A Closer Look At The iPhone

Podcast: Unlocking the human factor in gadget design

Researchers, corporations and universities all are taking a new look at the relatively overlooked field of human-computer interaction. CNET News.com's Stefanie Olsen explains what it might herald for the future of tech design.

Listen to the Podcast here

Google's secret research project on YouTube

Just for fun .. Common mistakes pointed out in a lighter vein.

ref: www.rashmisinha.com

HFI releases its 2-day Comprehensive Course on Contextual Innovation

Learn how to gain a deep understanding of user needs and cultural context to drive design ideas, business models, and technological investigations.

Contextual Innovation - Create breakthrough products and services

Contextual Innovation is ethnography with a consumer-driven spin. Check out various Innovative data-gathering techniques while learing how to ideate tools and services during the course.

Test your Contextual Innovation knowledge: Try the 10-question quiz.

Check here for more details about the course.

A Nice Quote

"Design must be optimized for body or brain, it has to be deeply human, something that you desire and aspire to. That's meaningful design."

- John Maeda, a computer scientist at MIT's Media Lab

Let Your Fingers Do the Writing

A new typing technology developed by IBM researchers, ShapeWriter lets users type on a touch screen using a finger or a stylus. Rather than pressing individual keys, a user would move their finger around the screen's keyboard to point out words, lifting a finger to indicate when a word is complete. Software would then match the pattern traced from letter to letter with that in a dictionary database.

IBM is in talks with carriers and handset makers about using this technology.

Ref: Businessweek

Innovation Podcast - Design in China

In China, design is about Form. It has nothing to do with Content and Interaction. Where you sit on the table is really important, than what you really say.
But it is changing rapidly and Design is becoming like a national initiative in China.

Check out this 15 min Businessweek Podcast about Innovation and Design in China with Gordon Bruce.

As a young designer, Gordon Bruce worked in the office of the pioneering designer who built the first-ever corporate design programs at IBM and Mobil Oil. Now Bruce is doing the same for the equivalent companies in Asia. He is currently working with many Chinese companies like Lenevo and ChanHong (Chinese TV major).