After far too long off our screens, Mad Men returns to TV this week, with Season 5 airing in the US on AMC Sunday 25th March and Sky Atlantic in the UK on Tuesday 27th March.
To get you in the whiskey-swilling, chain-smoking mood, The Fine Brothers (purveyors of interactive YouTube videos) have put together this amazing 8-Bit homage to both the series and the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books of the 1970s.
Rather than flicking through pages, the YouTube video full of embedded links to other clips, playing out the different paths of the branching storyline.
Comprising over 40 different segments, leading to three different endings, you can even play as Peggy, Pete and Betty, as well as the smooth-talking Don Draper.
It's hilarious, inventive and well worth a look if the first episode of Series 5 still feels a long way off.
Man, the prize for the latest YouTube competition is SO good, I was in two minds as to whether or not to post about it so I'd stand a better chance of winning it myself!
YouTube has today launched a new global competition called Your Film Festival, which will see one aspiring film-maker win $500,000 and work with Ridley Scott to bring their ideas to life on the big screen. For a budding film-maker, it really doesn't get any better than that.
In association with the Venice Film Festival and Emirates, those looking to win the prize are tasked with making the most compelling short film (under 15 minutes in length hosted on YouTube) that they can.
The best films will then be subjected to a public vote, with the winner getting the chance to turn their short film into a feature length one with guidance from directorial legend Ridley Scott.
You've only got until March 31st, so get cracking! Click here for more info.
I worry about dropping my iPad from about waist height, so I'd have had a heart attack watching the makers of the G-Form Extreme iPad 2 Sleeve drop their Apple tablet from OUTER SPACE.
It's all been done to prove that their G-Form Extreme iPad 2 Sleeve is really as rugged as it sounds. Strapping an iPad 2, nestled snugly in the case, to a weather balloon with a camera also attached, it rises to above 100,000 feet before plummeting towards the Nevada desert, hitting the ground.
AND SURVIVING THE FALL.
Is it the real deal? Is it fake? It's hard to tell. The case is made of a composite blend of PORON XRD and utilises Reactive Protection Technology to keep the iPad safe, which sounds so full of BS that it might actually be true that it can protect the tablet from such a fall.
Either way, the iPad was lucky not to land with the screen facing down onto all those jagged rocks, as that would certainly have smashed it.
If the video has done enough to impress you, you can pre-order one of the G-Form Extreme iPad 2 sleeves from Firebox now, priced £69.99.
As 2011 draws to a close, YouTube have revealed the UK's most watched clips on their video-sharing site.
Animal clips, memes and funny celebrity videos rub shoulders with upcoming music stars in the list, showing the massive range of eccentric content available through YouTube this year.
Topping the list is Ultimate Dog Tease, a wickedly funny clip of a dubbed pooch moaning over a lack of bacon. It attracted 74 million views.
This was followed by T-Mobile's Royal Wedding advert in at number two, and Charlie Sheen's madness re-edited into a pop song at number three.
"The 10 most-watched YouTube videos of 2011 show that around the world, whatever language we speak, there are certain things that bring us together around a computer screen or mobile phone: adorable babies, talented performers, and clever advertising," said the site's trend manager, Kevin Allocca.
Scroll down for the cream of the crop on YouTube in 2011:
1. Ultimate Dog Tease
2. The T-Mobile Royal Wedding
3. Winning - a song by Charlie Sheen
4. Nyan Cat
5. Michael Collings - Britain's Got Talent 2011 Audition
6. MasterChef Synesthesia
7. Diary of a Bad Man
8. Rebecca Black "Friday" (Brock's Dub)
9. Talking Twin Babies
10. asdfmovie
So what do you think of the UK's top YouTube clips? Have we missed out on a few glorious memes, or has the UK's online viewing taste been spot on? Fire away with your thought's below, and send you suggestions for YouTube gold along to our Twitter account, @techdigestnews !
So, Kim Jong-il, North Korea's super crazy dictator has died, suffering a heart attack on his heavily armoured train, aged 69.
While the international community now starts sweating over the nature of his son's succession in one of the world's most volatile, nuclear-armed nations, we've turned our attentions to Kim Jong-il's contribution to science fiction cinema.
Yep, Kim Jong-il was dab hand at sniffing out winning silver-screen action, and so in 1985, kidnapped South Korean director Shin Sang-Ok and his wife, actress Choe Un-Hee, and forced the director to make Pulgasari an anti-capitalist Godzilla rip-off. Kim Jong-il was the executive producer on the movie, though we're sure his input mainly consisted of cracking the whip.
Still, watch it in its entirety below! It's mental.
