Technology+Culture+People // テクノロジーとか、人とか、文化とか。

Google Wave

Wow.

Google has built another ultra amazing application. This web application, still in it’s elementary stage of development, has many amazing functions that can revolutionize the flow, efficiency, and the variety of communication online. Please please look at the demo (it’s about 80mins long, but absolutely worth the time), or go to this fabulous blog article that concisely summarizes its functionality.

What is so amazing about this tool is not just the functionality but the extensibility of the program. Google built this application solely from Google Toolbox, and has opened the program for extension by developers, both on the server-side and client-side. As it already is, it will become an amazing communication application in a year. I am absolutely astonished. What’s so inspiring about this group of people is that they found possibilities of improvements in conventional functions that we’ve already taken for granted. For example, until I saw that demo, I never gave a second about how cumbersome quoting certain passages within an email article could be. I have very high respects for people who are always looking for improvements.

Personally, I was really delighted to see the Rosy, the automatic translation extension, which the demo can be seen around 1:12:00. Going beyond the boarders of language -how futuristic!

———————————————————————————————————————-

グーグルがまた凄い事をやってのけた。先週末発表されたGoogle Waveは、恐ろしく革新的なコミュニケーションツール。詳しい情報はこの記事を参照。何が凄いかって、メールとインスタントメッセージの垣根を越えたリアルタイムコミュニケーションと、それを支える操作性とUI、そして数多くのユーザー目線にたった機能はもちろんなんだけど、その拡張性が素晴らしい。Google Waveは全てがGoogle Toolboxで作られていて、もちろんオープンソース。デベロッパーはクライアントとサーバーサイドの両方を拡張する事が可能となっている。

何よりも刺激的だったのが、大多数のユーザーが既に受け入れていて慣れてしまっている厄介ごとを発見して、改善点を見いだしていること。例えば、メールのインライン引用がめんどくさいだなんて、改めて思った事はあるだろうか？僕はこのビデオを見て、ただただ納得するしか無かった。

これ、ほんと、ウェブ上のコミュニケーションに革命を起こすツールだと思う。。。すげー。個人的には、同時通訳のRosyという機能がお気に入り。言語の壁をリアルタイムで越えるなんて、なんて未来的なんだ。グーグルまじすげー。。

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0519/p09s02-coop.html

This is a very interesting article written by Robert G. Picard, a professor of media economics at Sweden’s Jonkoping University. If I read correctly, he basically stated the following points:

1. There are too much information that can be gained with little if not no burden.
2. Most “news” all end up looking all the same.
3. Since hardly any of them provide purely unique information, none of them have economical value, therefore all journalists deserve less pay.

To resolve this, Picard suggested that news sources specialize in certain fields such as agriculture, oil and energy, and aircraft technology. This will ensure that all news sources and journalists provide unique information, and therefore produce distinct economical value.

Although I agree with Picards points,  there is also an inherent problem to his argument: given that we are in a free-market capitalistic society, producers of goods can be relatively flexible in what they produce, and this decision is based most usually on how much those goods can be sold for. If one field of specialization, say agricultural news, ends up producing more profit than, say oil and energy news, it is likely that there will be increased competition in the profitable market. Because there is no fixed cost in producing “information,” when competitors move from market to market depending on its saturation and profitability, I think eventually all news sources will provide the same information in the same quantity. In fact, isn’t this why our newspapers today have 800 different “sections?”

So the problem is that, after all, information is all the same. So how could we make individual news source provide unique economical value, at least more so than it does today? The key to this answer is “contextualization.” The role of Journalism is to add context and relevance in the occurrences that are happening in this world. In the modern time where information is abundant and free, journalists and news source must shift their focus in not just supplying information, but to organize, display, and connect information, and therefore by contextualizing information. To do this, journalists and news sources are required to think and analyze critically about the situation that surrounds the problem (news) and not just the news itself. These unique opinions and point of views will be the economical value of journalism in the 21st century, I believe.

Information are just the individual pieces of the puzzle. Journalists, by adding context, must put together the puzzle to provide a larger, clearer, picture of what the world is like. I think.

»Toddler accidentally buys $15,600 digger on auction site

hahahahah

Kids these days

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/may/stanley-marvin-another-tale-in-type

This is a project by brighten the corners, an independent design consulting office in London, which made a picture book entirely from typography. Pretty nifty.

http://fontpark.morisawa.co.jp/

And here is a website created by tha, a creative agency lead by Yugo Nakamura, promoting the Japanese “Morisawa” font.

