Stop the presses: Students dive head first into Editorial for the iPad — from blogs.artcenter.edu/dottedline by Mike Winder

 

Excerpt:

Sensing a shift in the industry, Nik Hafermaas, Chair of Art Center’s Graphic Design Department, sat down with instructor Carla Barr to discuss the possibility of creating an iPad design class. Barr, who has taught Editorial Design extensively, saw an opportunity to bring her area of expertise and this new technology together and suggested creating an iPad Editorial class.

“Students a few years ago had very mixed feelings towards interactive media,” says Nik Hafermaas, who thinks this class, along with classes like MediaTecture and this coming term’s augmented reality studio—sponsored by LAYAR and co-taught by writer Bruce Sterling—fall into the burgeoning arena of transmedia design and are important steps for where Art Center students needs to be headed conceptually. “Now students are aware of the ubiquitous nature of these tools,” he says. “They’re starting to enjoy using them, and see that somebody needs to design the content.”

The experimental class—whose test run took place last term and which is being offered again Summer Term—attracted the attention of two education specialists from Apple, one who visited the class and another, according to Barr, who said there was no other class he knew of focusing on editorial for the iPad.

We recently chatted with iPad Editorial instructor Barr and two students  who took the class, Graphic Design majors Megan Potter (who graduated last month) and Jinsub Shin about their experience and digital publications.

All That Jazz … and Humor, Opera, Dance Music … — from The Library of Congress

[On May 10, 2011] the Library of Congress, in conjunction with Sony Music Entertainment, launched a website – “the National Jukebox” – that streams 10,000 sound recordings from the historic Victor Records collection.  It’s a fun and fascinating ramble for anyone who loves American music and wants to dig down into the roots of jazz, opera, a vast range of popular music, famous political speeches — even early sound effects.  The collection launched today (which will expand over time) is the soundtrack of our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ early lives – music from the dawn of sound recording just after the turn of the 20th Century to the eve of the Great Depression.  The url is www.loc.gov/jukebox/.

Google Music Beta versus the titans of the streaming music space: A chart — from Engadget.com by Sean Hollister

Excerpt:

It feels like just yesterday we charted the streaming music landscape, but it’s already changed in a big way — Google is muscling in on the likes of Rhapsody, Pandora and particularly Amazon with its Google Music Beta. Being able to take 20,000 of your personal tunes, stream them over the web and cache them locally on your device isn’t functionality to sneeze at, so it’s time we updated our charts. After the break, see how the big streaming services stack up.

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MyTVBuddy kicks off as the first pan-European Social TV app on iPad — from appmarket.tv (emphasis DSC)

Excerpt:

Today E-ZONE unveiled its iPad app MyTVBuddy claiming it takes Social TV to the next level of exploration, interaction, engagement and participation by letting users check in to TV programs, watch videos, post messages on Facebook, share Twitter messages, participate in conversations  and see where other users are located. MyTVBuddy kicks off with a special launch edition of Eurovision 2011.

MyTVBuddy comes with a solution for turning TV viewing into a social experience by using mobile devices such as the iPad. According to a recent study from Yahoo, nearly 90 percent of people watching television are using a mobile device at the same time. Be it Twitter, Facebook, email or instant messaging, they are doing more than just watching.

 

From DSC:
TV and entertainment coming up to bat — with learning-related applications on deck!   🙂

 

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Addendum on 5/11/11:

Bertelsmann acquires digital media agency Smashing Ideas for Random House, Inc. — from Smashing Ideas (emphasis DSC)

(New York, May 4, 2011)—Bertelsmann AG has acquired cutting-edge digital media agency Smashing Ideas, Inc. for its Random House, Inc. division, the world’s largest English-language trade book publisher. The purchase was announced today by Markus Dohle, Chairman and CEO of Random House and Member of the Executive Board of Bertelsmann AG, and Stephen Jackson, President and CEO of Smashing Ideas, Inc.

The acquisition adds significantly to the set of Random House capabilities and further signals the intention of Random House and its parent company to be leaders in digital content creation, and demonstrates their commitment to expanding revenues from mobile and interactive online products and services.


From DSC:
I found a wonderful animation at No words. Lots to say” …which points to the animation by Aidan Gibbons, Music by Yann Tiersen which I put into ViewPure at The Piano – Amazing Short – Animation

 

A wonderful animation entitled, "The Piano" -- not a word is spoken, but a wonderful story is told

 

 

 

Inside SVOX: Google’s 27-language text-to-speech upgrade — from wired.co.uk by Rob Boffard

Now, technicians at SVOX, a Swedish company based in Zurich, has made one of the most lifelike text-to-speech (TTS) systems ever — and they’ve done it in 27 languages.

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Hivelogic's Podcasting Equipment and Software Guide for 2011

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Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular: A cognitive teardown of the user experience — from Pulse > UX by Charles L. Mauro

Excerpt:

Simple yet engaging interaction concept: This seems an obvious point, but few realize that a simple interaction model need not be, and rarely is, procedurally simple. Simplification means once users have a relatively brief period of experience with the software, their mental model of how the interface behaves is well formed and fully embedded. This is known technically as schema formation. In truly great user interfaces, this critical bit of skill acquisition takes place during a specific use cycle known as the First User Experience or FUE. When users are able to construct a robust schema quickly, they routinely rate the user interface as “simple”. However, simple does not equal engaging. It is possible to create a user interface solution that is initially perceived by users as simple. However, the challenge is to create a desire by users to continue interaction with a system over time, what we call user “engagement”.

What makes a user interface engaging is adding more detail to the user’s mental model at just the right time. Angry Birds’ simple interaction model is easy to learn because it allows the user to quickly develop a mental model of the game’s interaction methodology, core strategy and scoring processes. It is engaging, in fact addictive, due to the carefully scripted expansion of the user’s mental model of the strategy component and incremental increases in problem/solution methodology. These little birds are packed with clever behaviors that expand the user’s mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased. The process of creating simple, engaging interaction models turns out to be exceedingly complex. Most groups developing software today think expansion of the user’s mental model is for the birds. Not necessarily so.

Other key items discussed:

  • Simple yet engaging interaction concept
  • Cleverly managed response time
  • Short-term memory management
  • Mystery
  • How things sound
  • How things look
  • Measuring that which some say cannot be measured

 

From DSC:
What Apple is able to do with many of their hardware and software products, what Charles describes here with Angry Birds, what Steelcase did with their Media:Scape product’s puck — and other examples — point out that creating something that is “easy” is actually quite hard.

 

Create quick animated videos with YouTube– from 10,000 Words

 

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Create videos out at YouTube

 

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