Images of Venus

The Soviet exploration of Venus, from 1961 to 1985, is the largest effort ever undertaken to study another planet. The fundamentals of interplanetary spacecraft design and remote sensing were first realized in these missions. Successes included 3 atmospheric probes, 10 landings, 4 orbiters, 11 flybys or impacts, and 2 balloon probes in the clouds. Much of what is known today about our neighboring planet was discovered by these missions. Check out http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm and http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_DigitalImages.htm (for photos of the surface)

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Classic Commodore 64 games online

Now you can play those old Commodore 64 games without having to dig through your garage trying to find cables and hardware - http://c64s.com/toplist/ has many of the most popular C-64 games in a form you can play online for free.

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Colourising black and white photos

Recolored is a software application that helps you with the otherwise difficult and time consuming task of colourising black and white photos. Based on the latest developments in computer assisted image colourisation, Recolored makes it possible for anyone to achieve professional looking results. To add color to a photo, all you have to do is add markings to the different regions of the image, indicating how it should be colourised. Then click the Colorize button and let the software do the rest. Currently in a beta or "Test" stage, Recolored is available for download free of charge for non-commercial use. A commercial version will be released in early 2006. Try it yourself at http://www.recolored.com/

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Strandbeest

Theo Jansen creates Strandbeests - articulated skeletons made from plastic tubes. These huge, skeletal structures are powered by the wind and can walk independently. Theo plans to populate beaches with them ... watch some of the amazing video footage of these lumbering creations in action at http://www.strandbeest.com/

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Ferrofluid videos

Ferrofluid is an amazing form of liquid metal developed by NASA. It responds to electromagnetic fields and can be "sculpted" in amazing ways - check out the video of ferrofluid being coerced into impossible shapes by magnets at http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/?p=130

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Group Shot

Microsoft Research have developed a free application called "Group Shot" which helps you create a perfect group photo out of a series of group photos. With Group Shot you can select your favorite parts in each shot of the series and Group Shot will automatically build a composite image. Download it for free at http://research.microsoft.com/projects/GroupShot/

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The World's Smallest Political Quiz

Are you a Libertarian? Conservative Right-Wing? Find out by taking the very brief test at http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html

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pixel2life tutorials

The Pixel2Life tutorial indexing service and search engine is completely free to use, and completely free for Webmasters to submit their sites. The goal of this indexing service is to provide an easy to use website for visitors looking to improve their design or programming skills, or look for new ideas to help them develop their skills. You can find tutorials on software like Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Programming, Website Development and more... check out http://www.pixel2life.com/

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BlinkList

BlinkList is a very fast, powerful and easy to use your online bookmarking manager. Forget about folders... BlinkList works the same way the human mind operates. So, the next time you want to save a link to a great site, article, or blog, just blink it and tag it (mark it with multiple keywords and phrases) so you can quickly find your information again. Using tagging, a tag manager, and the ability to star your favorites (tags, links and users) and links, BlinkList offers a far superior way to save, share, and access all the content you discover online. Sign up for free at http://www.blinklist.com/

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Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk alows you to create and manage to-do lists online. Setup tasks and appointments using intuitive date entry (like "5pm next monday") and the site can send you reminders by email or instant messaging. Check out http://www.rememberthemilk.com

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PhotoNotes

PhotoNotes.org is a free public information resource for the Internet photographic community. Creator NK Guy found that some of the most useful information on camera gear tends to be from actual users who post information online. As well as a wealth of resources for photographers, the site contains what the creator calls "the most comprehensive photographic glossary available on the Internet, with 1483 definitions and over 101413 words of text.". Visit http://photonotes.org

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15 New Tech Concepts for 2006

Scientific and technological breakthroughs can take years to develop, but when they leave the lab and enter the world at large, word spreads quickly. Take a look at the advances you'll be hearing about in the coming year in Popular Mechanic's "15 New Tech Concepts for 2006" at http://www.popularmechanics.com/specials/features/2076876.html.

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American Scientist online

American Scientist magazine has an online service incorporating the full content of the print magazine and additional online-only features. Check out http://www.americanscientist.org/

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Treehugger

TreeHugger is a fast-growing web magazine, dedicated to "everything that has a modern aesthetic yet is environmentally responsible." The site offers the latest news, reviews and recommendations for modern yet green products and services. Check out http://www.treehugger.com/

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Wise Geek

Wise Geek is a website that offers straight forward answers to thousands of common questions. Want to know about radiology? Encryption? How to Remove Dust? Check out http://www.wisegeek.com/index.htm

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Subservient Chicken

Make the chicken obey your typed commands! Check out http://www.subservientchicken.com/

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Goocam

Goocam is a service which searches Google for all publicly-viewable webcams and then uses Google Maps to show you where those camras are - you can click on each camera and the image stream opens in a little floating window - very cool! Check out http://www.butterfat.net/goocam/

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Search for images... by sketch!

