Touchscreen gestures brought to life

An artist has decided to immortalise gestures used with touchscreen products. In her project 'Multi-touch gestures', Gabriele Meldaikyte built 5 different sculptures that used the main gestures associated with touchscreen devices.

The gestures, which seem to be becoming second nature to most, including some babies trying to swipe a magazine to read it, are also seen as a signature of the Apple iPhone.

Gabriele believes that these will be completely different in 10 years time so wanted to immortalise them by translating this interface language of communication into 3D objects which mimic every multi-touch gesture.

Touchscreen gestures brought to life

An artist has decided to immortalise gestures used with touchscreen products. In her project 'Multi-touch gestures', Gabriele Meldaikyte built 5 different sculptures that used the main gestures associated with touchscreen devices.

The gestures, which seem to be becoming second nature to most, including some babies trying to swipe a magazine to read it, are also seen as a signature of the Apple iPhone.

Gabriele believes that these will be completely different in 10 years time, and so wanted to immortalise them by translating this interface language of communication into 3D objects which mimic every multi-touch gesture.

Superbrands of 2013

Superbrands UK has announced their annual league tables for brands in the UK.

The league tables are based upon many different factors from sector reports to blogs to public nominations, and are narrowed down to a preliminary shortlist of 1700.

Through ratings given by judges and then a public vote this number is whittled down to 500 'Superbrands'. These are then seeded in order of ratings, which results in the main 
B2C (business to customer) table and a B2B (business to business) table.

All those involved in the voting process are asked to bear in mind the following definition: ‘A Superbrand has established the finest reputation in its field. It offers customers significant emotional and/or tangible advantages over its competitors, which customers want and recognise.’

The judging panel gives each brand a rating from 1-10, but members are not allowed to vote on brands they work with, competitor brands or those they are unfamiliar with, and the lowest scoring brands are removed from the shortlist.

In addition, the voters are asked to judge brands against the following three factors: quality, reliability and distinction.

The league tables show that Google, Apple and British Airways are highly rated as both B2C and B2B brands; making the top 10 of both tables. Apple lost out to Rolex for the top spot in the consumer table, but was able to snatch it in the business table. The full tables are below, and you can read the full results here.

The B2C Superbrands are
1. Rolex
2. Apple
3. Microsoft
4. British Airways
5. Coca-Cola
6. Google
7. Hilton
8. Heathrow Airport
9. Kellogg’s
10. Mercedes-Benz
11. BMW
12. Heinz
13. BBC
14. Facebook
15. Lego
16. Disney
17. Marks & Spencer
18. BP
19. Dulux
20. Nescafé

Whilst the B2B Superbrands are:
1. Apple
2. British Airways
3. Google
4. Visa
5. Virgin Atlantic
6. IBM
7. Shell
8. Microsoft
9. London Stock Exchange Group
10. Mastercard
11. BP
12: BT
13. Bosch
14. Samsung
15. FedEx
16. Rolls-Royce Group
17. Royal Mail
18. PayPal
19. GlaxoSmithKline
20. DHL

Top 10 Super Bowl ads of all time

We at The Think Tank love two things, Top 10's and great adverts, so here's Marketing Week's Top 10 Super Bowl Adverts of all time!

With the Super Bowl only round the corner (3rd February in-case you were wondering), Marketing week has done a round up of their favourite commercials that have aired during America's most-viewed sporting event, with the cost for the ad space reaching astronomical amounts.

Whilst the Top 10 is for commercials shown in the U.S. some may be familiar to U.K audiences too with the Volkswagon "Force" advert, or the Budweiser "wassup" advert included in the round-up. 

Have a look at the full Top 10 here.

Samsung attacks Apple in mobile phone battle

Samsung attacks Apple in new ad for the Galaxy S III.

Whilst iPhone fans queue for the new iPhone 5 Galaxy users demonstrate why the new big thing is already here.

Enjoy!

