Recently my brother sent my dad a video of the history of the Vocoder. (the Vocoder is a synthesizer that produces sounds from an analysis of speech input) Since my dad is a 30+ year veteran of AT&T and an electrical/mechanical engineer, he dropped some knowledge on my brother:

Much of this technology was also used to improve the efficiencies of the initial fiber optic trans-oceanic cables. I had been directly involved in implementing the first fiber cable (TAT-8) between the US (east coast, NY) and Europe (UK, France) as well as the Pacific ocean cables (HAW4/TPC3) to the far east (via California, Hawaii, Guam to Japan). There was limited capacity and the US telecom quality voice standard at the time was known as 64kbps per voice channel. Not too many simultaneous calls could be carried over the cable at that rate, so low bit rate technology (LBRV) was needed to be used instead to improve transmission efficiencies, which was a direct off-shoot of the Vocoder technology. The algorithm for voice frequencies vs. required bit allocation was critical for passing signals that would “sound” like a person’s normal voice but sent at a lower bit rate that would permit additional calls. Fortunately, the human ear can be “tricked” into thinking it’s hearing the original signal even though you are slipping/subtracting data bits at critically particular times and audio frequencies. I actually sampled some of the Bell Labs “blind tests” testing different bit rates and it was a fascinating experience to be at both ends of the project — lab development and my operations/engineering implementation. At the time Bell Labs was an incredibly deep and competent organization. I had several BTL engineers assigned to my team which made my life a lot easier! But back then then the technology was pure, as we called it then, “Buck Rogers”! Today, we are so many generations beyond this.

You rock, Dad.

via my brother’s site, chasing Tremendous

When a new technology emerges, it behaves like the technology that came before it. Moving pictures acted like photography. Television acted like radio. Cars were designed like the carriages before them (yes, that’s where the word “car” comes from).
And so it is for the first generation of smartwatches (aka “wearables”) with their skeuomorphic analogue watch hands.
I thought we had evolved from skeuomorphism?
We can do better than this shit.

image taken from BGR.com

PREMISE #1: Windows 8 was designed to make Windows relevant on tablets as well as desktops.

PREMISE #2: The Surface 2-in-1 was designed to assist the transition of Windows 8 from notebooks to tablets.

FACT: The current ad campaign targets the Surface at notebooks, not tablets.

QUESTION: So what purpose does the Surface serve?

CONCLUSION: None.
—John Kirk, Microsoft’s Surface Ads: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

From Cassandra Khaw at the Verge:

The wreckage of a drone has been found outside of a maximum security prison in South Carolina, according to Reuters. It is believed to have been used in an attempt to smuggle phones, marijuana, and tobacco into the Lee Correctional Institution. The discovery precipitated an investigation that would later lead to the arrest of 28-year-old Brenton Lee Doyle and a search for a second suspect.
Welcome to the future.

Stefan Sagmeister is an incredible designer, and I agree with what he says in the video below to an extent.
I think many designers mistake articulation with storytelling. They’re not the same. Designers and art directors and creative directors need to be able to sell ideas to clients. Doing this involves articulating in words what they and their team made with typography, shape, color and motion.
Articulation of ideas is a integral skill all designers should learn.
But it’s not storytelling.
I think the equation is: All stories are articulations, but not all articulations are stories.

Walt Mossberg gets right to the point in his review of Amazon’s Fire Phone:

But I consider the Amazon Fire phone no more than an interesting first step. In my tests, I found its big new features less useful than I expected, and sometimes outright frustrating. And, arriving seven years after the debut of the first modern smartphone, Amazon’s new entry lacks some key functions both Apple and Samsung include.
But over at the NYTimes.com, Farhad Manjoo is more bullshitty:
Amazon’s focus on the Fire Phone’s flashier side is unfortunate, because when I dug beneath the gimmicks, I found something better than 3-D heroics. The Fire Phone is uncommonly friendly and easy to use. As a bare-bones smartphone, it should prove especially attractive to people who find themselves overwhelmed by today’s crop of do-it-all superphones. When you forget about its whiz-bang marketing, the Fire begins to stand out as something much more interesting: a phone for the rest of us.
Uncommonly friendly? How so? And what is a “do-it-all superphone”? Is he referring to Android phones? iPhones? Without specific comparisons, none of this means much.
Later on, Manjoo on the “carousel” feature:
But what the Fire Phone lacks in aesthetics and breadth of capabilities, it makes up for in ease of use. Consider the phone’s main app-launching interface, the “carousel,” which should be familiar to people who’ve used Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets. The interface constantly sorts your apps according to how recently you’ve used them. This let me navigate my phone very efficiently, often saving me from getting lost in a sea of apps — a common occurrence on most other phones.
Call me crazy, but I do this thing where I put all my essential apps I use on a daily basis on my first home screen. On my second screen, I have lesser-used apps organized in folders by function: Look, Listen, Read, Socialize, Buy, Pay, Travel, Create and Play. If you’re getting lost in a sea of apps on your phone or tablet, maybe you’re the problem, not your device, Mister Manjoo.
All in all, I get the impression the Amazon Fire Phone is not a great phone.

