For the past couple of months, I’ve been keeping pretty up to date with technology blogs and journals, particularly in light of the endless buzz that’s been generated on tablets and smartphones. One thing that’s been really bugging me though is the persistent use of the word “killer” (e.g. iPad-killer, Facebook-killer, Kindle-killer, iPhone-killer, Blackberry-killer, and so on). I’m considering two reasons for this idiocy. The first possibility is that these bloggers aren’t really idiots, but are part of the sensationalist journalism that seems to be the norm these days. If that’s the case, then it’s really a shame because it’s a cheap way to get an audience. The second possibility is that these bloggers really are idiots, and that they have no conception of business or marketing basics.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 11:02 AM. Filed under:
Monday, June 21, 2010
Every now and then I like to plunge myself into the deep end of website design. All of what I know is self-taught, and I’m always curious to figure out what good websites look like. I’m a particular fan of minimalist websites that have a clean, simple look. More recently, I’ve been trying to play around with WordPress. Lucky for me, they had just upgraded to 3.0, which means it’s hard for me to tell whether something is going wrong because of something I did, or because the new version is unstable.
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 08:20 PM. Filed under: Technology •
Thursday, April 08, 2010
After resisting for a few days, I went out and got myself an iPad. I’m using it now to type this entry, to see whether it can be used for any serious purpose.
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 11:36 PM. Filed under:
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
A friend of mine pointed out Jesse Schell’s presentation at DICE (Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) Summit that was held in February in Vegas. Schell’s a Professor of Technology at Carnegie Mellon, who also worked as a Disney imagineer and game designer. His talk has been making the rounds around the Internet and blogosphere, so I thought I’d share my take on it.
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 10:51 AM. Filed under:
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Apple announced the iPad yesterday, and the wave of dissent from the tech community seemed overwhelming, although not altogether surprising. I think it’s one of those cases where techies, like hardcore gamers, think that they are the only relevant market because they’re the only ones who can appreciate cutting-edge technology, and that the masses just eventually follow along. Lots of people seemed to have trouble describing the product without comparing it to another product: “a giant iPod touch,” “a colored Kindle,” “a big iPhone without the Phone,” and so on. I’m not sure how ultimately revolutionary it is, but I do think that, from a marketing point of view, it’s a pretty smart move to position it as a “third product” between laptops and smartphones.
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 09:06 AM. Filed under:
Recommended Reading
Engineering Play
By Mizuko Ito
Interesting Stuff
In my spare time, I’ve been trying to educate myself through reading classical Greek literature, history and philosophy. I’ve also tried to reflect on how the learning is happening, and how one might approach a complex subject matter such as this without going through schooling.Some of the work can be seen at StudyPlace, a wiki maintained by Teachers College.
I’ve been helping Dr. Varenne on his work with Dr. Lin and Dr. McDermott regarding NCLB. Specifically, they are interested in mapping the relationship between the government, schools, personnel and groups such as Kaplan and Princeton Review who help “failing” schools. Specifically, I’ve been using a comic book creating program that lets you easily put together a story.