Forethink Design

Left is a control panel of an elevator I found in my company's Beijing office (I guess it is a Schindler's elevator). Right is usual one at my home. In case of left, you have to input your floor number where you want to go and it will display elevator index which is probably a result from optimized calculation. It is very smart idea for a building which has multiple elevators and especially it can optimize path for people who want to travel to multiple floor together by selecting path-through route. Of course, it seems needs little more intelligence of passenger. In case of right, it is general design but when I was young I wondered I have to press down or up arrow for going up from base floor when it was at upper floor. I wondered I have to manipulate the elevator come to me at first? Do I need to press down arrow to let it descend? It was just an alternative idea for elevator system before building a model of it in my mind yet. Both designs want you to input where you want t...

My town has a brand new bus which has new passenger charge system. Because I have nothing to do while seating at bus and have a brand new mobile phone, I decide to observe what is environment around bus drivers. 1. Bus arrangement table on big sun cover over driver's head 2. Surveillance camera: It is watching boarding passengers and ticket machine. Sometimes it can record unpleasant episode between driver and angry passenger. 3. Ticket monitor: Driver has to change mode if passenger want to pay multiple charge or change passenger mode for teenager or kid. 4. Exchange buttons: By pressing button, it will give changes to passenger who pays in cash. 5. RF Card reader: For transportation card passengers, it provides voice feedback. Same module is installed at rear gate. If you want to continue travel to other bus or train, you have to check it out. 6. Handbrake and announcement amp console. 7. Green tea bottle on towel: It seems there is no cup holder. What a future. Isn't it? But...

One day I spend my time with my new MacBook at Starbucks. Actually there is another people who use Macbook at the Starbucks located in Jungja-dong, Bundang, Korea. I just tried to search Bluetooth device nearby and found a girl's name who is seating behind me probably. I could know her name and her digital address. If I want to send a note, it is possible. You know, you can't do that through your mobile network. It can make a connection with any one in the world but it is useless to send a message to a girl overthere. A young saudi man actually use this Bluetooth flirting method to be connected with a girl. In kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there is cultural barrier between boys and girls. Even a religious police can arrest a guy who violate the rule of local culture. (I hope it is a joke) But it is about a human nature. A young man is designed to fall in love with a glance from a girl. Isn't it romantic or pathetic? Of course, you can just walk to the girl and ask to go out toge...

A week later, the national university entrance examination will be held in Korea (Just like a SAT for US students) Nowadays any mobile phone, calculator and smart watch which can be used for cheating is not allowed in the exam. This watch is specially designed for examiners. It shows current time and remaining time of exam at same time. You can figure out how much time is left and how to control your pace for solving questions. Now educational ministration doesn't approve this device for exam but it seems quite smart enough for examiners. Price is around 20USD(19500KRW). P.S (Add at 17 Nov.) This count down clock is really needed. First exam is language (90min), second is math (100min), third is Foreign language (Of course it is English, 70 min), fourth is social/science/job research (126 min) and last is 2ndary language/Chinese (40min). No same time for a exam unit. Total 426min exam for a day. Hew~ Reference http://www.nirwana.co.kr/shop/goodalign/good_detail.php?goodcd=115795031...

Car window tinting (Sunting in Korean-English) is quite popular among drivers in the world. While I'm going to Beijing airport today, I observe Beijing cars don't cover all front windows with tinting film. They cut out tinting sheet to see rear mirror (Both side) more clearly. Interestingly those area is same with old A pillar position. Nowadays a sedan has A and B color but there were 4 separated windows. It is counted as A,B,C,D. In US, regulation regarding tinting on car window is different by states. Ex. In Connecticut, 35% or more of light should pass through. In Korea, you can see who is inside from 10 meter away. The purposes of regulation on it are about safety reason to see out side from driver's viewpoint and to see inside to watch out what some wrong thing might happen in the car by police. Anyway, it may be safer but doesn't looks good. Reference Sunting regulation in Korean Wikipedia: Window Tinting US Tinting Law

It is really fun to travel around exotic place like a Wangfujing , Beijing, China. I visited the night market and look around. Actually most fascionating thing is people for me than skewered scorpions. At a corner plaza of Wangfujing, I can see a Chinese opera show on second roof. Naturally people stop, watch and take a picture of costumed singers. It makes a center place of Wangfujing. Reference Wikimapia: Wangfujing

