mutant's musings

What am I working on? Project "Titus"

A great way to build software is to start out by solving your own problems. You'll be the target audience and you'll know what's important and what's not. That gives you a great head start on delivering a breakout product... We decided to clear our schedule and have a go at building "Titus". We consciously decided not to look at what everyone else was doing and instead build something that we would want to use.

Work has begun on "Titus", a UI layer to replace the entire Windows Mobile stack, similar to what HTC and SPB's Mobile Shell had done. This experiment will produce a fully-working prototype (native application) that replicates the exact HTC Touch Diamond UI using a new graphics and animation engine, with a widgets runtime that can display "mini-apps". "Mini-apps" are based on Javascript + xHTML + CSS and uses CellID, Location Area Code to make them "location-aware". Example, if you are in US, depending on which states, the RSS widget on the screen will display local news. When you are at the airport, another widget will display flight time and weather. All these done without the user ever needing to press a single key. Intelligence in software.

I do not want to spoil it by showing the screenshots and videos now, but I am very excited about what you are going to see... It would be many times better than the earlier iPhone UI. Sleek, silky-smooth animation and better still, integration with native functions! Watch new videos next week.

With this experiment, the native code will then be ported to Symbian and Linux. So far, Symbian porting has proved to be very satisfactory, in terms of ease of port and performance.

When I started "Titus", the plan is to keep it REAL SIMPLE, reduced features but emphasize on low-level code optimization and performance. Once this is done, building the other features in my "wishlist" becomes alot more easier. Most of the time you spend in thinking about features is wasted on things that just don't matter. If you can cut out the work and thinking that just don't matter, you'll achieve productivity you've never imagined. Sometimes, Less is More...

p/s: Some of you have been shown the video of an application built on top of "Titus". You are excited, psyched, yes... I hear you, but I promise you BETTER.... :-) Bookmark this... 2 more new videos coming your way... the UI rocks!

Monetizing mobile widgets - Why wait for FLASH LITE?

The video I shown earlier about this mobile widget application, here's a demonstration of how ads can be inserted and displayed. Ads are delivered in streams, compressed and downloaded during IDLE time.

This project is written from the ground up with a new display engine - "Akebono". With Akebono, we could achieve the same visually stunning result like FLASH on your desktop using J2ME? So why would you wait for FLASH LITE? Seize the opportunity now.

Let's see some factuals... Europe Flash Lite's penetration is still not high enough to whet the creative juices of mobile agencies in the way that its big brother has become a standard platform for online marketing.

"Flash Lite isn't hugely interesting for advertising at the moment, but it's coming onto the radar," says Mark Hardwick, CEO of mobile agency Ymogen. "It's not widely enough deployed, so it's not well understood. There's a chicken-and-egg situation: we need it to be more widely used for us to bother with it..."

In a nutshell, FLASH LITE is just not ready for prime time yet. Despite widespread penetration in Japan and deals with all the major handset manufacturers, it's unclear how much Flash Lite content has actually found its way into the hands of consumers.

Result as good if not better than FLASH LITE...

The second idea is always the important one

“Over the years, I’ve learned that the first idea you have is irrelevant. It’s just a catalyst for you to get started. Then you figure out what’s wrong with it and you go through phases of denial, panic, regret. And then you finally have a better idea and the second idea is always the important one.”

Arthur van Hoff, Cofounder, Marimba (and other companies)

And CEO has this to add...

Investors don’t invest based on the state of the economy. Investors invest in people, technologies, potential opportunities. It is all about taking calculated risks…

Assuming that you have something of interest and with great potential, if an investor is hesitant on investing in your startup, it is because there is just too much risk associated with your deal… You don’t have the right set of people, and/or there are no (sufficient) barriers to entry, and/or your company isn’t properly structured. Or maybe your investor community just “suck”; not all investor communities are created equal (i.e. not all investor communities get it).

But don’t give up… Remember that raising money is a very slow, painful, and adaptive process, and that the second idea is always the important one.

Flash Lite and Java ME, like Clinton & Obama

No... not from me... it's from Hinkmond Wong's recent entry.

