February 24, 2009, 2:37 pm : The Hotness | V2.5

Don’t Click It
Re-condition your mind and experience a cool, and painfully obvious, interface idea. A good little example to show folks as a demo if you wanna try a more ‘intuitive’ approach…thanks to Leon for the link!

Watchmen Arcade Game
Waiting for the Watchmen movie is making me physically ill…I’ve stopped eating until Ozymandius kills <spoiler deleted> and Dr Manhattan blasts <spoiler deleted> and they find out that <spoiler deleted> killed the Comedian! Until then, I’ve been playing this game wearing my original Watchmen smiley button.

February 16, 2009, 7:42 am : The Hotness | V2.4

Krezip Music Mixer
Competition to keep the music and the beats right, nice twist on ‘interacting with the band’. Spin that record right round baby! Thanks to Karen P.

Esquire Interactive Cover Gallery
Instant inspiration, all the Esquire covers (from some tasty designer heroes), all in one place. Thanks to NotCot.

Hyrdochromatic Umbrellas
Get wet, still look cool - these umbrellas change colour and design when they get wet - must be an ad in here somewhere….

KERN - The iPhone Game
I’ve been looking for a reason to get an iPhone, this is it. Anyone who knows me has seen my inner type-nazi…for those who have felt the pain of me whining about letterspacing, you can now play a game about it. NICE!!

RadiologyArt
Ever wondered what your TV dinner looks like as a 3D movie….from the inside? Find out with this nifty technique…art buyers, hurry up and use these dudes!

February 10, 2009, 1:38 pm : The Hotness | Version 2.3

Interactive Ad Environments
Very cool new interaction technique for banners and beyond…look past the shonky demo video and check out the samples on the site.

The future of social networks…maybe
A really good tip from Peter Mangin in our AKL office - cheers Pete!! “In this presentation (link below), Charlene Li (Groundswell) makes the point that in the future, Social Networks will “be like air.” Thanks to universal identity and sign-in, your friends will be wherever you need them… literally their recommendations and thoughts will be at your finger tips. Just as important, this social graph will help marketers provide more relevent information and advertising to consumers when and where they need.” Take a TV break and check it!

Leyio (or…if you don’t already have enough stuff to carry around)
The Leylo is a new gadget to share and carry-around, with a groovy fingerprint scanner to keep everything secure. Bye Bye USB? Me likey…

Social Networks Evolve: Facebook Connect
Thanks again to Peter in the NZ team. Facebook Connect is going to (hopefully) change the way we, er, connect using social networks, mobiles and maybe, everything. A good little video overview from the crew at Razorfish.

TouchGrind iPhone Skating Game
Thanks to Rachid for this tip - very cool iPhone game.

January 19, 2009, 5:38 am : The Hotness | v2.02

Sports Chalet | The Mountain
I am a snowboarder, so may enjoy this more for the eye-candy and groovy virtual mountain. A very smart little product catalog meets pro-advice, all integrated within the Sports Chalet site (instead of a microsite with a dumb vanity URL). If yr in the Northern Hemisphere, shred til yr dead…!

BBDO Kids Day Promo
BringYourKidsToWork Day at BBDO had some very cool, inexpensive and fun internal promotion.

Build a Squid | TePapa Museum Wellington, NZ
The giant squids were the thing that scared me the most when swimming in the ocean in NZ. Now I can build me own, set it free and scare other paranoid swimmers.

T-Mobile ‘DAWNCE’
Yeah, yeah, I know the proper title is ‘DANCE’ but I have been around everyone pronouncing it ‘DAWNCE’. Good fun, check it out NOW!

Get to the Chopper | Arnold Remix
This remix rocks, but I wish there was the ’stick around’ line. This is better than nothing!

January 6, 2009, 6:08 am : The Hotness | v2.01

Massive Multi-player Mobile Outdoor Trivia Game
How can you not just LOVE Megaphone? I met them at Wired NextFest a couple of years back and we have been looking for a project to do together since. Their latest is a massive trivia game played on the bigscreens in Times Square. Up to 500 people at a time played together using their mobile phones.

Music Video | HEARTREVOLUTION - CYOA
Cool video, hot on YouTube, LA Techno Band HEARTSREVOLUTION.

MAKE:TV
DIY magazine, website and now multi-channel video experience, MAKE celebrates those that invent, reinvent and make crazy stuff out of nothing. A great place to find viral ideas, mash-ups with real v. virtual and an inspiration for how a brand goes multi-channel. Fast.

I Can Bank It | Banco Itau
A groovy interface for bringing banking to young adults, character and vide-based, simple and fun.

