Dick Powell: The dos and don’ts of product design

Posted by & filed under IT Trends.

Discussion:  Dick Powell, who is one half of British design agency Seymourpowell, has taken on a new role as mentor for CNN’s Blueprint series.  In this installment, Powell offers advice to a group of students who have turned a student project into a business.  The product, Bare Conductive paint, allows users to paint a circuit… Read more »

Hackers hit petition site Change.org, official says

Posted by & filed under Cyber Security, IT Security, The Internet.

Discussion:  On Friday, online petition site, Change.org, was hacked.  Reports say that there were only “cosmetic” changes made, and that no personal information was compromised.  A spokesman for the company also noted that none of the 12 petitions that were targeted had its number of signatures affected.  It appears at this time that the petitions that were… Read more »

How Xbox One could be a game-changer

Posted by & filed under Dashboards, IT Trends.

Discussion:  Microsoft’s new Xbox One may change how people interact with their gaming consoles.  Besides the updated hardware (including controller, CPU, and camera that uses detailed motion techniques) the non-gaming content on the console will be much improved.  Xbox is going to launch its own original TV content that will be available on the platform,… Read more »

Yahoo rolls out update to make Flickr ‘awesome again’

Posted by & filed under App Economy, Blog, The Internet.

Discussion:  Hours after Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, announced that it was buying blog site, Tumblr, it also announced that it was re-vamping Flickr.  Flickr, a photo-sharing service, had been falling out of use since Yahoo purchased the start-up in 2005.  Among other things, the updated site will allow users one terabyte of storage and a promise… Read more »

Special-effects master pushes new movie format

Posted by & filed under 3D, IT Trends.

Discussion:  Special-effects giant,  Douglas Trumbull, has been very influential in shaping how movies are seen today.  Recently, he has devised a new movie format that shows movie frames at 120 frames per second, instead of the normal 24 frames per second.  This new technique would be especially beneficial in action movies, as action scenes tend to blur… Read more »

Scientists come a step closer to ‘invisibility cloak’

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Discussion:  Humans have dreamed of becoming invisible for centuries–it is the stuff superheroes are made of.  Researchers in Texas have developed a ‘mantle cloak’ that, when wrapped around an object, makes the object ‘disappear’.  The effect, however, only applies to limited range of light waves (in specific, microwaves).  When encased in the cloak, microwave detectors can no… Read more »