"It's just a phone."

We flew Olav Strawe, Publisher of TeleTalk Magazine (several months ago, on his dime and unbeknownst to him at the time) back from Germany to cover the hype and excitement surrounding the launch of the new iPhone at the San Francisco Apple store. His coverage of the event consisted of this photo and one sentence:
"It's just a phone."

We can't really argue with that.
(nc)

Lawnchair

Some (literally) fresh stuff is coming out of LA. Fung & Blatt Architect bring us this awesome lawnchair to relax on and feel as if you were lying in the grass, even though you might be on a 29th floor rooftop in NYC.
Upholstered with rolled sod, a built-in "moisturizing" system helps irrigate while avoiding run off. When in production (prototype pictured), the literal lawn chair will be lightweight (at least under 25 pounds) and shipped ready to assemble. ummm, ... I WANT ONE!
(tk)

government sponsor

The German government is paying experts to expand German Wikipedia entries on renewable resources and nutrition, agriculture and consumer protection. They're looking to hire existing Wikipedians who are familiar with Wikipedia culture:

"A number of key words already have excellent entries in the German Wikipedia" within the field of renewable resources, explains Andreas Schütte. Schütte is the executive director of the Renewable Resources Agency (FNR), which receives funding from the German Ministry of Nutrition, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection to conduct research on renewable resources with an eye to launching products on the market. At the same time, Schütte says that a number of key words in the German Wikipedia have very short descriptions, are not up to date, or are missing entirely.

Entries on this topic are to be improved under the direction of the private-sector Nova Institute. The Institute plans to get external experts to write entries on renewable resources for Wikipedia. These experts will first receive training for Wikipedia because collaboration in the community project has its pitfalls. The Institute is therefore looking for someone well versed in Wikipedia to handle project coordination. The project partners have issued a call for tenders for that position. Wikipedia experts can send in their applications immediately.

I thought it's pretty cool that the government is pushing this type of knowledge distribution. Even though it'll be in German, it's a start ...
Thanks to BoingBoing for covering this! (tk)

Sell Your Wares With Video - Realpeoplerealstuff.com

Perfectly described as "Youtube meets Craigslist" by Springwise, this new service allows you to make your very own videos/commercials to sell your products and services. While services like Spot Runner are making television advertising more affordable, Realpeoplerealstuff is allowing the little guy to have a presence.

And what's even better:
1) It's totally viral with the "send to a friend" feature on each post.
2) There's nothing more contextually relevant than a person going to a website to look for things to buy.

We likey.
(nc)

Super Chalk Mario

Super Mario continues to inspire street artists to come with cool pieces that make our daily commutes a bit more colorful! Luvin' it!
(tk)

believe the hype

The Onion, published these hilarious iPhone specs that I thought everyone needed to know about.
Don't believe the hype? Then settle for the cheaper Nokia N95, which features all of the above plus high speed Wifi, GPS, and a 5MP camera with a Carl Zeiss lens.
Make sure to watch the video below, which is NYT's David Pogue's review of the iPhone.
(tk)

The Chipmunk VS. The Lad

Ok, so we can't decide and your assistance is required:
What's more funny, the Berries and Creme Starburst Commercial or The Dramatic Chipmunk Clip?

Please cast your vote and reason for it in the comments section.
(nc)

Berries and Creme


Dramatic Chipmunk

Window Art

Working exclusively in white, Korean-born artist Nanan's nature-themed window art is currently decorating five different storefronts in downtown Manhattan (see below for locations) through 30 June 2007. Her delicate patterns draw "attention to the threshold between interior and exterior," adding spiderweb-like detail to planes of glass. Check out her illustration work for the likes of MTV, adidas, the W Hotel and other stores here. (tk)

Super Post It Mario

An brilliant street artist decided to turn a normal pole into a work of art, using colored pieces of paper. It is a reference to Nintendo's latest release of Super Paper Mario for the Wii.
This masterpiece can be found in the streets of Seattle. (tk)
Thanks to Techeblog for checking this.

super exclusive

Because exclusive just doesn't cut it anymore Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann created Hotel Everland, the world's most exclusive hotel with just one room.

