In an effort to out Google google, Yell.com have launched a new amazing three dimensional map system that enable users to fly around their city like a superhero.

In a UK-first, the photo-realistic 3D maps were created from actual film footage shot from light aeroplanes using sophisticated aerospace technology, which is then merged with other film taken from ground level. They can be used for free on the Yell.com website, which is the online version of the Yellow Pages directory.

Click here for Yell 3D maps

You know, with today’s internet addicted kids, it can be really hard to get your viral noticed… So Lionsgate decided to use the power of a pretty girls and Chatroulette make their message well and truly heard, with this quality idea!

There’s also a great viral site at www.churchofstmarks.com (superb example of dodgy web design too!)

More at www.thelastexorcism.com

I know we have a few geektowners down in ol London town. You might want to pay a visit to Selfridges and have a look at this nifty 3D interactive window and Augmented Reality Tissot have installed in the shop’s window!

For those of you not in London, check out www.tissot.ch/reality to download the application at home and experience the Tissot Touch collection on your wrist.

AVATAR’S ‘TREE OF SOULS’

To mark the Blu-ray and DVD release of AVATAR – the biggest film of all time – and Earth Day 2010, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (TCFHE) is erecting a giant, interactive, replica ‘Tree Of Souls’ at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, London.  The visually spectacular exhibit will be live for three days between Saturday 24 – Monday 26 April and officially unveiled by STEPHEN LANG, who stars as Colonel Miles Quaritch in the film.

As the only tree of its kind ever created and the largest fibre optic installation in Europe, visitors will have the opportunity to ‘bring the tree to life’, manipulating its lights and colour by plugging their phones and iPods into the tree.  Also, to celebrate the 40^th Anniversary of International Earth Day, TCFHE will be planting a ‘real’ tree for every person who directly connects with it (part of a global initiative to plant a million trees worldwide).

The Tree of Souls – which plays a pivotal role in AVATAR - is a giant, moving, interactive tree, with deep spiritual significance to the Na’vi people inhabiting the film’s fictional universe, Pandora. Throughout the film, the characters directly interact with their world through the seeds of the tree and communicate with the biological network that exists throughout Pandora.

The UK’s ‘real-life’ Tree of Souls will be re-created using 20 miles of fibre optic branches.  Sensors within the tree’s trunk will change the colour and intensity of its glow in response to movements made by visitors to the tree.  Local Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks will allow members of the public to upload images and messages to a screen built into the tree, as well as being able to make social networking status updates with an Earth Day message, via their mobile phones.  In addition, by plugging portable music systems including iPods, Mp3 players and phones into the tree, it will glow and pulsate in time with the music being played.

Experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when the world’s only real-life Tree of Souls comes to London’s Speakers’ Corner this weekend from Saturday until Monday.

New iPhone

My guess would be, at this very moment, at least one Apple employee is becoming an ex-Apple employee, after this seeingly genuine prototype of the brand new iPhone was lost in a bar in Redwood City… And then handed in, not to Apple, but tech site Gizmondo… (The rest of Apple employees I suspect are cowering in corners as Steve Jobs hurls furniture around the office in a blind rage.)

After some close examination, including taking it apart, the phone (which was camouflaged in a case to look like an normal iPhone 3GS) appears to be the real deal.

New features include a front-facing video chat camera, Improved regular back-camera with flash (unfortunately, not the flash we all want on the iPhone, but still nice), a switch to Micro-SIM, improved display, and a bunch of changes to the layout and buttons.

Lots more photos and video over at Gizmondo.

Once again, TED2010 comes up with something brilliant as Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos new augmented-reality mapping technology from Microsoft.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas‘ background is as multidimensional as the visions he helps create. In the 1990s, he authored patents on both video compression and 3D visualization techniques, and in 2001, he made an influential computational discovery that cast doubt on Gutenberg’s role as the father of movable type.

He also created Seadragon (acquired by Microsoft in 2006), the visualization technology that gives Photosynth its amazingly smooth digital rendering and zoom capabilities. Photosynth itself is a vastly powerful piece of software capable of taking a wide variety of images, analyzing them for similarities, and grafting them together into an interactive three-dimensional space. This seamless patchwork of images can be viewed via multiple angles and magnifications, allowing us to look around corners or “fly” in for a (much) closer look. Simply put, it could utterly transform the way we experience digital images.

He’s now the architect of Bing Maps at Microsoft, where he leads a team of researchers and engineers with strengths in social media, computer vision and graphics. He joined Microsoft when Seadragon was acquired by Live Labs in 2006. Shortly after the acquisition of Seadragon, Blaise directed his team in a collaboration with Microsoft Research and the University of Washington, leading to the first public previews of Photosynth several months later. His TEDTalk on Seadragon and Photosynth in 2007 is rated one of TED’s “most jaw-dropping.”