iPad & Skimmer


Well the iPad is here, first I want to talk more about the well designed, even named skin of swiss (neue grafik, J Muller Brockmann), below, arbitrary Times news rss reader Skimmer.

 

times_skimmer_dec09_launch.jpg

 

According to Denise Warren, senior vice president and chief advertising officer at the New York Times Media Group and general manager of NYTimes.com, Times Skimmer is meant to give "online readers another way to view the latest news and updates in a choice of formats that best suit their preferences." readwriteweb.com/

 

It apparently is trying to bring the feeling and serendipity of reading the physical newspaper to its online presence. Users can choose from seven different layouts. Most of these are based on a grid-based design, though some also mimic the feel of an RSS reader with stories organized in chronological order as it receives them from the rss, or ranked according to the the recommendations of the New York Times' editorial team. I do like as they say a design philosophy was 'to avoid using numbers where ever possible' so to deter the 'triggering a completion-ist obsession to see all the new stuff', it is interesting that Khoi Vinh points out that 

 

'when you see numbers and dates, they hijack your brain and you cant see the content anymore, only the numbers', which is very true. CR Feb '10 pg 30

 

I have blog posts that, ok I might be being big headed here, are ladled with time and thought put in and are barely read, not the most popular in the view-count, and so no sees them because they aren't re-aggregated with YARRP, or TOP 10, or PageRank plugins. 

 

Andre Behrens whose pet project it was and co-designed it with Khoi Vinh and the Times team said he doesn't like scroll bars ('heavy mouse use over fussy') and that a 'grid is so regular: I wanted easy two-dimensional scanning' CR Feb '10 pg 28. Much like I'd hoped for this page applications-tools.htm (made before I discovered Skimmer), although still scrollbar (little wheel in the middle of your mouse, arrow keys up-down).

 

'The app feels somewhat similar to the paid Times Reader application - especially if you use an application like Fluid or Prism to pack it into a standalone app. One nice feature of the app is that it smartly rearranges stories according to the size of the browser window. Times Skimmer also features keyboard shortcuts. Times Skimmer features a separate section for blogs, as well as a section for collections of articles about special topics, e.g. swine flu, credit crisis and bacon' readwriteweb.com/

 

After feedback from trials with users first launched as a prototype application earlier this year, they decided that they would like different styles to swiss, even though it doesn't need it. 

 

 

iPad

'So here it is then - the iPad. Will it change your world?

Apple launched its much-hyped, much-anticipated tablet device last night (as if you needed telling). First impressions – that name, is it us or is iPad just a little, well, 'sanitary'? And, yes, it does look like a giant iPhone, as many have pointed out (and quite a few correctly predicted).' creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/

 

It is amusing that everyone is having a backlash over its name, suggesting it is more associated and connotes ideas of sanitary products. Now its here I don't like it! (I know I said I liked interactive-digital-magazine.html concept) this is because it doesn't have a camera (skype), ok an additional external device might become available. It doesn't support flash either much of the web is very rich, well designed flash-based interactive content, not least my visualisationmagazine.com. But it isn't that mine cant be viewed on it using issuu or others, as Jeremy Leslie from magculture.com/blog/ describes as, 

 

'online pdf versions of their magazines (mimicking page-turning complete with 'whoosh' noises) and print-on-demand [services] [...] none of these have yet cut through to the mainstream' CR Feb '10 pg24 (excellent article, and issue of CR with Philippe Apeloig, brilliant views on design btw)

 

With this desire for flash based content to be allowed to work on such a big expensive device, as I am sorry but flash is a marvelous tool for the creative industry to drop a little animation in there, make your site interactive and have subtle hints of bells and whistles to enhance the playful experience of browsing the web. Just look at the animation of psyop.tv/. I do love the coke ad with another world inside the vending machine, the coke side of life. 

I can't help agree because of this with © Alberto Antoniazzi smart diagram below. 

 

vizualize:

Thoughts about Apple iPad:
“Why did they made a bigger iPhone when they just had to do a smaller Macbook?”
© Alberto Antoniazzi 
datavis:

The new generation of smart phones via www.billshrink.com

 

Thoughts about Apple iPad: “Why did they made a bigger iPhone when they just had to do a smaller Macbook?” © Alberto Antoniazzi

 

Rather than having the iPad, make a smaller Macbook, it can handle flash, it can still be portable. Make it do what you said netbook's can't. I'm saying this, personally I would be ok with the touch screens for phones their are now and their size like the iPhone. I'm certainly not going to be designing, writing post like this for my blog on an iSanitary (sorry, dont despise it just adding humor). Maybe if I have the chance to use one I might change my mind, but until then make great apps for the iPhone. What a revolution they are! You know that daytum are working on an iPhone app to see-the-bigger-picture that will be brilliant. 

