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Monday, September 12, 2016

High-tech curling brooms banned

Sweeping restrictions have been announced by Curling Canada, the national regulator for the sport of curling.  That is, Curling Canada has outlawed certain sorts of curling brooms that support novel kinds of sweeping.

The move follows controversy originating in the previous season with the introduction of brooms designed to allow sweepers to significantly change the trajectory of a curling stone after it has been thrown.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Bugaboo luggage

Bugaboo is a Dutch company known mainly for its lines of up-market strollers.  I use the Bugaboo Frog in class to illustrate the concept of technotonicity: How designs appeal to potential users. 

In physical terms, the Frog is praised for its handling, so much so that some people reported that they took it out for a push just to enjoy the feeling of steering it!

Friday, August 26, 2016

What is phubbing?

Although I have a smartphone, I am not a particularly heavy user of the technology.  Thus, I was surprised to learn of a new smartphone phenomenon called "phubbing" from a research article entitled, "When phubbing becomes the norm."  

In the article, the term is defined in this wise:

The term “phubbing” represents the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by concentrating on one’s phone instead of talking to the person directly.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Drones, crops and Jevons' Paradox

Jevons' Paradox concerns how increases in efficiency can lead to increases—rather than decreases—in consumption of resources.  Designers expend a great deal of brainpower and passion on increasing the efficiency of their designs.  The goal is often to decrease consumption of a resource, as a way of improving overall sustainability.  In brief, the reasoning is that if a given task can be completed with fewer resources, then those resources will be conserved.

Friday, August 19, 2016

How IT products serve social goals

The slogan "form follows function" has long been associated with a minimalist view of good design.  On the positive side, it has been used to mean that designs should be configured to fulfil their intended goals.  On the negative side, it has been used to limit those goals to so-called basic needs only, to the exclusion of social goals.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

What is a computer?

What is a computer?  Wikipedia currently gives the following definition:

A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.

This definition is one that might be expected from a computer scientist.  It is very broad and entirely functional, that is, it describes a computer strictly in terms of what it does.