It features:
- tasteful vinyl collection with player
-i-Pod Connector/Airtunes
-Wlan for free web surfing
-Leipzig special: Mini with a parking space at Hotel Everland

Price per night: €222

current locations include Yverdon (CH), Burgdorf (CH), Leipzig (DE), Paris (FR)
(tk)

Window Shopping 2.0

Window shopping just got pricier: Ralph Lauren launched a 24-hour interactive window in London on Wednesday, giving customers the opportunity to shop by touching a wide screen monitor outside the company's flagship London store.
Ralph Lauren launched a similar window in New York last year during the U.S. Open. The larger window in London is tailored to the Wimbledon tournament, and will come down after the tournament's close in early July.
Models in Ralph Lauren outfits are projected onto a 78 inch (200 centimeter) lightweight touch foil screen applied directly to the glass.
By touching the model wearing a shawl cardigan over her dress, for example, shoppers will be guided using electronic touch sensory technology to a page adding the cardigan to their digital shopping cart. To get the dress itself, press the arrow and three new images appear, including one highlighting the dress. (tk)

clean city

Business Week reports that Sao Paulo is the first city in the world with absolutely no outdoor advertising. The city passed a law banning all billboards. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. No Adshels, no 48-sheets, no nothing.
In September last year, the city's populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the "visual pollution" caused by the city's 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising. The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city's streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath. (tk)

caught in the act

A new wireless device, called the eyebox ($1000) lets advertisers know when you look at their billboards. It is made by xuuk and is a palm-size video camera surrounded by infrared light-emitting diodes. It can record eye contact with 15-degree accuracy at a distance of up to 33 feet. A simple glance from a passerby scores an impression, providing a tally that enables new Google-like measurement metrics that real-world advertisers could only dream about until recently. The eyebox2 offers an automated method to find hot spots of eye activity in the real world, and also to assess the effectiveness of specific ads. Thanks to Wired's Dan Skeen for putting it out there. (tk)

Maker Faire: Part 2

As promised, please find the second part of this years Maker Faire video footage (supplied by Cool Hunting) below. It features Mister Jalopy, a potential a brilliant marketer, who shows us his urban guerrilla movie theatre. A homemade DIY portable projector, Jalopy can take the movies anywhere with his trusty tricycle. Also check out the serious robot battle at the end! (tk)

local legend

It looks like Nic Hill from Underdog Pictures is at it again. Our local San Francisco legend, who is responsible for the international independent hit documentary Piece By Piece, a film about San Francisco graffiti, is at it again.
This time, he is doing an exclusive documentary on one of the most amazing phenomenons since the inception of the Internet itself: Wikipedia. It will be called Truth In Number: The Wikipedia Story, and you can follow the making-of of Truth In Numbers online as Nic and his crew are putting up new videos whenever they hit a new city around the world where they meet Wikipedians, or follow founder Jimmy Wales on his seminars and speeches.
make sure to watch the trailer below.
Here is the link to the official Wikipedia site: http://wikidocumentary.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
(tk)

VLES

Really sweet stuff over here - vLES - the super realistic virtual Lower East Side of NYC!
vLES wants to send you there now to give you a head start. You can create a little person and then walk right into faithfully recreated virtual versions of legendary LES venues and see real bands play. And if you’re in a band, this is where you can get yourself heard.
(tk)

3D Virtual/Real World Hybrid

Techcrunch had this really interesting posting today about 3D virtual world and real world crossover applications and what they allow users to do.
I was amazed when I saw the Photosynth video of Blaise Aguera y Arcas during his TED Talk, see below.
The idea is to take many pictures of a given thing or area and combine them into a 3D image. Fly around it, zoom in whatever. The results are jaw-droppingly beautiful. The BBC also just announced a partnership with Microsoft; they’ve launched a new site using Photosynth technology that will show 3D photographic representations of historic sites around the UK (Ely Cathedral, Burghley House, the Royal Crescent, Bath, the Scottish Parliament buildings and Blackpool Tower Ballroom). For now, though, Photosynth only works on Windows machines.
Thanks Techcrunch! And make sure to check out the awesome BMW commercial at the end of the video showing the brilliant, zero emission, no compromise, production ready Hydrongen 7 Series! (tk)

