tech

world usability day 2006

It’s World Usability Day, so take the day to think about everything that you use, touch, see, or hear and ask, how can I make it better? Is something broken, confusing, too complex, or just not working?

Whys: You should ask why is the VCR clock never right, why are instructions manual so dang complex to understand, why must batteries switch directions each time, why does some packaging require scissors to open, why does my phone have a ton of feature I can’t use, why are nutrition labels so small, Why is the wireless router such a pain to set up, and why don’t public bathroom doors have foot knobs.

Hows: You should ask yourself how can a grocery bag handle be better, how can cleaning be easier, how can road signs be more useful, how can parking meters be better, how can webpages be easier to navigate, how can driving directions be easily understood, how can emails be easier to sort, how can keyboards improve, or simply, how can I reduce the steps it takes to do something.

Woohoooo for usability!!

like.com

Here’s a pretty nifty idea for a new visual search engine. “Like.com” creates results from both text and image matches! Take for example, a silver watch you saw in a magazine, but you had no clue which brand it was. If you had an image of it, you would pop that image in, and ask the service to look for things that, well, looked “like” it! (They call it “likeness” technology) In most cases, people would go to Google Image or Froogle, but as we all know, not everything pops up in those searches, especially the ones you were looking for, mainly because not everything is indexed with the right meta tags.

Like.com is from the creators of Riya.com,which in short, is a photo sharing storage system with some smart AI(artificail intelligence). You dump in a thousand plus images in, tag a few, and riya starts to recognize images of people, puts them in groups, and automatically tags them over time. Riya recognizes colors, images, text, faces, and much more. The more people that do this and share their images, the better. Imagine seeing all those pictures of yourself from other peoples cameras during those holiday vacations you walked into!

Anyhoots, I tried out riya fro some time and enjoyed it, but never found those many tourists pics of my smiling in the mysterious background which I try to do often. Hopefully like.com will change and improve the image/product search world quickly.

via TechCrunch

Biomimetic Ocean Power

“Biological inspiration or biomimetics can help people think outside the box of human engineering. Dr. Tim Finnigan, CEO of BioPower Systems, has taken bio-inspiration literally in his pitch to create the bioWAVEâ„¢ and the bioSTREAMâ„¢. Both systems try to take advantage of the biophysical properties marine animals and plants have adopted for living in near shore wave and high flow environments. BioPower Systems is using their seed money to build prototype models in an effort to get these ideas to market within two to three years. The BioPower Systems website does a beautiful job of presenting the technology. For a review of how this might stack up in the quickly growing ocean power sector, keep reading.”via treehugger
via Worldchanging 

3d sketch furniture

I’ve always wanted to sketch in 3D with a pen that dispensed ink that solidified into wires upon contact with air, but that dream is yet to come true, but for now, lighting tricks will work. I’ve seen this lighting trick many times in the past, but I’ve never seen people use that data and transform it into a physical object until now. Pretty cool, even though the end results seem more like blobjects or objects made from cans of shaving cream. Watch the video above, or go to the YouTube of it here.

More pics here! via blogs.pcnews.co

poptech2006

Pop!Tech 2006 was an amazing brain safari filled with big ideas, great conversations, and a gathering of curious open minded people from all disciplines and places. I’d usually post tons of pics and detailed descriptions, but other guru bloggers have done this timing favor, a very detailed textual blog by Ethan Zukerman, or a more visual dose by core77. Hopefully they’ll post all of the webcast lecture online much like TEDtalks soon. Pictured above is Rodrigo and Gabriela rockin out the house!!!

Read those blogs for the full details, and hit up Flickr for some images, otherwise, I’m going to post my experience outside of all the great lectures after the jump with a bunch of pics:
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world changing book

World Initiatives, Huge Ideas, Global Problems, Collective Solutions, a life changing book no matter what field your in!

A must buy and read book I picked up at PopTech this past weekend filled with an immense amount of inspiring, resourceful, and mind-blowing chapters of information on green sustainability in all aspects with write ups from over 60 authors and a collection of provoking and inspirational images. As Alex Steffen from WorldChanging quotes:

“The debate [over climate change] is over: You’re either on board, or you’re just wrong.”

