Witch Tech relaunches – at a new address

Witch Tech is moving onto bigger and better things. That’s right, while the hub for web-knowledge has happily lived at this address since its conception, Witch Tech has expanded its horizons – and had a redesign.

From now on, all the web-knowledge, tech news, gadget reviews, events and internet findings you need will be found at: www.jennyleewilliams.com/witchtech

#LDN Nude Tech Calander 2010 launches

Tackling the tech-stereotype front on, the London Nude Tech Calander shows geek-chic stripped bare.

Featuring 24 new media entrepreneurs in their best birthday suits, 2010 promises to give the tech scene a sexy shake up. Better still, all proceeds go towards raising funds for Take Heart India, a charity focused on IT education projects for blind and disabled students in India.

The calander launches tonight at the Velvet Room at Sway, London. For a sneak-peek of who is featuring starkers, here are a few of the starring faces:

Tech news round-up

• Apple patent filing hints at tablet computer
• Viral Video Chart: Monster Chart – featuring Lady Gaga, Nokia phones and Twilight Saga
• Microsoft brings Google search fight to UK with localised version of Bing
• Chipped Xbox 360s liberated from lockout
• BBC re-launches iPlayer on Wii to fix problems
• Review of Hair Salon for DSi
• Nokia brings power to smooch over the ether
• Review of Polaroid PoGo Intstant Photo Printer
• Pixie Lott announced as face of new Nokia Illuvia range

A viral campaign for Kisses from Paris

Paris has more than the Eiffel Tower and Le Louvre. Paris has kissing. Lots of it. And Paris Ile-de-France have launched a new campaign to prove it. A short film by critically-acclaimed film-maker and director, Yvan Attal, has premiered online today as part of a larger campaign to celebrate the vibrant culture of Paris and entice young people to visit the city.

The famous Paris kiss from the 1950s.

The film, titled ‘Kisses from Paris’, was shown at a launch in the Tate Modern’s East Room last night. “It took me a day,” said Attal to the Guardian’s Janine di Giovanni. It follows a young couple’s journey around the unseen and unexpected sides of the city. Being aimed at young travellers who do their booking on the internet, the campaign is a viral one involving a network of selected bloggers and social networking sites.

There has been an emerging fashion for creating short films to promote brands: Dior launched The Lady Noire Affair featuring Marion Cotillard and Viktor and Rolf put out a film for their Spring 2010 collection for Paris fashion week. Now Paris Ile-de-France hope their edgy three minute film can help refresh Paris’ appeal. With Rufus Wainwright providing the soundtrack, coupled with sophisticated snapshots of Parisian life and young love, how can you not be seduced? You decide:

Attal was chosen to direct the film after the Paris Tourist Board saw his five-minute film about New York as part of the New York, I Love You project.

Kisses from Paris is part of a larger online campaign, called ‘You, Me and Paris Makes Three’. One feature of the campaign will allow ssers visiting the Paris Tourist board’s website to declare their love and customise their favourite Parisian scenes with their chosen one’s photograph.

Paris, New York, wherever you may be, a lot of love – and advertising – is spreading online.

Just say ‘no’ to pink

Great article in The Times by Lady Geek‘s Belinda Parmar, who asks ‘Women play more games than men and buy just as many gadgets. So why are they consistently patronised by technology companies?’

Belinda is looking for your opinion on how technology companies are talking to women by filling out a short survey on the Lady Geek site .

Cardboard glasses, channel 4 3D week – and a trip to Sainsbury’s

I think I’ve accidently started a new hobby: collecting 3D glasses. It started with the first 3D film I saw at the cinema. “They’d be good for fancy dress,” I thought.

Now, placing all the 3D pairs of glasses in line on my shelf, I feel I’ve developed an obsession. Not only are 3D glasses a ridiculous accessory for a fancy dress themed night out (too much like beer goggles – even before drinking), the different types of 3D tech means they’re not recyclable. I’m not going to enjoy watching Channel 4′s 3D week with my ‘Up’ glasses.

But as I made a special trip to Sainsbury’s to retrieve my free pair of Channel 4 week 3D glasses, I found myself grabbing the pairs of cardboard 3D glasses with both hands and lining my coat with the cardboard gimmicks. Perhaps it’s not the glasses though. It’s more likely my awe of 3D. Cinema has boosted its sales by creating a reason to still go, as the Independent reported today.

3D technology enjoyed a golden age in the 1950s.

It’s not often I gasp out of sheer wonderment. But I did when I caught a glimpse of the Channel 4 advert advertising 3D week. Gosh, 3D is trendy stuff. Indeed, according to TechRadar, Sky has indicated that it will launch a 3D channel in 2010 and James Cameron’s Avatar promises to expand the genre of 3D cinema beyond animated films.

At the premiere of Christmas Carol last week (did I just drop that in there?), the screening provided proper weighty 3D glasses. Not cardboard throwaways, oh no. 3D is sticking around as long as the Odeon can make the most of their investment in posh 3D glasses.

While 3D cinema has bursted onto the screens as a new phenomomen, Channel 4′s 3D week is a blast from the past. Being retro anaglyph tech, the channel say, “We are inviting viewers to celebrate 3D on TV. We’re not talking state of the art IMAX technology here, but some good old fashioned fun”. 3D is new and old. But to be enjoyed all the same.

The week, running from 16th – 20th November, will show various 3D programmes. The line-up has been released. TechRadar rounded up their hot picks:

- The Queen in 3D

(Monday 16 November, 9pm)

Story of film makers Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster, who created the 3D colour newsreel of the Queen during her Coronation year they named ‘Royal Review’.

- Flesh For Frankenstein

(Wednesday 18 November, 12.40am)

3D version of Paul Morrissey’s macabre, wacky 70s take on the Frankenstein story, starring Udo Kier and Joe Dallesandro.

- Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert

(Date/Time TBC)

Miley Cyrus and her alter ego Hannah Montana take to the stage in this spectacular 3D concert taken from her sell out 2007 and 2008 North American tour.

- Derren Brown Presents The 3D Magic Spectacular

(Monday 16 November, 10pm)

Leading performers dazzle the audience with incredible trickery, while amazing archive footage features performances of some of the world’s greatest magic tricks

Also shown in 3D will be the horror-show that is Friday the 13th Part III and a clip show of the greatest ever 3D moments.

Go to www.channel4.com for more details.

To find out where the nearest Sainsbury’s to you is to collect your 3D glasses,click here.

Latest gadgets website launches

Drowning in a sea of gadgets? Don’t know which way to turn or what to buy? A brand spanking new gadgets website, latestgadgets.co.uk,  has launched to save you. Packed with reviews, previews, news and help, this website promises to be “streetwise Hercules” of the gadget world.

Events | Ignite London – 18th Nov

Ignite is coming to London. Since 2006, hundreds of 5 minute talks have been given around the world – now for the first time, Ignite is gracing London with its presence on Nov 18, 2009 at Ginglik in Shepherds Bush.

In a nutshell, Ignite “captures the best of tech and culture in a series of 5-minute speed presentations”, according Ignite Anchorage. Ignite is also explained as:

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.

Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis. Since then 100s of 5 minute talks have been given across the world. There are thriving Ignite communities in Seattle, Portland, Paris, and NYC.

One of the speakers, Matt Edgar, outlines the other guest speakers on his blog. His talk will be:  “1794 – so much to answer for”.

“I shall tell the stories of as many of my personal 18th Century heroes as possible,” Matt says, “Based on the strange coincidence that all of them encountered life-changing (some life-ending) events in that single world-changing year.”

All 50 free vouchers for Ignite London have already been dished out. But not to fret, admission is available on the door (until reaching capacity) – and even if you can’t make it, clutching my voucher, I promise to bring back a full report of the night’s entertainment.

If you can’t wait to hear all about London’s event, here’s an example of an Ignite talk:

Cinderella Me: the designer shoe hire fairy godmother

If you’ve ever drooled over Louboutins, been dazzled by Jimmy Choos and then felt utterly disappointed by your overdraft limit, a new online designer shoe hire is here to save you from your twinkle-toe-woes.

Called Cinderella Me, this site offers you your very own shoe-fairy godmother: a catalogue of amazing shoes available to hire. And they are stringent about hygiene – always a plus. Perfect solution to the approaching Christmas party season. (Did I just mention Christmas already? Whoops).

Musings | Confessions of networked shopaholics

The question, ‘Does my bum look big in this’, is no longer saved for your best mate or boyfriend in the shop fitting room. Shopping for the perfect derriere-enhancing outfit can now be a collaborative effort between millions of strangers with the rise of social shopping networks.

Online shopping isn’t a new venture; sites like Net-A-Porter and ASOS are institutions of the online shopping scene. What is relatively new, however, is shopping via social networks. Moving beyond individual retailer sites, social networking drives word-of-mouth sales, relying upon network peers rather than sales types to influence purchases and offering the opportunity to share best buys, wish lists and style choices.

You can’t blame marketing types for harnessing the social networking potential. As retail store hits have gone down, retail site referrals from Facebook and Twitter hits have gone up. Rumour even had it earlier this year that Twitter might start offering discounts and retail opportunities in the near future.  And recent research has shown that brands can increase popularity by doing so. According to Webtrends, 19% of social media users said they would regard brands more highly if they interacted with them on a social media site and, of those who have already interacted with a brand in this way, 74% said their approval of the brand increased.

Forgetting the positives for brands, whether online platforms can compete with the real experience of shopping that we know and love has been a question on a lot of lips since social shopping networks popped up.

“Some people can argue that nothing can compare to a Saturday afternoon shopping spree with your girlfriends and in some aspects I agree,” says social shopping network, OSOYOU.com, editor, Jess Markwood, “But what we’re saying here is that an actual shopping trip and shopping online can sit hand-in-hand.”

As Jess explains, social shopping networks are making the conventional shopping experience a little easier and even more fun. “At OSOYOU we offer not only an opportunity to shop most of the High Street online all in one place, but also a pre-shopping destination, where you can research your purchases before your you leave, creating a shopping list that you can print out and take with you,” Jess adds.

Described as “part social-networking club, part pop-culture lab”, Style Hive – another social shopping network – is a way of connecting stylish types who can swap fashion hints and tips and connect with retailers. Its format is similar to Twitter, allowing you to ‘follow’ members and the result is an encapsulation of the culture of shopping.

Shoppers no longer have to rely upon glossy magazines for the latest fashion trends, they’re using their internet peers to make style and price-savvy choices – and even dictate trends. Described as a Digg for shoppers, Iliketotallyloveit is a social network that allows members to add and vote on products, directly influencing trends and sales.

But more than creating profiles and sharing information, hints and tips, other sites, like MyItThings ensures members are part of their own shopping experience in the creation of a user-generated magazine. This is made up of reviews of favourite products, books, films or music, all by the members of the network.

Other online shopping sites have also realised the benefits of building online communities for both individual members and brands. ASOS has developed ASOS Life, an online community, which aims to capture some of the feeling of real-life in-store shopping. Very cleverly, they’ve found new ways to create hype around new products; last week they offered shoppers the chance to get a free limited edition Giles Deacon scarf by visiting the virtual Nibbles Boutique on ASOS. The experience even offers a virtual queue – unmistakably better than the real-life experience.

ASOS Life community manager, Ilana Fox, believes that social shopping networks offer more than bargains. “A lot of our customers are of the age where they don’t deal via email anymore, they’re a lot more open and transparent about the way they communicate, so we also have to be as a company,” she told nma.com this month.

“I think shopping online should be a social experience,” she continued, “Although you can see the clothes in catwalk videos, you can’t touch them. The next best thing is talking to other people and asking what they think. You can send someone an email with a link, but if you don’t get a reply for a couple of hours you might not buy it. So it’s good to have other people there to give you feedback.”

With ASOS Life enjoying an increase of active users by 40% a month, you can’t argue that shoppers aren’t finding the experience of social shopping networks at the very least useful.

A new website that launched last week has also gone a step further in trying to create a virtual shopping experience. Gemsta chief executive, Richard Laing, said the site aims to, “bring the power of the brand to internet,” in a space that is, “unlimited by real world constraints.” The site offers a ‘shopping portal’ and aims to simulate the shopping experience online using photo-realistic images of malls, plazas and shop brands that can be explored virtually (unusually diverting from photo-realism through the additional use of cartoon characters, G-Bees). Gemsta has given shopping a whole new dimension.

While it’s easy to be skeptical about the careful arrangement of social shopping networks and virtual shopping experiences (and imagine corporate middle men cashing in on increased sales from an online communities), it’s also easy to realise the appeal of social shopping networks in their ability to discover bargains, new trends and experience shopping in a whole new way. Building upon online shopping sites’ success, social shopping networks are making online shopping more sociable, fun and a lot more like the real experience. Hand-in-hand, the good old fashioned High Street and online social shopping networks offer the best of both shopping experiences.

Published on Running in Heels.co.uk, November 2009.