This image and the idea behind it, it’s simply AMAZING! Just read along and tell me if you don’t agree!
The Torino Colors project aims to change the way we navigate a city, the image i’ve reproduced here is the colored map for the Torino city in Italy. The idea behind it is very simple:
STEP 1: pick a color for each region of your town.
STEP 2: paint all the city appliances and structures (like trash bins, light posts, sign holders, etc.) with the corresponding color…
With a little twist and it’s here that this idea really get interesting!
STEP 3: As soon as you start moving in any direction, you add some blending to starting color, or simply put, when you walk in any certain direction towards another part of the city, the color will react to your movement and start to blend with the color selected for the region where you’re headed.
This way you can always know where you’re headed!
Pure genius hein?
If you’d like to know a bit more, and can read italian I strongly suggest that you check their site. In particular have a look at the official press-release and the Google Earth KML file
Bookmark on del.icio.us March 28th, 2008
Singularity 2008 will gather more than 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities on what will be the very first large-scale online web conference in the world!
Singularity is an amazing idea by Aral Balkan, which many of us know from his open-source project SWX and other amazing works as Flash developer.
The idea is all about active networking and knowledge sharing, but one of Aral intentions will probably really make the difference! Aral wants to engage local groups to setup little singularities happening everywhere around the world at the same time and in parallel with the online event!
I’m so sold out to the idea that I’ve joined the speakers ranks and will be giving a presentation on my Community Design Patterns project:
You can keep an eye out for Singularity Blog or simply by joining the ranks at it’s Upcomming Group.
As a side note, just two very quick and interesting aspects of Singularity: 1) it will represent a screenshot of the Web in 2008 and 2) by saving so many flights it will be a very green conference right?
Bookmark on del.icio.us March 27th, 2008
Aqui no blog o silêncio tem sido rei! Enfim, muito por causa do trabalho confesso, em particular pelo facto de desde o mês passado ser o novo responsável no
SAPO pela Qualidade e Usabilidade. Não é tarefa fácil e outros houve que já tiveram esta pasta e em boa verdade desbravaram muito do caminho que agora me é proposto percorrer. Sem perder muito tempo em explicações e em termos gerais passa por integrar um processo de qualidade no actual processo de desenvolvimento que já existe dentro do
SAPO! Só posso dizer que é de facto uma tarefa monstruosa e não é de longe ‘pêra doce’ como se costuma dizer, mas nada como um desafio, certo?
A propósito deste tema, ontem a convite da
Associação de Profissionais de Usabilidade (APPU) fiz uma apresentação no
Seminário de Usabilidade 2008.
A apresentação, até por ser um projecto tão recente foi um bocadinho dar a conhecer aquilo em que estamos a trabalhar em termos de usabilidade (já que era de usabilidade que ali estávamos a tratar) e nesse sentido dei o meu testemunho sobre o processo de integração da usabilidade enquanto factor de peso na qualidade e como é que conseguimos integra-la na já complicada ‘equação’ que é o processo de desenvolvimento de software. Isto é tudo novidade, pelo que não vale a pena falar em sucessos garantidos ou regras de ouro ou sequer dizer que no SAPO somos especialistas nestas matérias, não o somos! Mas estamos a trabalhar a sério para o sermos! Por isso a apresentação acaba por ser um resumo e uma apresentação de algumas das ideias que estamos a usar e uma prova que o simples facto de termos iniciado este caminho já é um sinal de mudança no sentido certo! Digo eu, claro!
Sem mais demoras, aqui estão os slides. No final deste post encontram alguns links para os materiais que eu refiro durante a apresentação:
Documentos anexos:
This blog as been more than quite and the major reason (besides the usual tons of things I get myself involved with) is the project I’m writing about in this post: since last month I’m responsible for Quality and Usability at
SAPO, an Herculean task to re-think and integrate Quality on the already existing software development process. Big indeed, but then again, there’s nothing like a challenge, right?