Go buy this book(book tour), spread the knowledge, and become part of this global transformation. More here.

update: A nice interview with this books famous designer Stefan Sagmeister.

poptech2006

I’m zippin off to the PopTech Conference in Camden Maine for an amazing idea gathering. I’ve heard it’s very comparable to GEL or TED and based on the line-up of speakers, I can see why. If you think your missing out…not at all because all the freakin speakers will be webcast LIVE here!!!

Here’s a partial list of speakers that I’m familiar with though the unknowns are the ones that usually captivate me:

Chris Anderson: Long Tail, Editor and Chief of Wired Magazine.
Stewart Brand: Long Now Foundation and Global Business Network.
Blaine Brownell: Architect, sustainable building advisor, and materials researcher.
Homaro Cantu: Chef, Scientist, Artist.
Richard Dawkins: The world’s most influential thinker on evolutionary biology
Brian Eno: musical legend, innovator, visual artist, and pop icon.
Juan Enriquez: Futurist, author of As the Future Catches You
and The Untied States of America.
Ze Frank: This dudes amazzzingly funny.
Kevin Kelly: Technology Visionary. Has a great blog as well.
Bruce Streling: Futurist, science fiction author, jounalist and critic.
Craig Venter: Dedicated to human genomic research.
Will Wright: Creative force behind the groundbreaking Sims franchises and Spore!!.

To make up for the week, some goodies:
– spider on a bill.
– Real money is magnetic!
– Interesting discussion about Emotional Design and Cultures.
Jumpcut– online video editor(Yahoo bought recently)
– Chris Angel: levitation trick revealed!

aimulet la
aimulet

“The Aimulet LA is a batteryless, light-activated handheld audio communication device with an outer shell made from molded bamboo, designed by the Information Technology Research Institute at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). The device itself is designed to be held to your ear, like a cell phone. When you stand over special LED emitters in the ground, Aimulet LA receives the light signals via an array of spherical micro solar cells (called Sphelar by manufacturer Kyosemi) set into the bottom of the handset. It translates the signals into audio messages that are transmitted through a tiny speaker in the device.”

I had the chance to to tinker with these during my visit to Chicago thanks to the Inventables office. It’s not that loud, but more like a soft whisper coming from a thin piece of bamboo, though from what I remember, I was beamed over beats from some rock band, which made this bamboo card rather mysterious. I love the idea of powerless speakers, but am not sure how advanced this can get, though I’m sure it’ll become a cheap disposable element in interactive environments down the road.

Rest of the story via Pink Tentacle.

magnetic launch ring

“An enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space, or perhaps weapons around the world, suggest the findings of a new study funded by the US air force. ”

Yup,this ideas been floating around for years, but it’s finally getting the approval for testing. Be it a package, a satelite to sling into orbit, or worse case scenario a huge project turned into an amazing rollercoaster ride. Perhaps they should collaborate with the Tate Museum slide and make one dreamy magnetic slide cannon much like what arnold zipped down in the movie Running Man. I have great hopes for this project but really hope it doesn’t turn into one of those grand openings where the projections slam right into a clueless birds much like Fabios rollercoaster ride, the bird hit by a baseball, bird slammed by a golfball, a fighter jet, or many other stories that I’ve seen.

via NewScientists

gootubeYup! The weekend rumors were true! Google just purchased Youtube for 1.65 Billion big ones!!! Maybe now the Epic of Googlezon will happen in the near future?!

As far as I know, google is buying the internet and will own everything I do, think, spell, eat, sleep. Are they not evil? Nah, they just own my life online, offline, and everywhere else.
via gizmodo
update: the YouTube founders make a video reply(yes, they seem verryyyy happy)


If you want to hear from a passionate designer, listen to Ross Lovegrove speak at TED2005! He’s known for incredibly beautiful forms, but in this lecture he also talks about his inspirations, directions, responses, and reasons. I love where he mentions the overtime worker not getting paid, because yes, design is one of those disciplines you desire and just do. I’ll post a few more lectures from TED that captivated my attention after the jump. Catch all the TedTalks as they are released here!

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