Fancy directing a film but don't have cameras, actors or a film crew? Well new site Moviestorm offers off-the-peg animation. If you've got a story to tell then you can use their SIMs-like sets and characters to creat a short film.

Download the Moviestorm platform for free then you can choose from a range of backgrounds and characters, then you can accessorise them and input a script. The computer-game style interface makes it pretty straightforward to understand.

It's not dissimilar to Xtranormal, which we reviewed here though seems to be capable of doing things that are a bit more complex.

I've just watched one of Moviestorm's success stories and gotta say it's pretty good. The director/writer has obviously found a way to work with the limitations of the set-up.

What are the main limitations? the faces on the computer generated characters aren't a strength so pointing the camera at other things while they talk looks good: roving over skylines or following wires round corners. For example. Again character movements can be a little stilted so doing interesting stuff with the camera shot (focussing on shadows for example) instead just pointing it at the characters provokes a great sense of tension.

Here's a video showing how it works:

Interested? get going! instructions on using the site here. And it looks there are communities & forums set up around the films if you need support.

No long explanation necessary - genius songwriter, live gig, Chatroulette = major hilarity and half a million YouTube views.

I am so sorry to inflict this on everyone before lunch, But the creation of this Mozzerella-based monstrosity must be noted. I'm sure it's an important stage in human evolution or something.

A geeky cook blogger who loves Macs and likes getting creative with uh cheese has carved a recogniseable sculpture of Apple's CEO Steve Jobs in Mozzerella. He suggests you serve it with crackers and fruit - probably accessorising the cheese head with a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles.

His blog post contains an entire How-To. Please don't is my only I think it's the beard (flecks of ground pepper) clinging to the puce mottled colour of the skin that I find most repulsive.

Here's a photo from the How-To section. Meanwhile, excuse me while I go off and retch slightly.

[via thecooksden]

Despite new technologies, we still spend a lot of time on the phone but the quality of the phone calls has gone down, says research by BT.

Overall the amount of time we spend communicating has increased. While that's largely due to texting and social networking online, we still spend about 4 hours a week on the phone (mobile and landline) talking to friends and family.

But, as psychologist Emma Kenny, employed by BT tells us - more of us are squeezing phone calls into time when we're doing other things instead of sitting down to have a proper chat.

She analysed 450 calls over a week and found that more than half were squeezed in while out and about or preoccupied with other tasks around the home. These calls were less likely to generate quality conversations (which started on average 2 minutes 48 seconds into calls) and left the caller feeling 'rushed' and the recipient 'irritated'.

Calls made hurriedly in transit (or 'chit' for short) are getting in the way of our chat.

I suppose that 20 years ago, people couldn't have made phone calls while they were travelling because unless they were one of a tiny few, their phone would have been attached to the wall on a cord. With mobiles, the temptation is to fill in a little time while waiting for the bus.

Interested in the findings? BT have set a website Talk Traits which defines 6 different types of communicators: Happy Chatter, Social Butterfly, Impersonal Organiser, Duty Dialler, Unrung Hero and E-vader. See more on their website above.

I thought it was time to do a little round up of ten social media apps and sites that may just become the next big thing. It is interesting that while the first wave of social media sites focused on networking, these have a slightly different approach. Many have strong networking elements, but they also incorporate a lot of mobile technology and the companies behind them are perhaps much more focused on developing business models that generate revenue from day one than their predecessors.

For me then the hot areas are...

Location based services
Group shopping
Instant blogging
Augmented Reality
Video networking
Ereading

Here then is my top ten for now (in no particular order)

1 Groupon

This is without a doubt the hottest property in the US web scene at the moment. It has the backing of some serious investors and is starting to gain a very large following who are spending real money on the site. So why haven't you heard of it? Well Groupon works by offering discount deals on goods and services in specific cities. And so far the company has focused on the US - the London launch is apparently months away. The really clever bit is that the day's offer is only activated if enough people get together in a group and agree to go for it. So, for example, to get a 70% off deal from a hairdressers you might need to get 100 people to sign up for the deal. And you do this by spamming/sharing the offer with all your mates on Twitter and Facebook and via email. Businesses love it as they can guarantee a certain amount of business while getting a huge dollop of social media PR at the same time.

