A lot of effort goes into making websites that enable user interactions effortlessly, are visually appealing, provide ease-of-navigation and can be easily interpreted. Life goes on as usual. The birds are chirping, the trees are blooming, the sun is shining but all of a sudden, darkness befalls. Welcome to the age of mobile devices where website navigation is limited to much smaller dimensions and resolutions than those of the computer screens. Thus, the biggest challenge is how to retain the same experience on both these interfaces. However, it is not as bad as it sounds.
With Google launching a voice search to compete with Siri on the iOS platform, and Apple being set to launch Siri even on the new Mac OS, I’m led to question the role of such voice based search assistants in the future of information retrieval.
You may have noticed that the Google search results page looks a bit different now-a-days. Google is now in the process of rolling out a new version of search results pages for desktop web browsers. Google says that it has redesigned the results page for two reasons. The first is to create a simpler design that’s consistent across phones, tablets and desktop web browsers. But more importantly, it is to make room for Google’s Knowledge-graph that the company launched in May 2012.
Ever wondered what is causing your 2 year old kid/niece/nephew
to behave in a particular way during a day/night? Why did she start to cry last
night? Well, there is now an app that can deduce that for you. Monica Rogati
and her husband have created an app called as the Baby I/O. This app can
capture information that indicates the baby’s activities throughout the day and
uses that data to analyze various things.
Considered by many as the world’s leading expert on user-friendly design and web usability, Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group, had recently slammed Windows 8’s interface, claiming Microsoft has gone soft; introducing an operating system interface that fails both novice and experienced computer users alike.
The President may be the decider but data played a significant role in making decisions during the 2012 campaign. An effort to "measure every single thing in this campaign" led to a massive collection of information about voters. The collection was organized in one huge system so as not to repeat the mistakes of the previous campaign. In 2008, the data was contained in numerous databases using different data models. This limited the inter-operation among the different data sets, preventing the campaign from fully utilizing their data and created inefficiencies. By