It’s a swashbuckling shoot-em-up game for Symbian devices (Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson) that uses a really unique marker-based mechanic: the coins in your pocket!

In AR mode, three coins laid out in a triangle become a desert island, and the surface they are on become the ocean. The idea is to stop waves of marauding pirates from stealing your buried treasure, so you must aim your device to blast the approaching galleons with your cannon, whilst avoiding their fire by moving (yes, moving!) out of harm’s way.

The more ships you sink, the more treasure you earn and the more power-ups you unlock. There are 30 levels in all, including battles with the Spanish Armada, drunken pirates and ghost ships. It costs 99p to download the full version, chargeable to your phone bill.

Here’s a video of the game in action!

As you’ve seen, the innovative approach that Optricks have taken with their markers mean it’s possible to play at any scale. You could use coins to keep the game small enough to play in the pub, or you could ‘upscale’ and use larger discs (like frisbees) to play with massive pirate ships. The best bit: the larger the markers, the larger the field of play, and the more immersive the player experience!

This is one of the best, most purposeful uses of AR that I’ve seen. There are too many use-cases where ‘the medium is the message’ – but in this instance the medium is what connects you to the content, rather than defines your experience of it. Great work Ian, Gavin, Marcus and Dylan.

Here’s the link again: AR! Pirates.

Another thing I did this week was to set up my own GTD system with a fresh Moleskine book. I’ll be using this set of icons to help me manage my growing to-do list. First on that list was to follow up on a note to “Map the Digital Cortex Ecosystem“, so *tick!*

What does that entail? Over the two years the site has been running, I’ve tried and tested loads of ways to syndicate content, drive traffic and grow my following. I think I’ve just about maxed-out on the optimisations I can make, and expect further growth to come solely from publishing interesting content. So what does my so-called ‘optimal’ set-up look like? Thanks to Paint.NET you can see for yourself (click for full-screen):

Some tips for building your own blogging ecosystem:

• Try StumbleUpon – it shows me the coolest stuff every day because I’ve spent time telling it my interests, and then fine-tuning the system with thumbs up / down. I use it about 50 times a day.
• Get Read It Later – when you don’t have time to give a site the attention it deserves, click the ‘RIL’ button and it’ll sync to the cloud, for reading at a later date. I’ve racked up so much cool stuff this way.
• Use Delicious Effectively – it’s immensely powerful when used in the right way, and I use it to write one sentence descriptions, along with loads of tags, that publish to my Tumblr each day.
• Start a Side Blog – some stuff is too cool not to blog about, but sometimes that stuff doesn’t warrant a full blog post (esp. when you’re busy). That’s where Tumblr comes in, and mine is now the fifth largest referrer here, after just two months!
• Don’t Cross the Streams - sure it’s fun to publish everything everywhere, but it’s sensible to apply a bit of intelligence: what’s really the most appropriate content for that channel? That’s why only blog content goes to my Facebook fan page.
• Twitter is WIN! – It’s an amazing tool for bloggers, both for content discovery and for content syndication. It’s especially powerful when paired with Tweetmeme buttons on your site (like below). The same is true of the Facebook ‘Like’ button.

There’s probably more to structuring a blogging ecosystem than this, like the ‘star system’ with Twitter/Spotify/Google or the X-Marks approach. There’s also the big question of how you go about measuring any of this stuff, and no word has been made of an actual content strategy but hey, that’s the eternal battle, eh bloggers?!

That’s it from me, hope you enjoyed this post. Let’s discuss tactics… Go!

And man, are these things selling! Since August last year BevShots estimate sales of over 20,000 prints ($24.99-$549). The product is aimed at the ‘hedonist with a mind for science’ segment: those who appreciate good photography, laboratory conditions and a damn-tasty cocktail now and then.

Here’s my favourite image, the classic Vodka and Tonic:

The shots are taken in Florida State University’s chemistry department, where founder Lester Hutt developed the approach, which can take up to three months to produce an image.

Lester says:

“What you can see in the magnified pictures are the crystalised carbohydrates that have become sugars and glucose. With my background in chemistry, I saw the potential in these kind of pictures and am so glad to be able to offer them up as art works. It is a pleasure to show people what makes up their favourite drinks and how beautiful it can look.”

Most alcohols are blends, with varying levels of carbohydrates, sugars, acids and glucose, so each shot taken is entirely different from the last. Some favourite drinks are so pure that when they crystallise  into their component parts, they fall apart or don’t dry out properly. So, not unlike the perfect Margarita, they’re pretty hard to get ‘just right’, sometimes taking up to 200 attempts.

Here’s some more of their work – click through for the full images or visit BevShots.

