Month: November 2013

Multimedia visual spectacular for Russia

Posted on by Andrew Morse

On the Black Sea Coast, Russia’s first and only open-air lifestyle entertainment center, now features a dramatic multimedia show by Australian firm Laservision.

At the mouth of the Mzymta River, in Russia’s largest resort city of Adler, Krasnodar Krai, just 30km southeast of Sochi, (venue for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games), the Mandarin Entertainment Centre consists of a range of recreational and entertainment attractions for year-round activities.

Designed in collaboration with world renowned architectural firm Jerde Partnership, the 3,500 square meter, “Zhemchuzhina Sochi” (Pearl of Sochi) multimedia attraction, will entertain more than 3,000 visitors a night.

The latest in entertainment technology and creative innovation to present one of Russia’s most popular poems ‘The Sun Thief’. Known for catchy rhythms, inventive rhymes and bizarre characters, this well-known childhood classic is the tale of a mischievous crocodile who steals the sun, plunging the world into darkness. Two bear cubs which were happily playing in the woods, become separated from their father due to the sun’s disappearance. Frightened, the animals turn to the bear to help retrieve the sun and bring joy back to the land.

‘The Sun Thief’, utilises universally recognisable themes of love, anger, fear, fantasy, joy and humour, as audiences are immersed in the 20 minute performance.

To appeal to the culturally diverse tourist market and transcend language barriers, Laservision’s creative department designed a light, sound and visual effect spectacular with no narrative or dialogue. The story and themes are communicated to the audience through the use of emotive imagery, a unique music score and visual effects.

In addition to the headline show, Laservision also produced a secondary high impact, high energy, visual effects spectacular designed specifically to thrill the audience. ‘FX Mania’ incorporates video mapping and multimedia technologies to create a synchronised, 20 minute, high energy, visual feast for audiences to enjoy. The Video Mapping Technologies are the same as those used for the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games in 2012.

Over half a million lumens of LED light power is used in the show. Over 500 individually-controlled technologies, synchronised to 1 /100th of a second, were designed, produced and implemented by Laservision. A unique, music score was been created for the attraction, inspired by both modern European and contemporary works.

The entire show can also be operated by a tablet from anywhere in the world.

Laservision is a world leader in audio visual entertainment communications, and created ‘A Symphony of Lights’, the Guinness World Record holder of World’s Largest Light and Laser Show, which plays nightly in Hong Kong.

Known for multimedia attractions, special events and architectural lighting, Laservision’s original creations have won numerous international Awards. As an approved Australian Government Research & Development facility, Laservision is constantly devising innovative ways to materialise the creative.

Laservision specialises in the integration of architectural lighting, high-powered lasers, fountains, water screens, special FX, pyrotechnics, surround sound and digital image projection which entertain people around the globe. Laservision has devised and installed visual spectaculars in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Macau, Russia and Singapore.

Digital Tsunami designed and developed the Laservision website in 2006.

 

References:
Jerde.com
Laservision
Zhemchuzhina Sochi video

Pinterest integrates maps with Place Pin

Posted on by Andrew Morse

At a “Place Pins” launch at the San Francisco headquarters of Pinterest, CEO Ben Silbermann stated that the site now has 750 million location-specific pins, to which users are adding 1.5 million pins every day.

Pinterest is a site which enables users to upload and collate photographs and videos linked to other webpages. Users ‘pin’ this content to specific interest collections, (known as ‘boards’), on their Pinterest profile. Place Pins were designed to combine the beautiful imagery of a travel magazine with the utility of a map online, to share with friends.

Silbermann said, “We noticed Pinners creating more and more boards around the vacations they’re planning, special places near where they live, and sites they want to see someday. We asked ourselves, how can we help people turn their travel inspiration into reality?”

“Today, we’re taking a first step toward that goal with Place Pins .. part of Pinterest’s larger mission to get people offline: to inspire you to go out and do things you love.” For many people, Pinterest is a travel-planning tool.

Now, instead of being displayed on tiled boards, users can now elect to display travel-related pins to a precise location on a world map. Users can share or collaborate on pin-filled maps and refer to them to find locations via mobile, while out-on-the-town or planning travel to foreign countries. Place Pins can also include details like the address and phone number right on the Pin.

The maps were built with the help of Foursquare, Stamen and MapBox, and partners like Airbnb, Yelp and TripAdvisor are providing structured data which appears in pins. Users can manually add location information to their existing pins through an integration with Foursquare, or add new pins with location information, as long as they come from partner sites like TripAdvisor, Trulia, Atlas Obscura and Jetsetter. Someone can look up a business on Pinterest’s mobile app, and if it is indexed by Foursquare, pin it to a map, and get directions from their current location.

Place Pins will impact on the trip planning market and may provide vigorous competition to sites offering travel inspiration and trip planning, such as Gogobot, Mygola, Plnnr, Touristeye, TripAdvisor, TripIt, Utrip, Vayable and Wanderfly.

Place Pins was launched simultaneously for the web, Android and iOS. More than 75% of Pinterest’s traffic now originates from handheld devices, the major traffic avenue since August 2012.

The latest in a series of launches, place pins follow other ‘rich pins’ for products, recipes, movies and articles. Jon Jenkins, Pinterest head of engineering stated “Ultimately, every pin has to become a rich pin. The key is to figure out the particular data for every type of rich pin. For songs, that might mean listing the artist. For recipes, that means listing the ingredients.”

While Facebook, Instagram and other social networks enable the upload of photos, Pinterest has become a core platform due to its ease of use and the format of boards on specific topics. It permits collectors to express their interests in customised general or highly-specific boards. Pinterest has become extremely popular and currently has 70 million users with 2.5 billion page views a month.
For manufacturers and retailers, it is a platform enabling direct contact with consumers.