Apple and IBM Forge Global Partnership to Transform Enterprise Mobility

Microsoft, you can move forward with those layoffs. Keep up the innovation.

[For you kids who didn’t know, that guy in the picture is Steve Jobs, the founder and former CEO of Apple computer. He’s giving IBM a big fuck you.]

Ultrasonic Gesture Recognizer developed by Chirp Microsystems
hat tip @HelenSitu

When factoring in smartphones, tablets and other gadgets along with traditional PCs, Turner estimated that Windows is only on around 14% of them, which is obviously a vastly different reality from the one that Microsoft faced 10 years ago when Apple was mostly known for producing the iPod and when Google was just a very popular search engine.
—Brad Reed, Reality sinks in for Microsoft

Adjust uses the term “zombie app” to describe an app that doesn’t get measurable attention to regularly receive rankings in the top lists on the App Store. In June, 953,387 apps out of the 1,197,087 available ones (or 80%) were zombie apps, up from 75% in December 2013 and 70% in June 2013.

These percentages may seem high, but the low number of downloads is driven by the fact that app discovery is still a major issue for developers. With 60,000 apps added to the App Store every month, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult for apps to stand out. With 60,000 apps added to the App Store every month, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult for apps to stand out. According to Adjust, only one-fifth of apps were sufficiently visible in June.
—Samantha Murphy Kelly, Report: Nearly 80% of Apps in Apple’s App Store Are Basically Lifeless
George Carlin said, “Kids are like any other group of people: a few winners…a whole lot of losers.”
Same goes for apps.
*The 80/20 Rule aka the Pareto Principle

Russell Ivanovic dispells the myth of Android screen fragmentation:

Seems like a lot of variation, right? The part that might confuse most non-developers, is we lay everything out at ‘1x’ or ‘1dp’. So on the iPhone you can have a 320×480 pixel iPhone 3G, and a 640×960 iPhone 4, but the interface itself doesn’t change, it’s still 320×480. You don’t have to re-lay out any buttons or do a custom interface for it. All you do is provide higher resolution assets to make things look crisper. The same is true on Android.
Android has come a long way.
If they ever decide to get rid of that awful Helvetica/Arial-mutant-lovechild Roboto, I might actually switch off iOS.
Ha. Who am I kidding, no I won’t.

This rush to use the phone as a camera has meant that phone makers are keen to improve their product (so as to compete effectively with it against each other) and as a consequence they overtake the incumbent camera makers in quality as well as quantity.

The same phenomenon was experienced by fixed component “Hi-Fi” audio products. The quality of mobile music was poor but it was convenient and convenience translated into consumption and consumption translated into quality improvement and eventually the evaporation of usage of the traditional category.
—Horace Dediu, Competing effectively against your most potent competitor

The latest Kantar Worldpanel numbers for smartphone market share may not be surprising, but they are grim indeed for Microsoft. In the heart of the Windows empire in the United States, Windows Phone’s market share dropped from 4.7% to 3.6% between May 2013 and May 2014. In Germany, the decline was from 6.2% to 5.9%. In Brazil, the share remained flat at 5.5%. In China, Windows Phone saw a collapse from 3% to o.6%.
—Tero Kuittinen, Windows Phone market share: Crash and burn

Citing its usual anonymous supply chain sources, Digitimes on Monday reported that Microsoft called off its plan to mass-produce and launch the Surface Mini tablet back in May. According to the report, the decision to cancel the device was made because the tablet lacked differentiation compared to other small tablets, and also because the company received “negative responses” from its various brand vendor partners.
—Zach Epstein, BGR
The whole sales pitch for the Surface (Pro) is the fact that it’s a laptop replacement. Microsoft has even gone so far as to offer people $650 to trade in their MacBook Air.
Considering the uphill battle they’re facing trying to convince people their Surface is superior to a MacBook Air experience, imagine them trying to sell a Surface Mini. There’s no way you’re going to convince anyone a tablet with an 8-inch screen is going to replace a MacBook Air.
The only thing a Surface Mini could possibly replace is a Zune.
Don’t even try to tell me you’ve forgotten about the Zune already.