Other Interests: pursuing your passion

TEDx Brisbane 2010

I was delighted to be an attendee at TEDx Brisbane 2010.

The planning and preparation was well organised and there were high expectations.

And the speakers and presentations (both long talks and short brain bursts) were excellent and varied.

Unfortunately trying to accommodate double the numbers by alternating attendees between "live" and audio/visual auditoriums did not work for me.

Session 1 in the "other" auditorium was not a good experience, starting off with no sight or sound, then sound only until vision was restored.

Attending session 2 "live", was a huge improvement in the "experience".

I was pleased to be able to watch the other sessions at home on Ustream.

The multi-touch driven computer screen

Wow! The multi-touch driven computer screen is real, not just a movie special effect! See the video

Fast Company has an interesting article on the people behind it and how it works.

Best of 2006

The usual "best of ..." articles are being published.

I thought these were worth noting:

• Wired's 300 best gear and gadgets
• best innovation and design books
• New York Times 100 notable books
• 10 places to get free images
• top 10 YouTube videos
• top 50 blogging resources
• Top 10 mistakes in web design

Do we make things too complicated? Keeping things simple.

Yesterday I went shopping for a new phone for my home. Requirements: functional, not ugly, cordless, easy to use digital answering machine, reasonable price, reasonable battery life.

Before I went I read internet reviews and product specifications.

And I took the principal user (my wife) with me.

Once I identified the phones that met our overall requirements, the user made her decision based on 2 factors: simplicity of use and whether the numbers and buttons were big enough.

So Law 1 of John Maeda's Laws of Simplicity made sense to me: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

See also Presentations and the Laws of Simplicity

Australian Census 2006

It's Census night tonight.

It will be the first time Australians have a choice to complete their forms online by eCensus.

We'll see how accurate the Population Clock is.

Wonderful

These videos are joyous: Pink and this ad for Tango (which is a parody of the Sony Bravia ad).(via Doc Searls)

Technology in the old media

It seems strange but I like reading about technology in the old media. But the old media (especially the Australian Financial Review which has 2 good local technology writers in particular)is often reluctant to give online access.

So when I realised that The New York Times has given open access to Walt Mossberg's excellent Personal Technology columns I thought I'd link to the Australian old media:

• SMH Technology
• Australian IT

Oh, is that all?

Visual information analysis

Information aesthetics gives visual representations of data ranging from social networks to google searches, and it is Australian! (via loobylu).

Technology and personal relationships

I love this performance by Australian musical comedy group Tripod (via Scobleizer).

Using technology for learning

Wil Richardson has written an article (pdf) that shows how new interactive technology tools (from blogging and RSS to videos and podcasts) can be used for learning and sharing not just reading.