Heatmap Simulator for webpages

Someone came up with an algorythm to show what people look at on your webpage.
Question is what the algorythm is based on, yet so far the results look stunning and agreeable. Very much reminds me of Martin Wattenberg's click-heat-map from about 8 years ago. With the difference that now, human input becomes redundant for this one.

feng-gui.com via Jonathan

iPhone = iPod?

I pretty much had anough of the hype already. Thanks god we have a new toy that everyone wants and everyone who got one or not will give a shrug to 4 weeks later. I AM an apple fan. After 10 years of PC/Mac experience, I am pretty clear about it, but what the hell makes the iPhone so special. Yes, I can prevent a few pocket calls, which seem to be happening on some phones, yet I dont own one of those, so no extra feat for me. Yes I can flip the addressbook up and down easily and it looks COOOOL. Christ, I am not surprised noone builds a usable simple phone for $50, cause everyone (& the media) seems to be nuts about graphical features and high priced gadgets. Haven't we seen what happens to high-prices gadgets with the PS3. So it's an iPod and a web browser and a phone. What shall I do with my iPod? Doesn't also most other phones have storage capability like iPhone already? The Prada phone looked great as well, yet I avoided it.
The iPod was groundbreaking with it's harddrive use for storage, it exceeded any product on the marked by 10-fold. The iPhone has an elaborated touchscreen(if it really works that much better) and a nice browser display ability, but definitely does NOT re-invent the phone, nor do I think it is the phone that everybody needs, I rather get myself a Motorola Moto for £27.

extelligence

Yes,

this:

. Something really important is going on. Human beings seem to
>> advance by externalizing functions of consciousness. What we're
>> doing now maybe is externalizing meaning. (

is how we got to extelligence a while back, realizing that mediation was no longer the key, but a process in which mediation itself was no longer a conscious act by human beings.

It is nice to see it put so simple. And true. As to the fact that it is important, yes, we know, but for whom?

Weinberger's new book -& Do we get it sorted discussion?

My friend Rob van Kranenburg just let me know about a new Weinberger book.
This is what he sent me to point our some of Weinberger's comments on how we chart information and structure knowledge:

The book is called Everything is Miscellaneous.  The overall idea
>> is we are a really well organized species.  We like to organize
>> things really neatly.  But whether it's a kitchen or a library we
>> almost always have stuff that doesn't fit.  So we create a category
>> called miscellaneous.  And if it gets too big than your
>> organization failed.  What the book suggests is that as we digitize
>> everything the miscellaneous category is going to eat the entire
>> chart and that's a good thing.  It's good for business, it's good
>> for science, it's good for education, it's good for politics . . .
>> In general that's a good thing, although it's quite counterintuitive.
>>
>> When one person gets to organize his or her way of thinking, one
>> person, one way, it's incredibly limited.  It seems like the very
>> nature and purpose of reality is to keep things apart. We’ve been
>> organizing stuff for thousands of years by obeying the two basic
>> principles of reality.  Which is you cannot have two things in the
>> same spot at the same time no matter how hard you try.
>>
>> The second rule is that everything has to be in a place.

Plus:

>> 3 types of implications for all of this:
>>
>> 1. We are in a process of making the world more complex after
>> having to keep it simple in order to organize it.  We don't have to
>> keep it simple anymore.  And it's an enormous relief not to have to
>> keep it simple anymore.  Complexity makes us smarter.
>>
>> 2. The world's greatest expert doesn't matter because he refuses to
>> engage in a public negotiation of knowledge (for example,
>> Wikipedia).  Which is what happens when the authority vanishes and
>> we are only left with each other and we engage with one another.
>> This is how we get to the best truth we can manage.  This is
>> through the public negotiation of knowledge.
>>
>> 3. Something really important is going on.  Human beings seem to
>> advance by externalizing functions of consciousness.  What we're
>> doing now maybe is externalizing meaning.  (In a Heidegger sense)
>> The connection of things enriches them and lets them have the
>> context in which they are what they are. They are there for the
>> next generations to make sense of to see if there are connections
>> between two things that are tagged the same way.
>>
>> The semantic web is adding meaning to this collection of chaotic
>> pieces that we have.  Every link we make adds semantics, adds
>> meaning to things in piles that we are able to mine and make sense
>> of.  And the amazing thing is, it's all ours.  This is not done by
>> someone else no matter how wise or smart they are.  They can do
>> this too.  They can add into this and it becomes ours.  It becomes
>> our way of understanding the world.  We've never had that ever
>> before and now we do.

From my point of view there are quite a few things out there, which make
the whole "meta tagging and databasing and del.i.c.i.o.u.s-ing everything
brings us closer to the truth" a bit doubtful.

Connections to other people is important as this is the only
'thing' we can justifiably compare ourselves to and the only thing that
defines us might not even be that, but the actions that evolve out of this,
so is it even the connections that matter?
If we keep objects or spaces with memory, then its the memory of our
relations to other people (or teh absence of it) that makes the meaning.
Ergo: those objects are and can only be alient to us or so simplistic that
it will always escape the individual dataset or connection.
Which basically means that history failed, and looking at the destructive
and simplistic nature of history's record, i might actually be up to
something.

Now for Weinberger's view, though i like his theories, just arguing that we
actually are clever and can finally bring order to the universe , if we
just ALL start putting things in order together or embrace a complexity
model for that matter, is again just
contemporary urban myth. We can't. Life is too much in flux and too liquid.
It splits, changes just by looking at it. Stability and order are ideas
based on the fear that our very existence is not of bigger value. Any
attempted system of order
give us the illusion that our way to see the world matters and that we
are able to  understand and stability
gives us the illusion that we  are not rushing towards death and decay at
least for a moment.

Also mentioning the semantic web doesn't help. Those guys can never agree.
Google doesn't incorporate it because of a disagreeing structure and their
corporate agenda.

so far my five pennies, anyone else?

Adobe challenges Microsoft

As Microsoft wouldnt have enough to worry after the Vista launch, which innevitably shows far behind the company is regarding OS development, Adobe shows plans to turn it's Flash software in to a full blown application development platform, that would run on any OS(apple, linux, windows, even windows CE).
Big benefit, the OS doesn't matter anymore, and the software it comes with neither. If I can use the flash apps anywhere, why bother with Microsoft dependend products.
If they can pull it off, respect! Despite my restrained respect for Flash due to being the only software that crashes on my mac and PC (cross-platform so to say) and the ever changing interface, which is far from simplistic or intuitive, being able to use Flash apps on and offline and in any browser was always one of the mayor benefits of the product.
It has the community, let's see if it can be where Java failed.

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via Mobile Opportunity

Toyota sells new car in Second Life

Toyota held simultaneous launches of two new Scion models today. One at the Chicago Auto Show, the other in Second Life. Both the redesigned Scion xB and brand-new xD are being offered for 300 Linden dollars ($1 USD) for use in the virtual world; a nominal fee toward becoming one of Toyota's virtual "trendsetter" promoters. The cars are being sold at kiosks in Toyota's 'Scion City' district of Second Life, where the automaker hopes to also sell unused real estate to young entrepreneurs. The idea is to grow Scion City into a bustling promotional "cultural" mecca. via http://www.joystiq.com

Extelligence Article - 15MB of fame

Achilles Kameas, editor of Convivio Web-Magazine gave me the opportunity to write a few words about Extelligence design and the future of community media. It couldn't have come to a better time as I couldn't find the time to write about other things than my new 80DAYS project for ages. Read it, let me know what you think.
PS. the navi for the article is on the top of the page.