Music Videos | Modular People
Great channel of vids from Modular People. Check out this channel - love their hiring policy: “Everyone working employed by Modular has to pass a painfully strict beauty guide, meaning everyone in the office is BEYOND HOT.” And the tunes are good too…

August 26, 2008, 6:28 am : The Hotness | v1.11

Chemical Brothers Geo-tagged Music Video of the Earth!
This interactive video/mapping mash-up launches on Sept 1 as part of the new CB best-of. Sounds very cool - send in a short clip now (2-20 secs) and geo-tag it via Google Earth.

August 21, 2008, 7:04 am : The Hotness | v1.10

The Polaroid Project
Another reason why Jonathan Harris rules. 3 Photographer, 150 Polaroid shots and a bag of tools, models dressed like grandmas and some very cool art.

Jonathan Harris Portfolio of Coolness
They are all here, along with some blurb. Be inspired! Make ads out of this stuff!

Mate Steinforth
Motion artist, this stuff is so cool it makes my tummy hurt….

Space Collective
From their site blurb: “Where terrestrials exchange cool ideas”. As a terrestrial, I concur that these ideas are indeed cool, wrapped in a groovy site. Me wish all blogs done look dis good!

Normann Online Catalog
Great product site, beautifully designed, fab photos and cool stuff .

Mechanical Love | Documentary
Can you love a robot? “Mechanical Love” is a documentary on the interrelationship between robots and humans. The Kraftwerk boys need to get the folks in this movie to upgrade their robots, which I still LOVE, but are slightly out of date, well as far as robots go, that is.

August 7, 2008, 6:14 am : The Hotness | v1.9

Mogulus
Create your own broadband ‘television’ network. The blurb (ahem): “Create live, scheduled or on-demand, throw your channel out to a single player widget. You can mix multiple live cameras, video clips and overlay graphics in the Mogulus Studio and even get your own branded channel page with chat on mogulus.com.” Sounds pretty cool to me. Still light on content, a cool channel opportunity waiting for an idea.

Viewzi
The latest ‘new Google’, labelled as ‘bolder, richer and more fun.’ It certainly is more fun, like the iPod flipping gallery meets, er, Google. Add this and Cuil to your search prefs and be the first on your block to ‘Viewzi’ yourself!

Glide
No, not the dental floss, the groovy new all-in-one OS for all your computing and devices’ needs. The tech description can be a little geeky, so check out this webisode of G4’s Attack of the Show for the rundown. Thanks to N8 for the tip.

July 16, 2008, 6:02 am : The Hotness | v1.8

Radiohead Video Made of Code
The new video for “House of Cards”, all made of code. Digging on Thom’s new hairdo, back to the ‘Creep’ look. Nice.

New HBO Vampire Series ARG / Viral
HBO is getting to be the hot hot place to look for where online meets real world marketing. First Voyeur cleaned up at Cannes (and most other shows) and now the mini-sites for new series TrueBlood look like we’re in for more coolness. Check out these sites, all interconnected and setting up the storyline of humans and vampires co-existing RIGHT NOW! There are a pile of these sites and more to come - these are my faves:

TruBlood (synthetic blood replenishment drink - check out the films!)
BloodCopy (vampire blog - check out the posters and films!)
Vampire / Human Dating site (referred to as ‘fangbanging’) register and find true, eternal love

Cuil
The new Google? or just another cheesy search engine. I’d give Google a rest and try this - imagine how ‘cool’ you’ll be when you geek out and search on your iPhone for that ‘thing’, right?

March 13, 2008, 7:22 am : The Hotness | v1.7

DesignPolice
If you are a typeNazi, Kerning Queen or any other character in the design kingdom, you need these to say those things that you always say, but with added style.

UsTrendy
Their homepage blurb: “Welcome to UsTrendy – a place designed to give YOU the power to determine future trends in popular culture.” It’s an online forum for models, designers and other cool creative types, which you vote and rate into staying on the site. It’s in beta, so be the first kid on your block to be ustrendy.

MonkeyGallery
David Colquhoun is a genius and a generally lovely guy, who lives in NZ and cuts Flash like a muthafucka. He had an idea for a cool online gallery resource free of bullshit and ads, with no limits on sizes and big pics and vid playback. MonkeyGallery has been around for awhile and has been a place where David and pals collect our pics and vids. He is now offering free galleries, although you really should pay him and keep him in beer and code.

Bluetooth Baggage Tracking
Increase your frustration or provide peace of mind? You be the judge. There is a cool idea in here for something other than luggage…

Hal Riney site
Turn on your web cam, wave your arms and navigate around. We did something cooler for out of home in New Zealand last year and this is being used in other retail environments. A cool technique begging for a much cooler execution.

