enlarge Credit: Reuters Rebekah Brooks – “no room on the bus. However . . .” Click here to view this media The Scandal That Keeps On Scandalizing. The latest today (as of 9:00 am PDT) includes the abrupt resignation of News International Chief Executive and former editor of News Of The World Rebekah Brooks, in the wake of upcoming questioning before Parliament next Tuesday. Her replacement is former Sky Italia Chief Tom Mockridge, fresh from doing battle with Berlusconi over Television dominance in Italy. Rupert Murdoch held a Mea Culpa session with the parents of murdered girl Mily Dowler, some say the catalytic episode in this scandal. No cameras allowed. And it was also disclosed this morning that disgraced and now jailed former Editor of NotW and Communications director for David Cameron Andy Coulson was vacationing at the Cameron’s Country Home as late as March of this year, two months after his resignation. And Attorney General Eric Holder, disclosed during a Press Conference in Sydney that the FBI and other not-as-yet-named investigators were looking in to the possible hacking of 9/11 victims phones. A sea of tips and an ocean of icebergs. Doubtless more as the hours pass. Owing to the 24 hour Strike by the Broadcast Journalists Union at the BBC, only the One O’Clock News was available in a truncated version and PM wasn’t broadcast at all (perfect timing . . .not). The rest of this post is made up of the minutes leading up to the 5 o’clock news and the James Whale Program via LBC, the commercial News/Talk station in London. Interesting dialogue going on over there no matter where you go. And they have commercials . . . lots of them. I tried cutting down the amount of extraneous stuff, but had to let some slip by in order to get this post up. Bear with it. The strike should be over soon.
Continue reading …We post a lot of FAILS on HuffPost Comedy, but every once in a while we find ourselves an epic WIN to share — like this amazing pool jump here. That being said, do NOT try this at home. What you’re about to see is a guy doing a gainer into a pool chair. It may sound easy, but you’ll just have to watch the video to see how impressive it is. And if you’re not convinced, maybe the celebratory cheers from the jumper’s bros will make you come around. WATCH:
Continue reading …Rupert Murdoch has taken a step toward convincing the world he is, in fact, a human being. The embattled media mogul has apologized to the family of Milly Dowler, the schoolgirl murdered in 2002 whose phone was allegedly hacked by Murdoch’s News of the World . He met with the family…
Continue reading …Gingerbread is not just for the high-end folks — even the entry-level guys need a little rhizome flavored love now and again. LG understands that, and it’s why the company is introducing a pair devices to its Optimus line dubbed the Net and Pro. The Optimus Pro , just like its similarly monikered Droid Pro , is a candybar QWERTY device with a 2.8-inch touchscreen. The Pro comes in a trio of color options, including something called “titan.” The Net, on the other hand, is a fully touchscreen affair (though, the North American version may sport a sliding QWERTY pad), with a 3.2-inch 320 x 480 display. LG is pushing its Social+ widgets that put Twitter and Facebook on your homescreen — something we all know others have had tons of success with. Both devices pack a 1500mAh battery and an 800 MHz CPU, which should be enough for less demanding smartphone users. They’ll be rolling out this summer starting in Europe. One more pic and some PR await after the break. Continue reading LG takes Gingerbread-sporting Optimus Net and Pro out of the oven LG takes Gingerbread-sporting Optimus Net and Pro out of the oven originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Don’t fret if you missed the late-night shows because you were too busy putting together your costume for the U.S. premiere of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Just check out NewsFeed’s highlights below: Monday: The Colbert Report The company Talisman Energy has made a coloring book to assure kids that hydrofracking isn’t
Continue reading …The girlfriend of a pharmaceutical company executive was found dead at a historic California mansion, her nude body hanging from a rope on a second-floor balcony with her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound. Rebecca Nalepa’s body was discovered at the Coronado home of Jonah Shacknai, founder,…
Continue reading …The blood test widely used to detect prostate cancer may prove to be a useful diagnostic tool for breast cancer, a study shows.
Continue reading …Video game reviews don’t get much more enthusiastic than this. Seth Schiesel of the New York Times is over the moon about Shadow Cities, a new iPhone game that lets you battle for control of your real-life physical location. “Shadow Cities isn’t just the future of mobile gaming,” he gushes….
