I received this email today and got astonished the first I’ve seen it. What would be my reaction if I really received this Real bill. I confess I’d think twice. From art point of view is definitely interesting. Looking carefully, it’s a really well designed icon. Of course someone knew exactly what it was doing. Is that a crap or is that a art issue on it? Even we don’t know the real intention, we see a question raising on contemporary art nowadays. Where stands the borderline between the public and private? Is that a reflection of social networking and internet?
Forbes magazine put an interesting list of the most influential product designers that “are crafting innovative products we use every day.” Even though product designers have ruled the design world for a long time – with the majesty fading away as we move to the new buzz of software over hardware –, I must hand it to them, when you have a beautifully crafted product in your hands, the emotion is just indescribable.
Apart from the obvious names like Apple’s Jonathan Ives and Muji’s Naoto Fukasawa, it is delightful to see the Campana brothers in the list (my brazilian heart beating fast). Another interesting surprise was to see Shai Agassi there. I’d recently read an article about the guy at the Economist and was taken by who seems as an inspiring guy (and according to the english magazine, of a Steve Jobs alike aura). Hope to see this guy speaking one day.
“I chose the potato to portray human faces because of the many striking parallels. Not only is their skin porous like ours, but their skin texture and color is very similar, and like us, they come in different sizes, shapes and forms. Potatoes grow, live, and then decay, mirroring the ephemeral existence and fragility of our own human nature.”
Wolfram Alpha, a new search engine about to be launch (may 18th to be precise) is the new buzz around. The article in The Independent presents it as an evolutionary leap; a system already praise by scientist for its complex logic. A recent The Economist article also presents it as ground breaking, but with a pinch of salt.
In a one liner, Wolfram Alpha goes against the web stream of relying on crowd sourcing to provide answers to any question possible, and shifts solution back to expert curated databases and incredible mathematical tools. Named after its inventor, Dr.Stephen Wolfram, “a British prodigy who earned his PhD in physics at the tender age of 20 and made a fortune from a calculation and graphing software package called Mathematica”, Wolfram Alpha, in my opinion, will be confined for quite within the technical community. Do I really want graphs and catalogue-like explanation to all my doubts? Wouldn’t that also remove some of the discovery characteristics the current web browsing paradigms have given us?
In reality, only time will prove if the creation will stand up to the challenge. If I’d ever think about writing a PhD (not sure I’m skilled enough anyway), seems like an interesting tool to rely on, by I wouldn’t trade my Googles, Last.fms and so on for my day to day procrastination.
