s website has an excellent little piece highlighting five essential websites for designers. Additionally, both Quark and Adobe have their own online design resources. Read more…
Defaultworld Radio 004 online now!
Fresh off the desktop, Episode 004 of Defaultworld Radio is now remastered into glorious 128kbps MP3 stereo goodness for your listening discomfort. As with previous (and future) instalments the music is all over the map… from jungle to jazz… johnny cash to joy division. And, our favourite co-host, Dr. Stephen Hawking is back opening the show! If you haven’t figured out what to do, get creative!
Fridayphile: Random Chat At Your Own Risk!
The splash-screen for Serendipitous Chat.
There’s been a lot of chatter online recently about webcams and privacy issues after a Philadelphia school district came under fire for allegedly using students’ laptop web cameras to “spy” on the users – a legitimate privacy issue, for sure! On the other end of the privacy scale, people with too much time (and technology) on their hands are flocking to websites dedicated to arranging random video chats between anonymous users. Read more…
Print is not the Issuu…
While the print magazine market flounders, the medium has never been in a better position to make the leap to a purely digital format. With the impending release of Apple’s iPad, magazine publishers are working overtime to port their content over to this new delivery system. If done correctly, major publishers of periodicals such as Wired can crack an old market wide open with rich media, more than compensating for sagging sales of print magazines. Whether or not this is a good thing remains to be seen – I have LIFE magazines at home from the 1960’s… something that will assuredly not happen in a virtual print world.
Meanwhile, the digital magazine movement may prove to be a boon to alternative, small-scale publishers with cost-effective online publishing tools from companies like Issuu. Simply put, Issuu is an online publisher for digital publications produced from PDF files. Their free service allows users to upload multipage documents in PDF format, which are then converted into stylishly animated flip-page magazines. Users can organize their publications in their own online library complete with walnut bookshelves (inspired by Apple’s iBooks, which was inspired by Delicious Library…), send links to friends, or embed their publications in their web-pages or blogs…
My recently published Print Action article on Windows 7, embedded by Issuu.
If major publishers can monetize this medium-shift, the beleaguered magazine industry could not only survive, but enjoy a renaissance while indy publishers gain cheap access to a wider world of potential readers. By the way, Issuu already has a reader App for iPhone in the works, which means they’ll be up and running when the iPad launches in late March, 2010.
-
Networked Blogs