Quick ink seal making service at Tokyo Ink seal (Do-jang in Korean, YingZhang in Chinese and Inkan in Japanese) is a personal identification and approval tool which is used as a Signature. It is one of common tradition among east Asian countries. In Korea, you need to register your seal in government office for an important official document. For example, you need to make a contract with registered seal for purchasing a house. The official seal should be designed unique and made by skillful & licensed craft man. Art of Dojang is one of beautiful craft art in Korea. You can choose a variety of material such as jade and calligraphy style. Otherwise, there is more casual ink seal for every day business such as approval. It might save some time than hand written signature conveniently. Photo above is a display of quick seal making service at front of a stationary shop in Tokyo. It has 5000 kind of ready made name seal and covers 80% of a variety of Japanese name. In Korea, computerized...

Tokyo is great place for riding a bicycle. But it seems Tokyo citizens are more serious about it than Beijing people. Social system for bicycle is great in Japan. All bicycles should be registered so if you track down your lost bicycle or police can track you from your bicycle. Yellow number tag is attached on every bicycle. In China, bicycle is still main stream in driveway along with car and bus but bicycle is welcomed to go along with pedestrian footpath in Tokyo. Many footpath has painted lane for bicycle (You can see dotted line for bicycle parking at photo above) Even there is a big parking lot for registered bicycle. Otherwise, riding bicycle in Seoul is not easy as much as Japan or China. Riding bicycle is regarded as more leisure sports than regular commuting transportation. What if a future personal commuting transportation is invented (ex. Segway)? Social / Traffic control policy can be ready for it? I observed speed is a matter. Small electric one manned car for elder citiz...

Weeks a go, I uploaded a video to YTN (A 24 hour TV news station in Korea). It is about a dangerous broken crap from car accident at nearby highway toll gate. Actually once I had a collision accident from behind car at same location. YTN has a blog in Cyworld.com (famous social network site in Korea) to gather report from citizens. They'll present some Acorns( Cyworld's cyber money) for honorarium to citizen reporters. My story and video was on aired at their morning news show. It is really fun. And I found it is now cleaned. Why don't you do some small good deed by yourself? REFERENCE http://www.cyworld.com/ytnjebo

It is a gift coupon some one gave me for my volunteer (Not actually) works. It can be used as a money coupon for watching movie by itself or you can scratch and reveal code for internet shopping. You can exchange it to cyber money in www.cultureland.co.kr Gift card is a kind of mysterious modern invention as much as Option trade. Apparently gift giver can get some benefit. He/she don't need to spend time for choosing a gift. It doesn't look dirty as much as cash. Most of all, you can get receipt. I don't know why but Finance guys like this idea. Anyway, any benefit for a gift receiver? Yes, of course you can change it to money back! But it is not easy and cause cost. Though cost is small, it seems big. In my case, I love iTune gift card. I can ask my friend to buy a $25 iTune music card and charge it on my iTune (US mode). I can reward with Dotori (Acorn; Cyworld.com's cyber money) or Korean money later. It makes it possible to buy any latest or old music/video content ...

Every Saturday/Sunday a flea market named "Hope Market" will open at a play ground nearby Hongik univ. Mapo, Seoul, Korea. An artist can register and have a small space to sell a designer stuff. This temporary artist flea market make this space hot and gather people from every where. And this market place inspire many young artist who want to make something. Believe or not, you may find most beautiful mobile charm in the world and some stupid stuffs as well. Space, People and Artist can make something really beautiful experience together with little help from good weather. Reference God's viewpoint, Google Map/Wikimapia Blogger report Hopemarket homepage

This place is the main gate square of Hongik university, Seoul, Korea. One of hottest urban areas in Seoul, Korea. The square is a popular landmark for waiting a friend and gathering a group. Because the space is reserved for car parking where is allowed for only reserved, there are barricade fences . Actually this barricade is a bench for waiting people. Six guys can seat on and have a chit-chat while waiting other friends since 1990 at least (It could be older). As you can see, black and yellow paint is worn off from top. You can image how much it is loved by people's asses as a de facto street furniture. Though it is supposed to be a barricade to expel people & car, it has been actually good street bench. Of course, not comfortable but enough for waiting 10 min and sending SMS. Why don't we make a barricade/bench for public space? It seems it has contradictory two functions but could be same in a shape. REFERENCE See satelite view from Wikimapia

