10/GUI Concept
10/GUI is an interesting take on a possible multi-touch system by R. Clayton Miller. The concept re-imagines the desktop UI by proposing a multi-touch system that doesn’t rely on the screen, but adapts a multi-touch replacement for a keyboard. I like the idea, except I’m not convinced the proposed linear model of “stitching” windows together ...
The Browsable Grid
Several sites, including my own PicoCool, are taking advantage of the grid view as a fast way for users to browse content. Designers have been relying on the grid for generations as a layout technique. Lots of data-driven sites (eg. product comparisons or search results), web 2.0 services and blogs let users toggle their view ...
Helveticize Your Web
It’s been fun to see new scripts and themes developed to “Helveticize” the web, starting with Google Reader, then Google Calendar, Gmail, and now Twitter. If you’re a Helvetica lover, you’re in luck. Get rid of multiple fonts and cluttered interfaces and give your apps a minimalist makeover. It is just a visual makeover, though, ...
Google Updates Search Box
Google‘s home page is well-known for its minimalist approach, and the search box itself has had minor adjustments over the past decade. Yesterday, they increased the size of the search box and the font sizes for text input and auto-suggestions. It’s an incremental but good change given increasingly high-resolution monitors, as well as longer search ...
iTunes 9.0 App Management
Finally! The new iTunes 9.0 has an app manager. It’s fairly easy to use but as Steve Rhodes pointed out on my Flickr page, “it is a pain if you want to move several apps from one of the first pages to one of the last pages, but it is much better than doing it ...
Hitchcock: Mobile Storyboarding for iPhone
I posted Hitchcock to eHub last night and it’s been on my mind today. Hitchcock is the world’s first mobile story boarding application. With Hitchcock you can have your first story board up and running in a matter of minutes. Hitchcock streamlines the process of storyboarding by allowing you to compose storyboards using photos rather ...
TiltShift Generator for iPhone
Takayuki Fukatsu of Art&Mobile gave me a sneak peak of his new TiltShift Generator for iPhone, which stylizes the miniature effect on photos. Just like Art&Mobile’s other great products, including QuadCamera (see my post) and ToyCamera, TiltShift Generator is easy to use and has a slick and minimal UI. There are controls for blur levels, ...
Augmented Reality Slowly Becoming a Reality
While it’s probably some time before Augmented Reality (AR) is part of everyday practice, it’s good to see that some applications are coming to fruition. Today, Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb posted that Metro Paris Subway (iTunes link), a French app from PresseLite has appeared in the iTunes store. A commenter on Marshall’s post, Tim, speculates ...
Total Recall: Your E-Memory
I have a healthy obsession with self-documentary, data-streaming and collecting, so you can imagine my delight when Mark Krynsky twittered that he had just posted about 75-year-old Gordon Bell, lifestream pioneer, who was covered in the Wired article, Microsoft Researcher Records His Life in Data. Over the course of a lifetime, humans take in more ...
Art & Copy Film
ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative ...
Personas: Portrait of Your Data Identity
Personas is a new project by the Sociable Media Group from MIT Media Lab and is currently showing at the MIT Museum and online. It uses sophisticated natural language processing (PDF link) and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you. ...
Create Your Own Readymech Pinhole Camera
One of my favorite low-fi ideas/products is Readymech, “free, flatpack toys for you to print and build.” They’re delightfully designed creatures and toys, exhibiting a wide range of styles, from kawaii (cute) to ironic. Now they’ve teamed up with Corbis to celebrate pinhole cameras with their atypical funky designs. Head on over to the Corbis ...
Explore the Music of Cities with CitySounds.fm
With CitySounds.fm, you can browse and listen to the music scene from over 30 cities around the world. The top of the site lists the most active cities and changes as new music is created. To collect the latest music we use professional audio platform SoundCloud.com. City photos are fetched from Flickr.com. The site is ...
iTunes App Store Turns One
Happy one year to the iPhone app store. While there are certainly improvements to be made in the app store experience and iTunes management of your purchased apps, all in all, having iPhone apps has certainly changed my mobile experience. Apple is celebrating (iTunes link) by showcasing some of their favorite apps. Light a candle ...
PicoCool v2 Launches
I’m so pleased to announce that version 2 of PicoCool has launched! I originally started PicoCool in September 2007 as a side blog where I could indulge in my passion for finding unique, and often obscure bytes of content from social networks and peer media. After doing that for a little over a year, I ...
Eye vs. Eye and Kern: iPhone Games for Designers
As much as I love iPhone apps, I haven’t really gotten into games as much as other types of apps (social networking, productivity, photography, music, search, etc.), but these two games from FORMation Alliance might change my mind. Both are perfect for designers and visual people. EYE vs. EYE EYE vs. EYE Is an intense ...
WhatTheFont for iPhone
If you’re a designer, you’ve probably used WhatTheFont, the service that can identify a font from a photo, web graphic or scanned image. Now you can get those same features on your iPhone just by taking a photo with the WhatTheFont for iPhone app. You’ll need to have internet access on your phone so the ...
Our Sixth Sense: Wearable Fluid Interfaces
This week at the TED conference, Pattie Maes from MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group showcased the latest work of her students, “a wearable computing system that turns any surface into an interactive display screen. The wearer can summon virtual gadgets and internet data at will, then dispel them like smoke when they’re done.” Pattie ...