Status-Q

Nice quote from Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science:

But these are just stories, and the plural of anecdote is not data.

If you're like most normal people, you've probably never heard of 'digital signage'. My family, certainly, looked at me in a puzzled but caring way when I first told them that was what I was doing. Digital signage, in general, is the name for systems that drive those big, expensive, boring displays in airports that tell you that your flight is delayed by an hour and a half. And part of the reason we started Camvine is because we believed that a system for distributing dynamic, glowing pictures to dozens of screens didn't have to be big, complex, boring and expensive... it could be small, easy, fun and affordable.

Perhaps this is why, as we started to develop an API which would allow our CODA system to integrate with other things, we didn't immediately focus on controlling it through a strategic leveraging of your enterprise-wide SAP installation. Instead we focused on bunny rabbits.

So here is our new experimental user interface for controlling your digital signage system. It reminds me a bit of Monty Python.

TIM: There! ARTHUR: What, behind the rabbit? TIM: It is the rabbit.

You can read more about it on Michael's blog and on the Camvine site.

The traditional concept of a 2D home page is so 2008....

You can get the beta here... thanks to Michael for the link.

Excitement here last week... the first copies of Rose's next book arrived on Friday.

The UK launch is in 10 days' time and it's available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk or your local bookshop. American readers can also pre-order it but they will need to wait a few more months, unless they get it from over here...

Stick it on your iPod for your next train journey. Most inspiring.

A simple but great idea: turn your phone into a magnifying glass.

Sadly, it only works on the Nokia N95, N82 and E90. Now, if I could only find that tiny little icon that starts it up...

Given the valuations that have been floating around for social network companies, there must be quite a financial reward in store for anyone who can predict, or invent, the next one. Sadly, I don't have time to create it just at present, but I can tell you what it will look like.

Forsaking blogs, where you have to write reasonably coherent paragraphs, and Facebook, where you could at least write sentences, the youth of today are flocking to Twitter, where 140 characters is the limit of self-expression, partly so you can send and receive 'tweets' via SMS, which can't do much more.

It's clear, I think, that this trend must continue.

I expect the next killer network - let's call it something monosyllabic like 'Flub' - to restrict you to one word only for each post. A post will automatically be submitted if you hit the space key, and conversations will be much more efficient, yet still allow you to share your plans with your pals:

You get the idea. Of course, some devices you might use to flub are capable of more complex interaction, but the beauty of flubbing is that you can type your response in morse using only the button on your iPhone headset.

"Brevity", said Polonius, "is the soul of wit", and I fear this needs more emphasis in our schools, particularly amongst those destined, in later life, to compose marketing materials.

A screen in a hospital waiting room shows a succession of slides about the services on offer; one begins:

BreastHealth UK

The concept of BreastHealth UK is to help women organise and manage their breast health.

A certain superfluity, perchance?

Besides, it seems unlikely to me that any of the fairer sex start their Monday mornings thinking, "This week I intend to organise and manage my breast health".

A quick way to get a VNC connection from a Mac to another machine's desktop:

• Right-click on the Finder icon in the Dock, and choose Connect to server...
• In the Server Address box, type vnc://machinename