Soon to be released in Japan for the iPhone, and then internationally. The  Sekai Camera App is a marvel to behold. The developers have come up with an actual real world use for Augmented Reality (AR). The app allows the tagging of scenes, you know… strip joints, opium dens, absinthe bars, brothels, ok ok … just kidding… NOT! Well anyways, some cool stuff to say the least. Put text tags and picture tags on areas that you have been to. Then when someone else points their camera with the Sekai Camera app running at the same scene, they will see your tags floating in the image on the LCD screen. Much cooler then carving your name in a tree or tagging a wall with some graffiti (that is so yesterday). The main website is here: Sekai Camera (japanese) They say it will be released soon in Japan and everywhere else shortly after. The company also plans on releasing an Android version in the months to follow. Will it be free? I have no idear. I posted a bit ago about a similar Augmented Reality technology here at Paperflame. Check out the vid of the Sekai Camera in action. The only problem I predict is the abuse of advertisers and spammers cluttering up all of the pretty scenes. Can you see it now? Your pointing your camera at the Great Pyramid and see an advertisement for Coca-Cola telling you your thirsty because your standing in the middle of a desert? It could be a cool job though, “Air Tagging” popular places for companies. Sign me up. On another note, what’s up with the guys hair in the vid!?

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As of this post there are 72 days left to get your designs uploaded to www.minispace.com (you know, the car MINI). Well, over at their website, creative folk like you can register as members. Signing up allows you to get involved in creative projects and competitions, get involved in MINI events and parties, and allows you to get featured with your creative work and meet others like yourself. I have not submitted my design as of yet, but plan on doing so before the deadline is up. The design topic for this contest is to reinterpret the topic “Electrified” for the electric version of the MINI – (MINI E). They are looking for a design for the background for the minispace.com website. Gert Hildebrand, the director of MINI Design along with his team will be choosing their favorite design – The winner gets a brand spanking new Macbook Air. You might think a Mac MINI might be more appropriate, but lets face it… I think we would all prefer the Macbook Air! Go ahead and surf on over to www.minispace.com to find out the specifics. Below is one of the top voted images so far. The design is by a guy named Reno Lamotte-Pongerard (yeah he’s from France).

MINI Space Design Contest Submission – Reno Lamotte-Pongerard

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It’s out, just about… sweet, I mean “suite”. Adobe has readied their awesome Creative Suite CS4. The newest CS offers even tighter integration and enhanced productivity. As you may or may not know, the new suite integrates Flash across the whole product line. Designers can look for better work flow among a plethora of other changes. Adobe plans to start shipping CS4 in October 2008. CS4 pricing starts around $1600. There are a bunch of different editions available at different costs as I’m sure you all know. You can see them here. Adobe really has an amazing set of tools. Where would the world be without them?

Adobe Creative Suite CS4

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I was just notified by a friend about the release of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. This is pretty fresh meat. He said he found out within 10 minutes of the release. He has been waiting with baited breath. Well, what are we looking at? 21 MP, Full HD Video for about 30 minutes at 1080P.. yes “P” (that means Progressive to all you technophobes).

Included of course is a 3″ LCD with Live View while taking stills, OR VIDEO. The 3.9 FPS continuous shooting is a little disappointing but it can at maximum take up to 310 Large JPG images in a single burst with a UDMA card. The ISO 100-6400 (expansion from 50 up to 25,600) noise killing capabilities are pretty astounding. The one thing that really stands out to me and makes this camera a purchase that I would have a hard time not making is the fact that the DOF Video capabilities of this camera will be great… Just think, use a full frame DSLR lens to shoot video. I can’t wait to see the sample footage (update – found some sample footage, if you are inclined you can download some actual footage – 276 MB here). No need for expensive DOF adapters which are needed for normal HD Video cams. This camera looks like a ton of fun. I could go on and on, but it would be easier to give you a link to dpreview to see the full specs. Not that I don’t want to continue babbling about this camera, but I have tutorials to make for you peeps!

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Here at PaperFlame, I try to keep everything related to the Art, Graphics, Design and blah blah blah world. I try, I really do. We all know that tattooing has to be one of the oldest forms of purposeful art around (art for the sake of art), thus I am including the following story.

At an art show called ShContemporary which is Shanghai’s biggest art show. One of the exhibits was supposed to be of 8 pigs tattooed with logos of Louis Vuitton and Walt Disney characters. The tattooed art is by a Belgian artist named Wim Delvoye so the story goes.

Wim Delvoye

Well it ends up that the swine exhibition was banned by the Chinese authorities. Something to do with animal rights (in china? Don’t they eat dogs?). Go figure. So in the place of all the graffitied pigs, the artist – Delvoye has decided to display a living man instead – named Tim Steiner. Tim has tattooed artwork on his back by Delvoye. The tattoo in question took 35 hours to create and the “tattooee” had no say in what was to be tattooed on his own back.

Now I hear ya… you say, SO WHAT!? Hold on, hold on.. it doesn’t end there. What is completely over the top here is that the tattoo itself (including skin) has been sold for the sum of $215,000 to some collector… get this, the collector has the right to remove the tattooed skin from his back when the man dies. Steiner is also under contract to display the tattooed art on his back at certain events.

The whole thing makes me think of the line “It puts the lotion in the basket” from the movie Silence of the Lambs. It all seems kinda sick. I have to add though, I think it’s kinda neat that there are people in this world that will pay exhorbinent amounts of money for art… of any kind.

Louisa Lim/NPR

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