Now, if you've just brought a brand-spanking new iPhone 4S (or a Samsung Galaxy S II for that matter), you're probably a) lamenting the loss of a sizeable wad of cash and b) wondering if it's worth insuring your expensive new toy. There's nothing worse than a fumbled phone smashed into a million pieces.
Independent warranty company SquareTrade have a bit of cash to flash about, and took it upon themselves to see which phone out of the iPhone 4S or the Samsung Galaxy S II would fare better when dropped from a range of heights, and at differing angles.
The results will scare you enough into ringing them up for a quote immediately after seeing this.
We wont spoil the surprise by telling you which phone came out of the drop test least damaged, but we're sure you'll be surprised by the outcome.
How's this for a geek pie? Mix equal parts Lego, stop-motion animation and gory shooter Gears of War in a pot. Bake. Slice. Post on YouTube.
What do you get? This amazing Lego Gears of War tribute. With roadie runs, chainsaw bayonets, Corpsers and the Hammer of Dawn.
While the chances of the next Lego game being in the Gears of War universe are, well, non-existant, luckily we still have the superb Gears of War 3 to enjoy.
Nope neither can we. That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Ahhh, to be young again. Like this four year old, who is just about to watch a mutilated Luke find out that the bully with a lightsabre is his dad, for the first time. It's priceless.
Microsoft's BUILD conference has thrown up plenty of info on the new Windows 8 operating system, not least of all how the platform will look when it hits tablets.
We'd yet to see a direct comparison against the tablet trend-setting iPad however. That is until now we mean. WinRumours have put together a video lining up the devices side by side, going into great depth over the course of ten minutes as to how the Windows 8 OS works compared to its iOS rival, detailing it's customisation options and how the "Live Tiles" first seen in Windows Phone 7 devices have been tweaked and tailored to fit a new tablet home.
Got to admit it, Windows 8 is looking pretty darn slick. Microsoft may well have got their cool back. That is, if they ever had it in the first place. There's mountains of potential here.
Not so sure about that brown carpet though.
Hit the video above to give it a look, and let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Unboxing videos are so passé. Who wants to see some guy open up a box and tell you how many pages are in the instruction manual? No-one, that's who.
Unboxing videos are boring. Extreme unboxing videos on the other hand, now that's something we can totally get into.
We travelled up to Skegness's Fantasy Island theme park, equipped with a hot-off-the-factory-floor Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone, hopped on a rollercoaster and put the handset's dual-core processor through its paces.
We'll have a full review of the phone really soon, so check back later for that. For now, have a laugh at our terrified expense as we hurtle around a loop-the-loop shouting tech specs next to a non-plussed schoolgirl.
The mega-successful Angry Birds mobile phone game is to get a silver screen makeover courtesy of Transformers director Michael Bay.
Or at least that's what's happening in the imaginations of the game-parody Rooster Teeth team, who've put together this excellent and ridiculous trailer for an adult-orientated Angry Birds flick.
There are explosions, silent neck-breaks and the most advanced piece of multi-million dollar weaponry ever conceived; the Catapult.
It's unlikely we'll ever see THIS vision of an Angry Birds flick hit cinemas any time soon, but you just know there is a Hollywood executive with dollar signs instead of eye-pupils readying an Angry Birds 3D CGI animation somewhere out there.
Got a few bottles of poster paint, some PVA glue and a couple of empty yoghurt pots lying around? Then why not get a bit crafty and try to make your own Mario Kart racing course like the one that Spanish anime enthusiasts Motsukora built?
Inspired by the neat little Takara Tomy remote controlled Mario Kart toys, they've built a full to-scale track, complete with shells, mushrooms, warp pipes and weapon pick ups.
Looks like great fun, and perhaps a nice little project to try out with younger Nintendo fans over the Christmas break.
You know when you arrive back in England from a lovely warm holiday. It's cold, it's raining and there's not much to look forward to. So imagine being greeted by a bunch of singers and dancers performing songs like The Passenger and the Boys are Back In Town, courtesy of those T-Mobile flashmob folk.
It might not make up for the end of your holiday, but it's guaranteed to put a smile on your face. For updates and exclusive content you can join T-Mobile's facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/tmobileuk
Sutro Digital brings you this week's social media news in handy video format. Among this week's highlights are Manchester bobbies on the tweet and Skype integration with Facebook.
YouTube can be an amazing platform for musicians to showcase their tracks on. Love him or loathe him, Justin Bieber for instance used the video hosting site to find fame, going on to become a worldwide superstar at the tender age of just 15.
