David Lidsky's Blog, page 2825
December 18, 2015
To Really Beat Box-Office Records, "Star Wars" Will Need To Top These Numbers
A fair comparison of how movies have fared financially must include an inflation adjustment, which yields quite a few surprises.
This weekend, the newest Star Wars movie will start playing in cinemas throughout the world. Pundits in places like Forbes and the International Business Times are already predicting it will be the "biggest movie of all time."
Designers: Stop Asking Copywriters To "Punch Up" Your Work
And let the word nerds do the word nerding. Here are practical tips for both writers and designers
Words shape design. Real words, not lorem ipsem, should form the ground-up basis for product design. This thought has been paraphrased on this site multiple times, by numerous contributors. Increasingly, the design community seemingly takes this truth to heart and has heartily paid lip service to the importance of "content" (words, the copy). I've read several articles written by designers who give sound advice on how to write good UI copy. Many of these pieces, like John Zeratsky's piece on good interface writing, provide insightful tips on how to write better product copy.
What Makes An Image Memorable? This MIT AI Might Hold The Key
MemNet is a neural network run by MIT that can accurately predict how memorable an image is to humans.
Not sure why some photographs just brand themselves deep into your memory, while others make no impact whatsoever? With the help of a new neural network that learns to think like humans, researchers at MIT hope to figure out what makes the best photographs so memorable. The results could not only help up your Instagram likes, they could help graphic designers apply science to their work to make it more memorable.
December 17, 2015
Today in Tabs: A Grotesque Amoral Shrug
What is the sound of one hand stealing from itself?
The J'accuzzi, a place to relax and point fingers
Adobe: Fitness Trackers May Go The Way Of The iPod
It's been nice knowing you, Fitbit.
A new Adobe report on the future of technology says that the most popular connected devices for the home are smart smoke detectors and Internet-connected thermostats—and that fitness trackers will be obsolete sooner than expected.
Hello? Ticketmaster Shoots Itself In The Foot By Releasing All Adele Tickets At Once
Pissed-off Adele fans struggled with overloaded servers and technical issues and then took vociferously to Twitter to gripe about it.
Ticketmaster's servers and back end collapsed today under the strain of demand for all of Adele's North American tour dates, which went on sale simultaneously, leaving many fans unable to buy tickets. Adele fans quickly turned to social media to vent, share weird error messages, and try to understand what went wrong:
Apple Presses Shuffle On Top Management, Names New Chief Operating Officer
Jeff Williams has been described as "Tim Cook's Tim Cook."
Apple has announced that Jeff Williams will be the company's new Chief Operating Officer, a position that was formerly occupied by now-CEO Tim Cook. The company also announced that Johny Srouji will be promoted to senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, and Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, will assume responsibilities for the App Store across all Apple platforms.
Lyft Gives Its App A Fresher, More Transparent, More One-Handed Update
What's more important: saving time or saving money? Now it's easier to compare your options.
Ride-on-demand service Lyft is releasing a new version of its app today—for iOS at first, with an Android version arriving next month. The update isn't about major new capabilities so much as additional polish and improved usability. And some of the refinements—like an exuberant "glow" effect that appears when you launch the app and in various other places around the interface—mostly serve to add personality.
Watch Top-Tier Venture Capitalists Translate Drake And Bieber Into Startup Speak
"You used to offer me a bridge loan": Amidst fears of a bubble, First Round Capital's annual holiday parody video is as goofy as ever
First Round Capital backs some of the hottest up-and-coming startups in America (think Square, Uber, and Warby Parker previously). And in addition to offering all-important venture capital, the firm also gives its startups the chance to participate in its worst best tradition: its year-end holiday video.
A "Sad Day" For Brazil Says Zuckerberg, As WhatsApp Blockade Disrupts Millions
A Brazilian court order blocking access to WhatsApp has been reduced to 12 hours, but it has already meant a boon for rival service Telegram
A judge in Brazil has ordered cell phone carriers to block access to the calling and texting service WhatsApp for 48 hours beginning early Thursday morning, after the company reportedly failed to respond to a court order in a drug-trafficking case earlier this year. Later in the day, the Sao Paolo high court ruled that service should be restored after just 12 hours of outage, citing "constitutional principles" and the services "millions of affected users."
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