With a very obvious hole in the market a host of UK companies have launched their own Groupon rivals. The most noteworthy are Snippa and Groupola. Neither though has so far delivered enough really cool offers to turn heads. The good news for them is that if they can get it right there is more than enough room in the market for several of these services. There are also a lot of cities in the UK. Northern entrepreneurs really ought to be on the case here. The concept could even go hyper local with smaller communities in large cities having their own offerings. This will be very, very big.

2 Appmakr

There are a lot media companies and indeed bloggers with large followers, who would love to have a presence on the iPhone and the iPad. That's where Appmakr steps in. This controversial US company enables anyone with content to easily create an iPhone app. Think of its as the Wordpress of iPhone apps. There are however several catches. Firstly you still have to pay a fee - the entry level basic service is $199. Secondly there are rumours that Apple is about to crack down on RSS content only apps in the near future. The argument runs that the apps don't ofter anything than the websites/blog, which is easily accessible via the iPhone anyhow.

Conspiracy theorists point to Apple's cosy relationship with big publishing houses as being the real reason it is slightly sniffy about content driven apps. After all how many dreadful games are there on the platform? This however might prove to be Appmakr's big opportunity. If it can develop basic apps that cost little yet add features such as retail or location based services as well as content it might keep Apple happy and generate a whole new way for smaller media companies to make money.

3 Chatroulette

In many ways this has already gone mainstream with features in the media as well as an odd marketing campaigns from French Connection. However I think Chatroulettte could mature in 2010 from being a service that is the preserve of exhibitionists through to one that enables people to make real connections. In case you missed the hype Chatroulette is little like video Skype but with a genius twist. You switch your webcam on and start having a video conversation. What makes it interesting is that the person you speak to is chosen at random.

What has made Chatroulette notorious is that some users say that as many as one in ten of the people they encounter are naked men. Ever the optimist I believe that people will get bored with this, or maybe even Chatroulette's developers will work out a way of weeding nakedness out. Then it is very likely that people will find real uses for the services. Think speed dating. Or even niches. I might be want to speak to a group of Arsenal fans after a game and if I specify that request I could be chatting to Mikhail from Moscow about the Russian Gooners appreciation society. Think too how it might work if it were incorporated into a TV and you could talk with randoms about live events.

4 Stickybits

There's a full review here but the gist of Stickybits is that it allows you attach any kind of content - images, words etc to a barcode. So now if you scan the barcode of the Crunchy Nut Flakes in our kitchen you get to see a pic of my daughter along with an audio message telling her father that the CNFs are hers and I need to open the Bran Flakes instead. Where it might score in the future is that you can buy a kit to add your own barcodes to things. At the moment these are a bit pricey. But imagine if you could leave barcodes in public places where you could then access information or cheeky messages - that would be fun.

For me though the optimum use would be having a barcode in a business card. When the users accessed it they could then get an audio message, some video, and some text which explain in much more detail about who I am and what I do. Stickybits is clearly great fun and there are loads of features to explore, but it does strike me as an app in search of a killer feature. Cleverly Stickybits are using the community to come up with ideas which strikes me as a very sensible idea.

5 Siri

Siri is an amazing free app for the iPhone that basically acts as a voice-driven personal assistant. You ask it what's the weather going to be like? and it delivers a forecast for you. It can do loads more cool things, read the review here. The future it portrays sounds amazing. Here's what the makers say. "You will soon pick up your phone and start asking your assistant things like "take me to live CNN news," "send my dad the latest John Grisham book," or "tell Adam I am running 20 minutes late," and you will then watch it all happen. This evolution towards simplicity of interaction will reduce the barrier to almost everything you use your mobile device to do."

The annoying thing though is that it is so far only available in the US. I guess they have to work on voice translations for the UK which means it may never come here. Which would be a tragedy! Anyway if this sounds good join the Siri to the UK Facebook group here

6 Foursquare

Out of the top ten Foursquare is perhaps the best known and most popular in the UK largely because it is already been championed by a significant section of the British social media Twitterati. The one thing it doesn't have in its favour is that it is not that easy to explain. In fact in many ways until you use the service you probably think it sounds a little well, rubbish. It is built around an app which is available on many mobile platforms. When you fire up the app you get the opportunity to check into the place where you are. So if I an in cafe I check in and I get awarded some virtual points by Foursquare. I then compete with my friends to see who can get the most Foursquare points during a week. It does sound dreadfully sad (like a weak mobile version of Top Trumps), but believe me it is very addictive. The game also has lot of social features, so you can add comments about the places you visit. It also hooks up nicely with Twitter so you tweet about where you are and what you are up to.

