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Gizmodo  -
3 hours and 8 minutes ago
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Guardian Unlimited -
3 hours and 46 minutes ago
Prime minister will hail potential to open new interactive form of politics in which citizens
develop new relationship with MPs
Gordon Brown will tomorrow liken the arrival of superfast broadband to the invention of
electricity, saying it will save the government billions of pounds and revolutionise the
provision of public services.
The prime minister will also hail its potential to open a new interactive form of politics in
which citizens develop a new kind of relationship with their MPs.
In a speech designed to show that he is the man to renew Britain, Brown will say superfast
broadband can "give voice and choice to citizens, parents, patients and consumers".
He will suggest the technology can allow Britain to become "the world leader in the new politics
where that voice for feedback and deliberative decisions can transform the way we make local and
national decisions".
The prime minister believes discussions using the web will make it far easier to find out in
depth what the public believes about specific issues, thus changing the current role of MP as the
representative of a constituency.
Brown will argue that the digital revolution will be especially vital in job centres, schools,
hospital records and ensuring that, when people move home, they need only inform one website
rather than a plethora of government agencies.
Council tax, rubbish collection, parking permits, as well as finding a new doctor and dentist,
would automatically appear when someone logs on to their government account to change their
address.
The developments should also allow the sidelining of Whitehall planning, because it will be far
easier to predict the services the public needs and wants.
In an indication of the scale of savings available to Whitehall, the work and pensions secretary,
Yvette Cooper, will publish findings showing her department has already saved more than
£1bn, largely because of services going online.
Cooper's report says the government can save more than £100m a year by helping people claim
their pension and Jobseeker's Allowance online, £40m by reducing office space, over
£110m by getting more value out of contracts and £200m by benefit delivery changes.
Ministers have been looking at delivering some benefits entirely online, but are wary because of
the large numbers of people not on the internet.
The next benefits to be put on line are likely to be full Jobseeker's Allowance, followed by
child benefit and tax credits.
Jim Knight, the work and pensions minister, said: "People will be able to look up jobs, have new
jobs in their areas pushed to them, and manage their benefits claim."
Brown will also attempt to draw a dividing line between Labour and the Tories, saying only state
intervention in the form of the government's telephone tax will ensure superfast broadband
infrastructure is available across Britain.
Brown will say the £6 a year digital tax on phones will raise between £175m and
£200m each year, enabling the superfast broadband infrastructure to be extended nationwide.
"Faster broadband speeds will bring new, cheaper, more personalised and more effective public
services to people; it will bring games and entertainment options with new levels of
sophistication; it will make accessing goods and services immeasurably easier," Brown will say.
"In short, the world available to those with superfast broadband will be unimaginably richer than
to those without."
The government has called for superfast broadband of 50 megabits persecond r above to be made
available to 90% of the country by the end of 2017.
The Conservatives plan to raise a smaller sum from 2013 from cash left over from the digital TV
switchover fund.
BT plans to offer a mixture of high-speed broadband technologies to around 40% of the country,
while Virgin Media has made cable broadband, capable of speeds of around 50Mbps, available to
half the UK's homes.
Patrick Wintourguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use
of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
 
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Gizmodo -
4 hours and 34 minutes ago
Vous avez peut-être remarqué l'absence sur iPad de certaines icônes
présentes par défaut sur l'iPhone. Pourquoi les applis Bourse, Calculette, Horloge,
Météo et Dictaphone ne sont-elles pas présentes? D'après Daring
Fireball, cela tient au perfectionnisme de Steve Jobs, qui ne tient pas à ce que des applis
conçues sur un petit ...
|
MacPlus -
4 hours and 39 minutes ago
|
GNOME-Look.org Content -
5 hours and 35 minutes ago
 Beos-r5
1.2
(GTK 2.x Theme/Style)
Theme based on Beos os gui.
-- ICEWM --
http://box-look.org/content/show.php/Beos-r5?content=121934
-- SAWFISH AND GNOME --
1.Install sawfish.
2.Run gconf-editor.
3.Go to /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager and set the value to
"sawfish".
4.Restart gnome.
