Sharing this corner of the world with you takes the effort of many. It starts with folks who make and do amazing things from a 15 year old artist to my mom’s hack of Gmail to IBM’s researchers who built a thinking computer in Watson. While Techlife shares some things you have seen, and some you haven’t the goal is always the same giving some focus to these talented people and their efforts. It’s great when organizations get behind sharing too. Often they do it to showcase their own wares, while providing a spotlight on the exceptional. So for all the print and mobile readers, spend some time with “GL doesn’t stand for Good Lookin’ but it could” in a full screen browser, it’s worth it.

Made to showcase Google’s Chrome browser and the advanced features it can support, Chrome Experiments is a site with a curated “best of the best in cool” all showing off user-submitted works. (Techlife ran some tests and some of the developers were kind of enough to still play nice with others, so the latest Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera Browser might work just as well.)  In just over18 months the site has posted 277 works, starting with the first one “BallDroppings” by Josh Nimoy which has gotten nearly 5 stars from over 1500 people. It reminds me a lot of Line Rider.

Some of the best works involve animated water you can interact with in the browser, such as “Chrysaora” by Aleksandar Rodic and “WebGL Water Simulation” by Evan Wallace.  The first is a collection of jellyfish and the second is a simple ball in pool of water. But when you consider both are using just the browser to render and animate you begin to understand the genius behind these works.

As expected there is quite a collection of games, all of which aren’t built in Flash which has been a common building block of web based games.  ”Dots, the Game” by Nicolas Smith and Aviv Keshet, “Z-Type” by Dominic Szablewski, “Asteroids, Inc.” by Jarred Draney, and “Word²” by Massively Fun are all examples of the future of web gaming built right in the browser.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Techlife favorite of these Chrome Experiments is an interactive digital short using Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown” by Chris Milk and Google Creative Lab. Sure the team works for Google, but it does not diminish the effort.  For online viewers we have embedded a screen capture of the interactive experiment, but trust me it doesn’t do it justice compared to typing in your own childhood address and it building a custom show for you. (Be aware not every address works.) This has taken music videos to the next evolutionary stage of development. And I like the direction.

As a final fun, enjoy the “Shaun the Sheep” by Google Chrome Team, clearly an entry by the team that has all the tricks at their disposal. They don’t disappoint.

As the future of browsing evolves into what we see here, the enjoyment and fun of even everyday work and entertainment should keep interfaces and applications from all looking and acting the same. I like the future.

*So what does GL stand for then? Nothing fancy, just “Graphics Library.”

Jeremy Young - Stare into Me

When you were 15, were you cool? How about humble? How about talented? Meet Jeremy Young, a digital artist from New Zealand who’s artistic talent had him winning awards as young as six. Techlife was lucky enough to sneak in an after-school interview with Jeremy. He has a ton to share, so less of me and more of him.

Techlife: How did you get started?

Jeremy Young: I have been doing digital art since 2008 but as long as I can remember, I have had a passion for designing with expressive use of colour. I won my first colouring in competition at age six and went on to win the next eight which I entered. I guess I’ve always loved colouring and design, using a computer enables me to create images which I couldn’t create using traditional drawing/painting methods.

TL: What is your main medium and why do you use it?

JY: My main medium is vexel. Vexeling is basically vector work done in photoshop. I love vexel because of the precision and clean lines which you can achieve. I prefer to vexel rather than vector because my knowledge of Photoshop is far greater than my knowledge of Illustrator. I also like it because it gives me more freedom to experiment and bring other elements in when I want.

TL: How long does it take from start to finish to complete a piece?

JY: It really depends. I will often go at my own slow and leisurely pace, working on and off on each piece. Because of this they usually take around  3-4 weeks. If I really concentrated and set myself a deadline then I could complete each one much faster.

TL: Many of your works appear to be painted, have you transferred any to canvas or even photo canvas?

JY: All of my works are made almost entirely in photoshop, I have had a few printed for family and friends  but apart from that they remain solely on the computer.

Jeremy Young - Mindless Wisdom

TL: What would you define as your style?

JY: I aim to make my works vibrant yet clean lined. The structure of the designs is very minimal; I combine this with extreme colour which gives the works great impact. However I am currently working on a black and white piece.

TL: What other artists influence your work?

JY: There are really too many to name, I am influenced by countless artists I have found online, but also by famous artists in history such as Andy Warhol.

TL: Where do you draw your inspiration from?

JY: Even though I’m surrounded the beautiful landscape of New Zealand, nature doesn’t particularly inspire me. Instead, I am fascinated by objects that are man-made. I’m also inspired by other art, people and cultures.

