Working through Screens
Working through Screens is a reference for product teams creating new or iteratively improved applications for thinking work. Written for use during early, formative conversations, it provides teams with a broad range of considerations for setting the overall direction and priorities for their onscreen tools. With hundreds of envisioning questions and fictional examples from clinical research, financial trading, and architecture, this volume can help definers and designers to explore innovative new directions for their products.
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N building
The N. Building in Japan is one huge QR code that becomes a living website thanks to augmented reality on the iPhone.
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Services for making your content more spreadable
Here are two cool new ways to track who is consuming your content, and which pieces users find most interesting. First up:
Depending on the site, up to 6% of page loads results in a user copying content. While this may not sound like much, think of it this way: on a site that has 20 million page views per month, content is copied over one million times during any given month. That’s a lot. How do we know this? Tynt’s patent pending Insight technology is currently running on hundreds of thousands of web sites and monitors billions of page loads per month.
This is a potentially very cool idea, however, it’s a bit annoying that they auto-include a link back to the source content. I’d prefer a more ’silent’ solution. According to Tynt, they are: “currently working on providing users an option to opt out of Tynt Insight. If you’d like to disable Tynt Insight immediately, you can use an ad or script blocking tool to disable Tynt Insight.”
Second is:
http://speakertext.com/
SpeakerText is an easy-to-use tool that lets you find, read and share what people are saying inside of videos. This is another powerful tool, that’s still in beta. I don’t know if it’s technically possible, but it would be great to see this technology drop Flash as its presentation layer. It could be much easier to spread content like this. For example, you would be able to combine the previous Tynt service to do some pretty wild things! Check out Nieman Labs for more.
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Arduino and Processing for Android
So, I’ll probably never actually use this stuff now that I’m done with school, but just thought I’d share these links if anyone is interested:
http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/
Cell phones are great for communication in a virtual manner, but lack expressiveness in personal surroundings. Many people try to give their phones a personal touch by customizing them. ‘android meets arduino’ is a toolkit to connect Android-driven mobile devices with Arduino microcontrollers via Bluetooth. The toolkit provides easy access to internal phone events which can be further processed on the Arduino open-source prototyping platform. This toolkit seeks to empower people to externalize their phone events to creatively demonstrate them on wearables, living spaces, or other tangibles.
http://android.processing.org/
Pre-release downloads of Processing with built-in support for Android. Note that this code is incomplete and contains many bugs. It is not ready for widespread use. It should be considered “nightly build” quality. Do not use this code while operating heavy equipment. Do not rely on this code for thesis or diploma work, as you will not graduate. Do not use this code if you’re prone to whining about incomplete software that you download for free.
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Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers
Here is a fun diversion for a moment. Beats are alright, but I would really love to hear someone try out is the Beatles singing over a Wu-Tang beat, or something. You know, flip the convention of these types of releases. I’m not a musician, but I’m sure some talented person could make it work.
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Browser Testing Tools
Here’s a few links I’ve found to test yer sites on. This is really more for me to use so I can remember this stuff in a few months when I need it again, and have forgotten it by that time.
https://browserlab.adobe.com/
An easier, faster solution for cross-browser testing
http://browsershots.org/
Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.
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Android Handset Distribution
Look at that exponential curve! Android is really taking off. The iPhone is of course still on top, but it will be interesting to see how Apple’s business strategy will adapt in the face of some real competition.
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Designing for social traction
Excellent presentation on design patterns for social sites / applications.
social traction
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The Age of Undoing
Interesting article from New York Times
The Age of Undoing