Designing Charging

via Apple:
The Apple Battery Charger sets a new industry standard: It has the lowest standby power usage value – or “vampire draw” – of any similar charger on the market. That’s the energy most chargers continue to draw after their batteries are fully charged. But the Apple Battery Charger senses when its batteries are done charging and automatically reduces the amount of power it needs.

via MacRumors

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Think of how busy the air is.

Think of how much information, in the form of radio energy, there is flying through the air, all around us, all over the world, right now and all the time. AM, FM, UHF, WHF, shortwave radio, television, CB radio, walkie-talkies, cell phones, cordless phones, telephone satellites, microwave relays, faxes, pagers, taxi calls, police, sheriff, hospitals, fire departments, telemetry, navigation, radar, the military, government, financial, legal, medical, the media, etc., etc., etc. Trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of separate little bits of electronic information flying all around the world through the air at all times. Think of that. Now realize this: A hundred years ago there was none. None. Silence.

&#151George Carlin, Brain Droppings

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Christmas might have come early for me

MacNN: Microsoft under pressure to drop Steve Ballmer

Pressure is mounting inside Microsoft to replace its CEO Steve Ballmer after years of lukewarm performance, sources said this morning. Executives are happy with the solid financial performance but are increasingly frustrated that Ballmer has done nothing exciting enough at Microsoft to raise its share price. If he doesn’t act within the next six to nine months, there may be a ‘mutiny’ that forces the executive out, according to Daily Beast insiders.

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might as well jump

What is the Caterpillar Club?

The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft. After authentication by the parachute maker, applicants receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lapel pin.

caterpillar_club.jpg
Go over to Yimmy Yayo and check out all the images he’s gathered on da Club.

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History

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shadow boxes

cornell_shadow_box.jpg

Shadow boxes become poetic theaters or settings wherein are metamorphosed the element of a childhood pastime.

–Joseph Cornell

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Art

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Nokia isn’t heeding

Nokia continues to bleed like a stuck pig (multiple ‘pig’ references this week is unintentional).

This from Electronista:

Nokia shareholders began raising their voices late Thursday in a second call for company CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo to resign. Investment groups such as Pictet Asset Management, analysts at Argus Research Corp., and others are frustrated once again that the executive has remained onboard despite the company losing about $77 billion in US stock market value since the mid-2007 debut of Apple’s iPhone, which also arrived just a year after Kallasvuo took the CEO position. Those involved have accused the company of sheltering its leader from the consequences of his actions, allowing him to stay no matter what happens elsewhere in the company.

Nokia was in bad shape last September when I wrote about them on the cover of Fast Company.
This is what happens leaders of company’s don’t heed to design.

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iPhone 4 Problem? What iPhone 4 problem?

Jason Kottke on How to hold an Apple press conference:

Steve Jobs will come out on stage and will sit in front of a large olde tyme cash register. He will immediately begin taking questions from the assembled journalists and bloggers. As the first-question scrum begins, Jobs will start madly ringing up purchases on the very loud register while pointing to his ears, shaking his head, and shouting “gosh, I’m sorry I can’t hear you guys over the sound of the register”. This will continue for several minutes and then the press conference will be over.

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A Pig

Infoworld on Windows Phone 7:

But that was just the lipstick. Now, in Microsoft’s in-depth demo this week at the Mobile Beat conference, there’s no mistaking the big pig behind the gloss. Seeing the UI in action across several tasks, not just in a highly controlled presentation, shows how awkward and unsophisticated it is — I had the same feeling you get when you got a movie based on a great trailer, only to discover that all the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest of the movie was a mess. A pig, in fact.

Sure, we won’t know the truth until full reviews start rolling in, but awkward UI? Unsophisticated design? It sounds like the Microsoft I know and love.

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