- Anthropologist Hank Delcore (Fresno State) and Kirsten Medhurst (Pelco) are interviewed about a great academic-industry synergy to improve user experiences of security products.
- NPR featured a story on automation in the cockpit, and what can go wrong. "Automation surprise" indeed. You can also watch the recent PBS Nova on the crash of Air France 447 because they lost all airspeed indicators.
- The March/April issue of Technology Review has an illustration showing "The need for speed: Even slight slowdowns online frustrate people and cost companies money". In 2000, according to Akamai, user would wait 8 seconds for a web page to load before navigating away. In 2009 it was down to 3 seconds. The entire article is "The Slow-Motion Internet", but I think you have to be a subscriber to read it online.
- OK, one more thing. One of my favorite 90 second Don Norman videos that I've been showing students since 1994 has finally been uploaded to YouTube. It's a cute example of the difference between the users conceptual model and the underlying implementation model.
And now for the other stuff I promised:
One of the stranger DIY projects: hacking a manual typewriter for use as a computer keyboard.
Is the lifetime cost of LED light bulbs worth it? And, legendary Bell Labs engineer Robert W. Lucky gets phished and pays the price.
Really interesting Wired article about sports statistics: how consistent home field advantage is, and how umpires expand and contract the strike zone based on game conditions (scroll down to see the illustrations).