However in spite of geekiness Foursquare is growing very quickly. Brands have also started to take it seriously. Soon it will be commoun to check in at places using Foursquare and get free offers etc. Some far sighted UK brands have been doing this already. I can't quite see Foursquare ever really emerging as a social network to rival Facebook or as a serious reviews site either. It is however lots of fun.

7 Posterous

Given my passion for blogging I had to include one content platform in the top ten and inevitably it goes to Posterous as I use it almost every day. This service, which began nearly two years ago now, enables users to blog very quickly and easily either by sending an email with the post and the picture included, or by using a very clever bookmarklet that lets users instantly grab an image on a page and then opens up a text box for them to get typing. The other clever bit is that once our post is up Posterous can send a link to any number of social sites including Twitter and Facebook to entice readers.

Posterous also has a very simple to use iPhone app too and quite a few high profile US bloggers are very vocal about the format. It also has a rival called Tumblr, which is aso excellent and works in a similar though slightly more complicated way. Unluckily for Posterous several of its key features have now been incorporated in mainstream blogging platforms like Wordpress and Typepad, but Posterous is still growing very nicely and I would put money on the developers once again delivering some killer new unique features in the not too distant future.

8 Layar

One of the most talked up technologies of 2010 is Augmented Reality. AR browser Layar lets you overlay a layer of digital content over external reality as seen through your phone's camera. Point your phone's camera at a street/building/person, and on the screen, information about what you're seeing is overlaid onto your view of it. With Layar any developer with a bright idea can add their own layer of content. There's a Wikipedia layer for location-tagged Wikipedia entries, a find-an-available-house layer called Funda set up by an entrepreneurial Irish developer with an interest in property, and a bank has done one marking all nearby ATMs.

There are also some fun apps including one that offers a very cool Beatles virtual tour of London. A lot of developers are working with Layar now and there are apparently over 400 apps for it. A lot of brands have taken notice too, so expect to see a rush of AR apps in the not too distant future.

9 Twitcasting

There are lots of apps that enable you to stream video from your mobile, Qik, for example, has been around several years.Twitcasting uses social media to take live streaming onto another level. After downloading the app, link your Twitter account to Twitcast site by signing in here and then shoot away. The screen on the Twitcasting app is split into a video recording screen and a twitter feed. Hit "Go Live" to go live and as you shoot the video a text box pops up suggesting you post a link to livecast to twitter. Any of your followers can then click on the link and go over to your video channel on the Twitcasting site - just the same way that TwitPic works. The livecast switches off if you receive a phone call.

The website grabs @replies on Twitter and posts them as comments under the video - it's pretty cool, it also archives your videos just like Twitpic does with pictures. Twitcasting might not be a huge mainstream success but some of its features are sure to be incorporated into other video sites very quickly.

10 Kobo

Kobo is a really good idea that makes a lot of sense for those who love electronic books. Unlike rival services Kobo sets itself apart from other digital book stores by offering a synchronised eBook library across a number of gadgets, from smartphones to netbooks.

For instance, if you're lucky enough to own an iPhone, an e-reader, a tablet PC and a desktop PC, Kobo will use cloud storage to sync your library across multiple devices, meaning your page is kept whatever you're reading the eBook on, as well as giving you access to all your novels at any time. It has just launched in the UK, boasts a huge library of titles and best of all has a lot of the classics for free.

There's no denying that location based game Foursquare is on a bit of a roll at the moment. The number of people playing the online location based game has rocketed, it recently announced some interesting partnerships with UK retailers and it has Vodafone on board too.

And now Foursquare appears to have landed the big one. According to Mashable the company has just agreed a deal with the biggest coffee maker of them all - Starbucks. The actual deal itself isn't very exciting either for Starbucks or Foursquare addicts. Starting today, frequent Starbucks visitors who check in at retail locations using Foursquare will earn customer rewards. Although there's no financial incentive or free coffee to begin with, customers can unlock the "Barista badge" after five check ins.

There's no announcement on a UK deal with Starbucks but we bet it isn't far off.

Yet there remains one big question about Foursquare. While there are loads of people playing in London all vying with each other to become mayor of their local coffee shop, are people playing Foursquare in other cities in the UK?

