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Predator better than Kinect? Just when you thought Kinect had the body tracking problem all sewn up, another approach promises to be cheaper and implementable using nothing but software and standard video cameras. The good news is that the software is open source, download-able and ready to go. Predator is based on a machine learning algorithm and can track almost any object the user cares to select. All you have to do is provide an initial bounding box that includes the object to be tracked and the system then builds a model of what it looks like. The model is used to track the object as it changes its angle to the camera.

Even if it leaves the frame and re-enters it at a new angle the software can detect it and track it again. The algorithm and program are the creation of Zdenek Kalal as part of his PhD project. The really astonishing part is that the algorithm needs no training period. You can see the algorithm in action in the video below and you have to agree that it is impressive. More information. Choosing the Right Font: A Practical Guide to Typography on the Web. Typography is an huge field. People devote years of their lives to this ancient craft, and yet there's always something new to learn. In this article, I'll be reviewing the major points that you should consider when selecting a typeface for a website. Republished Tutorial Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in October of 2010. Practical Typography When you design for the web, you have to accept that the content will change.

What I'm going to be focusing on today is practical typography. Readability What do you do with type? By making your type readable, you immediately jump ahead of at least half of the competition, which is fortunate, really, because it's not that hard! Typefaces When deciding what typeface to use on your website, it's important to remember: don't over think it. While it may go against your beliefs to set your type in such an abused face, if it works, then go for it. Pairing. Turn your blog into anything: 13 unusual uses for WordPress. Nowadays it’s quite common to use WordPress as a CMS, I do it often for simple clients’ sites. What some people still don’t know is that you can do much more with WordPress. This post shows 13 examples of cool things you can achieve with WordPress. 1. Invoicing & Billing This plugin lets you turn your WordPress install into an invoice manager, it lets you create and send web-invoices and setup recurring billing for your clients. 2.

The FAQ Builder for WordPress plugin is an easy way to manage a Frequently Asked Questions page on your blog. 3. Manage job lists and job applications on your WordPress site. 4. If you are looking to create an online business card website, there are two excellent WordPress themes to chose from: MiniCard and The Digital Card. 5. The most well-known plugin for using WordPress as a portfolio is probably wp-portfolio. 6.

If you’re looking for a Knowledge Base or Wiki for your company but don’t want or need a full blown Wiki Application. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. The Science Behind Design Color Theory. Color Theory has been a subject of interest for years in the art community. The rules and guidelines hold true when working on digital projects just as much as physical items. There is a lot to learn in the subject of color so I’m going to cover just some of the key points. Terminology is something many designers get caught up on which really shouldn’t scare you or hold you back. The science behind color theory is brilliant yet elegant.

It should be a topic of interest to every digital artist. Color Terminology Terms are very important when it comes to working as a designer. Hue is one I’m sure most have at least heard of before. Most web developers are familiar with RGB values for hues. Saturation is another buzz word designers have probably heard of but never truly defined. Color sets with less saturation work best as background elements in a website. Their light-blue background is the perfect level of saturation to fit in a background setting. Relationships for Color Theory Conclusion. 6,953 reasons why I still let Google host jQuery for me. It’s been nearly two years since I wrote about using Google’s CDN to host jQuery on your public-facing sites. In that post, I recommended it due to three primary benefits that public CDNs offer: decreased latency, increased parallelism, and improved caching.

Though the post has been overwhelmingly well-received, concerns have been raised as to whether or not the likelihood of better caching is truly very significant. Since the efficacy of that benefit depends entirely on how many other sites are using the same CDN, it takes quite a bit of research to make an objective case either way. I’ve never been happy about responding with vague answers. Caching probability is a valid concern and deserves to be taken seriously. So, I decided to cobble together an HTTP crawler, analyze 200,000 of the most popular sites on the Internet, and determine how many of those are referencing jQuery on Google’s public CDN. Methodology Inaccuracies Alexa – Alexa itself isn’t a great ranking mechanism. Analysis. HTML5 Demos and Examples.

Demo section of Marcofolio.net. Make Your Mockup in Markup. We aren’t designing copies of web pages, we’re designing web pages. Andy Clarke, via Quotes on Design The old way I used to think the best place to design a website was in an image editor. I’d create a pixel-perfect PSD filled with generic content, send it off to the client, go through several rounds of revisions, and eventually create the markup. Does this process sound familiar? You’re not alone. That process is whack, yo! Recently, thanks in large part to the influence of design hero Dan Cederholm, I’ve come to the conclusion that a website’s design should begin where it’s going to live: in the browser. Die Photoshop, die Some of you may be wondering, “what’s so bad about using Photoshop for the bulk of my design?” The application Adobe Photoshop CS4 has unexpectedly ruined your day. Photoshop’s propensity to crash at crucial moments is a running joke in the industry, as is its barely usable interface.

Text rendered in Photoshop (left) versus Safari (right). A necessary evil? RGBA? Yikes! 21 Single Page websites: Elegance and beauty in one place. 8 Must-see UX Diagrams. If you’re new to the field of user experience design, welcome! There’s plenty to see and do around here. And although many brilliant contributors have come before us, there’s actually not too much to catch up on—if you know where to look. Because pictures are worth so much, illustrated diagrams have served a critical role in our community. Our community is filled with thought leaders, those among us that conjure up entirely new ways to look at difficult design problems. Unfortunately, their perspectives are only useful insomuch as they can be communicated to other practitioners; what good is a design process if it’s done in a vacuum? Diagrams are of great use because they cut to the heart of the matter, taking away the ambiguity of words and visually depicting abstract concepts.