Roger Y. sent me a pointer to the recent news that Sony Ericsson is creating an unholy alliance between Flash Lite and Java ME (see: Franken-mobile-technology).  Pshaw!  Who needs that when you can already run Flash-like UIs on your Java ME cell phone using TWUIK?

See:

Who needs Flash Lite when you have Java ME and TWUIK?

Now that's cool.  And, all you need is Java ME technology on your phone.  No need for any unholy alliance! :-)

Picsel Technologies Ltd - Company to watch

The list of accolades won this year

TWUIK Transition Effects on BREW

This is old video which I forgot to post. Here's a look at our effects engine running on BREW devices.

Screenshots - Interstitial Ads in "Mobile Widgets"

Some screenshots to share here before I post the videos. The screen captures below show "interstitial ads" delivered over the network to our "mobile widget" application. The ads are dressed up with some nice effects, very animated and each ads is about 3-5 seconds long. The ads are compressed using a proprietary algo and packaged in a manner that can be downloaded during your application's IDLE time.

The Ads Display is driven by a "player" component. This player decodes the ads package content and interpret and render the content on the fly. Ads is done via simple script and consists of XML data. Ads are fetched in the background.

There are 3 types of ads

• "skyscraper" - this type ads occupy the full screen
• "button" - this ads displays an image links. The image can be irregular-shaped as well, and you can choose to appear anywhere on screen
• "streams" - this ad is a text/image stream and is typically shown on bottom-side or top of screen
• "overlay" - animation strip that is displayed on top of the underlying UI. You can set opacity, layout and positioning; video can also be embedded with transparent settings and "overlay".

I am still tinkering with other ways to display ads.

Mobile Widget (Update 01/05/08) - with new "TinyWeb" widget

I am delighted to share with you this latest work on "mobile widgets", this time incorporating a run-time web rendering engine and new UI for "fast search" (we coin this "Leaping UI"). This version has a very early prototype of the "Zoom-able UI". Have a look at the video this weekend. There's also a new widget "TinyWeb" added to the application. The widget displays "transcoded" web content and rendered faithfully. Transcoding compresses the web content down to bite-sized for faster download over the network. The server is hosted by Media Temple, right, that is my new host :-)

Notesworthy features in this demo are as follows...

1. Zoom-able UI
2. Leaping Search UI
3. Interstitial ads (see the difference and tell me whether they look better than FLASH-based ads)
4. Display faithfully-produced BBC, CNN website with zoom view - I really like the Zoom feature which is totally different from OPERA's or ACCESS or SkyFire. Considering it's running on Java handset, the performance is better than I thought. The heavy lifting is done on the server and compressed for optimal delivery over the network. I wouldn't call this a browser feature as yet, but it's an experiment to display rich content using transcoding techniques and rich animation and effects to reinforce the user experience
5. Includes a chinese language input method

A Native Input System for CJK languages... I'll post more screenshots later...

Yes. I know I mentioned earlier about the "TWUIK player" (an interpreted scripting engine for UI) video. Don't worry, these videos will be uploaded together this weekend.

Watch this space.

Seamless Document Viewer

Xerox Parc's J2ME application designed to help solve the problem of viewing documents on small screens (cell phones and other mobile devices), this app automatically segments a document into blocks and displays the keyphrase for each block. The keyphrases are intended to help users navigate to sections of interest quickly. The cell phone demo we saw used a fairly intuitive touchscreen interface that included an interesting way to pan and zoom in and out of sections of a document. Because documents viewed through the application need to be processed and analyzed in advance, it is better suited for viewing PDF's and static documents, not frequently updated web pages.

Panning and Zooming document view

Source: Oreilly's Radar

A new rendering core

As some of you have probably find out from the video gallery that I am dabbling with a new rendering architecture, particularly suited for photo-realistic image synthesis. It is written as a core set of Java libraries and I am experimenting it on J2ME phones. I have compiled this with Sun's plain vanilla JVM sources and tried out some advanced image rendering stuff. This new rendering core is built around an "extensible" ray tracing module and is created for experimenting with global illumination algo and new surface shading models. This should add more realism to next-generation UI as computing resources on mobile phones are getting more powerful and handset roadmap is accelerating at a ferocious pace.