The author of this photo is David Shankbone. 13 August 2006. Did you enjoy "Design your roof"? . It was watching from God's viewpoint. But look at this photo. It is the opposite way of advertising. 5 plane make a formation in the sky and make a white fog. In a dot matrix printer fashion, those planes make text characters in the sky. Though traditional sky acrobatic could makes a symbol or couple of character but it can makes 6~30 text characters. Those characters are at 7000~17000 ft above and can be seen from 30 miles away from any direction. It's really fascinating fading form of art! Design guide line: 1. Choose 6~12 characters. Because text will be fading soon. You need to select text carefully 2. Choose a good weather day. They might not refund your money because of bad weather. If I could, making text at 10 minutes before sun set after raining and cleanning with rainbow will be fantastic. 3. May be color version available soon. But don't expect Blue. REFERE...

Scene from the movie "Sweet and savage lovers" (2006) Nowadays, Getting her(his) mobile number is the start of new relationship. In this movie, the guy just asks her go out for watching movie. She accepted and propose to exchange mobile numbers. Instead of saying her number or giving a note, she gives her mobile to him and let him input his number and she makes a call to his mobile phone. Now they have connection. (Don't forget to ask name!) It is typical ritual of modern ritual for mating of Homomobilikus. Do you have any good tip for it? Following is a tip from a guy. Scenario A: Single guy named Tom find a perfect girl Nancy. What is next move? Ask her to lend her mobile. You have to tell you have some emergency issue but have no mobile phone now. (The beautiful girl must be nice as well) Make a call to yourself (Don't forget to set your mobile in silent mode) and disguise a conversation. You have to expose your profile little bit such as name, job or whatever your...

A strange and stupid thing often happen at a summer night. Last 14 Aug, It was really hot, humid night. Two teenagers have a fight at Kang nam station. (Most crowded area in Korea). Their argument was started from a bulletin board of DCInside.com where is famous for source of weird internet trend in Korea. It is started from criticizing the other guy's on fashion sense in bad words. For this stupid flash mob event, a guy makes a poster and gathered gallery take photos and distributed instantly. It attracts big media's attention as well. All major TV and news medias report about it and explain what is "Hyun-Pi"(Game player killing in real world). How can this a foolish kid fight be a big news? The movie "Fight Club" spoiled these kids or the internet community site? Interestingly, the bulleting board where they met was about "Fashion" and a smart guy makes a T shirt printed with the fight scene . Reference http://lezhin.egloos.com/2630599 SBS new...

Spaces. By Apple. OS X Leopard sneakpreview. Apple OS X Spaces is a tool to change desktop space. Actually Windows Vista also has something like that as well. But it is all about using multi spaces for an user. It is just like having multiple separated workspace at your cubicle and turn your chair to use type writer, writing a letter and drawing schematic on board. Comparing with ZUI (Zooming UI) such as Looking Glass and Microsoft's Task gallery , I have to name it as PUI (Panning UI). SO WHAT? Actually, what I'm expecting to see is rather than 'Controlling Multiple Computer for an User" or 'Multi Computer for Multi User at Same Spaces'. Imagine controlling multiple computers with Spaces in a monitor by a person. A space can be from another PC which is sharing with others or occupied for a time. I could be a great tool to control several computers by a person. Otherwise multiple people share multiple spaces together simultaneously too. Nowadays, many home ha...

This is roof of Morton Salt company ( http://www.mortonsalt.com/ ) located at Chicago. I often visit Chicago and drive through 94 Kennedy expy to go my HQ. I saw a billboard with a famous logo of Morton Salt. But I never saw or will see that company name on roof. But as you can see, you can find Morton company easily from Google map browsing. Similarly some Target stores ( http://www.target.com/gp/homepage.html/601-1447065-1372122 ) painted their roof with famous logo as well. See the link . Yes, it is new opportunity for advertisement! Actually there is not many things to read in Google maps. Here is some design guide line for roof advertisement. For advertiser: 1. Orientation: Align your company logo/name correctly. North is top and make alignment to South. 2. Size: A character should be larger than a car size. Approx. 1800mm wide. I would recommend 20M wide. It will be OK with 16~17 zoom level of Google maps. 3. Keep message simple as possible: General rule for everywhere. 4. Color:...

