Seesaw water extraction design

This design is simply genius. Will write more in detail later. Here is the link to the article. Ultimate goal of design to extract underground water in remote locations.

Young innovators without HCI degree

I recently came across a article on rediff.com about the various innovation by young Indian children. I was amazed by thinking and innovation by all the young children. Bear in mind they are some of them are just grade 1 students. Below are the pics of some of the innovations I found really interesting. Please click here for the link to the complete article. Enjoy. Picture courtsey: Rediff.com. In the first picture which is Young Ananth from grade 1 in Tamil Nadu state in South India, describes his idea for shoes which can help to vacuum the floor automatically by sucking the dust. Someone has been observing mother as a user group and ideating from childhood :)

Second picture is about grade 6 students from Vasant Valley School( my home town Delhi:)). A cycle which can help to clean roads with the help of two brooms attached to rear wheel of the cycle. As the person rotates the paddle the roads gets cleaned. I think this idea has evolved since Delhi state has big cleaning trucks which do a similar job but use power instead of manual labor. This is purely my understanding, the team may have to come to this idea without having thought/observed the trucks on the road. The last picture is from grade 10 students in Gujrat( a state in West India). It's basically a device to find misplaced objects, quite good observation skills.

These students are not HCI masters or doctorate student. Most of them are still trying to figure out future direction for their life but their thirst of innovation is driven by strong observation skills and improvisation using available means. In terms of software industry we can equate improvisation to computer imaginative skills. Good job by every child who participated in this competition.

Thanks for your time.

8pen - New Android keyboard application

Downloaded the first paid application on Android market today - 8pen. I found the concept of re-inventing the keyboard on a mobile device quite interesting considering that's one thing that frustrates me about HTC incredible. My concern as a user is about the learning curve. From this video the learning curve would be a issue, some comments while downloading the app were also concerning learning curve. Interesting thing would be to observe how the user experience would be clashing with this form of innovation. Aspect of user experience in question how the user react to the learning curve associated with innovation. My friend Ray Matsil posted this link on his facebook since he uses facebook as a form of sharing innovative things online. Price for innovation = 1.58$. :)

Elegant presentation

It's been long time since last post. Time itself has been a issue, I will try to blog more. One strategy could be to keep the words less.So here I am, I liked this presentation for the way the message is conveyed and it's association with everyday objects. link