Who says typography can’t be in 3D? Check out this cool collection of ABC chairs from Rotterdam designer Roeland Otten. There are 26 unique letter alphabet chairs. Perfect for those who can’t spell!

Virtual Reality becomes, er, reality

The last few dumps have been pretty focussed largely on the day to day world of digital media, so this week, I thought I’d have a look at what’s happening at the outer frontiers.

Back in the mid-90′s, when the internet was first entering households on a mass scale and newspaper feature sections were still publishing lead articles about “cyberspace”, Virtual Reality was as hot a topic as Twitter is now.  While the talk of changing the way we live was very exciting, the reality in those days was largely dodgy flight simulators and dodgier science fiction plots.

But now, we have acrossair. Basically it’s a 3d augmented map of the New York and London Undergrounds, using the iphone’s video function. As they explain it:

“When you load the app, holding it flat, all 33 lines of the New York Subway are displayed in coloured arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many miles away they are and what lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons.”

While it’s really cool in and of itself, the remarkable thing is where it can lead. For business like restaurants and shops, the potential benefits are both obvious and enormous – imagine being able to view the menu, reviews and visitor’s comment on every restaurant on Brunswick street as you walked along it, for instance. But it can go even further.   This video from Japan is the best example I’ve seen of what the next level will look like. Called the Sekai Camera, it was developed by Japanese firm Tonchidot(their full YouTube channel is worth checking out, too). It’s basically a 3D, augmented reality social media device. It will allow users to leave comments in real spaces, making real environments live 3D social networks.

Dreaming Buildings

Urbanscreen, a collective of media artists and architects from Bremen in Germany, are behind this Bladerunner-esque ‘ buildings that dream’ concept. Basically, they project onto the facade of buildings, which gives the 2d surface depth, time and sound. The implications of technology like this for outdoor advertising are obviously huge, and Urbanscreen function as both an art collective and a media agency, so it can’t be far away from reaching the public sphere. How it’s used will be interesting-  it has the potential to be fantastic if used correctly, horribly oppressive if not.

Fine Fin Fun

Finally, Finland. Nissan Finland have produced a comp which stood out to me for a few reasons.  The concept is quite simple -upload a video or photo of your favourite bike route in Finland, for your chance to win. But the way the content is presented, embedded into a map, is quite cool. The map also features Nissan dealer sites, and locations of Nissan Sport adventure event locations.

The best thing about the com, though, is that it engages at a passion point. Fins love getting into the outdoors (on the four days a year there isn’t 50 feet of snow on the ground and 22 hours of dark, dark night) and cycling is huge over there. This means the content that is being generated for this comp has the potential to be interesting even to people who aren’t there for the prizes, or who aren’t ordinarily Nissan fans. Very well done.

A decidedly automotive theme this week – it’s going to drive you wild.

GM USES THE WEB TO REBUILD CONFIDENCE

General Motors have had an extremely challenging period, with sales dropping steadily to the point where it was forced to undergo a Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructure, and was essentially only saved from going under by the US Government.

This move was extremely controversial, as it was seen (quite correctly) as a “socialising” of the auto industry, and it presents GM with a whole raft of challenges. Along with with obvious challenge of selling enough cars to stay afloat and repositioning themselves as environmentally aware (the image above is their new hyper-efficient car) ,they have the incredibly difficult PR task of rebuilding confidence in their brand, and selling the idea that the government was correct in bailing them out, and that despite this bailout out they are operating as an independent entity.

They’re calling their campaign to do this GM Re-invention. The TVC is pretty much as you’d expect right down to the shots of stampeding horses, moon landings and touchdowns, but the website is far more forward looking.  The site really seeks to be a conversation between the company and it’s customers, shareholders, and a sceptical public.

The key features include “Ask Fritz”, which lets users put questions to GM’s CEO directly; live chats with the heads of various departments, of which transcripts are available, and well maintained Twitter , Facebook and Flickr pages.

It’s an ambitious approach, and one that would have to be well monitored, given the amount of negative sentiment surrounding the company at present. But it seems to be quite successful – Business Week’s assessment can be found here, showing that consumers have generally reacted positively.