March 3, 2008, 3:42 am : The Hotness | v1.6

Syd Mead saw the Future (and it was good)
A portfolio of futurist renderings by the legendary Syd Mead. Dig on the weird tiger/lynx creature! Check out the Imperial Walkers with tyre feet! Groove on the freaky street signage! There are some serious illustration stylings waiting to happen here.

Muonics / Theodore Watson
I dig Funky Forest so much (see Hotness v1.2) that I’ve been digging around on ‘who done it?’. Here is the site for Muonics/Theodore Watson. Have a look and be inspired - this is where we need to move interaction - away from computer screens and out into the world.

Water-Drop Typography | Julius Popp
Controlled water-drops make typographical art. I so want to have a key pad to type in words, make a movie of it and send to people with some really profound message, like ‘You’re a real drip’…check out the clip below.

Saul Bass-styled Star Wars Titles
One of my favourite comics of the 1980’s was Marvel’s What If? One of my all time favourite designers is Saul Bass. One of favourite movies is Star Wars. Take three great tastes and put ‘em together, it’s the comic fiend, sci-fi addled, type designers wet dream. Only problem is the typo on the first set of titles….find it and get a cookie!

February 25, 2008, 4:17 am : The Hotness | v1.5

Tagged In Motion | Augmented Reality Grafitti
If you know me, you know how much I love AR, so bad that I want to have bionic eyeballs and live in John Carpeter’s They Live. This is as close as I’ve got to wetting my pants over some fresh AR in a long time.

Adobe Supercamera
Check out a demo video here. The camera lens would allow you to manipulate the focal length of the image after it was taken. Hopefully not funded by DARPA. All designers, start going ‘ooooohhh’ all at once…

Absolutmachines
On the Cannes jury last year, I started to get the feeling that 1/3 of the entries were sites from Absolut, several of them crawling through more on brand name than originality and design. Methinks this site will get through this year on both. This is the sort of interaction that we need to see more and more. Nice!

Can you PLEASE stop what you are doing and read this right now!?! Thanks
Passiveaggressivenotes.com is a good Monday morning wake-up site for me. Prepares me for the week with a smile on my face and reminds me why I don’t miss sharing common spaces with people in certain parts of America…

iBand
Wow…I bet 1.79 million of these views were from Depeche Mode and Vince Clark. The three guys in iBand have listened to Tubular Bells one time too many, but what the heck? There’s a really great ad in here…

MeekFM Typographic Synthesizer
I think that I woke up and it is 1993 again. Right after the moon turning blood red, this is one of the four signs of the typographical apocalypse. Maybe someone will revive RayGun now…

February 20, 2008, 1:34 pm : The Hotness | Version 1.4

Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle
Not really sure how or why this exists, just keep hitting the refresh button. It is like opening a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos - you can’t stop until there aren’t any left…

The Whale Hunt | New from Jonathan Harris (We Feel Fine)
Lovely, lovel, lovely. Not the prettiest topic, but the interface is, well, lovely.

The WhiteVoid
This site has some great techie ideas, and a very cool interface. Sometimes takes ages to load up, but be patient and come back again if you have probs the first time - it’s worth it.

February 17, 2008, 11:12 am : The Hotness | Version 1.3

Cloverfield
OK. I know that this is getting trashed in reviews, but so did Tron, and we all know that those critics were wrong, too! I just saw this (twice in a row) and I screamed (twice at the same thing) and clawed fingernail marks into my new gloves. Go see this, and be very sober - the camera only stops moving at the end when..

Vincent Moon visuals for New R.E.M
I guess I’m in the camp that says ‘New Record? But, hasn’t R.E.M. let us down with 4 crap albums in a row’, but since seeing Vincent moon’s chiller vids and look/feel for the site for Accelerate…..they get one more chance! OK, Mr Stipe and co., get on the phone to Bill Berry while you’re at it!

Web trends map
I’m a serious sucker for information graphics - too many classes from Peter Seitz at MCAD.

The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep
How to make a holographic monster.

Wicked Comicbook Art from Anthony Lister
Cool paintings based on iconic comic characters, two of my faves are here.

Animated Pong T-Shirt
If you have 2 AAA batteries and $25, go to thinkgeek now and buy this before every kid on the block (or the creative floor) has one.

January 27, 2008, 6:09 am : The Hotness | Version 1.2

Pretty On The Inside | Microscopic Cameras You Can Swallow
Remember the guy in ‘Pretty In Pink’, who was stuck in detention, and was drawing a picture of his girfriend, but without skin? This is how he did it! Puts an entirely new and interesting category in Cannes once people can direct films inside of someone’s body - now we just need an idea to go with it!

