November 5th
It’s about 06.30, Central European Time… I have just crawled out of bed and I feel that I really need my coffee before hitting the feeds and finding out what kind of world I woke up into.
Creative worms
I’ve had an escalation in the amount of attempted worm attacks recently, and for some reason I find the fictional. world changing news headlines a bit amusing. This one, though, is in a class of its own:
Japanese packaging reduced
Most are probably aware of how important packaging design is in Japan, and while it’s often gorgeous it can feel a little wasteful in these times. But PingMag has a How-to-Reduce-Packaging Journal up today, showing examples of things going in greener and more bio-degradable directions.
Shown above is Tofu packed in a balloon. Not only does it seem material efficient, but also easy to open since you only have to prick it to have the material shrink away and leave a perfectly round ball. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mozarella and other similar European cheeses packaged like this either.
Fallout 3 – Videos from E3
Official Fallout 3 trailer (HD and other download versions here)
I’m not usually one who slavishly follows the presentations at E3 and general pre-release coverage of games – I’m usually happy with a summary, a few screenshots and a release date. But this Fallout sequel has had me worked up a bit, half with anticipation and half with skepticism to what Bethesda would do with the rights to the concept. But after watching the new official trailer and the gameplay demo from Microsoft’s press conference below I must say anticipation is winning over doubt.
Bethesda have obviously reworked the gameplay from its original isometric, turnbased form – and I can already smell the shitstorm the usual bunch of change-fearing gamers are starting to stir up about that – but judging by the videos and images I’ve seen my opinion is that it’s all in the right directions while keeping the spirit of the series in all other areas. What a Fallout game should look like in 2008, in short. But I guess I’ll have to see about that in October.
What the flip?
I mentioned in the last post that while I gave in and bought a phone with a slider design, I still don’t get the thing with flip-phones (or clamshells or whatever you want to call the design). They aren’t that much smaller – a bit, sure, but that’s usually offset by thickness that increases the bulge in your pocket. And you need to open the phone before being able to do just about anything. With a regular candybar design all that is needed is a quick keystroke to unlock the keys. Even with the slider compromise, I only need to open the phone when texting or otherwise entering information into it. In my opinion, that small saving in size comes at a cost in usability.
As I see it, the only benefit is dramatic effect. The opening (or closing) makes a statement that you are about to make a call, or just have finished one. Maybe that’s a good function if you’re a soap opera character who needs to emphasize your anger about having found out about your husband’s mistress by snapping the phone shut, and if you’re a Jack Bauer-type agent you might want to be able to flip open your phone and spend a moment in thoughtful hesitation before making that call that will save the West Coast, the president and your family at the cost of an evil terrorist getting free…
But for anyone else? I can’t really see the point. But there seems to be something, since there’s a lot of such phones on the market. Feel free to enlighten me.
I also mentioned that when the iPhone type all-touchscreen design becomes available in all price ranges, the need should clear for foldable and otherwise compactable designs… but who knows?
Sony Ericsson S500i
So, as my old Nokia had served my for almost half a decade, I decided it was time to retire it, and what I found was the Sony Ericsson S500i in the contrasted copper color shown in the image. And besides the first one being a lemon that I had replaced due to a glitch at the top of the display glass (looked like a good entry point for pocket lint and stuff), I’m happy with it. I think the model has been around since fall, which I guess makes it close to ancient in the tech market, but that might mean it’s a good time to look for special deals on it.
It’s marketed as a “design” phone, so I’ll start from the outside by saying that I think it does in fact look nice. Not incredibly eyecatching, nor overly minimalistic but with nice clean lines, open space between the features and a bit of nice accents. Some have labeled it as feminine design – that might be true of the gold-green or purple version, but unless you’re the kind of guy who immediately gets the hot babe theme or one sporting your car/team logo, you might find one you like in the other color options which in my opinion are pretty neutral. When it comes to construction, I think it feels pretty solid for a mostly plastic design, and the action of the slider bit is good.
I have to mention that I haven’t seen much point in clamshells or any other designs including joints or covers with the size mobile phones reached around the turn of the millenium… but with larger displays and need for larger navigation keys I guess hiding the number pad is a good compromise until even the most affordable phones are chrome framed touchscreen lozenges. At least as long as I don’t have to open it to see the display or call up a number from the phone book.
The phone also comes with lighting effects – something which didn’t sound too appealing in writing, but it is quite subtle in practice. Besides a selection of pulsating effects for incoming calls, the lighting also changes color to match that of the themes (which themselves alter with time of the day and season, depending on theme). It’s an interesting attempt in combining the design of the software with the hardware, and it works well.
If there’s anything to complain about design wise it’s that the navigation keys, though not terrible, might be slightly affected by a form over function compromise. I also don’t find the right side placement of the Fastport optimal – when a headset or charger is connected the largish plug is right where I want my index finger to be and makes the set a slight bit awkward to operate with my right hand. And while a tap on the two softkeys unlocks the keys, there is no similar way to lock them again so you have to either open and close the phone or access an option in the power button menu.
