Twitter journalism

On the Mumbai attacks:
"Stopping updates related to operations (Police requesting not to update the situation in real time as an operation is being undertaken)."

http://twitter.com/BreakingNewz

Or use search.twitter.com. Query "near:mumbai" will give everything that's being twittered in the Mumbai area.

Schizo... The New XBOX360 Experience

As a user I think it sucks. After the installation of the New Experience you can create an avatar, but I hate the style: It's all round and fluffy and Wii-like. Now I have a round, fluffy, colorful avatar and I'm playing Gears of War 2 (read: guns with chainsaws, blood and gore). It just doesn't match. The overviews are spread out over different screens. I haven't found out yet the use of the Wii avatars, except for dressing it. The XBOX360 is now more a home entertainment system. But I don't use it for that: it's a very noisy machine.
To me it's just a noisy console that I use to play cool games, online, with friends!
Nope: I don't like the kiddie style New Experience. It's not for me.

As a user experience designer I think it's a great step! It's easier to use now. Where it was first not difficult, but still quite complex to set it up as a media centre, download content or view gamer profile information, it's now much more intuitive to use. As far as I've used it I have not seen any new functionality: it looks like they just replaced the existing interface with this user friendly one.
There are no more PC like elements like lists and scroll bars, instead there's a smooth, simple 3D interface. I think it's a real example of how to change from functional oriented design to user oriented design.
Very well done.

I'm in ur bankz, stealin ur money

Economic news in LOLspeak: LOLfed.com

Why no Pie?

Pie menu's are often used in games, but not on the interwebs. Draw your own conclusions, do the test :)

Pie vs drop down menu's
(Firefox 3 is required)