TL: What does your studio space look like?

JY: Since I’m 15, I don’t have a studio but work in my bedroom, overlooking the sea.  My workspace is a very large desk clear of everything but my computer. I also like to surround myself with art I enjoy.

TL: Why did you choose DeviantArt.com as a place to showcase your work?

JY: It is a fantastic place to meet other artists and get feedback. It has a great sense of community where you can learn from other artists and let them easily see your works.

TL: Have you had any major news coverage, journals, magazines, blogs or other media?

JY: Yes, I was featured in Advanced Photoshop magazine last year and have just done an interview for a feature in the French edition of Advanced Creative Magazine. My work has also been featured on numerous blogs, sometimes without my knowing. I often will stumble across a website featuring me through googling the names of my works and my name. I have also had three main page ‘daily deviation’ features on Deviantart.com. They were Stare into Me, We’re All Mad Here and Mindless Wisdom.

TL: Have you shown your work in a gallery, museum, festival or other public place?

JY: Getting my work into galleries has certainly been a goal of mine but I have yet to approach a gallery and see if they would take my work.

Jeremy Young - We're All Mad Here

TL: Have you done any private, public commissions?

JY: No I haven’t done any commissions. I have had requests, but previously I have been focusing on my own style and wants. If a great offer comes my way I would happily accept.

TL: Are you making a living/spending money doing this today?

JY: I’m currently a school student and therefore don’t have time to be a doing graphic design as a living. It is more of a hobby for me at the moment. Who knows where it will go once I finish school though.

TL: What do your teachers, parents and friends think?

JY: My parents are obviously very proud of me and encourage me to keep doing design work. I don’t do any ‘computer design’ subjects so my teachers are unaware of my interest in art. I don’t like to talk about graphic design much with my friends, but I seem to have gained a reputation of someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to design. Only one or two of them know that I am in magazines, etc.

TL: What are the future plans for Jeremy Young?

JY: I’m definitely going to University but I’m unsure of what I want to study. I love being creative and that will always be a part of my life but I have a broad range of interests and I am unsure if I will take a career to do with digital design. My family is very supportive of my design work but they also are aware of my other strengths, so they try to keep me broad in my choice of subjects. At the moment I’m tossing up ideas of economics, medicine or design.

TL: How could someone contact you for more information?

JY: Flick me an email at navrasmail {at} gmail {dot} com or send me a note on my deviantart: http://navras2535.deviantart.com.

“Danger, Will Robinson!”  Attention, science fiction writers, time to find new material.  Reality has arrived. In the form of a supercomputer named Watson. Most Techlife readers probably heard about the Jeopardy! match between Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two of the game show’s all time champions and a machine built by IBM named Watson after the founder of the company.

Since there have been science fiction storytellers, there have been sidekicks and stars, villains and heroes, useful and funny characters who were created by humans but took on a life of their own. What made these characters so endearing was not their intelligence which was often portrayed as super human, but their inability to “get it.”

In Star Wars, when C-3PO mistakenly understands his owner Luke Skywalker is being crushed by the garbage compacter, but in reality Luke is cheering loudly at being saved and is happy.

In Terminator 2:Judgement Day, when John Connor attempts to explain how to lighten up and joke to a cyborg, who is able to mimic but not truly get the human idea of a joke.

On three consecutive days in February 2011, Watson, a computer competed and crushed two of the best Jeopardy! human contestants of all time.  Ken Jenning’s even joked in Final Jeopardy with the famous meme quote, “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.”  (from The Simpsons “Deep Space Homer”)

What is Watson?

Simply a computer with a focused problem to solve.  The ability to answer questions posed by anyone.  At first this seems relatively easy until you begin to dissect the vast knowledge humans have amassed, and even more so the sinews of connection between something that we know and something we are trying to process in a new way.  As an example asked today, “What do they sell at the Apple store?” Most 5 year olds in the civilized world, will answer “iPods, iPhones and Macs.” 25 years ago most 5 year olds would say, “Apples.” Both answers are right, in the context of time.

To be able to understand a question, the programming team had to take into account millions of variables of this type. To assist them they begin feeding Watson with data.  At the time of the match Watson had 200 million pages of information and was not online during Jeopardy! Watson itself is housed on 90 high end IBM servers with nearly 3,000 processors.

What now Watson?

