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Weird Wide Web: the week in online oddities

Some of the internet’s best offerings in social media, tech, science and weird news.

WELCOME TO THE Weird Wide Web – where we take a look at some of the internet’s best offerings in social media, tech, science and weird news.

Videoconferencing: Star Trek style

A  human-size 3d videoconferencing pod has been developed by the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Canada, which allows people in different locations to video conference as if they are standing in front of each other.

The best thing? The video image is visible 360 degrees around the subject – so you can even walk to their sides or behind them.

So long Skype?

Uploaded by humanmedialab

A wordless internet

Yes, we all love the internet… but does it sometimes feel a little information-heavy? For the days when you just want to zone out, Wordless Web – a browser bookmarklet – will removes all text from any website leaving only images.

A special kind of bliss.


Minus 1 million

Continuing in the vein of removing things, MillionShort.com asks the question: in a world where search engines are becoming increasingly efficient, what if you removed the top 1 million most popular web sites from the index? What would you discover?

Well – here’s the first result after you search for “twitter”…


Metro Flashmob

A Peer Gynt-playing flashmob is the best kind of mob.

Copenhagen Philharmonic, keeping it classy:

Uploaded by 

The exclusive network

Social media is all about sharing and talking to groups of people, right? But what about when it comes talking to your significant other?

While there are some among us who are more than comfortable splashing intimate messages on their partner’s Facebook wall or Twitter feed (private messaging, anyone?) for those who want things to be a little more private there’s Pair.

The Android app was launched this week and allows couples to create a private, shared timeline, where they can swap texts, photos, videos and locations.


Are you addicted to Facebook?

A test, recently published in the Psychological Reports journal, highlights ‘six core elements of addiction’ – ie salience, mood modification, withdrawal, tolerance, conflict and relapse.

If you want to know if you’ve crossed over to the dark side of The Social Network, simply rate each of the six questions below on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = Very rarely, 2 = Rarely, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Often, and 5 = Very often).

1. You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or plan use of Facebook
2. You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more
3. You use Facebook in order to forget about personal problems
4. You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success
5. You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook
6. You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies

Scoring of “often” or “very often” on at least four of the six items could mean you’re addicted to Facebook.Image: PA

Lego, Lego, Lego…

Someone – namely Matt De Lanoy – has made the world a better place by combining Lego and TV show Arrested Development.

(Check out more pictures at Iwatchstuff.com)


See previous Weird Wide Web posts>

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