The Ideas Factory: From old hacks to fizzy-pop pioneers - five thoughts we liked this week

Journalism students in Florida struggled without the latest version of Photoshop (Getty)

1. MEDIA: An analogue newspaper in a digital age

In journalism, some techniques are timeless – from having shorthand to knowing how to ask probing questions. But when producing news, technology is ever-changing. A journalism tutor at Florida Atlantic University wondered what would happen if he gave his students the task of producing a paper using pre-desktop publishing techniques; from typing a first draft on a typewriter to mixing inks. The results were mixed, as you'd expect from kids used to being able to copy and paste at a keystroke, rather than with actual paste. But all the students learned how difficult it was to work in a newsroom in an age before Quark and Photoshop.

Source: Journoterrorist.com

2. GADGETS: A teeny-tiny lens for projecting phone footage

As glorious as being able to watch live sports, news or cat videos on our smartphones is (see Sky's rollout of free-to-subscribers Sky Go this week), crowding around a dinky screen to see them ruins things slightly – even in HD. A new lens from Alps Electric, measuring 1mm by 1mm, is said to have the ability to project a smartphone image on to a wall in the size of a 60-inch TV with HD resolution. Wired reports that the company hope to see the lenses on sale for consumers use by the end of the year. So you might as well chuck out your television now.

Source: Wired.com

3. BUSINESS: Taking on the cola conglomerates

Of all the world's industries to be dominated by The Man, the soft drinks industry is one of the most rigidly linear thanks to its two giants, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. So fizz fans ought to bow down to John Nese, owner of Galco's Soda Pop Stop. The Los Angeles store is a mecca for soda enthusiasts around the world, stocking everything from Fentiman's Curiosity Cola (below) to oddities like Mr Q. Cumber Soda. Best of all, he's not allowed himself to be bullied by Big Cola. A video at The Atlantic's video channel offers a 15-minute insight to this small business champion.

Source: The Atlantic

4. CARTOGRAPHY: Plotting San Fran's trees on Google Maps

"It's like a census for trees," is how Urban Forest Map founder Amber Bieg describes her scheme to get San Franciscans to help measure their city's tree growth. The crowd-sourcing project plots where each tree in the city is, so that planners can work out where they need to manage tree growth and environmentalists can look at the environmental boon from each tree-full area. Also handy for estate agents, no doubt.

Source: Good.is

5. PHOTOGRAPHY: Flash your life before your eyes

Software created by a team at the University of Washington, led by Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, allows users to feed pictures of themselves into a programme which then creates an animated sequence based on similarities between images. The software analyses pictures for similarity of expression and head position and then puts them together in a video. If you do it chronologically you can watch yourself growing older. Or, to put it another way, watch your life flash before your eyes.

Source: One Per Cent blog, The New Scientist