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This is cool. I always get pesnickety when I see folks biking by with poor conformation (seat too high, too low, wonky ankle movement, and so on). This should help folks. And, oh, it's on an iPhone, not on a Symbian device. Geez, I wonder why? <rolls eyes>
"Wildlab.com's Test Rides iPhone app is geared to help you match your body to a bicycle of appropriate size. After photographing yourself in the specific position seen above, you then mark your joint locations on-screen, enter the dimensions of a bicycle, and the app tells you whether it's a good fit or not."
links for 2009-08-21
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Cooler than a Segway. [via core77]
Five things to make media socialize (plus one bonus feature)
A colleague, John Markow, and I were discussing how to explain to people what features a piece of media should have to make it useful socially on the Web. We came up with this a long time ago and neither of us have written anything about this.
But I'm still regularly telling folks about this, so I though I could write it down once and for all.
Basically, we came up with five features a piece of media (the "object" below), say a photo or video, that will help it go out and socialize across the Web.
1) Search-able – If Google (or your site search engine) can't find it. It doesn't exist.
2) Link-able – the permalink
3) Comment-able – let folks comment on everything, build engagement
4) Embed-able – a key thing for me is that there is only one instance of the object, wich folks can them emed anywhere
5) Feed-able – some form of feed in which not only does this object show up, but that it's accessible right in the feed.
2) Link-able – the permalink
3) Comment-able – let folks comment on everything, build engagement
4) Embed-able – a key thing for me is that there is only one instance of the object, wich folks can them emed anywhere
5) Feed-able – some form of feed in which not only does this object show up, but that it's accessible right in the feed.
And that's it.
Bonus
Karl Long, when I told him about this, added Remakable. Indeed, if the piece of media is krap, no amount of socializing features will help.
And an case-study
In February, I received an email from a fellow colleague mentioning a video of a designer of the smallest Bluetooth headset Nokia had ever made, the Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-804. The product page supposedly already contained the video.
I searched for the video on the Nokia.com site. No luck. I managed to find the product page but could not see the video. D'oh, it was hidden in a Flash button!
The image to the right shows where it is in case you go looking for it.
When I clicked on the button, I realized that for me to point to the video, I've have to give instructions, sine there was no direct link I could use.
Of course, since it was playing in a Flash player, and the video was stored on the Nokia.com servers, there was also no way for me to embed the video anywhere.And let's not even mention commenting or catching this video in a feed.
This video was basically stuck where it was put. Not social at all.
What we did was take this video, popped it into the Nokia Conversations YouTube channel. Being YouTube, the video was now search-able, link-able, comment-able, embed-able, and feed-able. We also promoted it with a post on the Nokia Conversations site, and put it into the right column video panel.
Ok, so, maybe the content wasn't so remarkable or interesting: To date, it has only received three thousand video views and two comments. And the article had two thousand views (half of which led to a video view) and one comment. But it was interesting enough that the three comments are quite enthusiastic and six sites thought it worthwhile to embed the video.
Not bad, eh?
And this story illustrates well the five (plus one) features for socializing media. Right?
links for 2009-08-19
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"Take for example the living root bridges of the War-Khasis tribe in Northeastern India. Strong, flexible roots are trained to grow across rivers and take root on the far side. While a bridge can take 10 years to grow some may be more than 500 years old and still getting stronger."
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very good graphic (and Vitek name dropping)
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Yes. Yes. Yes.
links for 2009-07-28
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"Rejecta Mathematica, which is online only and open access, has some simple rules for publication. Papers had to be submitted for peer review at one or more other journals, and they had to have been rejected, either by the journal's editors or the paper's reviewers. The papers authors could then send a letter that describes the reason for rejection, along with the paper itself, to Rejecta, which would publish both as a single document."
I've always wanted a Journal for Irreproducible Results or something. This isn't exactly that but the intention is there, and it's a (gnat's) bite in the butt of big sci-publishing. Alas, the implementation may seem a bit too permissive.
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Wicked cool
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links for 2009-07-24
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Wicked cool. "One of Ginkgo’s favorite biological engineers – Jeff Tabor, has just published his latest engineered biological system, a bacterial edge detector, in Cell Magazine."
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"Those cells are derived from ordinary skin cells, and when they were created two years ago from human skin and genetically reprogrammed, it was hailed as a breakthrough. But questions remained whether they could act as chameleon-like as embryonic stem cells and morph into any cell type in the body."
links for 2009-07-09
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via jasonbobe
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"Today, Garrett’s hearing is near-perfect in one ear, her rare neurological ailment treated by a drug called Avastin. But the wonder here isn’t simply that her hearing has been restored. The real wonder is how."
links for 2009-07-03
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Just the week we arrive. I wonder if we'll have the time (or energy) to go visit.
"The public will be invited to view about 40 Tall Ships in Boston Harbor and Winthrop at next week’s Sail Boston 2009 and to board ships from piers in South Boston and Charlestown, the Coast Guard announced yesterday."
links for 2009-07-02
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"We're in the worst recession of most people's lifetime, and in the midst of the worst stretch of summer weather that anyone can remember. Have things reached biblical proportions? Maybe not, but just in case, we thought it might help to provide instructions on how to build an ark."
links for 2009-07-01
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Hooray for old school. "Store sample DNA for years at room temperature
Plasmid DNA stored on CloneSaver Cards is stable at room temperature for at least four years…and counting."