Head on over to The Verge right now where they are mercilessly making fun of Qualcomm’s keynote presentation at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. Or just skip to the highlights below to see the most insane presentation I’ve ever encountered.
I can’t even fathom being trapped in that presentation hall for this trainwreck.
Well, the world didn’t end and so it seems like reason enough to celebrate with a brand new top albums list for the year that was. Now, the savvy reader will have noticed that there are actually 13 covers in the list below so that means that a) I didn’t stick to my resolve to stop cutely choosing the same number of albums as the second part of the year – it won’t be fun anymore by 2027 and b) I kept with tradition and sent an extra selection on through. One item of note with 2012’s choices is that they nearly all sound like they came from the same sonic landscape. Not even intentional – has my taste started to settle? Ah, at least old age will sound great…
“…in essence, bad design was both the symptom and a contributing cause of apple’s corporate disease. steve’s desire to end the disjoined approach gave birth to a strategic design project that would revolutionize apple’s brand and product lines, change the trajectory of the company’s future, and eventually redefine the way the world thinks about and uses consumer electronics and communication technologies.”
More on designboom…
With shades of 2001 and Dune, I’m in love.
Japan’s new ‘communications robot’ will prevent astronauts from getting lonely in space — by being absolutely adorable.
Yep. (Thanks, io9.)
I’m glad creator Mike Ando was so patient with his dream of building the linking book from Myst. As an ardent fan of the game and its sequels, I was beyond excited to see this story pop up on Wired – and the teenager in me flipped his shit while watching the video. I’ll take one!
Looking for a way to jazz up your used book sales? Try the Biblio-Mat, which promises to convert $2 into a randomly selected title from its inventory. Genius.
These gorgeous bubbles of scenery are by photographer Catherine Nelson. And they are spectacular. See more and learn about the technique at Wired.
Apple has recently let go of the former head of iOS and OS X, ending an era – and support for a particular kind of design, one with a reliance on skeuomorphic elements. Now that the top proponent of the opposing mindset within Apple – chief hardware designer, Jonathan Ive, is at the helm, what might we expect?
[…] the logical guess, given his interest in streamlined, relentlessly consistent design, is that skeuomorphism — the kind-of-campy mimicking of real-world details like plush leather and shiny wood surfaces — may become a thing of the past.
The bottom line: Ive has always been one of the most important people at Apple, but with this reshuffling, he gets the opportunity to become the most important person at Apple. That makes this the most important thing that’s happened at the company in the post-Jobs era.
It’s an important move, and one that is sure to herald in an age of Apple’s software taking on the sparse elegance of its striking hardware. Count me in.
(Time)
Across the state, there are many Media Commons locations that have existing studio spaces that are seeing less and less use as students take increasingly simple video gear – Sony Bloggie Touch or iOS devices – out into the field. An idea that’s come up for re-energizing these rooms is conversion to One Button Studios. A brilliant concept, as it maximizes existing campus room allocations and creates more usability in a familiar environment.
But imagining further out, I’m intrigued by the idea of providing graduated levels of functionality in the converted rooms. One Button Studio could be level one: completely automated, preset and ready to roll. Level three is also easy: bring in the traditional studio lights, backdrops, etc and use them in the space, even in conjunction with the OBS lighting bar. But level two is where it gets interesting. What if we deployed something like Philip’s new Hue lighting system in the space? What is Hue? WiFi enabled, color shifting, iOS controlled bulbs that can do this:
philips hue demo film from Kevin Howes on Vimeo.
In my imagining, students could take out an iPod touch or iPad mini, record video and audio in the field, bring it back to the OBS and set up lighting wirelessly for more scenes, interviews, etc and then plunk down in a comfy chair in the Knowledge Commons at their campus to do touchscreen editing before sharing online. And teaching studio use would be more fun than ever with an iPad mini as my primary tool, wirelessly switching between lighting presets and beaming iMovie training to the projector in the room.