Some of the features in the current release includes

• Lightmap generation (render to texture)
• Surface shaders (e.g. Glass, Anisotropic ward, Shiny Diffuse, Phong, etc)
• Camera Lenses (FishEye, Spherical, Pin Hole)
• Direct Illumination with soft shadows from area lights
• Camera Motion Blur
• Depth of field
• Quasi-Monte Carlo sampling architecture: all sampling operations are fully deterministic
• Multi-pixel image filtering
• Adaptive Anti-Aliasing
• Primitives

I'll post some screens later.

Adobe's Open Screen Project

Latest from Adobe...

Adobe Systems is trying to overcome the issues plaguing the fragmented mobile content space by partnering with several key companies to develop a solution for delivering rich web and video content across a variety of devices.

Called the Open Screen Project, Adobe--along with ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Intel, LG Electronics, Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and others--will enable Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR to be consistent across desktop computers, mobile devices and set-top boxes. The group hopes this will make it easier for developers and content companies to deliver a streamlined user experience.

In an interview with FierceMobileContent, Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for mobile and devices at Adobe, said that to help jumpstart this initiative Adobe is going to remove all license restrictions on swift file format and FLV/F4V specifications, and remove all license fees on embedded players. "Just as Flash player is free on the desktop, it will be available to all partners and the industry at large," Murarka said. In addition, Adobe will publish all device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player and publish the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and AMF protocol for data services.

The first implementation based on this initiative will likely make its debut in mid-2009. Flash Lite will transition to this new format and will eventually be replaced, Murarka said.

Source: FierceWireless

CommonCraft

I really like this company "Common Craft".I love the way they merge visuals from the analog world to tell stories digitally. Look at their latest project where they explain Twitter in plain english, bringing clarity to complexity.

Explaining Twitter

"We use video and paper to make complex ideas easy to understand. We present subjects 'in plain English' using short, unique and understandable videos in a format we call Paperworks."

- Common Craft

"Bit Literacy"

    "...the Elements of Style for the digital age."     - Seth Godin

Bit Literacy, the book by Mark Hurst, shows how to solve email and info overload. I bought this book early January on a business trip to Asia.

In this age of infinite bits, the book is worth its weight in gold and it describes how to manage e-mail, todos, photos, a media diet, and other sources of stress for people today. this book is worth its weight in gold. "Bit Literacy" also helps you understand the problem of a huge amount of "bits" of information flooding your life (and inbox!) and how to manage your time wisely and start taking over your inbox. Clear your mail box, clear your mind. :-)

Top 100 UX blogs

Here's the list... some of my favorites are featured.

The Top 10

These blogs are the best of the best when it comes to user-centered discussions.

1. Signal vs. Noise: Written by 37signals, the makers of simple, elegant tools like Ta-da List and Basecamp, this blog discusses up-to-the-minute information on design, experience, simplicity, and more.
2. 456 Berea Street: Visit this very popular blog for insight into the world of web standards, accessibility, and usability.
3. ./with Imagination: As a leader in user interface engineering, Dustin Diaz has a lot of knowledge to offer in this arena.
4. Functioning Form: Luke Wroblewski’s Functioning Form offers extensive information on user interface design.
5. This is Broken: This is Broken features a round-up and commentary on user experiences, good and bad.
6. Adaptive Path: Adaptive Path strives to create experiences that “improve people’s lives,” and they love to share what they’ve learned with others.
7. Boxes and Arrows: The subject matter focuses on interaction design and other closely related topics, but this blog sets an example because it’s a peer-written journal composed of mainly user-generated content.
8. A List Apart: A List Apart’s insightful articles cover important issues in design and development with an emphasis on web standards.
9. UX Matters: This web magazine delivers top-notch content about strategies for improving user experience.
10. UX Magazine: For this magazine, “user experience is everything.” Check it out for a round-up of all that’s important to enhancing user experience.

A prototype TWUIK player

A TWUIK runtime player that can interpret TWUIK instructions, render and display TWUIK UI at runtime. We mentioned this briefly few weeks ago. See how dynamic scripting, styling and data can be changed on the fly at runtime and see how you can apply transitions and effects real-time via scripting. Video to be posted next Monday weekend 02/05/08.