 

Jeremy Leslie mentions, appropriately here following on from Skimmer, and in a similar style, of Guardian App being 'a cleverly designed app that does the clever things - such as letting the user read stories through various filters - while being simple to use and fast - really fast - to update. By far the best news app' CR Feb '10 pg 26

 

I agree here that this should be made,

fuckyeahinfo:

winandtonic:

dear goodness, somebody please make this into a thing immediately

winandtonic: dear goodness, somebody please make this into a thing immediately

 

Btw, thank you laptop gods, replaced the charger (not too expensive) and I can power it again with out getting it mended ;o). also to PSP-USB-Keyboard-Mouse-adaptor I can... think designing... CTRL + Z again... yay!

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8 Comments »

  1. [...] Viewing / iPad & Skimmer Displayed from / Visual Thinkmap Excerpt Says / Well the iPad is here, first I want to talk more [...]

  2. I?m new to blogging and find this post very useful. I never watch thought of how your profile is viewed by others.

  3. Amit says:

    The Times Skimmer is a great way to read the news on the Ipad in a convenient way and a great way to help the environment by reducing the need of printer paper

  4. i am really dying to buy an iPad but it is so damn exepnsive in my opnion,;;

  5. I also like iPads, but I would rather buy a laptop, because I find if more useful. It seems to me that this is more a caprice, than a necessity. But of course, all depends on what each one of us want to do with it.

  6. katesy says:

    I like ipad very much~~~

  7. Insurance says:

    If it wasn't for my ipad i couldn't get any business done. my ipad has saved me many times in business, the ipad is the best investment i ever made. great post buddy

  8. Leigh says:

    I'm not convinced about the iPad. I have considered purchasing one several times. I have held it in my hand, played with it, surfed on it, and worked on it. I've even had my credit card out to buy one!

    But I still don't have one. I'm yet to be convinced of the business need for it. I know it's nice and handy and easy to use and stuff, but I suspect that it will allow me to do more "non-productive" stuff, not more productive stuff.

    I still want an iPad, but I'm resisting until I see a clear business need for one. I do source a lot of information via RSS feeds and I did see an awesome app called Flipbook or something like that. That nearly convinced me, but again I questioned whether it actually added anything at all to my business.

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Route 66 Story Map

This is a great project on mapping the history and narratives of a journey/terrain. A sort of map that is more interesting than the territory that Houellebecq proposed.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=k&om=1&msid=103763259662194171141.000001119b4b42bf062c2&msa=0

Looking to use video and record data on a journey, much like Stephen Shore has done on his journey's across america but only through photography. Just multimedia and more forms of it. I'd like to merge the projects Poetry Atlas & History Pin and maybe this atlascine.org that I recently saw but not just Canada.

See http://artcarto.wordpress.com/cartography-narratives/ for more about Story Maps.

More about the project 'Jay Crim and Shekar Davarya spent the summer of 2002 driving across the country on Route 66, collecting interviews with the people who live, work and travel on the old road. The audio, video and images on this map are the result of that summer, and offer a glimpse into what life was like on the now-decommissioned highway and what remains for those who still travel the road. The America's Highway project was intended to create both a history lesson on America of the past as well as a travel guide for visitors on 66 today. The work was supervised by Professor Bill Leslie, History of Science Department and Mike Reese, Center for Educational Resources, The Johns Hopkins University.'

Long Live the Printed Book!

Recently recieved You know nothing of my work by Doug Coupland.



I shared this page because mapping the knowlegde, synapses in the brain and thoughts, to try represent the self in some visual and communicable level inspired me in my studies. To present them to provide understanding of my knowledge is what got me into mind mapping. Essays of just long written linear text of roughly 12 words-per-line, 500 words-per-page, just isn't enough for me. Macluhan studied the mapping of the brain and called it Pathogrpahy, and i'm sure i'll be digggin deeper into his research. Dont want to spoil the book but phew, macluhan had an interesting perspective on women... reflected by the times i suppose.

Saw his book from this brilliant documentary here, cant believe you can sit have a coffee while a chosen book is freshly printed. (smell the middle) Long live the printed book!

By the way just found this beautiful tutorial from these: here

Escape the Map

This ad for Mercedes Benz is really intriguing how google maps vernacular infiltrates reality. Escape The Map



Its been out a while the ad and had meant to post sooner. It is intriguing because I imagine that a projection on the road with the street view would help with sat nav's as opposed to trying to glance to your right to see a sat nav. You could just stare at the street. Would be cool.

But from a mapping point of view I was interested as it mixes the hyper real through the vernacular of google maps with reality. Now from my experiences I had learnt that hyper real was associated with the postmodern and specifically baudrillard 'the map preceedes the territory'. Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal.