I’m thirsty! Who’s for a drink?

It’s the sort of thing I’d usually post on my Tumblr, but now we’re back in action over here, what’s the harm in publishing less ‘thoughtful’ content here on the main blog too?
Plus, this is pretty funny:

So Robin said the following weird shit:

1. Holy barracuda.
2. Holy ashtray.
3. Holy smoke.
4. Holy showcase.
5. Holy haberdashery.
6. Holy popcorn.
7. Holy lodestone.
8. Holy flypaper.
9. Holy cofax, I think.
10. Holy jack in the box.
11. Holy red herring.
12. Holy stuffy. WTF?
13. Holy ravioli.
14. Holy serpentine.
15. Holy grammars?
16. Holy safari.
17. Holy headlines.
18. Holy iceberg.
19. Holy blizzard.
20. Holy schizophrenia.
21. Holy snowball.
22. Holy Venezuela.
23. Holy rainbow.
24. Holy hole in a doughnut. LOLZ!!
25. Holy backfire.
26. Holy birthday cake.
27. Holy baseball.
28. Holy graveyard.
29. Holy crossfire.
30. Holy sawpipe, or something.
31. Holy conflagration.
32. Holy happenstance.
33. Holy switcheroo.
34. Holy ricochet.
35. Holy bowler.
36. Holy magician.
37. Holy ball and chain.
38. Holy Las Vegas.
39. Holy fruit salad.
40. Holy Benedict Arnold.
41. Holy hail storm.
42. Holy murder.
43. Holy New Years Eve.
44. Holy bouncing boiler plate.
45. Holy Houdini.
46. Holy armour plate.
47. Holy transistors.
48. Holy wigs.
49. Holy rats in traps.
50. Holy Reshevsky (a famous chess player).
51. Holy trickery.
52. Holy icepicks.
53. Holy felony.
54. Holy geography.
55. Holy nick of time.
56. Holy knock out drops.
57. Holy jackpot.
58. Holy leprechaun.
59. Holy bat trap.
60. Holy hotfoot.
61. Holy nightmare.
62. Holy Romeo and Juliet.
63. Holy noose.
64. Holy iodine.
65. Holy parrafin.
66. Holy jack in the box.
67. Holy Taj Mahal.
68. Holy t-shirt or whatever.
69. Holy shrinkage.
70. Holy looking glass.
71. Holy smoke stack.
72. Holy impregnability.
73. Holy camouflage.
74. Holy motel.
75. Holy encore.
76. Holy Golden Gate.
77. Holy heiroglyphics.
78. Holy hurricane.
79. Holy whiskers.
80. Holy masquerade.
81. Holy asp (I think this is a type of snake).
82. Holy travel agent.
83. Holy taxidermy.
84. Holy hi fi.
85. Holy flowerpot?
86. Holy smoke.
87. Holy skyrocket.
88. Holy homicide.
89. Holy reincarnation.
90. Holy explosion.
91. Holy detonator.
92. Holy magic lantern.
93. Holy bullseye.
94. Holy cinderella.
95. Holy headache.
96. Holy towel?
97. Holy stewpot.
98. Holy pressure cooker.
99. Holy triple feature.
100. Holy kindergarten.
101. Holy molars.
102. Holy Wayne Manor.
103. Holy subliminal.
104. Holy puzzlers.
105. Holy fuck! I hope that’s what he said anyway.
106. Holy clockwork.
107. Holy oxygen.
108. Holy runner.
109. Holy jitterbugs.

Any I’ve missed? Did I get any wrong? Would you rather this sort of thing stays over on my side blog? C’mon, let’s talk it out in the comments.

A typical fractal, made using the Mandelbrot set.

A fractal is a conceptual object that reveals further details about its shape ad infinitum, upon ever-closer inspection of it’s fabric. Think of the trunk of a tree sprouting branches, which in turn split off into smaller branches, which themselves yield twigs etc and you won’t go far wrong. In fact, fractals typically look like this thing to the right.

These infinitely complex shapes are ‘created’ by instructing graphics software to render the result of a simple mathematics formula. Until now, the result has been a 2D image – there’s no depth, shadow, perspective, or light sourcing. It is a truly abstract mathematical shape.

But since your home computer became powerful enough to do proper image rendering stuff, home hobbyists have begun to innovate on these formulae. For the first time, three dimensional fractals are able to be created with relative ease.

I can’t go into the maths, because you know, I’m not a total geek, but I do want to show you how beautiful some of these shapes are. Let’s run through some examples:

This is what you get by multiplying phi and theta by two.

More like a classic fractal with 0.5*pi to theta and 1*pi to phi.

This time multiplying angle phi by two, but not theta.

