It was Arthur C. Clarke who said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This clever clip almost demonstrates his point. Almost. Behold mere mortals! (And cue Europe’s Final Countdown.) You are about to witness some ma-gic!
With the return of Australia’s favourite reality television franchise last Sunday night and the animated reactions of this season’s aspiring ‘Masterchefs’ (most especially as Adriano Zumbo unveiled his latest challenging desert), I was reminded of the following clip by English satirist Charlie Brooker. Not only does it include an excerpt from Monty Python but it also demonstrates how reality television can be used to tell a story that is often far from reality.
There’s never a dull moment with that Arnold Schwarzenegger fella around. One minute he’s in London looking incredibly silly on a pushbike – in a suit, no less. The next he’s in Cannes, France, launching his first post-politics project: a TV cartoon series for kids called The Governator.
We find it amusing that uberbaddie Darth Vader would be chosen by Volkswagen to serve as the hero in this commercial for the 2012 Passat. Not only that, but they slap the cape and helmet on a kid who’s, what? Five? Six? What say you? Inspired commercial creativity or the lowest form of pandering?
It seems British comedy legend Ronnie Corbett’s character has a problem with his Blackberry … er, blackberry. In addition to this bit being incredibly smart (and deliciously old-skool), it also reminds us that even in the digital age, what’s new is old, as we outfit common words and phrases with new definitions.
A service that employs a real person to call you each day to tell you how awesome you are — and charges $45 a month for this ‘feel good’ moment — was the forehead-slapping winner of Ovum’s annual Wireless Turkey Awards.
OK, Australia, what was the most-watched YouTube video on the continent in 2010? Was it the national election? The gulf oil spill? The rescue of the Chilean miners? Of course not! According to Google Australia, the pinnacle of the video chart belonged to this catchy remix.
How would the story of the Nativity play out if Joseph, Mary and the Three Wise Men had access to email, smartphones, online social media and Internet shopping? A Portuguese web-development company put together a cheeky video Christmas card that offers a early 21st century version of the birth of Jesus.
The Canberra Raiders’ ‘dog sex’ scandal, the Commonwealth Bank’s premium interest rate hike and the David Jones sexual assault case were just some of the diverse incidents to make the year’s definitive list of PR gaffes. Celebrities Stephanie Rice, Matthew Newton and Lara Bingle also hit the headlines for the wrong reasons in 2010.
It’s hardly a laughing matter; An Australian national accused of espionage and treason by a foreign power, excluded from the services of multi-national financial institutions at the request of an excitable few, hung out to dry at home by a PM who misread ‘the public mood’, all for publishing information illegally acquired by others. Yet, NMA.TV has once again managed to turn the serious into the absurd.
When this commercial for the most recent edition in the ‘Call of Duty’ franchise was released in early November, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cringe. The genius of the 60 second advertisement, by Omnicom Group’s TBWA/Chiat/Day, is that it’s for a video game but does not feature any footage of the game itself.
We love sharing some of the more eclectic, unusual and just plain absurd inventions that cross our desk. Sure, we laughed at the Comfort Wipe, gaped at the Snuggie Blanket and marveled at the most useless machine ever. But there’s something about this three-and-a-half minute product demonstration that defies explanation.
Social media ‘gurus’ are the latest targets of ridicule in this Xtranormal animation. The text-to-animation software has made it possible for amateur film-makers, from bedrooms and home studies the world-over, to focus their ire on almost any community group, profession or industry, from iPhone acolytes to Tea Party zealots. Created by copywriters Jason Schmall and…
There are already countless videos on the Interwebs that present side-by-side comparisons of the most popular smart-phones. You know — which has the fastest browser, the brightest screen, the quickest boot-up. This is not one of those videos. All we can say to the person who put this video together is, “Dude, we wish we had that kind of money to burn.”
We were tickled beyond words this week to discover that three Austrian developers have at last solved the problem those of us with fat fingers have when navigating a phone’s touchscreen. They’ve created an iPhone that’s as large as a refrigerator door. Your biggest, most chunky-digited AFL star can now swish through his apps with ease.
The music industry’s backlash against Auto-Tune is well-documented, though it reportedly endures on countless CDs and on every episode of “Glee.” LaDiDa isn’t designed to be insidious; it’s tech is actually quite cool. The user chooses a musical tempo and style, then serenades the iPhone or iPad. The app uses the voice to compose a melody. Think of it as karaoke in reverse.
Voice mail is the most frequently called number, according to an ambitious report by The Full Circle Group, an Australian telecommunications cost management firm. And the best to time to make a business call is not 10am on a Tuesday.
Okay, there’s not much we can say about this clip that won’t influence your reaction. However, it did seem prudent (perhaps unnecessarily, perhaps not) to share the warning that, while this clip doesn’t rate on our Salty Language metre, it’s still kind of… well… salty.
The product developers describe the innovation as “the snazzy way to sleep while you travel”. What they don’t explain is how this innovation hasn’t yet caused race riots in a country already irrationally fearful of similar headware and community centres. Could this be the most brainless innovation ever?
The product developers describe the innovation as “the snazzy way to sleep while you travel”. What they don’t explain is how this innovation hasn’t yet caused race riots in a country already irrationally fearful of similar headware and community centres. Could this be the most brainless innovation ever?
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