But for every success story, there are inevitably a hundred failures riding a wave of mediocrity down the drain and out into the great ocean of musical sewage. YouTube is a veritable goldmine of unintentionally hilarious music videos, and today here at Tech Digest we've been compiling our ten favourites. Some of these are well known virals, some of them have not enjoyed such widespread "acclaim". The one thing they all have in common? They're all truly, truly awful.
Jan Terri - Lose You Tonight
We'll kick proceedings off with a classic. Limo driver by day, Jan Terri's crooning vocal sees her turn into a rock vixen by night. By "vixen", we mean she sings with a shriek similar to that of a brawling urban fox after a night on the tiles round the back of the bins behind the kebab shop. Jan Terri apparently played at one of Marilyn Manson's birthday parties. Confrontational as he is, we can only imagine Manson had a soft spot for Terri's unique "having an argument with my own song" performance style. Keep an eye out for the shot by the sewage-run off too, a superbly apt location we feel.
Majela Ze Ze Diamond - Show Me Your Genitals
Firstly, a word of warning. This video, lyrically at least, is pretty NSFW. Call me prudish, but Majela Ze Ze Diamond, surely an internet star in the making, has a knack for slipping in the odd below the belt anatomical detail into the words of her songs. It all gets a bit hypnotic by the end, and by the 500th time Majela offers to show you her genitalia, you're all but ready to submit. Key line? "Men are good for money, sex and vagina". Indeed. Make sure to check out Majela's other "hit", Tickle My Vagina, when you're done.
Manakin - Something is Locked Inside of My Soul
Disregarding the musical "wizardry" going on in the background (which incidentally sounds more than a little bit like the theme tune to kids' dungeons and dragons TV show Knightmare), the real star of 70s rockers Manakin is their rather limber frontman and his collection of creepy masks that appear to be made of human flesh. Keep an eye out for Jerry Lewis at the end of the performance, his usually uber-professional TV persona stunned into a faltering mess. If Silence of the Lambs' Buffalo Bill were ever to start a prog-rock band, it'd probably sound a lot like this...
Maxine Swaby - Pardon Me
It's hard to put my finger on what makes Maxine Swaby such an important force in music today. Sometimes I think it's the "end of the pier" production sound her songs carry, other times how she brings some much needed glamour to the video's rural locales with her array of nautical-themed costumes. But the truth of the matter is, they don't call Maxine Swaby "The Voice" for nothing. YouTube commentator manbearpigisalive sums it all up far more eloquently than I ever could: "She sounds like she's being microwaved".
Rap Against Rape - What Did I Do Wrong?
In what is surely the most unintentionally unsympathetic treatise against rape of all time, Dublin-based Rap Against Rape attempt to fight sex crime with this banging 90's dance tune. "What did I do wrong?" cries the refrain. Going ahead with this ill-conceived mess for starters. Rumour has it this inspired the short-lived "Rape Against Rap" movement. Oh, and keep an eye out for Tom Selleck's cameo freestyle halfway through too.
Reh Dogg - Why Must I Cry?
With nearly 4 million YouTube views, Reh Dogg enjoys a level of notoriety few other "stars" on this list can lay claim too. A pioneer of "emo rap", Reh Dogg's lyrics deal with poverty and issues relating to accepting an unsatisfactory body image, as well as wanting to get with Asian women, and failing to get with said Asian women. He'd probably have a better chance sorting out that last problem if he didn't keep posting videos of himself all-but naked in the shower.
Anonymous 80s bizarreness...
Words cant really do justice to this one. While the initial purpose/meaning behind this video may forever be lost in time, at least we can all sleep safe in the knowledge that floral shirts, shorts, white knee-socks and red pumps are no longer considered a legitimate outfit for a full-grown man.
Steklovata - Novi God
Just like with the complete works of Shakespeare, give a gang of monkeys access to a bluescreen, the internet and infinite amounts of time, and one day they'll strike pop-gold with an MTV-defining music video. The problem with humanity is that offer the same parameters to four men and they'll settle with giving birth to the hellspawn that is Russian boy-band Steklovata, seen here with their hit "Novi God". That said, I'd choose Steklovata over Justin Beiber any day of the week...
Lori Watt - Chill in my Veins
I was in two minds whether or not to post this video, as I just couldn't be sure that mental illness, which isn't at all funny, didn't factor into proceedings somewhere along the line with this tune. Thankfully, for the sake of my soul, I've been reassured that Lori Watt is perfectly healthy, and just a shockingly bad musician. Amazingly, this was played on TV in New Zealand, supposedly without a hint of irony.
