Google Chrome has been my default web browser for some time now and this digital campaign by Milk+Koblin, showcases Chrome’s ability to run HTML5. The campaign is an interactive video directed by Chris Milk, and shows off some of the new features this web hypertext standard can provide such as custom rendered google maps, video, 3D animation, and canvassing amongst other features. The site is called “The Wilderness Downtown” and plays a personalised video featuring Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait”. During the video you get to make your own personalised card that will be printed out with paper that supposedly contain tree seeds and then handed out to people at Arcade fires upcoming music tour. If you plant the card a tree will grow!. Make sure you download Google Chrome here to see it for yourself, its worth it. URL: thewildernessdowntown.com

Audi, one my favourite brands have just made a nice step forward by launching the  AudiMedia iPhone app for press and fans. The app shows latest news, pictures, videos and product info on the whole Audi range. It’s available now from the iPhone app store for free, just click here to give it a go.

IBM and Ogilvy London teamed up again this year to create another brilliant Wimbledon Tennis Augmented Reality app for Android and iPhone smart phones. The main improvement over last years enables Wimbledon fans to ‘see through walls’ with the point & see mobile app. This works by taking live location-based video streams of some showcourt matches and ‘busy areas’ such as the Aorangi Terrace (aka Henman Hill), and the taxi queues. So good to see Ogilvy really getting stuck into this type of thing, and what a brilliant event to showcase it at. I’m sure it will expose the technology in a great light to a diverse audience that would really appreciate it.. Best of all its free to download from the iTunes App Store or search for “IBM Seer” on Android Market !

Yesterday Microsoft announced some seriously game changing news for the console industry. The launch announced that Kinect (formerly known as “Project Natal”) will be available worldwide on November 4th. Kinect (pictured right) is a gaming motion sensor device that is compatible with all Xbox 360’s, and allows you to use your body as the games controller ! see the video above for some examples. At release there will be at least 8 Kinect games available but expect that number to rise quickly as developers get to grips with the new technology. The new revamped Xbox 360 console (see pics) was also announced at the E3 expo at the Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles. It’s now slimmer, virtually silent, and comes with built in WiFi for easy access to online functionality such as Xbox live, and has a 250GB hard drive as standard. The new Xbox 360 will be available this week at $299.99 RRP. Last but not least Microsoft also announced and previewed epic upcoming games launches of “Halo: Reach,” “Call of Duty: Black ops”(exclusive Xbox levels and maps) and “Gears of War 3”, and “Fable III”. Also if Xbox Live (now 25 million users strong) is your kind of thing, and you currently live outside of the official supported zones, good news, it will be coming to South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and Russia by Christmas 2010. Cant Wait to give Kinect a go and get my hands of some of those epic games later this year.     P.S. To read the full press release click here, and hat tip Steve Clayton, for reminding me about this and to MajorNelson’s Flickr site for the pics.

Stunning little online viral for Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum by  Evolution Bureau, San Francisco. The campaign features a fantastic Serenading Unicorn puppet singing you dreamy tunes by Boyz II Men, Michael Bolton, and Culture Club. The music videos are brilliantly done and can be customised and sent to friends via Facebook, Twitter, or email. Check out the “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” unicorn video below for a taste of the action. Go to www.serenadingunicorn.com to create your own and spread a little joy into a friends day.

Incredible work from BBH for the Google Chrome web browser. These speed tests were filmed at actual web page rendering times and show the speed of the new Chrome beta (click here to download that) The video sees Chrome pitted against a potato gun, sound waves, and lighting produced by a tesla coil ! If you’re interested in the technical details, they used two high-speed cameras shooting at 2700 fps, the internet connection was on a 15Mbps line, the computer was a MacBook Pro laptop with Windows 7 installed, and lastly an Asus 24” Monitor. Google say no special software was used for this test. Click here to see behind-the-scenes footage of how this video was made.

Was having drink with Sir Justin Hartman last night and he showed me this incredible new Apple iPad app from Atomic Antelope. It’s called “Alice for the iPad” and animates the original drawings from John Tenniel‘s 1885 illustrations of the Lewis Carroll book “Alice in wonderland”. If you’re a creative or in publishing please watch the video above and just think of the possibilities. Hopefully the first of many more to come ! To buy an iTunes copy of "Alice for the iPad for yourself just click here.

For the last few weeks TomTom have kindly let me try out one of their new GPS devices called the Go750. Normally I carry around a Garmin, so it was interesting to see the differences between the two major brands.

There are a several things I really like about the Go750 that I will miss when I have to give it back.

• The first and main advantage is that it takes about 5-10 seconds to lock onto a GPS signal.
• I have no idea how, but the TomTom started giving me much better short cuts to my destinations, in one case the time saving on a local route was over 5 minutes compared to the Garmin route I was given.
• Bluetooth integration worked very well. I tried with a Nokia X6 and Sony Ericsson Aino, and X10, each time the phone paired easily and offered to import all my contacts. The speaker is incredible but you sometimes have to speak very close to the microphone for callers to hear you.
• The Go750 has over 140 voice commands available; in addition to navigating to an address you can also avoid a roadblock, zoom in and out of the map, increase the volume, or even call a number if you have your phone paired with it.

Overall the TomTom was very logical to use, the suction dock worked much better than other GPS docks I have tried, and it looked very nice in the Audi R8 V10 I got to take out the other day too. It certainly helped me with the built in speed camera maps, not that I would ever speed in a car that does 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds and then goes up to 197mph !. TomTom have also told me they will shortly be releasing IQ Routes™ in SA, basically this will take the time of day and common traffic areas in to account, so that you can be routed more efficiently at all times.

TomTom by default have to be one of my favorite brands at the moment, recently the wonderful Avish from TomTom South Africa (See picture to the right) very kindly gave me two VIP tickets to the Taste of Cape Town event. What followed was a night of excessive fine food and wine consumption, I especially loved the VIP tent, complete with free bar all night and a great mix of people.

Thank you TomTom, I love you