My favorite trouble free trouser for air travel. No rivet and no buckle. Giordano. I loved air travel. But the design of air travel system is not evolving since 70ies and even it is getting worse in terms of user experience. TSA (Transportation Security Administration) of USA announced new security procedure. No liquid or gel like product is allowed any more. As long as Laptop PC and iPods is still allowed, it's OK for me. But I just wonder it is an effective way. 911 terrorist used a simple knife you can buy in any stationery store. OK, anyway, as an experienced business traveler. I can share my tips for you. 1. Wear Jersey pants (training wear,츄리닝) rather than riveted jean with metal buckle. 2. Don't bring any sharp tools including wine opener. It's really sad for wine lover like me. So I have to buy T shaped opener every time and dump in hotel room. (But Eyeglass Repair Tools is allowed for carrying on) 3. Charge your iPod/mobile/ any electronics battery always. Often se...

I participated FGI ( Focus Group Interview ) as an observer yesterday. FGI is popular method to get feedback about new product & service. Usually client (my colleagues and me) are seating behind huge half mirror. Moderator runs Q&A conversation process with several interviewees. Actually, I hate to be seated behind the mirror. Observation room is usually packed, hot and smelly (Yes, we are eating at seat). I prefer to be moderator myself or be an assistant in same room. That's more interactive research with people and I can see all the detail of what they are doing. In some cases, we use IM (Instant messenger) to communicate with moderator. It is convenient to ask something instantly but may be a burden on smooth flow of conversation. Anyway, it is really precious time to hear people's voice directly.

Why Koreans are so crazy about electric contraptions such as mobile TV + phone? This 41 years old cartoon may explain what is source of their geekness. My hero cartoonist Mr. Jungmoon Lee created this vision for a kid magazine "Sae-So-Nyun"(For New Boy) in 1965. It shows an imaginary life style in AC2000. Going school camp at Moon by rocket is not realized yet (still need multi million dollars) but you can see a guy who hold mobile television plus mobile phone and saying "Hello!". Did he predicted well or made a way to this? 1. Solar powered home (Not popular yet) 2. Radio newspaper (Realized. That's Internet!) 3. Computer can do everything (Never) 4. School camp at Moon (Not yet) 5. Electric car (Realized but still need some time) 6. No pollution (Not realized) 7. Robot janitor (Realized but still expansive) 8. Moving road (Interior version available) 9. Home medication (No) 10. Study at home with TV (You can but still need to go school) 11. Recipe on kitchen ...

This look like a mundane home phone but it is dedicated collect call public phone installed at a convenient store. Anyone can make a call without a penny. Even you don't need to know collect call prefix as well (ex.00700 in Korea). It is shame that public phone is disappearing from street. Years a go (Before pager era), whenever I try to call my girl friend, I have to go phone booth from my home just for privacy. I still remember how my heart was beating when I make a call to her home and wished that she can pick up the phone instead of her father. But that's just old story now. Nowadays, it's really hard to find a coin public phone. I believe phone card public phone is not public at all. In many countries, international calls is only available with some special public phone. Back to the collect call story, problem for this business is 'privacy'. Many people don't accept call from stranger or unknown CID (Caller's number). The other side may don't want ...

This is a digital door lock for a gate of apartment house. It has 18 floor and 36 families share this gate lock daily. As you can see, you can assume which keys are frequently used nor never used. You may guess the code combination consists of "3,4,5,7,#". In real world, usage of a product and environment can be different as time goes. We can't live happy ever after. Paint and gilt color will be worn-out by hand touch. That may be big difference between old craft man and modern industrial designers. It seems ID guys and product makers don't think enough about the life span of their product. They often just focus on freshness in catalog photo or on shelves only. How can we keep it fresh as possible? Or how can we make it possible to be antique with history?

It is a toilet gear for traveller at Zanzibar, Kenya, Africa. It was installed when a safari camp is settled down at wild desert. If Nature call you, bring this shovel and walk out for a while as much as you find a place for private business. (Middle of desert or bush) Shovel up sand and make a hole. Refresh yourself. Arrange the hole and shovel up sand over a hole. Back to camp and stick it at as it were Of course, you may use a bottle of water instead of a toliet roll. It may be really rare experience for people. Human needs a private closed place for long time to do that. I can guess your smart ancestor would also try to find a quiet place as possbile to avoid interuption by a wild beast. The behavior, finding a place to excrete may be origin of individual privacy. People have to choose a place between privacy concern and security concern. I hope to use that shovel. It looks fun anyway. Special thanks: I found this photo from Meilan's blog . Meilan allow to use this photo for my...

