They’ve acctually done it, Google went ahead and released lively.com a 3D world to “create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design”.

They packaged the whole product to explore the lands completely through your browser, no need for a separate client application, just download a package (windows only) and install it to run in Internet Explorer or Firefox! A full 3D world in your browser to go explore, to read more about the product check out Lively.com but now read to open up thoughts on the wider aspects of Lively.

Offshoots

The package initially makes me wonder what (more…)

Another week of some truly amazing web & mobile fun. In the previous weeks we’ve really been focussed on future phone payments, but this week Thought Den are breaking into the ‘original online’ world again. So let’s have a look at some of the things we’d love to play with this week…

Interactive Youtube - Ben is clearly a better magician

It’s seems Youtube is taking the next step in video being more than ‘just watchable’. Videos are now supporting a new feature, ‘annotations’ which allow a publisher to add interactive commentary to their work, eg, little hotspots which can link to anything, “click here & goto our site”.

So far it just looks like little gray boxes that slightly get in the way of what you’re watching. But, I’m excited to see what people will start doing with it for fun, also to see if any other vendors will start mucking around with new interactions in their players maybe layered animations? But, to be honest, it’s something we’ve all seen before in the South West and Coull make their money out of it!

The success of the new player will be interesting, I wonder if it’s going to follow the same route as Interactive Story DVDs, anyone remember Final Destination 4? It didn’t really hit the papers with it’s “choose their fate” selectors and gory promises. But I suppose the Youtube audience is a lot younger and open to trying out new things so who knows, it could become a fun way for telling a story.

So here’s a few Viral Campaigns we’d like to run at Thought Den now…

• Anne Summers (not with the Wii this time)
• Lynx
• Dungeons and Dragons, “will you attack the beast (goto video 4) or will you use your sword of many omens (goto video 9)”
• Final Destination 5…

Become a 3GP avatar

Tech-crunch blogged about Beema, who’ve released a new platform (in beta) that allows users to generate 3D speaking avatars with only a phone call.

You phone the number, register, pick (more…)

A film that has cropped up recently on the Rubber blog and Connecting Bristol is showing people what it’s really like for us lucky people to be working here in the South West.

For us it’s all about having the open spaces, greenery, no tube stations, no shoulder-to-shoulder grinding with suited monkeys and always having really amazing (more…)

If the waiter bought across a chip & pin sized device, but all you had to do was wave your phone over it and enter a PIN, would you be happy?

There’s a lot happening in the mobile payment world, with companies trialing systems, meeting dead ends and big companies partnering to start pushing the boundaries. But what really matters is, how do we all feel about it?

Does it meet your high expectations of security, simplicity and convenience? Are there any fears coming up, like if someone stole your phone or you lost it, phone and penniless!

Personally I think it sounds great because there’s no need for a wallet any-more and it means you can start paying for things even easier than ever, but then again does that mean people would want to steal my phone?

We’d really like to know how you feel about the whole caboodle, what scares you, what makes you think “wicked”, what things you’d probably use it for?

What a busy digital week it’s been, there’s been posts from blogs and newspaper articles covering everything exciting in the pervasive and online world.

A lot more mobile technology news stories are beginning to hit the news in comparison with straight internet related interest reads and so this week I’m mostly rounding up any great/bad news that’s affecting the Happy Package’s further development.

Mobile Vouchers for greasy hands

Apparently South Korea isn’t the only place where (more…)