So, to leave the design and go into the device, I guess I can summarize the featues as pretty decent, but not special. It connects over GSM (850/900/1800/1900) with GPRS and EDGE, and has Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and USB for more local communication. The 2 inch display has a 240×320 resolution and 262K colors, and it’s bright and clear enough that I don’t have any problem using it with the backlight turned down to 50% on most occasions. On-board memory is 12MB, and expandable with Memory Stick M2 up to 2GB. The 2Mpix fix-focus camera isn’t any wonder, but I guess it’s alright for snapshots. It has a panorama mode, digital zoom when set to VGA resolution or video, and basic white balance and effect settings. The built-in speaker is alright for speaker phone and game audio but not so much for music. To conclude the hardware overview I must say that battery life seems a bit so-so, but then I’ve been playing around with it a bit too.
Software wise, it’s pretty much what you’d expect as well. Online capabilities include browser, email with push support and an RSS reader. The audio and video players do their jobs, and then there’s the organizer and other aides as well as a pile of basic software for video and photo editing and ringtone composing and so on.
All in all, it’s a decent mid-range phone with just about everything you need in an, in my opinion, attractive package. I paid SEK1300 (About EUR140/USD210), a bit less than regular shelf price of SEK2000-2500 since it was sold with a pre-paid card and locked to the carrier I already use, and for that price I think it was a great deal.
Update: Seems there are plenty of comments on the internets complaining about the number keys breaking. While mine are still whole, I agree that they do in fact look a bit on the flimsy side.
SonyEricsson S500i product page
S500i Mysterious Green at amazon.com
S500i Mysterious Green at amazon.co.uk
(who can resist a chance for associate spam?)
Designed RFID tags
I was pointed to a post on PingMag (this time I remembered to put it on my feeds, btw) about the aesthetics of RFID tags – the little things that make identifying an object, like a buss pass or shipping container, without physical contact possible – and the creativity in the forms of the antenna bit is quite remarkable considering that it’s something that usually would be hidden inside the object it’s supposed to mark.
But then I thought that if it is cheaper to slap the tag on a visible spot, you could also use the tag as a part of the design. Maybe that’s something that’s already going on? Excuse the stereotyping, but it does seem like an innovative Japanese solution to a problem.
Personal update – I’m an artist now
Or at least someone with a year of fine art education behind them, and another year at the same school coming up. It’s somthing I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but for various reasons I’ve felt that I couldn’t make the best of the sort of resource art school is. But better late than never, as the saying goes. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m intent on keeping on this path as far as it goes – hopefully by getting accepted to a bachelor program after this coming year (and with most schools here in Sweden that pretty much guarantees a place in the masters program as well unless you screw up totally).
I’ll have plenty of time this summer, and unless I get too bogged down with attention defiency and house moving I’m going to get a portfolio site up during the summer. Until then, I might post something here while I consolidate my work.
Saving the world… by manufacturing?
Here’s a Smithsonian interview with environmental scientist Wallade Broecker, who proposes CO2 scrubbers as the way to go when it comes to reducing global warming. If it could be put into practice, it would be a great idea.
But what if we add a bit of sci-fi to the concept, along with a splash of water? Then we’d have one neat natural resource on our hands because, as anyone with basic knoledge of chemistry might know, with carbon, hydrogen and a handful of other elements you can make a lot of stuff. Broken down into atoms, not many percent of what we eat is anything other than carbon and hydrogen. The same goes for many of the plastics that much of our stuff consists of. And a lot of construction can be done with fullerenes made out of carbon itself.
It would take some major advances in nanotechnology (which might be on the way…), but the thought of turning global warming into stuff is kind of neat. Especially if you’d end up with a magic fabricating box that anyone could own and use to tap into this resource. I believe this civilization thing we have going won’t work properly before the means of production are in the hands of the individual – but that’s an entirely different story.
Pen is dead (another request for help)
I found one that for some reason had been stuck in a drawer for years, maybe because while it felt great to write with, the ink would smear a bit too much on glossier paper qualities which caused some ugly results on forms and envelopes of such paper (which is what I usually use pens for – when it comes to writing and note taking by hand I’m a pencil user).
But anyway, I found the Bic and I realized it had an excellent use as an instrument for sketching and doodling – with very smooth action, a bit of variation and vividity in the lines and a flow that allowed filling larger areas.
Then, when it ran out, I found that Bic had discontinued it while my pen was gathering dust in a drawer. Apparently I’m not the only one missing them, for example an Amazon commenter claimed to have seen a box auctioned off for $60 on eBay. A bit of searching last time I thought of it found a mail-order company in Australia or New Zealand with some left, but ordering pens across the globe felt a bit too geeky…
So, while it’s a long shot, I ask this question to the internets on the odd chance that someone who shares this conundrum, but has found a suitable replacement, stumbles on this post before I go to the stationery store and buy a dozen liquid ink rollerballs to see if I find something that works…