A new taller iPhone 5

With the much heralded launch of the iPhone 5 there had a to be a few parody ads around.

Panoramic views, full body 'face time' and apps to die for - we think that this could really catch on.

Enjoy!

Mobile Advertising Wars

There is a lot being written about the impact of mobile technologies right now.  The Financial Times’s Tim Bradshaw wrote a piece on Google and Apple lowering the price for mobile advertising in an attempt to encourage more marketers and application developers to use their technologies, ahead of Facebook and LinkedIn’s expected entries into the markets.

He cites how many brands are still unsure how to tailor their messaging for the small screen, thus available ad slots in apps and on mobile websites are often left unsold.  

At the same time City AM reports that Apple has shot past Samsung to “nab top smartphone spot”.  Around 427 million smart phones were sold in 2011, up 50% on 2010.  Apple sold 35.5 million in the fourth quarter of last year.  

One company which seems to have done some smart thinking on this is Domino’s Pizza UK & Ireland and says it has seen a “breathtaking surge” in online sales… yes, you guessed it, after the launch of two new apps last year which let customers chose a pizza via their smartphones or iPads, and which helped drive a 43 per cent rise in orders over the internet.

The FTSE 250 firm has 726 outlets in Britain, Ireland and Germany, and its franchisees created 1,800 jobs the company claims through the opening of new outlets.     

So mobile can also mean a neat “pizza profit” (piece of profit) it seems.

My Blackberry is not working!

This classic Two Ronnies sketch made us laugh all over again when we heard about Blackberry’s ongoing technical problems a few weeks ago. Users of the Smartphone brand were furious after a three day global service outage back in October. Since the problems a poll has revealed one in five Blackberry users are now considering switching to another Smartphone manufacturer with most stating Apple as their preferred choice.

It would seem that the Two Ronnie’s were right on the money with their sketch and perhaps Blackberry customers can take heart in the comedy of the situation. That is as long as you’re not trying to view this on your phone...

To see more like this click here.

Apple Hits the 500,000 Apps Mark on iTunes

It happened in the early hours of Tuesday: in less than three years the App Store reached the half-million mark.

For some interesting stats, like on the image, a giant infographic was produced by three app-related companies. Mobile app blog 148apps, the search company Chomp together with game developer Chilingo collected a number of curiosities, including a timeline and a various facts.

To understand this data better and make a brief comparison, there have been 10 billion iOS app downloads through the App Store as of January. Although having been on the market 8 months less, the applications Google's Android currently count almost 300,000 apps and 3 billion downloads.

Read more.
Image : 148Apps, Chomp and Chillingo

The iPad 2: More to it, less of it

'There's even more to it. And even less of it' appears to be the tagline for the new iPad2.

This new version is faster, 33 per cent thinner, and “up to” 15 per cent lighter than the original iPad, while boasting the same 9.7-inch LCD screen. Steve Jobs believes Apple to be ore on top of their game than ever before claiming 'While others have been scrambling to copy the first generation iPad, we’re launching iPad 2, which moves the bar far ahead of the competition and will likely cause them to go back to the drawing boards yet again.” Will this bold statement be proved correct in sale numbers? Let's watch this space.

If you haven't yet had a look at Apple's latest venture then click here to formulate your own first opinion.

 

Bone Collection: Dino Drives, Card Cases and Wonderful Wraps

As Design Director of Bone Collection Reads Lin puts it, 'don't just think different, be different,' a comment in direct response to Steve Jobs' (Chief Executive of Apple) motto of 'think different.'

We at the Think Tank are rather big fans of all things 'different' and Lin and his team have created some seriously cool, yet practical, 'things different.' What better way to protect your pad/pod/phone than with a unique and seriously cool case? What better device to entrust with the storing of all your most vital information than a dino usb drive?

Cool Hunting have also cottoned on to just how cool these are and clever in their ability to set themselves apart from the $1b+ industry for apple accessories too. Click here to find out where to buy your quirky added extras from and set yourself apart from everyone else now.