schmelzprisma

There was a lot of hype surrounding the launch of OpenSocial. Mike Arrington reported about a “select group of fifteen or so industry luminaries [who] attended a highly confidential meeting at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View to discuss the company’s upcoming plans to address the ‘Facebook issue.’” As the post unfolded it began to sound like a Hollywood movie, or at the least a television drama series. Google is planning to take on Facebook!

At the time that post was as…

I was sitting here, at 6:45am PT, having just gotten off a conference call about the design of my greatest obsession, Workstreamr (about which more is forthcoming in a few weeks, I promise), and I happened upon a tweet from my dear friend, Hugh McLeod. Hugh has a written a post on the the costs of being a creative (which, no surprise, includes the backhanded appreciation of the benefits of such a life, as well).

Among other points, Hugh makes the case for the 10,000 hour rule: it takes…

As mentioned a while back, I’ve been trying to find a way to classify the numerous ‘Design with Intent’ and architectures of control examples that have been examined on this site, and suggested by readers. Since that post, my approach has shifted slightly to look at what the intent is behind each example, and hence develop a kind of ‘method’ for suggesting ’solutions’ to ‘problems’, based on analysing hundreds of examples. I’d hesitate to call it a suggestion algorithm quite yet, but it…

(When did Sylvester P. Smythe’s humor magazine start using such naughty words?)

We’ve all been there. You’re walking along, minding your own business, when a gang of cocky, young bastards start hurling abuse at you. Most of us would just keep walking, or maybe, yell some insults back or flip them the bird. Elisha (commonly regarded as the Luke Skywalker to the Prophet Elijah’s Obi-Wan Kenobi), however, decides to…

This frightening animated robot is for training dentists. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather practice dentistry on a white cockroach.

Simroid’s body and control system was developed by Kokoro Company Ltd., creators of the Actroid receptionist robot. Like her Actroid sister, Simroid is equipped with a system of air-powered muscles and soft silicone skin. However, she has something the Actroid does not — sensitive teeth. Thanks to a mouth loaded with sensors, she knows when her…

I have been spending the last few days working on the design for a new social application (still hush-hush project), where I am working with some outside designers.

I recently presented a workshop in Berlin called Building Social Applications, and one section dealt with an approach that I use for designing social applications. The full presentation can be found at slideshare, here. (Wow: just looked at Slideshare to get the link, and the presentation has been viewed 1095 times in the week…

Eine sehr interessante Studie des IBM Institute for Business Value. Die empirische Untersuchung berücksichtigt 2400 Konsumenten und 80 Kader der Werbeindustrie. Neben den USA, Japan und Australien reicht die Umfrage auch nach Deutschland und England. Ein paar Kernaussagen:

- Nutzungszeit Internet hat Fernsehen (ist je länger je mehr ein Background Medium) bereits überholt. Hauptunterschied ist, dass Werbekunden damit eine viel stärkere (nicht-lineare) Kontrolle darüber ausüben, was sie…

By Brady Forrest

Dopplr, the traveler’s social network, punctuates its releases with conferences. Today they are announcing the Berlin release to coincide with the Web 2.0 Expo Berlin. In it they are including a number of features that they have trickled out since their last release (Amsterdam to coincide with Picnic). In it they are releasing trip pages, a blog badge (viral marketing), and a coincidences feed.

As a Dopplr user it’s the coincidence feed…

By Tim O’Reilly

While I’m a huge fan of the idea of an open social networking platform, I’m bemused by all the enthusiasm over Google OpenSocial. As I sit with what I learn, the mild skepticism I expressed the other day has turned into full blown disappointment. This is nothing like the social network operating system that I got so excited about when I first heard Brad Fitzpatrick and David Recordon’s thought’s on the subject.

My disappointment with OpenSocial was crystallized by an…

I must applaud the individual who compiled the list of 101 gadgets that changed the world. It’s even in alphabetical order! You might scoff at some of the ‘gadget’s as they may not fit the mold in which we think about gadgets today, but they were gadgets way back when, so keep that in mind as you trickle through. It’s a great list that includes the condom, Gameboy and bra. Is there anything missing from the list?

1. Abacus, AD190

Use of the abacus, with its beads in a rack, was first…