Noscope

Microsoft Surface - A Multi-Touchscreen Table 4 Comments

May 30th, 2007 interfacedesign

So Microsoft just unveiled “Surface“. It’s a table with a flat screen that’s sensitive to multiple pointers (fingers). It’s pretty much what we’ve Apple does wants to do with the iPhone, except larger.

This seems to spell the arrival of multi-touch interfaces and I think it’s great. How long untill I’ve got this on my work-table as an addition to my mouse? Not soon enough, I’m sure.

Flash Player 9 + Fullscreen Mode 3 Comments

May 29th, 2007 flash, usability

Adobe recently released their massive CS3 package. With this, a new version of the Flash authoring tool. While Flash Player 9 has been around for a while now, the release of the authoring tool unlocks dormant features that were put there by the “visionary” minds at Macromedia Adobe. Among this functionality: the ability to fullscreen-fullscreen.

There was a time when lousy Flash sites drove people from the plugin. It seems as though the advent of YouTube has driven people back again. So it’s only natural for Adobe to embrace YouTube-like sites. Case in point: the fullscreen feature does seem like it’s been added solely for the benefit of YouTube. And sure enough, YouTube has already integrated the new code. Click the fullscreen button in the bottom right corner: fullscreen Flash video with no chrome (Requires FP9). I think it works well and I plan to use it myself. Now we just need hardware acceleration.

Did you notice the change?

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 Mini-Review 8 Comments

May 28th, 2007 movies, reviews

In many ways, Pirates 3 (subtitled At World’s End) is a better movie than the second one. It puts more weight on story and character development. It also takes itself slightly more seriously; after all, it is the end of a trilogy.

Personally, however, I never went to see the Pirates movies solely for their gripping storyline. I went to see the battles, the pirate coves, the leviathan sea monsters and odd mythical Caribbean locations we all remember from the Monkey Island games. Based on this, I actually preferred the lighter spirit of Dead Man’s Chest. Three stars is not bad, it’s just not great either.

New Speaker Bite Me Website 6 Comments

May 23rd, 2007 music, Work

The danish band Speaker Bite Me has recently released a new album, Action Painting. For this occasion, I designed and built a Wordpress-powered website for them. Take a look at their new website, and be sure to listen to the sample tracks. I like it a lot!

Spiderman 3 Mini-Review 4 Comments

May 7th, 2007 movies, reviews

I wish I had been 15 years younger when watching this movie.

Spiderman 3 miserably fell short for me. I enjoyed the first one, I loved the second one, and while there is going to be a Spiderman 4, it’ll most certainly be without the same lead actors. Spiderman 3 should have been the end to a trilogy. Instead it was a dizzying, confusing, messy roller-coaster ride that didn’t quite tickle where it should.

Crash! Pow! Boom bang! Poof! More villains! More jokes! More explosions! Did anyone forget about less is more? It didn’t help the movie either that Sam Raimi and Danny Elfman had a falling out; Elfmans gorgeous theme only graces parts of Spiderman 3.

There have been mixed reviews. Some think it sucks, others disagree. Personally, I’d like to take a guess at why I think this movie divides people. To do so, I have to compare with Spiderman 2.

In Spiderman 2 things were falling apart for Peter Parker. As he struggled with the mantle and the responsibility, we developed real emotional attachments to the characters. When he finally decided to take up the mantle, in sickness and in health, the action started with an incredible sequence that could have ended in a trainwreck. Peter Parker, unmasked, managed to stop the train just before it derailed. In Spiderman 3: trainwreck!