My coworker sent this to me a while ago to see my reaction. This comic responds to the user's movements on the page. If you're jumpy, you've been warned!
Apparently people in China claim that their phones smell like fruit when charging. According to the article, the smell might come from the organic solvents used in the manufacturing process that heat up when charged. One Apple China rep advised iPhone owners not to inhale too hard.
Microsoft combined the functions of two of their cloud storage services--SkyDrive (storage) and Mesh (file synchronization and remote access)--to create what they consider a superior alternative to Dropbox, Apple's iCloud, and Google's apps storage.
Computers have been grading multiple-choice tests in schools for years. To the relief of English teachers everywhere, essays have been tougher to gauge. But look out, teachers: A new study finds that software designed to automatically read and grade essays can do as good a job as humans — maybe even better.
My last day teaching was Friday and already they're trying to make it so I can't come back :( Though, I've seen computer poetry and I'm not sold on the idea that computers can gauge quality...
At first I wasn't sure if this would relate to any of our discussions/readings/principles of design, but I think a lot of us in class are Mac users. A prophesy with any validity or not, it's something to think about for future investments.
A really cool website that documents color trends in 'the world's most fashionable cities.' Perhaps we can use patterns for color/theme ideas as creative fodder for our sites (even if an American city is not featured here).
This is another plagiarism-themed article that complicates notions of ownership and creativity. This article recaps how Apple and Samsung have been locked in a bitter struggle over tablet designs.
Another common topic has seemed to be blogs and blogging, especially following the readings for last week. This seemed like a blog post that might add to the discussion.
I thought this might be interesting, especially as we head toward the section of the class where we discuss games. Here is an excerpt from the default blurb: "Victor has worked on experimental UI concepts at Apple and also created the interactive data graphics for Al Gore's book, Our Choice. In the talk Victor showed off a demo of a great real-time game editor that makes your existing coding tools look primitive at best."
A writer for Facebook (wow, that seems like such a weird way of putting it) explains the rationale behind the site's language and features such as the "Like" button. We can connect this to the patterns in Designing Social Interfaces.
Useful if you find yourself using a lot of special characters on your website. For example, in reading responses to the ELO works, it can be useful for some authors' names).
Here is the other website that I look back to frequently. I don't want to spam the message board with websites that are largely just "inspiration" sites, but if any of you are interested in others, I have a bunch and am always looking to trade.