ThinkSketchDesign.com: New Website Launch!

Thanks for reading folks!  I’m launching a new site at ThinkSketchDesign.com.  Come on over!

Come over to my new site: ThinkSketchDesign.com

Twittering the Moon: Anyone know what that star is next to the moon?

Actually it’s not a star – it’s the planet Venus…

Last night (February 27th 2009) I saw a really bright “star” next to the moon and wondered what it was.  I wondered if twitter would tell me, so I did a twitter search for “star next to the moon.” Of course, not only did twitter have an answer verified by hundreds of people, but it beautifully illustrated the thoughts of people around the world looking up in wonder at that same bright star in the sky – an age-old philosophical musing suddenly and poignantly jolted into the realm of the tangible.  For those of us who still think Twitter is a pointless waste of time, I hope this example provokes some curiosity.

To really hit this idea home for you – I’m taking it a step further.  Here is a video of photos posted on Flick.  These were all taken on February 27th 2009 looking at the moon and Venus from all around the world.

From microblog to Network Protocol: How Twitter will redefine the Internet

Yesterday I had a realization about Twitter.  Twitter is not just a messaging service anymore, it is becoming a veritable Protocol.*  This might sound like a boring technical nuance, but it’s not – it could redefine how we use the internet.  Let me try to illustrate how: (though im just starting to think about this, so I’m still trying to imagine it myself)

*(Wikipedia definition of Protocol: In computing, a protocol is a convention or standard that controls or enables the connection, communication, and data transfer between computing endpoints.)

I was reading a Tech Crunch article about music related twitter mashups that lists the many ways people are using twitter to listen to music.  One example is a music discovery service called Twisten.fm

- Users twitter a tinyurl link to a streaming mp3.  In the twitter they include a custom hash tag that tips off the twisten crawler to cataloge the song in various playlists.  At the end of the day, you can go to Twisten and have immediate searchable access to everyone’s twittered music.

Why does this make Twitter a protocol and why does it matter?

Spotify: A free iTunes with all the music in the world – coming soon to your phone

Epicenter Repost – End Game: Spotify on the iPhone
Wish I had more time to write a commentary, but you should all know, that free music is coming soon.  And this video will give you a little preview.

In other news, iTunes Pass will soon let you pay money to download a bunch of music that you can get for free on Spotify.

Realtime

Realtime! Experimental post! I predict that “realtime” is going to take off as a huge buzzword starting this week, check out google trends for “realtime”.  Check out twitter search for “realtime”.  And I’m totally trying to shamelessly exploit that trend.  But I’m totally doing it as an experiment – so it’s totally, (like,) valid.  it’s totally in the spirit of realtime after all.  (shoutout – Frankey would have wanted me to.)  So we’ll see.  I mean, i could be completely wrong about this.  REALTIME!!

-Thinksketch.  (realtime).

p.s. oh yeah, mandatory image.

Hire Me! – My Design Portfolio and Resume

The recession has slowed things down over at Kingfisher Product Design and we’re all looking for work – either more work for Kingfisher, or looking to get hired at new companies.  Please take a look at my portfolio and send any tips my way.  Cheers -

For full screen please click this icon above

Download my Resume

Print-a-Crate: A Kingfisher Product Design Project

This is a project I worked on at Kingfisher – got an FDM machine in your office?  Check this out-

(slideshow after the jump)

Cool 3D SocialMedia Browser (Redux)

This is a 3D interactive Browser that I am prototyping.  I posted a video of it earlier, but it included a bunch of boring crap with awkward commentary.  I edited out that crap so it’s just the cool graphics.  The video is still awkward, and terrible quality, (dont ask, I lost the good quality version)  but the idea is still awesome.  Send me an email if you want to help me develop it into a way slicker (and real) app.

The Kill-a-Watt Killer: Energy Monitors should be 10 times cheaper.

In my last post I reported that Google is creating a software tool called Google PowerMeter that will organize data from existing energy monitors like the popular Kill-A-Watt shown here.

The Kill-O-Watt costs about $30 to monitor each socket to tell you how much power each appliance is using.  But with Google’s application, these devices should look very different.  They should be so small you don’t see them and they should be ten times cheaper.  How? Ditch the entire interface – buttons, screen and all.  Why would you want each of these to be programmable with an old-school crappy interface?  And why would you want to walk around your house to look at the display screen of each of these devices (which is probably inconveniently behind your bookshelf)?  Maybe the next generation device looks like this.

That is, it doesn’t look like anything – It’s completely built into the wall socket-cover so you don’t see anything at all.  These devices should be cheap simple sensors that transmit a signal to a central hub.*  You would read all the data from Google as simply as checking your google calender.   In my socket-cover version, the sensors are simple EMF sensors.  An algorithm cancels out neighboring stray signals to get a plenty accurate reading of how active each socket is.

A device like this would mean that any home user could cheaply track every device around their home.

AND!  To take it one step further, circuit breakers could be built into the socket so that you could power things on and off from your computer.  Yes, you could even turn your appliances on and off from your iphone.

*The hub could be your home wireless network, or (if you aren’t wired) it could be a simple USB or ethernet device that picked up ultra-sonic frequencies from the sensors (like the remote key-entry on your car keys)

Google begins infiltration of energy market: For good or for awesome?

I’m surprised that in Tech Crunch’s article on the Google’s PowerMeter Project, they don’t speculate that this is a huge first step for Google to enter the energy market.  As smart power meters are being installed that monitor home power usage, techcrunch reports that Google has plans to create a “software tool called Google PowerMeter (presumably a web app) that puts this information at people’s finger tips.”

Although the announcement comes from Google’s philanthropic website, how can techcrunch resist speculating on Google’s entry into the power market.  In the next ten years, a significant percentage of power will be crowdsourced by people who install solar panels and other green energy devices.  This is more than a trend of people being “off the grid.”  Solar panels already pay for themselves after just 3 years.  As the technology steadily improves, and as stimulus money gets channeled into the green power industry, soon a significant percentage of power will come from these “off the grid” users; they will become an “independent” power company.  Small “startup” power farms will emerge.  This will be a completely new market and Google (as usual) is putting themselves in the position to be the manager of that market.  This is big stuff.

Ant hourglass

My friend has a huge hourglass.  (way bigger than a little egg timer one).  The other day I saw a line of ants walking across the outside of that aforementioned hourglass.  (see exhibit last sentence).  For a second I thought they were inside the hourglass.  It made me think – what if the ants were actually inside the hourglass.  What if you used an hourglass full of ants as a real timer.  Say, it took an hour for all of the ants to crawl from the bottom though the small opening to the top.  Creepy.

WordPress Feedburner Facebook

Testing feedburner…

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drunk post last night..  I’m sparing you all the af;lshj;adkhga;lfg afklgj. But I’ll keep the picture, because I have no idea where I got it or why.

a video experiment from college

NO! spotify, our big music hope, crushed by the big bad Media?

Spotify is in danger – dreams of the music-listening freedom crushed!

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/01/29/record-labels-pressure-spotify-to-restrict-service/#comment-198208

If you haven’t heard of spotify it’s because it hasn’t even made it to the USA yet.  But overseas it has been praised as the Obama of music startups – our one true hope to music freedom!  Okay, well that’s overdramatic.  But whatever..  Say it ain’t so, spotify.  (and hey, can you throw me an exlusive lisence?)