Khoi Vinh's Blog, page 134

FX President John Landgraf on the Television Landscape

People in technology often think about the sea change in television solely from the point of view of technologists, but FX president John Landgraf is as smart about the evolution in viewing habits as any tech executive. This wrap-up of his comments to the Television Critics Association press tour is a good overview of his varied thoughts on the industry, including his belief that, after “Breaking Bad,” the race to produce TV’s darkest anti-hero is probably over. Read the article here.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

NYC Subway Map Reimagined in Circular Form

Max Roberts, a psychology lecturer at the University of Essex with an interest in schematic mapping, has reworked New York City’s subway map around a visual metaphor of concentric circles and spokes. It’s the latest of his many self-initiated redesigns for cities like London, Madrid, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Creative Review has an interview with him.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

Hipster Branding

If you ever wondered what the world’s leading mass-market brands would look like if their logos were redesigned in Brooklyn, this Tumblr blog should satisfy your curiosity.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

Inside the Washington Post-Jeff Bezos Deal

A recounting of how Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth and company CEO Donald Graham came to first entertain, then embrace and execute the sale of the newspaper to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Graham also appears in an accompanying video interview where he discusses the sadness of the decision, as well as his firm belief that it puts the news organization in a better position to succeed and even flourish long into the future.

I grew up reading The Washington Post and I share some of Graham’s sadness here. But I’m hopeful too. It’s an amazing institution and as unfortunate as it is that the Grahams are no longer its stewards, it does seem plausible that the news organization’s long-term chances have improved with this sale. Full story here.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

“End of Watch”

Released earlier this year to little fanfare, writer and director David Ayer’s latest foray into the world of Los Angeles police officers is now available for streaming. When I first saw the trailer in theaters, it struck me as predictable and hackneyed stuff, but I watched it on a friend’s recommendation and I was pleasantly surprised — shocked a little, even — by how incredibly riveting and emotionally gripping it is.

It’s well worth noting too that Ayer, whose credits include “Training Day,” “Dark Blue” and “Street Kings,” among others, is assembling a remarkable body of work about the brutal underside of Los Angeles cops and the gangland territories they police. None of his films has been perfect, but they are all brutally revealing and fascinating, at the very least. Aside from “Training Day,” his efforts are hugely underrated and seem more likely to be appreciated decades from now, with the luxury of hindsight — but is well worth watching today.

“End of Watch” is available in the U.S. on Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

Josef Albers’s “Interaction of Color” App for iPad

“Interactive edition of one of the most influential books on color ever written offers users an entirely new way to experience Josef Albers’s original masterwork.”

“Interaction of Color” first appeared in print fifty years ago, and went on to become a classic of art theory. I admit that I was unfamiliar with it until a friend showed me this app the other day, so I can’t speak to the quality or usefulness of Albers’s writing. (That may also explain why this site is black and white.) But this app looks beautiful and it’s free, to boot (though there some of the content is locked up behind in-app purchases). Find out more here.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

Typewolf

A “design inspiration” site, but a more discerning one than most, Typewolf showcases type-centric designs from “the modern Web.” There’s not a tremendous range of stuff, but what’s here is likely to have strong appeal to the legion of minimalist designers out there. Visit Typewolf.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

iPhone 5 Button Issues

One of the so-called “geniuses” at my local Apple Store told me that the iPhone’s home button, which was so problematic on the iPhone 4 is now a serviceable part on the iPhone 5. Apple apparently identified the root causes of that problem and accounted for them in the design and manufacturing of its current model. The new home button shouldn’t become unresponsive over time as its predecessor so frequently did — but if it does, Apple can repair the button itself rather than replacing the entire unit, as it used to do.

It’s been almost a year since the iPhone 5 was introduced, so why should I care? Well, I had to bring my own unit into the Apple Store for repair recently, which is when I learned about this incremental bit of hardware progress. Thankfully, my iPhone 5’s home button has been working without a hitch, but sadly the same can’t be said of its power button. That piece recently started losing responsiveness, just like the iPhone 4’s home button used to, often requiring two or three hard presses to turn the unit on or off. For me, just one person, that’s frustrating. But from anecdotal evidence, lots of folks with iPhone 5s of similar vintage have been experiencing the same troubles, which leads me to believe this is a common hardware defect.

Apple’s solution? Well, unfortunately the iPhone 5’s power button is not a serviceable part, so the entire unit had to be replaced. Apple did this for me under warranty, thankfully, so I can’t complain too much about getting a brand new phone for free. But if I can gently offer a little advice to our friends in Cupertino: someone wise once said, “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

To follow me on Twitter click here.

TextExpander touch 2.0 Feed Sponsorship

Type faster on your iPhone or iPad using short abbreviations that expand into long snippets, such as email addresses, URLs, and standard replies. Tap in your abbreviation and it automatically expands to the full snippet. You can even insert today’s date automatically with the default abbreviation “ddate”! Use Dropbox to sync your snippets to all your iOS and Mac devices!

New in 2.0: Make customized, boilerplate replies fast and easy using fill-ins. Compose messages and expand snippets in formatted text. Insert macros for date, time, date math, etc. easily when editing your snippets on iOS.

Please note that iOS does not allow TextExpander touch to work in the background (as it does in Mac OS X). But you can expand snippets directly in over 160 apps that have built-in TextExpander touch support including OmniFocus, Drafts, Things, iA Writer, DayOne, Byword, Notesy, Elements, and WriteRoom. See the complete list of supported apps.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Quartz: Vinyl Sales Rise as Vinyl Usage Declines

Vinyl record sales have seen a 350% increase over the past five years, but that growth has apparently not been matched by actual use of the format. “…Professional use of vinyl by DJs has dried up to about nil,” the revered Panasonic Technics 1200 has been discontinued due to “market realities,” and turntable sales have remained largely flat. Apparently, vinyl consumers are buying records for the larger art, not to actually play the music. While this is a minor success story for large-format graphics, it also confirms my skepticism towards this much-hyped boomlet in vinyl sales. Die-hard vinyl fandom has always struck me as being more about an elitist consumer self image than about the music itself. Read the story at Quartz.

To follow me on Twitter click here.