Jacky Liu » Uncategorized

BMW explores the future of mobility

Jacky — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:50:53 +0000

Wherever You Want To Go is a four-part documentary by BMW Documentaries that paints a unique picture of technology, culture, cities, our past, present and how it all relates to the future of mobility.

“If aliens were looking down on Los Angeles, they would come to the conclusion that the dominant life-form is the automobile.”

“One very interesting concept would be vehicles that are shared… you don’t want the insuring part, the maintaining part, the storing part, all these things that aren’t about getting from A to B, we don’t really want those things… it’s not to say these kinds of cars will go away because we all like to travel with our family and do things together with other people. This is not about taking things away from people, it’s about enabling a whole new level of freedom.”

“What we’re really beginning to envision… are three internets, three ways of information. The first one we’ve become all familiar with, that’s the internet of bits, information, and we use it everyday. The second one is right around the corner is what we call the internet of electricity, some people call that the smart grid. But now we’re gonna able to manage our electricity much more intelligently. The third one is what you might call the mobility internet. ”

Cellphone Networks and the Future of Traffic, a related article on Wired that may also be of interest.

Objectified by Gary Hustwit

Jacky — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:00:24 +0000

Objectified, a design documentary by Gary Hustwit, the director of Helvetica. Screening at film festivals, cinemas, and special events worldwide.

1. Trailer, Objectified.

Don’t be a yahoo, Yahoo

Jacky — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:50:06 +0000

Yahoo defined internet search a decade ago, but since then the brand became somewhat strained in each and every aspect of its services. Google is to Yahoo where Yahoo was to AOL. The company did expand, but they made little effort in improving. It’s hard to dilute what direction they’re taking, or interestingly enough if they know the answer themselves. The fact is that the Yahoo brand has a lot of potential, and a substantial user base, but it needs a lot of work, and what good time it is during a corporate restructure. Here are a couple of suggestions and pointers to hopefully help them out.

Keep up. If the company is losing behind being competitive, one easy check-box is to improve user experience. Yahoo hasn’t changed much in years, and their design isn’t even good in the first place. Numerous companies managed to refresh their pages last year, though Yahoo supposedly being one, it shows how re-design is able to capture interests, and good re-design defines how users interact; it helps to keep users coming back, and this should be basic. The reason I choose other services is because their user experience is simply better, and it helps for example, going through relevant results and information, even searching.

Refine and define services. There isn’t a race to expand your portfolio, so don’t try to acquire and cover other services without refining what is already on the catalog. Yahoo has been very eager in trying not to be left out to what others are offering, but it does so briskly and impetuously. There is never a very well refined service offered by Yahoo, and while this is hard to realize, at least respond to user feedback and implement occasional upgrades. Yahoo Mail has remained the same ever since it was refreshed two years ago, and not to make it worse, but the classic interface is still an option. Third-party content is all over Yahoo, and while this keeps advertising revenue in-check, it’s not good for users. Content becomes diverse and dissipated, not to mention undesirable and in-your-face; it is like having the contents of an entire newspaper summarized on one page, and this brings us to consistency.

Lack of consistency. The inconsistency across its service is immensely apparent, and it makes recognition and navigation considerably difficult. Yahoo has never focused on this issue, and as a user I have never efficiently jumped from one service to another, so then I just wouldn’t bother. This issue is across local pages too, services or even simply the style offered in United States are different than those in Canada, Hong Kong or Japan, and it certainly makes me wonder about the cost savings if a generic standard or guideline is common across the company.

It is interesting to bring social networking into discussion, not only because is it a prevalent internet service, but it illustrates the very problem that plagues Yahoo. The company launched the 360° service as a communication portal, incorporating social networking, blogging and photo sharing a couple years ago; it never caught on. It should not be novel for Yahoo, a part of GeoCities offered blogging-like services even before social networking was prevalent, though it was a separate service in itself, they had the foresight and resources to do so, and they have, in selected countries. China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea and Hong Kong each offer their own blogging service. Talk about consistency.

