Posted by Adam Richardson - July 13, 2009
I just purchased an upgrade to Apago’s excellent PDF Shrink app, which does the best job I’ve found of any app for compressing PDFs. Going the Print to PDF route in OS X is super convenient but with image-heavy files (say PPTs) it creates very bloaty files due to how it treats images. PDF Shrink cuts them down to size much better than the Compress PDF function in Preview, retaining image quality far better.
Posted by Adam Richardson - July 13, 2009
New GM Culture, as stated by CEO Fritz Henderson on Friday, in a press conference after GM comes out of bankruptcy in a blistering 40 days:
"We recognize that we've been given a rare second chance at GM, and we are very grateful for that. And we appreciate the fact that we now have the tools to get the job done."
The new company will focus on three top priorities, customers, cars and culture, Henderson said.
Posted by tedglobal - July 13, 2009
Before the main sessions begin on Tuesday July 21, TEDGlobal kicks off with a series of outings on July 20, and I’m looking forward to going round Bletchley Park, ‘historic site of secret British codebreaking activities during WWII and birthplace of the modern computer.’
Particularly as we’ve just come to the end of Shed Week here in the UK (no, really) and Hut 6 at Bletchley Park has just won the Hut Category in the awards for Shed of the Year 2009.
Posted by Fabio Sergio - July 13, 2009
What happens if MC Biofeedback shuffles the tempo of the music you're listening to while exercising, so that you can run to the beat of your own heartbeat, and influence it in return? Hello Yamaha BODiBEAT
"What if your iPod or MP3 player had a heart rate monitor built right in, and the power to sort your music by beats per minute? The BODiBEAT is a music player that monitors your heart rate and automatically selects music to match your running or walking pace."
Posted by tedglobal - July 10, 2009
With the TEDGlobal conference right around the corner, the design mind editorial team is gearing up for plenty of fun in the sun….. er, wait, we’re going to England….
With the TEDGlobal conference right around the corner, we’re gearing up for plenty of fun in the grey and drizzly (note the British spelling of “grey” as opposed to “gray”; we’re nerding up for loads more fun with the U.K.-U.S. language subtleties such as honor vs. honour, tire vs. tyre, and my favorite, oriented vs. orientated).
Posted by DesignWell - July 9, 2009
It's a banality to state that Healthcare IT is hopelessly out-of-date. Actually, hospitals are often full of gleaming new equipment and are constantly upgrading their infrastructure. The problem is that while the assorted blocks of hardware and software in a healthcare system are often very sophisticated in themselves, they typically don't connect to each other, or to their users, in a very effective manner. Printers, faxes, and paper filing cabinets form the real backbone of the system.
Posted by Fabio Sergio - July 9, 2009
Remember the days when people got all excited as soon as anyone mentioned the Semantic Web?
Well, that's still a promising future evolution of our beloved digital playground, but in the meantime other semantic goodness has already come into the world.
People are talking.
The One Machine has started answering back in Furby-like memes gleaned from the conversations it's been eavesdropping on.
Here are three projects I love that point the way by word-mining human internet chatter to reveal patterns.
Posted by Fabio Sergio - July 7, 2009
The July 09 U.S. edition of Wired magazine has an interesting set of articles dealing with what happens once the body goes electric and becomes a beaming node on The Network, pulsating bits with its every heartbeat:
"And not only can we collect that data, we can analyze it as well, looking for patterns, information that might help us change both the quality and the length of our lives. We can live longer and better by applying, on a personal scale, the same quantitative mindset that powers Google and medical research. Call it Living by Numbers, the ability to gather and analyze data about yourself, setting up a feedback loop that we can use to upgrade our lives, from better health to better habits to better performance."
Posted by tedglobal - July 6, 2009
On board a KLM 747 to Amsterdam, I’m reading Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel as a preparation exercise for the TEDGlobal conference in two weeks (frog is a sponsor and the conference theme, "The Substance of Things Not Seen," is the theme of this group blog).
Posted by Nick de la Mare - July 6, 2009
Before we get started, I have three confessions:
