Watch Cudder perform the catchy anthem off his sophomore hit album Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. It’s definitely one of his best performances to date; I’ve never seen him so happy and full of joy before and its totally infectious through his crooning chorus. (Yep, that’s collaborator Dot Da Genius on the keys.)
[Via DatNewCudi]
Using highly effective visuals in augmented reality animation, BBC’s Hans Rosling tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers, in just four minutes. More specifically, he plots life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, and the visually splendid data reveals interesting rises and drops in correspondence to major historical events such as world wars. Go on mash play and educate yourself.
[Via Gawker]
Here’s an unsolved mystery as old as time: blindfolded humans cannot walk straight. If you blindfold a person and tell them to walk straight, that person will quickly begin to walk in circles and not even know it! Says Robert Krulwich in an NPR report, “Humans, apparently, slip into circles when we can’t see an external focal point, like a mountain top, a sun, a moon. Without a corrective, our insides take over and there’s something inside us that won’t stay straight.” Though many scientists have attempted to figure out what exactly that something is, no one has cracked it just yet. Watch the fun animation describing the strange phenomenon in the video above.
[Via NPR]
Can’t get enough of BBC’s Bang Goes the Theory series. This time host Jem Stansfield travels to the Solar Furnace Research Facility in Southern France to witness the incredible power generated by highly concentrated sunlight. At the core of the “sunshine” temperature can rise to 6,300 degrees Fahrenheit and is powerful enough to almost instantly burn through wood and even melt a rock! Watch a dangerously cool demonstration above.
[Via Gizmodo]
The Fluid Dress was designed by Minneapolis artist Charlie Bucket. This highly inventive and unconventional piece of garment was constructed with 600 feet of knitted tubing. In order to keep the juices flowing, the wearer must strap on a rather hefty backpack contraption; the backpack houses a pump that pushes the neon-enhanced fluid into the dress’ tubing. Bucket acknowledges that the Fluid Dress is a “ridiculous clothing experiment”, but it nevertheless makes for intriguing wearable art. Head over to his Flickr page to see some construction images.
[Via CasualProfanity; BoingBoing]
The BendDesk, a research projected created by members of the Media Computing Group, is an attempt to converge digital and physical workspaces into one desk. The concept desk features a curved multitouch display and supports up to ten touch points. The display can bring up digital content like documents, photos, or videos. And thanks to its ergonomically impressive design, the digital desk doubles as a physical desk; it can easily support a laptop, paperwork, pens and pencils on the horizontal surface. For now the BendDesk is merely an in-house concept project, so don’t expect to see something like finding a place in your room any time soon. The best we can do is watch it in all its futuristic glory in video demonstration form above.
[Via Engadget; MediaComputingGroup]
Who knew the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist would come in so much handy 37 years after its theatrical release? Watch Linda Blair perform Willow’s smash hit!
And on a related note, in case you missed it, check out Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young perform a unique rendition of the catchy song after the break. Continue reading Watch The Exorcist’s Linda Blair whip her hair back and forth in this unlikely mashup
You might know him as the six-time Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest champion, but Takeru Kobayashi caught a new kind of attention this month when he agreed to eat as many bananas as he can in one minute to celebrate the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns for Wii. The pre-release (marketing) stunt took place in Toronto and you can watch Kobayashi do his thing in the banana eating challenge video embedded above. It’s on like Donkey Kong! Oh wait–can I say that?
[Via Kotaku]
The Lonely Island–aka The Dudes, aka SNL’s Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer–were recently appointed “Creative Directors” for Swedish imported ROKK Vodka. Apparently they will be “responsible for the brand’s consumer engagement, which includes creating digital material to market the brand and help introduce ROKK, the premium priced, freeze filtered vodka.” Says head Dude Andy Samberg: “Most people ask us to just make videos, but Diageo asked us to be Creative Directors, which sounded fancier. Anyone who’s seen our videos knows we’re fancy guys, so we said yes. And they also gave us a bunch of ROKK Vodka, which we enjoy drinking with our mouths.”
Watch the group’s first “ROKK video short” above. Additional content is expected to hit the ‘Net soon. Full PR after the break.
[Via PRNewswire] Continue reading The Lonely Island become ROKK Vodka ‘Creative Directors’; watch their first ad here
The official music video for the first single off The Black Eyed Peas’ next album is now available for our viewing pleasure. The video for “The Time (Dirty Bit)” continues the 8-bit theme streak by featuring will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo, and Fergie morphing in and out of pixelated form. If you’re a fellow technologically savvy nerd like me (admit it and be proud!), I’m sure you will catch the BlackBerry Playbook make a number of brief appearences in the video. Each member of the Peas holds up the unreleased tablet and focuses it on their respective pixelated doppelgangers to reveal animated versions of themselves roaming in the real world–much like a QR code-assisted augmented reality app would accomplish. Anyway, enjoy the music video to this thumping single. The Beginning drops November 30.
[Via Dipdive]
Community series creator Dan Harmon spilled the beans that this season’s Christmas episode is going to be “wall-to-wall stop motion animat[ed]” back in late September. And here’s proof that the man was not lying! In the episode preview above you can clearly see that the entire Greendale gang has received the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer treatment just in time for the Christmas special. According to Harmon the episode will deal with “Abed’s search for the meaning of Christmas.” The episode “looks into what makes him different from other people.” He says, “Everything that happens on this episode is part of the actual show and will change the characters, and yet there are wonderful, fantastic holiday things happening in it.” Can’t wait! Thus far Community‘s holiday episodes have been the most memorable; there’s no denying that “Epidemiology” (the Halloween zombie episode) kicked major ass. The stop motion Christmas ep will surely impress. Speaking of which… be sure to look in the gallery below to get a closer look at Shirley, Jeff, Britta, Abed, and the rest of the gang in animated form. Senior student Chang is an Asian snowman!
Community airs Thursday nights at 8PM on NBC. “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” is penned in for a 12/9 air date.
Update: Head over to EW if you want to see some more Community stop motion goodness. In addition to some sneak peeks you’ll also find a couple behind-the-scenes videos that show how much effort goes into making a claymation special. It’s intensive work!
The young MC is back at it again. Diggy Simmons has collaborated with director Phil the god once more to fashion out this far too short music video. Watch Diggy freestyle over a Mobb Deep instrument. I’m telling you, this kid’s got game, look out. His second mixtape released in early September; download Airborne here. It features the Lupe Fiasco & Pharrell assisted track “Oh Yeah!” Been slacking? Download his first mixtape The First Flight here.
[Via RapUp]