Occasional Observations

Photosynth is simply the best thing to have come out of Redmond for years. It's fabulous. Simply put, it stitches together snapshots into a montage. It's not a new idea - but the first time this has been done properly with software.

Here's one I made earlier. I have a hard drive full of patchwork snaps that have just been waiting for the right software to come along. I'm already worried about using up my 2GB storage space...



What I love most of all is the pan and tilt opportunity. Anyone who even dabbles in digital photography should download and install Photosynth - it's an early Christmas present for me.

Labels: photos, tourism

My disbelief is slightly in suspense listening to the new album by ABC. Yes, that's right, the early 80s icons ABC, the band that sang Poison Arrow and The Look Of Love. Some 26 years after The Lexicon of Love, they're back with the sonic follow-up, Traffic.

Forget the diversion of Beauty Stab. Ignore the transgression of How To Be A Zillionaire. Just don't buy Up (although I did) and completely erase your memory banks of Alphabet City, Abcadabra and Skyscraping. Just buy The Lexicon and then forward to their fresh 2008 album, Traffic.

Listening to Traffic, it's like time stood still.

It's not just the sounds that got caught up in the timewarp, the website is pretty retro, too.

Martin Fry is 50 years old.

Labels: mp3, music

Noticed during my lunchtime browse around the shops that suddenly there are three new albums out from major recording artists with a circus theme:

• Take That's new album, called The Circus
• Britney Spears' new album, Circus
• Pink's new one, Funhouse

All that's missing is one from Erasure entitled Ringmaster.

Labels: mp3, music