sans audience

designlanguage: An attempt at redesigning this chart from The...

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 03:36:31 +0530

An attempt at redesigning this chart from The Guardian to make the plaintiffs and defendants a bit more clear.

Edit: HTC has agreed to licensing terms on Microsoft’s patents and there is currently no lawsuit.

Another Edit: Updated to show Motorola’s Lawsuit targeting Apple.

hotshare: A funny sign in a train of Japan. Seat priority is ...

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 05:19:22 +0530

hotshare:

A funny sign in a train of Japan. Seat priority is given to heart-brokens as well along with old, pregnant & disable people.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/westius/3061280662/

Shotwell, the shiny new default photo manager for the upcoming...

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:21:32 +0530

Shotwell, the shiny new default photo manager for the upcoming Ubuntu 10.10. Screenshot is still using Clearlooks, a UI theme from 5-6 years ago, which looks like it’s from 15 years ago. Whose idea was the grey border around thumbnails, and the humongous curved corners? These opensource/Linux programmers have no taste and refuse to learn.

via yorba.org

"Medical College of Wisconsin professor of cell biology Jay Neitz and his wife Maureen Neitz have..."

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:55:58 +0530

“Medical College of Wisconsin professor of cell biology Jay Neitz and his wife Maureen Neitz have been working with a species of monkey whose males have only two kinds of cones. The Neitzes have created a virus containing a gene for a photopigment that the monkeys do not have (L-opsin), and have injected this virus into the eyes of two adult monkeys. Some of the cones absorbed the viral DNA and after five months the monkeys became receptive to light of different wavelengths. The adaptation is believed due to perceptual adaptation rather than any physical changes within the brain. “That’s the way we were thinking about neural plasticity before,” Neitz said. Instead, the monkeys are apparently “learning how to use the same old circuits in a new way when the information coming over the lines changed.”[12] If the monkeys remain free of any side effects, this might be tested on colorblind humans to give them full color vision. If that proves successful, the Neitzes hypothesize, it might be possible to give people with normal sight a fourth cone, equipping human beings with “tetrachromatic” vision.”

- Tetrachromacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fascinating stuff.

And this is why Apple makes one of the best laptops around. 10...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:38:59 +0530

And this is why Apple makes one of the best laptops around. 10 hour claimed battery life is true.

"If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse…"

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:57:00 +0530

““If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse…””

- Henry Ford school of usability

"A lot of what we seem to be doing in a product like that is actually getting design out of the way...."

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:28:11 +0530

“A lot of what we seem to be doing in a product like that is actually getting design out of the way. And I think when forms develop with that sort of reason, and they are not just arbitrary shapes, it feels almost inevitable; it feels almost undesigned; it feels almost like, “Well of course it’s that way, I mean, why would it be any other way?””

- Jonathan Ive, Senior VP of Design, Apple

Statement by Apple on iPhone 4 Pre-Orders

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:33:10 +0530

Statement by Apple on iPhone 4 Pre-Orders:

Apple/AT&T net more than HALF A MILLION pre-orders for iPhone 4. Hey weren’t android phones outselling iPhones these days? I think I hear fandroids crying in agony. LOL.

"…Activities towards the Chandrayaan-II Mission will be initiated,” she said in her..."

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:24:41 +0530

““…Activities towards the Chandrayaan-II Mission will be initiated,” she said in her address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament here.”

- India To Initiate Activities For Chandrayaan-II

This is good to hear, but was that “quote” really necessary (specially after the first sentence in the article)?

"It is intended to give practical demonstrations of these principles with the plant illustrated. As..."

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:16:07 +0530

“It is intended to give practical demonstrations of these principles with the plant illustrated. As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction.”

- Nikola Tesla (Wardenclyffe Tower)

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. via...

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:35:48 +0530

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

via typophile.com

Haha, Google’s idea of web design. We knew Google is not...

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:46:08 +0530

Haha, Google’s idea of web design. We knew Google is not very design-oriented and sometimes lacks taste, but they didn’t have to rub it in our faces!

"For a long time, iPhone felt like a Lexus while Android was more like a Kia. With recent upgrades,..."

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:20:16 +0530

“For a long time, iPhone felt like a Lexus while Android was more like a Kia. With recent upgrades, Android has transformed into more of a Honda. But with iPhone 4, the iPhone is now an Aston Martin (it was James Bond, remember). But the crazy thing is that the iPhone is an Aston Martin with a Honda-price. Meanwhile, Android remains a Honda at a Honda-price — it’s a good deal, but it’s not an iPhone-deal.”

- MG Siegler in An iPhone Lover’s (Initial) Thoughts On iPhone 4

"Of course, in real-world visual scenes, the Gestalt principles work in concert, not in isolation...."

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:38:23 +0530

“Of course, in real-world visual scenes, the Gestalt principles work in concert, not in isolation. For example, a typical Mac OS desktop usually exemplifies six of the seven principles described above (excluding Common Fate): Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, Symmetry, and Figure/Ground.”

- From book “Designing With The Mind in Mind”

I wonder what a typical Linux desktop exemplifies.

Netbooks? Ha! iPads will replace desktop PCs - Computerworld

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 06:08:00 +0530

Netbooks? Ha! iPads will replace desktop PCs - Computerworld:

My college-student son has embraced the iPad full time and has been neglecting his big-screen laptop. He does need multitasking, however, so he’s considering a second iPad and carrying two.

Hahahaha!

Haha! Would like to try that out.

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:13:49 +0530

Haha! Would like to try that out.

Scientific analysis finds iPhone LCD trumps Nexus One OLED

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:01:22 +0530

Scientific analysis finds iPhone LCD trumps Nexus One OLED:

Boo hoo hoo. Just when I thought I’m getting one of the latest and greatest smartphones on the market (i.e. Nexus One), the previous generation iPhone 3GS still manages to beat it even at hardware (never mind the software comparison of Android vs. iPhone OS - Android loses by a mile). I don’t know how badly the iPhone 4th gen is going to annihilate the Nexus One. Oh well.

"At the age of 18, in President Zia ul-Haq’s Pakistan, Salman Ahmad [guitarist for Junoon]..."

Sun, 23 May 2010 12:45:05 +0530

“At the age of 18, in President Zia ul-Haq’s Pakistan, Salman Ahmad [guitarist for Junoon] suffered the loss of his precious first guitar which was smashed by extremist students who had stormed into a secret talent show in which he was participating. “After they’d broken my guitar, they threatened to shoot me if I ever played it again,” he says. “I saw radicalisation first hand.””

- BBC News - Muslim rocker on his ‘jihad’ against extremists

"Under section 77-A of the Indian Railway Act, the liability of Railways as carriers of animals is..."

Sat, 15 May 2010 01:22:16 +0530

“Under section 77-A of the Indian Railway Act, the liability of Railways as carriers of animals is limited as specified below, unless the sender elects to pay the percentage charge on value as shown in the Rule 1301: Per Head Elephants Rs.1500/- Horses Rs.750/- Mules, Camels or Horned Cattle Rs.200/- Donkeys, sheep, goats, dogs and other animals or birds Rs.30/-”

- Indian Railways

New earphones!

Sun, 09 May 2010 20:42:00 +0530

New earphones!:

Yay!

Philips - In-Ear Headphones SHE9550/97

Surprisingly good sound for its price - I don’t mind listening through them without any equalizer. BUY it NOW if you want to upgrade from shitty bundled earbuds. In fact buy it even if you don’t intend to upgrade, you’ll thank me later ;-)