BioDigital Human – I certainly wish I had this website to go to when I was taking my Anatomy classes. This amazing human body imaging software allows 3D exploration of our anatomy of each of the different systems we are all made of; skeletal, digestive, reproductive, muscular and seven other systems. All these can be easily applied to your skeleton or cleared by clicking the On/Off buttons on the left.
Each time you add or remove a body system to your skeleton, you can rotate it 360 degrees using your mouse. In addition, there are advanced view options using the toolbar under your sekeleton. That’s how I applied the X Ray View below. Amazing!
Clicking on any organ, bone, muscle or blabber will prompt a small info window to your right with some additional info. This is a terrific study aid for those interested in or learning anatomy.
QVIVO – Hoping to revolutionize the way we consume and share media content, QVIVO offers an impressive bundle of user actions and experiences, all focused on your favorite music, videos, films, and social network friends. Once installed, QVIVO will automatically create a mega library with cover art, trailers, actors, artists and more from the files on your computer. QVIVO has taken care of the format issue to allow you to play all files, regardless of where you purchased or imported them from.
All the great perks I’ve mentioned above are nice and dandy, but where QVIVO really shines is in the social sphere. When your friends are also connected and using this app, you can see what they’re watching at that very instant, see if they like it, post your own status, comment on and interact with them.
The Dieline – This packaging design hub is a beautifully created website with a mission: “to define and promote the world’s best packaging design, and provide a place where the package design community can review, critique and stay informed of the latest industry trends and design projects being created in the field.”
What makes The Dieline so special is its professional know-how and community oriented approach. They’re here to inform, help and inspire. Aside from the gorgeous packages covered, The Dieline also has designated sections for job offerings for those working in the industry, The Dieline Conference (next one will take place on June 22nd), and a special Dieline page for wine packaging. Here is a package design I instantly fell in love with:
Urbio Vertical Garden, designed by Enlisted Design and Volare Studio, San Francisco
YouTube’s First Orbit – On April 12, 1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to fly into outer space and complete an orbit around planet Earth. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of one of humanity’s most important milestones, YouTube created a compelling movie, “a real time recreation of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. The film combines this new footage with Gagarin’s original mission audio and a new musical score by composer Philip Sheppard.”
First Orbit is a poignant film unlike anything you’ve seen before. It is a well-documented piece of history everyone should enjoy and cherish.
Cute Roulette – Another player in the “oh, that’s so cute!” category websites, Cute Roulette is a random cute video player where each video shows a baby animal of a different kind of animals doing super cute things (although kittens and puppies appear in many of the videos, there is a large collection of other animals as well ). This is a nice relief or coffee break spot if you have a busy day and need to relax a bit, or a nice resource to go to if you are thinking of adopting a pet… Here are a couple of super cute videos I found here on Cute Roulette. Enjoy.
Crazy Things Parents Text – Being embarrassed by our parents is an inevitable shame we all must come to terms with, and what a better way to deal with it than by making fun of their texting creativity? Crazy Things Parents Text is here to make fun of moms and dads’ self expression in the digital era, particularly when texting. The result is a hilarious blog of funny and surprising things parents text, and you can vote for your fave ones. Here are a couple of the most popular posts:
Chuckville – One of the leading meme threads online these past couple of years was the buzz around Chuck Norris’ capabilities and unbeatable power, presented as short aphoristic -and funny as hell- statements about legendary Chuck. T-Mobile, together with Symbio, took advantage of the online buzz surrounding Norris’ formidable fame (one example claims Chuck Norris’ tears can cure cancer, but he never cries) to create this fun and hilarious promotional site.
Chuckville includes all the factors that make a website a sweet success: the design is beautiful and creative, the background music is amazing and the interactivity of this site offers an enjoyable user experience. For the ultimate Chuck Norris adventure try to beat the Kong-Fu legend himself at Chuck-Lin. Search for it as you stroll around Chuckville.
Robo Sockets – Love Tetris-like games? Then you will just love this cool robot game. Your goal is to arrange the descending robots in a way that forms series of five connected robots to charge the battery on the left side of your screen. When the battery bar is full you progress to the next level. It starts off easy, but soon you will come to know the bolts, bombs, drillers and the mystery boxes…. Robo Sockets is one of the most addictive games I’ve come across in a while. Enjoy.
InToNow – This cool iPhone app is all about fun friendly interactions centered around your favorite TV shows. Show your friends what show you’re currently watching using InToNow’s smart instant recognition system (it will even show your friends what episode your’re watching), and see what your friends have to say. As with most social apps, InToNow also offers sharing your real-time show viewing info with friends on Twitter and Facebook. InToNow is available on iTunes’ App Store. So what are you watching now? Here’s what the app looks like on the iPhone.
The Web offers hundreds of top quality sites where you can both listen to and discover new music and artists. Pandora and Grooveshark might be the most famous ones everyone is familiar with, but there are many other sites that offer great music for free you might not be aware of. Here’s my top 10 list of sites that offer free music streaming and music discovery.
