I am not sure this guy needs to open that bottle of wine, but here is a nifty trick to open a wine bottle with a shoe.
I have seen this work the opposite way, where if you pound on the open neck of a bottle the bottom will come off (granted, a slightly less useful trick if you are interested in consuming the contents).
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fun
Google this week added some translation and other language functions into their online spreadsheet offering. The functions allow you to enter a formula that will translate text or detect the language text is written in.
Surely a score for localizing docs of all sorts as this type of function expands across the other Google Docs offerings.
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google, googledocs, webtools
Augmented Reality is certainly getting a great deal of attention of late, with the emphasis (quite naturally) being on delivering this capability via mobile devices. Layar is on the several companies with a mobile offering in this area. Pity it is currently only available for Android based phones.
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ideas, innovation, interfaces, mobile, android, augmentedreality
I thought this was an interesting clip showing a smartphone UI ‘concept’ that “Puts the ‘Friend’ in User-Friendly“.
Though the implementation has a slightly too childish feel to appeal to many potential users, it does expose the current crop of Apple, Palm, Nokia and Android UIs as catering to the look-and-feel of glossy futuristic, nay sci-fi-esque gadgets. And while that’s resulted in some sleek technology, it may be missing out on the softer, more human side of human-gadget interactions, rather than “putting people first…”
Food for thought, but I think it also needs to be balanced with the lessons learned from the VRML/Virtual World interfaces that cropped up in the 90s: Cute to look at, frustrating to use and ultimately limited in what can be expressed in a purely visual interface metaphor.
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ideas, innovation, mobile, nokia, ui, usability
