NasdaqQ3 Home Trading Terminal Keeps It Simple

Designed for overworked Wallstreet traders, Allen Liu designed this home trading terminal to ease the infusion of work into home life. While an admirable effort, if you’re working, you’re working regardless of where you are and I don’t see this interface holding up well against an information-packed, 4 screen terminal. If that’s not enough, Allen completely failed to put in a “Private Browsing” button for those lonely, late-night trading sessions that last for hours

The future of books

With everything turning towards technology, we have adapted the out with the old, in with the new mentality. Designer Kyle Bean has created a design that illustrates the issues with “technology and the Internet, and the effect it is having on the way we source information”. We are becoming a society that is more virtual. We download music rather than purchase CD’s, we research on the net, rather than going to the library and reading books. According to Kyle, “Books also have personality – they have textures and smells which the internet can’t offer”. Kyle wanted to illustrate this issue by using a book turned into a laptop. The object is made from a book purchased at a discount bookstore for only £1.50, as well as a few electrical components to illuminate the screen.

The book/laptop, has a CD-Rom drive complete with CD, a keyboard that can be removed so as to access the battery, and a switch that turns off the screen light once the book is closed. The book when closed, looks just like a regular book until opened. The words, “The Future of Books” is inscribed on the spine. I think Kyle did a wonderful job expressing the changes the world is facing regarding technology.

Do we need an ilight?

I’m going to start this post with an IMHO because it’s a great example of how simplicity in design means complication in function – which ironically is the opposite of what Apple stands for. Designer Miyoshimasato envisages the iLight, an Apple designed flashlight.

Step 1: Make it look like an Apple product. Put a check here because it really does look like an Apple product. You’ve got the slim slick body devoid of any switches and buttons.

Step 2: Give it an Apple logo and “i” meme. Put another check here because this concept fulfills both prerequisites.

Step 3: Integrate current Apple technologies so the user interface feels familiar. This deserves a big ‘x’ because adding a touch interface with multiple inputs does little to make the product better. In this case, a single touch turns on the light. Tap it again and the light turns off. To increase the luminance, flick your finger forwards and conversely flick is backwards to decrease luminance. To prevent it from turning on accidentally, double tap to lock it. The glowing Apple logo indicates battery status and a single tap on that turns on the emergency light flashes for ‘HELP’ in morse code.

Step 4: No user replaceable battery. It recharges via USB. Put a check here because that’s something Apple would definitely do.

Needlessly complicated? You decide.