3 Waves & 5 C’s of Computing
With the increased penetration of the Internet, we’ve entered a 3rd Wave of computing use. The bulk of our time with computers is used for Communication (originally just email, then adding IM, Skype audio and video, and social networking) and Consumption (text, images, and video). And even though this 3rd Wave has already lasted 10-15 years, we’re still entrenched in the second wave WYSIWYG paradigm.
I had not heard about this characterization into three waves of computing before, but find it immediately comprehensible and quite useful. It’s obvious that our user interfaces haven’t adapted particularly well to this change in computer usage behavior.
Chatroulette Map
Chatroulette Map is a user-generated global map with geo-placed images of Chatroulette users. Interesting how it turns the supposed notion of anonymity on its head.
future-o-matic theory maker
Originally uploaded by russelldavies.
Get your next book title here.
Overdoing the interface metaphor
It’s important to find the balance between real-world reproduction and usability progress. Physical objects often do things in certain ways for good reasons, and we should try to preserve them. But much of the time, they’re done in those ways because of physical, technical, economic, or practical limitations that don’t need to apply anymore.
Marco.org – Overdoing the interface metaphor.
HTC phones preloaded with malware
Now this is quite scary:
Security researchers have found that Vodafone, one of the world’s larger wireless providers, is distributing some HTC phones with malware pre-installed on them.The phone, the HTC Magic, runs the Google Android mobile operating system, and is one of the more popular handsets right now. A researcher at Panda Security received one of the handsets recently, and upon attaching it to her PC, found that the phone was pre-loaded with the Mariposa bot client. Mariposa has been in the news of late thanks to some arrests connected to the operation of the botnet.
HTC Phones Pre-installed With Mariposa Bot Client | threatpost
4 Pixels or Less: A range of movies represented in four pixels (or less).
Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface
Skinput turns your body into a touchscreen:
More info here, until their paper will be released at CHI 2010.
Books in the Age of the iPad
Books in the Age of the iPad is an amazing article exploring the implications the iPad (and other eReading devices) will have on books and their design. It beautifully illustrates the important distinction between formless and definite content:
Formless Content can be reflowed into different formats and not lose any intrinsic meaning. It’s content divorced from layout. Most novels and works of non-fiction are Formless.
[...]
Content with form – Definite Content – is almost totally the opposite of Formless Content. Most texts composed with images, charts, graphs or poetry fall under this umbrella. It may be reflowable, but depending on how it’s reflowed, inherentmeaning and quality of the text may shift.
Highly recommended, a great read.
“This Too Shall Pass” Rube Goldberg machine
OK Go’s video for their song “This Too Shall Pass” features an amazing Rube Goldberg contraption:
Wired has a making-of article.
Jesse Schell at DICE 2010: Design Outside the Box
Everyone on the intertubes has been linking and embedding Jesse Schell’s presentation at DICE 2010 so you’ve probably seen this already, but now that i’ve finally found the time to watch it i would feel remiss not to point to it myself. See how game mechanics are creeping into more and more aspects of everyday life:
