Links for 12-12-08

Work-related...

VideoTagGame from Yahoo Research
"The video tag game is a multi-player game where users annotate streaming video with tags. Based on temporal tag agreement with other users in the game they can receive points. I.e. they will receive more points for a tag, if an other player has entered the same tag close in time, compared to the case where there exists more time between entering the tags.". Kind of a cross between Annotatable Audio and our current R&D project.

SHIFD - Shift Content Between Your Devices
"Shift notes, addresses and links between your mobile phone and computer". Noticed this beta site which is based on the original winner of the 2007 BBC/Yahoo Hackday.

Get Glue. Connect with friends around things you visit!
"Glue automatically recognizes books, music, movies, restaurants, wine, stocks and other everyday things on popular pages around the web. Once Glue identifies the thing it connects you with friends and other Glue users who visit the same thing around the web.". Similar to something we were thinking of building the other day.

And some 1970's Radios on Flickr


Some stuff from my friends...

BBC - Journalism Labs - blog
Another blog in the successful BBC Labs stable from Jonathan.

Whomwah.com » BBC Programmes iPhone webapp experiment
Duncan's quick experiment to put /programmes on the iPhone.


Connecting things together, theory to practice...

Public objects « Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird
"most public objects - and certainly all municipal objects - should offer APIs ... What’s a public object? A sidewalk. A building facade. A parking meter. Any discrete object in the common spatial domain, intended for the use and enjoyment of the general public"

CurrentCost to Pachube app: no hacking necessary! | Pachube - community
Processing app from Usman Haque to connect to the Current Cost meter, show the readings and post the data up to Pachube. Just waiting for my API key.

Current Cost monitoring from an iPhone « The lost outpost
I want this on my phone.


Games. I would like to play more but I don't have the time...

Play I wish I were the Moon, a free online game on Kongregate
Cute game. "It’s inspired on The Distance of the Moon by Italo Calvino, and it’s about a weird love triangle."

For The Love | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
"The game itself, dubbed Love (as in For The Love Of Game Development), is an exploration-based moderately-multiplayer FPS with astounding impressionistic visuals and a procedurally generated universe. Since Steenberg is a one man show, he’s relying on clever maths to build the world for him and then clever gamers to come in and help him figure out where to take it, and what to do with it."

Keynesian beauty contest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"A naïve strategy would be to choose the six faces that, in the opinion of the entrant, are the most beautiful. A more sophisticated contest entrant, wishing to maximize his chances of winning a prize, would think about what the majority perception of beauty is, and then make a selection based on some inference from his knowledge of public perceptions. This can be carried one step further to take into account the fact that other entrants would also be making their decision based on knowledge of public perceptions. Thus the strategy can be extended to the next order, and the next, and so on, at each level attempting to predict the eventual outcome of the process based on the reasoning of other rational agents.". Things to think about for my current project.


Two genetic algorithms caught people's eyes this week...

Genetic Programming: Evolution of Mona Lisa « Roger Alsing Weblog
Genetic algorithm to "paint a replica of the Mona Lisa using only 50 semi transparent polygons"

Evolving a car
Genetic algorithm to evolve a car-like contraption traversing a 2D terrain. In Flash.


And some random yet interesting things...

russell davies: asymmetric politeness
"PS - which has just made me realise. If you were going to be create a killer social application in the UK, the Social Object you'd build it around would be The Apology. Anyway. Again. Sorry.)"

A User’s Guide to Reykjavík Restaurants: The Vegetarian Edition at How do you like Iceland?
Vegetarian restaurants in Reykjavik. Look a bit ascetic for my tastes but just in case.