Gizmodo: multitasking

Now This is How the iPhone Should Handle Multitasking

Chris Jacob — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:50:00 EDT

I really hope someone at Apple sees these concept interfaces from Ocean Observations. They've taken the best elements of the Pre's card system, combined them with Cover Flow, and created an awesome vision of multitasking on the iPhone.

The designers also have an idea for managing the mess of home screens that comes along with app hoarding. Tapping the home button would bring up a paneled Exposé page. From there, you could easily jump to a specific page, rather than swiping a hundred times to find Peggle.

Hopefully someone at Apple is keeping up with this page to see what else these guys come up with. [MobileCrunch]

Convergence Is Overrated

matt buchanan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:20:00 EDT

Wouldn't it be great if there was one gadget that did email, text messages, games and music??? [C Scout Japan via Kotaku]

Are You This Douchebag?

matt buchanan — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:00:00 EDT

Suburbanites need not venture further, since your torpid bodies have grown into your automobiles. City dwellers, this is how you probably look to everyone else, stumbling around with your iPhone.

What's the most embarrassing thing you've done while walking and Twittering about how that stupid barista yelled at you for using your phone at the counter and the coffee isn't really even that great anyway and crapnuggets I ran past the 140 character limit but I need to change the song since I've already heard Kings of Leon today goddammit stupid shuffle? [WGN via Consumerist]

Hand-Blown BIC Pen Vase Holds a Single Daisy, Is Totally Not For Smoking Weed

John Mahoney — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:30:00 EDT

These vases are made by heating a BIC pen until it's soft and squishy and then blowing the water chamber like one would blow a piece in glass. Then it's ready to accept a single flower, which will drink from the cool waters below. But just like your massive skull bong is only for enjoying fine tobaccos, this, friends, is for flowers and flowers alone. Right? It's $29 shipped. [Design Boom via Product Dose]

Scan Toaster Prints Text, Photos From the Internet onto Your Bread

Sean Fallon — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:40:00 EDT

If you are the kind of person who rushes around in the morning, but always makes the time for toast, you will love the Scan Toaster printer concept by designer Sung Bae Chang. Details are scarce, but we do know that it connects to the internet via USB and is capable of printing images or text on bread using some sort of flexible "module" unit heated by a wire.

Each module can move 30-degrees vertically, realigning to burn out the image of your choice. That means you could read the news and eat breakfast in one compact fiber-filled unit. The Scan Toaster concept was good enough to make it as a finalist in the 2008 Electrolux Design Lab competition but, unfortunately, I don't see it popping up in my kitchen anytime soon. [Electrolux and Flickr via Reg Hardware via CrunchGear]

Experts: You Suck at Multi-Tasking, Hardcore

Matt Buchanan — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:45:22 EDT

Think you're awesome at handling 15 AIM conversations, listening to The RZA while watching Robocop, emailing pictures to your mom and working on a project at the office? Wrong. You suck so bad that you're costing the economy $650 billion a year according to analyst Jonathan B. Spira.

Here at Giz, we know not to rely just on analysts, but a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan agrees. He says, "Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes." Great job, screw-up. Apparently, "a core limitation [of your feeble brain] is an inability to concentrate on two things at once," according to the director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University.

But fear not, a solution is on the way: "Brain scans, social networking algorithms and other new tools should help provide a deeper understanding of the limits and the potential of the human brain," so your corporate taskmasters will soon know how to wring every last drop of work out of it before five o' clock rolls around. Awesome. – Matt Buchanan

Slow Down, Brave Multitasker, and Don't Read This in Traffic [NYT]