Random Culture

The World's Saddest Cubicle

Wired has posted the winners of the "World's Saddest Cubicle" contest. The winner, David Gunnells, is an IT guy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. According to Wired:

"His desk is penned in by heavily used filing cabinets in a windowless conference room, near a poorly ventilated bathroom and a microwave."

Yikes...

Filthy Wal-Mart

Technology has enabled even the smallest voice to be heard, and with camera phones and digital cameras in the hands of many consumers, every moment is potentially a photo op. As an example, take a look at this Flickr gallery showing, well, a "filthy Wal-Mart."

Yikes... Did the management of this store expect that photos would start showing up online, and that people would send these photos on to friends and post them on blogs?

Well, they should have expected it.

Thanks to Dave for the link.

Starbucks Summer Pursuit

Starbucks has launched a summer "scavenger hunt" promotion, the Starbucks Summer Pursuit. Participants are asked trivia questions via a series of text message clues.

Here's the interesting part... they can answer the questions simply by submitting a picture taken on their camera phone. The technology that makes this possible is "intelligent image recognition", developed by a company called Mobot.

As the folks at Influx Insights point out... there are a ton of applications for this type of technology.

Flickr Adds an Editorial Eye

Flickr has finally added an editorial flair to the site, with a new section called "Explore." The new section allows you to see some of the more "interesting" photos from the past 24 hours, or any one of the last 12 months. They've also added a section with some of their favorite photo sets, and Flickr groups.

This is a great step towards Flickr becoming more of a destination site than a service.

Olympus Viral Ads

Olympus is creating funny ads that illustrate examples of photo mistakes. The first ad, entitled "red eye baby", was yanked by Olympus after some concerns about the treatment portrayed in the ad.

Now Olympus has released another ad that can be viewed at: www.distorteddog.com

Link via AdLand.

Disposable Video Camera

CVS drugstores in the Northeast are selling the first "one-time-use" video camera this week. According to an article in USA Today, the unit will retail for $29.95. This could be a huge market, similar to the disposible camera market, which has grown to sales of 218 million units this last year.

There are some challenges the device faces if it wants to see the same type of results... In addition to it not really looking that great, It can only capture 20 minutes of video on its internal memory. Ok, that's not too bad... what's dicey is the additional prices consumers will face. Getting a DVD of your footage at CVS will cost $12.95. In order to circumvent this, users will be able to transfer footage online for free, but very few sites out there offer this service for free...

This will be a fun one to watch... It feels like there's a ton of potential in this idea, but the costs still feel like a barrier to mass adoption.

Link via AdPulp.

Old World, New Tech

The recent death of the Pope has brought about some interesting revelations, particularly for us folks in the US, about how mobile phones have changed our lives.

First, there was the story that the Vatican sent out SMS text messages to the press about the Pope's death. These were some of the first official notifications.

Second, there was the story that the Italian police sent out text message bulletins to Italian citizens, keeping pilgrims updated on the situation.

And finally, after the Pope's body was available for viewing, people are documenting the event with their digital devices. The picture included is a testament to just how many people are doing this. The photos on Flickr are a testament to that as well.

A coworker of mine commented this morning: It's interesting to see a place that's one of the oldest in our history using some of the newest technology.

Links via Smart Mobs.

Flickr/Yahoo Rumors True

Well, the rumors proved to be true... Ludicorp has been bought by Yahoo!, which means Flickr isn't an underdog anymore.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Will Yahoo! integrate the Flickr functionality into other services? According to the official Flickr blog, yes. But Flickr will not become Yahoo! Photos.

"Yahoo Photos will get a lot of Flickr features, and there are alot of other areas around Yahoo that will also be Flickrized where Flickrization would be good."

Maybe integrate it into their new Yahoo! 360 offering?

Link via John Battelle.

Flickr Redesign?

I visited Flickr today and noticed that I was getting a different design for Firefox and IE. Is Flickr getting ready to rollout a redesign?

Click on the thumbnails below for full-size images. The standard design is pictured on the left... The new one I saw in Firefox today is on the right.

Flickr Offering Prints

Looks like Flickr is going to finally start offering users the ability to order prints. According to this recent press release, Flickr has chosen EZ Prints, Inc. as its partner to help provide these services.

The addition of these services also takes Flickr to a whole new level, and brings new competition with some pretty big folks. How long will it be until we see companies like Ofoto and Snapfish trying to emulate the Flickr business?

Link via Kottke.