Chill out. But not too far out!
Are you a knowledge junkie? Ever sit up late on weeknights and follow long link trails into the spiraling depths of Wikipedia, picking up more new facts than you ever hoped you would? Then you might like Qwiki.
Qwiki could be thought of as an animated and abbreviated version of Wikipedia. You give it a topic and it generates a very nice slideshow of images related to that topic (which you can click on to get more info) and begins a short narration of related facts. The digital voice isn’t perfectly human yet, but it is getting fairly close (and personally I feel it sounds quite authoritative – computers are supposed to be correct about stuff after all, aren’t they? :P). At the end of the presentation there are related topics suggested for you; if that isn’t enough, during the narration you can click on highlighted words to be shown those other topics as well.
But what is the best part about this? You can watch it with other people. It is difficult for two people to sit and read Wikipedia together – everyone reads at a different speed. This is more like watching a short clip from, say, PBS or something.
From the website:
“Whether you’re planning a vacation on the web, evaluating restaurants on your phone, or helping with homework in front of the family Google TV, Qwiki is working to deliver information in a format that’s quintessentially human – via storytelling instead of search.”
You can even embed Qwikis into another web page, like I did with this one about cats.
View Cat and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.
Don’t like cats? How about chocolate?
View Chocolate and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.
If you end up playing around with Qwiki for a few hours after reading this, leave me a comment and let me know what your favorite topic was (or better yet, leave me the link to it)!
Adonna Khare at Lora Schlesinger Gallery
Adonna Khare, Chimp with Ibex & Kiwi Bird, 2008
Adonna Khare, The Lioness, 2008
Crunchy golden shield
Guards custard innards from the
Heating element
If you make one recipe this year, it had better be this one.
101 Cookbooks’ Oatmeal Muffins
It was the best surprise of the week.
That is all.
More Posts
September 15, 2011
Tunes Thursday: Party in My Head
September 12, 2011
Museum Monday: Nancy Monk / Ellen Kozak
September 9, 2011