Interface vs Features...

Cell phones do all kinds of stuff - making phones calls, texting, web browsing, contact management, music, photos and videos - but they do it very badly by forcing you to press lotsa of tiny buttons, navigate diverse heterogeneous interfaces and squint at a tiny screen. "Every body hates their phones"... and that's a good thing, this presents an opportunity. But handset makers are adding more and more capabilities to their phones, while the physical design and user interface continued to rely on unwieldy physical buttons. They are trying to be everything to everyone using an outmoded design that relied on keypads. The software, in turn, had to work with the layout of the physical buttons. And for anyone looking to watch movies and video, the screens were almost always too small. The result: clumsy hardware married to lousy software, new features without a new form.

Image Retargeting - "Content-Aware" Image Resize

Content resizing is important especially when it comes to small screen devices. Panning and zooming are possible solutions to overcome the limitation of the phone's screen.

Standard image scaling is not sufficient since it is oblivious to the image content and typically can be applied only uniformly. Cropping is limited since it can only remove pixels from the image periphery. More effective resizing can only be achieved by considering the image content and not only geometric constraints. One clever technique to solve the resizing of images is to use to "analyze the content".

Recently, there is a growing interest in image retargeting that seeks to change the size of the image while maintaining the important features intact, where these features can be either detected top-down or bottom-up. Top down methods use tools such as face detectors [Viola and Jones 2001] to detect important regions in the image, whereas bottom-up methods rely on visual saliency methods [Itti et al. 1999] to construct a visual saliency map of the image. Once the saliency map is constructed, cropping can be used to display the most important region of the image. Suh et al. [2003] proposed automatic thumbnail creation, based on either a saliency map or the output of a face detector. The large image is then cropped to capture the most salient region in the image. Similarly, Chen et al. [2003] considered the problem of adapting images to mobile devices. In their approach the most important region in the image is automatically detected and transmitted to the mobile device. Liu et al. [2003] also addressed image retargeting to mobile devices, suggesting to trade time for space. Given a collection of regions of interest, they construct an optimal path through these regions and display them serially, one after the other, to the user. Santella et al. [2006] use eye tracking, in addition to composition rules to crop images intelligently. All these methods achieve impressive results, but rely on traditional image resizing and cropping operations to actually change the size of the image.

While doing research on "liquid resizing", I stumbled upon this video, presented at SIGGRAPH 2007.

Basically, the author uses a technique for "seam carving". A seam is a connected path of low energy pixels in an image. Seam carving is an image resizing algorithm developed by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir. This algorithm alters the dimensions of an image not by scaling or cropping, but rather by intelligently removing pixels from (or adding pixels to) the image that carry little importance. By repeatedly carving out or inserting seams in one direction we can change the aspect ratio of an image. By applying these operators in both directions we can retarget the image to a new size. The selection and order of seams protect the content of the image, as defined by the energy function. Seam carving can also be used for image content enhancement and object removal.

The importance of a pixel is generally measured by its contrast when compared with its neighbor pixels, but other measures may be used. Additionally, it's possible to define (or autodetect) areas of high importance (faces, buildings, etc.) in which pixels may not be deleted, and conversely, areas of zero importance which should be removed first. From this information, the algorithm detects seams (continuous lines of pixels joining opposite edges of the image) which have the lowest importance, and deletes those. This shrinks the image by one horizontal or vertical line, depending on which direction the seam ran.

Seam carving can also be run in reverse by adding interpolated pixels along the lowest energy seam.

With this technique, it's now possible to reduce or enlarge pictures by a wide range, while still retaining details. In normal image scaling, it's often not possible to scale about factor greater than 2 or less than 0.5, without losing much of the images quality.

Content amplification. On the right: a combination of seam carving and scaling amplifies the content of the original image (left).

Explaining products to your customers

This is really funny...

Convergent Experiences, Diverse Devices

Peter Odum wrote about the 7 design considerations when designing for converged devices.

1. Our devices are an ecosystem.
2. Design for reasonable consistency.
3. For users, content drives convergence.
4. Intelligent discovery encourages adoption.
5. Don’t burden users with content formats, formatting and packaging of content.
6. Context, not just content, is king.
7. Redundancy is useful.

