Ged Carroll

Category: design | 設計 | 예술과 디자인 | デザイン

Design was something that was important to me from the start of this blog, over different incarnations of the blog, I featured interesting design related news. Design is defined as a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, interfaces or other object before it is made.

But none of the definition really talks about what design really is in the way that Dieter Rams principles of good design do. His principles are:

  1. It is innovative
  2. It makes a product useful
  3. It is aesthetic
  4. It makes a product understandable
  5. It is unobtrusive
  6. It is honest
  7. It is long-lasting
  8. It is thorough down to the last detail
  9. It is environmentally-friendly – it can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment.
  10. It is as little design as possible

Bitcoin isn’t long lasting as a network, which is why people found the need to fork the blockchain and build other cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin uses 91 terawatts of energy annually or about the entire energy consumption of Finland.

The Bitcoin network relies on thousands of miners running energy intensive machines 24/7 to verify and add transactions to the blockchain. This system is known as “proof-of-work.” Bitcoin’s energy usage depends on how many miners are operating on its network at any given time. – So Bitcoin is environmentally unfriendly by design.

On the other hand, Apple products, which are often claimed to be also influenced by Dieter Rams also fail his principles. They aren’t necessarily environmentally friendly as some like AirPods are impossible to repair or recycle.

  • Sound from screen + other news

    Sound from screen

    Sony’s New OLED TV Emits Sound From Screen – Nikkei Technology Online – back in the 1970s and 1980s, Sony and Technics (Panasonic) experimented with flat audio speaker drivers. You can see the ancestor of the thinking behind sound from screen, by looking at the Technics SB-10 and Sony’s APM8. Sony’s accurate pistonic motion foreshadowed NXT’s ubqiuitous flat panel sound from screen technology. NXT originally was part of the UK speaker manufacturer Wharfdale. More information here.

    Noise Meter, Held at Logan Airport End of Neptune Road Records Over 86 Decibels

    Economics

    Theresa Maybe, Britain’s indecisive premier | The Economist – unflattering comparison with Gordon Brown

    Finance

    How Social Cash Made WeChat The App For Everything | Fast Company – if you look at WeChat you have some idea where Facebook Messenger is trying to go

    How to

    The Blueprint | The Expectations Game – managing expectations

    Luxury

    Visvim Dissertations: Boro (Aomori, Japan) | Union Los Angeles – great read

    Media

    Tommy Mottola Pens Open Letter To Mariah Carey | Idolator – “I would never have encouraged her or guided her to do something like a reality television show!!!!! I don’t get it!!… that does absolutely nothing for her integrity, her credibility, or her massive talent!! She should take a step back, think carefully and figure out what to do next.” I still don’t get why the music industry continues to go along with reality TV

    Online

    Edelman Digital Trends Report – (PDF) makes some interesting reading

    Security

    Hackers threaten smart power grids – POLITICO – really interesting data that shows for many countries the cost benefit analysis of smart metering wasn’t proven. Guessing security costs weren’t considered seriously by many who thought it was a good idea

    The polity that is Singapore cybersecurity | Marginal Revolution – go analogue

    Technology

    Babylon Health partners with UK’s NHS to replace telephone helpline with AI-powered chatbot | TechCrunch – Working with a number of health authorities in London, Babylon will begin a six month trial starting at the end of January to offer its AI-powered chatbot ‘triage’ service as an alternative to the NHS’s 111 telephone helpline that patients call to get healthcare advice and be directed to local and out-of-hours medical services. – more related content here.

    Cellulose Nanofiber-based Engine Cover Exhibited at Show (1) – Nikkei Technology Online – lighter than current GRP (glass reinforced plastic) covers

    Foxconn boosting automated production in China | Digitises – it would be interesting to see how they cope with the fine motor work required for iPhone assembly (I suspect not very well)

    Daring Fireball: Why Chris Adamson Bought a New Mac Pro Last Week – capitulation – the word a power Apple customer used to describe his purchase of a new Mac Pro. When you’re customers resent you there is a problem

    Apple’s 2016 in review | Chuqui – a great read

  • Lights out production lines

    Lights out production lines reminded me of my childhood. If you are of a certain age, ‘hand made by robots’ brings to mind the Fiat Strada / Ritmo a thirtysomething year old hatchback design that was built in a factory with a high degree of automation for the time.