Speak - Stop the War
If only Hungarian rapper-cum-anti-war-philanthropist Speak had been around before all of history's greatest conflicts! We'd so be living in the post-nuclear apocalypse wasteland, overrun by mutants, that I've been training for my entire life! Oh, and just so you know for next time Speak, doves are the international symbol of peace, not white pigeons. An easy mistake to make when you're this damn cool though we suppose...
If you've been sitting on a mini epic rather than uploading it to YouTube because of their 10 minute clip limit, you'll be pleased to hear that from today you'll be able to upload videos of up to 15 minutes in length.
"Without question, the number one requested feature by our creators is to upload videos longer than 10 minutes. We've heard you, and today we're pleased to announce that we've increased the upload limit to 15 minutes," reads the YouTube blog.
Clips upwards of 10 minutes were once the reserve only of those with a premium YouTube account, but improvements behind the scenes, not to mention the success of YouTube's Content ID copyright protection system, which has led to increased cash flow from music labels and Hollywood, have made the upload increase possible.
To celebrate the new feature, YouTube will be running a competition inspired by pop-artist Andy Warhol, who famously proclaimed that everyone would get their fifteen minutes of fame at one point in their lives. Users who upload 15 minute clips with the tag "yt15minutes" may be put under the spotlight as a featured video on the homepage.
YouTube's first attempt at bringing their web TV service to living rooms, was a bit of a mixed bag. YouTube Xl may have scaled the image up nicely and stripped back the usual YouTube UI, but it was still a little clunky compared to its standard build.
YouTube feel they might have nailed it this time though with their new Leanback service, which has entered into a beta testing mode today. Full screen and in HD, it's been designed specifically to work with a HD TV set and the limitations of sitting a fair few feet away from the screen.
No longer displaying text or comments, it instead acts as a feed of videos that play consecutively, dependant upon other videos you've viewed, liked or added to favourite, as well as letting create a channel with your own personally chosen set of videos.
Link in your YouTube account and you can get access to premium videos you've rented through the store, or add your Facebook account to check out what your pals are watching.
Best of all though, it can all be controlled from your keyboard, so you wont have to struggle rolling a mouse about your knees when you're in front of the TV.
Looking like a step in the right direction then, you can give it a try by clicking here.
Acclaimed filmmakers Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald are to collaborate on a project called "Life in a Day", which sees them create a documentary made up of YouTube submissions of footage shot on July 24th of this year. The idea is to create a social, video time-capsule, so that future generations can get a taste of life in 2010, and all the things that can be happening worldwide in a single day.
20 YouTube user's whose footage makes the final cut will credited alongside the Hollywood big-wigs as co-directors, and will be flown out to the renowned Sundance film festival to watch the movie's premiere.
Director, Kevin Macdonald said, "Life in a Day is a time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010. It is a unique experiment in social filmmaking, and what better way to gather a limitless array of footage than to engage the world's online community."
"Over the past five years, YouTube has changed the way media is created and consumed," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, YouTube's parent company. "We`re thrilled to give our community the opportunity to work with Kevin MacDonald and Ridley Scott and are grateful to our long-term partner, the Sundance Institute, for their support of this global initiative. I can think of no better place to premiere Life in a Day than at next year's festival."
If you think your life is worth documenting for all eternity, take some footage on July 24th, and upload it to www.youtube.com/lifeinaday . Probably best not to submit a Hitler "Downfall" meme though.
As far as school projects go, I cant think of anything cooler than building a gadget that turns you into a real-life Spiderman. But that's exactly what UK schoolboy Hibiki Kono has done, as he has amazed the world by scaling walls with his DIY superhero kit.
By strapping a pair of £15 Tesco vacuum cleaners to his back and attaching two nozzle pads to them, Hibiki Kono has become just like his comic-book wall-crawling hero.
"I used to dress up as Spiderman when I was younger, I love the films," said 13 year old Hibiki. "I wanted to make something a bit different. But my mum won't let me use it in my room - she's worried I'll pull down the ceiling."
When I did Design and Technology at secondary school all I got to make was a clock. I'm starting to feel a bit cheated after seeing this. It was a great clock, mind you...
Man, the prize for the latest YouTube competition is SO good, I was in two minds as to whether or not to post about it so I'd stand a better chance of winning it myself!
Acclaimed filmmakers Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald are to collaborate on a project called "Life in a Day", which sees them create a documentary made up of YouTube submissions of footage shot on July 24th of this year. The idea is to create a social, video time-capsule, so that future generations can get a taste of life in 2010, and all the things that can be happening worldwide in a single day.
From: Apple tease Galaxy Note owners with iPhone stylus patent application