I’ve been catching up with videos since the release of the Miro player public preview. (And as I’ve had some traveling time, on trains, waiting for planes, etc).
Two recent videos stood out as worth sharing. Both focus on creative visualization, and are inspiring in terms of how some relatively simply changes in visual display of information can have a tremendous impact.
The first is from TED Talks, and it’s Jonathan Harris talking about “The Web’s Secret Stories“:
You can view We Feel Fine and play with it yourself – but I’ll warn you it is ponderously slow on my Linux machine – much more engaging in Windows or Mac OS.
It’s also open – at least in the “here’s an API, go mash up something cool” sense. (Free as in beer and free as in API but not as in Free software – Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike).
I wish I could spend a week just playing with what this API makes available, maybe using Yahoo! pipes to connect feelings to news stories about locations?
The second is from OSCON, and it’s Ben Fry talking about Processing, a design and prototyping tool:
Processing is Open Source – GPL/LGPL – so you can not only try it out and see what goodness you can make, you can also contribute to its development.
I find it nearly impossible after watching these to go back to standard office docs – but I think that’s a good thing.
