But with fingernail displays, a wand may not even be necessary.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
No wand needed
Many an author of PDA design has compared the device to a wand.
But with fingernail displays, a wand may not even be necessary.
But with fingernail displays, a wand may not even be necessary.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Linkses
Yesterday I threw up a bunch of individual posts about pages I found. Given my slow network speed, that really got to be a drag. Today I'll put 'em all here. Enjoy!
- Art of the title - The Art of the Title site let's you browse through a large number of opening / title sequences. It's nice to have someplace that highlights this otherwise neglected art.
- One Square Inch - The One Square Inch of silence is a great idea - it emphasizes the power and beauty of silence, and the extreme impact an inch can have on it's environment.
- Breast Power - When people walk, more than just their arms and legs move. This site presents an idea to use the power of the breast for more than influencing others.
- Four-dimensional skyscraper - The Dynamic Tower Skyscraper is just cool. Not only does every floor rotate, but it gets more than enough power from wind and sun! The elevators (carrying people AND cars) are in the building core and is the only piece built on site - which makes construction really quick. Two are planning to be built - Dubai and Moscow - for the cheap price of $3000/sq foot - hey sign me up for floor or two!
- Don't Touch! - I like touch screens, and multi-touch even more. But touchless has got to be cool. Next generation mobile phones will sport touchless UIs - see this article for an example.
- Console-less consoles - Ever play pong? Ever play against the computer? Ever play against a book? See Paper Console for an example of how to play pong-cum-choose-your-own-adventure.>
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Interactive Music Video - Black Mirror
BlackMirror also has an interactive video.
You control which audio tracks are played. Okay it's minimal in terms of interactivity, but it's still fun.
You control which audio tracks are played. Okay it's minimal in terms of interactivity, but it's still fun.
Big Ideas and Big Pencils
Big Ideas - A fun interactive, and an interesting combination of zoom and tilt.
Mobile operators have you by the calls
"Similarly, mobile phone carriers here in the US are the gruff, insensitive bullies of the mobile landscape. They hide behind Balkanized billing services, Huckster-style contracts and technical obscurity, all the while creating strained and contentious relationships with all who cross their path. Nobody really likes them – but most of us don’t have the energy or time to fight them. We just throw up our hands and say, “I give up. I’ll sign my life away for two years. Take my money. Just make my phone work.” Few realize that U.S. mobile phone carriers, were forged in a crucible of business brutality, and their gruff, insensitive behavior towards customers is an artifact of that historic legacy.
It all started with the telephone.
Widespread adoption of the telephony system here in the United States was fueled by the products and services of The Bell System (commonly referred to by the nickname Ma Bell). The Bell System, named for Alexander Graham Bell, was a trademark and service mark used by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, or AT&T. Bell had a near-monopoly on the U.S. telephone market because it owned a piece of every part of the supply chain – from the networks for local and long-distance service to the patents for the telephones themselves.
Bell was like tribe of war mongering mercenaries when it came to their business practices; they took no prisoners with competition or customers. All competitors were forced to pay part of their revenues as a licensee fee to Bell Labs. With control of the phone system, Bell could also effectively prohibit customers from connecting phones not made or sold by Bell companies to the system without leasing fees. An oft-heard remark at the time was “Ma Bell has you by the calls”.
This monopolization was brutal and traumatic. There were so few people capable of any regulatory oversight of the market that it turned into a bitter and bloody competitive battle. A 1956 consent decree by the U.S. Justice Department attempted to limited AT&T/Bell’s power over the market by limiting it’s activity to “only” 85% of the United States’ national telephone network and “certain” government contracts. Before 1956, the Bell System’s reach was truly gargantuan and the struggle to break their monopolization of the market seemed futile. Even during the period from 1956 to 1984, the Bell System’s dominant reach into all forms of communications was pervasive within the United States and influential in telecommunication standardization throughout the industrialized world.
The 1984 Bell System divestiture filed by the US Department of Justice brought an end to Bell’s monopoly. The lawsuit brought to light AT&T/Ma Bell’s shady and brutal business practices. The case alleged that AT&T and The Bell System were attempting to use its near monopoly in telecommunications to establish unfair advantage in related technologies, especially the fledgling computer industry. The Bell System was dismantled, but the cultural effects of this brutal legacy have been passed down to the direct decendents of the landline phone, mobile carriers."
Source: http://90mobilesin90days.com/index/?p=9
It all started with the telephone.
Widespread adoption of the telephony system here in the United States was fueled by the products and services of The Bell System (commonly referred to by the nickname Ma Bell). The Bell System, named for Alexander Graham Bell, was a trademark and service mark used by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, or AT&T. Bell had a near-monopoly on the U.S. telephone market because it owned a piece of every part of the supply chain – from the networks for local and long-distance service to the patents for the telephones themselves.
Bell was like tribe of war mongering mercenaries when it came to their business practices; they took no prisoners with competition or customers. All competitors were forced to pay part of their revenues as a licensee fee to Bell Labs. With control of the phone system, Bell could also effectively prohibit customers from connecting phones not made or sold by Bell companies to the system without leasing fees. An oft-heard remark at the time was “Ma Bell has you by the calls”.
