50 Cars = 1 Bus

Great ad for Stockholm’s Airport Buses to show that 50 Cars = 1 Bus. Make sure you watch the YouTube video at the bottom. Thanks Tom!

Durable electronics

I watched the San Francisco premiere of Objectified last week. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s a movie about product design (watch the trailer). I really enjoyed it, in particular for the interviews with some of my favorite designers (Jonathan Ive, Dieter Rams, Naoto Fukasawa).

I asked the folllowing question during Q&A:

Will we ever get to a world where products last 5, 10 or 20 years?

Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO, suggested that there is a difference between furniture and electronics. A high quality chair or table can easily last decades. Electronics on the other hand are simply vehicles for delivering the latest technology.

While I agree for the most part, I can think of the following counter-examples:

• I’ve had my Nikon D70 for 4 years now, and have no particular desire to replace it. Newer cameras have higher resolutions and slightly better features, but I’m perfectly satisfied.
• I have a first-generation iPhone, and don’t feel any particular need to upgrade. 3G and GPS would be nice, but I got most of the upgrade through the software update alone. The only reason I’ll get a new one this summer is that the hardware is failing on me (the mic has an echo).
• If it hadn’t broken down, I’d be quite happy using my old 12″ Powerbook. With more of my computer usage moving to a super-efficient browser, I might actually use fewer computing resources now than I did back in 2003 (disclosure: I work on Google Chrome).

These three examples lead me to wonder if we might someday reach a state of “great enough” in electronics. This is different from “good enough”: I mean a state where the hardware is powerful and flexible enough that we no longer feel the need to upgrade for incremental improvements. At that point, we’ll want these devices to last longer than a couple of years.

So how do we incent manufacturers to make more durable products, when their business models depend on selling us new stuff? I can think of three alternative revenue streams, and Apple conveniently illustrates all of them:

• Software. I got my iPhone software update for free, but I would definitely have paid for it (iPod Touch users did). I also spend money on iPhone Apps, from which Apple takes a cut.
• Content. Apple sells music and movies through the iTunes store. Digital content is a perfect sustainable good, for which there is ever-renewed demand.
• Services. Apple’s MobileMe services offers access to cloud storage, sync and access for a yearly fee. I get Gmail for free, but would pay for it if I had to.

Of course, Apple’s hardware margins still make up the bulk of their profits. However, as these other revenue sources grow in volume, the hardware might eventually become a loss-leader, as is commonly the case for new gaming consoles. At that point, we would expect them to shift to more durable, “great enough” hardware. (In the particular case of Apple, don’t hold your breath).

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Do you ever see us shifting to a world where electronic devices last more than a couple of years? And if so, how would that happen?

Bonus: check out the recently launched lastyearsmodel.org:

We love cool gadgets as much as anybody else. We just want to be thoughtful about the stuff we’ve bought. Even the most cutting-edge, tech-savvy geeks in the world are choosing to hang on to their phones or their iPods that still work just fine.

Also, thanks to  Noah and Matt  for discussing the ideas in this post with me.

Settlers of Catan

Interesting thoughts on game design in this Wired article about Settlers of Catan:

Instead of direct conflict, German-style games tend to let players win without having to undercut or destroy their friends. This keeps the game fun, even for those who eventually fall behind. Designed with busy parents in mind, German games also tend to be fast, requiring anywhere from 15 minutes to a little more than an hour to complete. They are balanced, preventing one person from running away with the game while the others painfully play out their eventual defeat. And the best ones stay fresh and interesting game after game.

I first played this in 2003 when studying abroad in Germany. I finally ordered an English version; I’m excited to start playing with friends again.

Peter Funch

I like these photos by Peter Funch. I’ll let you guess how they were made.

1000 frames-per-second

1000 frames-per-second is pretty awesome. I love how different objects move at different speeds: the pom-poms vs. the hair vs. the cheerleaders. Just as depth-of-field creates focus in a still picture, here your attention focuses on the movement in a mostly-still frame.

Make sure you watch this in HD.

Scenes from the zoo

Scenes from the zoo is full of adorable shots of baby animals from zoos around the world. The picture above is a bit different, but I love the texture. If you haven’t already, go subscribe to The Big Picture now.

Building the Brooklyn Bridge

The Makers of Things is a great ode to audacious engineering:

We are defined by what we build. It’s not just the engineering ambition that designed these structures, nor the 20 people who died building the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s that we believe we can and decide to act.

Tata Nano – the world’s cheapest car

Tata Motor’s new Nano starts at under $2000. I love how spare the dashboard is. Their attitude towards safety is interesting:

Is it safe?
The Nano is built to meet the safety standards of whatever country it is in. For India, that means crash tests, seat belts and fog lamps, but no airbags. As it moves to other countries, the Nano will scrupulously meet minimum standards, but Tata Motors is not trying to use safety features as a selling point.

While this may seem like a dangerous trade-off, the main article points out that low cost might be a much more important safety feature than expensive airbags:

In New Delhi in the early 1970s, my family traveled by scooter in the classic, death-defying Indian fashion. My father would drive, with me, a toddler, standing in front gripping the handlebars and my mother seated pillion, my infant sister in her arms. My father was a civil engineer and my mother a nurse, and in India at that time, cars for a young family were far out of reach.

Water-based eyeglasses

Josh Silver’s water-based eyeglasses use pockets of fluid to hopefully improve the vision, and lives, of millions of people around the world. The ease of adjusting them is a particular advantage:

Silver calls his flash of insight a “tremendous glimpse of the obvious”–namely that opticians weren’t necessary to provide glasses. This is a crucial factor in the developing world where trained specialists are desperately in demand: in Britain there is one optometrist for every 4,500 people, in sub-Saharan Africa the ratio is 1:1,000,000.

Great idea.

Todd Hido

A simple idea: photograph through your windshield on a stormy day, and you get Todd Hido’s lovely landscapes (click on photos).