5.Extract sawfish theme to ~/.sawfish/themes.
6.Run sawfish-ui to change theme.
changelog:
-- 1.0 --
initial release.
-- 1.0.1 --
metacity theme button size fixed.
-- 1.0.2 --
GtkScrollbar::min_slider_length = 44 now
scrollbar trough improved
-- 1.1 --
Sawfish theme was added.
-- 1.2 --
Radio button was improved.
Scrollbar was improved.
Button color was impoved.
Icewm theme was added.
[read
more]
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  Praktikant Events/Business/Communication
KDE e.V praktikum
KDE e.V. Germany, Berlin more about this offer
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KDE-Apps.org Content -
9 hours and 32 minutes ago
 Wally 2.3.2
(KDE Other Utility)
Wally is a Qt4 wallpaper changer, using multiple sources like files, folders, FTP remote folders,
Flickr, Yahoo!, Panoramio, Pikeo, Ipernity, Photobucket, Buzznet, Picasa, Smugmug and Bing images.
It runs under Linux, Win32, and MacOSX, and it's available in many languages.
Supported Window Managers:
- Win32
- MacOSX (using OSA scripts)
- KDE3
- KDE4 (using WallyPlugin)
- Gnome
- XFCE4
- Fluxbox
- Blackbox
- FVWM (unstable)
- WindowMaker
If you are upgrading KDE4 to 4.4, you must rebuild from sources, cause WallyPlugin can crash
Plasma. DEB files will be available when 4.4 will be available as "stable" with Ubuntu.
Note for Ubuntu users: if you're using KDE4, please use KDE4 ONLY packages!!!
changelog:
Version 2.3.2
- Double-clicking icon in system tray advances on next photo
- Improved duplicated photo detection
- Added Catalan language
- Added Greek language
- Added disclaimer to be accepted on first start of Wally
- Removed QtScript dependency, JSON parser has been implemented internally (Qt 4.6
compatibility)
- Run-time folder change detection has been removed from "Folders" module, its use is too resource
consuming
- BUG FIXED: search issues occurred when using multiple tags/keywords
- BUG FIXED: EXIF information are now showed correctly when non-Latin1 characters in filename path
are used
- BUG FIXED: KDE 4.4 SC was not properly detected
- BUG FIXED: Panoramio was working only with "Original" sized images
Version 2.3.1
- Added Chinese language
- Added Polish language
- Active Desktop is now detected, and error is reported
- Photo filename is used when title is not available
- XFCE detection improved
- BUG FIXED: GUI bug in proxy selection form
- BUG FIXED: Panoramio coordinates are checked after input terminates
- BUG FIXED: buggy behaviour in MacOSX, Folders module, when too many files are present in
specified directories
Version 2.3.0
- Added French language
- Added Czech language
- Wally can now display wallpapers behind toolbars and docks, using full screen space
- Time period can now be shortened up to 10 seconds
- Automatic border color feature has been added
- BUG FIXED: history data is not stored anymore when Cancel is pressed
- BUG FIXED: HTTP download does not get stuck anymore if HTTP response is wrong
- BUG FIXED: HTTP download in history window does not get stuck anymore at 99%, cause of a
QProgressDialog conflict
- BUG FIXED: history viewer misbehaviours have been fixed
- BUG FIXED: Panoramio items save state correctly now
- BUG FIXED: map selection issues in Panoramio items have been fixed
- BUG FIXED: MacOSX Info.plist fixed
- BUG FIXED: regression bug about free disk space check has been fixed
Version 2.2.0
- Added selection on map for Panoramio items configuration
- History window has been improved, more informations for each item and filter by tags have been
added
- Added Bing module
- EXIF support improved. Information window has been added, and EXIF is stored in history.
