July, 2010

I use Bing almost exclusively these days – there are moments when i drop back to Google but less and less. Besides, now I’m in Redmond you never know who is looking over your shoulder Seriously though, it’s testament to the work of our Bing team has done and I’d consider myself pretty well versed in what Bing has to offer. That was until I stumbled across http://discoverbing.com and found a cool showcase of everything Bing has to offer. Visual Search, Farecast, Entertainment and more. I’m a fan of Bing Maps too and hoping to catch up with Blaise in the next few weeks to talk more about that.

Take a look at http://discoverbing.com – you may be surprised even if you’re a loyal user. I’m writing up a bigger piece on search which I’ll post next week. I saw some stuff this week that made me think about search in a totally new way. More Find than Search…I’ll get it posted here soon.

I’m a big fan of Pivot – it works the way my mind tends to work which is to look at things from different angles and navigate in 3D. The web is very 2D so having a tool like Pivot to help visualise the massive amounts of data we’re subjected to is great.

Hooking it up to Twitter should have been an obvious thing to do – allowing you to view your Twitter with the ability to sort based on your followers locations, their Klout amplification and more.

check it out at http://tweetpivot.com/ 

 

Street side images on maps are terrific but they can be problematic at times as you get stuck in the bubble of the camera view and struggle to get a real world perspective on the street. Step in Street Slide from Microsoft Research. Presented at SIGGRAPH 2010 this week, Street Slide gives you a strip view of the street. As always, seeing it is much easier then being told so check out the video above. If you’re hardcore, you’ll read the full PDF from the MSR team behind this. I have. Just kidding. No I’m not.

I love comments like this on Twitter this evening and the blog coverage 

Right…off to bed. Enjoy!

 

A nice spot by Sarah Perez this one. If you’re one of the lucky few with a Windows Phone 7, this alpha build is ready for download.

find out more by following http://twitter.com/touchality/

I’ll say from the start that I’m a fan of Metro – the new design system for Windows Phone 7. It’s already inspired a great Twitter client and having played with a WP7 recently, I continue to be impressed. I like it’s clean, elegant 2D look versus the now overused, glossy, reflective look. I actually like both from a design perspective but prefer Metro for now at least.

You can now get a collection of resources should you be interested in designing for WP7 or perhaps you’re just interested in UI design. The UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 v2.0 and Design Templates for Windows Phone 7 are now both available.

Also available as a PDF is the Windows Phone Design System - Codename Metro. I believe this is the source of the book that was recently handed out at MIX10 (if memory serves) with pages full of stuff like this…

Call me a design geek…but I like it.

[bonus link - Meet Your Type: A Field Guide to Typography (free PDF)]