http://www.creaceed.com/prizmo/

On the serious side, it is pretty good at taking picture-based text and reliably converting it. If you can photograph uniform type then it can usually do something decent with it.¹ This is both a time saver and power extension of the iphone itself if you need to get hold of an important quote or two. As a teacher, it is changing the way I think about text usability and access. If you can get hold of it conveniently and stick it up on a screen easily enough then it is a tool worth having.

While the OCR function is good enough to make this a great standalone app, there are at least two other features that bring that extra something.

The Whiteboard feature is a handy tool for taking a record of your jottings and then adjusting the image for perspective (you know - when you take a picture at an angle to avoid reflections) and clarity. I have been taking whiteboard images for around ten years now and this is a genuine step up on that process. This is a great unexpected thing.²

The other 'thing' is the voice feature. I know that the Mac has this built in, but there is a convenience to having it in your hand which is pretty special. The ability to use it at any time has massive potential. I have so far been mainly larking about with my students, taking familiar text (often in the form of public warning signs and the like) and getting an alien voice to read it.³

Another experimental aspect is that these voices are likely to turn up in some animation or educational film experiment soon enough. Oh yes.

Summary - Prizmo is a useful, welcome and inspiring step forward that will make a difference to educators, clowns and the like.

¹There are a bunch of image tools to adapt whatever you capture to aid the retrieval process. It is good, although in some cases I can see myself using other pieces of image manipulation software (like Brushes or Sketchbook) to remove some artefacts that might confuse things. ²Ooh I think I'll just wear these trousers because they look good and I need some trousers to wear on account of me being in a street with bare legs and all. Hey, they fit great! Wow! Guess what? I just found a £10 note in the pocket. ³There are a bunch of in-app voices you can purchase for £1.79 each. Well worth it!

It is quite incredible to see how tech gadgetry has developed alongside Royal Wedding events, and this one is no different. In fact, in some ways it may rival them all.

The first Royal Wedding of 1011 saw the advent of verbal messenging. Prior to this people used a primitive form of Makaton.¹

When Princess Elisabethany finally conjoined herself in mutual participation with Colonel Begley-Morrow in 1947, a clever man named Jason Marconi devised a new form of one-way Social Media that could assist powerful anti-democratisation motion. 'Radiography' (as it was then known) became a favoured media outlet within hours of the Royal Devulgement.

Everyone knows of course that Di & Charles assisted the popularisation of the DVD (and particularly alongside the release of films like The Matrix)²

And what of today? How has this event redefined our media-rich cyber landgrab? Twitter and Fakebook have invested significant amounts of innovative energy to counter the most popular networks³ with the 'Hashtag'.

The 'Hashtag' is new way of labelling messages so that the sender can make sure that he or she reaches the end and intended participant. In the old days we used phone numbers, email addresses and coordinates, but now the HT (as it is called on blogs) is King.

Since employing HT as a New standard, the Royal Wedding was seen to run much more smoothly. From Kate Middleton's sisters fabulous outfit, to the gesturing of the Archbishop to the final flyby, this wedding has been HTed like None Other!

¹popularised by Something Special presenter Justin Lewis
²The Daily Mail was famous for distributing similar Right-wing propaganda subliminal texts in innocent collectible editions of this new smart media using the 2for1 method. Ofcom have now banned such use as a form of cruel gambling. in innocent collectible editions of this new smart media.
³ Google Buzz, Friends Reunited and Color to name just three.

Just playing about. A mixture of photo, erasing in Brushes, Compositing in Autosketch and Vectors in Intaglio.

Is there anyone who can please implement transparent layer import/export for Brushes, Intaglio Sketchpad, Autodesk sketchbook mobile and Adobe Ideas?

Please?

 “Sketchbooks are not about being a good artist, they’re about being a good thinker.”

• Jason Santa Maria (via mmarfil and Levi F)