Tag: javascript

2012 and All That

Node.js Lab Day

“Node.js Lab Day”, at L4RP

This year has felt downright seminal since it started. Against the backdrop of a Mayan prophecy for the new social cycle, the Arab Spring, Occupy, the (sometimes unmentionable) triumphant Olympic Games and the ensuing breakdown of the Eurozone and who knows what else… things are also changing for us, albeit in significantly less dramatic ways. Read More »

Winning app for the HP TouchPad

HP webOS TouchPad app

URL: dharmafly.com/hpwebos-hackday/demo/

I went along with Andrea and Sym to The Guardian to join a hack day for HP’s new TouchPad tablet – an interesting alternative to the iPad that uses web standard technologies for creating native mobile applications.

We won the competition(!) with a prototype app for exploring live web content, such as news, reviews and photos, about any place on earth. (See all the projects from the event).

The app we produced is part magazine, part feed reader and lets you swipe and slide the magazine in any direction to shift the geographical location that the magazine’s content represents.
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Science Hack Day and The Revolutionaries

The Revolutionaries

URL: dharmafly.com/revolutionaries/

Last week saw an exciting event that brought together scientists, programmers and designers: “Science Hack Day“.

Held at The Guardian in London, this was an up-all-night two days of web development, hardware building and invention, with the goal of prototyping new services and tools for science and scientists. Read More »

BBC World Service Widget Launched

Gears (by tallkev)

We recently completed an exciting project for BBC World Service: the World Service Widget, which lets people share BBC World Service content on their websites, blogs or computer desktops.

It’s being released on a number of web platforms (WordPress, iGoogle, Adobe Air, Facebook, Netvibes, Mac Dashboard, Vista Sidebar and as a simple snippet of HTML code). These are being rolled out over the coming days.

The widget is available in a multitude of different languages and content networks. (This was one of the trickiest aspects of development – although there were other, perhaps even stickier issues). Below, for example, are the English and Farsi flavours. (Farsi is the language spoken in Iran. It is written right-to-left, and it has a special widget: click on a news story to open the “Lightbox” window). Read More »

Live! We’re Tracking a Big Bus with the BBC

BBC World Service: Talking America

URL: bbc.co.uk/worldservice/talkingamerica

Excitingly, not long after we built the award-winning Bangladesh River Journey mini-site for the BBC World Service, we were asked for another helping of social media expertise.

What is it?

Talking America is a trail-blazing social media campaign that we’re proud to have worked on. This time, it’s a live site that tracks the World Service crew as they journey across America in a social media bus.

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YLiveGroups: Live Video at BarcampBrighton2

Barcamp Brighton 2

This weekend is BarcampBrighton2, a grassroots technology conference organised and run by the participants. Over the last couple of days, we’ve been piecing together a special Greasemonkey userscript for the conference, which enables Yahoo Live users to broadcast live video as a group. We call it YLiveGroups.

» Install the script

We first used Yahoo Live at last month’s SemanticCampLondon and there was a great buzz of conversation from people who were watching from other countries, discussing the topics of the talks, asking questions and learning about the subjects.

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HackHUD

HackDay Prize

Well, this one didn’t get blogged yet… Back in June, we stayed up all night at the BBC / Yahoo Hack Day in London. The task was to combine data sources and build something experimental – and a little bit edgy.

We forged a script to enhance mainstream news sites (such as BBC News) with a layer of grassroots community content – from bloggers, photographers, and the like. The idea was to propagate the news and views from the streets, alongside mainstream media. The result: ‘HackHUD‘.

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BBC Bangladesh River Journey

BBC World Service: Bangladesh River Journey (screenshot)

URL: www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/bangladeshboat

Phew! We’ve been busy these last three weeks! From commission to launch in just 12 working days (and nights), Dharmafly has built a site for the BBC that explores social media and cutting edge Web technologies…

The is a mashup of posts from a BBC World Service trip to track the effects of climate change in Bangladesh. The trip lasts a month, with photos being posted to Flickr, messages sent to Twitter and journal entries made on the site. The mashup puts all these posts on to a map, letting you navigate around and follow the trip.

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