Mumbai city now has its very own SIGCHI or Special Interest Group in Computer Human Interaction. On Friday, 23rd March 2007, an elaborate ceremony was held at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai to launch this unique initiative which was attended by some 60 participants from across the corporate and design spectrum. It was a pleasure to host Joseph ‘Jofish’ Kaye, a research assistant from Cornell University, who had earlier spoken on pushing the boundaries of HCI at CHI Bangalore. The event was sponsored by Human Factors International and was inaugurated by Dr. Eric Schaffer. Check out some of the pictures from the event.
launch
Apple Introduces iPhone
It was speculated to come for a long time. At the Macworld 2007 keynote at San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced the launch of iPhone, a new age telephone device, which is going to shape the future of telecommunications and put pressure on some of the established players in the field. The iPhone introduces touchscreen navigation (yes..no stylus, only fingers) and uses the power of Mac OS X to run itself. A 2 megapixel camera, a widescreen iPod for music and video lovers, Safari for browsing the internet and Mail for sending emails through the touchscreen keypad, one couldn’t have asked for more from a device that fits in your palm.
Apple Launches MacbookPro
Apple never fails to surprise you. Rather it’s a brand you’d always expect some fresh ideas. At the Macworld conference, Steve Jobs unveiled the new Intel chip based MacbookPro. This is the first product to be launched with Intel based chips after Apple switched from IBM Power PC chips.
The Macbookpros are powered by Intel’s new Core Duo processor technology and promise to be 4 times powerful then the G4s!
Also I was happy to note that my long standing wish of including an FM radio along with the iPods has come true. Apple has introduced an FM remote control with the device so music lovers can now play FM radio stations while the information is flashed on their iPod LCDs. Pretty neat eh! Time to think about buying one now.
Retro is Back
I had always liked retro figures right from my earlier website and I had also got some good reviews regarding the same. I decided to move away from it because I wanted to try out something different. Now that the earlier design has outlived my expectations it was time for a new set of rules.
Firstly I had to re-install WordPress on my local machine which wasn’t as tedious as I initially thought it would be. Installing it offline meant that I can carry my design development on WordPress without disturbing the original website. For those of you who are interested in knowing more about it, click here. I had always had a colour scheme in my mind which was more youthful then it’s previous avatar and I just had to build a theme around it. The RetroGal – as I like to call all my retro figures, is also back on the header. The entire development took me just over a day & the end result was very satisfying. I hope this small change would enhance the user-experience to a great extent.
Aperture Launched
This would be the greatest revelation as far as I am concerned. All this while I was feeling proud about Apple not succumbing to the market gimmicks of using Flash on their website. They have a novel way of seeking aesthetic value even in the most simplest of things. The fact that Apple was not using Flash anywhere across their website was a very challenging thought in itself because it was able to achieve good results without using the SWF technology.
Not any more. Apple has just launched it’s new software called Aperture and has used Flash beautifully on the official website. The black colour lends a certain entertaining aura, much to the liking of any photographer. If you are a designer and you want to see aesthetics marry usability then visit Apple.com.