Tag Archives: platforms

30 Simple #Tools For #Data #Visualization | Co.Design #tech

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There have never been more technologies available to collect, examine, and render data. Here are 30 different notable pieces of data visualization software good for any designer’s repertoire. They’re not just powerful; they’re easy to use. In fact, most of these tools feature simple, point-and-click interfaces, and don’t require that you possess any particular coding knowledge or invest in any significant training. Let the software do the hard work for you. Your client will never know. MORE: 30 Simple Tools For Data Visualization | Co.Design | business + design.

Additional data visualization services, such as Creately, Doodle.ly and Viewshare listed on infophile’s Tools webpage.

16 #Trends That Will Define The Future Of #VideoGames | The Guardian #gaming #tech

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Super-interesting! If you are a fan of coding camps and makerspaces this would be a good article to read to get an idea of what’s on the horizon in gaming development, gaming innovations and interactive/social gaming.

From the rise of gamer parents to transparent game design, a step-by-step prediction of how games will be made over the next five years. READ: 16 trends that will define the future of video games | Technology | The Guardian

BookShout Serves Simon & Schuster Ebooks with Cheerios | Digital Book World #ebooks #kids #children

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Note: This promotion may only be available to residents of the United States. 

The ebook distribution platform BookShout partners with Cheerios to serve select Simon & Schuster titles to breakfasting children across the U.S.

The publisher’s “Cheer on Reading” literacy program has placed free Simon & Schuster children’s books inside Cheerios boxes since 2003. Now, instead of stuffing print titles into cereal boxes, they’ll come printed with BookShout-provided codes offering free access to one of nine popular children’s ebooks. Each one can be downloaded and read online or through BookShout’s iOS, Android, Kindle or Nook apps.

READ MORE: BookShout Serves Simon & Schuster Ebooks with Cheerios | Digital Book World.

25 Ideas Shaping The Future Of Design | Co.Design

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Design is always changing, and with tech and design increasingly aligning, we’re arguably headed to the most radical period of change in design history. How radical will the design landscape of 2020 be, then?

To find out, we asked five elite studios—each and every one a member of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list—to give us their predictions for the near-future of design. Designers from Ammunition, Herman Miller, Code and Theory, and more gave us their thoughts on everything from the future of the office as cathedral, to the rise of the designer CEO. Here’s what they all had to say. READ MORE: 25 Ideas Shaping The Future Of Design | Co.Design | business + design.

How do I start playing video games? A beginner’s guide | The Guardian + Top 20 best video games for beginners | The Guardian

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Recently, several non-techy friends have sidled up to me and asked, in hushed conspiratorial tones: “Keith, should I be playing video games?”

It’s an interesting question for two reasons. First, I write about video games for a living; that’s my job. So what did they think I was going to say? “No, they’re a massive waste of time”? Secondly, a few years ago, people my age were feeling guilty about playing video games, now there are people feeling guilty that they’re not. This is progress.

So for all the potential gamers out there who are thinking about taking up a joypad but don’t know where to start, or which games to try, or what a joypad looks like, here is a quick guide

READ MORE: How do I start playing video games? A beginner’s guide | Technology | The Guardian.

So you’ve bought a shiny new games console, or a ridiculously powerful PC, or the latest smartphone iteration, and now you want to play games on it. What happens next?

Well, if you’ve been doing the whole gaming thing for years, you’ll know which review sites to go to, what developers and publishers produce the best stuff and what everyone is looking forward to playing. But if you’re just starting out, it can all be a bit … overwhelming. Every year around 1,000 new titles are released on consoles and PC, and there are more than 300,000 games available on the Apple App Store. So how are you supposed to work out what to play?

Following our Beginner’s Guide to Gaming, here are 20 titles which will get you started. We’ve included smartphone, console and PC titles, and instead of focusing on titles aimed specifically at non-gamers, we’ve tried to select excellent recent titles that will introduce you to more complex gaming experiences and represent where the medium is right now.

READ MORE: Top 20 best video games for beginners | Technology | The Guardian.

A Creatives Quick Guide to Social Media Image Sizes | Design Instruct

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This Design Instruct post lists optimum image sizing for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, Behance and Dribble. The post will be updated as sizing for these platforms evolve…now I just wish this information was visualized in a infographic for us visual learners!

