The AppsLab

I heard someone say today that such-and-such function was for a user with no technical competence. This immediately struck me as odd, given that I thought we were talking about the persona often referred to as “the business user,” i.e. someone for whom writing code is not a job function that will be using your… Read More

Today brought news that RIM is slashing the price of its PlayBook tablet. There’s precedent for this move. HP almost immediately slashed the price of its TouchPad after the release did not go well; they did so again in December. December also brought news that Dell was killing off its Streak line of tablets. I have to assume… Read More

I’ve been accepted to speak at Kscope 12, the big ODTUG (@odtug) user group conference which is in San Antonio, June 24-28. My session is called Extend Oracle WebCenter to Infinity and Beyond, and yes, you can expect lots of Toy Story references. The session is scheduled for Monday, June 25 from 4:15 to 5:15, so… Read More

My daughter is about nine months old now, and she’s thoroughly enjoying all the hubbub of Christmas. We’ve taken her to a nearby grower to cut down our tree, to the zoo to see all the lights, and of course, to sit on Santa’s lap. That last one was an adventure, one that could have been greatly… Read More

I recently finished watching Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica. Yes, it’s a documentary about the ubiquitous typeface. Pretty sure I heard about it first from Paul (@ppedrazzi), which makes sense, given the content. I like most documentaries, and this one appeals to the wannabe designer and font, erm typeface, nerd in me. It’s also an interesting historical study in the… Read More

If you doubted the power of social, this bit of news might serve as a wake-up call, or it might reenforce your beliefs. Twenty-Nine-Year-Old Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih Joins Starbucks Board Of Directors | TechCrunch Back in 2007, Clara mashed up Salesforce and Facebook into an unofficial app called Faceforce. Creepy, yes, but very… Read More

Sometimes, I write about work stuff. This is one of those times. You may have seen recently that Noel (@noelportugal) and I joined a brand-spanking, new team called WebCenter evangelism. You might also recall that the team’s mission is: . . . to raise the profile of Oracle in all of the markets/conversations in which WebCenter… Read More

Even though I read several design blogs, it’s not very often I come across anything about road signs, let alone two different pieces about different influential designers. Today, I did. First, there’s this bit on the English pair Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, who were “the graphic designers standardised the road network, created many of its… Read More

Apparently, I’m not alone in thinking that tablets would be a whole lot more usable and useful with a good stylus, and it’s always good to have a pen. So, why not combine the two into something awesome? Check out the LunaTik Pen, straight from the minds of the designer who created the TikTok iPod… Read More

Check this out, the NY Times Research & Development Lab has a prototype of that smart mirror you see in sci-fi movies like Total Recall and Minority Report. It’s called Reveal, and it looks awesome. Reveal Project – Personal Data Mirror from NYT R&D on Vimeo. More importantly, the NY Times has an R&D lab?

UXPin (h/t TechCrunch) eases the pain of converting paper prototypes into digital wireframes by making the process as simple as taking and emailing a photo. OK, there are some caveats. First, you’ll need to use their paper prototype notebooks, which look to be very nice. They have web app and an iPhone app notebooks. Then,… Read More

This is just plain sweet. Check out Android Design Preview (h/t Engadget), a Java utility that allows you to preview your hi-fi Android mockups (or anything on your computer for that matter) live on the device: Sounds like you’ll need the Android SDK too to use adb, Android Debug Bridge. Kudos to Roman Nurik (@romannurik) for… Read More

This smacks of a PR play, albeit a successful one. CEO bans email, encourages social networking — Engadget Even so, I wonder if the results of the experiment will ever see the same level of transparency. I’ve been among those who proclaim email dead, but over the years, email has become more pervasive, not less.… Read More

Presented without comment, I give you The Rise of Developeronomics, please forgive the damn interstitial. It’s six pages without a full-page version; the tl;dr version is invest in developers, ideally the 10x ones because this is the only investment that will hold value over the next few years. An interesting read for sure. I have some quibbles,… Read More

2011 has been a year of change for the ‘Lab. We welcomed a new member in May, Noel Portugal (@noelportugal), but then lost Rich (@rmanalan) to Atlassian in August and Anthony (@anthonyslai) to Taleo in September. Uncertainty played a role in each of their departures. For quite some time, the future of this team has… Read More

Last week, I came across a few development tools that I wanted to share. The first is Mobilizer, recommended to me by a new friend, Noël Jaffré (@noeljaffre) from the Fatwire acquisition. Mobilizer is an Adobe AIR app that lets you preview mobile content from your desktop. Currently, it can render the iPhone 4, HTC EVO, Palm… Read More

Check out Cotton Candy: Cotton Candy: FXI technologies’ USB stick-size portable computer prototype with a dual-core 1.2-GHz Samsung Exynos ARM CPU. That’s the same processor in a Samsung Galaxy S II, by the way. Also, it has 802.11n Wi-Fi capability, Bluetooth, HDMI-out and a microSD memory slot. This USB Stick is a Dual-Core Computer | Geekosystem Wow. Imagine… Read More

Google dropped a new version of its search app for iPad recently, and TNW has an interesting take, i.e. this new app is a Chrome OS Trojan Horse. I rarely use the Google Search iPad app, although past versions have showcased some very cool design patterns for iPad development. Not exactly sure why, but it… Read More

I do love the internet of things, and Twine looks like a simple way to add connectivity to everyday objects without too much fuss. ‘Twine’ Foreshadows A Future Where All Objects Talk To The Internet | TechCrunch Twine reminds me of stripped down Sun SPOTs. Anyway, they’re on Kickstarter now, raising money to make these… Read More