- BUG FIXED: wrong GUI behaviour in HTTP items when setting photos path, now fixed
- BUG FIXED: wrong GUI behaviour on proxy server selection, now fixed
- BUG FIXED: duplicated items are not accepted anymore
- BUG FIXED: now asks HTTP server first if download is recoverable
- BUG FIXED: segfault no longer happens when GIF/PNG/no-EXIF-compatible photo is downloaded
- BUG FIXED: consecutive downloads of the same photo are not allowed anymore
- BUG FIXED: X shortcuts for older WMs weren't updated to current features
Version 2.1.0
- Added system proxy support
- Added History feature
- Modules can be disabled/enabled
- Added Picasa module
- Added Smugmug module
- Added Buzznet module
- HTTP engine can now recover downloads
- More cosmetic changes
- Free disk space threshold can be configured
- Multiple items in HTTP engines can be selected
- BUG FIXED: state in Folders engine is now properly saved
- BUG FIXED: playlist is now reset correctly after wrap
Version 2.0.3
- BUG FIXED: MacOSX script for wallpaper change now works properly
- BUG FIXED: Color button is now showed correctly with all GUI styles
- BUG FIXED: "About" dialog now can be closed under MacOSX
- BUG FIXED: empty "Remote folder" items are now correctly rejected
- BUG FIXED: Wally's single instance in MacOSX is now properly detected
- BUG FIXED: annoying issues with KDE4 WallyPlugin have been solved (at the end!!!)
- Some cosmetic changes
Version 2.0.2
- BUG FIXED: empty items are now discarded
- BUG FIXED: single instance in Linux now is checked using file PID, thus avoiding false
positives
- BUG FIXED: only available free space on desktop is used
- BUG FIXED: Pikeo now resets page count search after an empty result
- Free disk space (at least 20 megs) is checked for availability before saving photos
- EXIF tags are analyzed in every plugin, and corrections are applied where needed
- Photobucket has no throttle limit anymore, watermark on photo is applied
- More code restyling
- Fixed plural form in translations
- Added Portuguese (Brazil) translation
- Window manager can be forced at command line (Linux only)
- WallyPlugin: D-BUS is not used anymore
- WallyPlugin: KDE message will appear at end of installation, remembering of KDE4 Plasma
restart
- Removed QCA dependency
- Application data folder is now more S.O. "friendly" under Win32 and MacOSX
Version 2.0.1
- WallyPlugin BUG FIXED: plugin is now compiled without debug information
- WallyPlugin BUG FIXED: D-BUS access rights are now setup correctly
- WallyPlugin BUG FIXED: installation paths are now detected properly
You don't need to upgrade to 2.0.1 if you're not using KDE4.
.DEB files now include Wally and WallyPlugin. No need to use sources for KDE4.
Version 2.0.0
- Wally's engine has been totally rewritten, for better stability and better coding structure in
plugins' development
- UI partial restyling and improvement
- KDE4 support
- MacOSX support (experimental)
- FTP remote folders support
- Multilanguage support (English, Italian, Spanish and Russian)
- Wally now remembers its last state before termination
- Bugs fixed all around
Version 1.3.2
- Added configurable GUI style
- Flickr search pages count is now hard-limited, to avoid repeated results
- Pikeo plugin is now enabled
- Added "-debug" command line switch for better bugs tracing
- BUG FIXED: pictures in folder mode now change correctly
- BUG FIXED: multiple erroneous picture validations are no longer generated
Version 1.3.1
- BUG FIXED: regression bug about removing rows from configuration has been fixed
Version 1.3.0
- Added Pixeo plugin (still disabled, EXPERIMENTAL)
- Added Riya plugin (still disabled, EXPERIMENTAL)
- About dialog now shows supported images
- BUG FIXED: Gnome detection now should work
Version 1.2.0
- Added Panoramio plugin
- Flickr images are now rotated correctly, if needed
- BUG FIXED: sending quit immediately before background change doesn't generate a segfault now
- BUG FIXED: HTTP timeouts now if a transfer takes too long
- BUG FIXED: internal search is now limited by HTTP result count
- VERY IMPORTANT BUG FIXED: Play/Pause now works correctly
Version 1.1.0
- Added Fluxbox support
- Added Blackbox support
- Added FVWM support (unstable)
- Added WindowMaker support
- BUG FIXED: XFCE4 now works
- BUG FIXED: "Cancel" command now works when HTTP download is in progress
Version 1.0.0
- First release
[read more]
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Guardian Unlimited -
11 hours and 56 minutes ago
As the strike enters its second day there are conflicting claims from BA and Unite on the level
of disruption. Meanwhile, the government is trying to end the dispute and the Tories continue to
highlight Labour's links with the union. Follow live updates
9.40am:
What do the Sunday papers make of the strike?