Having looked at a recent paper by Sébastien Caquard, Cartography I: Mapping narrative cartography. See here: http://phg.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/11/06/0309132511423796

Sebastien points out an interesting view of the story map, this is the fictional representation, the story map as Sébastien Caquard puts it;

‘map is more interesting than the territory because it is an idealized simplification of a complex – and often depressing – reality. This resonates with the idea that in the postmodern world most of the time the hyper-real appears joyful beside the deterioration of the environment to which it refers (Westphal, 2007).’

See now this idea of the postmodern hyerreality being joyful is what I remember with Baudrillard and simulacra's, but I wasn't aware of the map is more intersting than the territory a point illustrated by the latest novel by Michel Houllebecq entitled La Carte et le Territoire (The Map and the Territory) (2010).

I'm not sure how we're supposed to weigh between Baudrillard or Houllebecq, but like how Sebastien says they follow with this idea of the joyful presentations of reality. Many of the these joyful selections that have been crowd sourced by google maps.

'Paraphrasing Houellebecq, in other words, ‘Google Maps are more interesting than the territory’.'

This leaves me very intrigued that the story maps that Google are providing are more interesting than reality, much in the repsect that this Escape the Map ad by Mercedes Benz particularly realises well.

It makes me want to visit, or at least try to read the videos / papers that transpire from this: Cartography & Narratives

Meanwhile, read more about the different perspectives on the map and the territory here

I have been trying to get Vism.ag/Vol 4  available in print away from P.O.Demand services and got decent prices too, but still trying to find investment to do a long enough run to realistically make it viable. But... I will try to get an ebook available of it soon and the reason I bring it up is that there are a few selections of work by Denis Wood in the online sample and there's a review of his book Everthing Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas that I'm sure will be of essential reading to cross reference with the thoughts of the Story Map and fictional cartography. (the word fictional still distracts me as google maps work on a degree of truth, they arent made up).

Anyhow, happy hols everyone and will try to get more posts up. In the mean time, follow @visualthinkmap on twitter for more of what I see, just less analysis.

Edinburgh Creative Map

edinburgh%252520map%252520info%252520cropped Edinburgh Creative Map

Edinburgh is the latest creative map to be rendered, vism.ag/edinburgh. Mapped in collaboration with creative-edinburgh.com launching Thursday 3rd November, 6 - 8pm at The Cube, 47 Leith Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3AT.

 



 



Identified as one of the 9 creative 'hotspots' in the UK by Nesta, this location has some great places on offer. From Edinburgh printmakers studio, Analogue Books, The Fruitmarket Gallery @fruitmarket to round the corner Stills photography gallery, there appears to be a lot of bustling creativity that the platform of creative-edinburgh.com @CreativeEdin will be sure to promote and keep you abreast of its output both nationally and internationally.



Creative Maps share knowledge of creative facilities in the world, or more specifically Edinburgh's area to help you in your creative and innovative endeavors.

Be it Galleries, Museums, Theaters, Bookshops, Arts Centers, Magazines, Studios, Design Companies, Craft Shops

 

Nearby on Thursday 3rd November, go check it out 6 - 8pm at The Cube, 47 Leith Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3AT



 

Check out the interactive map to see all the locations on Edinburgh's Creative Map vism.ag/edinburgh



 

Know any places in Edinburgh that aren't mapped? Sign up and add your own through vism.ag/sharegems



 

More info: @CreativeEdin



 



Poetry Atlas

2bc7fff28e18f314a1c8dca8853c7815 Poetry Atlas

When I started creative maps, I discussed with my colleague it would be good to show learners what poetry there was about their area to try and get them engaged with a range of creative inspiration and outlets. Behold I came across this:



 

 



Poetry has been geographically mapped with Poetry Atlas, not as clean and clear as the well presented HistoryView (Pin) those quill markers are just a bit too overpowering. But the info windows etc are equally great and like history pin it has accumulated quite a few writings about areas. They've even made a layar app or AR reality, as I would love to have ;o). They also to their credit make it really easy to explore their site searching location, browsing poems/ poets. Very Good.



  http://www.poetryatlas.com/



Let the words of inspiration flow through your mind about your places, I experimented with this.



 

 

HistoryView

2349e84f615807d8c8f9c4b3457e3b8a HistoryView

This looks great. Google maps and history merged into one. I wondered about how we merge the old and the new somehow.

 

I am keen to do old historical street maps overlayed on top of interactive google, try to bring a spice of art with the idea of collaging like Mercato previous post.

 

  But its free, it has pretty good clustering of pins as you zoom in and drill down the data so it doesn't become crowded like it could do. From the group We are what we Do, who bring you the beautiful Change the world for a fiver book talking about going green.

