Dara Ó Briain's Science Club: The Story of Exploration
"Science journalist Alok Jha asks whether it is a good idea for humans to reach out to extra-terrestrials and oceanographer Helen Czerski comes face to face with extreme radiation, energy so deadly it could seriously curtail humans travelling further than the solar system. Plus special guest Josh Widdecombe visits NASA in Houston to find out the challenges we face to get humans to Mars and materials scientist Mark Miodownik takes apart a space suit."
(BBC Two, UK)
Fig.1 this animation is from Episode 4 of 6 of Dara Ó Briain's Science Club, Tuesday 27 November at 9pm on BBC Two, voiced by Dara Ó Briain, animated by 12Foot6, Published on YouTube on 27 Nov 2012 by BBC.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
beetle.de: dramatic presentation through vertical scrolling navigation
"there's a new Bug and a great new website - with many of the same good points as before. First see the website, where they're aren't any navigational hints at all, 'Jetzt scrollen!' The smallest touch brings out full top navigation, which can reveal the evolution of the 1941 Beetle to the powerful 21c options.
With sweet social media hooks and video sprinkled throughout the scrolling experience, you'll likely be as engulfed and overwhelmed as we were"
(Nanther Thangarajah, 11 October 2011, Brand Thinking)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Adrift in a shopping maze: it's a successful no-exit strategy
"Alan Penn, director of the Virtual Reality Centre for the Built Environment at University College London, has come to a conclusion that Ikea stores are 'designed just like a maze'. In doing so he's given scholarly validation to a feeling that will have occurred to many shoppers as they blunder around the blue and yellow hangar looking for a new TV unit only to emerge with two candles, a wok and a bottle of lingonberry cordial.
Penn went on to suggest that it was Ikea's strategy to keep customers inside the store for the maximum time possible. They achieve this by setting a route round the store from which it's difficult to deviate. Taking the shortcuts (which are only there to conform with fire regulations) often leaves you adrift in a sea of lampshades.
The effect is to boost impulse purchases. See a coathanger, and you might buy 'because the layout is so confusing you know you won't be able to go back and get it later'."
(Ian Tucker, 30 January 2011, The Observer, Guardian News and Media Limited)
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Art Project: take a virtual (Google) tour of famous art museums
"Simply select a museum from the homepage and then either choose 'Explore the museum' or 'View Artwork'. Once you are in the main site use the drop-down menus or the side info bar to navigate between artworks and museums. Finally create and share your own collections online."
(Google, 2011)
Fig.1 Art Project - Visitor Guide, Google.
Fig.2 Art Project - Behind the Scenes, Google.
Fig.3 Portrait of Fedor Dostoyevsky, Vasily Perov
Fig.4 navigate the Uffizi Gallery via the Google Art Project
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Wisdom of the Masses' perception of the web, can in some cases promote content perceived to be useless over content perceived as useful
"According to the 'long tail' principle, ICT innovations in content creation and distribution such as virtual inventories, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and other types of video on demand, music self-publishing in social networking sites and digital printing challenge old rationales that justified the adoption of mass-market models for the production and publication of cultural goods. These technologies dissolve the spatial and physical constraints which limited the range of creative content goods available in the market and open the gates for a flood of new (and old) media. In doing so they have created a new problem, of a navigational nature: in principle, diversity enables access to content goods better suited to a customer's preferences, but it also makes finding them more difficult (194).
The main reason for the success of Google's search services has been its ability to address Internet users' need for relevant resources, by adopting a scalable algorithm that establishes a webpage's rank according to its reputation. However, its user interface is still too rigid and makes it difficult, for example, to fully specify the type of content a user is looking for. Additionally, this technique, based on a 'Wisdom of the Masses' perception of the web, can in some cases promote content perceived to be useless over content perceived as useful, and be tampered with through search optimisation techniques such as link farming (195)."
(Juan Mateos-Garcia, Aldo Geuna and W. Edward Steinmueller, 2008, p.85)
194: In a context where information is abundant, attention becomes the scarce resource (Simon, H. A. 1971, 'Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World', in Martin Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Pres).
195: i.e. exchanging reciprocal links with web sites in order to increase search engine optimization, as search engines often rank sites according to, among other things, the quantity of sites that link to them.
Fig.1 Perry Ogden (2003). 'Bono with Louis Le Brocquy'.
2). Fabienne Abadie, Ioannis Maghiros, and Corina Pascu (editors) 2008 'The Future Evolution of the Creative Content Industries: Three Discussion Papers', Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, EUR 23633 EN - 2008
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