Elaine Morgan is a tenacious proponent of the aquatic ape hypothesis: the idea that humans evolved from primate ancestors who dwelt in watery habitats. Hear her spirited defense of the idea — and her theory on why mainstream science doesn’t take it seriously.

I have no background in any of the scientific schools of thought that Elaine talks about, but I found this fascinating – and so good to watch someone who obviously has set her stall contrary to the status quo. Regardless of whether you agree with her theories, you’ve got to credit Elaine with holding true to her beliefs…

link: Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes | Video on TED.com

Interesting software / concept that couples an online suggestion box for ideas, with a virtual stock market. Users can buy ’shares’ in an idea, driving up its value…nice for encouraging a bit of competition into the mix I reckon. And for companies that are interested in embedding innovation at the heart of their business, this could provide a catalyst towards a more creative culture…

As more and more people give Caffeine a whirl, the increased prominence of results from the social media sphere appears to be a widespread phenomenon.

Interesting piece questioning the value of increased prominence of social media content within Google’s new, Caffeine-enhanced search engine results pages. The author suggests that maybe there isn’t extra value to be had from doing this – because relevancy is the most important thing in a search set.

via Econsultancy

Sahara desert

This morning at LBi we were privileged to have a visit from Magnus Larsson, a graduate architect with an amazing vision for stopping the spread of the Sahara Desert southwards – an inexorable process that is disrupting the lives of many Africans living in the region. Magnus talked to us about his life and his most recent presentation at TEDGlobal 2009, and took us on the journey that he’s been on for these past few years.

His idea hinges on the introduction of bacteria into the Saharan sand dune ecosystem – a process which solidifies the dunes and turns them into sandstone. Coupled with a plan to build a green wall of trees right the way across the African continent, Magnus suggests that the desert might be slowed down from growing at its current rate of 30 miles a year, as well as creating the opportunity for creating living spaces for the region’s many inhabitants.

But most of all, I enjoyed his honesty and openness, as he shared the story of his recent life, and the opportunity to start today with a truly inspirational character…

Thanks to the very lovely Wieden+Kennedy, who kindly dedicated one of their  spanky (new?) auditoriums to screening a live stream from the TedGlobal 2009 conference, I and a few other LBi / ex-LBi folk enjoyed the first session from TED’s seminal conference series. Some highlights:

• Jonathan Zittrain began the day by talking about random acts of kindness, and the potential for the simplifying things by removing some of the rules. He gave the example of a road crossing that had been overhauled, and traffic controls removed. Accident rates dramatically dropped. There are obvious learnings for people that design interaction…
• I learned that Jimmy Wales didn’t originally intend Wikipedia to be quite so altruistic. I love stories like that (see: Flickr). His first intention was to develop a far more traditional encyclopaedia called ‘Newpedia’, in which experts proved their credentials before being invited to write articles.
• In an interesting contrast to many social media commentators, Evgeny Morozov suggested that a more networked and contributing populace might actually help many totalitarian regimes (see Mashable’s guide to following the Iranian elections) create open source intelligence. “The KGB used to torture people for this information, now it’s all online!”
• Asa Raskin’s demo of Ubiquity, an approach to using natural language to carry out tasks on the web that would currently demand a high level of effort. He gave the example of translating a block of text within a web page by selecting a paragraph and typing ‘translate this’ – and because the user’s context (language, intention) is already known, the tool can instantly carry out the action.
• And finally, Rory Sutherland’s inspired talk on creating value from intangibles. And diamond shreddies had the audience in stitches…

Having spent quite a lot of the last two years thinking about timelines, Dipity appears to be a fantastic tool for playing with your social activity across a timeline. The site also allows you to view your activity in other ways, including a map view or a flip-book.

Nice…

In one week’s time I, and 11 colleagues from LBi will be travelling to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to work with Etihad, the national carrier…should be a fun trip, and I’m going to document it on my fresh new photoblog. I’m aiming for a picture a day but we’ll see…there’s going to be plenty of work to do as well…

Ah, Christmas…seems so long ago now. Especially after a working week at LBi. We headed down to Fifehead Magdalen in Dorset to spend some time amongst the cows and horses – and enjoy some fine food along the way. I managed to squeeze in some photography and some guitar amongst other things. Fab…

Well I wish it hadn’t happened, but it has. The other day at work I was checking out the prices for full frame Canon cameras and had started getting a little teeny bit interested in the Canon D5 Mark I – especially now that Amazon have knocked £600 from the price.

Then someone showed me this piece of video, shot by Vincent Laforet with the upcoming Mark II D5. Stunningly good looking, but the camera is £2000….slightly out of my range but techno-lust does strange things to a person…

Damn. Want one.

UPDATE: another piece of video here. Possibly more realistic (and more shaky :)

Interesting piece that positions traditional views of reputation against a sense of history. In a world where everything is increasingly recorded, it asks if this is more important than an ephemeral sense of someone’s worth. Facts versus ‘opinion’…