Mitchell McKenna's Posterous

I may be catching onto this whole half-blog thing

New Android Ice Cream Sandwich Features

Android-3-1-2o9k-460

Just finished watching the keynote, here's some of the features which I'm most excited about:
  • New lock screen with face recognition to unlock & quick camera access. 
  • Swipe to close apps (like webOS, love it)
  • Google made their own font (roboto) for better reading on phone.
  • Back/home/menu is part of UI on bottom now.
  • Screen capture ability.
  • Notifications upgraded.
  • Lots of focus on the keyboard (good to hear maybe swype not required for usability now).
  • Talk-to-type is now instant (fast, is this done natively now?).
  • Browser upgrades; tabs instead of windows, swipe to close tabs.
  • All core apps gmail, gcal, etc have been redesigned.
  • Data usage graphs show how much data you've used and predicts how much you will use.
  • You can set a limit to automatically cut off data when you reach your monthly limit.
  • Gallery redesign with photo editing tools (hipster filters, like instragram).
  • Photo/Video - panorama photos, 1080p video recording, zoom while recording, time lapse feature.
  • New people app - evolution of "contacts".
  • "Android beam" - touch phones and article/map/app is "beamed" over to the other phone.

Check out some of the new features demoed on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus:

Add Android Ice Cream Sandwich to your want list on gdgt to stay up to date on discussions about Android 4.0.

 

The Reddit Invasion Infographic

Since Reddit launched in 2005 it has grown to become one of the largest and most loved news/content aggregators in the world. A treasure trove of sub cultures and memes for users of all interests and a very supportive community are all part of the special sauce that makes Reddit so successful. The team at Sortable is a big fan of the site and have spent countless hours exploring different content on Reddit. We looked at what makes Reddit so special, from their history, community, generous redditors, and different types of redditors to put together this infographic.

via sortable.com

 

Move, Eat, Learn

Amazingly visually crafted, these short films are bound to make you wanna hop on a flight right this second. Came across these neat videos on my buddy Dylan Blanchard's Tumblr. Made by Rick Mereki, Tim White, and Andrew Lees.

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage...

all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food... into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films...

= a trip of a lifetime.

 

Crafting the Perfect Modern Resume [Infographic]

A lot goes into a resume that stands out today (in the right way). Whether it's proper fonts and formatting on a traditional resume, or adding a creative spin, with images, and hyperlinks on a digital one. With LinkedIn almost everyone has a digital form of their traditional resume, and other sites like Behance for online portfolios are becoming more popular too. Maybe you even decide you want to set yourself apart from the crowd and create a HTML5 rich resume/portolio on your site, or a video resume on youtube or vimeo.

This nifty infographic by the team at Colorado Technical University, includes tips on creating a digital resume, as well as tips for sprucing up your traditional resume. Check out other CTU infographics here.

Infographic_modern_resume

Sitting is Killing You [Infographic]

Great infographic, but we know standing stationary is bad for us too. Even more reason to take a break every 30 minutes and walk away from the computer. Interesting 135° is the ideal sitting position, all those times your parents told you "sit up straight" they should have been saying "lean back".

We should be alternating our position every 30 minutes or so. Ideally every workplace would have standing-desks and (slow-walking) treadmills/bikes you can jump on every once in a while. I've seen lots of DYI versions online but let's be honest it'd probably look like a slave shop if you walked into workplace and everyone was on these bike-workstations all day, I'm sure there's a way you could make it look classy.

As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, there is one thing nearly all modern Americans have in common: we sit all the time. Though our great shift towards computer-based work has done great things for productivity, it has, unfortunately, done terrible things for our health. From increased risk of heart disease and obesity in the long term, to sharply hampered cholesterol maintenance in the short term, the negative health effects of sitting are starting to weigh heavily against the benefits. Even the medical field – the greatest advocates of reducing sitting time – is plagued by this new health issue. Though doctors and nurses get plenty of walking time, it usually falls to the secretaries, billers, and coders to do all the sitting. And, as we can see, something has to change.

Media_httpimagesmedic_zcocq
via Samantha Babin

Kevin Rose - Less Digg, More Startup

It'll be interesting to see what he does next, like the article said his main focus lately has been his Rev3 shows (nothing wrong with that either, I watch almost all of them).

Seems ironic that every time Techcrunch posts an article related to Digg or "Digg Dying" it gets 1000+ diggs, it's like their challenging the digg community to digg it, smart. Obviously it's not dying as much as they say, or they wouldn't be putting the digg button on every one of their articles.

Much like most of the social networks I use, such as Amplify, Posterous, HackerNews, I follow my Digg news feed via my RSS reader; it's away I can keep up with all my friends posts in a single place. I still like Digg, it's come a long way since the rough v4 launch. I like how I still get what's popular BUT it bubbles up posts from my friends and (even better) their comments. Albeit, most of my RL friends that started using it when it was in it's prime have stopped, I still have 30+ contacts still active on the site, where I get news from a niche I probably wouldn't get anywhere else.

Amplify’d from techcrunch.com
Wow, when I wrote last night that Kevin Rose doesn’t really use Digg anymore, I had no idea how perfect the timing was. It turns out Rose really has tuned out. Because, say multiple sources, he’s already resigned from the company and is closing a $1+ million financing round for a new startup he’s founded.

Rose stayed on in vague executive role after Williams took over, but it’s been clear that Digg isn’t really top of mind for him anymore. He’s not using it much, as I showed last night. And he is very active with Revision3 and other projects.

So what’s the new startup? We’re still trying to figure that out

Rose has tweeted that he’ll “continue advising Digg / on the board of directors, & taping Diggnation
Read more at techcrunch.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvf4j
via Amplify.com

How Students Pick a College [Infographic Rollover]

Ever wonder what’s going on in the mind of a student as he picks a school? In this series of infographics we try to express the decision points, visually. Here’s the first of the series: The Social Mind. [Rollover each one to read more]
View full-size on getdegrees.com

 

[UPDATE March 1, 2011] Here's the 2nd one of the series. There are also many academic factors that circle around the minds of students as well.

View full-size on getdegrees.com