Microsoft: Thinking outside the box

Even the brilliant Joel Spolsky can't get into Office 2007:

It's a hard plastic case, sealed in two different places by plastic stickies. It represents a complete failure of industrial design; an utter F in the school of Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things. To be technical about it, it has no true affordances and actually has some false affordances: visual clues as to how to open it that turn out to be wrong.

Technorati Tags: Design, Microsoft, Office, Product Design, broken, Software, Usability, Vista, Windows

Useless software gets meaningless awards

Hilarious and depressing in equal measures, this intentionally non-functioning Windows program nonetheless picked up all kinds of plaudits from unscrupulous download sites:

I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Some of them even emailed me messages of encouragement such as “Great job, we’re really impressed!”. I should be delighted at this recognition of the quality of my software, except that the ’software’ doesn’t even run.

Technorati Tags: humour, puppy, Software, Windows

Killer iMac?

Tanner Godarzi reckons Apple's new iMac portends doom for the all-in-one. I wonder what he's smoking:

Apple recently updated iMac may look sleek and improved but they have killed it as far as I am concerned. I don’t have a mole within Apple or sources ready to break NDAs but the signs are all in front of our eyes.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iMac, Macintosh, Product Design, technology

Hand+Knife+Robot+Sweat =

I don't fancy finding out the answer myself. I won't be volunteering my hand as a test subject for 5VOLTCORE's Mumblety-Peg Machine:

Essential to the set-up is the the feedback loop i.e. the circularity between computer, robot and User. It instantiates the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy: The human is right by assuming that the Machine can fail. The Machine can fail because the human assumes.

Technorati Tags: Art, Gaming, robotics

For the geek who has everything

It's no secret I love the Spork. I've been known to eat in SpudULike just to snaffle a supply of their green plastic sporks. This must be the ultimate though.

Technorati Tags: Product Design, Usability

Fighting Talk

Lance Ulanoff is pretty upbeat on Apple's rising fortunes in PC Mag:

The word of mouth for any Macintosh is remarkably good, and with the negative press that Vista is getting, the shine on Apple only gets better and better. To put it simply, Apple's Macintosh is becoming the most logical choice for those looking to buy a new computer. I know I, like Dvorak, find myself hard-pressed not to recommend a Mac desktop or laptop among the PC systems I often tout.

Will there come a time when I recommend only Macs? No. But the day when Apple owns a much, much bigger slice of the computer-market pie is now within view. Let's mark our calendars, shall we? I say that by Q1 2012, Apple will own 12 percent of the market. Anyone want to guess where it'll be by 2025?

Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Mac OS X, Macintosh, Microsoft, Vista

Relief

Something happier to end the day. This is hilarious: swissmiss: iPhone Shuffle

Technorati Tags: Apple, humour, iPhone, iPod shuffle, YouTube