VentureBeat: Google acquires BumpTop: Will Android get a 3D facelift?:

What’s Google going to do with BumpTop? The search giant hasn’t said anything about the deal yet, either on the main Google blog or in response to VentureBeat’s email requesting comment. The most likely area seems to be its Android operating system for smartphones and (eventually) other devices, such as tablet computers. Some of these ideas and technologies might give the Android interface a leg up over Apple’s iPad and iPhone. Google is also developing the Chrome operating system for netbooks, but BumpTop seems less relevant there, since the Chrome OS is all about the web browser.

I reacted to BumpTop in ‘07 and ‘09 and now that Google has bought them, I’ll respond again.
First off, I still feel the same way now as I did in my last two posts on BumpTop. In short, I still feel they’ve taken the desktop metaphor too much in the direction of a real-life desktop as to render it useless. It suffers from not enough abstraction.
To err is human, and it’s the computer’s responsibility to reduce human err[or]s.
John Gruber made a great analogy:

Used to be that to drive a car, you, the driver, needed to operate a clutch pedal and gear shifter and manually change gears for the transmission as you accelerated and decelerated. Then came the automatic transmission. With an automatic, the transmission is entirely abstracted away. The clutch is gone. To go faster, you just press harder on the gas pedal.

and:

That’s where Apple is taking computing. A car with an automatic transmission still shifts gears; the driver just doesn’t need to know about it. A computer running iPhone OS still has a hierarchical file system; the user just never sees it.

In addition to a lack of abstraction, the desktop metaphor doesn’t have any relevancy in the mobile space. The desktop metaphor bridged the gap between the pre- and post-computers worlds when Xerox debuted their Star workstation in 1981. Apple would subsequently co-opt that idea and build on it with their operating system for the Lisa.
We still have folders, files and and trash icons in the mobile space but we’re entering a world where what you call the space where all these icons live matters less and less. The iPhone has “home screens” and the upcoming Windows Phone 7 and Palm webOS both use “tiles”.
Unless Google makes significant changes and simplications to BumpTop I see it’s implementation in Chrome OS and/or Android and a FAIL from the start.

Adam Richardson over at frog design talks about Why Google had to take control of Android with Nexus One.
I agree with Adam, that this move by Google to make it’s own phone is its attempt to ‘do Android the right way’. But is Google going to make any progress with the Nexus One? I’m not convinced they will.
For one thing, the Nexus One doesn’t sound like it’s much different than any other Android phones on the market (Boy Genius Report, NYTimes, WSJ, TechCrunch). Secondly, I don’t see how Google producing their own phone is going to stop fragmentation of the Android market.
Adam concludes:

The lackluster success of the early Android phones has surely made Google realize that they need to take a much stronger role in order to bring all the pieces of the experience together. The catch-as-catch can approach they’ve had to far just isn’t going to cut it. Fragmentation is a death knell for a product like this at this stage of maturity. Google needs to lead the charge with an integrated platform until the experience gap is fully closed.

Ironically, it seems possible that the better Google’s Nexus One gets the more fragmented the Android platform could become as partners such as Motorola and Samsung continue to improve their ‘flavors’ of Android.
Google wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be like Linux, open source and customizable and simultaneously like Apple, closed and consistent across devices.
Google, honey-baby, you can’t have both.

I’m going into my second year with Roundarch and with the end of 2009 comes our annual reviews.
When managers conduct our annual reviews, they project our ‘one sheet’ on the wall for all the other managers to see. The point is to be creative, whether you’re a designer or not. I wrote about my first one sheet last year.
This year I decided to base it on the oldey timey WANTED posters, but update it and make it a more edgy and add some technological flourishes like the QR code (which actually works if you download a QR Code reader app for your iPhone, Blackberry or Android unit).

Designers like to consider themselves badasses when in reality the only thing they usually push around are pixels.
Guilty as charged.

From the BMW blog (via PSFK):

BMW is presenting its Concept BMW Application Store at the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA). It is the world’s first carmaker to demonstrate the fundamental possibility of downloading and storing individual applications either from the car at any time on the move or from your PC at home. It means that, as with a mobile phone, the car can be adapted to the needs and interests of its occupants for the first time, thus benefiting from almost limitless personalisation.

It is the logical evolution of mobile computing (mobile meaning movement and mobile meaning communication), but don’t think the iPhone couldn’t (or shouldn’t) be part of this ecosystem.
Instead of a laptop with iTunes + iPhone, it’s car with app store + iphone.

Fast Company, September 2009

Magazines don’t sell with ho-hum-average cover stories, but be careful what you write about, because sometimes those headlines end up looking ridiculous.

Randal: “There was something else going on in Jedi. I never noticed it ’til today. They build another Death Star, Right?”
Dante: “Yeah.”
Randal: “Now, the first one was completed and fully operational before the rebels destroyed it.”
Dante: “Luke blew it up. Give credit where credit’s due.”
Randal: “And the second one was still being built when they blew it up.”
Dante: “Compliments of Lando Calrissian.”
Randal: “Something just never sat right with me that second time around. I could never put my finger on it, but something just wasn’t right.”
Dante: “And you figured it out.”
Randal: “The first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army. The only people on board were Storm troopers, Dignitaries, Imperialists.”
Dante: “Basically.”
Randal: “So when they blew it up, no problem. Evil’s punished.”
Dante: “And the second time around?”
Randal: “The second time around it wasn’t even done behind built yet. It was still under construction.”
Dante: “So?”
Randal: “So, a construction job of that magnitude would require a hell of lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I’ll bet they brought independent contractors in on that thing. Plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers–”
Dante: “Not just Imperialists. Is that what you’re getting at?”
Randal: “Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly, they’d hire anybody that could do the job. You think the average Storm Trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All’s they know is killing and white uniforms.”
Dante: “Alright, so, they bring in independent contractors. Why are you so upset at it’s destruction.”
Randal: “All those innocent contractors brought in to do the job are killed, casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. Alright, look, you a roofer. Some juicy government contract comes your way. You got a wife and kids, the two-story in suburbia. This is a government contract which means all sorts of benefits. Along come these left-wing militants who blast everything within a three-mile radius with their lasers. You didn’t ask for that; you had no personal politics. You’re just trying to scrape out a living.”
from Clerks

This made my morning:

via Design You Trust

PSFK: SoHo Loses Iconic DKNY Mural
I won’t lie, I’m kinda sad about this, but we residents know New York is a city of constant change. Destroying and creating. Destroying and creating.

Marblehead
Beautiful.

Looks like Adidas is doing creating some fun microsites. Hit their fun landing page and start exploring.

It’s a trivial feature, but the fact the I can screengrab anything on my iPhone is great.

Continue…

Advertising sure has come along way since the Mad Men days. (via BuzzFeed)

Probably one of my Top 5 Favorite Classical Pieces – The Goldberg Variations as performed by Glenn Gould.
It starts out slow, but hold out for the 2:55 minute mark for it to kick in.
And don’t be a pussy and jump right to it, play it through and earn it.