In 2013, the company raised $225 million and is valued at $3.8 billion.

Sample Place Pin boards:
pinterest.com/airbnb/loved-by-tokyoites
pinterest.com/ottsworld/devouring-the-globe

Search our recent blogs  on Pinterest

Businesss are increasingly using Pinterest as a part of an eStrategy to engage with the community, encourage brand advocates and enable sharing of evocative product photography.

Digital Tsunami assists corporations to navigate the social media maze, determine which platforms are most suitable to your stakeholder engagement and prepare resources and content to contribute. This may include video, mobile sites or apps, and an all-encompassing social media profile.

We’ll listen to you, learn about your business, confirm your requirements and aid you to prepare an effective eStrategy for your brand.

Contact us today!

Fujitsu showcases its global credentials

Posted on by Andrew Morse

Fujitsu, Japan’s largest ICT vendor and the world’s number four in information technology services, has started showcasing the results of a multi-year program designed to transform its global capabilities.

According to Fujitsu’s president of International Business, Rod Vawdrey, the company has largely completed the globalization of core ICT infrastructure, services business and most of its products portfolio, as well as the reshaping and reskilling of its global workforce to better reflect changing customer demand.

“It’s an ambitious journey, one about becoming the true global force we want it to be,” he outlined at the Fujitsu Forum 2013 in Munich. The company is now aligned behind a portfolio of solutions, services and products that are offered worldwide, he says, a global partner network, a set of standard, repeatable services offered and a network of Global Delivery Centers, supported by more than 100 data centers and 18 Fujitsu Cloud centers, six multilingual service centers and seven Global Delivery Centers supported by offshore delivery centers to ensure 24×7 services.

Fujitsu is continuing to expand that cloud network. Having secured 3,600 cloud service customers to date, it has plans to increase the number of Fujitsu Cloud centers to 26 by the end of 2014.

The company’s global strategy is based on three pillars and one underlying foundation: to strengthen its existing business around the world, to accelerate the globalization program; and to create new opportunities based on a mix of new technologies and customer needs — all underpinned by the evolving skills base of its 170,000 employees.

“We want to give customers a predictable, seamless environment wherever they transact their business.”

This has involved creating new services inspired by big data analytics and mobility. The company has 45,000 regional sales and service partners around the world, 16,200 of which have signed up to its Global Select Partner program. The international management team leads more than 50,000 Fujitsu employees outside of Japan.

One change across the whole company has been a move to fully embrace a service-led strategy, although underpinned by technology. Fujitsu’s services activities now account for 55% of global revenues, with the prediction that that services business is likely to see stronger growth than the products in future. The services division serves more than four million end users in over 175 countries, through its global field engineering, end-user computing, data center, application and other service areas.

Fujitsu’s expertise and advanced power management technology has helped Australian international airline QANTAS, to move significantly toward meeting its carbon emissions targets.

Vawdrey is upbeat after the two-year push: “Overall, we have a better business — more global and focused on the opportunities ahead.”

The company’s performance in the first half of its financial year to the end of September, resulted in a revenue projection of US$47bn for the year.

 

Source:
i-cio.com

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. More than 170,000 Fujitsu people support customers in over 100 countries. Fujitsu Limited is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE:6702)

Digital Tsunami and Fujitsu

Digital Tsunami produced staff induction videos for Fujitsu Australia including statements by CEO Rod Vawdrey, and post-produced a video for the Australia Japan Business Association (AJBA) at which Rod Vawdrey, CEO of Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand, was the guest speaker.

The season for giving on iTunes

Posted on by Andrew Morse

A Christmas song has been released to raise funds toward feeding the Australians who rely on food relief each year. 

At times like Christmas, we are reminded of the profound role food plays in our lives. It is an essential element in bringing families, friends and communities together to share and celebrate. It also counterpoints the fact that during the festive season, many families and individuals will go without.

A group of Geraldton music industry professionals, “4 A Cause”, especially wrote and recorded the song ‘Food for Christmas’ for Foodbank. Each iTunes download will finance a meal, to a person who might otherwise have nothing to eat.

The inspiration for the initiative was the personal experience of Producer, Dave Clare. As a boy, he recalls
“a Christmas when our family could barely afford to feed us .. let alone give presents.” Himself now a parent, Dave says “I always make sure (my kids) know that Christmas is a time of giving, and I hope that’s a message we can spread with this song.”

“To download the song costs less than a cup of coffee, and yet buying it this Christmas will give someone more than just a meal, but also the knowledge that someone cares.”

Dave had heard the Foodbank story and was astonished to learn that a few hundred dollars could feed 30 families at Christmas. He realised that anyone could “give a little, to help a lot”, and was inspired to write the lyrics, then approached local music industry people to contribute.

Every aspect of the production was completed in Geraldton. The music was written by Leon Tioke, and performed by Leon (acoustic guitar), Aaron Willcox (rhythm and bass guitars), Gavin Carvill (drums), Josh Crothers (piano) and Emily Ruffin, Gavin Carvill and Deb Reader (vocals) with production by Rusty Nails Entertainment, and mixing and sound engineering by Aaron Willcox of Epic Sound Studios.

Video footage was shot in the recording studio, streets and Foodbank warehouse in Geraldton, compiled by Nat Browning of Browning Media.

Foodbank WA has branches across the state, in Albany, Bunbury, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Mandurah and is headquartered in Perth.

Buy the song “Food for Christmas” on iTunes

Leon Tioke
Epic Sound Studios
Foodbank WA

For fourteen years, Digital Tsunami has supported Foodbank in Australia on a pro-bono basis, as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. This support has included the development, hosting and technical support of web presence at national and state levels.