Speed is the killer factor in computing.  People write into Techlife asking how do I make my PC faster. The number one answer I give people, add more RAM. IBM added more RAM, than repeated until they had 16 terabytes. (1000 gigabytes) I venture to say most readers don’t have more than 2 terabytes of hard drive storage, and this was RAM, the fast stuff.  So now Watson moves the tassel of graduation to the right and starts careers — with an s. First up, and fitting is Dr. Watson to aid in patient diagnosis.  Next Watson’s employer might be legal eagles using the brainpower as a research computer. And of course Five Star General Watson, as IBM counts the U.S. government as a big client, where Watson will be asked to do who knows what.

What would you do with Watson at your beck and call? Share with me.

Once upon a time, back in 2007, a lowly columnist was penning his latest April Techlife column titled, “chick chick BOOM – Baby Chick gaming warfare at its best“. The article spoke of a mysterious, fun game for the web browser. Then all of a sudden this highly addicting game vanished. Our lowly columnist was asked about this and in February of 2009 made a bold prediction, “…maybe they will release it one day as WiiWare for the Wii.”

As if this voice was heard whispering on the wind, a return voice whispered from Frankfurt, Germany where the game developer “tons of bits” came out from the shroud of silence to tell their tale of the resurrection of chick chick BOOM in multi-player for Wii Ware.

Techlife: How did the original chick chick BOOM get started?

Tons of Bits: Before chick chick BOOM we had developed another flash game called Mission in Snowdriftland, which had a great impact and positive response by the players. Mission in Snowdriftland was created as an advent calendar with 24 jump ‘n’ run levels for christmas. The idea of making a game for Easter was an obvious next step. chick chick BOOM was born.

TL: Sounds like it was hatched. How long did it take to plan and implement?

TOB: The whole project was realized in a pretty short time for a game of this complexity. From scratch to release it took approx. 8 weeks.

TL: What was your measure of success?

TOB: The constant positive feedback from the community. In the form of comments on the web but also as direct e-mails; or for instance fans writing a detailed article in Wikipedia.

TL: Why did it disappear?

TOB: It was planned as a limited easter event. We thought it wouldn’t feel right outside of this seasonal context if we would have kept it online.

TL: Is the new chick chick BOOM the same game?

TOB: The new chick chick BOOM has been completely redesigned and improved. The core idea “two chick teams fight each other in a whacky way” is the same, but the presentation and the game mechanics have been completely changed. The focus was on optimizing the game for the Wii, especially on the feature of simultaneous use of the Wii remotes for the multiplayer mode.

TL: What are the coolest new features?

TOB: There are 5 big improvements in the new chick chick BOOM:
1. Defense
A completely revised feature is how you defend your chicks. In the original chick chick BOOM you had defending gestures, now you defend by drawing a line into the arena. For instance, a falling weight can be blocked by drawing a horizontal line. If the weight collides with the line, it’s blocked and your chicks are safe. Another example is to block the bomb explosion with your line. You can use the line drawing feature also to sabotage the opponent’s line. Moreover, your chicks will collide with the line too, so this way you can keep them away from dangerous areas.

2. Attack Upgrades
For each attack you can activate one of two unique upgrades. For instance, you can upgrade your weight attack to a Sumo Chick, which not only looks extremely funny, but also will jump twice on enemy chicks.

3. Corncobman and Piñata

Two interesting elements have been added to the game: Corncobman and the Piñata. Corncobman appears from time to time behind the fence. The players can shoot his kernels off, which add health when collected by the chicks. The Piñata contains bonuses. You can shoot on it to pull it on the own side, when it falls on the ground it gets activated and you receive a bonus. The opponent can also shoot on Corncobman and the Piñata, so an additional fight for kernels and bonuses arise.

4. Multiplayer
Also a big improvement is the multiplayer option. You can play any combination of 2-4 players. There is also a coop mode available where 2 players can share one side. One is attacking, the other is defending, and both shooting at Corncobman and the Piñata. It is a highlight of the new versions when four people shoot at them simultaneously.

5. New arenas and unlockable teams hats
There are 3 different arenas available now: City, Ship, Haunted Wood – each with its own special attack (UFO, Sea Monster, Ghost).
Players can choose from 15 funny teams, 5 available by default and 10 more to unlock by specific actions/achievements.

TL: What’s the best part of the new game?

TOB: We made each new part of the game to be special. Though the multiplayer part of chick chick BOOM is a big strength with all possible variations from 2-4 players (e.g. coop, versus, 2 vs 1 etc). Of course when you are alone you can play also against the CPU.

TL: Why the hiatus for all these years?

TOB: A difficult part  of development is how to acquire the money for the project. We 100% self-financed this game. This way we stayed independent and were able to fine-tune the game to the point where we feel 100% satisfied, but on the other side it doubled the duration of the project.