For which I would like to add... the mobile user's attention span is also a fragile commodity, easily lost if not stimulated. Network latency is a significant barrier between users and content. Engaging mobile content is consumed rapidly and with great frequency, therefore it must be timely and relevant, immediately available and easily accessible. However, simply making sure content is available is not enough. Mobile content cannot be flat and boring. On the contrary, it must make use of rich media, video, audio, high-fidelity graphics and animation to captivate, excite and entertain. And as users navigate the screen, it is critical that they are able to recognize where they are and what they can do. Moving from screen to screen can be disorienting if the context changes radically or often.

Fig 1. Use animation to help reinforce physical interactions, display new functionality and content, and ease dramatic changes in context. Watch this video here.

Fig 2. With limited real estate on the phone, ensure presentation of content is glance-able – designed to be read and understood quickly. Superfluous material should be avoided. Icons should be made bold, gradient-filled and simple. Text should large, readable and digestible. Items are spaced distinctly, such that relationships are clear and obvious. Alpha transparency can reduce clutter and visual noise and enhance visual appeal. Data and information should be lightweight, network friendly and presented in small, relevant bits.

Great experiences build great businesses. Choice-fatigued consumers are not looking for another product that hasn't taken their true needs and desires into consideration. They are looking for companies in which to believe and give their allegiance. They are looking for experiences that cater to their deep-seated desires. Companies intending to be relevant today must learn the art of creating experiences that genuinely engage their customers. By providing rich and visually appealing UI and more compelling mobile consumer experience, our solution can dramatically boost the consumption and stickiness of mobile content and applications.

Flash Content in Japan

Want to know what kind of FLASH LITE content is selling in Japan? Read this. Still mostly screensavers, ringtones and games.

Achieving your childhood dreams

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium... Pausch spoke with the theatrics of a showman, the wit of a master comic, and the eloquence of a statesman. He recalled his own childhood dreams, his life's goal to enable the dreams of others, and the lessons he learned and wanted to share over the 46 years of his life.

Pausch urged his audience to take great enjoyment and amusement doing whatever they pursue in life. "Have fun," he shouted. "For me, it's kind of like a fish talking about the importance of water. I don't know how to not have fun. I'm dying, and I'm having fun. And I am going to keep having fun every day I have left, because there is no other way of life. You just have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore." Clearly, Pausch chose Tigger.

• "Never give up."
• "Apologize when you screw up."
• "Focus on other people, not yourself."
• "Don't bail. The best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap."
• "Show gratitude."
• "Work hard. I got tenure a year early. Junior faculty members used to say to me: 'Wow, what's your secret?' I said: 'It's pretty simple. Call me any Friday night in my office at 10 o'clock, and I'll tell you.'"
• "Be prepared. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity."
• "Find the best in everybody. You might have to wait a long time, sometimes years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting. No matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everyone has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out."
• "Get a feedback loop and listen to it…it can be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is to listen to it. Anybody can get chewed out. It's the real person who says: 'Oh my God, you were right.' When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it."
• "Don't complain, just work harder."
• "Be good at something; it makes you valuable."

- BusinessWeek

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

iPhone Usability Report

inuseful's FREE report comparing usability of the iPhone with the S60, Windows Mobile UI.

Apple's iPhone hype machine is in overdrive. Steve knows how to gather a tiny team of brilliant young minds and work them half to death until they innovate beyond any reasonable expectations. He has the common sense to know what will ultimately find favor. And he has the hardened-steel man parts to take a chance and roll with it.

Read this usability report that was presented at the World Usability Day.

Download

Bill Buxton also has an exellent posting on the chronology of MultiTouch.

Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling from Innovationsforum on Vimeo.

Burnout

One of the effects of lowered IQ is that we get less done. When we accomplish less, we’re frustrated because we wanted to do more.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction

– Albert Einstein

Russell calls it quits

The former Yahoo Mobile evangelist's startup "Mowser" which does content adaptation and transcoding and formats it for the small screen, can't raise enough capital to fund his startup. I wonder how many people still believe or subscribe to this strategy of rendering websites for mobile web - that we have to re-engineer the web for mobile screens, not the un-tethered access to desktop-style content we are all familiar with.

