Virgin America gets its wings

On May 18th, The Department of Transportation granted final approval for Virgin America, a new low fare U.S. airline, to begin operations. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. Hopefully bringing a bit of European design sensibility to an American audience and upping the ante for other carriers to follow suit. Having had the luck find a good deal, I traveled on Virgin Atlantic on my last visit to Europe. I loved the on-demand entertainment system at each seat which included, music, movies, video games, and visitor information videos on the destination. In that case, London. I was a great experience and made to flight a quick one.

According to Adweek. The American in-flight entertainment units will feature interactive applications such as text messaging within the cabin, pay-per-view movies on demand, live satellite TV, audio channels, games and meal ordering. The system also provides AC power and wireless connectivity for travelers with their own laptops. Very cool

Sony Bravia Film

This is nothing new or recently released. But I was browsing through my 2 + years of bookmarks and came across the Sony advertisement for their Bravia line of flat screen TV’s. I forgot how inspiring this short piece of film was and the fact that is was actually done in “real life” and not pieced together with digital special effects, As shown with the behind the scenes footage. There is also another Bravia film which is just as good, also film and executed in “real life”

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Web Designers Are the New Rockstars

Similar to FWA. Designcharts is a great website that features extraordinary web talent.

Joost

I don’t know what technology is behind Joost, but it’s very impressive. From the developers who brought us Kazaa and Skype. Joost is full screen television over broadband that sports an on demand Tivo-like interface. There is barely any buffering and the quality is awesome– very clear. As someone who does not have a TV set, this is a piece of software I would get some use out of. I can imagine a visit to the local coffeehouse, logging onto free wifi, and enjoying a National Geographic show or two while relaxing with a fresh cappuccino. Or a good diversion while sitting at the airport waiting to board a delayed flight. If you want to see what it’s all all about, you need to send yourself an invite, since it’s still in beta testing. The promotional video is at least worth a look for its creative effects

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Favorite Quotes

Art is never finished, only abandoned. – Leonardo da Vinci

I’ve had my share of failure of the years. But if you’re not making mistakes, it’s imposible to move forward. Robert M. Greenberg

There is no such thing as a group if beautiful letters. It has to be a beautiful group of letters – Mathew Carter

I have a motto that anything that is completed is beautiful, and if it is not completed it isn’t revy good at all – Paul MacCready

Creativity is to share what you like and to express what you feel – Jean-Claude Vrinat

In the end it’s the eye, being willing to say, ‘I know they always do it that way, but let’s do it this way because it looks better – Stuart Allan

What I enjoy is doing what I don’t know how to do yet – Jack Lenor Larson

It’s not what technologies you develop, it’s how you think about them – Aron Lanier

God is in the details – Hillman Curtis

Write the story, take out all the good lines, and see if it still works. – Earnest Hemingway

Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose. – Charles Eames

The recognition and understanding of the need was the primary condition of the creative act. When people feel they had to express themselves for originality for its own sake, that tends not to be creativity. Only when you get into the problem and the problem becomes clear, can creativity take over. – Charles Eames

The details are not the details. They make the design. – Charles Eames

Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations. – Paul Rand

If one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself. – Ferdinand Porsche

Ikea Hacks

On par with my love with all things Ikea. Ikeahacker is a great website which details great modifications and adaptations to some of Ikea’s products.

pixel roller

More cool stuff made possible with Processing. Pixel Roller is a paint “roller” that paints a computer controlled pixel image by means grabbing feedback from the movement of the user/painter.

Apple Industrial Design

Technology Review has posted a great in depth article about Apple’s industrial design and it’s process.

Newsmap

Newsmap visually displays aggregated news stories from around the globe via Google News. Data is displayed as a hierarchy relating to the “importance” of the story by displaying larger segments as news which has more related articles connected to it.