TL: Do you have plans for any more chick chick BOOM adventures?

TOB: Certainly! The characters are sweet and have lot of potential to be put in lot of different settings. We have no concrete project started yet, but we are starting  to plan. It defnitely depends on the feedback of the players.

TL:  Any other platforms coming out?

TOB: No plans currently. chick chick BOOM wouldn’t work on other platforms with the same functions for two reasons. First, drawing lines and tracing the attack shapes works only with a pointing devices like the Wii Remote. Second, only the Wii has the capability of using four pointing devices simultaneously.

TL:  Why the name?

TOB: tick…tick…BOOM + chicks -> any bells ringing?!

The story continues…

As the sun rises, a new day dawns upon the world. Our lowly columnist enjoyed chick chick BOOM, the web version,  and is looking to be reunited with his long-lost team of chicks to fight evil wherever it may be found.

Travel. That single word sparks thoughts of exotic beaches, hidden towns, memories, and enjoyment. Techlife has covered unique mapping tools, making your own maps, finding the perfect place to stay and more. Our diverse readership, You; often comment how much travel is a part of your life.

Meet Travelista (Techlife slang for Travel Expert) Anne Hornyak, who holds a Masters in Music; loves photography and travel; and has a day job advising Travel and Convention Bureau’s. We asked her to help Techlife readers with an education in what travel means in today’s super connected world of mobile sharing, bite size ideas, and off the path finds.

Techlife: How did you get started in the Travel and Tourism industry?
Anne Hornyak: I began my tourism career with Chicago Plus, a regional tourism office for Chicagoland. As a staff of one, I mostly managed marketing projects for the 17 Chicagoland Convention & Visitors Bureaus but also handled everything from finance to social media.

TL: What do you do today for the industry?
AH: I work mostly as a Social Media Strategist for tourism clients. I’m a cofounder of #tourismchat, a biweekly twitter chat focusing on social media in the tourism industry, and frequently tweet and blog about the same topic.

TL: Why is online travel and tourism so big? And how big is it?
AH: People love to travel and share their experiences with others. Social networks, especially Facebook, are perfect for this type of sharing. Many are also planning their trips, searching for the best discounts and then booking these trips, all online. Everything from Frommer’s to Budget Travel, Expedia to Priceline, Flickr to YouTube and travel blogs to a simple Facebook update about a friend’s recent trip…it’s all online. The travel industry is massive. Over 7.4 million U.S. jobs are directly related to it.

TL: How do you disconnect from the digital realm?
AH: I used to joke about needing a “social media detox” every once in a while but it has become rather habitual lately. Whether hiking in a state park or photographing lighthouses along Lake Michigan’s coast, I have to make time “off the grid.”

TL: What digital tips do you have for a traveler pre-trip?
AH: Research! Ask your Facebook friends and Twitter followers for recommendations and tips. Take advantage of CVBs (Convention & Visitors Bureaus) in your preferred social networks. Many of them are on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, and have blogs and interactive websites that can help you plan your trip. Find them on your network and connect before you travel.

TL: In-trip?
AH: Have fun! If you have a smartphone, send photos and updates to your friends on Facebook and Twitter but be sure that it doesn’t get in the way of your experience. If you’re on Flickr, upload your photos regularly so you can add descriptions and geotag them accurately.

TL: Post trip?
AH: Talk about it! Create photo albums on Facebook, upload Flickr photos and YouTube videos, write a special blog post and add write reviews to TripAdvisor. Share your experience with others who are in the research stage.

TL: As of this question being written you had 3,673 Followers on Twitter who have seen 16,406 updates via your username “WhosYourAnnie“. What’s one thing you never talk about? Why?
AH: Tweets about my family and personal life are usually kept pretty vague. The internet is public and safety is the primary concern. I’ve received a few google alerts for random things I’ve tweeted about my dogs. I don’t need to give stalkers extra information.

TL: What percent of your followers and updates are related to your career?
AH: I would say that 65-75% of my followers are somehow related to the travel industry, either as travel bloggers, CVBs, or people who just like to travel and talk about it. Probably 50% of my updates are conversational replies, most of which are to friends within the tourism industry, leaving around 30% as content tweets directly related to my career.

TL: Is Twitter your main channel?
AH: Most definitely! To me, twitter is all about connecting and having conversations. It’s a little surreal but some of my closest friends, a few I have yet to meet in real life, started as twitter followers.

TL: Last question, Who’s Your Annie?
AH: I’m your Annie.

