Gary Hustwit directed Helvetica a pretty good documentary about the history of the classic font. Graphic designers and font dorks were out in mass to see it. Now Hustwit is working on a documentary all about objects we use everyday, our relationship with them, and the people who design them. The trailer below looks great and features Jonathan Ive, who is the lead designer at Apple. Ive is the brains behind the iPod and the iPhone.
I am not a designer but have always appreciated industrial design. It is funny how good can go unnoticed because things work like they should but bad design can make simple objects and tasks difficult. (get ready to jump on my iPhone worship train) The mobile phone market was exactly this, most if not all mobile phones were really difficult to use and the functionality was either severely crippled or nonexistent but the iPhone was the first real mobile phone that took design seriously and made it easy to do simple tasks.
I can't wait until this movie comes out. I guess I will be one of those design dorks filling up the theater.
Several years ago I became obsessed with the Highline, an elevated train track on the west side of Manhattan that use to service the meatpacking district but has not been in use since 1980. There are a lot of reasons why it is one of my favorite places in NYC. I have been up there, trespassing as it is private property, several times and have taken a lot of photos. My most recent venture was in early August and I was able to get some good pictures of the construction transforming it from an abandoned railroad tracks to a fantastic park. Below is a video of how the park will be constructed.
Here are a bunch of other videos that go into detail about the history and the evolution of the Highline. Also here is a slideshow of the final design.
This post start when I saw this post on the highline blog offering a great aerial photo as desktop wallpaper. Generally, I hate wallpaper, of the wall variety and of the screen variety but this one is great and is up on my computer. I may take another venture up on the Highline next weekend and take some more pictures showing the progress of the construction. There is one thing I hope the designers do not remove and that is all the great graffiti that has built up over the years. The wall below is right below 23rd street.
Here is a large view. This photo was about 15-20 photos stitched together using a free photo stitching software so please ignore the stupid watermarks.
I decided to Jailbreak my iPhone again. I originally did this pre app store launch in order to get some really interesting 3rd party apps on my iPhone. When the app store was launched I didn't feel the need to have my phone Jailbroken as I was pretty happy with all that was/is available via the app store. But there are 2 apps that I have been reading about that made me want to jailbreak again.
The first was "Clippy" an app that adds copy and paste functionality to the ".?123" menu on the virtual keyboard. So far the couple of times I used it, it works pretty good. The only annoying thing is that it obscures the area where you are typing slightly but this is a minor annoyance. The second app is the Qik app which allows you to broadcast a live video stream. Below is the quick test video I did yesterday (excuse my messy apartment):
Qik also allows you to send out a message via twitter that you are broadcasting live and so your Twitter followers can go to Qik and see what you are doing. This is a pretty cool feature that would get more people engaged. During my test it didn't seem that my audio was working but as you can see/hear in the video above it seems to be OK. The second test video was at my computer shooting my live feed giving the window within window etc. effect.
Friday I am going to go to the Queens Museum to check out an exhibit on a full model of NYC and I will broadcast via Qik. If you care to check it out I guess the best way to know when it will be live would be to subscribe to my twitter feed.
Friends We Like is a site that showcases interesting/creative people (see site for info for upcoming show). There most recent video featured Ellis G. who does amazing chalk shadow outlines of objects around the city (the site also features a video with Ellis G.). I first saw his stuff on the Lower East Side in February of 2006 and more recently I saw some of his work in a gallery (I can't remember which one, was gallery hoping with a friend). Below are the pic I took with my shitty Nokia 8801.
For the most part Out Of Home Advertising is pretty bland but the technology below could actually make it interesting and worthy of people stopping and looking on with interest. Easy Web is the company that has created this technology. They use 3D mapping technology to get the shape of the building and then are able to do some pretty amazing/creative thing:
I am and have been a huge fan of the iPhone and how it has changed the game in the mobile world. Well 2 years later (which is about the development time for a device so it looks like the devices we are seeing are directly influenced by the iPhone) we are finally starting to see other devices that are starting to rival the ease of use and functionality of the iPhone. When Google launched the Android platform upon first site I knew that a simple, flexible, and elegant mobile platform and every device not named iPhone should utilize.
Now Palm has finally launched a device and a platform that will give the iPhone and Android a run for its proverbial money. Most of what I have seen (see 4 videos below for demos) has been pretty impressive. There are things that the Palm Pre does that the iPhone will definitely need to do better. The biggest is how the Pre can integrate different applications allowing the user to simply just use the device rather than worry about which app they are using. The best example is whether you are IMing or Texting or MMSing you use the same interface so if you and it stays all as one conversation if the person you are talking to jumps from IM to Text. It also integrates all your contact info one spot so you can easily jump from e-mail to IM if you see the person you are e-mailing is online via IM.
