David Lidsky's Blog, page 3427
October 17, 2013
Eyetracking And The Neuroscience Of Good Web Design
Fabian Stelzer, EyeQuant's CEO, believes there's a science to how we view the Web. Whether on desktops or on mobile, whether we're male or female, young or old, our eyes will be drawn to certain common elements of web design–– a combination of contrasts, locations, contours and colors. Stelzer's also sure of something else: Knowing what these common elements are, and integrating them into websites, mean ecommerce sites can snag hesitant buyers and magazines can convince readers to click on articles.
The German entrepreneur, who was previously featured in Fast Company in 2011, runs a company that counts Barnes & Noble, eBay, Google, and Nokia among its clients. EyeQuant uses algorithms based on eyetracking studies and research to evaluate web sites. Using algorithms derived from the movement of the human eye while looking at computer screens and at real–life commodities such as food and retail items, the company claims they can predict where a viewer's attention will go when they load a web site.
Earlier in October, EyeQuant announced a $650,000 funding round that, though modest by the standards of the tech world, is admirable for a neuroscience marketing startup. While EyeQuant isn't the only company working in the space (there are several competitors such as 3M's Visual Attention Service and ad–oriented services such as RealEyes), EyeQuant is one of the best funded. Companies, in exchange for submitting an email address and contact information to the company's marketers, can receive from EyeQuant almost immediate evaluations of one of their site's URLs .
Sorry Stoners: Hemp Isn't A Miracle Material After All
We all had that friend in college (heck, maybe "that friend" was even one of us). Hemp necklace. Hemp bracelet. A Grateful Dead T–shirt, even in the dead of winter. But he was a go–getter. He didn't spend his weekends smoking grass in the quad. Instead, he ran a booth that extolled the virtues of hemp––a miracle plant that, if you squinted past the THC, could form sustainable textiles, fuels, plastics, building materials, and even food.
I, for one, always felt a bit like a jerk for doubting that friend, for suspecting that he had a hemp bias based upon a penchant for marijuana. But according to Modern Farmer, none of us should feel bad because hemp, for all of its potential uses, is basically a jack of all trades and master of none. Plus? It's harder to cultivate than you might think. From the site:
The one big benefit of hemp? Its environmental footprint is relatively small. It requires few pesticides and no herbicides. It's an excellent rotation crop, often used to suppress weeds and loosen soil before the planting of winter cereals. On the other hand, it requires a relatively large amount of water, and its need for deep, humus–rich, nutrient–dense soil limits growing locales. [image error]Image: Hemp Seeds via Shutterstock
Researchers Say iMessage's Unbreakable Encryption is "Basically Lies"
Though Apple claims iMessage has end–to–end encryption, researchers at a security conference said the Cupertino, Calif. company still has the ability to intercept messages and hand them over to the government, Macworld reports.
The security researchers told attendees at the Hack in the Box conference in Kuala Lumpur that users would have no indication Apple or the government is reading their messages. Cyril Cattiaux, who has developed software to jailbreak iOS, said iMessage's unbreakable encryption is "just basically lies," elaborating that because Apple has an opaque system for managing public keys used in encryption, it's possible that iMessages can be routed to another party undetected.
"They've [Apple] insisted to their customers that messages were encrypted 'end to end' and that they couldn't read the messages," Matthew Green, an assistant research professor in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University, told Macworld. "This is all technically true, but at the same time they know perfectly well that this could change easily if they wanted to misbehave. They just chose to be misleading."
This Company Wants To "Breed" The Perfect Chair, Using Eugenics
Imagine using computers to bring countless generations of chairs to life, then forcing them to mate with one another in an orgiastic rut of successive DNA pairings until you finally have the uberstuhl: a perfectly designed chair. It's not exactly a conventional approach, but that's what FormNation is doing with Chairgenics, a program to "breed" the ultimate chair thanks to a little help from eugenics and evolutionary theory.
"Every designer I've ever met wants to design a chair in [his or her] lifetime, but when we were thinking of doing one, we questioned what we could do that hadn't been done before," FormNation's founder Jan Habraken tells Co.Design in an email. Favoring a Darwinist approach to design, Habraken and his team began looking to the world of evolutionary theory for a fresh approach. Habraken was inspired by Plato's famous diatribe about controlled breeding in a chapter of Republic and started wondering if the principles of eugenics could be applied to chairs. The result was Chairgenics, FormNation's five–year chair breeding program.
[image error]Starting from a pool of about 10 chair "thoroughbreds," FormNation applied numeric values to each chair according to criteria such as durability, construction, cost and aesthetics, as well as the shape of various chair parts. "If you look at almost any iconic chair––the Pantone Chair, The Zig–Zag Chair, Bertoia's Wire Mesh Chair, and so on––you'll see that at the time of its origin, there was a technological breakthrough that allowed it to come into being," Habraken says. This is why, for the Chairgenics base stock, FormNation chose iconic chairs that contained a certain "X" factor in their DNA. Bred together, their offspring were examined for chromosomal deficiencies––missing ergonomic values, for example, or lopsided durability–cost pairings––and then bred with even more Chairgenics chairs to improve their stock.
