Hendrix College Takes Step Toward the Future; Using 3-D printers to change the face of learning

Hendrix College takes step toward the future; Using 3-D printers to change the face of learning

Hendrix College is using new printing technology that many predict will change the way the world operates.

Is Microsoft Winning, or Losing, the War for Developers?

In my inbox this morning was an interesting question concerning whether Microsoft was winning, or losing the war for developers.

This used to be an easy question for me to answer, whenever someone advocated for anything other than the PC ecosystem. I would ask the person “name the killer app for platform xyz.” I would be met with stony silence, while I easily rattled off dozens of names of apps on the PC, that could be found no where else.

This is no longer even a credible line of inquiry, given the successes of the Android and Apple mobile platforms. In fact, by comparison, the relative paucity of highly recognizable titles available only on PCs (or any Microsoft platform) is quite telling.

That in itself answers the question as to whether Microsoft is winning or losing the hearts and souls of developers.

They are clearly losing – and losing badly.

Teaching in High Def at Liberal Arts Colleges

Teaching in High Def at Liberal Arts Colleges.

iOS 7 – First Thoughts

After using iOS 7 a few days, here are some likes and dislikes. Nothing too cerebral, just my surface observations:

Likes:

• New “Physics” – bubble animations on the Messages app, zoom on App opens, depth of field and animated pano on lock screens and on background.
• New Utility Panel (drag up from the bottom) – includes buttons for Airplane Mode, Wifi, BlueTooth, Do Not Disturb, and Orientation Lock; Built-in Flashlight (goodbye, app category) App, and buttons for Alarm, Calculator, and Camera. Slick.
• Ability to have App groupings of unlimited size.
• Multitasking screen

Dislikes:

• Alert Panel (Pull down from the top gesture) Redesign. I can’t quite say why it’s not appealing to me. Maybe because I don’t think the descriptors at the top (Today, All, Missed) really describe what you find underneath. I mean, do I really need a separate tab for appointments I missed? Isn’t that what a smart device is supposed to prevent?
• Bugginess of the Beta – Yes, it is developer-only beta code. It crashes a lot at this stage. Biggest dislike.
• Stuff I Used to Know How to Do That I Had to Re-Learn – Spotlight search no longer has its own screen; instead, if you drag down on any Springboard screen (screen with apps), you get a Spotlight Search input. Took me a while to intuit that. Also, running apps are no longer killed by pressing the icon until they wiggle and you “x” them out – you now scroll through the multi-tasker and “flick” them up and off the screen, ala Palm Pre WebOS. Do I dislike these behaviors because they are different, or because I had to relearn them? Dunno. But they’re on my dislike list all the same.

Ambivalent Abouts:

• New icons
• Transparencies
• Flat look

In short, iOS 7 is a work in progress. And works like it. Reserving further judgement until I walk around a bit more with the OS.