I know a lot of people will also love that the Pre has a full physical QWERTY keyboard but as for me and my fat thumbs that is almost a non starter. I can't stand physical keyboards. I love the iPhone virtual keyboard and the software because I don't have to be super accurate with every keystroke and the software corrections is fantastic. Also since I can't spell to save my life it works great for me.
Ultimately, the more competition in the smartphone category we have that are at this level will be great for consumers. The iPhone opened the door and changed the game and showed consumers that mobile phones don't have to be tedious to use. I just hope the iPhone will start to integrate some of these features into the next firmware update because some of this stuff just makes sense.
Part 1 goes through the hardware of the device in detail:
"If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!"
This was quoted in one of my all time favorite books Once A Runner by John L. Parker Jr.incidentally this is being republished by my friend Byrd.
Wow I don't know much about Sylvia Plath other than that she killed herself at the age of 31 but this poem is pretty powerful. There is more of her there.
Jeff Staple started Staple Design, The Reed Space, redesigned Fader Magazine, and has done a lot of interesting design work. In the video below @ the PSFK Conference Asia 2008 talks about his principles of design and how he got started.
LG is putting out a new series of TVs with a direct broadband hookup and with this they are entering into a partnership with Netflix. Netflix has been partnering with everyone and their mother to extend their reach and make it as easy as possible for their customers to be able to download movies. I think more TV manufacturers will come out with broadband enabled TVs and the movie industry should embrace this as much as possible as well as these Netflix partnerships. It would be great to be able to pay to watch new release movies via this type of service.
While I was at Verizon I would let anyone who would listen know that I thought the best thing for Verizon to do was buy Netflix and really push the broadband portion of the business. I also though they should have bought TiVo and use their software as the FiOS platform.
Below is a good interview with Reed Hastings the CEO of Netflix who talks about their broadband strategy. All in all I think Netflix has done a great job at creating a broadband strategy and pushing it through as much as possible, now I just home the studios and content providers follow along.
Inhabitat, a pretty interesting design blog, compiled several predictions for 2009 that are well worth reading. The major focus of the blog and the predictions are around green/sustainable design. I have seen lots of discussion that the focus of 2009 will be on disruptive start-ups and I think that the green economy will be the disruptive technology that will start to explode this year.
Another prediction for 2009 will be the impact of the iPhone on the business market as well as the beginning phases of cloud computing. Apps like Soonr are going to revolutionize how people interact with their work environment.
The last major trend I see for 2009 may be a bit of a chicken or egg thing and that revolves around netbooks (light-weight, low-cost, energy efficient computers with the minimum requirements to run web based applications) and cloud computing. There has been a ton of chatter about the netbook market (see here, here, and several mentions on the GDGT podcast). While some (Sony and Apple because they put such a premium on their brands) think it is a race to the bottom consumers will have much more to say. As this market grows the reliance on the cloud will also grow. I really think with the economy in its current state consumers and business are going to be looking for low cost ways to upgrade/maintain their technology and what better way then push everything to the cloud and cheap no frills computers. 2009 will be an interesting year as green/sustainable and economic forces come together and start to change the way we use and look at technology.
Lastly, 2009 is also going to be huge for my friends Jeff and Jenny. Jeff is hitting the live poker tournament circuit hard and his level of play is at an all time high and so I can see him winning/cashing on several of his trips. Best of luck Gamblero!! And Mrs. Gamblero is putting the finishing touches on her first record and preparing for tune up gigs here in NYC for the next month and then off to London get her album out in front of the industry executives. And as I stated before I am sure she will be fantastic* but I just don't understand why she keeps drawing me so brown (I mean I know I am but I feel like OJ on the cover of Time see second pic here**and third pic here**).
*even though she still has not let me hear any of her music...hint fucking hint
**Comment if you want to hear the stories behind each of those pictures or feel free to make up your own
I took some time off from blogging for several reason. The first and foremost I wanted my Sir Issac Newton post to prominent for a some time. I know a lot of atheists but almost all of them still celebrate Christmas mostly because that's what they have done since they were children and I was hoping that they would think twice about the meaning of that day. I know it is seriously pompous and overbearing of me to think my meager words would change anyone ideas/opinions but where religion is concerned I will keep trying because I really think smart people who don't believe in religion should change their childhood habits.
The other reason I took a bit of a hiatus was that there wasn't much to talk about in the new media/tech world. The one beacon of light has been GDGT, for now a weekly podcast by Ryan Block and Peter Rojas both former editors at engadget. Since the site has not officially launched they are focusing their efforts on the weekly podcasts (some of the recent topics ranged from Apple Year in review, MS Year in review, Android round table, Netbooks wrap up, and much more). It will be really interesting to see what direction they take GDGT because they say it will not be a gadget review or technology blog.
Peter, not too long ago, launched rcrdlbl a project designed to change the record label model. The basic thought process was to distribute the music free but use advertising as a revenue generator.
I will keep this post short as I am coming down with a fever and need something to eat.
