Author: Romano McBride
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The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Product Lifespans
If the only metric for how long products should be used is how long they’re commonly used, we won’t be able to make longer-lasting products.
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Bait-And-Switch Loopholes
Bait-and-switch refers to the illegal practice of advertising a product or service, tempting customers to invest resources (time or money) based on the advertisement, and then changing the product once the customer has already invested, presumably to squeeze more money out of the transaction. The problem that many products that rely on software to function,…
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Why can’t calls on iOS just be muted?
So many zoom calls Simultaneous speaking Why no speaker mute? Tiffany McBride
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We need to find a way to reduce tire emissions already!
Electric cars with standard tires trade a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions for an increase in fine particulate matter. We need a solution.
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Why do people sell their data for digital, but not physical products and services?
Thought experiment: What if you go to a bakery and buy a bread roll for $2.99 and the baker says “you can have it for free if you give me all your family photos and the rights to analyze them using robots and sell your data.”
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Pixel-Perfect Graphics for Embedded Systems
This is an ode to pixel-perfect graphics and an explanation as to how, even with advancing technology, they are still important. Great graphic design for embedded systems don’t only look great on the designer’s display device, but take the characteristics of the target display and environment into account.
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Why Apple’s ARM Transition is Going to Work
Today it happened. Apple did announce that they are, in fact, transitioning to custom-built ARM processors for Macs. Although they didn’t explicitly say “ARM” during the keynote today, I’m assuming their new CPUs will be based on the ARM architecture as the devkit they announced today is running their A12 ARM processor and it seems…
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How PBR and Photogrammetry are changing real-time asset workflows.
Historically, when working on technical art direction for a video game, every game was different. The 2D/3D art pipeline was defined by the visual style of the game, hardware capabilities and the render pipeline, which was often built specifically for a particular game. But if the style you need is photo-realistic, why bother creating assets…
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The “Licensing” Loophole
A lot of products you buy come with a “software licensing agreement,” typically stating something like… “The software that is part of this product is licensed to you, not sold.” and further, something along the lines of… “We reserve the right to modify this licensing agreement at any time with or without notice.” What’s the…
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Is DRM jeopardizing our cultural heritage?
Thanks to restoration, reproduction and conservation technologies, we have hundreds and in some cases thousands of years worth of cultural assets available. Old books, sheet music or stage plays can be enjoyed by consumers or used by researchers to learn more about a bygone era. We can even look at cave paintings from tens of…