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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:09:11 -0400

iOS 7's Icons Suck because Jony Ive is Used to Hardware & Factories

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:39:23 -0400

Neven Mrgan on the new icons in iOS, and the grid system that led to them:

Jony Ive’s new “icon grid” is a guide meant to ensure that different apps’ icons look harmonious on the home screen. That’s a lofty goal. The issue of whether a grid can really accomplish that is complex; most designers think that non-block-based designs (so, not paragraphs of text, not photos, not headings) require a lot of “optical adjustment”. This is fancy talk for “tweak it so it looks right.”

To me this illustrates Ive’s history with hardware design: meticulous designs down to fractions of centimeters, built for rigid standards so machines and processes can eventually be reused across entire product lines.

In software, such exactness isn’t necessary and is perhaps, well, wrong.

Adjusting an icon design to the eye, not to meet a standard, costs you nothing to implement. Stray pixels don’t require new factory machines, new lines, or new processes.

But the hardware world, the world that must keep in mind factories and efficiency, is the world Ive is used to.

That said: this is a first iteration and Ive’s first major crack at software design. Soon he will realize standards can be flexed within the virtual, and icons will defined to fit the standards of the eye, not the standards of the factory line.

"The device would work not by splitting atoms—the method the atomic bomb had relied upon—but by..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:21:00 -0400

“

The device would work not by splitting atoms—the method the atomic bomb had relied upon—but by fusing them. Estimates projected a blast so great that no one could tell Truman what its uses in fighting a war might be…

The problem now was not so much how to defeat an adversary as how to convince him not to go to war in the first place. Paradoxically, that seemed to require the development of weapons so powerful that no one on the American side knew what their military uses might be, while simultaneously persuading everyone on the Soviet side that if the war did come those weapons would without doubt be employed.

”

- John Lewis Gaddis, in his history of the Cold War

Official art maintenance in Union Square.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:53:05 -0400

Official art maintenance in Union Square.

Dave Bledsoe found Manhattan’s pay phone graveyard.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:07:59 -0400

Dave Bledsoe found Manhattan’s pay phone graveyard.

The Mac Pro has an internal power supply, not an external power...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:31:15 -0400

The Mac Pro has an internal power supply, not an external power brick. Only Apple would design a computer packed this tightly, with such high emphasis on removing heat, and choose to integrate the power supply. (Via Mashable)

Red Hook Ikea (at IKEA)

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:05:27 -0400

Red Hook Ikea (at IKEA)

"I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:09:00 -0400

““I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ ” Kraft told the crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.””

- The time Putin took the Patriot’s owner’s Superbowl ring.

Vanity Fair on the New Cyver War

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:23:08 -0400

Vanity Fair on the New Cyver War:

Essential reading. Will have unexpected effects:

The U.S. banking leadership is said to be extremely unhappy at being stuck with the cost of remediation—which in the case of one specific bank amounts to well over $10 million. The banks view such costs as, effectively, an unlegislated tax in support of U.S. covert activities against Iran. The banks “want help turning [the DDoS] off, and the U.S. government is really struggling with how to do that. It’s all brand-new ground,” says a former national-security official. And banks are not the only organizations that are paying the price. As its waves of attacks continue, Qassam has targeted more banks (not only in the U.S., but also in Europe and Asia) as well as brokerages, credit-card companies, and D.N.S. servers that are part of the Internet’s physical backbone.

(Via Vanity Fair)

"There are 1 billion mobile phone units coming out of Shenzhen and its immediate surroundings every..."

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:47:14 -0400

“There are 1 billion mobile phone units coming out of Shenzhen and its immediate surroundings every year. That is out of the estimated 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion units worldwide annually.”

- China Daily

"The point is we’re using algos to analyze the world, but it goes beyond that: we’ve weaponized..."

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:46:23 -0400

“The point is we’re using algos to analyze the world, but it goes beyond that: we’ve weaponized some of them, so they’re not just thinking, they’re acting. For me, it’s not about the finance piece. That’s just the visible apex of the thinking and practice. I really do believe that as surely as we had a flash crash on Wall St, we can have them in culture if we’re not careful. And the first way to be careful is simply to understand that there’s something to be careful about.”

- Kevin Slavin, interviewed by Rob Walkerr

"Greece became the first developed nation to be cut to emerging-market status by MSCI Inc. (MSCI)..."

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:34:15 -0400

“Greece became the first developed nation to be cut to emerging-market status by MSCI Inc. (MSCI) after the local stock index plunged 83 percent since 2007.”

- Bloomberg

The crazy camera market just got crazier: here is a Samsung...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:34:07 -0400

The crazy camera market just got crazier: here is a Samsung Galaxy Mirrorless camera.

"Shortcutting settings or grabbing content was another use-case envisaged by the NFC pushers. Phone..."

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:19:24 -0400

“Shortcutting settings or grabbing content was another use-case envisaged by the NFC pushers. Phone owners would be tapping their devices to NFC tags stuck on movie posters to get content downloaded to their handsets, or be sent to a URL to watch a film trailer (an idea which has been kicking around since the turn of the century, I might add). This sounds like exactly the sort of not-IRL scenario that gets dreamt up in marketing departments. If that’s the best you’ve got NFC, you need to try a lot harder. And an NFC tag for pre-setting an in-car phone profile? Oh pleeease.”

- Welcome to the club, TechCrunch.

Yahoo! Buys Kitcam Makers

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:43:32 -0400

Yahoo! Buys Kitcam Makers:

The app is now pulled from the store.

Photo

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:47:07 -0400

Atlanta

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 20:59:17 -0400

Atlanta

Why Square is Winning

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:53:50 -0400

Google Wallet and other NFC payment companies attempt to appeal to the those paying. Square’s customers are the merchants. This makes all the difference.

Taxi drivers are the best case study. In NY, NFC is nearly ubiquitous in cabs, and I have yet to meet a cabbie who’s encountered a user. One recent driver even broke it himself, because the rare person who attempted a NFC transaction would clog the back of his cab for minutes attempting to push a purchase, before falling back to plastic.

In Chicago and Atlanta, all the cabbies use and love Square. In Chicago, most cabs have official credit card machines, but drivers will stop you and insist on using Square instead.

This is because Square charges 2.75% per swipe while cab operators charge drivers 7-8% per swipe for the privilege of using the company owned machines.

Square’s product is built for merchants, who have existing pain, cost, and inconvenience. NFC and Google Wallet target customers, who still aren’t sure why a credit card needs to be fixed.

As a result, ever driver in Chicago insists on Square and drivers in New York are disabling NFC.

"Probably the most impressive feature I’ve seen in a long time is Pentax’s Astrotracer..."

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:09:27 -0400

“Probably the most impressive feature I’ve seen in a long time is Pentax’s Astrotracer feature, which melds the camera’s Shake Reduction capability with the GPS position data. Because the camera can tell not just where it’s located but which direction it’s pointing, it can compensate for the rotation of the Earth by rotating the sensor inside the camera to match the motion of the stars. It’s a very cool trick, one that essentially undoes the usual star traces normally seen in night exposures.”

- Digital Photography Review

"Designed by Apple in California"

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:28:19 -0400

"Designed by Apple in California":

Wow. Click through, watch the video. With the new Pro, the new OS designs, and this statement it’s crystal clear: Apple is now Ive’s vision and Cook’s operation.

If Job’s Apple was the intersection of technology and liberal arts, Ive’s Apple looks to be the intersection of technology and emotion.

It’s a brand new era. How exciting.