The Sunday Express is talking about a "spring of discontent" and has little sympathy for the
union.
Those old enough to recall the Winter of discontent in 1979 look on current events with horror
and disbelief. Have unions and management forgotten the lessons of 30 years ago?
The dispute between BA and the Unite union is one that should never have started. Cabin crew have
a grievance but it's no more than millions of people must deal with today. They are backed by a
trade union that also happens to be paymaster to the Labour Party.
The Observer complains about both sides and the lack of sophistication in the dispute.
The two sides' positions do not, on paper, look irreconcilable. But the personalities involved
seem pathologically indisposed to reconciliation.
Even before the current dispute, BA chief executive Willie Walsh believed that trade union
activism was a persistent drag on the company's performance. He is now convinced that facing down
Unite, breaking a strike if necessary, is a vital step in the airline's evolution. Naturally, the
union then accuses BA of failing to negotiate in good faith.
Across the table, Tony Woodley, one of Unite's two general secretaries, is a career trade union
pugilist. He has rarely in his life credited a management team with the capacity to negotiate in
good faith.
From the very start of the process, there was a lack of trust and a surplus of stubborn pride.
The interests of BA customers and the wider economy were much deployed in the rhetoric of both
sides, but not served in Mr Walsh's and Mr Woodley's brinkmanship.
The Mail on Sunday reports that the strike has "failed to take off" as BA's
"strike-busting exercise" appears to be working.
While unions and management slug it out, they both seem to be forgetting that BA exists only
because of considerable privileges which are a hangover from its days as a nationalised company.
Writing in the paper LibDem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable claims the dispute could be resolved
by the government if it threatened to take away its historic privileges.
BA has preferential take-off and landing slots at Heathrow which it receives free of charge, much
to the fury of competitors such as Virgin and BMI.
The expansion of runway capacity at Heathrow – bitterly opposed by large
numbers of Londoners who live under the flight paths – is being undertaken at
the behest of BA as well as the airport's owner BAA.
It is time to stop this pampering. If Gordon Brown and Lord Adonis seriously want to stop this
strike they could make it crystal clear to both sides that these privileges will be taken away,
leaving the airline and its jobs at the mercy of competitors. They would settle soon enough.
In the Sunday Times, the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe depicts Gordon Brown
as a broken BA aircraft tumbling to earth
9.07am:
Unite claim that
Heathrow's terminal five is like a ghost town with 80% of cabin crew joining the strike.
BA's chief executive Willie Walsh says the company's strike contingency plans are working well
and that some of the cancelled flights
have been reinstated.
The government is reported to desperate to end the strike. Gordon Brown's
officials are close touch with Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, according to
the Observer.
The Conservatives continue to highlight the government's embarrassment over the dispute and its
financial links with the union. It has launched a new poster claiming "Gordon's doing sweet BA".
It depicts the prime minister in a Unite cabin crew uniform.
A new ICM poll for the BBC shows that only 25% of people think the strike is justified.
Where do your sympathies lie in the dispute and has it affected your travel plans. Please let us
know in the comments section below, or email me at matthew.weaver@guardian.co.uk.
Matthew Weaverguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use
of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
 
|
Guardian Unlimited -
21 hours and 59 minutes ago
Alistair Darling will announce plans to back low-carbon transport and energy projects in 'budget
for growth'
Alistair Darling will this week announce a £1bn fund to kick-start investment in green
transport and energy projects as part of a "budget for growth".
With Wednesday's budget coming weeks before an expected general election, the chancellor will use
his plans for the new low-carbon infrastructure scheme to contrast Labour's support for industry
with the Conservatives' more hands-off philosophy.
Business secretary Lord Mandelson, who has spearheaded the government's new, more interventionist
approach, told the Observer that the Conservatives "wouldn't lift a single finger" to
help manufacturing.