    Fiat subsidiary Comau created Robogate, a highly automated system that speeds up body assembly. Robogate was eventually replaced in 2000. The reality is that ‘hand made by robots’ had a liberal amount of creative licence. Also it didn’t enable Fiat to shake off its rust bucket image. Beneath the skin, the car was essentially a Fiat 127. Car factories still aren’t fully automated.

    Foxconn is looking to automate its own production lines and create products that truly are ‘hand-built by robots’. Like Fiat it has its own robots firm which is manufacturing 10,000 robots per year.

    Foxconn has so far focused on production lines for larger product final assembly (like televisions) and workflow on automated machine lines: many consumer products use CNC (computer numeric control) machines. That’s how Apple iPhone and Macs chassis’ are made. These totally automated lines are called ‘lights out production lines’ by Foxconn.

    Foxconn is looking to automate production because China is undergoing a labour shortfall as the population getting older. Foxconn uses a lot of manual workers for final assembly of devices Apple’s iPhone because the components are tightly packed together.

    Forty years ago, Japanese manufacturers conquered high end and low end consumer electronics with pick-and-place machines to automate electronics production, Nokia went on to build its phone business on similar automated lines. Globalisation ironically facilitated hand assembly of exceptionally dense electronics devices.

    It will be a while before Foxconn manages to automate this as robotic motor control isn’t fine enough to achieve this yet. In order for that to happen you need a major leap forward in harmonic gearing. This isn’t a problem that software or machine learning can solve easily. More related pieces of jargon can be found here.

    More information
    Foxconn boosting automated production in China | DigiTimes – (paywall)

  • Madrid + more things

    Madrid

    The order on things being written and posted on this blog has been scrambled up a bit and I ended up spent some time in Madrid with nothing to show for it as my SD card from my camera disappeared, I have no ideas where I mislaid it. In Madrid, the Prado museum is unparalleled, Mandarin Oriental’s Hotel Ritz is nice.  Madrid’s Museo Naval is not on the usual tourist trail, but well worth a visit.

    Munich airport

    Red Bull and Jason Paul put together a film with Munich Airport that owes as much to Harold Lloyd as the cool of free running

    Concrete truck

    I was stunned by the simplicity of Benedetto Bufalino’s ready-mix concrete truck as disco ball. This wasn’t for a brand but a crazy piece of art. I expect this to be to inspire experiental and and advertising agency creative at some point in the future.

    Monki

    With a lack of an iPod, I have been listening to Monki’s bootleg bundle a lot. Its a great mix of tracks, many of which I wasn’t familiar with. I can also recommend her mix for the Fabric Live series which combines oldies like the FPI Project through to upfront house tracks.

    More things

    I haven’t bothered with football videos over the past year, but this one from Nike shows why they do so well. Great concept and storytelling in the film. Just the kind of creative that one would expect from Nike and done by W+K

    Maurice Lévy sent Publicis Groupe employees his last Christmas message as CEO. Publicis has had a tradition of humorous personal videos from Lévy that demonstrated the company’s creativity in terms of script writing and production. This is in sharp contrast to WPP’s emails from Martin Sorrell, which were more like a missive from a Goldman Sachs analyst.

  • Beme & more news

    Beme

    CNN Brings In the Social App Beme to Cultivate a Millennial Audience – The New York Times – major news site suffering from lack of consumer trust (election coverage, fake news environment etc) buys YouTube V-logger to get some baes – and people wonder why the news media appears broken. Beme was founded by Casey Neistat was one of the first generation of YouTube bloggers. Beme rolled out a mobile app to syndicate their content

    Business

    The taxi unicorn’s new clothes | FT Alphaville – is sadly symptomatic of the emperor’s new clothes groupthink dominating the sector. Though it does explain the sector’s obsession with popularising the idea that public transport can be done away with. (Less investment in public transport will lead to fewer competitively priced alternatives, empowering the Uber monopoly in the long run)

    The Truth About Uber’s Otto Deal — The Information – hedged against the Otto founders, Sir Martin Sorrell could learn something ;-)

    Economics

    The Eurodollar Market: It All Starts Here | Zero Hedge – this is what keeps the UK afloat

    Brexit negotiators identify UK’s aces in the hole | FT – interesting read, ultimately the UK doesn’t have leverage across all the other 27 countries on the same things so could bounce out with nothing resolved

    Ideas

    ‘Millennials’ is a useless term | Jed Hallam | Pulse | LinkedIn – interesting that this had to be written. Whatever happened to tribes? More related content here.

