You probably know about Fred, the Youtube phenomenon that have reached its paroxysm a few months ago with more than one million subscribers to its video channel and the most searched term by kids.

Well as reported by Mashable last week: Fred got dethroned. The #1 position, held by Fred for ages, is now claimed by Nigahiga , the popular YouTube comedy duo. Fred has about 1.36 million subscribers, compared to Nigahiga’s 1.392 million

This week the gap is even deeper with 1,436,354 subscribers for Nigahiga’s Channel.

Fred’s Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Fred

Nigahiga’s Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/nigahiga

Source : http://mashable.com/2009/08/23/fred-dethroned-youtube/

IKEA has changed its typeface from Futura to Verdana which has provoked an instantaneous global backlash.

All this outrage over a font? For some designers, it’s an issue of propriety — Verdana, which was invented by Microsoft, was intended to be used on a screen, not on paper.

Read the full article here.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. released a brilliant weird video this week featuring the Scratch Perverts, a collective of turntablist DJs from the UK. In the video the DJ’s use scratch tables and instruments with human heads attached to it.

Source: http://www.viralblog.com/online-video/neurosonics-audiomedical-labs-inc-viral-video/

The site: http://www.neurosonicsaudiomedical.com/

TAXI recently got Googled…literally!  The lovely folks at Google dropped by our offices as part of the Google Campus program for a lunch and learn.  It broke all lunch n’ learn attendance records @ TAXI!  It also gave us the chance to lay the groundwork for closer collaboration with Google in the future.   After a great presentation, some yummy Mexican food and a constructive Q&A session most people left wanting more.  Have no fear as this was the start of an on-going series of collaboration sessions we will conduct.

We also had some cool swag handed out and a draw for a FREE YOUTUBE shirt…congratulations to Marcel Greaux our winner!

You can download their PowerPoint deck here.

TAXI’s own Joanne Arfo was published in the Globe and Mail.
Check out the article here.

Last night we had a wicked storm in Toronto and we had a wicked party too. Thanks again Steve and all that made it happen.

A component of the MIT Media Lab’s “Metropath(olgies)” installation, which looks at the non-stop flow of communication and information in the modern world,  Personas delivers a data portrait of your online identity by combining natural language processing and Internet search tools.

Enter your first and last name into the search box, and watch as Personas matches your name to a pre-existing set of categories created through an algorithmic method that references a vast body of data.

Beautiful Light graffiti by LICHTFAKTOR for Talk Talk. A Commercial by Noah Harris – Blink Ink. Johannesburg July 2009.

What began as a never-produced poster idea has propagated itself into a series of 9 mock OPEN/CLOSED signs by aesthetic apparatus. Double-sided yet possibly commercially-useless, these signs will relay to passers-by and potential customers that you’re not really into categorizing your availability in such limited definitions like “open” or “closed.

The Angry WHOPPER!
The creative hits the world today with :30 and :15 TV spots, radio and online driving to burgerking.ca/getangry. Through the use of your webcam and mic you will be challenged to scream in to your computer to see if you are fit or “angry” enough to eat the Angry Whopper.  Your anger is then judged and shown on your face while our angry v/o taunts you to try again until you reach the ultimate “Epic Angry Whopper Anger”.
Word on the street is that this is the first commercial use of face-tracking technology in Canada and perhaps the U.S. so needless to say it was a big task.

Great job everyone!