Dopplr just openup for everyone, and pretty much at the same time they’ve published their Raumzeitgeist that translates literally as “Space Time Spirit” and that’s precisely what the image shows: where we, the users of Dopplr, travelled through space and time on our little planet last year:
Add comment January 31st, 2008
Today i came across an amazing ode to life in the shape of a game - Passage, as in real life, you can only move forward, and time is a limited resource, we know we’ll die in the end, that’s the only thing certain in the game. Seems a bit sad of course, but the simplicity of it and at the same time the easiness as one engages in the game is unique and certainly a matter that could be applied to a whole lot of other developments as Mark Hurst suggest in his newsletter and by which I came across this special game.
One of the things I found particular disturbing at the beggining the fact that I could only see a tiny fraction of the ‘maze’, and only after reading the author notes it made all the sense, like in life one can only disclose a small part of all that surrounds us, all those things in life that are there for us to see, but paths and decisions that we take, may allow us to see them or not, it’s really up to you and in the end, all the decisions count.
For everyone out there, you should really play it, simple, powerfull and in the end truly amazing and inspirational!
Thanks Jason!
1 comment January 31st, 2008
DataPortability gathers existing open standards into a blueprint for a social, open, remixable web where your online identity, media, contacts and content can follow you wherever you go.
Find out more at dataportability.org
Add comment January 30th, 2008
Britain’s Prince Charles gave a speech on Monday at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, and instead of actually be there, he actually used a 3-D holographic projection of himself, recorded last year in the United Kingdom:
It will take quite some time before it becomes a mass media, but it’s already interesting to see how much we’ve evolved in the holographic field. Also interesting, is the relation between the use of such technology and the environmental savings we can get from it, we could save quite a lot of unnecessary trips by using holographic projections instead of having the real person on site, truth is, one does not need to be there to make an impression, not to mention the absence of Jet Leg 
It’s obviously not the real thing, it still lacks a bit more of quality I would say, but it’s still impressive hein?
Maybe in the future, conferences and talks will actually be leverage by the amount of present or holographic speakers?
Add comment January 29th, 2008
Yup, it’s true, LEGO just turned 50! I haven’t used them for so long of course, but I got my first lego when I was just a few years old (which without revealing to much) makes them probably my oldest active toy! And for more than 30 years they’ve helped me extrapolate ideas into brick realities.
On this particular nice date I’ve decided to post about it and the love I have for LEGO’s, for which I confess, I still love to play with them!
So what better way to celebrate this date? humm… maybe by watching this to them, by Monty Python:
2 comments January 28th, 2008
We all acknowledge Apple as one of the iconic brands of our times, if not for anything else, for being the brand behind inspiring products like the Cube, iMac, iPhone or the just release MacBook Air. Objects that make up our dreams, objects that, subtly, crafted and enriched our collective sense of design and style, objects that used to to be designed aiming their function, rather than the pleasure or value of their use. By introducing design in such objects some brands like Apple have obviously managed to capitalize on and progressively enriched our experience in their products use.
Good ideas and in particular good design tend to foster new, better designs. Yet I’m sort of surprised to realize the influence Dieter Rams work have had on the Apple products line (especially if put together side-by-side) while reading a Gizmondo post about them:
Braun T3 and the multiple generations of iPods:
T1000 radio vs apple’s professional line products like PowerMac G5 and Mac Pro:
and you can find even more examples on the Gizmondo article about these ‘resemblences’ between these two men’s work.
Nevertheless, rather than look at them as mere ‘copies’ or ‘evolutions’, this similarities seem more like a tribute by Jonathan Ive (designer at Apple responsible for products like the iPod and iMac) to Rams life time dedication to excellent design.
Dieter Rams work was somehow unknown to me up until today and yet I’m thrilled to discover how so many of his designed objects have been an intrinsic part of my life (I just discovered that the shaving machine I use is one of his design signature products for Braun - Braun 5500). Dieter Rams was head of Design at Braun for more than 40 years, from 1955 up until 1998 when he retired, his legacy there it’s beyond impressive and many of his works during that period managed their way into museums collections as excellent design pieces.
From his teachings, I found particular interest in his powerful (and yet simple) guidelines for excellent design:
If nothing more to retain from Rams work and teachings, I would suggest that his maxim:
‘Less, but better‘
be retained on the minds of each and every software developer or user interface designer to be applied on their works. If you’d like to know a bit more about RAMS I also suggest that you read his interview for ICON Magazine.
Add comment January 18th, 2008
I’m traveling to Milan this afternoon to participate in the Microsoft ENVISION conference. (a special thanks to ‘Canoas‘ who got me in! And of course, to Microsoft for the nice Invitation and sponsoring).
Microsoft Envision is a set of presentations covering subjects around information, communication, minimal user interfaces, adaptive interfaces, emotional design and the dynamics between information and the way that we present it.
I’ll try to blog a bit about the overall event and the different presentations as soon as possible.
Anyone in Milan up for a coffee or drink?
UPDATE: You can find my short (non-edited) notes here.
BTW, the venue for this Envision event is simply astonishing:
you can get a glimp of it on their website - nHow Hotel Milan:
Add comment January 15th, 2008
Infamous Dannie tag me on this and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she actually predicted that I would ignore it (which I would most certainly!). But since she ‘tagged me’ so politely I’ve decided to go against the odds, and accept the challenge!
Here are 8 things that you might, or might not know about me:
As a protest to this ‘meme’ posts, I’ve decided not to ‘tag’ anyone else!! I’d rather prefer to invite others to actually share things they might or might nor expect others to know about themselves and leave the link to their postings.
4 comments January 14th, 2008
Game Over is an art project by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND, and it’s a series of animation movies reviving some of the very first video games! The only MINOR but very special detail is that instead of pixels he’s using real people!
My personal favorites is the Space Invaders:
and the very latest Tetris:
simply because I’ve actually played them a lot, but check the project page where you’ll find two more videos: Pole Position and Pong.
2 comments January 8th, 2008
I confess that my daily commuting has been somehow different, since I bought my Segway last October. But it was with some surprise that I got a call from Público, a portuguese newspaper on the last week of 2007, asking if they could interview me for a special article on Segways, which I ended accepting!
What I wasn’t counting on, was that some hours after it was published, I got another call from the national TV channel, asking if they could interview me too! Well you can be the judge and check the result:
DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately it’s only in Portuguese…
16 comments January 7th, 2008
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