With the public finances tight, the new green fund will be relatively small in scale, but the
government hopes to use the cash to tempt private investors to back innovative new ideas. "It's
about saying there are ways in which the government can play a role, which are not necessarily
multibillion-pound projects," said a Treasury source. He cited the model of the Sheffield
Forgemasters plant, where Mandelson last week used an £80m loan from taxpayers to secure a
£170m financing package that included support from the European Investment Bank and nuclear
supplier Westinghouse.
The Sheffield Forgemasters deal – which will create 180 jobs initially and
provide 1,000 apprenticeships – was one of several new industrial investments
announced in recent weeks that have been secured with the help of public subsidy.
Mandelson said: "People say: why am I securing Vauxhall, why am I securing the Nissan electric
car to be produced in Sunderland, why am I securing the development and production of Ford's
green technologies, why did I go to Sheffield Forgemasters to deliver funding for a 15,000-tonne
press? It's because if the government doesn't act here, some other government will. If we hadn't
bridged the final mile in the way that we did, because the market couldn't or wouldn't provide,
then the investment would have gone elsewhere."
With the government committed to reduce UK carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, radical changes in
infrastructure and power generation will be needed over the coming decades. Labour hopes that by
boosting low-carbon energy such as wind, wave and solar power, and helping to upgrade the
transport system to use cleaner fuels, it can help to meet those targets while creating thousands
of new "green-collar jobs".
But environmental campaigners warned that £1bn would not go very far. Andrew Simms,
director of the New Economics Foundation, said: "If what they're talking about is less than one
five-hundredth of the amount that was thrown at the banking system, at a point where investment
banks have bonus pots bigger than £1bn, then while the idea is right, the size of the
ambition smacks of skewed priorities."
Comparing the task of preparing for a new low-carbon era to the long drive from London to
Edinburgh, he said: "You won't get very far on a teacupful of petrol." The Stern review on the
economics of climate change suggested it would cost more than £10bn a year to prepare the
economy for cuts in emissions on the scale needed.
Mandelson stressed that as well as underpinning growth, the budget would also reaffirm Labour's
determination to tackle the public deficit. The latest official figures showed that the public
finances are in a healthier state than the chancellor feared at the time of December's pre-budget
report, and he could reduce his £178bn estimate of this year's deficit by as much as
£10bn.
But Mandelson said that would not alter the government's plans for tax rises and public spending
cuts in the years ahead. "We will maintain a tough deficit reduction programme: there's no
question about it. It's necessary for the health of the economy, for the confidence of the
markets. We will make it absolutely clear that what we have committed to, we will follow
through."
However, Darling will also stress that – unlike the Conservatives, who would
start cutbacks immediately – Labour will "lock in recovery" by maintaining its
financial support for the fragile economy for another year.
The UK emerged from recession in the final quarter of 2009, growing by 0.3%, but Bank of England
policymakers have left low interest rates in place, making clear they remain nervous about the
sustainability of the upturn.
Separately, Mandelson is also likely to be given the task of overseeing a new state-backed
investment bank, which will help to support businesses struggling to secure funding from banks.
Heather Stewartguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use
of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
 
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Guardian Unlimited -
22 hours ago
Charles Arthur investigates how the ways in which we watch sport, read magazines and do business
with each other could change for ever
Don't act too surprised if, some time in the next year, you meet someone who explains that their
business card isn't just a card; it's an augmented reality business card. You can see a collection
and, at visualcard.me, you can even design your
own, by adding a special marker to your card, which, once put in front of a webcam linked to the
internet, will show not only your contact details but also a video or sound clip. Or pretty much
anything you want.
It's not just business cards. London Fashion Week has tried them out too: little symbols that
look like barcodes printed onto shirts, which, when viewed through a webcam, come to life.
Benetton is using augmented reality for a campaign that kicked off last month, in which it is trying to find models from among the
general population.
Augmented reality – AR, as it has quickly become known –
has only recently become a phrase that trips easily off technologists' lips; yet we've been
seeing versions of it for quite some time. The idea is straightforward enough: take a real-life
scene, or (better) a video of a scene, and add some sort of explanatory data to it so that you
can better understand what's going on, or who the people in the scene are, or how to get to where
you want to go.
