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"Finding Paths Through the Worlds Photos", Blade Runner & Pseudo-Ghosts?

Finding Paths Through the Worlds Photos (via webware.com) is a stunning example of stitching together collections of 2d photos and navigating them in 3d.I can’t help but be reminded of the scene from Blade Runner where the main character takes what appears to be a 2d photo, enhances and looks around a corner (or similar). I always thought that special effect failed - how would we ever pull that off… But, this demo is creeping up on that idea.Separately, because the demo stitches together lots of different photos from different sources, there are several examples of people quickly appearing & disappearing as the narrator navigates the 3d space. This is another example of an effect I’ve seen where you can visit a place and find traces of who was there before - there are some iPhone applications that let you do this with notes and photos. Are we assembling technology stacks to make our own pseudo-ghosts?

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FiveRuns

I haven’t even noted anything different here - but on Oct 1st ‘07, I joined FiveRuns as their VP of Development and Technology. A lot is brewing there, and the fruits of of our work will be visible soon.

Recently, I’ve begun to blog there as well. On occasion, I’ll link through from here to the recent blog posts. This time there’s two posts. My first post was simple look at our product development process in terms of feedback loops: FiveRuns Development - Feedback Loops. As a side note, ever since Tim Tischler and I had a great discussion about scrum and how he saw it as feedback loops, I now see the issue in terms of open and closed feedback loops; one side effect is that I end up abstracted from any particular brand of approach (e.g. scrum), and more able to pick and choose how best to find and close the open feedback loops. The second post was a comment on using CMS’s as part of development: What If: Content Management & Software Development.

Regarding FiveRuns, I’m thrilled to be @ FiveRuns (going on five months now); the team is incredible and I’m glad to be part of it. Stay tuned as we produce some great stuff.

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An interesting pattern to make a brief pitch

I had an interesting discussion with Kelly Looney today regarding positioning. Based on his experience, (as I interpret it )positioning starts with identifying and sharing a world-view and then describing what you do (of benefit), in the context of that world-view.

For me, it seems an interesting pattern to use to compose a simple pitch of an idea (e.g. for a startup). So, here's some attempts to try that pattern out:

(worldview) Desktop apps and Web-based apps will co-exist for the foreseeable future. The web-based application market is strong + beyond conventional desktop browser access, access continues to improve (e.g. iPhone and other mobile web devices). At the same time, there is a resurgence in elegant desktop applications for the Mac - and their ease of use and aesthetics are unbeatable. Right now, it's a frequent forced commitment to choose (for a particular function) between working on the desktop or in the clouds. The longer this goes on, the more important it will be to banish that artificial choice - and allow both transparently.

(benefit) We build productivity applications that transparently offer the best for your use regardless of whether your are on a Mac or via the web - we take care of making everything work together.

(worldview) There are often repeated patterns (e.g of activity, thought, etc.) that occur across many disciplines. Recognition and sharing of those patterns will have some unknown and unexpected benefits.

(benefit) We have developed an open community system where patterns are documented, explained, discussed, organized and connected to actual uses in the real world.

Nice.