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Recent Posts Tagged With 'innovation'
Wordle Innovation: Build your own Christmas party game
Ages ago we wrote about the wonder of a little java app called Wordle – which creates stylized word clouds from text or urls. This year we got the idea to use Wordle to create a family game for our upcoming Christmas gathering. Simply searc...
What’s New Today in Apple Patent-land: Touchy sound effects
Today’s feature Apple patent application is number 20090292993: Graphical User Interface Having Sound Effects For Operating Control Elements and Dragging Objects Abstract Systems and methods for providing an enhanced auditory behavior to a gra...
Doesn’t Matter: Best in class, last in line
When I joined Nortel, my friends Lisa Fast and Marilyn French St-John had re-invented the payphone. This electronic creation featured a bright fluorescent display that was readable by sight-impaired users. The digital readout could spew site spec...
If I Only Had a Brain…
Very nice web app from NetFlix to flaunt the re-release of Wizard of Oz on October 3rd. Upload a face picture of yourself and within seconds you’re Scarecrow! Instantly uppload the video to Facebook! Yep. That’s me. Scary, huh? Twe...
US Recovery Tracked Online – soon to be on your iPhone!
The US government has been publishing recovery program data via its web site Recovery.org. It gives you access to all sorts of data relating to government programs aimed at stimulating the economy. There is a tons of data including an interactive...
User eXperience Design: A tool for reducing customer churn (part 2)
Depending on the industry, customer churn is usually blamed on three things: 1. Price / cost; 2. Product issues; 3. Customer service issues. While all these factors need to be closely monitored, a product’s design can play a big role in minim...
Man Made UFOs aka Particle Beam Spacecraft
If you’re amoung the lucky few to have seen a UFO, chances are you’ll soon enough be in good company. Light weight laser propelled spacecraft named ‘lightcraft’ could light our skies in the near future. Check out the current...
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Does Anybody Really Care?
From German design firm Biegert & Funk comes QlockTwo – very cool use of technology. But – cool comes at price! The firm has just lowered the price of the 450mm square clock to a mere 885 Euros. The readout can be set to Engli...
Pssst… buddy, wanna buy some fonts?
I recently found some of these wonderful IBM “golfballs” in my parents basement. These were in fact the first interchangeable fonts for a typewritter: the IBM Selectric – circa mid 1970s. Considering each ball is only only two in...
RoundRects: Apple’s enduring design legacy
SM friend and Plasq co-founder Keith Lang has written an awesome must-read essay on the significance of Apple’s use of rounded rectangles throughout its history. What started as an observational insight by Steve Jobs, the design attribute has...
Mainstreaming: VoIP Technology meets WonderWord
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) became a common industry term around 1997 – along with new product releases like the “Softswitch”. 12 years later, it seems that “VoIP” has found its place in popular culture. This m...
Media-related Merchandising: Tru Blood – $4 a bottle!
Pawning stuff relating to popular movies, or tv shows have been the norm for decades. Walt Disney himself played that game at a whole new level! HBO’s one and half season old True Blood series is gaining an amazing cult following. It’s ...
PZEV Car Retrofit
The latest thing to grab my attention is Subaru’s PZEV (partial zero emissions vehicle). With this set of technologies which consists of a dual-filtration air-intake system, fuel injectors, catalytic converters, and an engine control module, y...
Android Auto-Mobility? HTC designers re-imagine the car
The industrial design firm who brought us HTC’s Google Android phone and Microsoft’s XBox, have created a conceptual car of the future. BTW, industrial designers are prone to creating conceptual cars of the future (they’re just bo...
Kid-tribution House Party
We’ve written before about SM friend Gene DeRose’s House Party. House Party launched a Kid-tribution House party hapenning August 15. Apply to host a Children International party to explore child sponsorship. The party pack from House...
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out: Reportage launches!
Reportage is a new Twitter client for your iPhone. With it, your friends’ feeds become radio stations. The innovative UI navigates like a vintage radio tuner, while taking full advantage of the iPhone’s paging architecture. This was ...
Patent Wars: Apple tries to keep up to Zune
Do you know what makes Zune a superior mp3 player? It supports file formats that were invented back in 1933! yep 76 year old files - namely - FM radio. Not to be outdone by Microsoft’s cunning visionaries, Apple published a patent applicati...
210 Years of Information Architecture
Thomas Baekdal is a wonderful UX futurist. Based in Denmark, he provides a more “northern” view of the typical European user experience (imho). Last week he published his take on where people got their information over a 210 year span. ...
Today’s Tech: Not giving a flying f*#&???
OK - I’ve been in a blogging rut lately. Actually I’ve been in a tech rut. Despite advocating customer-centered design and innovation for 2 decades, I sometimes doubt it makes a difference. Recent research puts Dell at a low point in c...
Electricity from Hot Water
Now there’s a new way to make electricity from the heat differential between hot (warm) and cold water. An American company with a Canadian past named Ergenics is making electricity using thermal mechanical pumps built with metal hydrides. ...
iPeriscope for iPhone + Skype
What do you think about my new product idea? Introducing the iPeriscope. This nifty add on lets you see yourself on your iPhone for video conferencing. Note the suction cup and the transparent periscope diagram showing us how it works! Of course,...
Energy Recovery = Energy Savings
All around us, energy is being wasted. For instance, every time we step on our car brakes, all that kinetic energy is dissipated as ‘waste’ heat by means of friction. Instead of slowing the car down using friction, the Tesla Roadster es...
8 Issues for Mobility: The 2009 MEX Manifesto
SM friend Marek Pawlowski, the director of UK-based PMN, and the organizer of the Mobile User Experience (MEX) conference has just published the 2009 version of the MEX Manifesto. He highlights 8 issues that the mobility industry needs to address in...
It’s incredible! What you can find on the internet
When did America.gov become so cool? Please forgive me if I’m the only one that has missed the updates to this great site. Doing a Google search for ‘independent journalism tips’ I came across this goldmine from the US Government...
Plan B
Ji Lee is a Creative Director for Google in New York. His personal portfolio is wonderful. My favourites include Plan B - which looks at the current economy from a branding perspective. Alco, check out the awesome Google business card. What else ...
ZenZui: Microsoft innovates but stumbles in commercialization
Two years ago, we wrote about a promising startup up call ZenZui being spun out of Microsoft Labs. Their mobile technology is a GUI platform comprised of graphic tiles, and an ability to zoom in and out. At the time, this seemed promising as an al...
Light Bulbs > LED vs Halogen
Buying LED light bulbs is about as complicated as buying an HDTV. Well, not maybe not quite that complicated, but pretty close. LED bulbs come in a variety of shapes, sizes, wattage and prices; they can be as cheap as $5 or more than $100 for a...
DreamRecorder: Sleep Management Software
If you ever wondered what happens to you when you’re sleeping, DreamRecorder is the perfect app. Its author calls it the first digital dream catcher, but it’s not quite as exciting as that. Using your MacBook, you essentially video your...
Seeing is Believing as Comet Lulin Approaches Cosmic LineUp
There’s something magical about seeing something with your own eyes. Take for instance Comet Lulin which is now approaching its closest point to Earth, before it speeds away from us. Seeing the comet with a telescope or binoculars in your bac...
Retro Future Flashback: Apple’s Knowledge Navigator
Back in the late 80s, concept videos were all the rage. Technology companies were producing them to communicate their vision, and to show customers that by buying their products today, they were also investing in the future. Apple released this gem...
