jacqis

luluraeven: Lego Death Star featured in S05E08 Big Bang...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:07:00 +0800

Lego Death Star featured in S05E08 Big Bang Theory

Impressed by these people’s passion.

chettelodicoafare: Steve Jobs after delivering his last keynote...

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 02:03:00 +0800

Steve Jobs after delivering his last keynote speech in June’11. Resting his head on his wife. A touching pic. #stevejobs #apple (Taken with instagram)

Was awaken by my hubby about this piece of sad news. At first, I thought he was kidding with me, I mean, Apple just did their latest iPhone launch, no other big news from Apple was going to happen soon. It was a huge shock.

His products have changed the way people communicate with each other, the perception that technology is hard to use (now children and elderly using gadgets almost effortlessly) and shake up the mobile industry.

Are we going to have more of such innovative products from Apple? But that’s the selfish consumer(iPhone, iPad & recently Macbook Air) me talking. As much as the technology world mourned the death of a legendary visionary, the largest impact will be on his family, who have battled the disease with him, enduring the pain for the last few years.

So here’s my wish for his family, that they find peace at his passing soon.

futuramb: (via textually.org: [Infographic] How Are Smartphones...

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:08:00 +0800

futuramb:

(via textually.org: [Infographic] How Are Smartphones Being Used?)

smarterplanet: Amazon Kindle can now check out e-books from...

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0800

smarterplanet:

Amazon Kindle can now check out e-books from 11,000 libraries - CSMonitor.com

Kindle users can now check out e-books from 11,000 community libraries across the country, Amazon announced today. The process is a simple one: Navigate to the website of your local library, enter your library card number, select a title, click “Send to Kindle,” and plug in your Amazon.com information. Your book can then be transmitted wirelessly or via USB – any gadget with Amazon software will do, including an iPhone or Android handset.

The availability of the e-books will vary from library to library, but most titles should be available on your Kindle for about two weeks. After that, they’ll disappear. In a press release, Amazon exec Jay Marine called libraries a “critical part of our communities,” and framed the initiative as the natural next step for library lending.

“We’re even doing a little extra here – normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no,” Marine said. “But we’re fixing this by extending our Whispersync technology to library books, so your notes, highlights and bookmarks are always backed up and available the next time you check out the book or if you decide to buy the book.”

Reflections of my career

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:24:00 +0800

Recently I chanced upon TNW’s article on Apple revamping their iPad shopping cart article on Twitter. I was reading it with interest for about 10 minutes when it hit me that I have been so involved in looking after my newborn (about 10 weeks old now) that I kinda of forgotten about my professional work.

Here’s a recap of what I had done & learnt for the past 3 years:

i) Getting exposed to social media, professionally.
Joined Twitter in early 2008 and found it extremely useful to follow tech news. Started reading lots of news on services, media companies like Google, Yahoo, Nokia, etc.

ii) Getting in-depth on interaction design
Designed shopping cart wizards for the first few months at work (which was why the article jolted my memory). Adapting to changing business requirements, presenting to stakeholders, tweaking the design again & again. I remember bringing home to edit the interaction designs so as to be ready for review the next day.

Worked on various check-out process. Typical check-out cart using credit card. Modified it later to include paypal (so as to adhere to its requirements). Designed a buying process to include points/credits system & credit card. Modified it to become a pure credit system for easy purchase.

iii) Working remotely
My projects typically consist of teams in different geographical areas. Communication is done via email, instant messaging and phone calls. On rare occassions, we even communicate via video conferencing! Challenges include poor voice quality, miscommunication due to culture & language differences, differences in project expectations. Through these 2 years, I have learnt a lot from my project teams and I will miss them a lot.

iv) Picking up Chinese
I have always struggled with the Chinese language and once I was out of the academic track (about 12 years ago), I stopped learning and using it. However, because of my team members, I was forced to use & communicate using the language. Initially I had a hard time understanding them and vice versa. So I started listening to podcasts, learning the fundamentals again, which helped me to regain my grasp of the language. Now, I am proud to say that I could speak Chinese rather fluently and it helped me to teach my daughter the language!

v) Learning about mobile devices & Android
I have always been a web, software person. In early 2010, when we started developing products using Android, I started design interactions for smaller mobile screens, different browsing & purchase experience. Learning curve was steep but it was fun to apply skills to a new domain.

It has been a fruitful 3+ years of my life..it’s time to look forward and embark on a new journey!

"It’s all self-motivated learners who are willing to even pay, and not doing it for a grade, and..."

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:46:00 +0800

“It’s all self-motivated learners who are willing to even pay, and not doing it for a grade, and doing it for the knowledge. There is something pure about that”

- What all learning should be about

mrgn: where Silicon Valley tech talent goes

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:25:00 +0800

mrgn:

where Silicon Valley tech talent goes

futurejournalismproject: bijan: Apple’s market cap vs...

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:14:19 +0800

futurejournalismproject:

bijan:

Apple’s market cap vs Microsoft + Intel (combined).

Amazing.

(via)

Innovation doesn’t ask for permission. It happens. Deal.

"No single task has my undivided attention. A study by the University of California, San Francisco,..."

