Design in the 21st Century: A Coffee with Barry Katz (Part 8)

SM: To me 20th Century art looks like the ‘anti-beauty’. Is that reasonable? Today I look at the products people are lapping up and they are beautiful objects. Are we returning to appreciating beauty? BK: I am not going to disagree with you completely, although I will refrain a bit.

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Design in the 21st Century: A Coffee with Barry Katz (Part 7)

SM: What is your interpretation of what is going on in Steve Job’s head that allows him to do something really interesting and leapfrogging with design every time? BK: I don’t think it is every time. Apple has cultivated a mystique of the ‘magic Job’s touch’. SM: He did look outside of America to get

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ST Microelectronics: Overview

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author ST Microelectronics (STM) has been making steady progress in the wireless world. Last month, it decided to merge its wireless assets with NXP to form a JV that is now the third-largest wireless semiconductor company in the world. As we continue our vendor matrix study, we will dissect STM this

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Design in the 21st Century: A Coffee with Barry Katz (Part 6)

SM: Previously we talked about cell phones and the problems that have developed over time with their hazard to driving. Could the Mendini analysis be applied to cell phones? BK: The Harvard Medical School has concluded that cell phone drivers kill 2400 people a year in the United States which is serious. Several states have

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When Will LinkedIn Open Up?

Nielsen has released some interesting numbers on social media traffic. The most interesting of these is that LinkedIn has grown 361% y-o-y.

Design in the 21st Century: A Coffee with Barry Katz (Part 5)

SM: The human factors movement then becomes a definitive note in design history? BK: The human factors movement becomes a very big deal. Part of the reason is the increasing rise in competition from China, India, and other parts of the world after the turn of the millennium. Silicon Valley design services are getting extremely

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Design in the 21st Century: A Coffee with Barry Katz (Part 4)

SM: Did the design tools come about that time as well? BK: Design tools came just a little bit earlier. I believe IDEO was the first consultancy to make a really major investment in CAD and CAM. They developed a culture of rapid prototyping, which CAD supports well. IDEO policy was such that you never came

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Design in the 21st Century: A Coffee with Barry Katz (Part 3)

SM: Is that how they got the idea for the roller ball itself, or were they prototyping an existing concept? BK: The idea for the roller ball preceded them; they were just trying to figure out how to make it work. Back in the 1960s, when Doug Engelbart was working for SRI, he built this

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