Continue reading …Type: Book Title: Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design (Interactive Technologies) See all customer reviews Product Description: Bill Buxton and I share a common belief that design leadership together with technical leadership drives innovation. Sketching, prototyping, and design are essential parts of the process we use to create new products. Bill Buxton brings design leadership and creativity to Microsoft. Through his thought-provoking personal examples he is inspiring others to better understand the role of design in their own companies–Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft “Informed design is essential.” While it might seem that Bill Buxton is exaggerating or kidding with this bold assertion, neither is the case. In an impeccably argued and sumptuously illustrated book, design star Buxton convinces us that design simply must be integrated into the heart of business–Roger Martin, Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto Design is explained, with the means and manner for successes and failures illuminated by engaging stories, true examples and personal anecdotes. In Sketching User Experiences, Bill Buxton clarifies the processes and skills of design from sketching to experience modeling, in a lively and informative style that is rich with stories and full of his own heart and enthusiasm. At the start we are lost in mountain snows and northern seas, but by the end we are equipped with a deep understanding of the tools of creative design.–Bill Moggridge, Cofounder of IDEO and author of Designing Interactions “Like any secret society, the design community has its strange rituals and initiation procedures. Bill opens up the mysteries of the magical process of design, taking us through a land in which story-telling, orange squeezers, the Wizard of Oz, I-pods, avalanche avoidance, bicycle suspension sketching, and faking it are all points on the design pilgrim’s journey. There are lots of ideas and techniques in this book to feed good design and transform the way we think about creating useful stuff”. -Peter Gabriel I love this book. There are very few resources available that see across and through all of the disciplines involved in developing great experiences. This is complex stuff and Buxton’s work is both informed and insightful. He shares the work in an intimate manner that engages the reader and you will find yourself nodding with agreement, and smiling at the poignant relevance of his examples.–Alistair Hamilton, Symbol Technologies, NY Books that have proposed bringing design into HCI are aplenty, though books that propose bringing software in to Design less common. Nevertheless, Bill manages to skilfully steer a course between the excesses of the two approaches and offers something truly in-between. It could be a real boon to the innovation business by bringing the best of both worlds: design and HCI. –Richard Harper, Microsoft Research, Cambridge There is almost a fervor in the way that new products, with their rich and dynamic interfaces, are being released to the public-typically promising to make lives easier, solve the most difficult of problems, and maybe even make the world a better place. The reality is that few survive, much less deliver on their promise. The folly? An absence of design, and an over-reliance on technology alone as the solution. We need design. But design as described here depends on different skillsets-each essential, but on their own, none sufficient. In this rich ecology, designers are faced with new challenges-challenges that build on, rather than replace, existing skills and practice. Sketching User Experiences approaches design and design thinking as something distinct that needs to be better understood-by both designers and the people with whom they need to work- in order to achieve success with new products and systems. So while the focus is on design, the approach is holistic. Hence, the book speaks to designers, usability specialists, the HCI community, product managers, and business executives. There is an emphasis on balancing the back-end concern with usability and engineering excellence (getting the design right) with an up-front investment in sketching and ideation (getting the right design). Overall, the objective is to build the notion of informed design: molding emerging technology into a form that serves our society and reflects its values. Grounded in both practice and scientific research, Bill Buxton’s engaging work aims to spark the imagination while encouraging the use of new techniques, breathing new life into user experience design. . Covers sketching and early prototyping design methods suitable for dynamic product capabilities: cell phones that communicate with each other and other embedded systems, “smart” appliances, and things you only imagine in your dreams; . Thorough coverage of the design sketching method which helps easily build experience prototypes-without the effort of engineering prototypes which are difficult to abandon; . Reaches out to a range of designers, including user interface designers, industrial designers, software engineers, usability engineers, product managers, and others; . Full of case studies, examples, exercises, and projects, and access to video clips (www.mkp.com/sketching) that demonstrate the principles and methods. About the Author Trained as a musician, Bill Buxton began using computers over thirty years ago in his art. This early experience, both in the studio an on stage, helped develop a deep appreciation of both the positive and negative aspects of technology and its impact. This increasingly drew him into both design and research, with a very strong emphasis on interaction and the human aspects of technology. He first came to prominence for his work at the University of Toronto on digital musical instruments and the novel interfaces that they employed. This work in the late 70s gained the attention of Xerox PARC, where Buxton participated in pioneering work in collaborative work, interaction techniques and ubiquitous computing. He then went on to become Chief Scientist of SGI and Alias|Wavefront, where he had the opportunity to work with some of the top film makers and industrial designers in the world. He is now a principal researcher at Microsoft Corp., where he splits his time between research and helping make design a fundamental pillar of the corporate culture. * Covers sketching and early prototyping design methods suitable for dynamic product capabilities: cell phones that communicate with each other and other embedded systems, “smart” appliances, and things you only imagine in your dreams; * Thorough coverage of the design sketching method which helps easily build experience prototypes-without the effort of engineering prototypes which are difficult to abandon; * Reaches out to a range of designers, including user interface designers, industrial designers, software engineers, usability engineers, product managers, and others; * Full of case studies, examples, exercises, and projects, and access to video clips that demonstrate the principles and methods. Features: ISBN13: 9780123740373 Condition: New Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold! See the details
Continue reading …If you’ve already got withdrawal symptoms due to the final Harry Potter movie being released, help is at hand. That is, if your hand contains the best part of $650,000. Sadly, saving a few bucks by only watching Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 in 2-D probably isn’t going to be the difference
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