A leading figure in the British user experience community, Cennydd Bowles is a user experience designer and writer based in Brighton, England. He works in design and strategy at Clearleft, a UK-based design agency well-known as a leader in user experience, and his book, Undercover User Experience Design, written with colleague James Box, has been acclaimed as "a must-have for your bookshelf".In a recent blog post Bowles wrote:Design is inherently less predictable than most other product fields, since it ...

Dear everyone. Please stop using QR codes. Stop putting them on your billboards. Your posters. Your magazines. Your flyers. Your websites. Just stop. Until you sit down and think about it a lot more carefully. Thank you.It’s a funny thing when people get hold of a new technology. As people prone to hyperbole, we start shouting from the rooftops how this new thing is going to "revolutionise" (our favourite word) the way people communicate. With QR codes, we’re nattering on ...

When a Turkish Airlines aeroplane crashed on the runway at Schiphol Airport in February 2009, reporting started with a simple tweet by an eyewitness. Twitter became the first news source of this event. A few newspapers in the Netherlands took the reporting one step further.They started live blogging using Coveritlive. What was an exception at the time is now a must. Journalism cannot escape live blogging. The final breakthrough came with the Tahrir Square demonstrations in Cairo earlier this ...

As the founder of the non-profit African Institute of Technology and Fasmicro(AFRIT), Africa's first integrated circuit design house, Nigerian academic and inventor Ndubuisi Ekekwe is a strong campaigner for Intellectual Property Rights as a means of monetising technological innovation in Africa. He also believes that a change in educational mindset and an emphasis on hardware production are two factors that will help propel Africa's success in the technology sector.Ekekwe is a TED fellow. In his "idea worth spreading" he ...

The rapid uptake of Twitter by the general public is often ascribed to celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Lady Gaga, and Demi Moore. In South Africa, with the most followed users being mainly celebrities, the situation is similar.Though this may be true, less recognised, however, is the role the media has played in publicising Twitter. From the New York Times' Nick Kristof to CNN's Anderson Cooper, journalists have taken to Twitter with a gusto.South African journalists have done the ...

Batman: Arkham City is everything you want in a superhero title and more. While its predecessor Arkham Asylum was an incredible game — possibly the best of 2009 — Arkham City accelerates the possibilities of exploration, creating an unrivalled adventure which lesser titles will have a tough time eclipsing.Storytelling As much as the gameplay, graphics and sound sucks you into this insanely detailed world, the story lets it down with its half-baked plot. Outside of the heart-wrenching ending, the very ...

One of Samsung's biggest selling points with its latest crop of products is the "convergence" between them. Gearburn was lucky enough to get it's hands on the Samsung Galaxy SII running Android's Gingerbread OS, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Honeycomb OS, and the Samsung D8000 55" LED 3D TV more commonly known as the Samsung Smart TV. With all these devices on hand, it was time to test whether or not they truly work together in a harmonious amalgam.

Open-world series Grand Theft Auto has announced its latest title,Grand Theft Auto V. On its official website, a trailer is promised on 2 November. Outside of this very little information about the new title is available.Fans only have the hastag "#GTAV" to hang on to as they patiently wait for the merest inkling of information.The Grand Theft Auto series is not without spectacle and every game in the lengthy history of this violent, yet deeply enjoyable open-world extravaganza has sold ...

The Japanese parliament is the latest victim of cyber-espionage. As with other such attacks, suspicion again is being pointed towards China.Computers in the lower house of parliament were breached from a server based in China, it was recently discovered. Passwords and other information could have been compromised in the attacks said a report from Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.Of additional concern was the fact that the attack began in July but it was at least a month before the breach ...

Chinese police have begun arresting people for spreading what they deem to be false rumours online, as authorities intensify their efforts to retain control over online content.According the State Internet Information Office a university student in the southwest province of Yunnan was detained for spreading fake information about a local murder.A man in Shanghai, meanwhile, was taken into custody for fifteen days for posting falsified tax documents online.The newly established authority says police are also investigating the ...