Ego

What do Dean Cain, Bobcat Goldthwait, and a rotund man in a silver unitard all have in common? They are all part of Microsoft’s latest Internet Explorer 8 campaign developed by Indiana-based advertising agency, Bradley and Montgomery.

I have an idea for a product (or rather a group of products) that I want to share with you.

It's a gadget that is linked with Twitter (or any other status update web application like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). It's objective is to make status updates easier, more fun and more integrated with the off-line events of people's lives. It is mostly a gimmick, but with potential for serious applications. The number of different uses are unlimited.

The idea is that people attach a so called twitter transmitter (transwitter) to any real life object. For example a coffee mug. When you lift the mug the transwitter sends a message to your twitter account: "Taking my morning dose of caffeine!"

See the chart above of a few example transwitters, such as:

• Toothbrush clip-on transwitter: "#transwit I just brushed for [XX] seconds"
• Coffee mug or any other object stick-on transwitter: "#transwit Taking a sip of coffee"
• Vehicle transwitter: "#transwit Driving in Phoenix, Arizona"
• Multibutton keychain transwitter: "#transwit I've walked the dog" or "#transwit Had a great workout"
• Branded keychains: "#transwit #starbucks I'm at Starbucks, enjoying free WiFi"

What do you think?

Creating Hierarchy by Importance

About Starring Your E-mails

First of all, let’s get cleared what starring is good for. As in several fields of life, in e-mailing as well, people categorize stuff. Eg. you categorize music by genre, album, artist and even by popularity (manual or play count). You categorize files at work, you categorize letters at home, that’s why we have several drawers in our desks. But categorizing sometimes just makes a mess when you have something that could be put to category ‘A’ or category ‘B’. Of course labeling in the digital world offers a solution to that problem. The other problem, which I’m more interested in, is that there is always a category, that is signed by importance.

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The letter sent by Steve to Apple employees:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple's day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

I had the honor to judge this year on the FWA awards show. We had a lot of exciting material but one entry really stood out.

And, the winner is Get the Glass, an online advergame made for the California Milk Processor Board. It has been done by the US advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

Don't click the link if you do not have at least 15 minutes of free time to explore and play...

Against all odds the brand new MacBook Air isn't an ultrathin WiFi MacBook. Hey, we've had WiFi for like 10 years, what's new about that? It's so much more cooler than that!

The new MacBook Air features a sophisticated electronic nose called iSmell. It can detect smells and lead you to them via the brand new Mac OS X app SmellCompass.

The iSmell is a similar device to iSight and it comes built in all Apple laptops now called MacBook Air and MacBook ProAir. For your Cinema Display's and now completely obsolete MacBook's you can buy an add on iSmell device that sits neatly on the top of your laptop and sniffs periodically. When it detects an interesting smell if alerts you on the screen and you can move around your MBPA to find the source of the smell. While some say iSmell is a little bulky we at creativebits don't mind as the nostrils double as pencil sharpeners. It's clear that Apple never forgets his main target audience — the designers. It's the little things, like these sharpener nostrils that make Apple products great!

It was expected from Apple to focus on the next area of sensory input after iTunes, iSight and iTouch. But I expect iSmell to be a flop, like the iPhone was. Nobody will buy a an electronic nose for 600 bucks... — commented Dworak.

Critics noted that the product name iSmell isn't particularly lucky as it sounds like you're confessing your geek hygiene habits, but the Apple marketing dept dismissed saying: "After the Wii anything goes!"

It is great when you're on the road and feel like having a Double Latte Grande Frapuccino and can't see the huge Starbucks sign in front of you. And, it's life saving at the Airport when you are desperately trying to find the public restroom. Love the innovative arrow device in SmellCompass that shows you where to go. It's all about user experience and Apple delivered again. — said Pogue.

Rumor says we can expect a brand new product called iLick in late 2008, which is essentially a trackpad that lets you taste objects on the screen while being able to navigate the cursor at the same time with your tongue. Some sources indicate a joint promotion with Hustler to launch the new product, but of course we don't care about rumors. I will only believe if I can lick myself!

Update: i6thsense will be released shortly after the keynote without an announcement. It will not be available at the Apple Store or anywhere else publicly, but according to a TUAW insider you will instinctively know where to get it.

The Seams Store is now open for all of your creative clothing needs. At the moment we are still just a few students so the more t-shirts you buy the more t-shirts we can buy and delivery and the choice of t-shirts will get better.

Once we get enough orders for a t-shirt we will order a batch and dispatch them immediatly this does not mean it will be weeks to get your t-shirt our batch size is very small and we should be ordering a batch tonight so include your order in that batch! Go to the Seams Store Now: www.getseams.co.uk

Seams Store Open For Business!

Allow me to introduce a brand new web experiment. AdvertLover.com is a new digg-like site that focuses on advertising related stories. Users can submit stories and the community can vote for the best of the lot. Since stories only get promoted if users vote for them and the site is brand new, you may not find any content on the front page yet. So you need to give your love to stories you like. See you on the other side.

No, it's not a new iPod. Neither a new Mac. It's a girl.

You may remember this weblink that pointed to an article about what makes a great logo by Code Interactive. I've asked them to give me their review of the creativebits logo.

They said we have a great concept, but they think it can be a great logo! It received a 7/10 for the issues addressed in their description, but as they say it has the potential for logo greatness. Read what they had to say in detail.