Sports coverage on TV has been doing it for years: slow-motion could be described as a form of
augmented reality, since it gives you the chance to examine what happened in a situation more
carefully. More recently cricket, tennis, rugby, football and golf have all started to overlay
analytic information on top of standard-speed replays – would that ball have
hit the stumps, the progress of a rally, the movement of the backs or wingers, the relative
flights of shots – to tell you more about what's going on. Probably the most
common use is in American football where the "first down" line – the distance
the team has to cover to continue its offence – is superimposed on the picture
for viewers.
But those required huge systems. AR took its first lumbering steps into the public arena eight
years ago: all that you needed to do was strap on 10kg of computing power –
laptop, camera, vision processor – and you could get an idea of what was
feasible. The American Popular Science magazine wrote about the idea in 2002 – but the idea of being permanently
connected to the internet hadn't quite jelled at that point.
"AR has been around for ages," says Andy Cameron, executive director of Fabrica, an interactive
design studio which works with Benetton, "maybe going back as far as the 1970s and art
installations that overlaid real spaces with something virtual." He mentions in particular the
work of pioneering computer artist Myron Krueger.
What's changed in the past year is that AR has come within reach of all sorts of developers
– and the technology powerful enough to make use of it is owned by millions of
people, often in the palms of their hands.
The arrival of powerful smartphones and computers with built-in video capabilities means that you
don't have to wait for the AR effects as you do with TV. They can simply be overlaid onto real
life. Step forward Apple's iPhone, and phones using Google's Android operating system, both of
which are capable of overlaying information on top of a picture or video.
Within the small world of AR, one of the best-known apps is that built by Layar, which – given a location, and
using the iPhone 3GS's inbuilt compass to work out the direction you're pointing the phone
– can give you a "radar map" of details such as Wikipedia information, Flickr
photos, Google searches and YouTube videos superimposed onto a picture you've taken of the scene.
For Americans, it will also pull in details from the government's economic Recovery Act
– so that if you're on Wall Street and want to see how many billions went into
which building, it will show you.
Or, more usefully, Yelp offers an augmented reality
application that will show you ratings and reviews for a restaurant before you walk in
– the sort of thing that could make restaurants quiver with delight, or
shudder in horror.
Or maybe it wouldn't need to know where it is; only who it's looking at. A prototype application
demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February took things a little further
again. Point the phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the
web and attach details – their Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts
– and stick them, rather weirdly, into the air around their head (viewed
through your phone, of course). "It's taking social networking to the next level," says Dan
Gärdenfors, head of user experience research at The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish mobile software company.
And there are fabulously useful applications: at Columbia University, computer science professor
Steve Feiner and PhD candidate Steve Henderson have created their Augmented Reality for
Maintenance and Repair (Armar) project. It combines sensors, head-up displays, and
instructions to tackle the military's maintenance needs: start working on a piece of kit, and the
details about it pop up in front of
you. Imagine if you could put on a pair of special goggles when you needed to investigate
your car's engine, or a computer's innards, and the detail would pop up. That's the sort of idea
that Armar is trying to implement, though for the military at first..
Yet it's fashion which seems to have leapt quickest into this technology. The T-shirt with AR in
London Fashion Week was developed by Cassette Playa, a label that has been worn by Lily Allen,
Rihanna and Kanye West. Carri Munden, who designed it with the Fashion Digital Studio at the
London College of Fashion, described it as "mixing reality and fantasy". Adidas, too, has
launched trainers with AR symbols in the tongues: hold them to a webcam and you are taken to
interactive games on the Adidas site.
The process by which the strange symbols get translated into images is simple enough: the website
takes the feed from your webcam (you have to explicitly allow it to do so, so there are no
security worries) and analyses it for the particular set of symbols that the program is looking
for. (Some easy calculations mean the symbols can be detected whichever way up you hold the
item.) Videos and pictures are then sent back to you.
