I understand that when transitioning from any one technology to a new one, there’s bound to be ideas from the former that get absorbed into the latter. Sometimes these ideas are valid and logical and sometimes they’re intended to be temporary, a bandage, to be used until something better is thought of.

Sometimes we get comfortable with our bandages and never take them off. I won’t go through all the ones we’re familiar with in the computer world (folder, page, desktop, below-the-fold). To the defense of these bandages, they do a pretty decent job most of the time.

But some ideas just feel olde tyme-y.

Case-in-point: the page-turn effect.

In 2009, Microsoft filed a patent for the page-turn gesture in digital interfaces. It’s the same gesture Apple currently uses in their e-books on the iPad.

Then last week, Gizmodo posted a video from a UI firm demoing a page-turning Windows 7 interface for tablets.

People, we’re better than this. If we’re going to move beyond the printed page, we need to move beyond the printed page. It’s important we preserve certain aspects of the analogue world in computer technology. This is especially true for the multi-touch world we’re jumping into right now. The inertial scrolling on the iPhone and iPad aren’t just there for show, they make the interface.

Thirty years ago, we went from analogue to full, digital abstraction on the desktop computer. Now we’re at a point in computer evolution where we’re bringing the analogue back into the interface. We’re physically interacting with our machines beyond mouse clicks and keyboard taps. The danger in this is taking too many of the inefficiencies of the physical with us into digital.

Buttons that de-press, lists that rubber band when you reach the end of them, screens that smoothly transition between zoom levels – these are all welcome effects in digital. But with page-turning, there’s no value add when you shoehorn it into digital. It’s like giving cars a clip-clop horse trotting sound effect when you drive.

I actually hope Microsoft enforces their patent and makes Apple remove it from iBooks so that Apple can create a better gesture.

1951 Jaguar C-Type:

2004 Bugatti Veyron:

(featured on the end credits of Mad Men, S4 E1)

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

–Joseph Cornell

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.

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.