Thumbs Up-The Scrollwheel

As someone who has a moderate amount of technology experience, I’ve definitely felt frustrated watching other people searching the web, typing the url into the search bar or copy and pasting by using the mouse and going up to “Edit” instead of using the keyboard shortcuts. It’s not wrong per say, but this video describes pretty well how it makes me feel:

 

Based on the original comic by NeonNoodle and animated by Guy Collins.

Arcade Fire and Google Give New Meaning to Music Video – Thumbs Up

Ever since TRL ended it’s long run as the show featuring the most popular music videos of the day, music videos have seemed to take a slide.  It seemed that music videos were not as popular and sought after as they once were.  We would get the occasional music video that would rock our socks off (see Ok Go music videos Here It Goes Again and This Too Shall Pass).  And, Lady Gaga has recently turned more attention to music videos with her outlandish music videos that are really short films.

Now, with Arcade Fire’s newest music video for “We Used to Wait”, the idea of a music video and the bar for music videos has risen yet again.  The video for “We Used to Wait” is more of a music experience rather than a music video.  By utilizing HTML5 and Google Maps, the video captures shots of your childhood neighborhood and home, and with this footage writer/director Chris Milk turns the video into one reminiscent story for the user.

The video can be found at The Wilderness Downtown and is best viewed in Google Chrome without any other browsers or windows open (also, don’t worry about the plethora of windows that open when you start the video; they are meant to be there and play a part in the video, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the show).

Earlier we saw how Old Spice started a Youtube and Twitter campaign to interact with users individually.  Now, Arcade Fire has created another individual experience, one that touches closer to home, literally.  It’s pretty incredible how with a tiny bit of information a video can be so powerful, meaningful, and individual.  This video is definitely something worth checking out.

Autocomplete Me – Thumbs Up

You know how Google has an autocomplete function – so when you are typing in your search, it tries to help you out by giving you popular searches?  Well there are some crazy autocompletes out there and they are collected at www.autocompleteme.com.  Here are some examples of the comedy you will encounter there:

 

 

  

Thumbs Up – Free WiFi for the Holidays

Google announced yesterday that they will be offering free wireless at 47 airports across the United States between November 10 and January 15, 2010.  The only catch is that when you log on to the internet, you are asked if you want to try some of Google’s services or donate to a charity.  What a small price to pay for Internet!  Oftentimes when I fly, I wish I could get WiFi at the airport to check my email and such, but it is almost never worth the cost, oftentimes in the $10 range, for a short period of time.

Other Internet movers and shakers will also be giving away free WiFi during the holiday season.  Ebay will be offering free WiFi on Delta flights (the first page users see when they log on is the Ebay site – so they can do their holiday shopping while flying).  Bing is offering free WiFi in certain airports and hotels, although they haven’t announced which ones specifically (as long as the user performs one search in Microsoft’s search engine).  And Yahoo is giving away WiFi in New York’s  Times Square for the next year.

Even though some cynics might bring up that these Internet giants are using free WiFi only to get more customers to use their services (and they are most definitely correct), it is hard for most people to be upset with free WiFi!

Below is a list of the airports where travelers can receive free WiFi from Google:

Austin (AUS)
Baltimore (BWI)
Billings (BIL)
Boston (BOS)
Bozeman (BZN)
Buffalo (BUF)
Burbank (BUR)
Central Wisconsin (CWA)
Charlotte (CLT)
Des Moines (DSM)
El Paso (ELP)
Fort Lauderdale (FLL)
Fort Myers/SW (RSW)
Greensboro (GSO)
Houston (HOU)
Houston Bush (IAH)
Indianapolis (IND)
Jacksonville (JIA)
Kalamazoo (AZO)
Las Vegas (LAS)
Louisville (SDF)
Madison (MSN)
Memphis (MEM)
Miami (MIA)
Milwaukee (MKE)
Monterey (MRY)
Nashville (BNA)
Newport News (PHF)
Norfolk (ORF)
Oklahoma City (OKC)
Omaha (OMA)
Orlando (MCO)
Panama City (PFN)
Pittsburgh (PIT)
Portland (PWM)
Sacramento (SMF)
San Antonio (SAT)
San Diego (SAN)
San Jose (SJC)
Seattle (SEA)
South Bend (SBN)
Spokane (GEG)
St. Louis (STL)
State College (SCE)
Toledo (TOL)
Traverse City (TVC)
West Palm Beach (PBI)

BlindSearch – Thumbs Up

Thumbs Up: With the release of Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, I’m interested to see if it is actually more effective than the dominant search engine, Google. Thankfully, Michael Kordahi designed a cool experiment to test which search engine works the best without branding. Type in something to the search bar and results for your query show up in three columns from Google, Bing, and Yahoo without being able to see the search engine’s logo. So far I’ve found that Google tends to give me the best results. Find out which search engine works best for you: http://blindsearch.fejus.com/