TV channel Paramount Comedy in the UK is currently running back to back episodes of Scrubs everyday at 7pm. If you've never seen this show before, and you like surreal intelligent stuff, it really is one of the most original and groundbreaking US comedies of all time.

First aired in 2001, and devised by Bill Lawrence (creator of Spin City), it features a brilliant cast, no phony laugh track (a big part of its appeal), and some outstanding writing. Sarah Chalke is particularly good as the zany ex-girlfriend of the lead character played by Zach Braff. It's set in a hospital, but don't let this put you off. It put me off at first, and now I kind of regret it.

Unlike other great US sitcoms like Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond and Married with Children, Scrubs is very accessible and you will probably enjoy it from your first episode. You'll then have over 120 more episodes to enjoy!

Scrubs DVD sets - Amazon UK & Amazon USA

Incidentally, if you have ever wanted to watch a good introductory episode of Married with Children (a brilliant comedy itself), track down an episode called 'The Wedding Repurcussions' from Season 7. It's easy to watch the wrong episode of a TV show and be apathetic to watching more, but this one, although not the funniest, is less harsh than others and probably a good starter for that reason.

Posted by Alx Klive at 7:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Chinese Government is to introduce a single standard for mobile phone chargers to reduce the massive amount of waste caused by people throwing away their chargers when they upgrade their phones. This follows similar plans by the South Korean government announced a couple of weeks ago. The standard will include a standard for data connections meaning all after market accessories can work off the same connection(s).

This is a very progressive move and I hope it quickly dominoes around the world through all countries. It makes so much sense and consumers will completely welcome it. I'm pretty sure the after market accessory manufacturers will welcome it too.

I have no idea what the energy footprint of a charger is, but it must be a fair amount. I'm surprised the mobile phone crazy and ecologically minded Scandanavians didn't think of it first...

Posted by Alx Klive at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few months back I treated myself to a new Logitech webcam and poked around with its avatar and video effects features. Basically these let you overlay an animated face and other facial accessories such as a beard onto your real face during a video chat or web broadcast. The software based system uses facial recognition technology to figure out where your mouth, eyes and eyebrows are, and then adapts a 3D model (of a cartoon character for instance) to your features.

The whole thing works seamlessly so that other bits of software on your computer such as Skype receive the modifed video (I now doubt this, have been having problems - ED)

I recently updated the software and was pleasantly surprised to find that the entire package (Quickcam) has been overhauled significantly since the Summer. The avatars and video effects features have moved on leaps and bounds, and the facial recognition technology is much more impressive. Under very poor lighting conditions (see below), it picked out my features using a new 'training' wizard, overlaying dots onto my face similar to those found on a motion capture suit. Once calibrated, it picked out my movements very accurately, despite the poor lighting.

The physics engine in general seems to have been overhauled, and is now able to identify left, right, up, down, tilt left and tilt right head movements. It also picks out the opening and closing of your mouth and the blinking of your eyes. With the new 3D avatars supplied with the software and others available on Logitech's website (earlier versions were 2D only), the effects are really impressive.

I was surprised to find Logitech giving away additional avatars and facial accessories for free. I would probably have paid a couple of bucks for a package of new avatars or even individual ones if the payment system was fast and intuitive.

Avatars in general are going to be big business in my opinion. WeeMee, CrazyTalk, Klonies and Logitech's system show the current state of play.

Posted by Alx Klive at 1:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is up with Google's web apps? For the last couple of days, I have started getting the same crash on both Google Analytics and Google Adsense in Firefox. The same 'Alert TypeError: window._content has no properties' javascript alert has popped up in Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 2.0 on the PC. Now I just got it on my Mac too.

I've figured out how to recreate it reliably. Log into Google Adsense, and click anywhere that isn't a link.

Crazy.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Posted by Alx Klive at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Actually launched a month ago, I've only got round to linking this now...

It's a site we put together to highlight the very best Borat video clips on the net.

We think you like it very much. Nice.

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monty Panesar has opened his account at the Ashes cricket tournament. For those who don't follow cricket (and there are many) this is a pretty big deal and a rare bright spot for us Brits in an otherwise forgettable tournament. If you fancy an easy-on-the-eyes orientation on the world of cricket, here's an interesting video.

Posted by Alx Klive at 4:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The WorldTV Charts have had a graphical makeover and now feature logos for each of the video clip sources, as well as better visual feedback when selecting links. Although only a fairly minor upgrade I think the new look is much more user friendly and appealing.

Lots more upgrades to come in the next few weeks as we refocus our efforts on making the WorldTV Charts the best video clip service on the web.

Posted by Alx Klive at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)