Google never cease to amaze me. Yesterday they unveiled they plan a broadband network for the US that is 10 times faster than what we will have in Australia with the new/improved NBN... and that they want to buy/resell power.

Now they have unveiled one of the greatest toys ever – a virtual glass elevator that lets you fly around the world, just like the one in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Made by a few of the engineers in their spare time, the Liquid Galaxy project is an interactive booth with wraparound LCD screens. The screens show synchronised views from Google Earth and you can use a six-axis mouse to move your way through air and water.  Very Cool.

Font shops pick for 2010 - for my pick I think slab serifs are going to be in for the year, expect to see this more online and in print. Check out the complete list here.

Meet the new Burton Method, currently holding the accolade of the best board constructed – ever. This thing is the lightest, most responsive board on the planet. The Burton doctors stripped everything down with surgical precision to achieve this and constructed the Method from finely woven carbon strands and S2 fibreglass which is what makes it as light as a feather and as tough as nails. The base is also Teflon coated meaning it will soak up more wax, which equates to less friction and more speed. Nice! But the doctors didn’t stop there. They added super sharp steel titanium alloy edges to carve up the mountains.

It looks like some kind of weird walking robot – but it is actually one of the latest toys out there which even F1 drivers practice on, when they are not in their real cars. The claimed near real 100% realistic steering and transformer, it will throw its driver around just like they have really spun out on the chicanes, and then some. If only there were a simulator to recreate that F1 driver lifestyle…

www.cruden.com

I visit fontshop.com often as a source of inspiration when looking to create a new identity or refresh a corporate piece. Fonts are  a vital ingredient in the design world, so this 'best of' page from the fontshop blog is a great wrap up of the year. They also have a printed font book of all their available fonts - a must have for any serious designer.

Somewhere is not just any shop, this is a palace filled with Swedish and local independent clothing, right here in Melbourne!

Somewhere is the sister store of Somedays in Sydney Surry Hills run by a Swedish couple. With names like 'Tiger of Sweden', 'Cheap Monday' and 'Björn Borg', you've gotta love what these guys are doing; bringing inspiring clothing concepts to our shore, so that we don't need to look and dress like one another. The clothes are witty and it reminds you to not take yourself too seriously.

The new space is where Don't come store/gallery used to be (hence little hard to find), I'm sure it's worth the effort though. Visit the website here.

Somewhere
29/314 Little Collins St
Melbourne VIC 3000

I discovered today whilst running Windows 7 on my mac using the latest version of Parallels 5 (which is a huge improvement over the earlier versions) that you can actually turn off Windows features like Internet Explorer, Windows Search, that Gadget Platform thing and other media features - the ones that were really annoying in any earlier Window OS. How clever of Microsoft to do that for us - nice!

Ok so here's how you do it -
1.    Go to Start > Control Panel > select Programs & Features.
2.    In the left hand side of the pane, click Turn Windows Features On Or Off.
3.    From here, scroll through the list and just select or deselect the check boxes to enable or disable those annoying Windows features and then click OK.

In August of this year I had the great opportunity to work alongside Award winning Director Les Sharpe on a 31/2 minute video for Deloitte Granular Market Segmentation.

Aqua Media's largest video production to date, incorporated the collaboration of a great team that all delivered on their individual disciplines to provide a master stroke to the client.  We covered multiple location from the dunes at Anna Bay in Newcastle to the Sydney Observatory each providing their own challenges.

The iPhone is aways staying close my heart, but a recently posted promo short for the new Nokia N900 called 'Focus Group' caught my eye. Keep watching right to the end, some pretty insane effects come to life.

You can now get an 8x zoom telescope, complete with hardcase and mini tripod for your iPhone - I guess it would be useful in some circumstances but who would honestly want to take a call on your phone with this attached to your phone?

See it in action on you tube here, or check out the product review from geek alerts here.