Making (Virtual) Babies

How to tackle the perennial (and important) issue of condom use, for all the reasons we know?

Two Danish digitally inclined designers Peter Ammentorp and Nicolai Villads and interactive designer Raul Montenegro came up with an idea for an on-spec iPhone app to promote Durex condoms.

Rather than irritate its way into a user's consciousness through repetition, it mimics the daily routine of baby care--and the implications of unprotected relations--in a way no conventional ad can do. How do you get the app? Their idea is to gently rub "face to face" two iPhones, then let Bluetooth do the transfer.

Because of the way it brings to everyday life the realities of baby care (and in a fun, jokey way), it's a super example of innovative new media thinking.

Friends Online Are Not Friends Outside the Dressing Room

Just when I thought that any significant efforts at really new media went the way of 2009, along came this.

It only took this long for a company to try to integrate Facebook (and the activity of sharing) with retailing. Clothing maker Diesel gives it a go in this instance with its Diesel Cam.

Watch the video explanation, and you'll see what I mean about this being wholly UNintegrated with everyday life. Put on your garb, run out in your stocking feet, log in to your Facebook account in a dumpy looking kiosk (who's watching your purse/wallet still in the dressing room?) using an equally dumpy touch on-screen "keyboard," then pose. (And do you like that funky 1980s Euro-synth soundtrack? Shades of Abba!)

A fine example of asking much too much of people. Pitch this effort in the trash, and reset.

Where's Spring Fever?

Pretty paltry pickings the past few weeks. May wish to check out the upcoming Webby Awards.

Eyewriter Lets Eyes Write

I can only imagine the isolation experienced by someone paralyzed either by disease or accident.

That's why this award-winning DIY effort is so great. As noted on the website for The Eyewriter, "a low-cost, DIY system can be made that will allow ALS patients, with the help of their family and caregivers, to make visual art. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that when combined with Mobile Broadcast Units, or similar outdoor projection system, a networked version of the EyeWriter can enable patients to have a large-scale, uncurated presence in public spaces."

And this is no MIT Media Lab extravaganza. Again, from the website: "This system is constructed from material found in local Venice Beach hardware and electronics stores and the software is written using an open source set of C++ libraries for creative coding from openFrameworks."

What more could really new media accomplish than a low-cost effort to enable personal, direct composition?

Have a Ball With "The Ball 2010"

How do you get a potentially world-size group of people personally engaged in an event? Let's kick this one around a little bit...

To promote the World Cup in South Africa, organizers will use the journey of a single soccer ball and its use in "organized games of football, in impromptu kick–abouts and in freestyle sessions. From street to stadium, anyone and everyone can engage with The Ball, sign it, kick it and help it along its way."

What a great way to enable people to give a personal, tactical, tangible connection and experience to what otherwise would be--and is--a very remote event.

Is this new media? You bet.

Keep An Eye on CaT

A good organization to keep an eye on regarding technology and creativity is, well, the "Creativity and Technology" group (CaT--like that capitalization?).

It's largely a trade show of sorts, which invites presentations from practicing professionals. Perhaps a little bit on the brainy, conceptual side, it's none-the-less full of great insights into the trajectories today. A huge archive of videos of past presentations at its summertime meetings.

A Flickin' Good Try

Nikon has jumped on the "use-the-webcam" bandwagon with its Coolpix "Virtual Touch" promotion.

Once the software recognizes your body and your hand, a finger wave (instead of a mouse click) flips through a series of online pictures, while a pinching your forefinger and thumb together or moving them apart zooms in or zooms out of whichever image you're viewing.

It's an idea with potential, but as yet not fully a part of day-to-day life. It's easy to imagine "sometime in the future" where we might control a video display this way. But I couldn't get it to work very well.

And, compared to running into a friend unexpectedly and whipping out an iPod, iPhone, or other touchpad-equipped device that people normally carry anyway, cranking up your computer just to view pictures by flicking your finger doesn't yet make much sense.

An "A" for effort, but "C+" for execution.