iOS AND ANDROID
Topics:
Choose a tag
Coming out on April 15th (yes tax day) on funnyordie.com, iSteve starring Justin Long is attempting to be the first movie about Steve Jobs out after his death. According to the article, they wrote the script in 3 days and shot it in 5 days. I’m curious to see how much of it will be humorous, as Steve wasn’t a very funny guy :) Another interesting point is that it’s an hour long movie, which for funnyordie.com is extremely long as they tend to concentrate on short comedy web videos. Mark it on your calendars and let’s hope it good!
Original Article: http://news.yahoo.com/isteve-aims-not-best-1st-steve-jobs-biopic-003907260–abc-news-tech.html
Got this forwarded to me by Riti, thought it deserved some shine on our blog, thank you Jessica Hagy, for writing this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicahagy/2011/11/30/how-to-be-interesting/
How to be interesting (in 10 stupid-simple steps):
1.Go exploring.
Explore ideas, places, and opinions. The inside of the echo chamber is where all the boring people hang out.
2. Share what you discover.
And be generous when you do. Not everybody went exploring with you. Let them live vicariously through your adventures.
3. Do something. Anything.
Dance. Talk. Build. Network. Play. Help. Create. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re doing it. Sitting around and complaining is not an acceptable form of ‘something,’ in case you were wondering.
4. Embrace your innate weirdness.
No one is normal. Everyone has quirks and insights unique to themselves. Don’t hide these things—they are what make you interesting.
5. Have a cause.
If you don’t give a damn about anything, no one will give a damn about you.
Page 2 of 2
6. Minimize the swagger.
Egos get in the way of ideas. If your arrogance is more obvious than your expertise, you are someone other people avoid.
7. Give it a shot.
Try it out. Play around with a new idea. Do something strange. If you never leave your comfort zone, you won’t grow.
8. Hop off the bandwagon.
If everyone else is doing it, you’re already late to the party. Do your own thing, and others will hop onto the spiffy wagon you built yourself. Besides, it’s more fun to drive than it is to get pulled around.
9. Grow a pair.
Bravery is needed to have contrary opinions and to take unexpected paths. If you’re not courageous, you’re going to be hanging around the water cooler, talking about the guy who actually is.
10. Ignore the scolds.
Boring is safe, and you will be told to behave yourself. The scolds could have, would have, should have. But they didn’t. And they resent you for your adventures.
It’s that time of year again, when allergies and Hackathons run rampant. This weekend Mike and I had the privilege of judging another hackathon, this time at Rutgers University, our Alma mater. Unlike the Hack Princeton hackathon we judged, the HackRU event lasted only 24 hours and included project submissions from 18 groups.
The hackathon started with API presentations from a number tech companies which allowed students to interact with the company representatives. Mike and I were thrilled to see such a diverse group of hackers with different ideas and a range of skill sets. You could definitely feel the air charged with creative electricity.
While a hackathon can be a great place to network and meet people from different areas and backgrounds we noticed that they also serve as a great opportunity to learn from one another. Sharing information about different platforms or software was a huge part of this weekend’s event and many of the participants, sponsors, and organizers knew a great deal about a number of different technologies.
Some of our greatest achievements at Local Wisdom are the apps we’ve created. Nothing feels better than seeing a final product that you’ve worked so hard to create come to life. Hackathons offer this same feeling because you not only develop the concept for your application, but you build it and present it. This puts your coding skills to the test and also encourages you to think outside the box both in the application’s creation and presentation. This type of thinking can only help in the future.
We were thrilled with the projects that the teams created. They ranged from a web app that helps a person learn a the definition of words to a mobile app that uses information from Nextbus and Google Maps to calculate whether the user will make it to class on time. The concepts for this hackathon were not only unique, but well thought-out and quite intuitive.
In the end, the project Get Mad Hipster Points Yo, an app that uses the accelerometers in smartphones as controllers over wifi to simulate a table tennis-like game, came in first place. Stereo Laser, used two Arduino boards to control laser light shows for left and right channel audio input and took second. Following closely in third place was FriendTrend that allows users to see what’s trending with only the people they follow rather than everyone on Twitter. See the full list of the projects we judged here.
Overall, we had a fantastic time and got to meet some awesome people. We can’t wait for the next one!
Some interesting points about vision and inspiration, and how long sometimes it takes to see them realized. The part toward the bottom about the 16×16 pixel display seen in 1968 is really an impressive example.
From “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design” by Bret Victor:
This little rant isn’t going to lay out any grand vision or anything. I just hope to suggest some places to look.
Before we think about how we should interact with our Tools Of The Future, let’s consider what a tool is in the first place.
I like this definition: A tool addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities.
That is, a tool converts what we can do into what we want to do. A great tool is designed to fit both sides.
In this rant, I’m not going to talk about human needs. Everyone talks about that; it’s the single most popular conversation topic in history.
And I’m not going to talk about about technology. That’s the easy part, in a sense, because we control it. Technology can be invented; human nature is something we’re stuck with.
I’m going to talk about that neglected third factor, human capabilities. What people can do. Because if a tool isn’t designed to be used by a person, it can’t be a very good tool, right?
http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/
Found this on yahoo news. With the use of a Microsoft Kinect, some Grad students figured out how to project onto any surface and make that surface an input device, pretty impressive:
The day was coming for a while now, and it’s finally here, Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO and Tim Cook the COO will take over. Looks like stocks took a bit of a hit as the news came out. Hopefully Apple won’t go the path of Microsoft after Bill Gates stepped away, but we really won’t know until he’s completely done with Apple. Steve will still be there as the Chairman of the Board so I’m sure his very necessary input will be taken :)
Here’s the link to the text from his resignation letter:
http://news.yahoo.com/text-letter-steve-jobs-resigning-apple-ceo-225627625.html
Thunder Cats is back baby! Found Thundercats as a trending topic off yahoo and it looks like it’s back on Cartoon Network. It’s look pretty good from what I’m seeing in this trailer:
Original article here: http://www.inquisitr.com/130291/thundercats-remake-cartoon-network/
It’s really no secret that I’m pretty obsessed with anything wedding related. (Ask my lovely co-workers who had a pool going as to when I would get an engaged.) Some call me a project manager of life, I just think I’m prepared at all times. I am equally pumped because I’ve finally found a way to tie my obsession with weddings into a blog post for LW. Here we go…
As I browse wedding websites collecting ideas and planning my upcoming nuptials, I have to give major kudos to TheKnot.com. The faceted search available on their website is second-to-none. In development speak, faceted search is simply “the ability for users to build their queries as they go, refining or expanding the current query, with results automatically reflecting the current query. ” In my world it’s “the ability for Tracy to run a search on wedding gowns from style (A-line, Mermaid, Fit-and-Flare) to price to gown length, with the search results showing me different dresses as I select and de-select these categories.” With so many wedding gown options, the faceted search is my new best friend! If your website contains a lot of information that can be separated into categories, I highly recommend installing a faceted search. Drupal, a favorite CMS tool of mine, offers an excellent module for installing such a search.
I did, in fact, say “Yes to the Dress” already…In case you’re wondering what I’ll be wearing on October 6, 2012, maybe you should try using the faceted search on TheKnot.com!
Shawn Organizing the Engagement Pool
Researchers from from the Grenoble Informatics Lab in France are using the camera to track your eye gaze and change the image displayed on the tablet based on your perspective.
Gilang Chandrasa posted an article on komunitasweb.com housing a collection of 9 very nice presentations on User Experience. Very good read for beginners to get a foothold or experts to take a step back.
 on http://www.localwisdom.com){kind=link}
