I could have thought of a less obvious title, but I just liked the joke, okay?

A few weeks ago I came across a framework called popcorn.js which, as its name certainly does not imply, allows the user to create timed interactions within a video.

Say some people in a video are snapping their fingers (those crazy kids); by using one of the multiple plugins of the library, it’s possible to get a kid in another completely separate part of the page to snap his fingers AT THE SAME TIME.

They say it’s an HTML5 framework that will find use in the hands of filmmakers, web developers or anyone who wishes to create time-based interaction with media.

The plugins include interaction with Youtube, Vimeo, Twitter, GoogleMap, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Timeline and many more.

In the example below (which is inspired by Dan Harper) I merely used Google maps, Footnote (to write some content to the page), tag this person (to create a tag) and also some truly amazing images and subtitles.

WATCH OUR VIDEO HERE!!

As you can (maybe) see, it’s easy to use and super, duper fun as well.

One possible example of usage could be for a ‘How To’ video; adding interactive information, popping at key moments on the page, would give an extra level of content to the vid.

The framework is part of Mozilla’s Popcorn Project. For more details check out: http://mozillapopcorn.org/.

What are you waiting for? Try it already!!!

Source: besttechInfo.com

A rumour that spread like wildfire across the web a month ago has now metamorphosed into a big, exciting News butterfly. Facebook is on a journey to take on the might of Apple and Google in the mobile market, much like Leonidas and his 299 fellow under-dressed men.

Project Spartan, as it is known, is Facebook’s plan to develop their own new App Store; think iTunes but through Facebook. While not too much has been said yet (Spartans are men of action, not words) it is not too difficult to imagine what the project could lead to.

This will allow for e.g. making better use of some features like Facebook Credits for sales, in-app purchases and thus making more profit.  It is a clever battle-plan which the Financial Times and Playboy have already kicked off.

Apparently about 80 outside developers and companies (including Farmville and The Huffington Post) are contributing to the project, and we also know now that Apple is giving a certain level of support.

This effort from Facebook to bring a whole new experience to the iOS devices is something to celebrate. It would be nice to see this new platform being spread through other mobile devices, let’s say… Android OS for instance!
It may very well push developers and the rest of the industry to have more interest in HTML5 and CSS3 features, pushing forward new web standards.

source: Slashgear.com

The exciting news for our clients however is that it is a new contender in the app market with Facebook’s 750-million users behind the top brand.

Thought Den’s experience with the technology, HTML5 and Javascript will allow our clients pretty much instant entry to the service.

Now less talk about the naked men fighting please!

Have you heard of Futurelab?

Have now. Lesson 1, done!

They [heart] new eLearning tools.

Lesson 2 finito’.

Thought Den just released their spanking new site.

Lesson 3 wrapped.

That wasn’t too bad right! See we don’t just do playful learning tools and workshops, we make sites with the educators too.

Here’s some nice screen shots from the work or go view the site.

Now for extra marks please memorise below and wonder how your site would look if we made yours…

eCommerce

All their products are online now and the site has a special eCommerce basket

“Wow that’s easy to use!”

We used the award winning open source… Drupal CMS to quickly build the charity’s new website. Dear god it’s easy for them to use.

Clever user accounts

Clever user accounts. Futurelab Staff can only edit manage what content they need too, so no more “bloggers accidentally deleting the frontpage”.

Dynamic Front Page.

They can write what ever they want in the Hero Box, depends what they need to sell at the time

HTML5!

It’s new and here to stay. Thought Den were one of the first commercial companies to be flying the Drupal flag for HTML5. Yay to future and yay to better SEO

Deep Information search

It searches EVERYTHING. Really it does, so no product is left unfound. We even built them a widget which searches their previous site just in-case anything’s missed.

Facet Search

A bit like the powerful eCommerce site eBay and Play.com, you pick a category and it filters your results.

Now what were the three things you had to remember at the beginning…?

Thing your educational facility needs a sexy site too? email us, curious at thoughtden co United Kingdom

With HTML5 & CSS3 constantly peeping round the corner (iPad sites, HTML5 article) we need to prep ourselves to deliver client’s rich websites to the highest standards. There’s a lot of changes going on and during the transitional period we’re updating our CSS font-techniques at Thought Den.

The industry
The font industry is apparently in a bit of turmoil for both designers and producers. The Font-designers are trying to hold onto their previous/old/out-dated/”wake-up and get with the times” print-based payment model. While the web-based font factories are trying to break it the business open into a mass/does it make profit/lowering standards/can it make money iTunes micro-payment model.
Then, the producers (us in the Den!) are trying to deliver our clients (you!) (or “you!” soon, after you’ve contacted us) a sexy web-package that will work across the most browsers and by using a technique that will last longer than a flash-in-the-pan 5 minutes.

What did we find?
There are currently many articles to help guide and inform the decision, namely from the popular web standards site, a list apart. This article in particular, “Web Fonts at the crossing” has helped round up the current full technical details,
- HTML5 & CSS aren’t fully supported everywhere yet
- IE6 to IE8 can only support a particular type of font extension
- Firefox, Chrome & Safari are pushing the boundaries
- IE9, it sounds like Miccy-soft have made an Internet Explorer browser half decent!

Thought Den will… (client round-up)
… be using the new tools/bold technology for making sure your site and its fonts are viewable across as many browsers as possible so it’s readable on many devices as possible.

Thought Den will… (techie round-up)
… be using the @font-family tag with,

Google Code (for hosted fonts)
- http://code.google.com/webfonts

Embedded Fonts (for creating fonts)
- http://www.fontsquirrel.com/

Restricted Fonts (for expensive fonts)
- http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/

Onwards!