Month: December 2006

Crazy 3D Avatars

Gizmoz has a Flash-based 3D avatar product that is made from a single picture of a person plus their recorded voice.

this looks like fun, but could easily be the next level of annoying. reminds me to prod facescan to send me mine in an open 3d format.

Nature Shuts Down Wikipedia-Like Peer Review

too bad for open access. i guess the scientific process is still too mired in the traditional ways. this will come back.

Nature is killing off the experiment after just a few months. It appears that most authors had absolutely 0 interest in pre-publishing their works for the rabble to critique — and, not surprisingly, of the ones that were published, there was very little activity in terms of peer review.

Shared Phone Practices

The research team identified 6 shared use practices, an informal service called Sente that essentially enables a mobile phone owner to function as an ATM machine; mediated communication that neatly side-steps issues of technological and textual literacy; the ever popular practice of making missed calls; the pooling of resources to buy the lowest denominations of prepaid airtime and extend the access days for the phone that is topped up; the use of community address books to reduce errors and (supposedly) encourage phone kiosk customer loyalty; and finally Step Messaging – the delivery of text and spoken messages on foot.

jan always has the best pictures, and is leaving the best job in the world.