In this video, blinking emergency lamp (Blinking both side of turning lamp for 2~3 times) means "Thanks" in Korea. It is not warning. Generally the emergency signal light means "I have trouble" but depend on situation and pre-context of road status, it can be translated into a variety of meanings. 1. " My car is in trouble" : IF car is parked on road shoulder and bonnet hood is opened, i t demonstrate car is in trouble and waiting for a help. It is really important to avoid a clash with other cars in dark night. If the car is just parked on road shoulder, it may means "Sorry, I just parked here for temporary". Natural may call him/her. 2. "I'm in hurry": Blinking emergency lamp and go faster and takes every space between cars to go forward. You might run like an ambulance. If your wife start to delivery new baby, you can use this trick. But you can't be exempted from speed ticket. 3. "Excuse me" : break in the lane of...

Yesterday, I was shopping at supermarket. While I'm enjoying a variety of snack corner, I just realize there is an outstanding snack package that catches my eyes among all color/flavor snacks on shelves. "Charm Cracker" is simple saltine cracker. Because the package design is simple white color with simple small graphic, it is outstanding from noise of promotional messages. It reminds me of iPod's minimalism. Actually the Charm cracker has its own cult. It is great for making a canapé for party. Eating with cheese or jam is good as well. It is also popular among parents who concern about kid's health try to feed it instead of too much salt/sugar combination snacks. SO WHAT? To be outstanding, simple is best among glittering noises. It is another good example of "Keep it Simple, Stupid!" Reference Charm Cracker by ORION Zunk's Blog: Charm cracker is cute

This is a promotion poster saying "If you are interested in this space, please call me" at a empty shopping mall. You can see two person's office number and mobile number to contact with for asking about rent the space. In many region, mobile number is regarded as personal privacy information. So it can't make sense to write down mobile number on poster. These two guys may receive some subsidy from the company but they could have a call from customer at 11pm. Actually It means they open business for 24hours. If you are good sales person, it will be better to contact your client through your mobile. Especially, many sales person such as private banking manager want to keep their customer file personally. If you move to another company, you can bring your customer together. SO WHAT? For business sake, your mobile phone may need to reveal in public such as poster or web page. Having multiple number (mobile subscription) or multiple phone may help you. Otherwise how you...

Futurist always has said about "Pressing just a button to make your life better" but it is seldom true. I love this gadget. It think it is one of best gear I can recommend to ask your sponsor to purchase for field research. NEXTO CF OTG is a mobile HDD backup storage for digital camera, camcorder. It supports CF card reading, USB host and battery. Back-up is really fast(Hitachi 2GB need 6 min to transfer). I really hate to lost a chance to take a good scene because of memory full. I don't need to worry about camera/camcorder memory any more! (But there is still big problem with battery. Let's talk about it later) But it is not the reason why it captures my eyes. It has only one button for operation. The key "Copy" is surrounded with two color LED lamp and B/W LCD screen. If you start to back up from CF card, step 1: Insert card and step 2: press copy button. Actually it can recognize two kind of input. Short and long press. If you turn it off after copying,...

San Marco Poice arrested a man named Ron James Guzman and charged him for aggravated Sexual Assault of Child and possession of child pornography on his video iPod. This crime can be sentenced to 40 years in prison. Personally I support a death sentence for this kind of crime. Otherwise I just wonder how the investigation finds his illegal iPod content. Actually it seems many people concern about their content in video iPod may cause privacy problem. In case of MP3 player, usually there is nothing to hide or to make serious trouble for privacy. Unless you pumped the volume up to crazy level, next man can't overhear what you are listening to. But visual content is different. Of course watching porn at public space is sexual harassment. Especially mobile users in crowded commuting train concern about next guy who may be interested in your video iPod or mobile phone message. Frankly I have to confess my professional curiosity make me observe other travelers SMS sometimes in bus or tra...