Mon, 30 May 2011 10:58:54 +0800

“No single task has my undivided attention. A study by the University of California, San Francisco, last week concluded that constant multi-tasking gradually erodes short-term memory. And interruptions are a massive problem, taking anything up to 20 times the length of the interruption to recover. For those of us compelled to check email every few minutes, that revelation explains where the day goes.”

- Jemima Kiss: How I kicked my digital habit | Technology | The Observer (via mediafuturist)

gregmelander: PTTRNS An amazing resource for seeing common...

Wed, 25 May 2011 18:12:21 +0800

gregmelander:

PTTRNS

An amazing resource for seeing common Mobile user experiences, from splash screens to check in UX. Great stuff!

Good reference for designing mobile apps.

Test post from iPhone

Wed, 25 May 2011 17:56:18 +0800

Test post from iPhone

Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books

Fri, 20 May 2011 14:44:50 +0800

Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books:

emergentfutures:

Amazon began selling hardcover and paperback books in July 1995. Twelve years later in November 2007, Amazon introduced the revolutionary Kindle and began selling Kindle books. By July 2010, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Today, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books - hardcover and paperback - combined.

Paul Higgins: I have certainly added to this trend in the last 6 weeks .What changed my behaviour has been the Kindle applications and the way they work across platforms. I have Kindle on my iPad, my laptop, and my HTC Android phone. The way the system works I can use any of those to read what I buy. It just works The two other underlying drivers are cost and immediacy. Being in Australia Amazon shipping costs are a little high so combined with a lower purchase price this is certainly attractive. Immediacy also helps. If I find something I want I can buy it and get it straight away. This is a bit of a problem for me in some ways because I probably end up buying too much. On the other hand I think that immediacy is also forcing change on the publishers. Given a contest for my limited time and attention I am now more likely to buy a book that has a Kindle edition that one that hasn’t and I have to wait for. If that is more widespread it will create a positive reinforcement loop that means more books will have to have a Kindle (or some other digital) format.

Full Story: Amazon Press Release

via @dtapscott

Morgan Missen: Where are all the women in tech? On Tumblr!

Wed, 11 May 2011 13:54:42 +0800

Morgan Missen: Where are all the women in tech? On Tumblr!:

mrgn:

Tracy Chou, Software Engineer at Quora

Caroline McCarthy, CNET writer turned Googler

Aubrey Sabala, Consumer Marketing at Facebook

Melissa Miranda, Co-Founder of Journly

Lauren Leto, Co-Founder, Texts From Last Night and Bnter

Melody McCloskey, Founder of…

"Nokia’s failure to capitalize on the smartphone boom has cost the Finnish company market share and..."

Wed, 04 May 2011 13:51:00 +0800

“Nokia’s failure to capitalize on the smartphone boom has cost the Finnish company market share and prestige as the center of gravity in its industry has shifted from hardware and communications to software and applications.”

- From Nokia to Cut 7,000 jobs in cost-cutting move:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/technology/28iht-nokia27.html?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

smarterplanet: The Really Smart Phone - WSJ.com Researchers are...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:00:06 +0800

smarterplanet:

The Really Smart Phone - WSJ.com

Researchers are harvesting a wealth of intimate detail from our cellphone data, uncovering the hidden patterns of our social lives, travels, risk of disease—even our political views.

ilovecharts: Visual Loop on Publishing in the Digital Era

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:13:27 +0800

ilovecharts:

Visual Loop on Publishing in the Digital Era

Beating The Apple

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:28:51 +0800

Beating The Apple:

parislemon:

Kottke on one of Apple’s potential weaknesses:

Someone should figure out how to leverage Facebook’s social graph to make the phone/app/gaming/music/video experience significantly better than on the iPhone/iPad and then partner exclusively with Facebook to make it happen.

That someone will be Facebook themselves.

He also notes:

the Apple products & services that Apple does well are the ones that Steve Jobs uses (or cares about) and the ones he doesn’t use/care about are less good (or just plain bad).

That generally does seem to be the case. And it comes across in unveilings too.

wonific: IMO, Amazon sees the future pretty nicely. Agreed....

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:00:06 +0800

wonific:

IMO, Amazon sees the future pretty nicely.

Agreed. Amazon has been keeping up with the digital times for the past few years. Selling MP3, e-readers, e-books and now moving into Cloud service.

soupsoup: News.me prepares for launch A collaboration by bit.ly...

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:20:00 +0800

soupsoup:

News.me prepares for launch

A collaboration by bit.ly and the New York Times R&D lab. Until I can get my hands on it, it’s hard to say what it may offer that Flipboard doesn’t already provide.

Peter Kafka offers some clues.

I get my news & updates from Twitter but I am not sure if I will pay US$34.99 a year to get the feeds on my iPad (when I do have one).Plus I may be bombarded by ads? judging by this sentence “The application can also provide additional promotion for publisher products that might be of special interest to News.me users”. I don’t agree with a paid subscription and ads at the same time.

There is a free email service though..will check that out and see if it’s useful.

"Apps are RIM’s Achilles heel and will remain so, and they need to motivate popular app makers to..."

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:34:20 +0800

“Apps are RIM’s Achilles heel and will remain so, and they need to motivate popular app makers to develop for their platform”

- http://gigaom.com/mobile/playbook/