Readymade News

An Illustrated Weekly of World Design - 30th April, 2007

No newsletter this week, as we are all enjoying a long weekend rest.

An Illustrated Weekly of World Design - April 23rd, 2007

A look towards Japan for a glimpse into the near future reveals that the number of 20-year-olds accessing the Internet with a personal computer has been in constant decline for several years. Only 11.9% of Japanese 20-year-olds used a PC to go online last year. Will handheld computing become the dominant information systems paradigm of the next decade? We’d say yes, assuming the handheld computing experience improves radically.

Intel seems to betting that it will with their new Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform. Also have a look at their Intel Ultra Mobile PC vision here. UMPCs are apparently targeted at mobile professionals, while MIDs are aimed at "consumers and prosumers", with a range of different screen sizes and resolutions to choose from.

And of course dealing their own card in the game of convergence is Nokia with the N800.

Samsung however, is still keeping the deskbound PC in the running with their take on the PC of the future.

In other news, Klipsch and Jabra have joined forces to produce the stylish and portable S5010 cell phone boom box. It promises universal connectivity, but no Bluetooth despite Jabra's association with that protocol. That, in fact, is not that curious, given Bluetooth’s awkward usability.  In Readymade’s Bluetooth work, we’ve found just about the only rewards lie in the difficult area of completely simplifying the way Bluetooth devices work together.

Then a warm welcome to one of those little gadgets that will become indispensable in the home of the future, the DaysAgo Digital Day Counter. It attaches to any container with a magnetic or suction grip and counts, just counts ...  up to 99 days. It’s a simple device that will eliminate the dice of death with leftovers in homes across the globe.

More design with a conscience is the + Campana Brothers' TransNeomatic container bowl collection for Artenica, made of a used scooter tires and natural wicker. Before weaving, the tire undergoes a steam cleaning process and is then coated with a solution to seal and protect it from everyday use. Is it just us or does the tire in the picture seem brand new?

And then finally, an entry probably only of interest to designers, NextD's Beautiful Diversion compilation of the ongoing storm in a teacup created by Bruce Nussbaum’s “Are Designers the Enemy of Design?”

An Illustrated Weekly of World Design - April 16th, 2007

 

Last week Engadget announced that Apple patented a mouse which eliminates the scroll ball and replaces it with a touch-sensitive casing. This approach would apparently enable users to switch between functions,

based on the way you hold the mouse. Seems like a good idea to simplify all that pesky panning, re-sizing and zooming designers continually have to work around.

In another attempt to make user experience more rewarding, Microsoft spin-offs, Zenzui and Deepfish, are both using the idea of zooming to make mobile content browsing easier. Even though these solutions seem intruiging and different, will replacing a list with icons really crack it for the user experience? Carlo Longino asks if the answer really lies in devising ways to fit more information onto the limited space of a mobile device’s screen, instead of focusing on increasing the richness of the content. Good question.

 

Google recently launched its payment service, Google Checkout, to users in the UK.  The upside could be greater security, but of course the downside is that Google now will know even more about you. It looks like Google simply added a missing revenue link to their chain; by cross selling transaction handling to the customers of their paid search clients. Alas, they did not really have us in mind.

 

After 10 years of research, Dr. Wayne Campbell at the Nanomaterials Research Centre from Massey University in New Zealand has developed solar cell technology capable of generating electricity at 1/10th of the cost of current silicon based solar cells. The technology works by using synthetic dyes made from simple organic compounds patterned after the light harvesting pigments found in plants. The coolest aspect of this technology though, is that the dyes can be incorporated into everything from wall and roof panels, to clothing. This could make possible the recharging of our mobile devices while they're carried around in our pockets!

 

And if by now you feel ready to unleash some of your own creativity on the world, have a look at these tips to help you unblock it. 

For an insightful look on why there are no big-name green product designers and why making once-off crafty objects from recycled materials are missing the point, have a look at Where Are The Superstar Green Designers?

Issue 02 of Monocle takes a look at a sobering map of the world's future freshwater stress. Even if the world maintained the pace of water-supply development, this would not be enough to ensure that everyone had access to safe drinking water by the year 2025. France, the USA, much of Asia and Northern Africa are among the areas projected to suffer freshwater stress by 2050.

 

Finally, and sadly, author Kurt Vonnegut, has died at age 84 in New York.

An Illustrated Weekly of World Design - April 9th, 2007

These are simply breathtaking! Its also impossible to pick a favourite between Jen Stark's colourful explosions or Richard Sweeney's delicate white structures.

 

On the topic of winning: What really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly. If you want to be a winner, quit fast and often. So says Seth Godin in his new book which will help you ask the questions to identify which 'dips' to escape and which to conquer.

 

The dream of accessible African broadband has not yet produced winners; currently its another example of the poor paying more for basic services than those who can actually afford to. Kenya, Madagascar and Burundi currently rely on satellite services for connectivity, with costs among the highest in the world. The World Bank has however made money available to help roll-out high speed internet networks. Following in Burundi's footsteps, Africa is slowly becoming connected.

Three wind turbine blades, each measuring 29 meters in diameter have been installed in the twin skyscraper of the Bahrain World Trade Center. The Gulf breeze will enable the turbines to deliver 11 - 15% of the energy needs of the building, which is enough to provide light in 300 homes for over a year. Which in itself is an astounding insight into the amount of energy such massive structures consume.

Amidst much debate, Apple has again come under fire for its apparent lack of environmental concern. Greenpeace criticised Apple for not setting a deadline for eliminating some toxic chemicals from its production processes. It came last out of 14 firms Greenpeace profiled in a quarterly report that ranks them by how green their production processes are and what they do to recycle hardware they sell. Top spot went to Chinese computer maker Lenovo, although Greenpeace shies away from calling them 'green'.

Then something we all suspected, has turned out to be true. Power Point presentations actually decrease your ability to understand what is presented. Professor Sweller from the University of New South Wales in Australia discovered that humans don't absorb information verbally and visually at the same time. Apparently its not effective to speak the same words that are written, because that puts too much load on the mind. You can speak together with a diagram though, as that presents information in a different form. He recommends that Power Point should be ditched.