Social media is a way of life for a lot of people. For creatives, it’s a great way to get your work out there and potentially gain a following…Depending on what kind of work you do and how well people respond to it, social media can be a very effective self-marketing tool for many creatives. Therefore, it’s important that your work looks the best that it can look online. Since social media platforms over the last decade have been continually evolving and optimizing, it has not always been clear how best to display your work on these platforms. Luckily, we’ve managed to do a bit of research on how different social media platforms display images so that others can see your work in the best possible way.

READ MORE: A Creatives Quick Guide to Social Media Image Sizes | Design Instruct

Comixology DRM-Free Comics | $1 for Access to 15,000 Marvel Comics | Gizmodo

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You Can Finally Download DRM-Free Comic Book Backups From Comixology | Gizmodo
The biggest digital comic book distributor in all of digital comics land, Comixology, just took a relatively unprecedented move for a platform its size. Customers will now be able to download DRM-free backups—meaning when you buy a book, you’ll finally get to own it, too.

You Can Access 15,000 Marvel Comics Right Now For a Buck | Gizmodo
As we all prepare our brains and Twitter feeds for the unstoppable flood of comics and entertainment news that will pour out of San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel announced some news in the quiet before the storm. Now, for 99 cents, readers can gain access to Marvel Unlimited, the publisher’s treasure trove of 15,000 issues from current series (well, at least six months old) and classic golden- and silver-age titles. You can also store up to 12 issues offline so you can read without a reliable Wi-Fi connection. As long as you have a Mac, PC, iOS, or Android device, you’re in business.

 

Tablets: the fastest growing technology in history [Infographic]| Netbiscuits

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The latest infographic from Netbiscuits highlights the importance of brand awareness of the tablet platform and the vast differences between how developed and developing markets use their devices.

For brands, it is becoming increasingly important to deliver great tablet experiences to their customers. And with 46% of users admitting to defecting to competitor website after a bad tablet experience, there was never a better time for brands to begin incorporating tablets into their web strategy. 

Tablets: the fastest growing technology in history

via Tablets: the fastest growing technology in history | Netbiscuits.

News Links

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Launching Later This Week: New York Public Library’s Shelley-Godwin Digital Archive | InfoDocket
The archive will offer digital versions of romantic texts.

Blogging Startup Medium Opens to All | AllThingsD
Medium, the blogging startup created by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, announced on Friday that it is now open for all to use. Newcomers are required to sign in with a Twitter account, and can only post from Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers.

Metadata: Pinterest and Getty Images Announce Partnership | InfoDocket
Getty Images and Pinterest partner to learn more about the images you pin.

Apple CEO: We’ve locked up 94% of education tablet market | CNET
Tim Cook calls the company’s share in the education arena unheard of in most businesses.

Nielsen to add web viewers to future TV ratings, with a little help from Facebook | Engadget
After several months of testing within the industry, Nielsen is finally ready to reveal its efforts to bake mobile viewing habits into its TV ratings system.

Authors face censorship decision to publish in China | Melville House

Kraków joins UNESCO Cities of Literature | thenews.pl

Yandex Buys KinoPoisk, ‘Russia’s IMDb’, To Move Into Film Search And Recommendation | TechCrunch

The Internet Archive Opens Its Historical Software Collection To All | Gizmodo, Internet Archive

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Full Post

Gamers of a certain age will no doubt scream Oh wow, I remember that! as they click through the Internet Archive’s latest project.

The non-profit organization recently launched the Historical Software Collection, with the mission of making old programs accessible (including plenty of games!) that were originally released for platforms like Atari 2600, Apple II, and Commodore 64.

Software itself isn’t new to the Archive, but it’s spent the past couple of years making these programs playable in-browser. So whether it’s E.T. on Atari 2600 from 1982 or VisiCalc on the Apple II from 1979, there’s no need to download a heap of emulators to try them out.

Archiving video games can present special challenges, as David Gibson at the Library of Congress has explained so well. But the independent Internet Archive claims to have the largest software archive in the world, and it should be interesting to see how the next few years work out for them.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges they’ll face is copyright. Technically, all of these programs are still covered under copyright law. And I have no doubt that the myriad companies responsible for managing the rights to something like E.T. are figuring out if they should intervene. Hopefully, no one will try to pull these programs. But if they do, it will be just one more example of how desperately broken our current copyright system is. [Internet Archive]

The Internet Archive Opens Its Historical Software Collection To All | Gizmodo