But we’re still looking at these things from outside. The really cool bit is when you start to zoom in. So let’s look at some of the high quality renders from the archives of Daniel White at his highly eclectic Skytopia, where I first learned of this phenomenon.

Make sure you click around on some of these thumbnails, yeah?!

If you’re anything like me, you’d be pretty excited at the idea of being able to create both beauty and complexity from something as simple as a few lines of code, and to then be able to explore your creation from every angle.

Then again, if you’re anything like me, you’d feel a bit frustrated that you’ll probably never be able to make something that awesome yourself. So let’s marvel at the wonder of Daniel’s creation as he takes us deep ‘Into the Heart of the Mandelbulb’.

Your comments, please!

Right then. What have I been up to?

• Lots of cool, creative and techy stuff for MediaCom and MBA.
• Went on an Android development course, and made an Asteroids game!
• Moved to Ladbroke Grove from Clapham South. West is best.
• Joined Foursquare and learned to love it.
• Tried and failed to make a Foursquare widget for bloggers.
• Joined the Gym – tickets to the gunshow now on sale.
• Did a bit of consultancy for Moviestorm and Optricks Media.
• Went on a few awesome nights out, inc. the Viral Video Chart relaunch.
• Found some simply stunning new music which I’ll share with you soon!
• Tried a pickled herring sandwich in Amsterdam.
• Flew to Berlin and back again in a day.
• Watched about a million films.
• Proclaimed Warren Ellis the best comic book author of all time.
• Created Digital Cortex Lite and filled it with interesting content tidbits.
• Constantly tweeted across numiferous topics.
• Redesigned Digital Cortex using the Thesis theme.
• Bookmarked loads of interesting stuff to share with you here.

So quite a few things really. But please accept my apologies! I’m ready to be a better blogger. Starting now. Stay with me. Grab the feed. Let’s try this thing again.

Love Tom x

Top marks to filmmaker Cristobal Vila for making Fibonacci, Golden and Angle Ratios, Delaunay Triangulation and Voronoi Tessellations look so darn good.

His website goes further into exploring these ideas:

This section is meant to be a complement to the animation, in order to better understand the theoretical basis that you can find behind the sequences. It was also, more or less, the appearance of the screenplay in the days that I was planning this project.

And goes on to provide great explanations like this:

• We add a first red seed
• Turn 137.5º
• Add a second green color seed and make the previous traveling to the center.
• Turn other 137.5º
• Add a third ocher seed and make the previous traveling to the center, to stay side by side with the first one
• Turn other 137.5º…
• …and so on, seed after seed, we will obtain gradually a kind of distributions like the ones you have in the following figures

This leads to the characteristic structure in which all seeds are arranged into a sunflower, which is as compact as possible. We have always said: nature is wise

Lovely.

Love is here to stay

Human beings are hard-wired to love. As babies, we rely solely on the love of our parents for our survival. As adults, our instinct to love keeps us producing those babies.

So what is the future for love?
Guest blogger Lindsey Mountford investigates:

Love is a drug.

The state we call the “honeymoon period” is known as being in limerance, and there are specific things going on in our brains (darling, when I look at you my ventral tegmental area lights ups with the power of a thousand suns and my caudate nucleusis floods with enough dopamine and norepinephrine to fill a thousand seas) when this happens.

The pharmaceutical industry will cotton on to this and produce pills to keep the spark of love alive. We already take vitamins, Viagra and Prozac by the bucketload to improve our standard of living, so why ignore this incredibly important aspect of our emotional lives?

If Big Pharma is clever it will market the drug as a health supplement.

Prescribed Love?

Worried that it’s not ‘real’ love? In the future the lines between what we think of as real, virtual, enhanced or fake will be more blurred anyway. We won’t mind.

Prenuptial agreements will be accompanied by brain scans which will ‘prove’ we’re marrying for love. Marriage counselling could take place in the EEG/fMRI scanner, with new versions of neurofeedback therapy helping us get our relationships back on the right track.

Love is good for your health.

Once we’ve all given up smoking and we eat well and exercise, what’s next on the agenda? We may be seeing NHS leaflets encouraging us to go speed-dating. We may even be prescribed the Love Drug described above.

More likely, we will be offered more education about love, which starts in schools and continues at the GP. It’s happening already. Interpersonal psychotherapy is an evidence-based talking therapy which helps people with relationship skills. The benefits are improved mental and physical health, which last a lifetime. The NHS is already investing more money in IPT, and will continue to do so.

Love is big business.

There are thousands of dating sites out there, catering for more niches than anyone knew existed. (Geek lover? Got a Stashe Passion? Zombie looking for love?) This diversification won’t continue.