Maker Faire

One of the more unique events that happened for only the second time, was this year's Maker Faire, put on by MAKE Magazine.
Check out the video below (courtesy of Cool Hunting), because this is an awesome event, and MAKE also just won "Best Special Event" Award from Folio Magazine! Congratulations!
Part 2 coming soon, so stay tuned ... (tk)

Live Video Ads

Live Video Ads take the concept of experiential marketing online.
The concept of generating attention on the spot with product samples or events has already been popular since a while. Now marketers are starting to move this popular tactic online, generating attention with video cameras on location, integrating consumers and passerby’s into the advertisement action. These video ads are than edited on the spot and are fed directly to the web.
To promote the horror movie “The Number 23,” New Line Cinema sent street teams to bars and events across the country with a confession booth and a video camera. Visitors than had to describe their obsessions, but did not have to mention their name or show their face. The videos were edited on the spot and sent online. When Web surfers opened pages with the New Line ads, they could watch the most current videos showing people like them confessing that they are obsessed with a certain pop star or food. A former bar tender even confessed that she used to put eye drops in the beer of customers. The confessions were also posted on a YouTube channel dedicated to the movie. Check out a sample video below.

Trend Impact:
So far there is not much life video footage online. Although 50 percent of all American households are now on broadband Internet connections, local Internet traffic can make streaming video arrive more slowly. With life footage it is also much harder to remove boring or inappropriate content. But the concept of life video ads is persuading, especially since more people will watch video content on their cell phones. The availability and interaction with online content becomes a more and more important part of life for today’s consumer. Tomorrows consumer might even expect the to be surrounded by available online content wherever they go. People are used to not only interact in real life, but also embrace real time communication via various mobile messaging and online tools.

Thanks to CScout for this report!

(tk)

trend tent

We here at Guerrilla Sushi love trends, and this one might just be the freshest thing in regards to urban outdoors: The Parking Car Tent!
It helps urban souls escape the great outdoors by camping much closer to home in the concrete canyons of our modern metropolitan areas, while blending in seamlessly with our environment.
It could also be a nice chance to create some extra attention especially when partnering with Rebar Group, who are doing neat things like this:
(tk)

too cool for school

Since the idea of branding pretty much started in Britain, just like good advertising, Britons would have expected just a little bit more out of the £400,000 spent on developing the logo for the 2012 London Olympics. And judging from what I can see with my own eyes, they are absolutely right - hence outraged Brits have started an online petition to have the logo changed ASAP.
Pretty neat to witness what branding can do to people, and their different levels of interpreting a brand or it's meaning.
Here is what others had to say/do about their relationships with brands:


(tk)

Armchair Activists Unite!

'Tool for armchair activists' is a machine for remote rants and protests. Thanks to its embedded mobile telecommunication device, the machine is able to receive incoming sms messages and speak them out loud through its powerful megaphone.

Together with MTV, Troika designed a two weeks'campaign around the Tool for Armchair Acivists to raise awareness for last year's Europe Music Awards in Copenhagen.

Some of the life changing messages submitted thus far:

1.Jeg er sjov... Jeg snakker.
I am funny... I talk.

2.god røv i de sorte bukser!
good ass in the black trousers!

3. Til folket i danmark, har i nogen sinde tænkt over meningen med livet, hvor vi kommer fra og om vi kan bruges til noget ?
To the people in Denmark, have you ever considered the meaning of life, where we come from and if we are of any use?

4.Køb en stor pølse til din kæreste
Buy a large sausage to your sweetheart

5. muHaha Haha muHaha Haha Haha HahaHahaHahaHahaHaha.

(al)

naming 2.0

For all those who have the hardest time finding a name for their almost newborn child, here is a solution - check out Nymbler.
Nymbler is a smart baby-name guide that responds to your personal taste. Just choose a few names that appeal to you or let Nymbler offer ideas.
Should come in handy for "some" of us here at GuerrillaSushi!

