06 Jul 2010
This was the first time I ever encountered this face-detection feature, and it just so happened Facebook picked a particularly poor photo to introduce it with!
Clearly they’ve started using a face-detection algorithm to pinpoint probable candidates for tagging – unfortunately, the algorithm is easily fooled by V for Vendetta masks. The photo in question features four friends and we have no idea who is whom – it was a few years ago and we’re all identically clothed!
Nice one, Facebook!
05 Jul 2010
I heard precisely one person complaining loudly when WordPress 3.0 first released but I’ve hit no snags so far – elegant, painless upgrade on WebFaction (Disclosure: I’ve got an affiliate link in there, 10% of your spend – but I’d recommend them even if you want to strip the link out) which is more than can be said for most web hosts I’ve used over the years.
Admittedly I’m not using the most zany set of plugins in the world, but it’s nice to know that an open source project can be so darn painless. Upgrade, the water’s fine.
05 Jul 2010
Just bought a cheapie compact digital (well, next to the Nikons I usually chuck around) to do some low effort filming with and decided to (literally) take it for a drive. Titles and speed are the only changes I’ve made to the footage apart from the fact it’s only PAL widescreen.
The camera did okay, but for the slight inability to focus a lot of the time (and forget manual focus, this is a strictly for-dummies camera) – no vertical flaring or other weirdness that has plagued many a digital still camera in the past.
For me, it was a toss up between jello-vision D90 land and getting a compact digital that would do HD (1080/50i) well enough to last in situations where hiring a real camera is total overkill. Biggest downside so far seems to be battery life. The internal mic is decent enough for a lot of uses because, beautifully, the whole thing is pretty much solid state and the zoom is internal/not-that-noisy. The few unfavorable (audio) reviews out there seem to come from the party video crowd – and they’re right, no, it will not deal well with Tiësto’s basslines.
Crap battery life aside, seems like a decent camera so far.
09 Jun 2010
Today I had an interesting conversation about business podcasting for a B2B focused small business looking to generate leads and perceived expertise in their area. We chatted a little bit about the tools that were needed and observed that, far from being a big burden, podcasting is relatively low effort while giving an authentic connection with people who consider you an expert in your field.
Podcasting fulfills much the same role an email newsletter/mass contact does – yet manages to differentiate itself in the medium to actually get onto people’s desks in a bit of a unique way. Technically podcasting is pretty easy to implement, with WordPress being one obvious tool to make it happen online and most new computers sporting Windows, OS X or Linux coming with free software included (or at least easily available) to produce the content.
So what’s our role? Just lifting the bar, really. From snazzy intro/outro music to standardised call-to-action snippets that get attached or rotated week by week, a little bit of expertise goes a long way to creating a successful, easy to create podcasting experience. This makes it easier for small businesses to stay in it for the long haul, building better brands, leads, and adding value for customers.
13 Mar 2010
Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro Mobile is a piece of software recently released for iPhone/iPod touch that is rather interesting for a number of reasons. I noticed it because it largely overlaps with a product that we’ve been canvassing support for to release on the iPad (and likely still will), but there seems to be a lot more going on here!
Firstly, it’s worth noting that this free software is published by Adobe, developed using Flash, and is featured in the App Store.
For those who keep their head off the Internet/are apathetic towards Apple’s mobile platform powerplays, let me just briefly note that Apple and Adobe are hardly best of friends. Accordingly, while the approval of a Flash-based application is a little cheeky, the elevation of one to featured app store status is straight up devious.
We can only speculate as to whether pragmatic or political reasons motivated Adobe’s development in this way. Self-evidently, they have a lot of in-house competencies around Flash development, but they would also love to get a product approved insofar as it drives adoption of their Connect platform (which, unlike the App Store app, is anything but free).
There are many less sneaky ways of building a compelling tech demo. If I had to guess, I’d attribute the use of Flash to a substantial existing software investment for web-based clients that was largely portable to the mobile context. The impact this has on user experience is likely to be minimal, as they likely redesigned the frontend entirely – though obviously other performance concerns may apply.
At any rate, this is the first I’ve noticed of approvals of overtly Flash-based applications. If possible, this may open the App Store floodgates even further, while providing hope to many for whom the barrier to entry in terms of rewriting code was simply too high.
We’re excited about this as certain component parts of software we’ve developed depends strongly on Flash for data visualization and reporting. The prospect of being able to deploy this on the iPhone (and yes, the iPad) is a compelling opportunity that is, plainly, freaking exciting.