Cameras exist everywhere today, from ATM machines to mobile phones to government meetings. With the increase of the lenses surrounding our world, the artist inside springs forth from all walks of life to see the moments captured from a falling leaf to a speeding locomotive.

While many mainstream photo storage sites attempt to appeal to photo artists, Lance Ramoth felt differently. Lance’s vision was fotoblur.com which now includes both a website and a printed publication, Fotoblur Magazine all crowd sourced or created by the artists from the inside. With a passion for photography and technology Lance’s efforts tell a story of hardwork and love. It is an inspirational tale in how a niche can evolve into a group collaboration in this case, photographers who believe in the Art of the Moment.

Techlife: How did fotoblur.com start?

Lance Ramoth: I first started Fotoblur as a side project in 2007. I had been quite active in a number of other online photo communities and was actively submitting my photos to various printed publications. At first, Fotoblur was just a small corner for a few of the photographers that I had met at other communities where we could have complete autonomy of how it all would work. I got a lot of input from the first group of members and that helped shape the way Fotoblur works today.

TL: How has your focus changed since you started?

LR: Well now we’ve grown. Although we are still very small in terms of other photo communities we have some amazing photographers from all corners of the globe. Now we focus on aesthetics of the design, providing a cleaner and simpler user interface. We’re always looking for ways to improve how the community members interact with one another based on what we see them doing. From day one, the development of Fotoblur has been an organic process, allowing the community to determine where our focus should be applied. Fotoblur Magazine, which started a year after the initial launch of Fotoblur, has also been a main focus.

TL: Do you love how fotoblur.com has grown?

LR: Indeed. I love to see how the members interact with one another. They are very supportive of each other and have created a very positive dynamic environment. This I couldn’t have developed in the code, or the design, but comes from the members. How the community has grown amazes me every time I’m browsing the gallery.

TL: What’s your favorite photo of 2010 so far?

LR: Wow, there are so many. We have a section of featured images where I select, based on my opinion, the best images of the day. The community also has its own voice in the Community Favorites section of the front page. The way the community favorites works is that each member can promote an image that they appreciate, and the ones with the highest number of promotions makes it to the front page for that day. So its a good mix of the community favorites and editor’s choice that goes into showcasing the best of the best.

TL: What’s your favorite story a photographer has shared with you?

LR: Most photographers can leave descriptions of their images and some are quite moving after reading them. For instance photographer Greg Brophy submitted an image that was quite moving after reading the description.  Apparently the subject of his photo was a dear friend who died at an early age and the image seemed to be a tribute to her.
James Andre Mortram posted images of individuals who suffered birth defects from the drug Thalidomide*. The image was so striking it was published in Fotoblur Magazine, Issue 5.

Images have been submitted depicting war, activism , hardship, and culture.  People post images of all types. Some are purely artistic in nature but some have messages that teach us about something that has touched another individual.

Background of Thalidomide:
Thalidomide was sold in a number of countries across the world from 1957 until 1961 when it was withdrawn from the market after being found to be cause birth defects in what has been called “the biggest medical tragedy of modern times”. It is not known exactly how many worldwide victims of the drug there have been, although estimates range from 10,000 to 20,000.

TL: Has publishing fotoblur.com changed your life?

LR: Not really. Fotoblur has become an extension of my creative interests. Its a bit of work obviously to meet our deadline for Fotoblur Magazine but its also fun. I never know which images the community is going to select as the top images for publication so that is always exciting. Seeing the breadth of talent out there is inspiring and bringing that talent together and formulating a way of presenting it, also in an artistic way, has been both a challenge and creative endeavor.

TL: Has there been any negatives to fotoblur.com?

LR: Sure. We’ve had our handful of trouble makers in the community. I think you get this with any online community where members are mostly anonymous. But what I’ve found is the strength of the community takes care of this.

TL: What should new readers and users expect to see in the next 12 months?

LR: Expect to see some amazing work both on the site and in the published magazine. Word is spreading, and we’ve had some amazing artist join our ranks within the past year, so expect more of the same awe inspiring photography you’d come to expect from Fotoblur in the future.

TL: Are you currently working on any other projects?

LR: Fotoblur is a full time job that takes most of my spare time. As a technical person at heart I’m always fiddling with new technologies and approaches to problems that I can use to better the user’s experience. We’re excited by the fact that HTML5 has been gaining a fair amount of traction this year and hope to incorporate more of this technology into Fotoblur in the future.

TL: What’s a dream job for you?

LR: Anything thats creative. I love the creative process whereby you have the opportunity to build something from nothing. To have ultimate freedom of creativity and expression is all that I could ever hope for in a dream job.

