Online Personas - An Installation by Aaron Zinman

In the wake of the whole Blizzard-Activision RealID debacle comes this shiny, scary, fun toy! This toy was not inspired by the whole RealID thing that I know of, but it's still oddly relevant!

Online Personas - An Installation by Aaron Zinman

You puts in your namez. It searches (some parts) of the Intarwebz. It makes a pretteh graphic. It shows you how the Intarwebz sees you! Be aware though, if you share the same name with many other non-snowflakes, it will show an aggregate you!

Go forth my minions, play wif it!

(Also, apparently one of my closest friends was born in 1834, got married in 1814, and has 5 children. I think there's something she isn't telling me...)

Al Jazeera English - Asia-Pacific - Australia overhauls cigarette packs

From 2012, "Australia is set to ban branding, logos, promotional text and colourful images from all packets of cigarettes in attempt to dramatically cut the number of smokers in the country."

Interesting design problem, this. I think the branding might move onto the cigarette itself, so that smokers become the advertisements, rather than the packaging. Of course, it doesn't help with brand differientation on the shelf, but hey...