Mini Friday virtual community in mobile phones

Mini Friday is a small research project on virtual community in mobile phones, which is created by Sulake in late 2006. At present, it is only available on S60 2^nd & 3^rd edition Nokia phones.

The company, who already own Habbo Hotel and operate in 31 countries across the globe, created the Mini Friday project in early December 2006. After 10 months Mini Friday crossed 100000 registered characters mark!

Habbo's Avatar Count Rises to 80 million and Habbo is one of the world’s largest virtual worlds for teens.

Cruel horror movie Sauna by Antti-Jussi Annila

Movie director Antti-Jussi Annila, guy who developed for seven years first Finnish "epic poem Kalevala meets kung-fu" movie (Jade Warrior), is now directing another movie; horror movie Sauna. Part of the movie will be shooted in Prague in spring 2008 and the premiere night will be in fall 2008. Annila has said that he wants to make a movie that’s so scary even he wouldn’t want to watch it. We’ll see how well he’ll succeed. The budget of the movie will be 2,5-4m euros (source: Turun Sanomat).

Check out the english summary available on imdb.com.

Avanto Festival 16-18 November 2007

Avanto Festival 16-18 November 2007 (Helsinki, Finland)

The eighth edition of the Avanto Festival will focus on film under the title International Free Cinema. The programme features an extraordinary line-up of moving images that question traditional ways of making and watching films. As a complement to the festival weekend’s boundary-pushing cinematic experiences, the Avanto clubs, this year arranged in cooperation with Äänen Lumo and Potlatch, will offer a wide scope of free music from Finland and abroad.

Marina Village; floating housing area

Marina Housing designs and delivers special floating structures. Modular floating solutions can be combined together, a fact enabling them to design and construct totally new kinds of floating areas with a distinct character (ie. Marina Villages).

Marina Village is a floating housing block that consists of 10-50 independent condominiums. The block consists of the floating piers and the adjoining floating non-attached houses.

Marina Village can include both vacation homes and permanent residences. Also the completed village can differ in size and form depending on the location. Marina Village is designed to fit into the surrounding architecture, nature or cityscape. The Village can consist of nothing but homes, or, alternatively, it can be an integral part of a boat marina as well. Also other functions are possible in a complete Marina Village: for instance a floating restaurant/clubhouse in combination with a lively marina.

Marina Housing is planning to design several Marina Villages around the Finland in the near future.

Stone's war - zombie movie

Marko Mäkilaakso is a tenacious film-maker. When film school turned him down, he started making his own short films and music videos, eventually establishing an award-winning career.

A few years later, when the Finnish Film Foundation refused to fund his debut feature on the grounds it was a horror film, Mäkilaakso took the project to neighbouring Lithuania where he proceeded to set it up as a $5m English-language zombie thriller.

Set during the Second World War, Stone's War follows a platoon of US and Finnish soldiers who confront an army of zombies on the border between Finland and Russia. It was inspired by Zack Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead remake. "I'm not a huge zombie fan but I wanted to give it go," recalls Makilaakso.

Movie will be released in March 2008. Check out the teasers on their MySpace site.

Original Jaffa posters from the late 1950's

Last year Hartwall company maximized the brand awareness of the legendary Finnish Jaffa lemonade by spreading out the Jaffa posters from the late 1950's. Now it's possible to order these posters designed by Finnish graphic designer Erik Bruun.

More info: www.bruundesign.com

G-litter: Keinukaruselli

An unique sound is a rare thing, but G-Litter came pretty close on this, on their astonishing debut LP. Now they finally have released some new material: Keinukaruselli (Pingispong records). Only problem; where to get this new stuff? Lifesaver store (Laivurinkatu 41) might be the place to go?

The Micragirls: Garage / Punk / Rock

The Micragirls, all girl band that has more balls than the male bands tobether...Great stuff?? You can get your sweet but!! The Micragirls are what trash-garage-punk-rockarolla is all about. Mean, nasty, filthy, inept and wild! They are armed with great tough songs full of bizarre tales of meaningless mayhem.

Restaurant Grotesk: gourmet food without tense mannerism

The owners of the Demo (Michelin star restaurant) have just opened a new restaurant called Grotesk (Ludviginkatu 10, Helsinki). New place offers mid-budget food without tense mannerism (three course meal about 35-50eur without drinks).

Let's see how the owners have solved the unfortunate sudden death of the young talented chef de cuisine of Grotesk.