These two projects only have one thing in common: they play with typography. One has a story and the other doesn’t. One is interactive and the other isn’t. One is a product the other is an advertisement. The two are very different things, and they cannot be simply compared, but still I feel that “interactivity” has something that can impact people more strongly. Perhaps it’s the engagement.

——————————————

これはロンドンのデザインコンサルタント事務所が作った絵本。これは中村勇吾さん率いるthaが作ったモリサワフォントパーク。この二つの共通点はタイポグラフィーを使っている事だけ。それを除くと、片一方にはストーリーがあって、もう片方には無い。片一方はインタラクティブで、片一方はそうでない。片一方はプロダクトで、片一方は広告。全くちがうこの二つだけど、それでも僕はインタラクティビティーには人を惹き付ける何かがある気がする。エンゲージメントかもしれない。

http://www.beckmans.se/news-eng/1-plus-1-is-3-a-meeting-between-two-creates-something-new/

Wow this is pretty amazing. The underlying theme of the exhibition, 1+1=3, is not just reflected on the individual artwork, but when all of them are seen in its totality the theme again rebuilds itself. It’s like a well constructed essay with a solid thesis, well written body, and a concise conclusion that brings the reader back to the thesis. Even in the video, the moment when “1+1=3″ appears is a small spectacle. Beautiful!

—————————————-

すごいねーーーこれ。もちろん個々の作品には「1+1=3」のテーマが反映されてるんだろうけど、それらが全て集まったときに再びそのテーマが姿を現す。なんか良く整理された論文みたいでさ、しっかりとした序章があって、中身があって、再び序章に結びつくような結論がある。ビジュアル的にも、カメラが移動しながら最後に1+1=3の文字が出る所とか、ちょっとしたスペクタクルに感じた。3DCGっぽい感じも、なんか見た目として凄い新鮮だったし。とっても美しいと思う。

http://www.flickr.com/photos/formforce/3409362834/sizes/l/

This is called a “Web Trend Map” created by a Japanese company called Information Architects. It is an annual publication that visualizes and evaluates the popular domains based on revenue, traffic, age, and the owner company/organization. It also plots the hit players in the Web industry. The motif is the subway map of the Tokyo Metro line, and the domains and people are plotted as stations on the subway line. For more information, click on the image above and read the description.

http://wiredvision.jp/news/200905/2009051220.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/laptophunter/

English Article || 日本語版記事

The graph on the articles depicts a very clear reversal in the perceived value of Apple and Microsoft products after the “Laptop Hunters” TVad was launched. If you don’t know the commercial, take a look on the above videos.

I think the man on the second video says a lot about what Windows users think of Mac users: that they are paying for the “Brand” rather than the functionality. And this campaign very concisely and accurately put together a statement saying “hey, I have a PC and it works just as fine. In fact it is so much cheaper. What now?” I believe that what made this campaign successful, is not just the message, but also the approach. It portrayed the opinions of the “ordinary” people (rather than artists, musicians, designers, or wannabe’s of any of them) and went shopping with them, which made it engaging for the viewers especially for those who were seeking to buy a new laptop.

What I also like about this campaign is that it is not necessarily a “negative” campaign. At least not the kind that you see during election seasons, or the ones that Apple produced (this is the Japanese version, btw). It makes a simple statement without saying anything negative about Macs besides its price. I have high respects for these kinds of mature approach.

—————————————

マイクロソフトが最近ロンチした Laptop Hunters のテレビコマーシャルが面白いせいかを挙げている。CMが出る前はマックのブランドの方が一般的に価値が「高い」と評価されていたのに、CMが出た瞬間からウィンドウズとマックのブランド価値が逆転している。

２個目のビデオの男の人の意見が、いろいろと集約してる気がするんだけど、あの人曰く「マックに払うお金はパソコンとしての機能よりもそのブランドにある」らしい。これは多くのウィンドウズユーザーの声を代弁しているような気がする。だからこそ、その意見が出た瞬間に、「ウィンドウズでも良いじゃん！」という反響が、それぞれのブランド価値に顕著に現れたんだと思う。

あとこのCMでもう一つ好きな所は、完全なる「ネガティブキャンペーン」では無い所。アメリカの選挙とか、少し前のマックのCMとは一線を画したメッセージだと思う。マックに関してはその価格以外には触れておらず、どちらかというと「ウィンドウズで何が悪いの？スペックも良いし易いし、お得でしょ？」と堂々としたメッセージを発信してる。この堂々とした感じは、凄く良いと思う。

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1215/p01s04-woap.html

It’s always interesting to see how foreigners view our culture.

I like.