This week’s forages around the internet have yielded such a bountiful supply of awesomeness that an exceptional 6th place has had to have been added to the top-5 weekly countdown.
Number 6) Facedeals – Check in with your face
First up, and shoe-horned in temporary 6th place, is a cunning project called Facedeals which uses passive facial recognition to provide customised Facebook deals. The deal is tailored to the user’s Facebook Like history and delivered to their mobile whilst simultaneously checking them in.
Via @Mirandaluis
Number 5) Old Spice – Music Muscle
Next up is a video from W&K for Old Spice. You can record your own musical tune from instruments synched up to Terry Crewes’ body. It really can’t be described – give it a go in this interactive Vimeo execution. Ridiculous but brilliant.
Via @ctough85
Number 4) Absolute Unique
Absolute vodka have decided to create 4m totally unique and limited edition designed bottles. Yes that’s four million! Check out this video to see how the hell they’re managing to do it.
Via Andrew Hughes
Number 3) Music synchronisation light spectacle app
Musician Dan Deacon has released an interesting app that creates a light and sound spectacle which is synschronised to the music from the audience’s own phones. A great way of embracing just how much time is spent by people on their smartphones at concerts. It’s not too dissimilar from Coldplay’s LED synching wristbands but of course doesn’t require any additional hardware.
Via PSFK
Number 2) VW Blue motion recycle
77% of used mags are chucked straight in the trash in South Africa as there’s no formal recycling network. To advertise the eco-friendly nature of VW Blue Motion they decided to create an insert that turned itself into a pre-paid postage stamp so the mag itself could be returned and recycled. A simple but clever way of making the media itself tell the brand story from Ogilvy Cape Town.
Via @diSapia
Number 1) Telepathic quadrcopter
In fully deserved Number 1 place this week is this ridiculously awesome innovation from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. Researchers there have devised a brain machine interface that lets users control an AR drone.
The user thinks "right" to fly forward, "push" to increase altitude, and "left" to turn clockwise. "Hard left" initiates takeoff, while clenching teeth causes the drone to descend. The drone's onboard camera is controlled via blinking - four times rapidly to snap an image of whatever the video feed from the drone is displaying.
Via Australian Popular Science
Aggrieved something isn’t featured? Think an entry just isn’t up to the correct threshold of awesomeness? Then let us know in the comments below. Or if you’d like to recommend anything for inclusion next week then contact @jamescfilmer or james.filmer@umww.com.
James Filmer
Chief Innovation Officer
UM