TL: What’s a dream photoshoot for you?

LR: Where I enjoy the world around me. I like to take long exposures when I shoot whereby each image can take up to 4-6 minutes to expose. This gives me the opportunity to soak up my environment. It slows down the world in such a way that I feel at one with it. This is a personal experience and can be very spiritual in nature.

TL: Have any famous people or photographer’s who you were surprised to find fotoblur.com fans?

LR: Oh yeah. We’ve had fine arts photographers such as Cole Thompson, Russ Martin, Marcia Martin, Jennifer Short, Tom Hoops, Xavier Rey, and Pierre Pellegrini join our ranks, plus many more. We’ve also recently had some large followings in Italy and Saudi Arabia. But we have many intermediate to beginning photographers as well. Fotoblur is a dynamic landscape where all can benefit from the social aspects of the community. It has brought photographers from all over the world together.

TL: What’s your advice for someone who has up to now just shot their family and friends for getting artistic with photography?

LR: Shooting family and friends can also be artistic. Photographer Jennifer Short makes it her main subject of work. Regardless, the advice that I would suggest is that the camera is just a tool and that it takes an artist to create the art. An artist attempts to communicate through their photos. Whether its emotions, wants, needs or desires, attempt to communicate that in your photos.

For me its about communicating the loneliness of life’s journey. Yes, I have family and friends but I’ve always felt alone and my images depict this feeling.

At Fotoblur we view photography as an art form. Its a matter of expression and personal experience. To shoot for the sake of shooting is not conducive to being an artist. We want photographic artists at Fotoblur and that’s what each one of us is trying to develop in ourselves.

At the time of this writing the Fotoblur community was just shy of 5,000 users, with 5 published magazines volumes, and nearly 43,000 images.  Along with an active comments and forums section of the site, the growth of a niche community based on a something you love is a great  way to get other passionate users involved who want a hand in creating a place for, in this case photographic artists, to gather and trade tips, admire work, and get inspired.  Where do you find inspiration for your passions?  Share it with us in the comments.

One word: Mashup.

We have covered mashups in the past, see the archives.  Basically a mashup is taking two or more separate things and combining them.   In our column we often cover technology mashups so today is something a bit different.

A little over a year ago, Steve Speirs created the website HundredPushups.com.  The concept was simple to inspire and help people achieve a goal that seems difficult to most, to do 100 consecutive pushups. Wait, wait — don’t go.  Don’t stop reading cause, ewww he mentioned fitness and feats of strength. I know this is the holiday season and Festivus is upon us.  But you can do this.

Steve’s idea is something we often pass on to clients.  When you are sharing information, keep it simple.  HundredPushups.com provides an easy to follow six-week plan, some simple printable worksheets and that was it.  The interest spiked enormously due to the simplicity.

Even better Steve’s community of fans stared building mashups.  For regular readers there are three iPhone/iPod touch applications that act as digital tracking tools for people in each of the three programs.  Swedish developer Viktor Nordling created a web app for those regular Techlife readers, pushuplogger.com.  Finally, a fan named Eddie created the mashup for you long time readers, a Pocket Mod of the entire program that fits on a single sheet of paper in foldable Pocket Mod format.  This was my favorite item.

Steve was inspired by the outpouring for his well crafted website that he soon rolled out the sequel, twohundredsitups.com.  Same concept, different muscles, new goal. Most recently he launched twohundredsquats.com.  Steve’s brilliance was to keep all three sites nearly the same.  Fans who understood one program can easily start the next.

Now for mashup, the Techlife challenge.  I sit behind my monitor way to much.  Cranking out good articles for the faithful.  I have started my new year’s resolution early and I want you to join me.  My goal stated publicly, is to achieve the Techlife 500. The goal is to max out with being able to do in a continuous test, one hundred pushups plus two hundred situps plus two hundred squats totalling 500 reps.

Who’s with me?  Add  a comment below if you are joining and feel free to check back here and update us on your progress.

Data, a collection of organized numbers and labels, comes in many shapes and sizes.  Ever made a gut decision only to regret it later?  Well, note to self, your gut is not located anywhere near your decision making center.   And decisions made on data are educated and analytical.  Wait a sec, I thought this was Techlife?

Having accurate information, helps make informed decisions.  I could talk about how your business would be wise to look at the numbers, but we’ll instead use baseball.  Let’s face it, it’s a lot of fun to use a sport that has heaps of data.  Sean Forman over at Baseball-Reference.com has compiled the statistics universe of baseball.  He has organized baseball stats for teams, players, eras, and more.

