Comments(1)Larry Page’s Commencement Speech
Larry Page’s speech at the University of Michigan graduation ceremony addressing the class of 2009 to “be lazy and get a little crazy“. There is also a transcript available.
Wine Carbon Footprint
Interesting visualization from the National Geographic on the Carbon Footprint of Wine consumption in the US based on numbers from a study by “Dr. Vino“.
UX Pattern Explorer
Check out Quince a new ux pattern explorer by Infragistics.
There are no good tools that make these patterns usable, and there isn’t much community to speak of around them. We at Infragistics thought that we could help and fill the gap – helping to make UX design patterns more findable, more discoverable, more usable, and, we hope, more communal and social.
Product distribution visualization
Glimpse.com has a nice feature that visualizes the available product distribution in a price range to refine the search. When adjusting the slider, a pop-up immediately indicates an estimated number of remaining products for the refined price range. (See Example)
Windows 7 Tray Progress Bar
Windows 7 now visualizes progress right in the system tray even when the window is minimized. I like it!
New ratings to improve Netflix
After logging in to Netflix today, i experienced a recently added feature to improve movie recommendations. These ratings are asking users to make statements about their taste for movies based on mood characteristics such as: “romantic, goofy, sentimental, dark, controversial, steamy, mind-bending, violent…”
These taste preference can be categorized into “never, sometimes and often” and are supported by six example movies to understand what netflix considers to be classified under the mood. These can be changed later on.
Back from Spring Break
I just returned from Spring Break, so i will start posting again…
Citation Infoviz
I just discovered a neat interactive beta visualization for citations in scientific publications that i found on isiknowledge.com
Silent Contextual Google Toolbar Update
I just opened a blank new Tab on my browser and Google presented me with a context sensitive page suggesting most visited pages, recent bookmarks and recently closed tabs… uhm, Thanks! …I guess…
I wonder about the missing thumbnail screenshots, why an icon of a broken camera? Did i break something, or do i have to get my digital camera out and take a picture of each screen so that Google can post it? I am also not sure what the recent bookmarks are, since i don’t bookmark pages or click on bookmarks…
Google Gears Security Issue
I was browsing the new Wordpress Dashboard today and stumpled upon the “Turbo” Section. It offers to speed up Wordpress using Google Gears with a little note stating: “Don’t install on a public or shared computer.”
This made me wonder… what if somebody installed Gears on a public computer that is not protected against such browser plugins or i use someone else’s computer. Will it store confidential or private data about me? Will the Firefox “Clear Private Data” option delete traces of me from this system? Just a thought.