Also with it being supported by google you can sign up with your google details quite easily.

http://www.historypin.com/

http://wearewhatwedo.org/

 

Mercato

 Mercato

Love this illustration/collage by Chris Kenny called Mercato. Piecing different parts of maps together to create a new terrain, a new territory.

From tangible book


How apt to title a map by the name of Mercato too, as he was the one that produced our standard atlas we percieve the world as today, 'Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Belgian geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator, in 1569.'

Find out more about Chris Kenny here: http://www.englandgallery.com/artist_bio.php?mainId=51

Geography of Innovation

27f55955f6fe4174877c94e919c9fcc9 Geography of Innovation

This is a great study of the uk's creative economy that has sought to study 'the concept of creative clusters as a starting point to examine the role that creative industries play in local and regional innovation systems.' NESTA



'No one doubts the economic importance of the creative industries to the UK. At 6.2 per cent of the economy, and growing at twice the rate of other sectors, they are proportionately the largest of any in the world.' NESTA

'Apart from London, the research identifies nine other creative 'hotspots' across the UK:

Bath Brighton Bristol Cambridge Guildford Edinburgh Manchester Oxford Wycombe and Slough

See the 10 maps in detail See the interactive map and look at your area: Is your area a creative hotspot? Use our new set of interactive maps to find out

'In addition to mapping creative clusters across Britain, the analysis presented in our new report shows that:

• The creative industries punch above their weight in terms of innovation at both the national and regional level. They also tend to cluster in the same places as other innovative industries such as High-Tech Manufacturing and Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS).

• Different parts of Britain present different profiles of creative specialisation: cities across the wider South are more diversified in their creative specialisation, whereas Northern and Midlands cities (Manchester excepting) have similar creative profiles.' NESTA

The designs of the maps are by designbysoap.co.uk and the individual cities maps are good with the varying intensity of a hue to represent the density of the creative sector within the particular area of one of the cities. All nine have their own unique hue as is on the key on this infographic above and in the interactive ones they have overlayed them over google so you can see street data and they let you drill down the data by clicking the different particular areas of a city. Just wish they show what creative business are in these areas.

Anyhow, great that this kind of report takes place for the creative sector, help us creatives have a better awareness like I do with http://vism.ag/maps.

See the whole report in pdf here: http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_economy/geography_of_innovation/assets/documents/creative_clusters_and_innovation or go the website and read more: http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_economy/geography_of_innovation/assets/features/creative_clusters_and_innovation_report

Paper Works

IMAG0031 Paper Works

Paper Works, 'a touring exhibition from Flow Gallery in London, features a host of internationally acclaimed artists whose work all harnesses the sensitivity of the hand-made object. Fragility and transience are the immediate connotations which resonate in the use of paper as a medium for creating three-dimensional form. Single sheets are either reworked or pulped by the artists to form visually striking pieces.'

From Photo works


This is a close up of this great paper piece called 'A Story' by Aino Kajaniemi and she describes them as 'memory scrolls, and the viewer has to imagine and create the messages contained in the scrolls for themselves. Love letters, an apology'

From Photo works


There was a whole host of big paper artist names such as Lizzie Thomas, local Ferry Staverman (i'm sure thats his surname) and Helen Musselwhite.

From Photo works


A very cool gallery and good to see that space at the civic been put to good use. Visit and keep the gallery going which has had a beautiful redevelopment from I the gallery manager said lottery fund. You can purchase pieces aand adorn your home with unique paper art.

See it at the civic

Prote.in Journal

 Prote.in Journal

Cool url and even cooler news print journal. 'The quarterly Journal contains all the best from the Protein OS. It pulls together the very best of the network from the past three months. Previous issues are catalogued below.'

From Prote.in


Finally got round to posting this was their third issue and it was packed full of some beautiful data visualisations and interviews and lots to read. It even contained a free poster of the latest work (was a while ago I got this, just got round to posting) by Peter Crnokrak who was featured in http://vism.ag/vol2 see page 12 - 15 called 'Everyone Ever in the World', great work btw Peter.

From Prote.in


Beautifully composed/designed with a great healthy use of space that sits perfectly with the newsprint feel. Clean type it, its in colour too with some great projects from their dose of quarterly creative intake from the eyes that i'm about to check out, such as:

Sam Winston's Birth-day - does some brilliant typographic explorations such as Sam's 'The Monster Story' or 'The Dictionary Story' (i think the second was called this...)

Henry Luong's Seinfeld Data Vis, looking similar in circular compostion to those made by Peter Crnokrak [LoP]

Mapping America, also looking cool.

You can see all their issues for free, online in the same approach, possibly through Issuu.com too, approach to the flash viewing of http://vism.ag

Check it out!

http://prote.in/journal