Fran Young
‘Song of Farewell’ (2007) is a digital video projection with sound, which uses slowed footage of starlings roosting on a deserted, out-of-season rollercoaster at the end of the day. It’s also totally freaky.

Funky Forest
Wow, why didn’t we have motion and touch sensitive installations when I was a kid? This makes me want to be 10 again. Well, actually 10 and not a just inhabiting the body of a 42 year old.

Jake Sargeant @ Motion Theory
Very cool reel from Jake Sargeant.

The Ronin
Motion graphics, cool photography, design, cool website, ahhhh….

Icon Watch
I don’t just want one of these, I need one of these…

Circuit-printed Contact Lens - I want a bionic eye, please!
I will wear this with my Icon Watch, checking out stuff that noone else can see (check my blog entry on Augmented Reality Contact Lenses…)

November 3, 2007, 2:20 am : Version 1.1

Google announces OpenSocial - World Ends Part 1
Google is taking over social networking, quietly working away with MySpace: OpenSocial is coming soon…

Orange Unlimited Site
Very cool navigation, colourful, fun and all the groovy Web 2.0 stuff you could want, all in one infinitely scrolling mega-site. Enjoy!

Make A Mixa | Cassette USB Drive
Remember when you really really really liked someone and you made them a mix tape? With Mixatape, you can design a grooving package in a drag and drop interface (complete with Flikr-ness), then load this ‘tape’ with lots of stuff that says ‘I have a serious crush on you, but don’t really know how to tell you….’ and stuff like that. Web 2.0 meets 11th grade - what’s not to like? Get an MPG of ‘Lost in Love’ by Air Supply and you’re off…

Google Launches Open Mobile Platform- World Ends Part 2
Google isn’t making a GPhone (sigh), but they have announced the first open and comprehensive platform for mobile. It’s called Android (nice), but just remember what happens when we make computers smart…am I the only one who has seen ‘The Terminator’?

Playstation3 – Swiss Army Knife From Hell
Posted nuyoungcreative, a tasty new TV spot for Playstation, with graphics from Superfad. Too many products, but the model, movements and lighting is very tasty indeed.

October 30, 2007, 2:38 am : Version 1.0

Viral iPod Touch ad become ‘Real’ Ad for Apple
From the ‘That Kid Is After Your Job’ Department, here’s a student-made iPod Touch commercial set to the CSS tune ‘Music is My Hot Hot Sex’. Apple picked this up from YouTube and flew in the kid who made it to produce a broadcast quality version.

SuperShorts
An imaginary world of pop-up wild beasts feature in this vivid new animation by The People’s Republic of Animation. It is the first chapter in a series of six ’supershort’ films for Mitsubishi Lancer and Sony Tropfest.

Green Graffiti
Eco-minded street artist, Edina Tokodi, in Brooklyn

UVA
Matt Clark, Chris Bird and Ash Nehru formed United Visual Artists in 2002. Using bespoke software, LED, projection technologies and traditional lighting they create real-time, immersive, responsive experiences and environments for clients and collaborators in the music and fashion industries, as well as installation art, interiors and music videos.

The Gaping Void
An oldie, but still a goodie. Hugh MacLeod is a cartoonist and professional blogger, known for his ideas about how “Web 2.0″ affects advertising and marketing. After a decade of working as an advertising copywriter, Hugh started blogging at gapingvoid.com in 2001. He first started off just publishing his cartoons, but as time wore on he started blogging about his other main interest i.e. marketing. Check out his single ideas on back of business cards. Nice.

MASP Posters
If you like your graphic design freshly beamed-in from the 50s, you’ll love this…

Custom 52: User Generated Playing Card Designs
It’s Threadless, but without the t-shirts and you can’t wear it (unless you’re Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate…). I might start playing cards again….GO FISH!

SweatyFrog
I still love this site. Very cool toy shop which promotes smart young toy designers from around the world, as well as groovy design of printed and filmed variety. Check here first, they probably have what something yr looking for…

LISTENING POST | Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin
One of the projects that inspired ‘WeFeelFine’, Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens. It is also rules.

Channel 101
TV isn’t dead, it’s just moved addresses….I really love this site. It is pre-YouTube taking over and actually has an idea behind it - think Project Greenlight meets CurrentTV. Channel 101 calls itself the unavoidable future of entertainment. Anyone can post a pilot episode for a show. The clips are shortlisted online and then voted on by a live audience. The five surviving shows become ‘Prime Time Shows’ on Channel 101.