The Mega apps

An article, posted 2 months ago filed in app, apple, eclipse, Evolution, java, linux, netscape, os, OSS, outlook, uml, Firefox, ai & mozilla.

Around 2000 I worked on Java Web apps using Eclipse, an open source IDE, which was also extendable with all kinds of tools. Since it was an IDE some made tools for drawing code with UML (connecting named boxes with attributes). But it was also the playground for tools less related to coding. It became a kind of OS running on an OS.

Less niche, was perhaps Netscape Communicator. It was a web browser, an email client, a webpage builder, a calendar … all in one. And also quite extendible again with plugins. The idea still lives on in the Mozilla Seamonkey-project.

A remnant of this is perhaps Microsoft Outlook. An e-mail client with integrated calendar app. An approach mimicked by Evolution on Linux.

I was reminded by all this [because Mozilla wants to focus on integrating AI in their flagship product Firefox](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/mozilla-lay…

Continue reading...

On AI art

An article, posted more than one year ago filed in art, intelligence, ai & stable diffusion.

If you love art, don't bother reading any further. I'm stating the very obvious, but I felt I had to respond. It's NFT-style hype (in Dutch) all over again.

My Twitter timeline contains probably more than average amount of generated AI images, and it is labelled as AI “art”, generated by tools like DALL-E, stable diffusion, mid journey, tools that allow simple beings to create a Monet style picture of a 21 century scene, or complete the scenery of the milkmaid. And the way it is presented angers me.

While being quite impressive in terms of “how did the computer do this”, I hate to state the obvious, but: this is not art. In the end it is just more visual debris. You may put a frame around your Van Gogh 1000pc puzzle, it is not the creative work, even though you spend a day “creating” it. You’re also not an artist if you completed a 15 week course in landscape painting. Nor is probably your beautiful holiday picture, even thoug…

Continue reading...

TL/DW: .css_day#ui-special

An article, posted almost 5 years ago filed in ui, ux, user experience, web, css, frontend, front-end, interaction, user, ai, sniffles, hakimel, jmspool, brad_frost & mrjoe.

Yesterday I attended the CSS Day conference. This year only the first day, that focussed on designing user interfaces, less the building of it. Here are the key take aways for those who thought going through all slides is too long, or didn’t went.

Josh Clark - A.I. is your New Design Material

Josh urged designers to get feeling for the new design material called AI, the next big thing. We need to know what makes it different, the grain, and also know how we can use it for good. Design might have a seat at the board table, but they need to know how to align user considerations with business goals. More on AI and design by Josh Clark and more.

Steph Troeth - Behind the story

Storytelling used to be all the rage before mobile entered the scene, Steph recalls. Nevertheless, people prefer stories over plain lists of…

Continue reading...

murb blog