"When a product is connected to the network it has two brains. A little local one that can perform cheap calculation, and a big one in the network that can do potentially anything at all: massive facial recognition, searching all of Amazon, advanced artificial neural networks, whatever." It's great that Matt's writing so much again - but "little brain, big brain" is a great explanation of the concept.

"If you can demonstrate that McDonald’s only introduces the sandwich when pork prices are lower than usual, then you’re but a couple logical steps from concluding that McDonald’s is essentially exploiting a market imbalance between what normal food producers are willing to pay for hog meat at certain times of the year, and what Americans are willing to pay for it once it is processed, molded into illogically anatomical shapes, and slathered in HFCS-rich BBQ sauce." The McRib as arbitrage of pork prices.

"Little Printer lives in your home, bringing you news, puzzles and gossip from friends. Use your smartphone to set up subscriptions and Little Printer will gather them together to create a timely, beautiful mini-newspaper." Little Printer sees the light of day. So, so excited to finally see it in the world; can't wait to see it in other homes. (And: beautiful work on the design - industrial, brand, web, the whole package).

"“coding” is not the only concrete skill required “to work at the crossover of creative and technology”. Especially if you want to make an actual thing that lives outside of a screen." I'll gladly concede Josh's point. This is very much worth reading; if anything, the only reason I focused on code was the original W+K focus on that, likely because that's the technology they're interested in. Good points all, though.

"These are clearly black market frankenproducts - made from a combination of surplus mobile phone components and car alarm key rings. I wonder how much they actually cost to manufacture. I wonder if the bits are stolen." Ben Bashford on the magic of Shanzai. And, of course, when a video camera is eight pounds, it's no longer precious, and you start doing weird things with it: Youtube is full of examples.

Blimey. Spotify want to own social music - linking out to Facebook and creating a more public Spotify profile - but, more to the point, they also want to own music playing, by making your own library available inside the Spotify app... and even offering wireless sync of your own music.

"What we didn't predict was how cheap storage (and other computer-ish) improvements would change the market. That's called the "X Market"—it's all about how the product you're introducing changes the marketplace you're selling into rather than how much of the existing market you'll be able to capture Had it not been for the X Market, hard drives would be specialty items today... Many consumers feel cramped with 100 GB of storage. Home entertainment systems are available with over 10 TB of storage. A consequence of super-cheap storage, at the same time that it's what makes said storage a viable product."

"With limited influence, unlimited hands in the pie, a low barrier to critique, and the perception of triviality, frontend engineers are the janitors of software development. Rather than cleaning up trash, the boulder they toil beneath is skew: the distance between team member's conceptions of a project." This really feels very familiar: it's the most under-appreciated art in the stack of software development, and the one that takes the brunt of the crap.

Lots of great stuff in this talk from Mike Kuniavsiky from this year's ETech. I like this explanation of (the confusingly-titled) "avatar", and some of his points on service design are excellent. Lots of meat in here; make sure you get the PDF.

"For use on days with uninteresting skies." I should like one of those very much.

"MOBY is a spout cover that brightens up the bath while keeping baby’s head safe from bumps." As swissmiss pointed out: adorable.

A first, rather long, post on the S&W Blog, in which I talk to Jack about a project he's been working on for a while.

"Are all these industries in such terminal decline that they’re grasping around for any revenue stream or way out? Or is this the converged future, where business and culture are one and the same? Not only can’t I tell whether things are real or marketing vehicles any more, I can’t even determine what’s being marketed." Chris has a point.

"...if the future of games is to become entertainment services, then are subscriptions going to fall away in favour of upfront payments and free updates?" Some good thinking from Duncan.

"Most usability experts will agree, Dr. Donald Norman’s book “The Design of Everyday Things” is required reading for any aspiring user experience or product designer. But it’s also an excellent resource for game creators – even if it’s less commonly found on studio bookshelves." NGMoco's blog, on POET, and what it means for game designers. Not rocket science, but really well explained to a non-specialist audience.

"I do think that during the coming years we will continue to try to bridge the gap between simulated musicianship and real musicianship. That said, the path there is not obvious: As the interactivity moves closer to real instrumental performance, the complexity/difficulty explodes rapidly. The challenge is to move along this axis in sufficiently tiny increments, so that the experience remains accessible and compelling for many millions of people. It’s a hard, hard problem. But that’s part of what makes it fun to work on." There is loads in this interview that is awesome; it was hard to choose a quotation. Rigopulos is super-smart.

"Monopoly, in spite being the classiest of all board games, unfortunately is packaged just as boringly and uncreatively as every other garbage board game on the shelves. So, I decided to repackage it... turning the class up to 11." Very pretty, but I miss the original typeface: the 30s-style sans-serif was very important to the tone.

"The moisturiser, far from the trusted friend and counsellor of the first reading, is The Picture of Dorian Gray." Alex tries to read that Nivea ad that's all over stations right now. It is confusing.

"We will both have to take responsibility for our consumption. A product that keeps working for longer uses less-resources in the end. The key ingredient to all this is quality. To make something well, you know, the best you can do. To go the extra mile that it takes to do that. Every stitch, every zip, every little feature considered. The weakest points made strong. Then, and only then, have we made something that will last the test of time. Guaranteed for a minimum 10 years. Each product will come with a hand me down contract. You will sign who you want to leave the product to. This is legally binding."

Adam's a smart guy and all, but god, most of this just really rubs me the wrong way. He's correct about business (or rather, he's correct about many of the things I hate about Web Entrepreneurship at the moment); I don't really think his views on product design ring true, though.

"The future is terribly easy to predict. It’s predicting the instantiation that’s hard."

"The Mugen (infinite) series of toys from Bandai Asovision has now brought us the Mugen PeriPeri, a keychain toy that aims to replicate the pleasure of opening a package for the first time. Snacks, boxes, and other tear-open packages tend to reveal good things, so perhaps experiencing this sensation boosts endorphins and sends us into pleasure mode." Tear-off wrapping you can tear forver.

"At its core, what should this product be best at? When users think of this product, what is the central feature(s) that should spring to mind? Everything else is distraction, clutter, cruft."

"Marketing is a strategic function about delivering customers what they want. It isn’t a jazz hands and rubber chicken and t-shirts. It is the heart of successful companies..."

“I decided to create Flatshare fridge because there is nothing more disgusting than a dirty fridge in a shared flat,” he says. “At the time, I was living in such a flat!” Amazing.

Handbag hire. No, really. Handbag hire.

Leah Buley's IA Summit talk. Lots to take away from - a bit of a kick up the arse for me in regard to my failings as a designer. Ah well.

"I think we need to change our philosophy of what a magazine is... We need to reinvent ourselves as a luxury item that people want and are willing to pay for... How long can we buy at a premium and sell at a discount? We can’t."

"If the intangible human benefits of communicating through our devices are the rewards, it’s the physical things we produce and consume that are the costs." Great expansion on the Homegrown project.

"I always want to see more marketing that solves problems, and liked the idea that a loyalty scheme could solve more problems than the fake “I have to pay for ten out of ten coffees rather than nine out of ten” kind of problem."

"LINC is leased to the user as a service, not a product." Lovely concept design, especially for the process of migration from an old device to a new one.

Joel Johnson interviews a designer of some "classic" Space Lego, from c.1990. I had a least one of these sets - it was one of my favourite Leg sets to build; really well thought through.

Radiopopper: a prototype, low-budget rf flash trigger. The target market: better than the Chinese Gadget Infinity, not in the same league as Pocket Wizard. Interesting to see hardware emerging to fill a niche - namely, Strobist readers.

'"The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, "We don't have a product yet."'

"What else are you going to do with something you’ve just made, other than use it?" Empowering people as creators makes them more likely to look after/recyle a product.

"It's hard to exaggerate how happy this makes me. It's a beautiful answer to the variety of wiping cloths we use day-to-day, and the place each occupies on a "dirt gradient" from snowy white bath towels to the pile of old rags under the kitchen sink."

"A friend once said to me that Canons are the best cameras available designed by engineers, and that Nikons are the best cameras one can buy designed by photographers. There may well be some truth to this aphorism." I like the aspects Michael focuses on.

"I've just been mulling over why product design firms, which create value, don’t seem to be perceived as valuable as marketing design firms."

"Originally, I started a generic post on the business or marketing books I’ve read this year. But there’s only really one book I want to write about, because I think the ideas in it are incredibly important to anyone in marketing or product design. "

"I've been thinking about a number of new product ideas lately. In doing so, I've been trying to come up with a way more structured way of evaluating them. Here's a first attempt at defining that." Evan Williams on product.

"Lotus Notes, an application whose awkward integration of multiple feature sets I’ve only ever heard spoken about with violent disgust, promotes itself as freakish software. This is a campaign that can only make sense in the ... world of enterprise soft

"With a Leica, all you hear is the shutter, which is the quietest on the market. The result—and this may be the most seductive reason for the Leica cult—is that a photograph sounds like a kiss." Wonderful New Yorker piece on the cult of Leica.

"Here are some of the common pitfalls that lead to failure when building social web applications."

"The challenge is to create the openness needed for good ideas to surface, while simultaneously cultivating the feedback and criticism necessary to resolve open issues." Tell me about it.

Great write-up and series of notes on Bill Buxton's book, by Michal Migurski

Remarkable piece from Adam Greenfield on experience design. The second time I've seen the Saarinen quotation pop-up, too. A must-read.

The best products came from those odd teams that managed to compromise. The technology was clumsy and the emotional benefits of the software shaky. But it was better than the crap that customer had to put up with before.

This presentation is on how a new generation wants social, creative, networked products, and how design can help not by identifying tasks to be productively performed, but experiences to be deepened and made fun. S&W on fine, fine form.

How 'done' something looks should match how 'done' something is.

"That’s what it comes down to, again, after all this time: Regular phone buyers are Windows users, trying to get value for their buck..." true - but regular phone buyers also tend to be iPod buyers.

"The Romans knew all about productivity. Of course, their version of Getting Things Done would be one word: 'slaves.'"