Yahoo has a 1.5 billion annual user base across the globe, second by Alexa to Google. One is trading in the hundreds and the other is around the 10 dollar mark. It’s hard to offer judgments for services that are susceptible to such a large user base, but it’s also hard to neglect the sub-par quality and features being offered to these dedicated users. Yahoo does not innovate, and that has to change. I am however pleased to praise Yahoo for some of its services, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Mail, and of course, Flickr. I love Flickr. I just hope that whatever does happens to Yahoo, please leave Flickr be.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author.

1. Why Yahoo! doesn’t matter, 24/7 Wall Street.
2. Yahoo! Operations Center, cdye1, Flickr.

What you may have missed

Jacky — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:20:20 +0000

Here is an excerpt of recent articles I’ve shared on my Google Reader.

Theme park gives kids a taste of capitalism. CNN

Have we reached peak oil?

Central London’s unused underground tunnels for sale. New York Times

Google proves humanity is sick and sad, but absolutely hilarious.

Exxon Mobil posts record $45.2 billion profit in 2008.

New battery technology increases 17″ MacBook Pro battery life by 60%.

Google enters the smart grid industry.

Google voice search on the iPhone, and an on-the-fly translator.

Jacky — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:00:13 +0000

Matthew Honan’s experiment with the location-aware lifestyle.

“Simply put, location changes everything. This one input, our coordinates, has the potential to change all the outputs. Where we shop, who we talk to, what we read, what we search for, where we go; they all change once we merge location and the Web. I wanted to know more about this new frontier, so I became a geo-guinea pig. My plan is to load every cool and interesting location-aware program I could find onto my iPhone and use them as often as possible. For a few weeks, whenever I arrived at a new place, I would announce it through multiple social geo-apps… I would become the most location-aware person on the Internet…

The trouble started right away. I was going to be gone for a week on business. Did I really want to tell the world that I was out of town? It wasn’t just leaving my wife home alone that concerned me… anyone who cared to look at my Flickr page could see my computers, my spendy bicycle, and my large flat-screen TV all pinpointed on an online photo map. Hell, with a few clicks you could get driving directions right to my place…”

1. Matthew Honan, Issue 17.02, Wired Magazine.

McDonald’s unbranded in Japan

Jacky — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:52:29 +0000

“On November 5th, a launch campaign began in Tokyo, with two McDonald’s locations in Shibuya and Omotesando being totally converted to ‘Quarter Pounder’ shops. The restaurants offer only two choices on the menu: a Quarter Pounder set for 500円, and a Double Quarter Pounder set for 600円. The interiors are minimal black, and feature Le Corbusier sofas. Interestingly enough, there are no discernable connections to McDonald’s: no golden arches, no Ronald. Japanese consumers are not likely to know exactly what a pound is, or a quarter for that matter, but no clues are even offered on the ultra-minimal Quarter Pounder website.”

1. fivebyfifty » QUARTER POUNDER.
2. NO LOGO, Naomi Klein.

What you may have missed

Jacky — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:50:29 +0000

Here is an excerpt of recent articles I’ve shared on my Google Reader.

The Hive Five winners: what’s the best tool for the job?

Amazing tilt-shift time-lapse videos.

Ten ways to re-think your commute. BBC

“Near perfect” solar design could change the entire industry.

Redscale film shows analog photography is not dead yet.

Google’s green energy future revealed.

Silver-zinc batteries coming in 2009 with 40 percent better run-time than lithium-ion.

Long overdue GPS upgrade could save airlines $10 billion a year.

Current State makes you mini Captain Planet.

Webpage re-designs of 2008

Jacky — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:32:27 +0000

Revised on September 26, 2008.

There has been a surge of webpage re-designs in 2008, though some may be controversial, the momentum of Web 2.0 has continued to revitalize content delivery in the digital age, and how far have we come. Not only has the front-end interface been upgraded to cater for more intuitive, efficient surfing, server load on the back-end has been reduced, and upon the client-side, next generation browsers have promised enhanced performance and sophisticated features, under even tighter security. Not to mention the unprecedented growth and potential of mobile browsing. Now all that I need is free city-wide Wi-Fi.

1. 10 hot web re-designs of 2008, CNET.