Asiajin

Here comes a new idea directly from Japan to make life on the web a little easier.

Llamerada, a Japanese web engineer, coded a Flickr mashup on AJAX interface. He announced the release today on his blog.

So what is this about?

The basic idea is to make search on Flickr more comfortable. Llamerada wanted to display as many as 16,000 photos in grid style (retrieved by Flickr’s API and based on Flickr tags), make use of Google Maps flavored AJAX interface and arrange similar photographs close to each other within the grid by using a self-developed algorithm.

The new service is named “TagGrid of Flickr Popular Tags”.

As can be seen on the screenshot, the overall view of tags comes to play in the box on the right hand side. However, various tags like “Japan”, “girls”, “animals”, “Ireland” etc. are wildly mixed together on the “map”. Some of the tags form a cloud, making them impossible to read.

Pictures tagged “animal”, for example, are grouped in the box on the left. In fact, browsing by tags is more comfortable this way. However, similar photos were not necessarily arranged next to each other when I tried out the application.

So some more work needs to be done to make this cool idea worthwile. There is no language or cultural barrier here so it is easy to check TagGrid out yourself.

Tags: Japan, New Service by Serkan Toto
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Even hardcore geeks might have never dreamt of something like this: An umbrella which is connected to the Internet!

This gadget was developed by researchers at Tokyo-based Keio University. The “Pileus” umbrella looks ordinary from the outside but actually is a quite clever piece of hardware.

The umbrella is able to display web sites on the canopy’s underside while walking around. In addition to a mobile projector the Pileus is equipped with a camera, Wi-Fi, GPS and a digital compass.

When you make pictures, the gadget lets you upload them to Flickr within minutes. Tagging is also possible.

(pictures courtesy of Pileus LLC)

Besides Flickr, the Pileus is also meant to work well with Google Earth. If you are lost somewhere, the umbrella’s GPS function and compass come into play. The Pileus can then display your surroundings in 3D via Google Earth and help you find back the way.

The hardware is now in its 3rd generation. What began as an art project turned into serious business. The makers of the Pileus founded an LLC of the same name aiming at commercializing the product as soon as possible.

Tags: Japan, Technology by Serkan Toto
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