Darragh Doyle pays a visit to Marconi House every week, filling in Sean Moncrieff on what he might have missed online over the last seven days. Apps, websites, and viral videos, if it's trending or mind-bending, Darragh's ready to share it...
Do you believe that children are the future, point a camera at them and let them lead the way? Well that's what this Irish YouTube channel does, and your kid can wax lyrical about everything and anything with them too:
Do you have a Twin Stranger? Someone who looks like you but isn’t related in any way? Do you have a Doppelgänger?
In the past coming face-to-face with someone with your physical likeness was believed to signify your imminent death, but a project started in Ireland is capturing the imagination and attention of audiences around the world with a simple idea - that you may have a twin stranger or lookalike somewhere in the world.
Apparently it is statistically likely to each have at least seven lookalikes in the world.
Harry, Niamh and Terrence have a challenge on where they’ve given themselves a month to find their twin strangers and they’re using the internet to do it. People have been sending in photos and videos online to help them find a match or to find matches for themselves.
Niamh Geaney has already found her twin stranger - Karen Brannigan, who Niamh says looks more like her than some of her own sisters. They’re uncannily alike and only live an hour from each other.
However, there are also websites that provide this service for you - and Apps that do it too - Find My Double - and you could always upload your photo to Google Image Reverse Search and see what happens.
The risk of asking on social media is that you never know what people will send back to you...
What pubs in Dublin allow dogs in? Where in Dublin can you do a Game of Thrones Pub Crawl? Where can you rent an inflatable pub? What pubs serve gluten free beer? Which ones have pool tables?
Publin.ie is a directory website that lists all the pubs in Dublin but also shares listicles and “booze news” which include the job vacancies at pubs, the price of drinks at different pubs, what drinks promotions are on and reviews of the pubs.
There’s also Android and iPhone apps which include all this information.
Just FYI, the pubs that allow dogs are MVP, Clanbrassil Street, Anseo on Camden Street, The Gravediggers in Glasnevin, The Bath on Bath Avenue and the Cobblestone in Smithfield. And there's plenty more where that came from...
This is a suite of apps which allows users to stream public camera feeds and make screengrabs.
The eight Evercam apps for Android (iOS versions are nearly ready to be launched) scan public CCTV cameras both locally and worldwide and allow the user to gather their feeds into a single interface. They can then take screenshots from public cams, turn mobile devices into personal cameras, and even configure personal cameras to reply to tweets with an image.
Roisin Kiberd, a journalist recently wrote a fascinating piece about this for Motherboard, where she went around Dublin taking selfies on all of the publically accessible webcams.
One of the things Roisin points out that “You have more rights to your image on CCTV than you do your Facebook photos,” Evercam explains alluding to how your image on CCTV can be reclaimed if you ask for it, and is most often destroyed after 30 days, while images shared to social platforms are liable to show up in “social advertising”.
Some of the Irish webcams you can watch include:
- A cow shed in Co Wicklow
- A webcam on Hook Head North in Wexford
- The south end of Lahinch Beach
- A camera on the M1 near Balbriggan
- A weather cam in Tullow, Co Carlow
Explore is one of the most beautiful and engaging sites in the world. Last night I watched a webcam from a nursery in Ipswich who are raising Great Danes. I tuned into Penguin Beach which is on Long Beach in California, I was in Laikipia County in Central Kenya and I watched sunset over the serene waters of Turtle Bay, on the northern tip of Oahu, Hawaii home of the protected green sea turtle.
Plenty of live webcams and recorded highlights to keep you educated and entertained for hours.
For those who want the facts behind their stories - here’s where you get to watch 100s of Documentariess online for free.
The top five this week are:
- A documentary on the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris
- A documentary on a 16 year old prostitute who murdered her 43 year old client
- A documentary on the Illuminati and the New World Order
- Louis Theroux’s documentary on Ohio’s maximum security state psychiatric hospitals
- Louis Theroux’s documentary: Law and Disorder in Philadelphia
While the top five on the entire site are:
- Louis Theroux’s Most Hated Family in America on the Westboro Baptist Church
- The Trouble with Atheism - a 2006 Channel 4 documentary
- Deborah 13: Servant of God - a girl in a deeply Christian Family whose parents have tried to make sure she and her ten brothers and sisters have grown up protected from the sins of the outside world - listed here as Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham
- The Perfect Vagina - a documentary on the rise in vaginal cosmetic surgery, specifically labiaplasty
- Apollo Zero - did the moon landings really happen in 1969? REALLY?
You pick a year and the site starts playing some videos from (not necessarily encoded in) that year.
You can also stipulate a variety of categories: Video Games, Television, Commercials, Current Events, Sports, Movies and Music to narrow your search.
The video collection includes clips dating back to 1860, although the oldest clip doesn't actually play a video, but features a single selection titled "The First Sound Ever Recorded (1860)."
Here’s a beautiful Japanese website that uses your location on Google Earth to show you what your road would look like with Cherry Blossom trees. As Japanese music plays, you can use your mouse to move the blossoms.
You can also change your location to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Times Square in New York, Rome and the palace in Okinawa.
Elmo makes a point on vaccinations
Sesame Street has been on a role of late, with a number of pop-culture inspired videos going viral, charming children of all ages. And now everyone's favourite ticklish muppet is advising children everywhere not to worry about getting vaccinated.
To see what Darragh covered with Seán last week, please click here.