The truth is, there are lots of unconscious things going on when we fall in love. We are not always good judges of our own characters (and we can’t help lying in our profiles.) We’re not good judges of characters of others and we often don’t have a good understanding of we should be looking for in a partner that will make us happy.

OKCupid are doing some very interesting things with the data they’re gathering from their millions of members which finally gives us real data about what makes a good match. When Google gets involved, things will get interesting and result in love.google.com

We won’t need to spend several hours writing our profiles trying to sell ourselves.

A Google spider will find all the things we’ve ever written online (On Buzz, Twitter, blog, social network profiles etc.), then text analysis software like Alceste will scan it and suss you out based on:

• keywords (i.e. I mention ‘books’ a lot on my blog)
• frequency of keywords (I mention books a LOT)
• moods (i.e., I complain a lot, especially in the mornings)
• thought patterns (i.e. I can get overexcited and Tweet a lot)
• sentence structure, grammar (i.e. I’m an informal writer, but I don’t use three exclamation marks in a paragraph and I don’t write LOL.)

Then Google Love will look at all that juicy data it has about us as individuals:

• film/TV/music preferences (Lovefilm, Spotify etc.)
• interests (browsing history)
• food and household purchases (Tesco clubcard)
• travelling and going-out habits (Oyster card)
• sociability (activity levels on social networks)
• relationship history (on social networks)

Google Love will gather an overwhelming amount of data on millions of people and track the course of their relationships. Using all this knowledge, eventually Google will be able to create a Love algorithm to find the ideal partner for everyone.

The Google Love algorithm will be big and beautiful, and it will work.

Marriage, sex and robots.

Most visions of love in the future involve a lot of casual sex (thank you male sci-fi authors.) As sex becomes safer with improved contraception, people will be doing more of it. Google Love won’t care if you’re unavailable, if your data is there then you can be ‘headhunted’ by a love interest. If you were told you had a 98% chance of falling in love with someone wouldn’t you want to meet them?

Roxxxy Sex Robot

‘Traditional’ marriage is a crazily outdated concept. In what other area of life would we accept a contract that we sign when we are intoxicated (see ‘Love is a drug’ above) that is binding until death? As life expectancies continue to increase, marriage must have more flexibility. Perhaps similar to a mobile phone contract – minimum of 10 years with a rolling annual contract afterwards.

There’s definitely a place for the robot girlfriend and BritneyBot. The BoyfriendBot version will be sophisticated software only, programmed to send romantic/loving messages and emails throughout the day to satisfy her need to feel adored.

Love is a meme.

That instinct for all-encompassing love from an all-powerful, benevolent, omnipotent being we have as babies never leaves us just because we become adults, so we invented God to fill the gap. For a long time, religious love was seen as True Love.  We evolved to believe we’re the centre of the universe and it’s a heady feeling to be told that God loves us.

But now the philosophers have dug a God-shaped hole in our heads, what replaces it? Look at the popularity of the Twilight Saga to see what is happening already. The fantasy of romantic love and our instinct for religion meet in stories like this, and the result is 85 million books sold worldwide.

Stories about love (seen in films, books, magazines, perfume adverts, family and friends) propagate the love myth and make it stronger. The supernatural love meme will become stronger and more powerful. Vampires aren’t going anywhere.

If music be the food of love, play on.

For your listening pleasure, here is a a collaborative Spotify playlist of love songs.

Thanks for reading! It would be very romantic of you to leave a comment below.
Oh, and do subscribe to be notified of the next entry in this blog series.

Have any of you tried Chatroulette yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Mine are as follows:

1. It’s a bloody great idea that I hope maintains its current momentum en route to totally anonymised social networking
2. It is not as gratifying as Omegle, where the medium of text offers the chance for more frequent and rewarding interactions
3. There are some truly revolting people out there who’ve just been handed a new ‘creative outlet’ – so please watch out
4. I’m not sure how Chatroulette ended up on my radar, but it probably won’t be long until it’s all over the Daily Mail

Maybe I’ll see you out there.

It’s a series of blog posts under the title ‘The Future Of…’ and I’m really excited about it, because as well as spanning some fascinating topics, I’ll also be tapping up several guest bloggers from the Digital Cortex community – and if you’re reading this post, that most definitely includes you!

Lets look at some of the upcoming areas of exploration:

Based on my interactions with many of you, and the sheer breadth of expertise amongst this blog’s readership, I know there is limitless potential to curate a truly great piece of work. Of course, there is plenty of scope to add/modify/remove topics from this list, so drop me a line on the contact page to register interest.

And for those who aren’t looking to contribute, but want to stay in touch as things unfold, here are the usual subscription options: