Lichtenstein retrospective at The Tate

A new exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein's work has opened at the Tate Modern in London. The exhibition displays 125 pieces of work from the artist, including sculptures and, of course, his famous 'comic book' style paintings.

This is the first full-scale retrospective of this important and well known artist in 20 years and is the most definitive collection.

The exhibition, which opened on the 21st February, is co-organised by the Tate Modern and The Art Institute of Chicago and will run until 27th May 2013. 

Read more and book tickets here.

Google Glass is here.

Recently Google gave developers the chance to get their hands on a pair of Google glasses, called Glass, or more importantly, access to the API which allows apps to interact with them. 

They also set up an oppurtunity for  "creative individuals"  to trial the glasses via a campaign on Twitter and Google+, called Project Glass.

Using the hashtag #ifihadglass they are looking for people to give a reason why they should be the first to get their hands on the glasses in 50 words or less, however the winners will still have to fork out £1,500+tax for the privilege.

To encourage people to enter Google has released a video on YouTube which shows how Glass can be used, inclduing the voice operation, which uses the line "OK glass" to begin a command; i.e. "OK glass take a picture"

The video also highlights the sort of tasks you can perform with Glass, from text messaging, video calling, photo taking to searching Google and finding a location on a map. There is also an automatic-picture-taking mode, which takes pictures at preset intervals.

The glasses are the next step in wearable technology, allowing the user to record everything they do, as well as interacting with others via video, although the headset doesn't actually have lenses in front of your eyes, just a small screen (viewable via a mirrored glass block) above and to the right of the wearer's right eye. Whilst not the only wearable technology in development (other companies including Microsoft has been developing their own versoin of Glass), the Google Glass is the one closest to completion, having first been announced last year, and featured in our blog last April.

Find out more at the Glass Website and watch the video below.

Budweiser alerts hockey fans

Budweiser Canada is helping ice hockey fans keep track of when their team scores by selling goal lights similar to those used at the games.

It is set up to their favourite team using an app on a smartphone, after that it will connect to their WiFi network and follow live scores. When a selected team scores it lights up and makes a sound, regardless of where the team is playing or if the game is televised.

The first batch made has sold out, but the website is taking pre-orders for the next batch which should be with fans in time for the play-offs. The lights will set back fans $149 + taxes & shipping, but those living in the greater Toronto area will be able to get theirs installed by Budweiser.

As part of this campaign they have created an advert that introduces a new character, who is portrayed as the inventor of the light and builds upon their 'Great times are waiting' campaign.

A great marketing ploy by the American beer brand, although we think it may disturb a few mealtimes. Watch the video below.

Space saving seating

A system of stools that slot together to form a cube has been designed and built by Naho Matsuno.

Cube 6 is a product made from birch plywood and maple and the cube is 350 x 350 x 350mm when slotted together, and creates 6 stools or tables when taken apart.

Perfect for those who love to entertain or are short of space. The clever use of rails allows the stools to easily slide together and come apart when needed.

The is also a 3 stool version.

Google shopping

Google has started to roll out changes that will affect the way products appear in their search engine. Back at the end of May last year, they announced that Google Product Search was changing to Google Shopping.   

After a rollout of this service in the U.S. Google Shopping is going global; starting with the U.K., Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Japan and Australia. This rollout began on 13th February 2013.  

What this means is that when you search for a product there is an option above your results to see ‘Shopping’ results. These results are products sourced from registered websites, a service that was previously free to retailers.  

This is no longer the case. Google Shopping is a commercial model just like Adwords; retailers will bid on searches, so merchants who pay for Google Shopping listings will rank higher than those merchants who don’t.  

Ranking is based upon a combination of relevance and bid price; retailers can automatically bid on Product Targets based on user rules and move products between Product Targets to best optimise their performance. Or, retailers can just let the rule-based automated bid manager adjust their Product Target bids based on performance and their overall goals.  

Product targets allow you to select which products are eligible to show on Product Listing Ads, and they also allow you to bid differently on different sets of products. Grouping products by Product Target enables retailers to control bids across multiple products based on these qualifications, (e.g. all products characterised as “sale” should receive a bid of £0.75).  

Ensuring your product data feeds are updated frequently, are accurate and include product details such as name, price, product page URL, product image URL, description, category and more, will help with the ranking in terms of relevance.   If you’re already using the Google Product Listing service don’t worry it’s not going to end straight away. By the middle of the year though your listing will no longer be as visible as they might have once been. So act now and convert your listings to the new Google Shopping format and set up an Adwords account if you don’t already have one.  

If your site isn’t using Google products there’s still time to sign up under the free model. Google will be supporting these listings until the middle of the year so you can still take advantage of the free period. Get registered in the Merchant Centre and get your products listed.     

Trees of ice

Photographer Tim Corbin braved the cold to travel to Lake Ontario, North America to take these amazing shots of tree's covered in ice from the waves of the lake. 

Quite beautiful.

See some more images at his Flickr page here.

VW ad is daylight robbery

Volkswagen's latest advert by Deutsch, is a brilliant bit of suspense, slightly reminiscent of an action movie but with a humorous twist at the end.

The premise for the ad, titled Mask, is simple; a guy walks into a local shop wearing a ski mask, starts stalking down the aisles collecting food and such like, whilst looking menacing. All the while the customers start to hide and the counter staff begin to look scared. The camera angles and accompanying music all add to the suspense and creates a commercial that seems to promise cars chases and gun fights.

Hopefully we have built this up enough without spoiling the end, so take a look at it here.

Serpentine Gallery pavilion 2013

Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has designed this year's pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, which will be a cloud-like structure made from a lattice of steel poles.

The temporary semi-transparent pavilion, which will be open from 8th June until 20th October, will have two entrances, provide a seating area for a central cafe, and will occupy 350 square-metres of lawn outside the London gallery.

This is the third time a Japanese architect has accepted the annual unpaid commission, which is one of the most highly sought-after small projects in world architecture and goes to a major architect who hasn't yet built in the UK.

Last year's pavilion was a cork-lined archaeological dig created by Herzog & de Meuron with Ai Weiwei, who was forbidden to leave China at the time.

Walk into this painting

We love interactive art, and this amazing piece called "Indian Chamber" fits the bill perfectly.

Created by Australian artist Anna Kristensen, the piece is a 360 degree panoramic painting of the Jenolan Caves' Indian Chamber, in New South Wales.

Painted onto curved plywood panels, viewers enter via a door into a cylindrical room and are then surrounded by the painting.

This incredible piece has been on tour across Australia, visiting Gallery 9 in Sydney, Shepparton Art Museum in Victoria, Artspace in Sydney and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.