I only ask because a friend of mine in Surrey recently admitted he was getting a little bored with Foursqaure, as in his own words - ' he's the mayor of half the county.'

So are people playing in other big British cities like Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow? And what about smaller places? Whose mayor of the pier cafe in Lowestoft or of the Bridgend Balti House.

Let us know in the comments or vote in the poll.

Love or hate Google, you gotta admit it provides some of the best web services out there - maps, docs, mail - and all for free. One of the latest tools they've released is Public Data Explorer, a way of making important public data into brilliant graphs.

The Data Explorer is a data visualisation tool turning dry as dust spreadsheets into colourful and interactive infographics. Love it. See the fertility v life expectancy chart embedded above.

It works with public data - so information on birth rates, GDP and other info from charities and public bodies. You can't add your own data, but you can adjust and then embed the graphs.

Google say:
Students, journalists, policy makers and everyone else can play with the tool to create visualizations of public data, link to them, or embed them in their own webpages. Embedded charts and links can update automatically so you're always sharing the latest available data. Here's an example of an embedded visualization.

Public Data Explorer is still in Google Labs

[via Businessinsider]

Ah dating, love it or hate it, it's got to be done unless you are lucky enough to be a)in a relationship b)have a great cat and don't give a damn.

Anyway, it makes it all a bit easier when it's on your iPhone: saving you time, money and sparing you those awkward moments when you don't know what to say (just pretend you're off-line).

We have trawled the app store for the best iPhone dating apps and come up with ten.

Click on the image below to start the gallery.

I keep getting emails about this new jeans brand. I usually shunt anything about fashion straight out of my inbox and leave that to the lovely ladies over on ShinyStyle, but this Schultz brand has a smoking hot ad campaign that despite myself I kept inadvertently clicking on. Yes, that's one up there.

It's like American Apparel but the male models are more naked and muscular. I can see this going down quite well with gay male community, as indeed it seems to have done.

What's the deal? well you know the scenario these hot guys just like putting those Schultz jeans on and roaming around the desert leaving their fly undone while they pour petrol onto their belts. For some reason they don't need belts, who knows? who cares? Anyway, I just decided to share it..

See the Schultz site here
Schultz jeans and underwear for men and women

Have you heard of Spotify? Last.fm? It seems lots of people haven't. Research by Consumer Focus announced that four in ten people can't name a single legal online music service.

Of the music fans that were aware of such services, 85% could only name Amazon and iTunes. Doing the maths, that means that only a measly 9% of people are aware of the 20-odd sites such as Spotify, last.fm and We7 where you can legally listen to music.

And whose fault is that? Perhaps digital music music companies should take some of the rap for failing to educate people about legal music sites. This is a missed opportunity for the labels to make money from the legal sites, it's also encourages piracy as people try to listen to stuff illegally instead.

"Illegal services threaten the music industry by side-stepping the artists and ultimately taking revenues from the development of new music. When combined with the risks of malware and virus attacks and a clear lack of awareness into the alternatives to the consumer, what more can be done to stamp out piracy and help the industry, consumer and artist alike, to share music and listen without compromise?" a We7 statement read.

Because today is International Women's Day, we thought we'd look at some of the gadgets that have done their bit for women's liberation in the centuries past.

A lot of these are devices that reduce domestic labour. That's not because women are hardwired to appreciate dishwashers at the expense of fancier or bigger bits of hardware it's because women have been forced into doing domestic labour for centuries; so, devices which make those tasks more efficient and less time-consuming are device that have helped women or anyone forced into domestic labour. Currently women earn 10% of the world's income, yet work two-thirds of the world's working hours

Ultimately it is laws and social attitudes that liberate women and mean that work (whatever it is) gets shared equally, but these little gadgets have helped along the way.

click on the image below to start the gallery

Sci-fi flick District 9 has just picked up the movie accolade no film director wants to win: the most bit-torrented Oscar nominee. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d7/District_nine_ver2.jpg/75px-District_nine_ver2.jpg

Filesharing blog TorrentFreak, listed the most illegally downloaded Oscar "Best Picture" nominee films for 2010: it's one download, one vote and top of the polls was District 9. While the Hurt Locker might have picked up the actual one: this is how the internet voted:

