Cheers,
Julien.

Two months ago I witnessed sky lanterns floating across the sky in St Albans. They were launched not simultaneously, but within 10-20 seconds of each other. It was a pretty sight, but it wasn’t anything special. It didn’t feel epic.

Then it hit me. Why not organise a gathering of people and launch hundreds of these together? You know, do it properly like what these people do in Asia every year. I pulled out my phone, opened up the notepad and keyed in three words “Sky lantern flashmob”.

As with many ideas, I soon forgot about it. Weeks passed, and we did another flashmob. You may remember reading about it, or even attending it. It was Angry Birds Day, officially sanctioned by Rovio Mobile. We learnt a lot from organising it.

On a recent founders meetup at our little studio hideout in Shoreditch, we were bouncing around ideas when I remembered that I had what I thought was a cool idea from a couple of months ago. I picked up my phone and navigated to my notes apps, and there it was “Sky lantern flashmob”.

To cut a short story shorter, we decided that the ‘flashmob’ (I use the term flashmob loosely) would be on Saturday 5 February to coincide with the beginning of Chinese New Year.

If you’ve seen the new HSBC advert with the hundreds of sky lanterns floating to the heavens – that is exactly the general idea on what we are attempting to achieve, but in London.

We’ve been thinking hard about where we could hold such a gathering. My first thought was the Millennium Bridge. It is an iconic bridge in London, and would be a magnificent backdrop to the event. But the proximity of buildings around does concern me. We do not want to be responsible for causing the third Great Fire of London!

We’ve identified Primrose Hill as being suitable for launching sky lanterns, but if you have any suggestions on alternative locations please let us know below.

Due to the nature of sky lanterns, we can only launch them when there is no to little winds and definitely not when it is raining. If the weather does not suit us, we will have to postpone it to another date.

What you will need to do:

- RSVP here or on Facebook
- Get a couple of (if possible wire-free) sky lanterns. You can get this at most places now. I’ve seen them on sale at Cotswolds, Tesco, Hawkin’s Bazaar, Amazon, play.com, Firebox.com etc.
- Bring matches, fire lighters etc.
- Have fun

Jon Choo

#Le Studio 52 organises its first Shoreditch Waffle Breakfast !

Come on Friday 28^th January 2011 from 8 am to 10 am.

Are you working, creating, thinking around Shoreditch and interested in meeting other professionals from the area? Let’s catch up at #LeStudio52 for enjoying an unlimited Waffle Breakfast together. A relaxing moment to connect and know each other.

Come for fifteen minutes or two hours and get to meet more exciting people from the neighborhood!

For only £5, you can make and eat as many French Waffles as you can and drink coffee, tea or orange juice. Registration on http://shoreditchwaffles.eventbrite.com.

#LeStudio52 will set up a Shoreditch Waffle Breakfast every last Friday of the month.

First of all, let me wish you a wonderfull 2011 on behalf of all the members.
The year has started off quite fast for us and we’ve been planning loads of events!
But let’s start with the first one happening, and TODAY!
@bennycrime dropped by last night with his greenscreen kit.
We’ve been having fun building the set and did some tests.
Was surprisingly easy to turn the Studio into a full body greenscreen studio.
So what’s that for?
Benny is shooting a band, building their music videos and found the Studio to be a really good fit.

We’ll be having a session with the members tonight and we’d be glad to invite anyone who’s in shoreditch to come and play with us.

If you’ve ever dreamed of going to the moon, or shake Kennedy’s hand, join us tonight!

Head of the "frozen protest"

We started with a Flash Mob at Convent Garden, which almost didn’t happen cause we were told off by the security of the square.
We still managed to make that happen on a tiny piece of westminster road at the edge of the square
It was quite a challenge to keep quiet and not moving, especially in weird positions.
People around definitely wondered what was going on, some filmed and some took pictures.
We had couple of people there to explain what this was all about.

Street performer embraces Angry Birds Protest at Trafalgar Square

We then set off towards Trafalgar square for a silent (but with the tune playing) march.
We met loads of people, some recognising the birds, some asking us what it was all about.
We had a good spirit, we were smiling, happy to be part of this day and the positive energy was communicative.

Of course we got challenged again by the security on Trafalgar Square who asked us to leave the square, but we knew about that as we had been there the night before to play with our Mobile Gaming Rig.

We still managed to get a picture with the Christmas Tree and walked quietly through the Square.