So It Turns Out The Nike Logo Was a New York Logo All Along
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Take Nike's branding. The slogan, "Just Do It," is a model of efficiency––it could be neither one word shorter nor longer. The swoosh is literally a single stroke of brilliance. But now, someone has now taken the Nike logo and both pared it down and expanded its meaning.
[image error]Husband–and–wife design studio Triboro have created a logo for Nike NYC that pays loving tribute to both entities. The new work appears to strategically scratch away lines from the word Nike, positioned above the swoosh, leaving behind just the lines that form "NYC." It's a move that recalls the graffiti–honed vibe of repurposing that runs through the city, and perhaps some CBGBs–style insouciance as well. At the same time, it's still authentically Nike and unmistakably simple. See it in action above.
Facebook Fiddles With Public Posts In An Attempt To Make Itself Attractive To Teenagers
Facebook has a problem: despite its 1.15 billion users, the younger demographic isn't using it so much, preferring to share on other social networks. So, yesterday the firm decided to, like, in a totally cool and unshowy way, to change the public posting policy for its youngest users. Anyone between the ages of 13 and 17 can choose to make a post visible to everyone, rather than the current status quo, which is either sharing it with one's friends, or friends of friends.
However, in order to assuage the worries of the kids' parents, the network announced that the default share setting of new users, 13 to 17, will be Friends only: it is up to the user to increase the reach of their Facebook content. It has long been assumed that teens have less of an issue sharing stuff on the Internet––and legislators in California have just introduced a digital eraser to allow online indiscretions to be scrubbed permanently.
The Big Blue 'Book has also taken a leaf out of Twitter's M.O., and will allow teens to have followers as well as friends. That means they can choose whether their posts go in other people's news feeds. "While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly," Facebook wrote in its press release, "this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services."
Twitter Grabs A Chief Googler To Be Its Retail Boss
Twitter is reported by Bloomberg to have hired a new head of retail operations in the figure of J.J. Hirschle. The move is seen to be part of important preparations Twitter is making in the run up to its IPO as it should help the company solidify its advertising revenues.
Hirschle is something of a steal, being previously the director of Media and Entertainment at Google––a position his LinkedIn profile still lists as current, interestingly enough, while his Twitter profile now says "Retail minded @Twitter, Xoogler." Hirschle is also mentioned as being head of the now–closed Google Affiliate Network, which was originally designed to help affiliate ad and publisher partners "improve their performance across the affiliate ecosystem before being retired." Previously Hirschle had the same Head of Retail title at Google as he now has at Twitter, and has also worked at CNBC and IBM.
Clearly J.J. has a useful skill set for Twitter, and should be able to help the company make more profits from its growing advertising business. His hiring will also likely please interested investors. As Twitter approaches IPO its filings have revealed it's making a loss, but for now the financial world is thought to be tolerant of this position as long as the company can grow both its influence and income––a plan that Twitter executives explained to Fast Company includes a big emphasis on tying into the TV industry.
October 16, 2013
Anki Drive Is Racing Google, Not Other Toy Makers
Anki made its debut in June at Apple's WWDC, where the San Francisco–based startup unveiled its first product, Anki Drive, futuristic toy cars that can race around autonomously and be played with via iPhone. On stage, Apple CEO Tim Cook praised the company for "creating an entirely new set of experiences," and predicted it was "going to be super successful," a high blessing that all but positioned Anki as the Hot Wheels for the modern age.
But as Anki cofounder Boris Sofman tells Fast Company, his ambitions are far grander. His miniature, autonomous cars aren't just built for childish amusement––they're actually a play to compete with companies like Google in a slew of mass markets. "For us, the big vision is that we're a robotics and artificial intelligence company––not necessarily a toy company," Sofman says. "[We're] using this as a stepping stone to do more advanced things."
Today, Anki launched Drive to the world, and, even as a stepping stone, it's an incredibly compelling product. Users can pit their cars against their AI–powered counterparts, zooming around a track and competing in a variety of scenarios––races, battles, and so forth––while using the iPhone as a steering wheel and control center. Sofman and team like to call it "the first video game in the real world." But the larger promise of Anki is the underlying technology it's inventing in the process, which could make the startup competitive in a whole host of industries. "This is a way to zigzag through a lot of really compelling products to get to the Holy Grails: full–blown autonomous driving, having [robotic] helpers around the house, health–care applications," Sofman beams.
Banksy Creates A Lordly Ronald McDonald Sculpture, Sends It Around To McDonald's Restaurants
Earlier in his "artist residency" underway in New York, Banksy unnerved (or delighted) meat eaters by driving a truck full of shrieking (stuffed) slaughterhouse–destined farm animals around the city.
Now, the artist has zeroed in on one of our largest meat purveying brands. A new installation pays unwanted homage to a meat–linked icon, Ronald McDonald. Banksy has created an imperious–looking statue version of Ronald ("the most sculpted figure after Christ," notes the online audio guide) and added a performance art element––a "real live boy" who is tasked with shining those big red clown shoes.
[image error]As the Banksy site notes: "A fibreglass replica of Ronald McDonald having his shoes shined by a real live boy...will visit the sidewalk outside a different McDonald's every lunchtime for the next week. Today: South Bronx.
David Lidsky's Blog
- David Lidsky's profile
- 3 followers
