An IDEO team combined human design talent and machine learning to create Font Map, a tool for designers to compare and find similar fonts. This started with Google’s ~750 typefaces, but can scale to many more. Explore for yourself. More and more of my searches start and end in the Google ecosystem, including those short snippets results in …
Friday 5 — 10.14.2016
Amazon is taking another swing at streaming music, but this time with Alexa as its not-so-secret weapon. Will the hardware that’s insinuating itself into our home lives (and turning our tots into tyrants) make the difference? Alexa’s already done a good job making Siri seem dumb. No one ever sits you down to teach you how …
Friday 5 — 6.17.2016
Mary Meeker’s annual internet trends report reveals that internet growth is finally losing its mojo, but certain behaviors, like photo sharing and voice, continue to rise. Read the slide deck (or just the analysis.) Pleased to see Candace Payne, aka Chewbacca mask lady, made slide 85! The New York Times explains dark patterns, websites that turn persuasive user experience design into a dark …
Friday 5 — 1.8.2016
A lot of 2016 predictions, including Fred Wilson’s excellent list, mention consumer adoption of virtual reality (VR) games and apps. This week, Oculus announced a March release date and a price point just shy of $600. The New York Public Library, often a leader in digital, has released more that 187,000 digitized images in the public domain. You …
Friday 5 — 6.5.2015
Google Photos, a free tool to store and organize your photos, has launched. Having finally shuttered Google+, Google is recognizing photos as the stickiest feature for user retention. The new service raises legitimate concerns about privacy — a photo repository reveals a great deal about our family structure, travel habits,and health. An automated “Assistant” creates animations and stylized …
Friday 5 — 4.18.2014
Now that we’re all shooting more photos and videos than ever before, Dropbox is hell bent on storing them for you. Dropbox knows there’s a high switching cost for moving all your personal stuff (hassle, trust) so they’re making it easy and appealing to store and share, particularly via mobile. And yesterday Dropbox purchased iOS photo app Loom to continue …