This post is about just this, and taking the fact that yesterday following an invitation from
APPU I gave a presentation during the
2008 Usability Seminar on the subject, in particular what we’re trying to achieve with the overall quality process. Being an Usability centered event I focused mainly on the usability part of the overall quality process and gave a testimony on how we’re integrating the U factor on the quality process. Much of this work is just starting so I won’t pretend I’m an expert or that we at
SAPO have loads of experience is this matters… as many people would agree there’s a lot of work ahead and even more that desperately need a change. My feeling about it, is that by starting this process and posing the questions we’re already changing in the right direction
So without further due, here’s the slides. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find some links for the materials I mention on the slides:
Supplemental Materials:
Bookmark on del.icio.us March 26th, 2008
It’s true, SHiFT is back!. We almost died on our first ’round’ in 2006 but we decided to do it again and today we just gave the first (public) step towards it: we’ve unleashed the dates - set your calendars:
A lot of work, discussion and planning will take place in the coming months, so EVERYONE is invited to help and participate in the discussion! We haven’t closed down the speakers list and there will be space for the community to vote on who gets to go up on stage later on, but if you know an exciting speaker or you’re just wishing your secret hero to be there, don’t be shy and let us know!
Pop us an email over at speakers@shift.pt.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on the official Blog, or subscribe SHiFT’s Twitter / jaiku feeds.
See you back in October!
Bookmark on del.icio.us February 29th, 2008
Following a tip from Mark, this blog is now fully iPhone compatible! All it took was to install a very nifty Wordpress plugin - iWPhone. So if you’re the lucky owner of an iPhone just tried it out, you should see something along this:
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Bookmark on del.icio.us February 20th, 2008
Some of Leonel Moura’s works have made it to the covers of this years MIT Artificial Life magazine. The first one is out and features one of his works from the ‘Swarm Paintings‘ series.
Leonel is one of my favorite ‘Geek’ artist and so it’s expectable that I believe he is a man ahead of our time (and especially ahead of our country). Leonel gets to be my favorite simply because he manages to combine two things I really love: Artificial Intelligence & Robotics.
One of the things that really fascinates me on his works is the fact that he doesn’t simply combines them, he actually helps us visualize and feel the products of such combination, what he calls ‘Symbiotic Art‘. His works aren’t just something we get to see on a computer screen, they’re for real: real live sized canvas full of colors!
If you manage to take some time off in Lisbon I strongly recommend taking some time to check Leonel ARTe gallery in downtown Lisbon, if you’re not around you can always browse thru is portfolio and get a glimpse of his works.
Leonel was both a speaker at SHiFT 2006 and SAPO CodeBits last year.
Bookmark on del.icio.us February 19th, 2008
ATENTION: This is an urgent call to all Freelancers or freelancers wannabe’s out-there!
Stephanie Booth is putting up quite a conference completely oriented towards self employed people. Going Solo will take place in the beautiful city of Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, on 16th May 2008, registration has just open, so don’t wait longer… early-early bird prices close on the 17th of Februrary.
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Bookmark on del.icio.us February 13th, 2008
A notícia não é de hoje, mas há alguns dias atrás tomei conhecimento do nascimento formal da Associação Ensino Livre algo que a mim pessoalmente me traz alguma alegria por ver que ainda há quem acredite e se mexa por um ensino mais abrangente do que aquele que é tradicionalmente aplicado no nosso país. Como se pode ler na nota de imprensa:
A Associação tem como finalidade promover a utilização de software livre e a produção de conteúdos livres nos processos de aprendizagem, nomeadamente ao nível do sistema de ensino(…)
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Bookmark on del.icio.us February 13th, 2008
Bargain-seeking tourists have long flocked to Lisbon, typically among the most affordable of European cities. But now the Portuguese capital is also emerging as a cultural force. The new Berardo Collection Museum, in the historic Belem district, boasts a major trove of modern and contemporary art. Designer hotels like Fontana Park and Jerónimos 8 are attracting style-savvy travelers. And the Design and Fashion Museum, scheduled to open in late 2008, will go a long way toward cementing the city’s avant-garde status.
Michael Barrientos for The New York Times
Bookmark on del.icio.us February 11th, 2008
Following my first day short notes and even now that I should probably be sleeping before my early flight back do Lisbon, I couldn’t resist and put up some more of my rought-notes about LIFT’s second dayt.
Disclaimer 1: I just wanted to confess that I was quite tired which implied that my attention span was, hum… somehow less than ideal. I didn’t even listened to all the day presentation’s somehow Skype back-channel seemed so cosy!
Disclaimer 2: as all personal notes, this ones also reflect my own thoughts about some of the conference presentations and as such they shouldn’t be taken literally!
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Bookmark on del.icio.us February 10th, 2008
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