Has it been seven days since Friday already? Things have been so crazy around here we barely noticed, and Chrstimas is looming – yikes! To round off the week, then, we thought we'd bring you a few early gift ideas in amongst the usual fun.
A gift for you, dear reader, comes courtesy of our Orange techies: a new way to share photos direct from your mobile. It’s called Snapshot and means you can now send pics from your phone straight to Twitter as a photo message – very handy. Get the full scoop on the Twitter blog or better yet
try it for yourself here.
Elsewhere in the big wide world of Orange, our friends in Europe are working on a way to merge Twitter with your TV, so you can message your mates when your team scores or that annoying contestant gets voted off. Sweet.
Some much-needed good news on the environment this week too, with Brazil announcing a record low in Amazon deforestation! The rate of destruction has dropped by 45% since last year, but there’s still lots to be done. One great way of helping is via Sky and the World Wildlife Funds’ Rainforest Rescue campaign – which sees the broadcaster matching your donations to protect South America’s native forests and people. As they say on TV, it makes a great gift for someone special.
And speaking of which, our Christmas lists got a lot shorter this week after we discovered CultureLabel, an online portal than brings togther museums and galleries in one giant superstore. It's worth keeping an eye on their blog for Christmas perfection like Star Wars USB sticks or Lego’s new cameras and stereos.
In sport, everyone’s talking about Thierry Henry's ‘Hand of Gaul’ but we’re more concerned about skydivers without parachutes...
Finally, don't forget to enter our N-Dubz competition if you haven't already. And have yourself a merry little weekend.
Images: Supermodel Lily Cole launching Sky and WWFs Rainforest Rescue campaign (top); N-Dubz and Tinchy Stryder on stage at Orange Rockcorps (above).
You know what it's like when you start a new project. At first, everyone's dead keen and bursting with energy and ready to follow you to the ends of the earth. Pretty soon, though, you have to start sorting out the boring stuff like planning, timings and – gasp – deadlines.
You could turn to some fancy project management software – but who wants to do that for stuff that's meant to be 'fun'? Where are the normal apps for normal people? That's where our new Facebook application comes in. Orange People Projects makes it super easy to create and share projects with your friends and the big wide world. Recruit volunteers to help with a community project. Organise a gallery show. Or just plan the biggest block party the world has ever seen.
Start by naming and creating your project, then add events, a timeline, photos and even a ‘To Do’ list of tasks for you (or better yet your minions) to complete. Others can join in and contribute their skills and ideas, or just help you spread the word. And if we like it we’ll help publicise it too.
And don’t worry if you don’t have a project to work on, you can find all sorts of stuff to get involved in. To get started, check it out on facebook here.
Christmas is a comin' and if you're anything like us, you haven't bought a single present yet, nevermind making a list and checking it twice. To help get into the holiday spirit, we're giving away a whole heap of shiny prizes – with everything from flatscreen TVs to iPod docks up for grabs.
To enter, just turn up your sound, shake the box and guess what's inside. You can enter every day, so keep coming back to The Feed or bookmark orange.co.uk/shake.
It's Friday, you've just finished lunch, and let's face it – you're in no mood to get back to work. So put those afternoon ambitions on hold, brew yourself a nice cuppa and settle in with our weekly round-up of all things awesome…
The tech-savvy among you should get laugh or two from Intel's new online game, IT Manager III – or at least from this rather weird promo video. After choosing your favourite snack and, er, network configuration, you play an overworked tech support person who has to run around solving employees' tech problems, fixing the servers, zapping stuff à la Matrix etc. Pretty fun, unless you actually are an IT manager.
Back in the real world, yesterday saw the arrival of the subtle mob – a quieter take on the now-ubiquitous flashmob. You can take part tonight in Bristol, or tomorrow in Liverpool – don’t forget to send us your pics! If you’re in London, check out our friends at BAFTA’s Games Networking Night, for anyone working in (or just interested in) the games industry.
Finally, there’s the excting prospect of walking, projecting texts and even cycling amongst some giant bubbles in the sky. It’s all part of a proposal for the Olympics called The Cloud – and with backing from Google and engineering firm ARUP we wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled it off – or should we say up?
That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back next Friday with some ideas for your Christmas wishlist. Pens at the ready!
...the more they stay the same. Here’s a blast from the pre-3G past: one of our TV ads from 1996 trumpeting our widespread digital coverage. Back before 3G, or even 2G, which makes it just... G?
We doubt there are still this many bicycles in Vietnam, but thankfully some things never change. Our all-singing all-dancing 3G network now reaches a whopping 93% of you here in the UK – you can check if your house is covered with our handy (and strangely fascinating) interactive coverage map.
In fact, we've just picked up a What Mobile award for 'Network of the Year' – so whether it’s reading the latest news on The Feed, updating your friends on Facebook, watching videos or downloading apps, you know you're covered. Check out our dedicated 3G site for more on our 3G handsets and (we're blushing a bit now) some of the other awards and accolades we've collected.
It’s Orange Wednesdays tomorrow, and thanks to the new Orange Wednesdays iPhone app it’s now even easier to get your 2 for 1 voucher, find the nearest cinema and check out what’s playing. Just search for ‘Orange’ on your iPhone or download it from the Orange apps page.
You can then browse through the latest releases – like Harry Brown, the new Michael Caine thriller opening tomorrow – and watch trailers on your iPhone at the touch of a button. Display local cinemas on a map and see which ones are signed up to Orange Wednesdays, then invite a friend directy with an email showing the film, time and venue. You can even read reviews and join the critics by voting ‘hit’ or ‘miss’ after you’ve watched the movie, or browse upcoming titles for next week. Best of all, you can request your 2 for 1 voucher directly from the app, making your cinema experience seamless. So go on, treat a mate tomorrow. If only to show off what your Orange iPhone can do.
We're very chuffed that Kasabian's shiny new album, Underdog, was
released a few weeks ago. Now, we've seen some album promos before,
but not one quite as inventive as this one.
Kasabian teamed up with interactive gaming platform, Arduino, to give their take on the Guitar Hero game. Sure, it's Guitar Hero,
but with five footballers, some giant coloured squares, and some heavy
Kasabian riffs thrown in. Good fun, eh?
Friday night saw 300 brave winners of our Facebook film club competition travel to Tower Hamlets cemetery for the Night of Fright screening of The Exorcist.
The audience had to endure a foggy cemetery tour and a goosebump-inducing welcome from Beth the creepy character from the Film Club story, before being greeted with a warm glass of mulled wine.
Thouroughly spooked, we were all pleased to find the outdoor cinema decked out with comfy directors’ chairs, a big bag of goodies and a creepy introduction by Empire magazine’s horror expert, Kim Newman.
The Exorcist was screened as a silent cinema and you listened to the film through headphones. If you dared remove them, all that could be heard was a sinister silence. Except for the unexplained blood-curdling screams, that is…
Congratulations to all our winners, we hope we haven’t scared you away. And if you’re not yet a fan of the Orange Film Club Facebook page, find it here and you could be in for some great treats – or maybe some tricks!
And speaking of which, our Christmas lists got a lot shorter this week after we discovered CultureLabel, an online portal than brings togther museums and galleries in one giant superstore. It's worth keeping an eye on their blog for Christmas perfection like Star Wars USB sticks or Lego’s new cameras and stereos.
You know what it's like when you start a new project. At first, everyone's dead keen and bursting with energy and ready to follow you to the ends of the earth. Pretty soon, though, you have to start sorting out the boring stuff like planning, timings and – gasp – deadlines.