Retrievr is a service that allows you to search the flickr online photo storage system for images. Rather than search by keywords, however, retrievr lets you "sketch" an image to be used as a reference while searching. The technology is currently in an early development phase but you can try it out at http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/

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The Google Pack

Google Pack is a free collection of essential software from Google and other companies. The software in the Google Pack helps you browse the web faster, remove spyware and viruses, organize your photos, and more. Google Pack also takes the hassle out of downloading, installing, and updating software. You can download and install the entire Google Pack in just a few clicks. And the included Google Updater helps you discover new programs and keep your current software up to date. Download the Google Pack (currently XP only) for free from http://pack.google.com/

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Want to work on Bro Town?

As a graduate of South Seas Film & TV School I've kept in touch with the director over the years as the school has grown. The school now has a world-class animation course during which students have the opportunity to work on the hit animated series Bro Town. Most animation work in New Zealand is commissioned by international clients. Animation studios require people who can clean, in-between, keyframe, background, composite, shoot etc., and these people need to be highly skilled and versatile but more importantly, experienced. There is no room for on the job learning. Without this experience the job market is bleak for animators, no matter how talented. The South Seas Animation course addresses this exact need. It is the course for people who want to build a career in animation, both in New Zealand and overseas. If you're a good artist or have ever considered becomign an animator, check the course out at http://www.southseas.co.nz/

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Ferrit

Ferrit.co.nz "makes shopping easy by bringing together hundreds of thousands of new products in one website." It's not a store in itself (yet), it simply allows you to search for clothing, books, music, DVDs and so on and lists prices and New Zealand retailers for the resulting products. Give it a try at http://www.ferrit.co.nz/

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100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year

The BBC News website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stm has collated a list of "100 things we didn't know this time last year". For example, it's possible for a human to blow up balloons via the ear. A 55-year-old factory worker from China reportedly discovered 20 years ago that air leaked from his ears, and he can now inflate balloons and blow out candles.

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Million Dollar Homepage

21 year old Alex Tew from England needed a way to make money to pay for his university studies, so he came up with the idea of a web page called www.milliondollarhomepage.com

The idea: turn his homepage into a billboard made up of a million dots, and sell them for a dollar a dot to anyone who wants to put up their logo. A 10 by 10 dot square costs US$100.

He sold a few to his brothers and some friends, and when he had made US$1,000, he issued a press release.

That was picked up by the news media, spread around the Internet, and soon advertisers for everything from dating sites to casinos to real estate agents to The Times were putting up real cash for pixels, with links to their own sites.

By the time you read this he will have sold the last pixel... check out http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com

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Bananas!

Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal. You can find out more fascinating facts about bananas at http://www.finetuneyou.com/Bananas.html

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Falling Sand Game

The Falling Sand Game is an addictive little java applet that lets you control the flow of falling sand by drawing lines with your mouse. It's free and very addictive! Check out http://chir.ag/stuff/sand/ (Your browser needs to be able to display java applets)

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Ask the DJ

Ask the DJ is a Mac program that analyses beats to perform seamless transitions between music tracks. Like a real DJ, it matches beats and adapts tempos whenever needed so the music always flows, even when cross-fading between tracks with different speeds.
Ask the DJ also cuts unrhythmical intros and outros, and levels volume. Better yet, all this is done automatically. You just need to click Play and dance.
You can also export Ask the DJ's mix art to audio files suitable for burning audio CDs. Check out http://www.wildbits.com/askthedj/

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What's that song?

Now you can use the internet to help you identify music - all you need is a microphone. Tunatic (http://www.wildbits.com/tunatic/) takes a recorded music snippet and uploads it to the web where it is analysed against a database of song data and the name (if found) is returned to you. You can also use a companion program called Tunalyzer (http://www.wildbits.com/tunatic/tunalyzer.html) to scan your own music library and upload the audio "fingerprints" of each song, making Tunatic more accurate and comprehensive.

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Spaghetti mangling

Take some dry spaghetti, and bend it till it breaks. How many pieces do you end up with? It's rarely two, and that's puzzled scientists for years. Now two French physicists say the answer is related to elastic waves travelling along the pasta when dry spaghetti is bent and suddenly released at one end. This might not sound like an important discovery, but the researchers think their findings can be applied to civil engineering to make structures like buildings and bridges more stable. Learn more at http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=17

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Cute Overload

Cute Overload is a website devoted to cute images - the webmasters scour the internet for "cute" images as well as accepting submissions from visitors. If you like fluffy bunny rabbits wearing Christmas hats, this is the site for you - http://www.cuteoverload.com/

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