Standouts from Experimental Flash at FITC

Here are some of the entrants to FITC’s Experimental Flash Category that I found to be standouts:

http://gekitsuioh.jp/en/ – Interactive surface game.

http://attraction-lemanga.fr – Anime Interactive Anti-smoking campaign.  Interactive storytelling with motion-tracking and more.

http://www.isleoftune.com/ – Simcity meets music for the obsessive.

http://www.resn.co.nz/threaded/ – Insanity in flash.

Contributed by Jeremy Adirim

Classic Handheld Games

Its hard to describe how important portable entertainment is.  These classics bring back lots of memories for me.

Any familiar to you?

http://www.pica-pic.com/

Contributed by Jeremy Adirim and Leila Coffman

Goodbye QR Codes, Hello NFC?

Google has officially ended support for QR codes in Google Places, and has started testing the use of NFC chips in Places signage, for payment, and more.

Unlike QR codes, which required using a free QR-code reading app to take a picture of the code, which then took the user to a specified URL, NFC chips (Near Field Communication) allow users with phones such as Nexus S to simply touch the chip with their phones to get information.

For those of us who never fell in love with the low ease-of-use of QR codes, this is an interesting step and may indicate yet another use of mobile on the horizon, for payments.

Taste The Rainbow

It always stands out when a brand actually finds an interactive way to interact with their audience. I think this one works because it’s such a simple idea, that you almost feel like you’re acting in the video. There’s nothing to click, nothing to drag or drop, just a simple action of touching your screen. There’s something that we miss online, that we used to have with print ads where when we held the tactile ad it brought us closer to the brand. This is a new approach to “touching the brand.” I’ve seen a few people pull their hand back once the ad is down and say, “ew!” with a smile. That’s what makes it great. Simple advertising, playing off the brands tag line. It’s no wonder this has gone viral so quickly!

Contributed by Lindsay Siegel

via mashable

From SXSW: Seth Priebatsch from SCVNGR on Gamification

SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch gave an inspirational talk at SXSW on adding the game layer to the world, and even how it could potentially help global warming.

http://sxsw.com/node/6999

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/mar/14/sxsw-2011-scvngr-seth-priebatsch

low-quality video of the speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZvcUgi8Hso

Seth’s company: http://www.scvngr.com/

Contributed by Jeremy Adirim

Data Visualization/Game Design from Bloom.io

From former Stamen and Barbarian Group people comes Bloom.io, a new startup in San Francisco focused on data visualization with game design.

http://bloom.io/

And some of their products:

http://cartagr.am/

http://fizz.bloom.io/

Contributed by Jeremy Adirim

Fabricate Yourself Using Kinect and a 3D Printer

The XBOX Kinect is spawning lots of fun and creative hacks, including this one – making a small plastic version of people as seen by the hardware.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/openframeworks/fabricate-yourself-openframeworks-kinect/

Upcoming Local Physical Computing Events. With Robots!

Dorkbot at The Exploratorium tonight, Wednesday, March 30, 7:30pm
http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/

BarBot 2011, an art show with Cocktail Robotics at pariSoma in San Francisco, April 1-2 9pm-2am
http://robogames.net/barbot.php

Live Electronic Music and Sound Art Installations by CCRMA and guests (including Trimpin!) at SOMArts in San Francisco, Saturday, April 2, installations 4-8pm free, concert 8pm-12am $10 https://ccrma.stanford.edu/events/modulations/

Contributed by Caio Lazzuri

Painting with Light to Visualize Wifi

An art project that shows wifi strength with a bar of lights moved through real space.

http://flowingdata.com/2011/02/27/painting-with-light-to-show-wifi-networks/

Ben the Body Guard

There’s been an amazing trend growing with HTML5 + Javascript, due to the growing penetration and use of iPhones and iPads which can’t serve Flash sites.  This site is an example of what can be done without Flash, that would be visible on an iPhone or iPad.

If this is something rogue iApp developers are using to advertise their $1.50 apps then, daaaaayuuumn we could do some serious damage rock’n this kind of awesome: http://benthebodyguard.com/

Contributed by Curtis Steckel