Awesome app that is actually useful

It’s pretty normal to come across an iPhone app that’s entertaining for 24 hours. It’s somewhat rarer to come across one so useful that it will be ubiquitous. But Mini USA’s new auto assistance app is just that. Basically, it allows one button connect to roadside assistance services, specifying the kind of trouble your in. As well, it uses the phone’s navigational devices to tell the assistance service your exact location.

It’s so useful that it could genuinely be described as having the potential to influence a purchaser’s decision when they’re buying a car.

Help Me, Rhonda

Rhonda is a cool new tool for designers and animators. It was developed about 5 years ago, but until now has only been used in museums and galleries. Basically, it allows you to flip images onto different planes, using 2d line drawings to make 3D shapes. It’s in beta testing now, but will be in the market soon. I’m not sure why they chose Neil Young’s mournful 1972 classic “Out on the Weekend” to soundtrack the demo, though?

Facebook Flourishes, Twitter Towers, MySpace melts

Some interesting trends are emerging in the world of social media. News Corp released it’s full year operation income this week, and particularly notable was that the “Other” segment, which accounts for  Fox Interactive Media, reported an operating loss of $363 million. This loss was largely driven by a drop of advertising revenue at MySpace, which FIM owns.

MySpace’s traffic numbers were overtaken by Facebook’s last May and Facebook has gone from strength to strength ever since – it’s now the world’s fourth most popular website, behind only the Google, Microsoft and Yahoo behemoths.  And it looks like even MySpace itself thinks the trend will continue, having recently cut two-thirds of their international staff and replaced their CEO.

But what does this mean? Well, as simply as possible, Facebook is getting it’s audience boost from MySpace refugees, who seem largely to be over 18s who prefer the functionality (particularly the privacy) of the Facebook experience. As well, Facebook is tapping into sections of the market, particularly 35-54 year olds who MySpace weren’t ever able to gain great traction with. MySpace continues to grow in popularity with teens and niche audiences, so it’s not in any danger of going under, but moving forward it won’t be able to compete with Facebook for a mass audience.

Over at Twitter, meanwhile, things continue to go from strength to strength – as this link shows the upward trend is spiking sharply (check international stats here).  But some interesting stats released by Nielsen show that this growth has been driven largely not by the traditional early up-takers, but the over 24s – in fact, remarkably. more people over 55 use Twitter than under 24.

And again, why? Well, it’s just a theory, but I would posit that it’s because Twitter is becoming more than more than just a social media site, in the traditional sense. MySpace and Facebook are about friends. Facebook is about maintaining existing relationships, which is why it is popular all age groups. MySpace focuses as much on meeting new friends as maintaining old relationships, which is why teens and young adults love it so much. But Twitter is more like a virtual town square, where people go to hear the latest news, get advice, find out what has been happening that day, and so on. Which is why it could end up the biggest of them all.

Finding Flickr Fotos Faster, Funner

Everyone’s favourite photo finding resource got a better this week, with a great new search functionality. It’s all explained in this post. No doubt this group of extremely keen University of Washington researchers, who used Flickr images to build Rome in a day would have found it handy.

Don’t Hit Refresh

The whole world is going digital. Later this year work will begin on Mahanakhon, which at 310 metres will be Bangkok’s tallest. But what makes it really noteworthy is that it will be pixelated. German architect Ole Scheeren of OMA, has designed it with indentations in its facade which will give it the appearance of having, or rather missing “pixels”. If all goes according to plan it will be finished in 2012. Incredible.

Industrial designers mike and maaike have taken a different spin on a concept car the ATNMBL (Autonomy with the Automobile). Rather than exploring the form and function and focusing on car performance, the designers have rethought the way a car could be used.

“Dismissing the need for extreme MPH and acceleration as irrelevant, ATNMBL proposes a new standard of performance: one of time-saving, quality of life, and increased exploration. Freed from the monotony of driving, we can enjoy quality time while in transit: socializing, gaming, movies, business, videocalls, web surfing, sleeping or discovering new places with powerful voice controlled search and navigation”

Check out the mini-site.

Just discovered this classic collection of cars in the Mazda Museum on the USA Mazda site whilst doing a bit of research. I say bring back the Bongo 800 or the Cosmo Sport 110S! We are so used to seeing history and pedigree in brands such as Ford, Holden, Porsche etc its interesting to look at the design roots of the Japanese manufacturers and how European influences played a big part in the early days.