1. District 9 - 12,639,000
2. Avatar - 11,326,000
3. The Hurt Locker - 7,930,000
4. Up - 5,437,000
5. Inglourious Basterds - 5,376,000
6. Precious - 4,922,000
7. Up In The Air - 4,855,000
8. A Serious Man - 3,836,000
9. The Blind Side - 1,845,000
10. An Education - 683,000

[via Torrentfreak]

I know we seem a bit obsessed with Chatroulette on this blog - that's because we are. From the get-go this whole shebang has always looked like A Great Thing To Do With Friends. Doing Chatroulette with a friend is like when you go to a club and sit in the corner making snarky comments about the other people in the room - but way more fun because the people on Chatroulette are actually weird and there are loads more

Anyway, someone's done a Chatroulette party I am delighted to say, in New York of course. All it takes is a hall with a seating area and a good projector. Oh and a hostess too.

Okay it is a bit weird, but no weirder than fox hunting and people do that for pleasure.

Apparently the C'roulette partners get a bit freaked out by suddenly facing a room full of people. But some of them really like it and start acting up something major.

Okay, so who wants to organise one of these in England?

[full account here, NYMag]

Conclusive proof that yes they are mumbling

In a weird announcement yesterday, the mayor of Topeka, a small city in Kansas USA, decided to rename his town "Google", for a month. A decision that will certainly improve the city's SEO, but sounds, in almost all other respects, ridiculous.

But it's not just whimsical - the town's mayor wants Topeka, sorry Google, Kansas, to be one of the places where Google tests out its super-duper high speed internet part of its "Fiber for Communities" programme. He's hoping the name change will attract Google's attention to his city and make it one of the 100 locations where the internet giant trials the programme.

Google's move to provide wired internet at speeds 100x the current average (hitting 1gigabyte a second) has been seen as an aggressive stunt by Internet providers who see it creating immense demand for this kind of service among the public that the the Internet providers will have to step up and fulfill. Google is forcing them to launch a whole new product in other words and they don't like it.

Back to the key issue here: what if we all started naming towns after internet services? How about living in Picasa, Oklahoma or working in Hotmail, New York. That would be crazy.

[via CNN tech]

We wrote a couple of days ago about a mood app that plots feelings on maps (Glow by Heckcopter) and this web game from Childline is a very similar thing. Except that it doesn't just record your mood out of general interest - it tries to change or improve it. Aimed at kids, the "how u feelin" game, on Childline here, uses smilies as simple shorthand for feelings and is aimed at making expressing emotions a bit easier. Once those emotions have been expressed then it's easier for Childline to offer the appropriate advice.

You could say smilies are a bit simplistic or patronising for explaining this kind of thing - but I think it's a fair enough way of reaching people. Simple doesn't always equal simplistic and as a easy-to-use diagnostic tool, it works well. Plus given that I use them all the time to express my emotions, I could hardly complain about it.

Most like the Glow Mood Map is the Moodi Maker which lets you make a customised smiley expressing a certain emotion, it stores and lets you see what everyone else on Childline is feeling that day - today 33% are happy, 11% are depressed, 10% are excited, 3% are amused, 1% are embarrassed.

That's not just interesting, that's also a pretty useful gauge of what services users might need and whether things improve or worsen over time. It also gives a sense of community and support - you're not the only one with problems.

How computers can be used to improve the mood and attitude of their users is pretty interesting, this is just a simple example but there are more complex and commerical ones out there: the Samsung Wave concept products for example. These respond to emotion in your voice or gestures and try and work out what services to provide you in order to match your mood.

Related: CES 2010: ASUS's Waveface concept computers know how you're feeling and Glow mood map iPhone app shows what cities are happy...

The most fun you can have in front of a webcam, Chatroulette is everybody's favourite new NSFW video chat site. But here are five things you didn't know about it:

1. It was founded by a seventeen year-old Russian programmer called Andrey Ternovskiy, who started it for him and his friends to chat on.
[NY Times]

2. You get blocked for 10 minutes if you use the term "asl" in the text chat (as in the age/sex/location question favoured by gay men in the aol chatrooms of the 90s, don't ask me how I know). Saying "fuck" is fine though. I don't know what the reasoning behind that is. I tried - it's true: look:

3. You get blocked for posting pornographic images. Yes, you may well look surprised. "Chatroulette does not tolerate broadcasting obscene, offending, pornographic material and we will have to block users who violate these rules from using our service" these are the terms of use of the site- at least 50% of users certainly haven't read these. Or just had taken their underwear off already and then couldn't be bothered to put it back on again.

