Another Flickr toy - this one is better

We like to bitch quite a bit about how we were supposed to have flying cars by now. Each time I start a discussion about automobiles that starts to focus on gas mileage, hybrid or alternative fuel technology, crash ratings, or CD changers, it almost inevitably degenerates into some oddly jealous rant about "why can't we be more like the Jetsons?" Once in a while something like this comes along that makes you think we're taking little baby steps towards eye-popping technologies that defined that cartoon - technologies we know we want, but we can't yet have.

Here is one such technology. It's more of a toy than anything right now, but when you start to take tools like Digg and Flickr and combine them to make something like Microsoft Photosynth, we're inching closer to creating a collective consciousness (or, more accurately, a group mind) that can actually be seen and felt.

Microsoft's official description of Photosynth:

A Photosynth experience begins with nothing more than a bunch of digital photos. They might all have been taken by one person, or they might be a mixture of images from many different cameras, shooting conditions, dates, times of day, resolutions, and so on.

Each photo is processed by computer vision algorithms to extract hundreds of distinctive features, like the corner of a window frame or a door handle. Photos that share features are then linked together in a web. When the same feature is found in multiple images, its 3D position can be calculated. It's similar to depth perception - what your brain does to perceive the 3D positions of things in your field of view based on their images in both of your eyes. Photosynth's 3D model is just the cloud of points showing where those features are in space.

Imagine a slide projector placed at each original camera position, aimed how the camera was, and projecting the picture that camera took. A screen is placed in the 3D environment at an appropriate distance from the projector. As you move around in the Photosynth environment, projectors turn on and off, giving you a changing perspective on a world built entirely out of the original photos.

You have to hand it to Microsoft on this one. They're starting to match things like Google Maps Streetview and Apple's iPhone tit-for-tat. Before you do anything else, you should watch the video of the demo. Then head over to Photosynth and try it yourself.

Video: [Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Photosynth demo]
Link: [Microsoft Photosynth]

Use Google Analytics to spy on people reading your blog

As a web designer, I've long been fascinated by site visitor tracking statistics that can tell me all about who's visiting my sites. Up until recently, however, the choices for tracking site stats have been rather lame and not very detailed or even user-friendly. Today I'm here to tell you tricksy hobbitses about a relatively new, free service you might not have known about - Google Analytics. To get started, all you really need is a Gmail account.

Once you log in there, all you need to do is "create a new account" - at which point you'll enter your blog address and then be rewarded with a little nugget of code that should look like this:

</script>

<script type="text/javascript">

_uacct="UA-xxxx-x";

urchinTracker();

</script>

...which you'll then place carefully into your blog template, right before the end tag at the bottom. Then, once it's saved and ready to go, Google will start collecting information about your readers for you to study and exploit.

One of the benefits of having statistics to look at is so you can know how many people are lapping up your daily intellectual masturbation by simply looking at a graph right on the front page Dashboard. This is a major self-esteem killer, depending on how many readers you typically have visiting your blog and whether or not you consider that to be a respectable number. (Note: it takes a couple days to start collecting enough stats to make a pretty graph like this so chill out and be patient).



You can also see what part of the world those users are coming from, via a handy world map that allows you to zoom in to see how many of your rabid followers hail from Hoboken. As you can see, I have precisely one visitor from the continent of South America. Hello there, sir or madam.



And finally, you get to see some comprehensive keyword statistics and source sites that tell you if that erotic fiction you wrote about Santa Claus last year is still attracting new readers. In the picture below, you can see that most folks are finding my blog by searching for random numerical sequences in Google. What you don't see is that I'm also getting a hefty chunk of visitors coming here from Philly Will Do, which must mean that I have my head firmly planted up D-Mac's ass. Wonderful.



Google Analytics has a lot of other features that are useful for web designers (such as goal tracking and how many users still have 640x480 resolution screens) but are pretty useless to bloggers. That means that this lesson has come to an abrupt end. If you enjoyed this brief overview, I may review some other blog-tracking / blog-whoring tools in the future. However, Technorati hasn't worked once since I signed up for it, and you have to crawl behind the wall and crouch underneath the crawlspace to get Digg installed in Blogger -- so then again, maybe I won't.

Link: [Google Analytics]

Flickrvision: watch people upload photos in realtime

Flickrvision

This is mesmerizing. I had to share it.

apparently

apparently, i use the word "apparently" too much.

synonyms, anyone?

The End is Fucking Nigh for Free FM

Apparently Opie & Anthony being suspended again was the last straw for CBS Radio, which has replaced their New York station's broadcast at WFNY with a message that they are flipping formats at 5PM today. WFNY's site has also been replaced by a giant ticking clock counting down to 5PM. What they are changing it to is a mystery at the moment, but don't be surprised if you see a return to rock music following the new Arbitron ratings showing WMMR as the station to beat in Philadelphia. (Arbitron started using new, more accurate PPM technology in Philadelphia earlier this year, and we're still the only city to get to use it yet).

What does this mean for 94.1FM in Philly? Well, Kidd Chris and Barsky better start packing their bags. WFNY was the flagship Free-FM station for CBS Radio, and that it's changing formats today is proof that the format created for Howard Stern cannot survive without Howard Stern actually present. In the wake of the Don Imus scandal, they're just as tired of dealing with asinine shock jocks to sell their ads as many other, smaller broadcasters.

I salute you, Free FM. You sucked pretty hard, but at least you were better at sucking than anyone else. You were committed to broadcasting shit. And while that is not exactly admirable, it is remarkable, to say the least.

update: apparently O&A are staying at WFNY, which is rumored to be throwing the switch to have K-Rock return from the HD-2 channel there. Everyone else there from the Program Director on down is getting the ax. Could 94.1 return to the rock format with O&A as the replacement for Stern in the mornings? Did Clearchannel see this move coming down the pike last week when they flipped 104.5?

How disgusting is this

Apparently the new ads for Doc Martens all portray deceased rockers like Joey Ramone, Sid Vicious, Kurt Cobain and Joe Strummer (above) as angels in heaven, all wearing the storied boots just like they did in real life. You can check all four ads out at stereogum, where the story originated.

As one poster on the comments noted, "Funny how the only musicians they chose for this garbage were the ones who thoroughly despised the aims of the corporate world." I couldn't agree more. While I can see how Cobain's estate would agree to something like this (Courtney's so hard up for cash she's having a yard sale of Kurt's flannel shirts), I'm curious to know who else signed off on the rest of these gents. Had they been alive today, all four would've sooner had their Docs up those ad executive's asses rather than say "yes" to a ridiculous ad campaign like this. It's not a terrible idea, it's just very poorly executed.

Mayor Mumia, Pt. 2

I was linked to this very interesting first-hand account of yesterday's Mumia Abu Jamal rally. Check it out if you get a chance.