Andy Cameron says that the arrival of an open-source, hence free, AR tool kit has let companies
build their own AR applications, using Flash – the pervasive animation and
video technology used for many online ads and YouTube's videos – "which
immediately meant you had huge penetration, because Flash is everywhere". (Something like 98% of
all computers are reckoned to have Adobe's Flash Player installed.)
"If you build your AR application with Flash, then you can get it out to everybody in the world
with a computer with a webcam," says Cameron.
Benetton is using AR in its latest campaign, called "It's My Time" which aims to get members of the public to put themselves forward as
potential models, and uses AR to show more details about existing models. But its first most
visible use of AR was last year in issue 76 of Benetton's Colors magazine, a quarterly
fashion product. Dozens of pages have AR symbols: hold the page up to a webcam, and you see film
and more photos of the person on the page. "The Colors editor and the creative director
of Fabrica got very excited about it," says Cameron.
Cameron can see huge potential which could even revive the fortunes of print advertising. "Think
of a commercial page, an advert, in a fashion magazine. It's pretty expensive. With this
– and this is the way that the more hard-nosed people in Benetton saw the
advantage – it means that you can get more products on the page." Print an AR
code, get people to come to the site, and you can show them so much more, while measuring the
return from your effort.
The technical cost is a tiny part of the overall effort. "The printing and photography cost [of
the advert] is the same. And the development cost is pretty small."
And of course where advertisers go, the publications that house them are sure to go as well.
Esquire magazine in the US and Wallpaper* in Europe have done "augmented
reality" editions, with Robert Downey Jr coming to life on the cover of the former, and AR text
providing videos and animation in the latter. But there are more possibilities for journalism
using AR: for example if you "geotag" newspaper articles (so that you say that an item relates to
a particular place) then someone visiting a site could learn about events relevant to the area
via their smartphone.
Book publishers too are leaping in: Carlton Publishing will release an AR book in May, featuring
dinosaurs that pop out of the pages when viewed, yes, through a webcam. Future releases include
war, sport and arts titles which will also have extra AR elements.
Yet in media it's the advertisers who are most excited. The possibilities of geotagged, targeted
adverts – which in effect hang in the air until someone comes along to find
them with a smartphone – or of AR adverts which open up a whole new world of
opportunities (and perhaps discounts or loyalty bonuses) when you follow them through
– are yet another glimpse of the holy grail ofads that know exactly who and
where you are.
Is there a risk that we'll all become AR'd out – that it will become boring as
advert after advert invites us to hold it up to a webcam? "What's hot today is ancient history
tomorrow," says Cameron. "There have been a lot of bad uses of this technology with a rush to use
it. We have had the chance to reflect on what it means and how to use it. The key is that it
should be an enhancement of the stuff on the printed page."
Even so we're still in the early stages, he argues. "It's very primitive –
having to use a webcam, holding a magazine up to it. Obviously we're really interested in the
opportunities with handheld devices. It's very frustrating that the iPhone doesn't allow access
to the live video stream." (Nor does it run Flash, another problem for would-be AR designers.)
"People in design are very annoyed with Steve Jobs," he observes. "We don't really understand why
Apple won't allow that."
Given that access, he says, "you could hold your iPhone up to a billboard and get something
amazing right there". What about the alternative, such as Google's Android-based Nexus phone? "It
looks like you could do it on that," he says. But of course the iPhone is a target market. "Maybe
Apple wants to keep that for itself," Cameron says. "Maybe they're lodging patents. Or maybe the
processor on the iPhone isn't fast enough."
Yet there are some who think that AR has already had its brief time in the sun. At the Like Minds
conference in Exeter at the beginning of March, Joanne Jacobs, a social media consultant,
described an AR application that demanded you buy a T-shirt and then go and sit in front of your
webcam – so you could play Rock, Paper, Scissors. By yourself.
"It's hopeless," Jacobs said.
Cameron admits to some uncertainty about AR's measurable impact. "I don't know if it sells more
things, but it seems clearly a good thing if we can get people who may be customers to
participate in the adverts." But, he adds: "If people start to play with the adverts in a way
that exposes them to more products, that's got to help bring a commercial return."
Charles Arthurguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use
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