Every place and object in the world has a secret past: who lived there, who passed by, who touched it. The secret lives of objects are filled with such details. If only you could make them talk. But what if you could give any physical object a story simply by sticking a barcode on it and appending a message to that barcode? The message could be a photo, a text message, a video, or a voice note. All anyone would need to unlock the message is a phone with a special barcode scanning app.

Stickybits is that app. Founded by Billy Chasen (the original programmer behind Chartbeat) and Seth Goldstein (chairman and founder of SocialMedia), the startup just closed a $300,000 seed round from Polaris Venture Partners and Mitch Kapor. Officially launching this week at Austin’s SXSW festival, stickybits is a new mobile app for both the iPhone and Android. It lets you scan any barcode and attach a message to that physical object.

The barcode in a greeting card , for instance, could trigger a video message from the sender. One on a box of medical supplies could inventory what is inside. A business card with a code on it could link to a resume or LinkedIn profile. Museums and theme parks could use them for audio tours and maps. Local merchants could use the barcodes to track deliveries or place them in their storefront windows to distribute digital coupons and offers to passersby. The possibilities are endless.

Read More @ TechCrunch & stickybits.com

Flash platformer Canabalt may be simple in concept, but what it lacks in gameplay variety, it more than makes up for in being awesome. This “daring escape” platformer is simply beautiful and beautifully simple.

Have been playing this for the last week or so, and so far my top score is 8,409. Check it out. [via: Kotaku]

Biker Blast Off (by @suziperry) [iTunes]

The aim of the game is to jump your bike as far as possible by means of shaking, rubbing, and tapping your iPod or iPhone. Once in the air, you have to tilt your screen to avoid falling off the bike. Although the premise is simple, it’s surprisingly addictive and will keep you constantly trying to better your high score.

Social Beacon (by @JasonBradbury) [iTunes]

The description of this app promises exactly what it delivers, yet somehow makes it sound interesting and revolutionary. The idea is you have a wheel with popular topics (eg work, play), each with subcategories. You choose what you’re doing and the app generates a Facebook message or tweet from it.

“Fingerless-Functionality” allows you to update without touching the screen at all. Perfect for all the iPhone users that lack digits. Simply launch Social Beacon with your nose, shake your arms around and then blow on it to update. Finally, an app for that too.

Then I remembered my Xbox came with a headset. So I plug that in, and I really wish I hadn’t. The whole server was full of whining teenagers, complaining about any tactic that they thought was unfair. “Don’t drive the cars. Don’t hug the walls, wall hugger”. I think I’ll be playing without the headset, at least with people I don’t know.

Grand Theft Auto is one of my favourite series of games, and I’m glad the gameplay online isn’t as awful as I was dreading. I wish I hadn’t left it so long to get Xbox Live, as undoubtedly most people have moved on to other games by now. But for me, that white box under the TV just got a whole lot more interesting.

My gamertag is: HowardThomson

Edit: Also, use this link, and both you and I get an extra 250MB of space, just by signing up. Easy