August 10 2009

Augement… Augmented Reality

It could be that I don’t have an iPhone or that it just looks stupid at this stage, but I don’t get this augmented reality thing.

Augmented reality is a tool/trend that allows images to pop up that don’t exist and interact in real time. Augmented reality has found a home in rudimentary commercials and in iPhone app demos. If you haven’t checked it out, do so asap because this technology is cheap and will be available to the masses, resulting in people creating magic tricks, ecommerce gimmicks and hair mimics.

In my opinion, it isn’t ready for the mass market. It looks great for iPhone apps, but as far as using it to virtually try things on, becoming a virtual furry and even 3-D book animating, it’s just not there. With choppy graphics and the lack of customization, augmented reality has too many kinks to be worked out. And like every tool, there is a time and place to be used. Right now, there’s a rush to jump on this band wagon, but with patience, the evolution of augmented reality will either step up to the plate and create great products and ads, or it will create a few “fails” and then sputter out.

Image Source: Przemion’s Flickr

August 5 2009

Is Ellen Page the new Thora Birch

I’m tired of acting like I only care about pretentious music and social media marketing. There’s more to me. There’s a superficial, pop culture addicted side. And bam, it’s coming through!

Thora Birch was an indie movie star. She had that attractive, attainable and snarky thing going on. She starred in the award winning, indie classic American Beauty as an insecure teenager that had few friends at school and a pretty wacky family dynamic. It was kinda hard hitting. There was death and took an interesting perspective in an otherwise mundane life. Well enter Hard Candy and Ellen Page. Page played a little girl, attractive, yet unattainable, due to her being underage, and was very snarky and smart. Once again, it was hard hitting, ya know, for dealing with pedophiles and all, and there was death. Act One Complete.

Now this is a bit out of order, but for the sake of a time consuming post, I’ll go there. They also both went mainstream. Thora was in Hocus Pocus. Ellen Page was in X-Men.

But then Thora Birch made another indie film by the name of Ghost World. It was good. As a future hipster, I loved it. I thought it was deep, funny, quirky and artsy. It talked about music (awesome points!), it flirted with pedophilia (hot topic!), and ultimately made you wonder (where did that bus lead to?). But after that, what then? Thora continued doing projects, but more or less fell into oblivion.

Juno is Ellen Page’s Ghost World. It had a trend inducing soundtrack (indie anti-folk,woah), it flirted with pedophilia (<3 Jason Bateman) and made you wish you had a quirky family, a quirky boyfriend, and a quirky pregnancy!

So what have we learned? Quirk and oddities are great for teens and early 20s, but after that… what do you have? A Drew Barrymore directed movie and lesbian admirers.

And I’ll leave you with this thought: Jason Bateman, the new Steve Buscemi?

Image sources: Hollywood Grind, Greg Wilker


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Opinions expressed on this blog are purely and personally those of myself, Sara Knee.
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