Online social networks out - Offline social networks are back!

An interesting article on why online social networks will fade away as people are overloaded with online involvement. What would gain popularity is offline social networks (which have always been there) but in a new form.

Adobe Fireworks - an ideal tool for building website mockups

There is a lot of confusion about what exactly Adobe Fireworks is, what it is good for and why one should actually use it instead of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe ImageReady. The answer is simple: Fireworks isn’t a replacement for both tools, but rather a more effective, integrated environment for designing site layouts and quick mockups. Read on.

Designing for You or Me

Interesting debate on UCD process between 37signals, the company who has developed much of the Web 2.0 software and Don Norman, the usbaility guru. 37signals says that they make their software as they feel while Don Norman says it's the wrong way of doing things.

Both have exactly opposite ways of going about UCD process but both are well known for creating intuitive interfaces! But after reading the 'debate' i felt that when you are solving the common problems that both you and the user has, then there is no utmost need to start the process with users. But when you are designing something you ain't familiar to, thats when you need to start with users.

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/904-why-we-disagree-with-don-norman

TUX paint

TUX UI An image I created with it :)

Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6 in the US, key stages 1 & 2 in the UK). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program.

Show and Tell: Imagining the User Experience Beyond Point, Click, and Type

New technologies are being developed everyday which have the potential to bring revolutionary changes in interaction with digital world. Some of the technologies which are already in use...

Video
Viewdle created its facial recognition software to index digital video, allowing owners of DV content to extract meta data from their libraries without manually reviewing and tagging the video recordings. So, if you have hours of uncatalogued digital footage of news and entertainment shows, Viewdle could review and tag your video with people’s names.

Image
Photosynth, a Microsoft Live Labs product, is capable of picture analysis that can piece together related photos in three-dimensional space.

Music
Just as big strides in video- and photo-recognition software are changing the landscape of visual data, developments in audio recognition and analysis are similarly reshaping the way computers enter the world of sound.

There is a tech startup called Platinum Blue that consults for companies in the music business. Record executives have tended to be Humean: though they can tell you how they feel when they listen to a song, they don’t believe anyone can know with confidence whether a song is going to be a hit, and, historically, fewer than 20% of the songs picked as hits by music executives have fulfilled those expectations.

Platinum Blue thinks it can do better. It has a proprietary computer program that uses ‘spectral deconvolution software’ to measure the mathematical relationships among all of a song’s structural components: melody, harmony, beat, tempo, rhythm, octave, pitch, chord progression, cadence, sonic brilliance, frequency, and so on. On the basis of that analysis, the firm believes it can predict whether a song is likely to become a hit with eighty-percent accuracy.”

Voice
Microsoft Sync recognizes the voice commands of drivers, allowing them to make mobile phone calls or play specific songs in their iPod music collections hands free.

Insightful video on Interaction Design by Alan Cooper

Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen

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About this Talk

You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world" using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid -- toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten. In Rosling's hands, global trends -- life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates -- become clear, intuitive and even playful. NEW: Download this talk in full SD resolution >>

About Hans Rosling

As a doctor and researcher, Hans Rosling identified a new paralytic disease induced by hunger in rural... Read full bio »