This monopolization was brutal and traumatic. There were so few people capable of any regulatory oversight of the market that it turned into a bitter and bloody competitive battle. A 1956 consent decree by the U.S. Justice Department attempted to limited AT&T/Bell’s power over the market by limiting it’s activity to “only” 85% of the United States’ national telephone network and “certain” government contracts. Before 1956, the Bell System’s reach was truly gargantuan and the struggle to break their monopolization of the market seemed futile. Even during the period from 1956 to 1984, the Bell System’s dominant reach into all forms of communications was pervasive within the United States and influential in telecommunication standardization throughout the industrialized world.
The 1984 Bell System divestiture filed by the US Department of Justice brought an end to Bell’s monopoly. The lawsuit brought to light AT&T/Ma Bell’s shady and brutal business practices. The case alleged that AT&T and The Bell System were attempting to use its near monopoly in telecommunications to establish unfair advantage in related technologies, especially the fledgling computer industry. The Bell System was dismantled, but the cultural effects of this brutal legacy have been passed down to the direct decendents of the landline phone, mobile carriers."
Source: http://90mobilesin90days.com/index/?p=9
Knowing the way
"The thing is… I don’t think people want maps and directions - they want that magical feeling of knowing they’re going the right way and confidence they will arrive at the desired destination. I wonder why we don’t consider this more when designing for mobile experiences. Wouldn’t it be great if instead of directions and maps, mobile devices gave the smallest amount of information necessary to help us find our way and delivered subtle cues along the journey to build our confidence. What if a mobile device could be like the north star or Kiblah and provide us with that anchor point that helped us orient ourselves in the world, giving us confidence and guiding us to where we want to go."
Source: 90MobilesIn90Days
Source: 90MobilesIn90Days
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
a better way to browse music
When you only have a few albums, say less than a hundred or so, it's fine to browse through them by name. More and you need better visualizations. The interactive webRadio is an attempt to let you browse non-linearly by mood, tempo, etc. I didn't really like the web-like visualization on the right of the screen, but it's a noteworthy improvement to linear music galleries.
Rubik-cube inspired mathematical puzzles
To quote: "A new set of puzzles inspired by Rubik's Cube offers puzzle lovers the chance to get acquainted with the secret twists and turns of mathematical entities called sporadic simple groups".
See here. It's a long explanation, but written for layman. My biggest complaint is they don't let you play the puzzles.
See here. It's a long explanation, but written for layman. My biggest complaint is they don't let you play the puzzles.
Paul Neave
Paul Neave has a whole bunch of cool interactives here. One of the really cool things about the site is the preview feature as you roll over the name of each of his interactives.
Interactive Music Video
Neon Bible is the first interactive music video I have ever seen. Not beautiful execution, but definitely a nice idea.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Games with a purpose
"Each year, people around the world spend billions of hours playing computer games. What if all this time and energy could be channeled into useful work? What if people playing computer games could, without consciously doing so, simultaneously solve large-scale problems?"
So begins Luis von Ahn in his paper on Games with a purpose
Just brilliant - making data-tagging fun, intrinsically.
See Peekaboom, for instance:
.
So begins Luis von Ahn in his paper on Games with a purpose
Just brilliant - making data-tagging fun, intrinsically.
See Peekaboom, for instance:
.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Massively Multiplayer Word Game
Not really a game, but playful on a large scale.
And has kind of a fun tag-cloud UI.
http://www.humanbraincloud.com/
And has kind of a fun tag-cloud UI.
http://www.humanbraincloud.com/
Swivel warrants a look
Swivel's mission is to make data useful so people share insights, make great decisions and improve lives.
In an era of spin, opinion, and apathy about statistics, Swivel is a Web site that makes it easy for everyone to collaborate and explore data together — because better informed people make better decisions: in voting booths, in corporate boardrooms and at neighborhood meetings.
We believe data is most valuable when it's out in the open where everyone can see it, debate it, have fun, and share new insights. Swivel is applying the power of the Web to data so that life gets better.
See, e.g. a sample data set
In an era of spin, opinion, and apathy about statistics, Swivel is a Web site that makes it easy for everyone to collaborate and explore data together — because better informed people make better decisions: in voting booths, in corporate boardrooms and at neighborhood meetings.
We believe data is most valuable when it's out in the open where everyone can see it, debate it, have fun, and share new insights. Swivel is applying the power of the Web to data so that life gets better.
See, e.g. a sample data set
Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths
Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen
Drat, the embed doesn't work. Here's the link:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92
Drat, the embed doesn't work. Here's the link:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
daily widget
The Dilbert widget is very smooth and looks sharp, and of course it's soooo useful
A couple of other useful ones:
* Transform "arbitrary" HTML into a widget: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/html-text
* URL-to-PDF translator
A couple of other useful ones:
* Transform "arbitrary" HTML into a widget: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/html-text
* URL-to-PDF translator
Tag Clouds
A few from MemeMapper
Visualizing Email Traffic:
Visualizing Email Traffic:
Email conversation between six researchers over a period of 22 days:
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
How important are we?
This series of images from Techdo helps put it all in perspective
If you see only the Earth wait few seconds
Shalom Y'all
Let's start with change. Knowledge changes. Information gets stale.
Data is moveable. Data moves. Data runs.
Information R/evolution
The Machine is Us/ing Us
Two of my favorite videos. Helps to free my mind.
Data is moveable. Data moves. Data runs.
Information R/evolution
The Machine is Us/ing Us
Two of my favorite videos. Helps to free my mind.
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