Robert Scoble asks Philippe Starck for his opinion on the Amazon Kindle Reader.

The best design is the less design possible. That means the best design is the smallest product, the thinnest product, the lightest product, the strongest product, and that’s all. Because the interesting thing is what is in and not what is around. — Philippe Starck

I am struck by the poor button placement and the overall retrograde look and feel. Amazon chose to make this device look like a book though in a world with the Apple iPodtouch you might expect to turn the page with a gesture. Buttons for book-like activities become quaint.

(See also: http://www.philippe-starck.net/)
(See also: Starck)
(See also: sevenload.com)

Google provides a new service to generate charts driven by parameters in a URL. The API returns an image in PNG-format.

Several types of graphs can be generated: line, bar, pie charts, Venn diagrams, and scatter plots. Each type allows you to specify attributes such as size, colors, and labels. The URL might look something like this:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:90,20,21&chs=250x110&chl=This|That|Other

Use is limited to 50,000 queries per user per day. If you exceed this 24-hour limit, the Chart API will be blocked temporarily. If you continue to exceed, you may be blocked permanently.

I’m considering deploying these graphics in support of a ‘services dashboard‘. Usage is low enough to avoid the limit. It will be interesting to push the boundaries of the API.

Are there any Tufte-compliant examples out there?

(See also: http://code.google.com/apis/chart/)
(See also: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/infodashboard/index.html)
(See also: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596515935/)
(See also: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/)