4. French Connection ie the clothing brand have got into Chatroulette, for advertising purposes. They're offering £250 FCUK vouchers for any guy who gets a date through the site. How do you prove you got a date through the site? I don't know. Presumably they do. [shiny]

5. Web academics predict that the penises will go and be replaced by celebrities: "After ChatRoulette users become more acquainted with the system (ie., do not browse solely to explore), we predict a decrease in explicit content, an increase in the consolidation of content genres, and an increase in the formation of celebrity figures." say the webecology team, an interdisciplinary research group based in Boston, USA.

I would like to report that people have been seen masturbating with lettuce and "real" raccoons and - but I doubt that would surprise anyone.

See also: Getting Blocked on Chatroulette: when people use the Report button the wrong way

Related: French Connection in rubbish Chatroulette competition and Catroulette: Chatroulette + Cats = LOVE

In case you missed the hype Chatroulette started at the end of last year and it randomly connects users from around the world, enabling them to communicate using webcam, text and images. Much of the time though users share webcam footage with each other and much of it is, (our research team reckons about 10%) shall we say, of a slightly raucous nature.

Now, unbelievably, it seems brands are using to run competitions.

Once famous for their edgy (at the time anyhow) FCUK campaign, they are using the site to run a competition where men are being asked to set up a real date with a girl on the site. The bloke not only gets a date but also £250 worth of French Connection vouchers.

The competition is part of French Connection's The Man, The Woman campaign launched in February, which aims to draw more attention to its men's range of clothing. You can find more about it on their blog here.

Here's how you enter

If you can prove to have successfully charmed a woman, by copying and pasting your discussion with her into our comments section, we will reward you with beefy praise on MANIFESTO, and the best response will win the vouchers. Remember the challenge is lost as soon as the lady removes herself from your company, so get copying as soon as you have flirtation!

And if you're thinking about cheating, we have a crack team of chat-based checkers who will go through every entry and hunt down frauds. If caught, they'll hunt you down and shame you in the most terrible way known to man. They will tell your mother.

Well it obviously sounds like a non competition and I think is more about FCUK trying to grab a bit of Chatroulette's cool than engaging with real users. Makes them sound a bit desperate really.

What do you reckon?

Given how weird and fun random chat service Chatroulette is (how addictive it is here), it was only a matter of time before someone made it even better by focussing on what really makes it great: watching other people's cats on webcam.

Okay. Catroulette isn't actually a service, it's a tumblr image blog of cats on Chatroulette, paired up with images of their chat-partners: girls in sunglasses, guys in their underwear - the usual glorious combination. Plus sometimes other cats in great moments of cat-to-cat connection. Catroulette just celebrates the cat-related highlights of this random site - capturing the fleeting moments of joy, bafflement or AW CUTE on the faces of the cat's chat partners.

It's a treat. Submit pics of your cat's own random adventures to the blog.

Related: Chatroulette: video-chat with randoms on scary but addictive new site and Popjam - a Facebook app that hooks you up with randoms on chat

Labs at Gmail just got a little shake-up according to the Gmail blog. Apps that made the cut and have become fully fledged Gmail features include my favourite custom colour labels and youtube previews. Apps that got the boot include "random signatures" and "location in signature". Here's the list:

Graduating:
Search Autocomplete
Go To Label
Forgotten Attachment Detector
YouTube Previews
Custom Label Colors
Vacation Dates

Retiring:
Muzzle
Fixed Width Font
Email Addict
Location in Signature
Random Signature

Google's main criteria for graduating or retiring apps is their popularity, so what do these sucesses and failures tell us about gmail and gmail users?

I reckon it shows that they're frenetic powermail users who need to deal with huge amounts of mail and apps which help them do that are popular. Greater variety of label colours helps organise mail, search auto-complete and youtube previews save time.

Sweet funny touches like random signatures ain't so popular with gmaillers cause it's all about power and efficiency. That cute quote from Ghandi/Hello Kitty just ain't what these guys want. Email addict turned gmail off for 15 minutes to make you take a break and do something relaxing. I don't think gmaillers want breaks, they just want more information.
Similarly, Muzzle was an app which stopped gchat contacts' status updates showing up, saving screen real estate, but in practice we all want more not less, so that didn't take off either.

Related: The G-board: a keyboard just for Gmail