This is a bookstore at Kangnam, Seoul. Kyobo bookstore is just like a big Barns & Noble . I started my physical intelligence browsing here yesterday. In terms of purpose, it is quite similar experience with Internet browsing. But there is still something special. I have favorite genre and corner for bestseller just like a bookmark but I can see also much new & old stuff I can't imagine before by chance. While browsing corridors, judging a book by cover or title may be unfair but actually it helps to attract my intention. I can pickup and look through it for seconds. It is more rich experience which can not be replaced with internet bookstore yet. Another reason why I love bookstore is that I can observe people how to shop a thing more closely than other place. I could observe some interesting things from there. Pick some interesting books but left out in other place before checkout. It may be trouble to shop manager. Pick a book from bottom of stacks. It may be cleaner. U...

Usually commercial place in shopping mall doesn't like user experience researcher like me with camera. If you try to take an interesting thing in there, ear-plugged security guy will suddenly pop up and will stop your recording. An user experience researcher is dangerous as much as a terrorist or industrial spy. But a home interior item shop, Kosney at COEX where is most popular and biggest shopping mall in Seoul welcome any photographer. Of course, "Photo Free Zone" is a marketing strategy to attract young people. Kosney merchandizing manager said. "We believe Kosney shop can be an entertainment space for playing and enjoying with our beautiful product." in interview with Sbiznews.com Taking a photo with digital camera is popular game and playing for Korean youth. For them, Kosney shop with beautiful stuffs is great place for playing and shopping together. And many photos will be posted on blogs and it will spreads to others as an user generated content. Yes,...

This blue block on side of car is anti-bump urethane sponge coming with brand new Hyundai car. It is to protect cars on side and keep the car clean as possible before delivery. These are supposed to be removed when a car is delivered. But in many cases, customers love this urethane block and keep it for a while. Even though it make new car ugly, drivers believe it help to keep new car clean. From designer viewpoint, that urethane block hurts beauty of car design. It is anti-design. You can find similar case every where in gadgets. Almost every note PC user keep Intel Centrino and Microsoft windows XP ready sticker on palm rest. Many walkman users keep feature sticker (ex. 32hour long Li ion battery) on it. I'm sure any designer wants to have such an unnecessary sticker when draw rendering and making a mockup model. All stickers come for marketing reason. Many iPod user sbuy iPod because of sleek design. But really many iPod users put their iPod into protector which make iPod thick ...

Superman returns but he may be in trouble to find a quiet place to change his super suit. Because phone booth is disappearing from street. Once it is common cityscape you can find every modern city in the world but landline phone companies realize phone booth is not their revenue venue any more and decide to retreat from street. Anyway Superman still need a place to change his cloth and I also need a quiet place to make a call with my mobile phone from noisy street. We share same concern for privacy. Otherwise vandalism may be great danger to phone booth. Often it is filled with waste and dirty advertisement. Box type phone booth with door is often not a pleasant place. Can it be saved and survive as a public instant private space just like a public toilet? Michael Salemi who invented new in-door phone booth think he can find a new market opportunity. In US, there is over 700,000 restaurant and 40,000 night clubs. Phone booth is great place to keep privacy for their guest. Salemi’s C...

A long long times ago, Application UI design is still in chaos and not united by MS Windows yet. There was good variety of UI design existed. Some are really unique but lost in history. Photo is a screen of 3D studio 4 that is the ancestor of 3D Max and has been most popular 3D authoring tool. When 3DS was introduced back in 1991, I was fascinated with its elegant UI design and advanced features. One of my favorite is "+" button on saving screen. It is simple idea to add version number when you save your project file to disc. For example, while you work on "ABCD0001", you can save it as "ABCD0002" by just pressing "+" button. It was simple but still keeps me out of trouble because I manage my working files in that way. Whenever I can give an advice to new young computer user, I often say "Save whenever you stop your mouse!” If you lost your file some guy kicked out the power plug, all responsibilities is yours because you doesn't save y...

Nameless thing is meaningless. Every body can create content but all content can't survive without name. It will perish in backup disc sooner or later. Nowadays name is given by user as ' Tag ' for digital content. Tag is one of basic concept for future Internet. But problem is laziness that may be biggest threat for all mankind. I'm not an exception. I'll never give proper file name for all images from my digital camera. It is really annoying. Yes, if it is annoying to do, it can be a seed of invention. RIYA.com is not perfect for that yet but it shows quite interesting level of tagging technology. When photos are uploaded, faces of respective photos are analyzed and user can start to give a detail for it. By given data, it can try to identify rest of faces automatically. Side or rotated angle can't be identified. What is for? For example, you may browse photo by tagged name. Select a person and get all photos that the person appears in. Ok, it is still far ...