    This Is What Happens When Millions Of People Suddenly Get The Internet – BuzzFeed News – Facebook’s influence in Myanmar is hard to quantify, but its domination is so complete that people in Myanmar use “internet” and “Facebook” interchangeably. According to Amara Digital, a Yangon-based marketing agency, Facebook has doubled its local base in the last year to 9.7 million monthly users. That number is likely to spike again, after Facebook launched its Free Basics program, a free, streamlined version of Facebook and a handful of other sites.

    Innovation

    Apple’s China R&D effort could fail to move the needle | FT – I still think that Apple needs the lab there because of the unique Chinese internet eco-system and the hardware design excellence in China

    Luxury

    No Price Like Home: Big Spenders Reappear in China — The Fashion Law – sales picking up in Mainland China

    Porsche Macan owners in China vent their anger at copycat maker – The owners are being asked whether the vehicles are genuine German cars or just Zotye SR9s with a Porsche badge stuck on the front hood.

    Media

    Creative Hub – Facebook – great ad examples

    Apple expert panel on shift from a hit-driven to services business – Business Insider – “I’ll play both sides of it for you, Steve. On the one hand, they haven’t had innovation for a long time and it looks really bleak and it’s been six years [if you measure by the iPad, which was introduced in 2010]. On the other hand, if after eight years they do something as big as the iPhone or the iPad or the iPod, then we’ll forget about, we’ll forget about those doubts.”

    Facebook To Target Streaming Viewers By Linking User Profiles With IP Addresses | IPG Media Lab – big potential targeting opportunities

    WeChat censorship offers a blueprint for Facebook, but it still shouldn’t enter China | Techinasia – I think Facebook wouldn’t be able to cope with the competition

    Online

    Facebook has cut off Prisma’s Live Video access | TechCrunch – Facebook doing vintage Microsoft

    Do China’s Celebrities or Influencers Have More Power? | L2 – traditional celebrities still win out

    An update on Google’s feature-phone crawling & indexing | Google Webmaster Blog – this is big news for the mobile web and will encourage feature phone services to fall back on SMS

    Security

    Infineon joins Chinese IoT security push | Electronics EETimes – to develop security technologies for smart home appliances that are manufactured and used in China

    ‘Tesco Bank’s major vulnerability is its ownership by Tesco,’ claims ex-employee • The Register – You’re probably only as secure as your least secure system

    Technology

    RISC-V Expands its Audience | EE Times – open source hardware design

    The Macintosh Endgame | MondayNote – interesting analysis, the problem is that iOS doesn’t have a user experience conducive to knowledge work like typing all day long

    Web of no web

    Fitbit To Buy Pebble — The Information – consolidation as the sector folds in on itself in the face of limited demands

    Watching the World Rot at Europe’s Largest Tech Conference – The Atlantic – the ennui of conferences in general

    Curiosity | Merck Group – interesting spin on the usual innovation corporate positioning

  • MacBook Pro surprise

    My initial reaction to Apple’s MacBook Pro wasn’t overwhelmingly positive. Now that I’ve tried one very briefly, I realise that it’s an unpleasant MacBook Pro surprise.

    Thin

    I didn’t feel that much of a weight different between my current machine and the new model MacBook Pro. Who gives a flying fuck about the laptop being even thinner than the current MacBook Pro? You have to wonder if Apple really believes customers are gagging for a thin incompatible clamshell of mediocrity? I’d be more interested in power density of the battery – more charge and better performance from the laptop. Some connectors that I actually use would be great as well.

    Display

    If you already have a retina display laptop this is exactly the same.  The touchpad display is interesting, but it seems to take no account of finger span in the way the controls work on a couple of the default apps that I tried from the perspective of a touch typer.  I suspect that the 11″ MacBook Air was killed because Apple is desperately hoping sales will go to the iPad Pro.

    Tactile experience

    Apple made a big deal of the keyboard, but the truth of it is that it was wasted. The real effort was not about user experience and more about making things thinner. It isn’t the improvement on the previous MacBook Pro keyboard experience despite the clever engineering involved.

    Real world performance

    I’m a bit spoiled from a tech point of view. I am working on an early 2015 model MacBook Pro (Retina) 3.1GHz Intel Core i7 with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of solid state storage. I have an attached SuperDrive by USB and two Apple Thunderbolt displays.  The graphics performance is adequate with an Intel Iris Graphics 6100.
    about this mac
    Having had a quick play with the new MacBook Pro there didn’t seem to be a real world performance difference. You probably would need a machine that is five years old or more to get a speed bump from this unpleasant MacBook Pro surprise.