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Google Play: Tests

Continuing in the same intriguing style as the Chrome test videos, Google have created a series demonstrating the cloud syncing abilities of ‘Play’. You can find out more about Google Play here, and see the rest of the test videos here.

Google Chrome: Web Lab Experiments

Sticking with Google, they’re continuing their Chrome Experiments with a year-long public exhibition at the Science Museum in London, bringing together physical and digital in some really interesting ways.

Find out more about Chrome Web Lab.

Sonic Notify

Sonic Notify is an incredible (and slightly terrifying) platform that allows media to be delivered to a smartphone via ultra high-frequency audio signals. Imagine you’re at a concert, and at the end your phone vibrates. You take it out of your pocket, and you have a special thanks from the band, with a promotional offer attached. All triggered by an inaudible sound played with the music.

Check out Sonic Notify yourself here.

Facade Printer

A robot that works much like an inkjet printer – except it’s designed to paint graphics onto walls. The process is automated and controlled by simple software. This technology will no doubt evolve over time, perhaps replacing the need to scaffold buildings to place advertising or graphics.

Find out more about the Facade Printer here.

London Eye ‘Olympic Positivity Lightshow’

The London Eye will be transformed into a giant Olympics sentiment analysis tool, being lit up each night of the games to show positive/negative sentiment on Twitter. I wonder how much it will light up during commuter hours…

See the BBC News article on the London Eye Olympic Positivity Lightshow.

Nike Shoe Boxxxx Facebook App

Tapping into sneaker enthusiasts love of collecting, Nike Sportswear Japan have developed a Facebook app that allows users to collect and swap virtual shoes. The app tells the story behind sneakers, whilst rewarding users with points for their collection.

See the Nike Shoe Boxxx Facebook App for yourself.

Self-Playing Piano takes song requests from Twitter

Stanley the piano is a fascinating musical instrument. He’s managed to learn how to play songs from everyone performing at musical festival ‘Capital Hill Block Party’, and you can request songs simply by tweeting at him. Well done, Stanley.

Meet Stanley the piano.

Google pull out all the stops

We’ve been getting pretty excited since the announcement of Google’s Project Glass, but this live demo really kicked our “just shut up and take our money!” thoughts into overdrive. Skydiving, backflipping, abseiling-whilst-Google Hangout-ing madness.

Build stuff with Lego, in Chrome.

Sticking with Google, they created this rather fun demonstration of Chrome’s abilities, allowing you to build things with Lego. Who doesn’t love playing with Lego?

Build with Chrome.

Canon Mixed Reality Headset

Pretty impressive tech from Canon, with plenty of potential uses – the most obvious being to train engineers and technicians to work on complicated machines. We’re sure we’ll be seeing some fascinating uses of this technology over the coming months.

Gilt taste

The iPad is great to use in the kitchen, with a whole host of recipes and cooking apps at your fingertips. What’s not so great is when you’re in the middle of a recipe, your hands are covered in flour and eggs, but you need to scroll or turn a page. It’s a classic problem, which this app solves by using the front facing camera and simple gesturing.

Read more here.

Foodmood

A really interesting app that measures food sentiment across the globe, via tweets. You can drill down to individual countries, and there’s plenty of things to play with.

Check it out here.

Google have teamed up with Motion Theory to create a 90 second “evolution of the browser” short to promote Chrome, the excellent Windows-only (boooooo) internet browser. And it’s very good. The immediate comparison to draw is with Apple’s iPod commercials – with the catchy soundtrack by some up-and-coming indie artist teaming with a bold colour palette to create that feel good factor.

But Google manage to go one better, and use the criticism that they’re engineers and not designers to their advantage – this is engaging, but informative too! You can see the software benefits throughout the short – private browsing, multi-process stability (and it’s “sad tab”), the omnibox, the minimal interface. When was the last time you saw an iPod advert showing any product functionality?