On my iTunes, there are 2 songs which have five stars. Absolutely It is best song for my life. How about you? It seems you can see 5, 10 or whatever rating system on hotels, music and movie etc. It is clear about top rating but others seem too often ambiguous for me. Some people think 3 is mid point but others regard 2 as acceptable. If you love to watch Leonard Martin's movie critic, movie with 1 or 2 stars means it is rubbish or only few may love it. Back to my iTune, some time I found really funny song in my collection. For example, I bought a Korean idol star's album . I loved their new song "Road" but first intro track was sound of fan's yelling and cheering noise in concert. I really hate that so I decide to give CD to my young colleague. But again I found some annoying sound in my iPod. My iPod has that intro noise sound and I can't delete it. As you know, you can't delete a song in iPod (Typical PC minded users some time want it). So I have to reme...

Google Spreadsheet is just another rubbish web application only limited works can be done comparing with rich client applications in perspective of Microsoft (Zdnet podcast interview with MS's LeBond) . But it reminds me of an old revolution of VisiCalc . Picture above still shows how VisiCalc's original design of spreadsheet is still neat and elegant for today(1981 IBM PC edition). It was really easy. Without it, you need to learn Fortran or Basic to do some calculation. Any ordinary business man can use it right away after 30 minute introduction. MS Excel is just a rubbish copy product for doing every thing. In 1985 first Excel was released for Mac and Windows version win the battle with Lotus 1-2-3 finally. But it is error prone. Hard to keep track of change and follow streaming of in & out. Even it is not friendly with other MS applications such as Word and Outlook.Pasted or exported chart is often uncontrollable and ugly. Interestingly, MS Excel is a popular office...

Youtube is really hottest internet video sharing site globally. If you are not familiar with Youtube, please visit www.youtube.com at your spare time. Because it is based on interesting Flash player technology for streaming & playing video, it play well without any warning or password windows through your company firewall. Most of contents are uploaded by users.(That's Mashup! That's UCC:User Created Content) You can find many popular video clips without appropriate copyright and size limit but there are many unique and interesting amateur films. Most interesting phenomena about Youtube is that it is beloved by many young as well. It is popular among people who lives out side of US. In Japan, over 2 million Japanese internet users visited there at March 2006. It is 5.2% market penetration.(US is 5.4%). Even though there is no regional service yet, it attracts more and more people globally. Some says it is good model to explain " Long tail ". It may be not big ma...

Ok, It looks not that charming but really impressive for me. PLC : Product Life Cycle is one of 101 class item and most useful economic theory in marketing for me. I think I can understand by a new method by Google's new LAB project "Google Trend". Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms users enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. The graph is matched with major news issues. You can sort it by cities/regions and languages as well. For example, if you input "RAZR", you may see the rumor about RAZR was appearing at Q4 of 2004. And then you can see hot buzz when it is finally introduced at market. Around 2005 christmas season, the graph reached at peak point. I think it is interesting the graph has still good strength. I assume it might thanks to RAZR limited edition and other variable versions such as Gold Dolce & Gabana. Now it seems RAZR will be next ...

I hate to say but we are growing older. As we grow older, physical ability such as eyesight is getting worse. Hearing ability is so as well. Human's audible spectrum is known as 20hz~20Khz but actually old person can't hear high frequency sound such as 17KHZ. A British inventor, 39 years old Mr. Howard Stapleton invented "Kid Repellent" called Mosquito which generates high pitch tone to repell yound mischievous kid from a retail shop. It is just like a sound of Mosquito or "Headache sound". He said "It's very difficult to shoplift, when you have your fingers in your ears." It seems he share a same viewpoint of education with a Victorian man. But another brilliant people utilize it and makes a mobile phone ringtone for kid. In class, student use it without teacher's attention. SOWHAT? Test it by yourself. Most of over 30ies couldn't hear 17Khz tone including myself. It may be not great for normal ringtone but may be useful for receiving ...