1. Stereomood – This is by far my #1 music site. Stereomood is a free playlist-ready music streaming place that invites you to explore exquisite tracks based on the mood you’re in. The homepage is made up of a big tag cloud of moods for you to choose from; calm, happy, sleepy, lonely and in love are only a number of the vast mood options available. Once you pick a mood, a ready-made playlist appears and will start to play. You can also share each of the songs of each playlist on a variety of social networks. Beautiful design and perfect sound make Stereomood my top music choice.
2. Blip.fm – Built in the form of a Twitter-like micro-blogging service for music, Blip.fm is open to users from all over the world (as opposed to location-restricted sites) and puts a special focus on music discovery and social interaction. The homepage is essentially a feed list of ‘blips’ other users have submitted, and you can go right ahead and start blipping yourself. Simply search for your favorite artist or song and blip. You can create your own playlists, give ‘DJ props’ to users (Blip.fm’s “Like” equivalent), and follow favorite DJs.
3. The Sixty One – This music site is the most stylish one in the list, merging great music with gorgeous visuals and atmosphere. The interface of The Sixty One is unlike any other music site you’ve seen before. Each page represents a different artist and includes a full screen picture of the singer/band and automatically plays one of their songs. You can learn more about the artist by exploring the info box on the right (offering the artist’s website, recorded music and upcoming shows). Browse the artists on The Sixty One by simply clicking the right/left arrows and discover even more great music. The screen shot below is of Kori Pop.
4. Jelli – This music site has a special twist. It’s an online radio site (exclusively online), where registered users decide on the radio’s playlists -100% user-controlled radio. Each of Jelli’s channels (Red, Green and Orange, each representing a different range of music styles) is made up of a long list of standby tracks users can vote for (by clicking the V button) or against (by clicking the X). Returning users are equipped with heavier ammunition: rockets and bombs to vote for or against a selected track, respectively. In short, this site is about listening to great music, and having a hell of a time along the way.
5. Mixcloud – If you’re already familiar with the concept of podcasts you will appreciate this music site. Mixcloud is based upon the same podcast idea, and it contains a wealth of music styles and DJs for you to follow, listen to and subscribe to. In addition to the variety of music genres, you can also explore other channels including business, comedy, culture, education, news and more. Think of it as NPR’s first cousin.
6. 22tracks – This attractive music site offers free music streaming of 22 different music genres, each with a playlist of -you guest it- 22 tracks. The sound quality is amazing and you are invited to create a playlist with your favorites, and also share each of them with your social network friends. This is one of my favorite sites for music discovery, especially since all the tracks on this site are carefully curated by 22tracks’ team of professional DJs.
7. 8tracks – This Web radio service is totally free, and it offers creating, sharing and listening to user-created playlists, each comprising of eight tracks. The idea is simple and using the site is super easy and fun. Thanks to 8tracks you will undoubtedly explore new artists you haven’t listened to before. Here’s what the Jazz category looks like on 8tracks.
8. One Track Mind – Although this music blog is not a high-profile music site as the other big fish I mentioned above are, it offers a valuable service you should check out if you’re looking to increase your music repertoire. One Track Mind is the place for “music discovery, one track at a time.” The added bonus is you can listen to full tracks of new and recent releases, and download them (100% legal!) as mp3.
9. Hitlantis – I just love the innovative concept of this music discovery site. Instead of browsing lists of artists and songs, Hitlantis offers a visual experience where lots of bubbles are neatly organized by color. Each color region represents a different music genre (consult the legend on the homepage), and each bubble within that color area represents a certain artist or band. Simply click on a bubble and a mini player window will appear, offering additional info about the artist, and also showing what the user community thinks about that artist. This is a great out-of-the-box way to explore new music.
10. Music MiniFaves page on All My Faves – This fully-booked MiniFaves page offers all of the top resources I have mentioned above plus many others worth checking out. In addition to the best music streaming places you can find online, the Music MiniFaves offers top music news and magazine sites for you to explore as well as other music perks such as lyrics finders and much more.
All My Faves Russia – It took us a lot of work and research, but the Russian homepage we’ve been working on is now live! As with our other non-US homepages, the allmyfaves.ru serves as the ultimate homepage for Russian users, both domestic and international.
The page includes the most popular categories Russian users look for and visit on a daily basis. These include the obvious email, video, news and entertainment categories, but also interesting categories such as Books, Finance and Travel, just to name a few. All My Faves’ homepage for Russia marks a special milestone in our country-specific homepages list and we’re very pleased to be able to offer the best of the Web to the Russian community worldwide!
Chirply – Looking for cute and beautiful designs for notebooks, greeting cards and other stationary items? Chirply is here to offer a fresh design spirit, “making better greeting cards, notebooks, and wrapping paper through better design.”
On Chirply.com you can do a number of things, and this sense of multiple options is part of what makes this such a great site. You can browse designs, vote for your favorites, submit your own, and of course buy gorgeously designed greeting cards.
Here are two beautiful designs I just fell in love with at first glance:
Let the Ideas Fly The Ideas Fly By ChaX