(tk)

discover

After Pandora and Last.fm (which was just acquired by CBS) I came across this really cool candidate to discover new music, called Burst Labs.
Burst Labs lets you define which mood you are in to present you with fresh new music. It's really sweet, and presented in a soothing, organic, and liquid looking interface that isn't overwhelming or makes you feel that you might constantly miss out on something else.
One can either pick a song after just defining "Confident" as the criteria, or go really deep into it so that the criteria chain might look like this: Confident - melodic - cheerful - festive - inspirational - insistent. Then you end up with a song called Modern Mile, by Daniel Holter and Michael Standal.
Try it out, it's a bunch of fun, however, it remains a discovery service, so you won't get the whole song due to licensing issues, just a taste ...
(tk)

public enemy

Hipoqih, some front runners in Galicia, Spain, have come up with a pretty neat service to market yourself by allowing the world to follow your footsteps when you use their software.
When you install their little plugin on your GPS enable PDA or cell phone people can use Google maps to track your whereabouts in real time.
It is also a fantastic way to surprise people by checking in on where they are without having to ask them first. The video below has a couple of cool examples of how to make use of the service!


(tk)

green computing

Looks like HP is a trend setter in the PC manufacturing industry by launching a green desktop.

Their RP5700 got a Gold award from EPEAT because it is made of 95% recycleable components and it's internal chassis can be taken apart by hand without special tools. To meet the European Union's tight regulations, toxic and hazardous materials have been eliminated and both the plastic casing and external cardboard packaging source a percentage of post–consumer waste.

Similar to the LEED rating system for buildings, and now mandated for use in 95% of all government procurement of electronics, EPEAT grants bronze, silver and gold status at the product level.

The typical Mac or PC laptop is designed to last 2-3 years, while the RP5700 has a life expectancy of 5 years. In environmental impact terms, extending the useful life of a PC is a significant lever to reducing emissions during use, and energy burned during end-of-life disposal or recycling.

Thanks HP, for starting something meaningful!

(tk)

Ambient Media - Ocean Views

Upon walking down the stairs at the Powell Street Muni Station in San Francisco, you are greeted by some drawing in the sand, notifying you of Parkmerced Apartment Homes, in a part of San Francisco with ocean views. While we're not going to call "shenanigans" for false advertising, there's a sense of irony here in that this imagery immediately makes you feel warm, yet Ocean Beach isn't exactly considered a "warm" beach on the West Coast. In their defense, anything in San Francisco with grass and views is considered wonderful, so they're worth checking out.
(nc)

reacting

Reactee has announced the launch of a line of interactive t-shirts that combine fashion, SMS and activism through “shirts that text back”.

You can essentially send an SMS to a t-shirt and also receive them while at a club, conference, televised sports game... Reactee allows users to create t-shirts that include a personalized message such “Support Guerrilla Sushi” that is then complimented by a unique keyword such as SUSHI on the shirt. People who see the shirt can then respond to it by sending the keyword via SMS to 41411. In return senders receive a custom text message response created by the T-Shirt creator.

Users can create text alert lists to communicate with those interested in their causes. Additionally, users can make their designs public and include them in the Reactee gallery of shirts that have received the most text messages.

(tk)

A Blip on the Radar

Blip.tv believes that the world is fundamentally changing as it becomes easier and easier for individuals and small groups of people to create their own videos. Their mission is to make this even easier by taking care of all the problems a budding videoblogger, podcaster or Internet TV producer would run into. They take care of the servers, the software, the workflow, the advertising and the distribution, so your focus can be on that sweet, sweet creativity. (al)

Slang Guide

Supermarket chain Tesco in the UK gave out little guides to their "older" employees in order to better understand and communicate with their "younger" colleagues and customers. The guide is being tried in 1500 stores nationwide and is an incentive from Tesco's PR department that, if it goes well, will be implemented in all stores.

It's a lesson for all of us, and key phrases in the guide include:

Bad: Good (but this can also mean bad. When in doubt, just nod).

How’s it hanging’?: How are you today?

Laters: Cheerio, goodbye.

Minging: Ugly, unattractive.

Phat: Wicked (in the good sense), cool.

Slammin’: Pleasing to the eye.

Talk to the hand: I’m not listening.

Wack: Weak, boring.

Cheerio!

(tk)