"I don't actually believe in the 'Mobile Web' anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I'm talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn't happened, and now I'm sure it isn't going to.

In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP markup, no Javascript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I'm tired of wasting my time."

[ via moconews.net]

Also check out Michael Arrington's Hungry founder puts Mowser in deadpool (TechCrunch)

With increasing affordable mobile broadband and carriers building more bandwidth capacity, it is high time mobile applications move beyond the "half-baked", "dumped down" services and content that have come to associate the "WAPathy" syndrome, and have left the public under-whelmed. Apple gets it right with Mobile Safari Browser (desktop-grade browser for mobile phones), Opera Mini shows us the way and rakes up a billion page views, surely, all these point to signs that mobile applications and content are not dead.

Google App Engine

Some articles for light reading. Imagine hosting your application with unlimited capacity and processing power.

First thought, Google App Engine is actually more open than people first imagined. Read on...

• Google App Engine - A First Look | High Scalability
• TechCrunch Labs: Our Experience Building And Launching App On Google App Engine
• What does Google App Engine mean for Ajax developers?
• Google App Engine readies for brawl with Amazon
• Building Flash applications with Google App Engine
• Amazon Strikes Back At Google App Engine With EC2 Upgrade (AMZN, GOOG)
• Squaring the Cloud

This is music to your ears for mobile applications as lowering cost of deployment and server-side development means that you could spend more time and resources on client development and leave the scalability and capacity planning stuff to the experts to handle your server-side infrastructure.

Sending SMS and Delivering JavaME apps in US

2 great links on sending SMS and distributing J2ME apps in US.

• So, you want to send an SMS in the US?
• So, you want to deploy a J2ME app in the US?

Experience Innovation

User Experience is not just merely "beautifying" your UI. Today's applications require more than just engineers who can hack together some codes and put up a beautiful frontend. When we look at a piece of technology or applications, we don't really care about how the underlying platforms or components, and people don't sell products on the quality of the chips in one phone versus anther. Similarly, when we pitch mobile apps, we don't just show off our beautiful UI (altho' sometimes that helps as the first impression captures attention). We need more than just engineers who can program. We need other disciplines and thinkers. It's not just the humanities. It's also cultural anthropologists, psychologists, organizational theorists -- people who can look at an environment and figure out, where do we let things go? Biologists are great at this. The problem with mobile application development today is there are too many engineers and not enough social scientists. Look at the numbers of features and controls we put on our apps. That's an engineer's approach. It's not just the technology, and engineers are not enough, we need thinkers. It's the people.

"Experience Innovation" is not imitable, nor can it be commoditized, because it is born from the specific needs and desires of your customers and is a unique expression of your company’s DNA. Yet the design of an experience is often overlooked in the rush to market.

Companies intending to be relevant today must learn the art of creating experiences that genuinely engage their customers. Choice-fatigued consumers are not looking for another product that hasn’t taken their true needs and desires into consideration. They are looking for companies in which to believe and give their allegiance. They are looking for experiences that cater to their deep-seated desires. This type of engagement requires much more than the latest technological breakthrough: It requires emotional engagement.

[ via BusinessWeek ]

QR-Codes ads in Japan

Ads "strip" pasted on the handrails of escalators in Nogizaka station. These ads are QR-Codes and list information on restaurants, shops and places of interests around the area. QR codes are also handy for various branding purposes. They can be used to direct mobile phone users to special websites to download brand ads, ringtones, character logos, viral videos, branded flash games and more.

More than 40% of mobile users in Japan use their mobile phones to scan QR codes in adverts regularly. Many mobile phones in Japan preinstall a QR-Code reader application. Here's a NTT DoCoMo video on QR-Code advertising.

QR-Codes Ads are actually very popular in Japan. It's been used everywhere, especially in ads publishing.

Wireframe prototyping with Office PowerPoint 2007

Goodies to share. if you are working on desktop windows applications, this PPT template may come in handy.

Download UIPrototypingToolkit.pptx [ via "istartedsomething.com" ]