A few weeks have passed since all eyes gazed into the late night 2008 Beijing Olympic broadcasts, but many of us aren’t aware of the wonderful events happening now in Beijing during the 2008 Paralympics. I cant seem to find anything on TV but you’ll be able to watch online at UniversalSports.com or ParalympicSport.tv. (opening Ceremony here)
After seeing photos from Boston.com I’m going to tune into the Paralympics with even more anticipation with events I’ve never seen. Events where blind people run, run with partners attached by arm, play soccer blinded, where game rules change, where a disability creates an amazement of ability, fencers do battle in wheelchairs, volleyball is done on the ground, where advanced prosthetic legs launch runners beyond belief, swimmers power themselves forward with just their arms, and several other amazing accomplishments.
Give a look at the incredible pictures after the jump carefully then imagine being able to do what they are doing. I’ve tried walking more than 20 feet with my eyes closed and running is just beyond my imagination. These athletes rock!
For the creative side, this reminds me in a project given during RISD ID: Design a cell phone for Edward Scissor hands. The point is to imagine, create, and enable a product, function, or even experience when an ability we might all be accustomed to is not possible. The solution solves the problem and at times surpasses the original. So I guess a thought for design is to always consider the non obvious when approaching a project to innovate. When designing a phone, you might wonder how to input by sight, smell, sound, your face, feet, etc. This might sound odd, but I can guarantee this is how some of the most innovative ideas surface!
T9(predictive text) inventor Cliff Kushler revolutionized the mobile industry with his auto-word-complete T9 system and just announced Swype which basically takes the same idea as T9 but uses all the letters your fingers crosses over to auto complete text in a touchscreen! (uhmm, iphone)
According to their website this is the next fastest input method after a full size keyboard. The video makes this technology seem ingenious but you never know until you give it a try . “Give us a interactive flash page we can give it a go with, dammit!!” Okie, yes, it’s new and ya’ll are shopping for vendors, so I’ll have to wait bit to give it a go…maybe CES, or early product launches. I want I want!
If ya haven’t heard the news already, Google’s finally launched their own browser to take over the rest of the world called Chrome… o how we love to be taken over! Some cool little features, so go ahead, download it and let Chrome take ya over!
If your in the Boston/Cambridge area this weekend be sure to swing by Club Passim’s awesome Campfire Music weekend festival going on all weekend through monday night! This is their big 10th year anniversary throwing this event! Lots of great tunes ranging from guitar, cello, violin, banjos, beatboxing, singing, piano, and tons of other great folk music live while dining in on veggie planets tasty food! I’m there most of this weekend with friends, so throw me a note if your going or look out for me.
Wow… Ubiquity by Mozilla labs is pretty freaking cool. Kind of an advanced user type of plugin, but some definite worthy features I’ll adapt to over time.
“Today we’re announcing the launch of Ubiquity, a Mozilla Labs experiment into connecting the Web with language in an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily.
The overall goals of Ubiquity are to explore how best to:
* Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)
* Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone “not just Web developers“ to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)
* Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.
* Extend the browser functionality easily.”
I know this “pixel/make my desktop physical” trend is somewhat old, but I just had to post this cause it seemed right though the price is somewhat questionable. I might have to pick one up along with the metal “folderix usb” stick!
A few of my favorite magazine subscriptions just ended and my shelves are packed full of old issues while my sustainability side urges me to save paper…what to do!
Aha, “Mygazines.com is your free place to browse, share, archive and customize unlimited magazine articles uploaded by you, the Mygazines community.”
Sweet. I’m not sure who’s going to scan and upload all the pages each month, but it seems like someone does because most of my favorite magazines are on there with really nice scans, along with a snazzy GUI for navigating them. None of the fancy $100 mags, but the basic sets from the airport are up there!
