dechezette

19 May 09

The Gospel According to The Office

I snapped this one in front of the church around the corner from my home. I applaud the inventiveness here.

04 May 09

Moto’s Scalable Multi-Touch

Last week Moto released a video and some specs on their new scalable multi-touch technology. Unlike Microsoft’s Surface technology, Moto’s Sensing Screen doesn’t require a bulking projection set up — it’s thin and can scale up to 50”. They’re also claiming that it’s less expensive to produce as well. Pretty exciting stuff.

More info is on Moto’s website.

13 April 09

Microsoft’s Bill Buxton, Return on Experience

Great presentation here from Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. This was from Mix 09 a few weeks back. Silverlight is needed to view.

Bill does a great job articulating the value of experience in the context of design. Like myself, he’s also really big on the value and role of sketching during the design process. He’s even written a book about it.

Allegedly, he’s been brought on to Microsoft to elevate the role of design in the company culture. I have yet to ping a few of my old Microsoft clients to hear their take on this.

The presentation is 20 minutes, but well worth it.

I checked out a few minutes of Scott Guthrie’s presentation which immediately follows. There was a demo of Microsoft’s Expression Web SuperPreview  - which had some cool features for cross-browser programming.

As an aside, I love how Bill’s site is completely, and I’m sure intentionally, stripped-down.

Source: Presentation Zen

24 March 09

In These Tough Times We Turn To Van Halen

Dust off your old Van Halen I CD. Put on Eruption. Crank up the volume.

What you’ll hear is an innovative band, hungry to take over the world. When I listen to this album I’m always reminded of the first time I put it on. I had never heard or seen a band like this. And, to tell the truth, I never have since. While the bands today have become expert at recycling the sounds of yesterday - none have ever replicated Van Halen’s sound or explosive early live performances.

When they arrived on the scene in the late 70’s they delivered the unexpected. Their heavy metal predecessors played brooding under menacing dark clouds. Van Halen however, literally came smiling out of the sunny state of California with an acrobatic front man. Metal bands never smile. Actually, wait, they weren’t a metal band - they were too peppy. Their early arrangements were too complex to be defined as rock - and too simple to be described as progressive rock.

Really, there is no clean category that they fit into. They were just Van Halen.

22 March 09

Looking to Food for Inspiration to Innovate

My brother-in-law, an aspiring chef, recently gave us A Day at eBulli as a gift. The book is photo journal day in the life of this famous restaurant. To be honest it took me a while to pick it up. It quite literally weighs a ton, and the cover wrap that proclaimed “Best chef in the world” and “Best restaurant in the world” had me put off a bit.

What I expected to see what narcissistic food porn, but was surprised to find a story of authenticity, innovation and creativity disguised as a coffee table book.

EBulli is a restaurant nestled in the hills just outside Barcelona. They received about two million reservation requests per year for only eight thousand available places. For such an exclusive list the price is relatively affordable: €250 per guest including drinks.