Will having better data help you in Yeti Baseball? Not likely.  Will it help you in betting on baseball? Quite possibly.  Alright, skip the explanation already, let’s get to it, you’re losing me.

Flamethrowers

As of June 30, 2009, pitching phenom Tim Lincecum of the San Franciso Giants had pitched in 74 career games.  He had 15 games with at least 10 strikeouts, placing him 6th all time. Other fireballers who started hot careers ahead of Lincecum were Dwight Gooden, Herb Score, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and Hideo Nomo who ranged from 27 games to 16 games respectively with 10 plus punch outs.

Baseball-Reference.com Blog and Stat of the Day writer Andy Kamholz, also ran the data on flamethrowers in their first 74 career games with at least 8 strikeouts, and Linceum is number 1 with 39.   Followed again by Gooden, Wood, Score, Prior and Nomo who ranged from 38-33.

Homeruns

Babe Ruth hit a lot of homeruns; 714 to be exact.  Baseball-Reference.com has a log of every homerun he ever hit.  But they provide even more data about each homerun.  They document play by play:

• HRs in order they were hit
• What number HR it was of the season it was hit
• What number HR it was in the game
• Date
• Matchup (teams)
• Pitcher
• Inning it was hit
• RBI from that HR

and comprehensive data of Number of HRs:

• Against by Opponent
• Against Left/Right Handed Pitchers
• Against Pitcher (by name and count)
• By Ballpark
• Inside the Park

Award Winning

Baseball likes awards.  From Cy Young for pitching, MVPs, Triple Crowns, Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers to managers and rookies of the year, most of these are decided by numbers.  Which lead players to the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, where Baseball’s Hall of Fame stands as the ultimate achievement based on statistics.  Baseball-Reference.com has broken down the awards winners by stats, years, teams, and streaks.  Slicing data to make the game more enjoyable and understandable.

Final Thought

A simple design, easy access to information and tools for the casual to the stat freak allow Baseball-Reference.com to shine in data display.  As you imagine how a data rich environment with insight and analysis would help your company or organization, keep in mind this site took 10 years to get to the point you see today.  Working with a professional can help you understand your data, interpret it and come out hitting  homeruns.  Stop making calls from your gut, save that for peanuts and cracker jacks.

The Dojo's Cubed Addict - Multiplayer Real Time game for Android, Mac, PC and Linux.

As we meet with client’s the hardest thing for them to wrap their arms around is that on the web, your business is instantly global.  “Awesome, bring it on.”  “Yeah, so, no big deal.”  These are some of the common answers we hear from client’s.  It is then we sit them down and using their enthusiasm or lack thereof, we coach them on doing business in a global economy.  It’s not always easy with i18n (shorthand for internationalization) and l10n (shorthand for localization) and social networking and web 2.0 and e-commerce.

Now imagine adding mobile customers to the mix.  That is exactly the challenge David Kainer of The Dojo experienced.  Provide his customers a gaming platform globally that easily works for all mobile devices and Linux, Mac and Windows computers (<=computer download link, start playing today) based customers.  He also added in multi-player real-time , and to top it all off…it is all FREE.

Techlife sat down with David, who from his Sydney office, works with the London office to learn about The Dojo.  How?  Why? How hard?  It’s all in there, and we even cover why he chose Google’s Android first over Apple’s iPhone. 

Techlife: What is The Dojo?

David Kainer: The Dojo is a global platform for uniting game players in interactive gaming, irrespective of platform. It’s aim is to provide great multi-player experiences on mobile and online and really begin to blur the boundaries between the two. Best of all – it’s free.

T: How did you come with the idea for The Dojo?  Was it based on something?

DK: Dojo Media’s production studio, Viva La Mobile, has 5 years of experience developing and running real-time multi-player mobile games. I think the culmination of that experience and knowledge, as well as recognizing the shortage of true interactive gaming in the mobile market, led to The Dojo.

T: What is your background?

DK: I come from a computer engineering background and have been involved in mobile software virtually my entire professional life. After a couple of years developing vehicle tracking software for wireless devices with a US corporation I threw my hat into the ring and co-founded Viva La Mobile in 2003 and now Dojo Media in 2008.

T: How many people does it take on the back-end to run?

DK: For the time being we run a pretty small team with some excellent developers and engineers. Of course as more people access The Dojo and hopefully become regular players we will increase our team as the system scales up.

T: Where are you located?

DK: Headquarters are in London and the development studio, where I am most of the time, is located in Sydney.

T: What was the hardest aspect of getting The Dojo up and running?

