Afternoon all,

Well, I didn’t win a million pounds with Blinkbox for predicting the full list of winners at the Oscars. But I did predict the winner of best Short Film which was “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”. You may be wondering why I have opened with is. The reason being we had a write up on this short film about a year ago but we wrote about it as an iPad app. The film had no traction until the app came out and has now celebrated the year with an Oscar. Here is a quick look at it

And for the full 15 min film you can also find it on YouTube but not sure how legal that copy is so if you want it, you will have to find it yourselves 

Speaking of iPad... Get your money ready – it’s iPad3 time Next Weds the new iPad is unveiled so expect it in shops within a short while.

Apple like to allude to what’s coming up in their releases through the invites they use. So assuming the tea leaves are read correctly this will be all about a an iPad 3 with higher resolution screen (similar to the iPhone 4/4s) a faster processor and potentially an update to the Apple TV.

All very exciting and means that anyone advertising in tablets will see a huge surge in impressions as new tablets come become active and even more people get involved. And of course we will see the user demographic become even broader as a more buoyant 2nd hand market and parents / partners / children having the now old iPad 2 passed down to them.

If you haven’t seen your issue of Campaign yet this week then there is an article all about how magazines are faring in this new tablet space with some searing commentary from SMG

Microsoft and the future of computing: With new tablets comes an opportunity to think about the future of computing. And Microsoft have been doing such a thing through the envisioning of a new type of keyboard and computer using Kinect and 3D. Yet more amazing things from the Microsoft Innovations lab and brilliant to see how what was originally devised as a gaming device is finding a huge lease of life outside of gaming and really positioning itself as the new future of Microsoft. Here for video

And those crazy kids in Redmond have been very busy with the teleporter-esque Illumishare – again, very cool and can’t wait till every desk has one.

Deep Zoom-esque: Always a fan of the deep zoom Uniqlo and Google have teamed up to create a nice looking website that allows you to go ever deeper into the picture. I don’t think this is as fluid as the Microsoft offering which has been in the market for a few years but I applaud the use of it and look forward to seeing more.

On the back of that here is one from the Microsoft vaults, it s an absolutely breathtaking example created with Rolling Stone Magazine you very quickly get caught up in how amazing the zoom function is.

Xbox eMag issue 1: If you haven’t seen it yet I urge you to have a read of The Xbox eMag put together by our very own Josef Francis to give you a great understanding of gaming and what the potential is.

Twitter ads go mobile: Twitter has announced that it will be rolling out its ad products across mobile. Should be a big boost for advertiser impressions as 45% of users are mobile only. Here for the official blog post

Zeebox: I have been a real champion of Zeebox since I first saw it and genuinely believe it will change our idea of watching tv and it is about to go massive. Tomorrow during the Liverpool / Arsenal (2-1 prediction) half time their first TV ad campaign will launch. Here is a sneak peak at the ads

Lots of clients have already been down to see them and we are getting them in to do a big presentation in the next few weeks, so if you want more info there are plenty of chances.

TED flying robots: Finally and potentially saving the best till last I give you flying autonomous robots. If you only have a minute then jump to 14:50, but if you have the time this will absolutely blow your mind and leave you smiling – only 16 mins in total

The eagle eye amongst you will spot the use of Xbox Kinect with the robots – one of the most exciting bits of potential for all advertisers and dreamers of cool things, so have a read of Jo’s magazine to understand how if you haven’t already (see 3 stories up).

Have a great w/e.

Oli.