A quick glimpse at some photos from Jordan as I’m going through all my photos from the trip. The city pictures are from a refugee camp in East Amman, the desert shots are Petra. More soon, I promise. Enjoy!

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Yesterday, Rick Smolan released the top secret project he’s been working on with HP: THE OBAMA TIME CAPSULE, a customizable book. Using the HP print-on-demand technology we last showed you with MagCloud, people can weave their own names, photos and messages into an historic large format book featuring the work of the world's leading photographers, graphic artists and writers.

The book can be extensively personalized by answering a few questions and uploading photos to the project website. THE OBAMA TIME CAPSULE offers readers seven different ways to personalize the book. If you’ve been courting your own ISBN, you’ll come close with co-author credit on the front cover and a photograph of you on the back (as well as inside amongst celebrity supporters). Each collectible copy of the book is printed one at a time. Most publishing industry analysts agree that print-on-demand will be the publishing model of the future.

“From grass roots Facebook campaigns to viral YouTube videos, the Obama campaign took the presidential race to a new level in terms of personalization,” said Smolan, co-founder of Against All Odds Productions (AAO). And the book follows suit: Using the Internet, publishers have fewer barriers to market and by only printing what is necessary, excess inventory and waste are eliminated.The OBAMA TIME CAPSULE (retail price $64.95) is now available exclusively through Amazon at an introductory price of $34.95. Additional sponsors for the book include Google, AOL, Facebook, Glam Media, Blurb, Microsoft, eMotion and NewPage.

For the past year, the urban vinyl community has relied on Face Your Manga for all our avatar needs. But now one of our own has stepped up with an app that renders our likenesses in Kidrobocolor. That would be the awesome Tristan Eaton, whose Thunderdog Studios just released the B-BOT app for iPhone. B-BOT is the closest you will ever get your mug to a Munny. You can create your own B-BOT and also customize your contacts. When you receive a call from them, their B-BOTs will show up on the caller ID (and vice versa).

B-BOT was conceived by Tristan Eaton and Peter Cortez while working together on the 2008 Barack Obama Campaign. It was developed by Greg Elliott, the creator of SynchStep.

It is almost a euphoric moment, a private instance when you let a faint smile appear on your face that nobody else notices. I had one of these moments when I played Last Cannon for the iPhone. It’s rare that a game, especially for the Apple mobile platform, has all the key elements that make up a perfect experience – gameplay, artwork/graphics, music, controls. This hits on all points flawlessly. The story, told through journal entries, is of an post-apocalyptic world. You are the last of your kind after the knurlings rained down and destroyed your world. 

The developer counts Geometry Wars, Dr. Mario and Ikaruga among his inspirations and I can definitely see elements of each in the game. Last Cannon is available now in the iTunes store for just $0.99. Version 1.1 promises to bring online leaderboards which will definitely add another layer to the gameplay.  

As a bonus for the readers of joshspear.com, the creator has given us four download codes to give away. Just leave a comment below on what elements you look for in a good game and we’ll choose four of you at random.