Windows 8 Unveiled
Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft Windows Division President, recently unveiled the newest version of Windows, known as Windows 8. The release was done at the BUILD conference in Anaheim California to an audience of developers. Sinofsky called Windows 8 a “bold reimagining” of the platform, saying that 1995 was the “last time Windows underwent a significant bold overhaul.” One can only imagine this new approach is an attempt to combat the dominance of Apple. Will it work? Only time can tell!
In a nutshell the key points of the Windows 8 experience are:
- Fast and fluid user experience
- Immersive and full-screen
- Touch first with full keyboard and mouse
- Web of apps working together
- Experience for all PC devices and architectures
New Facebook Office
Most of us would have seen Facebook’s impressive Palo Alto office space designed by Studio O+A. But what most people won’t have known is that the Palo Alto Facebook office was actually done on the cheap, using bulk order furniture and minimal project costs. This is because it was always the company’s intention for it to be a temporary solution, and as such Facebook has begun to slowly move employees to their new Menlo Park campus.
This new office project is being completed by Gensler, incidently the same firm that’s working on Facebook’s new London space too. The office is still clearly heavily influenced by the Studio O+A style and philosophy, and we can’t wait for the project to be completed so that we may see the office in all its glory.
We can also see from the pictures that Facebook is using Steelcase’s RoomWizard meeting room scheduling system which we covered here not too long ago. Tres cool.
Digital Meeting Room Manager
According to Steelcase 40% of workers waste up to thirty minutes a day searching for available meeting rooms and collaborative workspaces. In order to deal with this problem they developed what they call the “Room Wizard” which is a web-based room scheduling system that helps connect workers and meeting rooms. Though I haven’t tested the product myself, integration is supposedly seamless linking up with a variety of corporate and private calendar systems including; Outlook, Lotus Notes and Google Calendar. This nifty gadget can potentially save large corporations lots of money by increasing efficiency, allowing meetings to be managed via a laptop or smartphone – when a worker finds an open meeting room, he can reserve it instantly.
Laptop Dock – The Desk Chair
This handcrafted laptop dock is made from natural basswood, it was designed to allow Apple laptops to operate in a closed mode while the users plug it into an external monitor for indirect use. The dock is called the “Desktop Chair” and seems especially useful for the office worker who needs to be able to work both on the move and at the office. I see people using laptops in this way every-day since they need the freedom of a laptop for meetings, presentations or for working on the go, but the comfort of a large screen and the ergonomic potential of a proper keyboard and mouse for periods of extended desk work.
The dock is compatible with all Apple laptops, including the MacBook Air, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. That said the dock will work just as well with other PCs. I like this dock because it has a clear functional use and it does it well, all-the-while looking good too.
Desktop Chair: Turn your laptop into a desktop from MOKU on Vimeo.
[via]
Touch Screen TV
A research and development team in Taiwan has developed the technology that can convert your television in to a touch screen device. The possibilities are endless, as turning a plain display in to a multi-touch device is no mean feat. The device consists of two sensors, one on the top corner and the other at the bottom corner. The sensors can detect the movement of the fingers on the screen, thereby allowing the user to interact with the display just like a touch screen device. It can also detect multi- touch gesture and hence zoom is also possible. I can see this being especially useful in the office environment where a touch screen would be helpful for presentations etc, but the cost of a fully fledged touch screen is just not justifiable.
Office Space India – Cybertecture Egg
The Cybertecture Egg is a new office space to be built in India, it will be based on an interactive building design known by some as Cybertecture. When complete the office space will be one of the world’s most technologically advanced. The design itself is beautiful, surrounded completely in glass the structure will appear as though it is resting effortlessly on one side. This 32,000 sq meter structure certainly makes for an interesting office space.
Novel Alarm Clock – Money Shredder
This novel alarm clock takes the saying if “you snooze, you lose” to literal levels. As you can see the design is such that you place new bills within the clock, if you fail to turn it off on time when the alarm goes off the built in shredder goes to work.
The funny thing is that not only will you lose money if you fail to turn the clock off, the process itself might be technically illegal in some jurisdictions! This is because, as Mashable kindly points out, willfully destroying U.S. currency is a federal crime in the USA:
“..Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”
[via Mashable]
Electree – Design Device Charger
The electree seems to be the perfect accessory suited to meet, albeit in a small way, the insatiable demand for energy that our growing roster of electronics require. Not only does it fulfill this practical purpose, but it does so as a beautifully designed modern sculpture which imitates a bonsai tree. This is achieved by the fact that the leaves of the “tree” are small photovoltaic panels.
As such the sculpture allows you to recharge your mobile devices through the power of light. It is delivered in modules that allow you to mix and match, allowing you to create a tree that is uniquely your own. Coming equipped with 27 cells it gives a total surface area of 1,400cm².
You can find out more from the electree website.
Cool iPhone App
If you own an Apple iPhone you will understand the benefit of this concept app by Andreas Hellqvist. His idea is to, in my opinion, vastly improve the way notifications can be managed within Apple’s iOS.
“Hellqvist proposes a method of handling the apps that would use all existing iOS design elements, but would get rid of the annoying, one-at-a-time method of displaying and dealing with notifications. Rather than having to deal with each notification in each app, all notifications could be centralized within a single “notifications” app – much as they are aggregated on Android and put onto a separate screen.”
Cool iPhone Keyboard Dock
This new gadget is a great addition to the office if you have an iPhone, allowing you to dock your iPhone into the full sized keyboard and use the Smartphone as an input device alongside the traditional keyboard. It’s called the CompuExpert Wow-Keys full sized keyboard and it will work on both Macs and PCs. In addition you can also get an app for the iPhone allowing you to control your computer with a variety of hotkeys.
Though not revolutionary I think this is a welcome addition that will add convenience for many users, especially for the office oriented techie. What’s more the Wow-Keys also act as a normal dock, allowing you to charge your phone and to connect it to iTunes at the same time. You can even use the keyboard to control the iPhone if you get tired of tapping away at a touch screen all day, I know I sometimes do! It is unfortunate however that the keyboard can’t connect to a computer wirelessly. The product will ship on the 24 May and it costs just under $100.
[Pictures via Mashable]