On ideas

Posted by Jorge Bernal January 03, 2009

Really insightful and funny video from ze

Multi-touch gone huge

Posted by Jorge Bernal September 10, 2008

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

For a better video and more info about this kind of magic, visit MultiTouch.

Shop in Amazon from your iPhone with iBuy

Posted by Jorge Bernal July 20, 2008

Yesterday, I wrote a simple web application to buy from amazon using your iPhone. It’s meant to help if you are in a store and want to check the price of a product in Amazon and buy it from there.

That’s why you enter the barcode directly. I’ll probably add some search by title or author, but for now, it works for its original purpose: save money.

Check it out at http://amedias.org/ibuy/

It’s an early release so it can be buggy. If you have found a bug or have some suggestions, leave a comment

The vimeo guys strike again

Posted by Jorge Bernal September 25, 2007

Some months ago, the guys at Connected Ventures (those behind Vimeo) became famous for this video:

Lip Dub – Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

It was an amazing viral campaign which served perfectly its two purposes:

• Promote their video platform (vimeo)
• Promote their open positions at Connected Ventures to people willing to work in that happy environment

Today this other video is gaining popularity:

Update: the video has been removed from youtube, but here it is again, with a second part

It’s really fun and any of you who have experienced the weirdness of youtube commenters will enjoy it even more. It’s not only fun but maybe the best way to laugh at their direct competition. Brilliant!

Amazing open source image resizing technology

Posted by Jorge Bernal September 19, 2007

Déjà vu? I wrote about this amazing algorithm not so long ago. And less than a month later we have Open Source Seam Carving (that’s the name of the technique), GIMP plugin included.

Update: it seems there is another implementation.

Amazing new image resizing technology

Posted by Jorge Bernal August 22, 2007

I don’t even know how to explain it shortly, so here’s the video

[via: Hackszine]

Giving hints to the user

Posted by Jorge Bernal August 07, 2007

I just had to share this screenshot. This is what happens when you create a new page in Backpack. The arrow disappears once you do your first edit.

Amazing 13 year old CEO

Posted by Jorge Bernal July 01, 2007

I’ve wrote about young enterpreneurs before (see: the youngest grocer in America), but this kid is amazing. He speaks with more confidence than most of the people I know, and the idea is quite cool.

Fair price

Posted by Jorge Bernal May 20, 2007

Much has been said about music prices nowadays, I remember reading somewhere that usually the 10 most sold albums in Amazon every week were below $10. That’s not a bad price, but let’s call it sensible pricing.

Sensible pricing is sometimes not enough. Some albums are so good you’d feel confortable paying $20 for them, and some of those $9.99 albums have only one half-good song. I found this 37signals’ article today: Jane Siberry’s “you decide what feels right” pricing detailing how some small record labels are letting consumers (I don’t think that word applies anymore, but still) decide which is the fair price for a CD. At this time, 14% paid above suggested. See it on Sheeba Catalogue

The Canadian folk-pop singer Jane Siberry has a clever system: she has a “pay what you can� policy with her downloadable songs, so fans can download them free — but her site also shows the average price her customers have paid for each track. This subtly creates a community standard, a generalized awareness of how much people think each track is really worth. The result? The average price is as much as $1.30 a track, more than her fans would pay at iTunes

This is not new, magnatune has been doing that for about 4 years. They let you listen the full disc, then download it paying what you consider a fair price

And to help this cool ideas, if you like piano music, let me recommend you Rob Costlow (blog). It’s a great album to stop and relax enjoying the beautiful sound of a piano. And he could be called a piano hacker according to his biography:

By the time he was twelve Rob Costlow was annoying his piano instructor by adding unwritten endings to songs during rehearsals and recitals.

Innovative technologies create new words

Posted by Jorge Bernal December 08, 2006

To google became a verb even when Google discourages it:

Google has attempted to discourage use of the word as a verb, fearing the dilution and potential loss of its trademark, like Yo-Yo, Xerox and escalator (see genericized trademark).

I know you should protect your trademark but when all the people start using your name as a common word is a sign of success.

Anyway, the point here was discovering the new word of today:

wii-kend:

1. A weekend devoted exclusively towards playing a Nintendo Wii.

2. the weekend of November 19, 2006, the Nintendo Wii console’s launch date

Found via word of the day

More on wii-kend