10 June 2003

Fischli and Weiss considering legal action over Honda cog advert Marketingfix.com cites the story in Creative Review [subscription required] this month. If it had been a song published by a major label instead of a video by some artists, the ad agency would have obtained (or at least discussed obtaining) licenses. Peter Fischli said: Of course we didn't invent the chain reaction and Cog is obviously a different thing, but we did make a film which the creatives of the Honda ad have obviously seen. We feel we should have been consulted about the making of this ad. Previous Cog coverage by Marketingfix is a pretty good summary, includes an amusing discussion about whether it's faked or not. 1:24:08 PM     comments

Ambient Devices limit information so that it can be understood with just a glance "We're going to increase the number of devices in your life but you won't think of them as devices." [...] Ambient started with a $299 color-shifting glass orb sold primarily through Hammacher Schlemmer and Web sites like ThinkGeek. The direction of the stock market — deep red when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is headed down, shading to bright green when it is surging — has been the most common subject of interest for the 800 or so early purchasers, Mr. Rose said. [...] Ambient's focus is different, though, because it is gambling that consumers want information to be made noticeable without it commanding attention [...] But independent researchers caution that it is difficult to test the impact of devices designed to be unobtrusive. "It's surprisingly hard to evaluate the usefulness of information people are not focusing on," [via ?] 12:59:03 PM     comments