Noted: Braille on mobile touch screens
Wed, Apr 1, 09
From NewScientist, Vibrating touch screens spell out Braille:
In Braille, letters are encoded using a two-by-three matrix in which each character is represented by a different configuration of raised and absent dots at the six locations. To display these dots on a touch-screen device, Jussi Rantala of the University of Tampere in Finland and colleagues used a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, which has a piezoelectric material built into the touch screen that vibrates when an electric signal is applied to it. The team installed software that represents a raised dot as a single pulse of intense vibration, and an absent dot as a longer vibration made up of several weaker pulses.
The team developed two methods: (1) the user moves a finger horizontally across the screen to detect the bumps, and (2) the finger stays still but the screen vibrates the sequence of six dots, each 360 milliseconds apart. In the latter method, once users got used to it, they could read a character in as little as 1.25 seconds.
The team’s next step, says NewScientist
will be to present entire words and sentences. Screen-reading software is already available that “grabs” information displayed as text and turns it into speech. The same information could be turned into Braille characters on phones with vibrating touch screens.
Noted: Network of Tubes. Literally.
Tue, Mar 31, 09
From oobject.com, 15 pneumatic message networks:
Ted Stevens was right, the Victorian Internet consisted, quite literally, of a ‘Network of Tubes’. Paris, London, Prague and Vienna had extensive networks of pneumatic tubes which delivered messages in capsules. In New York 5 million mail messages passed every day through an underground pneumatic system, and a network in Berlin delivered hot meals directly to people’s homes suggesting that kitchens would no longer be needed in the future. Today these systems can still be purchased where they are used in places like hospitals where samples are passed between departments.
USS Midway aircraft carrier pneumatic message system
New York Public Library Messaging System
Main Control Panel for the Prague Pneumatic Post
If you have ever used one of these, as I have at an educational institution many years ago, you’ll never forget the immensely satisfying pneumatic plump sound when your payload is sucked up the tubes.
Noted: Reinventing the plastic bottle
Thu, Mar 26, 09
From Advertising Age:
Because he was frustrated that plastic beverage bottles could not easily be stacked in a refrigerator, Finnish industrial designer Stephan Linfoss created the donut-shaped bottle…
The branded Plup Lähdevesi spring water is currently marketed only in Finland, with every bottle sold €0.10 going towards cleaning the Baltic sea.
AdAge also includes a short video interview with Linfoss:
Facebook. Over 250 years old.
Tue, Mar 24, 09
If you go by Bibliodyssey‘s account of Stammbücher [Friend's Book] from the 1750s, Mark Zuckerberg may have not seen the last of the folks in line to sue Facebook for appropriation of the ‘original’ idea:
Stammbücher appear for the first time in the 16th and 17th centuries in the German- and Dutch-speaking areas of Europe, where it had become fashionable among graduating university students to have one’s personal bible signed by classmates and instructors. Soon inscriptions went beyond simple signatures to include reminiscences of common experiences, good wishes for the future, or a favorite passage from literature or poetry. Publishers foreseeing a lucrative market printed bibles with empty pages and soon also turned out small decorated books with only empty pages.
Eventually these albums were not only passed around at graduation but accompanied a student throughout his life, gathering entries from relatives, friends, and important acquaintances. Others also took up the custom, especially those who traveled as part of their training or social upbringing, such as aristocrats, tradesmen, military officers, poets, or musicians…
Noted: “Sweet little animal patterns” for HP
Tue, Feb 10, 09
HP Introduces Bright Colors for Somber Times, says FastCompany:
Every year, color and material consultant Laura Guido-Clark helps HP update its memory-keeping products — customizable photo albums, posters, and greeting cards sold in its retail photo centers. She aims to tailor materials and finishes to the cultural climate, and for 2009-2010, she is thinking, “People need optimism.” HP’s new products will feature vibrant colors such as “corals and brighter blues,” and materials such as linen and embossed leather, which suggest a “back-to-nature” sentiment among consumers. There’s also a touch of escapism: “We have some sweet little animal patterns,” says Guido-Clark, “which lighten the load a little bit.”
Besides “memory-keeping” products, Laura Guido-Clark’s design work includes home furnishing and decoration items like:
When it comes to “sweet little animal patterns” in decidedly unoptimistic times, we have this as a reminder to HP (world’s largest computer company) for what happens when a computer company loses focus:
