Tag Archives: Smithsonian

William Moggridge, portable computer and human interaction trailblazer, dies at 69

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William Moggridge, portable computer and human interaction trailblazer, dies at 69

The next time you hinge open that notebook PC and smile at a feature that makes it easier to use, give a thought to Bill Moggridge, who passed away Saturday from cancer at the age of 69. The pioneering designer invented the modern clamshell design seen in all modern laptops, and is also viewed as the father of human interaction software design.

The Compass Computer he designed for Grid Systems with the screen folded over the keyboard appeared in 1981, flew on the space shuttle, and inspired virtually every notebook design since. Perhaps more importantly, when he tried to use the machine himself, Moggridge was exasperated with the difficulty and decided to take the human factor into account for software design. To that end, he engaged experts from fields like graphics design and psychology, and tried to "build empathy for the consumer into the product," according to former partner, Professor David Kelly. The pair merged their design firms to form Ideo in 1991, and worked with clients like Apple, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble, designing products like the first Macintosh mouse and Palm V handheld along the way.

In 2010, Moggridge became the director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, and was a recipient of that institution's lifetime achievement award. He also won the Prince Philip Designer's Prize, the longest running award of its type in the UK, given for "a design career which has upheld the highest standards and broken new ground." See why that's true by going to Cooper-Hewitt's tribute video, right after break.

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William Moggridge, portable computer and human interaction trailblazer, dies at 69 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink NY Times  |  sourceCooper-Hewitt.org  | Email this | Comments

Scientists create simulation of the universe, reenact 14 billion years in a few months (video)

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Scientists create simulation of the universe, reenact 14 billion years in a few months

Are animations of Curiosity's Mars landing not enough to feed your space exploration appetite? Try this on for size: a group of scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies have generated what's billed as a full-fledged simulation of the universe. Arepo, the software behind the sim, took the observed afterglow of the big bang as its only input and sped things up by 14 billion years. The result was a model of the cosmos peppered with realistically depicted galaxies that look like our own and those around us. Previous programs created unseemly blobs of stars instead of the spiral galaxies that were hoped for because they divided space into cubes of fixed size and shape. Arepo's secret to producing accurate visualizations is its geometry; a grid that moves and flexes to mirror the motions of dark energy, dark matter, gasses and stars. Video playback of the celestial recreation clocks in at just over a minute, but it took Harvard's 1,024-core Odyssey super computer months to churn out. Next on the group's docket is tackling larger portions of the universe at a higher resolution. Head past the jump for the video and full press release, or hit the source links below for the nitty-gritty details in the team's trio of scholarly papers.

Continue reading Scientists create simulation of the universe, reenact 14 billion years in a few months (video)

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Scientists create simulation of the universe, reenact 14 billion years in a few months (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 07:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PhysOrg  |  sourceHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cornell University Library (1), (2), (3)  | Email this | Comments

Fifth Avenue Frogger brings everyone’s favorite roadkill to New York City (video)

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For all their charm, the arcade games of the 80s didn't really offer much in the way of gritty realism -- not like today's titles, certainly. Tyler DeAngelo's new take on video game hall-of-famer Frogger certainly goes a ways toward lending the gaming classic some grit. DeAngelo installed a webcam trained on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, using code to translate that footage into data that allows players to experience a real-time, real world traffic flow in a modded version of a Frogger machine. The creator has been known to drag the machine onto the famed New York street, generator in tow, letting people experience the game it was meant to be played: on a sidewalk in plain view of traffic. Check out a video of the game after the break, including a desperate plea from a talking frog who really wants a trip to the Smithsonian.

Continue reading Fifth Avenue Frogger brings everyone's favorite roadkill to New York City (video)

Fifth Avenue Frogger brings everyone's favorite roadkill to New York City (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  source5th Ave. Frogger  | Email this | Comments

Space Shuttle Discovery salutes Washington on historic final flight

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Space Shuttle Discovery salutes Washington on historic final flight

As historic flights go, this has to be right up there with the best of 'em. Space Shuttle Discovery performed a final fly-by over the capital, and created a trail of excited spotters as it did so. Perched atop a Boeing 747, the iconic craft was flying at a relatively low 1,500 feet according to NASA. Pictures of the voyage have been popping up on social media and image sharing sites as it headed in from the west, before coming to its final resting place at a special off-shoot of the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport. Have you spotted Discovery? Be sure to add links in the comments if you do.

[Image credit: NASA]

Space Shuttle Discovery salutes Washington on historic final flight originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNASA  | Email this | Comments

Space Shuttle Discovery to make final in-air appearance in 1,500-foot DC flyover

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Folks lucky enough to be in the nation's capital next week will have one final opportunity to gawk at Space Shuttle Discovery as the decommissioned spacecraft makes its way to its final resting place in Washington D.C. The shuttle is scheduled for a 1,500-foot flyover between 10 and 11 next Tuesday morning, passing over the National Mall and Reagan National Airport atop NASA's modified 747-100. The craft will then land at Dulles Airport before making a land-based journey to the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Center, where it will replace the Enterprise shuttle, which is destined for the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan. That prototype shuttle is scheduled to land in New York City a few days later on April 23rd, where it will touch down at JFK mounted to what's likely to be the same Shuttle Carrier Aircraft scheduled to make the Discover delivery in D.C., though there's sadly no word of a similar photo op in NYC.

Space Shuttle Discovery to make final in-air appearance in 1,500-foot DC flyover originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gizmodo  |  sourceThe Hill  | Email this | Comments

Smithsonian’s super squeaky clean meteorite lab makes your room look like a pig sty (video)

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Smithsonian's super squeaky clean meteorite lab makes your room look like a pig sty
If you think you're a clean freak, then you obviously haven't been to the Smithsonian Antarctic meteorite storage facility. See, when it isn't kicking up the video-games-as-art debate or showing off our future overlords, the Smithsonian also dabbles in the study of fallen rocks from space. So just exactly how clean is the Smithsonian's Meteorite Clean Room? Well, let's just say it's highly unlikely that you'll find microscopic traces of that peanut butter and jelly sandwich that the intern had for breakfast on any of the facility's 15,000 Antarctic meteorites. As shown in the behind-the-scenes video after the break, the research facility goes to great lengths to prevent sample contamination, from the surgical-looking staff prep to dry nitrogen storage. After all, no researcher would like to be the poor sap who studies a contaminated meteorite and mistakenly announces to the world that Mars not only had peanut butter but jelly as well.

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Smithsonian's super squeaky clean meteorite lab makes your room look like a pig sty (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Boing Boing  |  sourceYouTube  | Email this | Comments