19240778
submission
high_rolla writes:
Science seems able to explain just about everything nowadays. What if someone discovered true magic however. They could fly or shoot fireballs out the fingers or levitate items or the like. And science had absolutely no explanation for how they were doing it. In medieval times it wouldn't have gone down too well.
What about now though. Has science and our increased understanding of things made us less fearful of the unknown? Have movies and computer games made us more relaxed in terms of this sort of stuff? Do you think we would react with the fear and hatred of previous times or would we treat it differently?
19187506
submission
high_rolla writes:
The recent developments between Nokia and MS have come as a surprise to many (and not to others considering Elop's background). What if this is part of a grand plan however for Nokia to become the exclusive manufacturer of hardware for MS phones and tablets? It is a strategy that has worked well for Apple and Nokia is big enough that MS could cut it's ties with all other manufacturers and still have a large presence. It would allow Nokia and MS to focus on one tightly integrated set of products.
17925626
submission
high_rolla writes:
Page rank is a great idea. Unfortunately it suffers from two small problems. People consistently trying to game the system and peoples natural tendency to click on the first result (or one of the first) meaning popular results tend to get more popular over time. Which means a lot of great content and resources potentially go unnoticed. How would you go about creating a search engine that had a focus on exploring as well as quality? On the linked article one suggestion has been to randomize the results on each page as well as inject one or two results from lower pages at random. I'm sure there must be better ideas out there however.
17038610
submission
high_rolla writes:
Smartphones are all the rage right now. Yet all the innovation appears to be in software. On the hardware side of things we are stagnating. Each device is essentially a touch screen that takes up most of the front face, maybe a few buttons thrown in and possibly a slide out keyboard. There are subtle differences in the implementation but essentially the features are the same. I would like to propose my idea for the next breakthrough in smartphone design. Why not put a full touch screen on both sides of the device? It would afford many possibilities for new interaction methods. What are your ideas for new hardware designs for smartphones?
16236996
submission
high_rolla writes:
There are an estimated 247 billion emails sent every day. Of that they believe about 97% are spam. Have you ever thought about the energy involved in sending and processing this vast amount of spam? Spam is leading to increasing energy requirements (though spammers would have you believe it leads to a huge increase in something else but we won't go there). Could it be that putting an end to spam is one of the best things we can do for the environment? If we were to take this challenge seriously, how would you achieve it?
14652062
submission
high_rolla writes:
Creativity is an important skill. Yet it is something that is somewhat lacking in our current education systems. Sir Ken Robinson presents some rather strong opinions on the subject. Edward de Bono has also been involved in research suggesting that teaching thinking skills as a separate subject will improve performance in every other subject between 30 and 100%. Given evidence such as this, why are we not putting a greater emphasis on creative thinking in schools? To what extend do you think technology is hindering or encouraging creativity in education? Is the emergence of mobile/ touch sensitive devices having a positive impact on the ability to encourage and promote creativity?
13623960
submission
high_rolla writes:
Could renewable energy have adverse affects that we are not yet aware of? For instance is setting up solar panels over increasingly large areas effectively starving the land there of heat that it would normally receive and absorb? If so, how is this going to affect that surrounding environment long term?
12072662
submission
high_rolla writes:
If you look at it, every one of the 5 main browsers has an icon based around the concept of a circle. Internet Explorer is a round E, Firefox is a fox curled around a globe, Opera is an O, Chrome is a round 3 colour disc and Safari is a round compass. What is it about a circle that is synonymous with the internet? Or is it just complete coincidence that they all share this trait?
10532874
submission
high_rolla writes:
Recently I have been helping teachers come up with creative ways to use the tools they have on Moodle (a VLE). They initially thought they would need custom tools developed for all the activities they wanted to do. We discovered that they largely didn't need to do this but could use the existing tools in creative ways. eg, we looked at holding student elections using the Choice activity and doing structured brainstorming using forums. It occurred to me that technical people do this all the time but it is not very natural for others.
I have two questions:
What tools do you use in ways they were not intended?
How do you think we can encourage others to think in this way?
8924918
submission
high_rolla writes:
It appears to me that a tablet is only part of what Apple is soon to release. I think that companies such as Toshiba were onto something when they had their tablet/ laptop hybrids such as the Portege M200. They were just clunky and didn't have an OS that could work with the tablet form factor well. Now imagine a cross between a 10" NetBook Air and a tablet with a sleek mechanism to transition between the two. This could have huge potential and be versatile enough to suit many situations.
7095754
submission
high_rolla writes:
This is my somewhat uninformed stab at predicting where the web is headed and what the next big thing is going to be. It appears to me that the internet is following a two step progression of innovation and organisation. I am not trying to say that this is the way it is so much as pose some thoughts and get others opinions in an attempt to understand the big picture better. I'm sure there are holes and flaws in my theory and would appreciate if you could point them out.
