Last week in class we got presented with a video from IDEO in Palo Alto and their unique brand of brainstorming called ”Deep Dive,” a sort of total immersion into the problem at hand. It’s one company’s secret weapon for innovation. I liked it, I liked their process, but you can make up your own mind.
Part one is below, but parts 2 & 3 can be found on Youtube.
The video might be 8 years old, but I still think it is very relevant. That reminds me, I still need to buy Bill Moggridge’s book ‘Designing Interactions’ – which has an excellent piece by Bill Verplank on Interaction Design.
Now this wasn’t the limited edition iPod I imagined, but doesn’t that box just make it look so cool to own. Snap out of it Kyle! It is an iPod Classic with 13 Beatles CDs. TUT TUT I still want one ;
Limited Edition Ultimate Collector’s Box: Beatles iPod Set. The ultimate Beatles collector’s gift. Includes a numbered 120G iPod in classic black etched with the Beatles’ logo on the front and Abbey Road on the back. Includes 13 original Beatles’ CDs, plus two masters and the "Love" CD, all with an engraved guitar pick. Packaged in a box designed by Psycho Bunny. Only 2500 available.
Catalog Item Number: 64934
Limited Edition. 2500 available. Each iPod is etched with a number.
I have just found these simplified TV remote controls from Bill Moggridge’s "Designing Interactions". It is a interesting concept, what buttons on your remote do you use daily?
So, is this new iPod Nano? Who knows but it did get me thinking. Last year the iPod user interface got a fresh new update (see second image above). On the supposedly new Nano the screen is much longer, but doesn’t look as wide as the fat 3g Nano from last year (which could be a issue for the UI on the new device). The longer screen is definitely for watching for watching movies in landscape mode (for some strange reason Apple likes us to physically change the way we hold the device, depending on what task we are performing). By the way, how big are accelerometers? because I could certainly see them making an appearance in this device.
I’ve just had an argument on the phone with an O2 customer service agent. After some confusion I now needed to change the password on my account, this couldn’t be done without knowing the answer to my secret answer. CORRECTION the secret answer and the question which relates to that answer, I needed to know both pieces of information to alter a password. SO, instead of needing to remember the memorable one word answer, I now need to remember the sentence that goes before that answer, ‘Yes that’s correct Mr Mayne’.
I then spent a few minutes asking him questions;
Is it my mothers maiden name? – ‘No’
Is it the town in which I was born? –‘No’
Is it my favourite colour? –‘No’
Is it my first pet? –‘Maybe’
Ok finally I was getting somewhere, good job these questions have became ubiquitous in changing passwords or I would have been stuck still arguing my case! At the end of the conversation he said don’t say your new password out loud because the call is recorded, I then reminded him that we had spoken every other piece of information O2 holds about me, from my username, mobile number, date of birth, address, secret answer, secret question and make of phone which is more than enough to alter my password again in the future.
My iPhone is docked and I’m playing music through iTunes (music that is located on my iPhone). Music is playing loudly, someone phones my iPhone, how should the phone react? Currently the phone rings, but I can’t hear it because of iTunes playing songs off my iPhone, so I miss the call (this has happened on two occasions now). Another possibility would be for music to cut out, and the ring tone played through my external speakers (hooked up to my laptop), informing the user that they had an incoming call (this happens when the speakers are plugged into the audio jack too). It is arguable that you would want the music to keep continuously playing, although couldn’t this problem be simply rectified by adding option into the settings on the device?
For a good few months, I’ve been thinking about this idea of search and twitter. I believe twitter to be the most up-to-date information today on the web, a story breaks and it spreads like a wildfire across the ‘twitter world’ instantaneously. The problem is that the story/ information is inaccessible to the majority of the twitter users. For example, if I don’t have you as a friend with the story, how will I ever know. Things such as search.twitter.com fail, because how do I search for a story that I never knew existed in the first place? I could be lucky and stumble on what I wanted to know (maybe from the Public Timeline?), but as a user I’m now cut off from the full discussion. I could possibility send a few messages to people discussing the story, but I’m still cut off from the main discussion, unless your within that group of people, you are going to miss out.
Obviously this is not an issue for the big twitter users who have got thousands of followers like Dave, Cali or Jason. For the average users (I wouldn’t even say I’m one of those), who follows 50 people, whom all live in a very similar geographic location, information will be hard to pass. Their information can only be passed on successfully if they have many friend connections (like a friend of a friend and so on). Again this rely’s upon that information to be passed, will it get through? Will they be interested? – It is really hard to say!
This morning I awoke to the news that Russell Beattie has launched ‘Roomatic’ (via), which groups twitter users together by topics they are wishing to talk about. It overcomes part of the problem by getting ‘unknown friends’ (people who don’t know each, but have the same interests) together, in a single place, talking about what they want to talk about. Which I believe is a great idea in harvesting the power of twitter. Although as an individual, how did I know I wanted to discuss that topic, until it was right under my nose?
This issue relates back to was I was originally saying, I believe Russ to have a good baseline here, he is getting unknown people together to a common interest or discussion (Something twitter currently can not do on its own). I believe he now needs to focus on getting people to discuss a topic they didn’t realise they wanted to discuss. Encouraging more ‘rooms’ to form, but developing a way of getting people to enter these discussions. He makes a good start in outlining a few popular topics, but more could be done. I still haven’t worked out a solution, it is difficult, but it is on my mind.
How did I know I wanted to discuss the latest topic, when your out of the twitter loop.
I’ve been waiting a few weeks for this, the digital launch of the Magic Highlights Tours album. Well officially it launches tomorrow, but to my luck it launched on the 4th July in the UK. To my amazement (yeah I’ve just checked) this was the first album I have ever purchased on iTunes, although I’ve downloaded many individual songs over the 4 years I’ve been using the iTunes Store, I haven’t actually downloaded a full album until now. It’s good to see Mr Bruce Springsteen embracing the digital era, delivering mp3s and videos online with no physical release currently planned.
The artists, songwriters, and music publishers are waiving all of their royalties, and Columbia Records is donating all of its net profits, for all sales to benefit The Danny Federici Melanoma Fund. The iTunes Store is donating their first year’s net profits as well.
OK – The album is a complete waste of money (4 tracks + 4 videos) for £6.99, but a least you know the profits are going to a good fund. Still a little expensive though for what your actually getting, it may put many off.
- Kyle
Update : OK I lied, its worth downloading just for ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ /w Tom Morello
RT @harrybr: Ever bought an MP3 through @spotify? You have to go edit > preferences > purchases > location to find out where yo ...4:04 AM Mar 4thvia web
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