April 2011
1 post
7 tags
Dreaming of A BottomBerry
I dream of a BottomBerry - a BlackBerry for the Bottom of the Pyramid. A phone that will help BOP users connect with each other in more meaningful and economically productive ways. Let me describe some of the things it will have:
Non-hierarchical UI: Hierarchical UI confuses people who have never used computers. It can follow the iPhone model of having a multi-page or scrolling home screen + home...
March 2011
8 posts
8 tags
Why "Smart" Phones Suck, Part II - The iPhone
“The Macintosh was the first computer worth criticizing” - Alan Kay
I’m going to rip on the glorious, flawless, made-in-heaven-by-angel-elves iPhone. I’m going to rip on it because I simultaneously want to tie it to an AT&T contract and make sweet love to it, but also want to bludgeon its design team with a book on affordances and gestalt-principles.
The Phone Part...
8 tags
What Smartphone Platforms Rule My Social Circle?
Last evening, I thought I’d experiment with the new Facebook Questions feature, and created a poll to see what smartphone platforms my socio-professional circles were using. Thanks to everyone who voted. The response - 384 votes in less than 12 hrs - is overwhelming. I’m taking a snapshot of this data as something representative of my social circle*. Facebook won’t let me close...
“Wow. Just wow. Let’s repeat that. So you’re saying that a decade ago we had 100...”
– The Magic Midnight Mind Meld | Both Sides of the Table
“It should be obvious that in this new moral space for “smart devices,” designers...”
– PSFK » frog design: How Honest Should Smart Devices Be?
This article illustrates many points I consider crucial to the difference between social intelligence and “absolute” intelligence of the type that is often pursued by AI researchers. I believe that it’s actually easier...
6 tags
10 tags
Why "Smart" Phones Suck, Part I
Smartphones are selling more than computers today. The next generation of users will use the internet through a mobile device long before they ever use a PC. And yet, we still force them through an aging interface, which hasn’t changed much in the last 27 years since the first Mac OS debuted the desktop.
The Desktop is a Bad Metaphor for Mobile UI
Traditionally, computers were built to be...
“I don’t hold a grudge against SONY even now Hatred clouds your mind, keeps...”
– PS3 Hacker Says Death Is the Only Way Sony Will Stop Him
A very passionate expression of a true hacker’s mind.
February 2011
23 posts
3 tags
Hello Startup World!
Starting today, I’m leaving my steady, full-time job, and starting work on taking the suck out of so-called “smart phones.” I know, everyone’s pretty thrilled with their new pocket ‘puters, but to a user experience/ social experience nerd like me, we’ve just started taking baby steps towards what it means to have so much computing power on-the-go, in so many...
“Almost 1,500 years ago, Indian mathematicians, including Aryabhata, Brahmagupta,...”
– Can India lead the mobile-Internet revolution? - McKinsey Quarterly
“At the same time, IT job security is often dependent on making things hard,...”
– 37 Signals Blog
stoweboyd: Every conflict in the world today has... →
stoweboyd: Every conflict in the world today has its origin in the imagination of British cartographers http://sto.ly/h9Vkuz
Obama’s 2012 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent -... →
“One of the worst aspects of Indian democracy is that power is often lodged at...”
– What do Indian Cities Need?
SandeepEmbar: @achitnis The key will be how the... →
SandeepEmbar: @achitnis The key will be how the manufacturers keep the UI different and evolving to keep the users interested.
WatchFrom Zero to a Million Users - Dropbox and Xobni lessons learned
WatchTop 10 Mobile Internet Trends (Feb 2011)
TheEconomist: Starship Titanic: A thriving hidden... →
TheEconomist: Starship Titanic: A thriving hidden society buried deep within a site, where lost travellers inadvertently ended up http://econ.st/gZqDcb
The Biggest Barrier to BOP Tech-Innovation
It’s become cheaper and easier to reach affluent, sophisticated customers thanks to web marketing, than it is to reach rural, poor, uneducated customers through mass media. If you have a product that will benefit the bottom of the pyramid, you will have to spend so much money on marketing and distribution to get the product to them, and communicate its values so they understand it, that the...
“Chennai, Feb 4 (PTI) The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an...”
– NPCI working with UIDAI to offer bank transactions on mobile - Oneindia News
This UID is going to be so fraught with fraud, starting with homegrown biometric hackers using fevicol and chewing gum to replicate fingerprints. Should be fun to watch.
“some 100.9 million (smartphone) units were pushed in the three-month period...”
– IDC says 100.9M smartphones sold in fourth quarter, PCs outsold for first time — Engadget
Free Facebook Credits Will Expire February 15th →
Indians Still The Most Confident Consumers; To... →
How Internet Users Feel The Need To Belong →
Airtel Q311: Rs. 340 Cr On Rebranding; India ARPU... →
Facebook Averaged Almost 8 New Registrations Per... →
Facebook Introduces a Credibility Score With New... →
January 2011
8 posts
Facebook Encourages Users In India Against... →
furby and the fourth kingdom →
True Stuff: Socrates vs. the Written Word →
“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger...”
– Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
“That is exactly what places like Yale mean when they talk about training leaders...”
– Solitude and Leadership: an article by William Deresiewicz | The American Scholar
December 2010
10 posts
1 tag
“For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could...”
– Top 50 Programming Quotes of All Time | TechSource
“I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my...”
– Top 50 Programming Quotes of All Time | TechSource
“We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and...”
– Thoreau
3 tags
“It is in this respect that games provide a compelling analogy to culture. Both...”
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow
3 tags
“a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in...”
– Thoreau
“When my son wanted to go to undergraduate film school, I called George Lucas,...”
– Michael Eisner - WSJ. Magazine - WSJ
“Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and...”
– Thoreau in Walden