Angry Birds Protest at 10 Downing Street

We then took the protest to couple famous landmarks, such as “10 Downing Street” where the cops were quite happy to get a “peaceful & fun” protest like ours after the past couple of weeks.
They couldn’t accept a “direct” gift, but when we asked what would happen if we would just “forget” one, the man in charge answered that he would have to take it away, and might use it for “target practice”.
We left a gift for them on the gates..

It was getting time to get indoor and enjoy coffee/tea with more gaming going on.

Kids playing Angry Birds on N8

We had different activities at the venue and kids definitely had a lot of fun.

From drawing, to sling shooting birds and playing the game, everyone had something to enjoy.

We also watched videos about the game, especially the one from Israeli TV – Angry Birds Peace Treaty.
Some had seen the video, but most were happy to see it again anyway

Oli and Richard competing for the Grand Prize.

The afternoon ended with the finals of the competition, with the finalists of the time & points rounds.
To add a bit of complexity, we gave them a pair of AGloves to be playing the game with
Seems it didn’t really have any negative impact on their gaming, and they gave us a good show

Oli wins an N8 offered by Nokia, Richard goes home with a big chocolate football

As they still won a round each, we had to find a way to make one win.
They ended up playing real live Angry Birds by sling shooting birds at each other
Oli won by hitting Richard one time more
They both got tshirts and gloves.

We did a raffle for the Tshirts, gloves, powermats and other gifts we had to give away.

The “Fair” ended on a really positive feeling and we set foot to #LeStudio52 for the evening party.
I will not share the pictures of the party as it went really well, but kept on going until 5am

With over  200 participants for the whole day/evening/night activities, London was a leading international event.

We will be putting more content up in the nest couple of days, but wanted to thank all of you who have participated.

We’ve got already quite good feedback from the event, and some blog posts and galleries have been popping up.

Nick, from “The Average Gamer“, definitely had a blast as explained in his last blog post, and he is throwing a competition giving the chance to his readers to get a limited exclusive edition bird.

Julen, from “App Freak“, liked the fact that it was not only geeks, but a real mixed bunch of people, including families with kids. You can read more about his experience on his blog.

Eugene covered the event on a photography perspective and you can see them on his gallery.

And here is a preview of the Flash Mob:

Thanks again to all of you for joining, as well as the volunteers helping: Alexa, Scott, Gareth, George, Claire, Jennifer, Jon, Abul and the ones who gave a hand during the day!

A special thank to Craig and his kids who did an amazing AudioBoo where they thank us for the birds. Listen here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/236014-thank-you

Thanks also to our sponsors: Rovio, Nokia, AGloves, SpreadShirt, GiffGaff, Nuleaf, Mozilla Foundation, MinuteBox, Powermat, Chillingo.

More events coming up organized by #LeStudio52. Follow us on twitter! @lestudio52.

We will be giving out an exclusive Angry Birds sling shot toys to the first 150 people who will join the Angry Birds Day Flash Mob.
This birds are not sold by Rovio and this is the last batch available.

So register on the group: http://groups.google.com/group/AngryBirdsDayLondon

Join the Flash Mob and get your exclusive toy!

Parmy Olson has been featuring #AngryBirdsDay in her “Morning Tech Wrap”. Let’s see if the more “businessy” crowd will join us in celebrating the game Amplify’d from blogs.forbes.com Morning Tech Wrap: Hackers, Angry Birds, Chatroulette Tomorrow is International Angry Birds Day  In case you didn’t hear already, tomorrow is International Angry Birds Day. Fans of the addictive mobile game are gathering at more than 100 meet-ups around the worl … Read More

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Agloves are everyday knit gloves reinvented for a touch screen world.

The Agloves team did not simply “improve” on existing touch screen gloves, but instead studied capacitive screens to make an impressive new design that is simple, elegant, functional, and affordable. “Ag” is the symbol for silver on the periodic table and is the most conductive element. Silver fibers are knitted throughout the entire glove, not just on the fingertips, providing precision texting, 10-finger functionality, and warmth.

More about Agloves at www.Agloves.com, on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Agloves) or Twitter (www.twitter.com/TheAgloves).

As much as the PK301 has an internal battery and can operate independently, it does not output at full lumens rating.
With external power supply, it does bring 50 Lumens and works a lot better.

There is a battery extension, but we’ve been interested in making it last even longer.

Check that video for the progress:

Here is a quick video that will give you an overview of what we’re up to in the next few days