In this post, I’ll share eight diagrams essential to the understanding of user experience design. The diagrams The UX Honeycomb Despite its age (2004!) More to Share? User Experience Diagrams. A collection of diagrams about user experience fundamentals. Last updated June 2011. The Elements of User Experience (PDF) Conceptual model of the considerations involved in designing successful user experiences for Web sites. -Jesse James Garrett User Experience Cycle (PDF) The user experience is not one simple action -it is an interconnected cycle of attempting to satisfy hopes, dreams, needs, and desires. User Experience Honeycomb A tool for advancing the conversation beyond usability and helping people understand the many facets that can impact the quality of user experience.

Designing the User Experience This poster illustrates the path to more usable products. The Fundamentals of Experience Design The model covers the basic UX stuff like moving from a focus on tasks to a focus on activities, as well as more theoretical discussions like activity centered design vs user centered design. User-Centered Design Process (PDF) The User Experience Cosmos (PDF) The Experience Cube. The Future of Web Apps - Single Page Applications. The Future of Web Apps – Single Page Applications Mark Boas The world wide web is constantly evolving and so is the way we write the applications that run upon it.

The web was never really designed as a platform for today’s applications, nevertheless we continue to bend it to our will. Due to differing paradigms we are forced to design our web apps in a completely different way to native apps. Some of the most obvious constraints are those imposed by using the traditional multiple page model, when employed this model clearly illustrates the difference in performance between native and web apps. The price is high. In this article I propose that we can have our cake and eat it. But first let’s take a look at the advantages of a single-page approach. 1. What we are essentially talking about here is having an application where ‘virtual pages’ are loaded into one single web-page, which means switching between pages need not involve a trip to the server and so the switch occurs almost instantly.

Hack your Resume. How much cash is there in a free mobile app? Can you fund app development by giving it away and just taking advertising revenue. The early indications are that you can but it is early days and the statistics don't quite add up... It's a truism that there is no such thing as a free lunch but it seems that there are free apps. With Apple's recent launch of iAds you can expect the number of free apps in the App Store to grow. According to 148Apps.biz the App Store has already broken the 250,000 barrier of apps listed - from over 50,000 unique publishers.

What is also interesting is that the current average app price is $2.90 which sets the bar quite low for preferring an ad driven revenue model. At the moment it looks as though ad supported apps might be working. Two versions of the app were made available - a paid-for and a free, ad-supported version and it was the latter that brought in more revenue. What is clear is that something very strange going on with iAds and whether or not it is sustainable is not clear.

Related items. My 5 biggest blogging mistakes. 4 Rules of User Interface Design. Vaadin ( is an open source web application framework having a server-side architecture which constructs user interface of web applications as RIA (rich internet applications), using Java code only. For developing Vaadin applications, you only use Java code, like Java Swing.

This Java code is then converted to GWT (Google Web Toolkit) components (which are HTML and Javascript based) for browser side, and AJAX code sections are generated for some actions to support RIA concept. Server side validation is also performed for all actions. An example source code is shown below: import com.vaadin.ui. public class HelloWorld extends com.vaadin.Application { public void init() { Window main = new Window("Hello window"); setMainWindow(main); main.addComponent(new Label("Hello World! ")) And the result is: Vaadin supports so many UI components and these can be extended with new GWT components if required, and CSS themes can be applied to results. Vaadin is very well documented. 5 Killer Ways to Streamline your Coding Efficiency.

I recently read a forum thread about designers and developers, and the hourly rates they charge. One commenter made a great point, saying that you can start to charge more per hour, if you are more efficient, and faster at producing quality work, as long as quality is not compromised for speed. Apart from practice, how can you actually speed up your coding you may be thinking. Well there are plenty options out there to aid you in doing so. 1. Snippets The first of these is having snippets at your finger tips. There are pretty much 3 ways snippets can be organised, and used. The second way is to have your own local database of useful snippets at your fingertips, instead of them being out there online, and everyone else’s being there too. 2.

The third and possibly best way to make use of your snippets is via a text expander. This article, and screen cast by Jeffrey Way gives you a visual view of the power a text expander puts at your finger tips, and is well worth a read. 3. 4. 5. 30+ Search Engine Optimization Techniques You Cannot Miss. You completed a web site for your business about three months ago, but you are still not seeing very many people visiting your web site.

You do a little research and find that your web site is buried about ten pages deep on all of the major search engines. It seems that you have created a very nice web site, but it is not optimized for search engines, so your page rank is very low. Search engine optimization has become a very large field for many different consultants all over the internet. However the techniques needed to optimize your web site for search engines are not very hard to implement on your web site all by yourself. Here are a few of the most important things that you can do for search engine optimization: 1. Many people do a good job putting a good description and group of keywords in their meta tags, but they do not use these same keywords throughout the rest of their web site. 2. 3. Flash is a very neat technology and it has its place on the web. 4. 5. 6. www or not www 7.