DK: Apart from the technical difficulty of creating robust real-time multi-player games for mobile, one of the trickier aspects was actually drawing the line on the features list and to actually commit to launching the beta.

Cubed Addict has a true international feel with global gamers playing head to head.

T: What surprised you about the audience so far?

DK: I think the global nature of the audience has really taken us aback. We first put Dojo Cubed Addict onto a few free mobile sites and we have since seen players from about 30 countries in the system. It seems that people from India to Russia to the UK and USA all enjoy a similar experience.

T: Have there been any problems yet?

DK: Yes for sure. The first edition of Cubed Addict was the best of 3 rounds per game and we found that sessions took too long and players often quit after the first round. So we re-released it with a game being a single multi-player round. Secondly the control scheme on the T-Mobile G1 leaves a little to be desired. This was a hangover from the porting process from Java mobiles, and we will address that in January 2009. On the whole The Dojo is in beta so we expect problems and feedback about usability is helping us to refine it.

T: Was Cubed Addict, originally just called Cubed and you added the addict after playing yourself?

DK: Actually you’re not far off the truth there. We originally launched a multi-player game called “Cubed” on an Australian carrier in 2005 and it was hugely successful and highly addictive. Cubed Addict is essentially the sequel to that title.

T: Why did you release an Android version before an iPhone version?

DK: We feel that timing wise we are right on target to hit the Android market while there it is new and exciting whereas with iPhone we are a little late. We plan to release an iPhone edition early 2009.

T: How many games is the target for The Dojo?

DK: We plan to launch another 3 titles next quarter and will continue to develop more. We will also introduce a 3rd party developer program if and when the numbers allow it. Our goal with game releases is quality over quantity.

T: Give us a preview of the upcoming games?

DK: Next game will be Badlands 2, a sequel to one of our earlier multi-player games. This is an action game where multiple players (the original had up to 4 but we may push this higher for Badlands 2) fight it out in various futuristic combat vehicles. Expect a large variety of weaponry and some very useful digi-good power-ups that you can get from the Dojo Shop.

T:  We recently covered London based Casual Collective’s Minions in a column, and really enjoy it.  Check it out, they may have gotten the idea from Badlands, but I can tell you anything like that on a  mobile will be amazing.  (I realize 5v5 is probably unlikely.)

DK: Will definitely check it out. The original Badlands was maxed at 4 players due to device limitations, but these days I think we may be able to get up to 8 players in a room, so 4v4 may be possible. No idea until we try!

T: Do you have a gaming at work rule?

DK: Lately we haven’t actually had much chance to play in the office since launching The Dojo has kept us highly busy!

T: Do you feel Dojo gaming is really a mobile experience with an added desktop version?

DK: Dojo is not solely about being mobile. It is about giving gamers a unified experience across both mobile and desktop. It’s the gamers’ choice how they choose to play.

T: Any plans for Wii, Playstation or Xbox versions?

DK: Not in the short term but if it makes sense in the longer term then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

T: Finally – a hint for the readers – why in Cubed Addict when playing an opponent does the board start to rise upwards quickly?  Is there a trigger?  Why is the trigger not the same for both parties?  In fact I often see the trigger for my side go off and release and their’s stays nice and low.  Sync issue?

DK: Ah, this is one of those features that is designed to ‘mix it up’ a little. The trigger is simply a timer and the purpose is to disturb the status quo that can sometimes happen in the game and push both players to the limit. I think there may be a sync issue there. I have noticed that happen too sometimes. It can be very hard to iron out all issues like that with multi-player games, especially with packet-dropping devices like mobiles.

In Techlife’s day job we advise clients to, “Get a fresh perspective, take a unique look at things.” Most of the time clients ask us for help in this effort. After all, it isn’t easy to achieve a fresh perspective, but when you do, LOOK OUT! because the effect can be startling and eye-opening.

We love that feeling. When the world turns over on itself. It is exciting to realize things can be different with just a shift in perspective.

For a few years, an artist in London, known as Slinkachu has been providing a fresh perspective on life, by placing his art all over the city without permission and then photographing it. Interesting you say, but how does that provide a fresh perspective? View the following pieces and then keep reading and see how your perspective changes.

Did it change? How do you see the world now? Did it give you any ideas for seeing the world differently for your own life?

The full exhibit is online at Little People – a tiny street art project: Little hand painted people left in London to fend for themselves. We view this art as a form of Artistic Ethnography – understanding humans in their natural environment visually.

We also give Slinkachu’s Little People, two little thumbs up.

Still having trouble, need some creative perspective for your company? Contact us at perspective [at] dkworldwide [dot] com