Andy Polaine
Smart German Supermarket
The BBC has a video report about a German supermarket Future Store from German supermarket chain, Real. Rather than use RFID tags to do the scanning of all the …
Writing & Thinking
A mix of essays and commentary about design, innovation, technology, society, coaching, personal and leadership development. Since 1996.
Peter Polaine at The Pin Mill Studio
Christmas Dinner by Peter Polaine Quick plug for my dad, Peter Polaine, who has an exhibition of his woodcut prints on at The Pin Mill Studio in Suffolk at the …
Little Bits of Electronics
littleBits is an open source library of small electronic components that are already pre-assembled. The very clever and cool thing about them is that they snap …
Cat and Mouse
Video loads from YouTube on play — Google's privacy policy applies. Cats lack a knowledge of willing suspension of disbelief. When cat’s interact is that …
Is Twitter just a giant MOO/MUD?
Lambda MOO The development of technology is more like a spiral than the upwards arrow we often think of. The same ideas come around again and again with slight …
The Future of Broadcasting and the BBC
Although I still agree with much of Mark Pesce’s take on the Future of Television, Stephen Fry neatly sums up the worth of the BBC in an interesting …
The Paper Web - Sketches of Web Services
Vimeo sketches by Sockyung ‘Sox’ Hong If you read my post about wireframing and prototyping with paper you’ll love Sean Flannagan’s collection of …
Pinger - Voice-based Twitter?
Pinger is doing the rounds of Twitterland at the moment. It’s a service that allows you to send voice messages to one or a group of people anywhere from …
Give my balloon a boost
I’m taking part in Orange’s Balloonacy internet balloon race. I’m not doing too badly at the moment, but you can give me a boost by clicking …
Google isn't making us dumb, but 'smart' is changing
It started with Asi’s comments on Nicholas Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid? article. Forty-five minutes later I had Googled through …
Play as you go - hijacking public spaces
A quick reblog of Pixelsumo’s post about Bruno Taylor’s work hijacking public places to make playful spaces, which explores the notion that play is …
SVA to offer Interaction Design MFA
New York’s School of Visual Arts has just announced that they’re offering a Masters of Fine Arts in Interaction Design as of Fall (or Autumn as we …
Design is Money - ATM Design
ATMs in Germany are lame, I have to say. They’re slow and clunky and appear to be designed by software engineers rather than UI designers. So I wish …
Prototyping and Wireframing on paper
There are a couple of great shots of prototyping on paper over at at Cultured Code’s blog for Things, their task manager app that they’re bringing …
Why Good Looking Error Messages Matter
Almost anything involving computers falls over once in a while, but it’s how you handle it that makes all the difference. I spotted this in Newcastle …