Here's a cool exercise for bird watchers. Avian Sleuth: Call of the Wild is a series of interactive landscapes where, armed with your mouse, ears, and a pair of binoculars, you scower the bushes and trees trying to pinpoint the location of a variety of hidden birds. Invisible at first, you can try to identify them first by their call or more likely use the binoculars to scan the view and zoom in on the nearest bird shape. Once you focus the bird into a clear image, you can then look him up and correctly select the species from the list. With three difficulty levels, the game is fun for all ages. [More]

Among the hottest trends across the internet today is the YouTube explosion, websites that allow people to upload and watch home-made videos for free. There are over 200 companies currently trying to cash in on the hot trend. The most popular of them all is YouTube.com with over 100 million videos being watched by users each day, either through its main page or a feature that allows its videos to be displayed through personal blogs. YouTube is the current leader, but only with a 43% market share, with the rest of the market quickly being occupied by big names such as Google Video and Veoh that are serving up millions of videos on their own. The phenomenon’s rapid growth and popularity is so impressive that the question is now being asked; is YouTube.com the next evolution in television? [More]

One thing I ask of all my technologies is that if they can’t give me a long lifespan, then to at least offer up an entertaining end. This week my six year-old computer monitor did just that. I stepped out of the office to take a walk in the sun and when I came back and “woke” my computer up, it displayed everything in a vibrant pinkish-hue. The change was sudden and dramatic, like a “pink eye” infection. I only wish I could give my computer prescription eye drops to clear it up. [More]

[More]

Dreams of Flying is a gallery of creative photos that play out the fantasies of children who live at an invincible age and flight and super powers seem very possible. Its not just the trick of having the subjects lie on the ground to create the illusions, but the natural joy of the kids themselves who clearly are having a blast acting out each of the tableaus. Created by Jan Von Holleben. [More]

I'm guessing you have a water bottle sitting near you on your desk. Ever wonder what it would be like to live inside it? To sit inside and see what the world looks like from within? Life Inside A Water Bottle is a quicktime virtual reality, use your mouse to look around and explore a real view taken with a special camera from within a water bottle. You have a full 360 degree view. Photo by Thomas Mottl. [More]

With Katie Couric's doctored digital photos making headlines in entertainment news today, I thought you might be interested to know that many of the agencies that doctor magazine covers and celebrity photo spreads actually put their portfolios online in interactive before-and-after galleries. First you're shown the glossy, finished photo where the model has perfect skin and body tone, then simply move your mouse's curosor onto the picture to see the shocking original - cellulose, small breasts, gapped teeth, acne, skin creases, etc. [More]

Google Book Search now offers a collection of complete, scanned books formatted into pdf files, free for download. Books include Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Dante’s Inferno, and Aesop’s Fables. The titles represent books that have fallen into the public domain and so have no copyright conflict. Google has stated that their service is for “personal use only”. [More]

Professional video game players from across Canada will be gathering this weekend in Montreal to compete for the right to represent Canada in the World Cyber Games, the “Olympics of video games” in Monza, Italy in October where the prizes have reached $400,000 USD. [More]

RoboClaw is an eye-hand coordination challenge where you use the arrow keys on your keyboard to control a robotic arm and use it to pick up a blue ball and deposit it into a goal. The catch? The ball can't touch any of the walls or obstacles. Its not easy, the left and right arrow keys control the clockwise and counter-clockwise movements of the arm itself, while the up and down keys controls the clockwise and counter-clockwise movements of the elbow joint. You'll have to learn how to tuck that arm in on itself and find the angles to slip in and grab the ball, and then slip out with it untouched. [More]