Yelp’s Secret Augmented Reality Tool

Gizmodo reports that the Yelp iPhone app has a special Easter egg program hidden inside of it. Named Monocle, it’s an augmented reality app that is only accessible by shaking the device three times.

After the AR feature is unlocked, icons of Yelp-reviewed establishments will begin to pop-up on your screen, showing locations, ratings, and reviews for restaurants in your surrounding area.

Source PSFK

Inflatable Dinosaur Measures Air Quality

The Huntington Beach Art Center in California is currently holding an exhibition of three site responsive installations entitled “Land, Sea, Air” until September 6th.

One of the three exhibits is “Prana”- an inflatable dinosaur that measures and visualizes the quality of air in Huntington Beach. Every ten seconds, Prana collects new data from the cross-government agency website airnow.gov, and changes color (utilizing an internal light) from green to red based upon the information it receives.

You can view a gallery of the exhibit here.

Source PSFK

Personas: Visualizing Your Online Identity

A component of the MIT Media Lab’s “Metropath(olgies)” installation, which looks at the non-stop flow of communication and information in the modern world, Personas delivers a data portrait of your online identity by combining natural language processing and Internet search tools.

Enter your first and last name into the search box, and watch as Personas matches your name to a pre-existing set of categories created through an algorithmic method that references a vast body of data.

The philosophy behind the installation, according to the Personas site:

Personas demonstrates the computer’s uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.

SOURCE PSFK

reStart: The First US Internet Detox Center

Today, in Fall City WA, 2-6 people will be admitted into Re-Start- a 45-day addiction recovery program that treats obsessive Internet and video game habits. The program employs a combination of mindfulness training and meetings based upon the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program, as well as nutritional education and adventure expeditions in a “family-style” setting that lends itself to social interaction- with the end goal being to help the patient re-establish connections to the real world.

Although the problem of Internet addiction has been addressed in South Korea and China with mixed results, the ReStart press release claims it is a growing problem in the US, and that “6-10% of the online population is dependent on one or more aspects of of cyber-technology and the Internet” (although no source for that statistic is given in the press release).

If you’re curious about their acceptance policies, take a look at their criteria for net addiction, and take their quiz to see where you stand.

However, the cost of the whole process is another matter. The Re-Start application fee is $200 USD, and the entire program will cost you $14,500 USD (plus fees) for the 45-day stay.

SOURCE PSFK

Put Pocketing in the streets of London

I really like this simple and kind of viral idea by British carrier TalkTalk to promote its reduced phone rates. Other carriers make you pay more and therefore "pick" money out of your pockets. TalkTalk make you pay less for phone calls, and so if you switch to TalkTalk they will put the money back in your pockets... Simple, uh?

Watch the video just launched in the UK, where former pickpockets are hired by TalkTalk to put the money back into the pockets of Londoners. As I said: simple, educational (it's impressive to see the "artists" of pick/putpocketing in action) and pretty viral idea.

San Francisco’s Lombard Street Becomes Candy Land Game Board

In an extreme bit of experiential marketing, and to celebrate Candy Land’s 60th anniversary, Hasbro transformed San Francisco’s winding Lombard Street into a life-size version of the board game.

Two teams of children competed in a round of the game, those from UC San Francisco Children’s Hospital versus Friends of the Children. The reward waiting at the finish line was desert by Debbie Does Cakes.

source psfk

The Honda Eco (and cheesy) Grand Prix

At first sight you would say it is just another racing game. Make sure not to skip the intro, and you will change your mind. Honda Formula E is an advergame launched in Japan to teach people how to drive with an eco-friendly attitude.

In the game you don't have to use the steering-wheel, but just the brake and accelerator to find the ideal speed to drive in the city, saving gasoline, and therefore saving the planet.

But as I said, the game is not the best part of the website. The intro video is simply fantastic, very funny, very cheesy... very Japanese. They re-created the energy and the experience of a Gran Prix in the bedroom of a man of the street taking the up the challenge on the Web. If you take a look at the screencaptures I pasted into this entry, you'll immediately understand what I mean :-)