As reported last week, India’s Tata Motors introduced a compact car for just $2,500.00 and getting 54mpg isn’t bad either. Just as Ford announced increased sales (only in China) there is new, regional competition right around the corner. BTW: Tata Motors is the current frontrunner in the Jaguar and Land Rover sweepstakes … Yes Tata is that successful.
Tags:Tata, automobile, India, Globalization, trends
There has always been an uproar in journalism circles regarding the use of ‘edited’ or ‘doctored’ photographs used in both print and online news publications. There was a large debate here on the use of images in the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) website regarding doctoring digital images.
I am surprised to see nothing discussed about the doctored image above widely used from the Bhutto assassination. You’ll notice the motion or action effect on the photograph at right.
Maybe Photoshop’s Filter > Blur > Lens Blur effect perhaps? Is the use of a digital visual effect to ‘pinch’ the image and enhance of the impact of this image captured in the aftermath of the assassination? The original photo by Getty’s John Moore can be found here. The image appears as the 12th image in the NYTimes slideshow. So … its now acceptable to test our favorite Photoshop CS3 Filters?
Tags: journalism, photojournalism, Bhutto, John Moore, doctored photo, National Press Photographers Association, NPPA, Getty
Intel and OLPC have separated. After “publicly coming together” less than six months ago due to the negative efforts of an Intel saleswoman trying to persuade a Peruvian government official to drop their commitment to purchase 250,000 OLPC units in favor of Intel’s own PCs.
The way Intel leaked their decision to break from OLPC was underhanded to say the least. I cannot help but ask Intel’s chief executive Paul S. Otellini: what is Intel’s sales commission on a quarter of a million units?
OLPC’s statement sums it up pretty well: “[we] view the children as a mission; Intel views them as a market.”
The holiday is a perfect time to catch up on reading and must admit Beautiful Evidence from Edward Tufte is a very refreshing look at aspects of visual evidence we simply overlook in everyday life.
With so many amazing lessons regarding the presentation of data I found Chapter 6 the best as it addresses PowerPoint.
The issue Corruption in Evidence Presentations: A Consumer’s Guide to Effects Without Causes, Cherry Picking, Overreaching, Chartjunk, and the Rage to Conclude. Considering we all sit through too many PowerPoint presentations that corrupt the truth…this should be mandatory reading.
To maintain standards of quality, relevance, and integrity for evidence, consumers of presentations should insist that presenters be held intellectually and ethically responsible for what they show and tell. Thus consuming a presentation is also an intellectual and moral activity.
So the next time you sit in a presentation – be truthful! I must admit to drifting into Chartjunk myself at times (yikes) before reading The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within last year. This learning forced me to approach communicating via PowerPoint…Keynote more accurately as defined by Tufte. And this began with eliminating all the bullets. His chapter on Sparklines is pretty impressive as well.
There is a new web resource pointing to some of the best open source software (free software) available today for Windows, OS X and Linux platforms. Its worth a look.
Tags: open source, education, globalization, network, trends