Collab-Or-Ate

The dog of Sun Labs researcher Nicole Yankelovich is responsible for cleaning up Sun.com's website. Pretty funny!

Stale Web Content Sniffed Out by Pet Dog

I think this alone justifies the existence of a corporate research lab!
(joke, joke)

McDonald's is getting a new look! The article on the re-design is pretty amusing. Apparently they want to look like Starbucks. “A level has been set by Starbucks, which offers the experience of relaxed chairs and a clean environment.” Hmm… I didn't realize Starbucks was responsible for introducing us to relaxed and clean eating environments, but hey, it sounds like a good direction for McD's to go.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at this comment though:

What will the new McDonald's look like? “Think iPod: clean lines, simplicity,” says Miologos [McD's VP of worldwide architecture, design, and construction].

Because we all know that iPods are a lot like fastfood restaurants. Maybe iPods are the new 3D to the design world. ;)

Have you checked out Google Trends yet?

As I see it, it can be used to track anything that changes over time that is reflected in what people write about and read about on the internet. So what about social relationships? Celebrity relationships certainly change over time and we definitely love talking about them. Are you on Team Jolie or Team Aniston? Check out how (in the graph above and here) Aniston used to track Pitt and now Pitt appears to track Jolie. Ha!

And then there's the TomKat trend that came out of nowhere on approximately May 22, 2005.

Ok, now that there's a quantiative tool that can be applied to celebrity gossip, we need to find a practical use for the data.

[update: some more fun ones:
Steelers v. Seahawks
John Kerry & John Edwards v. George Bush
Romeo & Juliet (looks like they're still going strong)
]

For inspiration on how to present lots of data in a playful and informative way, check out this applet We Feel Fine. (found on information aesthetics, as usual.) It visualizes blog entries that refer to feelings, organized by time. The content is interesting enough, but I most enjoyed the non-traditional ways of presenting statistics and large amounts of data.

Here are some screenshots to get you interested in checking it out:

Selecting a random point in a large sea of data:

Ordered list of term frequencies:

Histogram with many datapoints missing:

Histogram with organic, animated blobs:

I'm not so sure about the usefulness of this digital umbrella handle. Sure, embedding context-sensitive, digital information into physical objects is cool, but how is looking at your umbrella handle easier than looking outside? I usually keep my umbrella hidden away and only bring it out when I've seen or heard the rain. Even when I'm in a windowless office, I still check the online weather more than my umbrella. I guess I would just have to change my habits and look at the device, not at the information sources. And consider an umbrella to be something to have on public display at all times. I suppose then it could be useful when it is not raining but is predicted to…

More information: a design project by Materious

Due to the insights of our commentors, I've changed my mind about circular treemaps. They have a distinct disadvantage compared to rectangular treemaps in that the parts (sub-circles) do not add up to the whole (the surrounding circle). But circular, colorful data representations still appeal to me.

Ciros circular graphs (shown above) are quite appealing. They represent a method for visualizing genome relations, but could be applied to any complex relational dataset. It is also an free GPL project, so you can try it out for yourself. For inspiration, checkout these lovely screenshots.

From Ars Technica:

The other new feature from Skype is currently being tested by a handful of Skype partners. Skypecasts are massively multicaller conference calls supporting up to 100 people from anywhere in the world. Each call is moderated by a host who can control who gets to speak via “mute” and “eject” buttons. Skype is positioning Skypecasts as an online community-building tool and a way for people to “discuss shared interests.” Plans are for the current testing to be followed by a wider public beta.

A conference call with 100's of people involved is an interesting “large group” problem. With the ability to have an integrated visual interface (AKA Skype's interface), it seems to me that Skype has a big opportunity to create cool visualizations of the group interactions. You don't want to hear the fidgeting and mumbling of 100's of people, but what if you could SEE it in the interface?

I just returned from attending CHI 2006 in Montreal. I've been to the conference many times before but I think this year was the most enjoyable. First of all, I'm no longer an anxiety-ridden PhD student! That makes every aspect of a conference more enjoyable. Second, the quality of the paper presenations was high and I enjoyed a lot of what I saw. I also presented a poster and attended a really fun workshop. Since the last time I attended (2002), there was a lot of new stuff. I'll post more about that once I've gotten my notes organized.

I ran into a “fan” of this blog (hi Tony!) and now that I'm aware we have one reader, I don't want to disappoint, so figured I should try to revive Sunfleet. We shall see…