Today, Microsoft unveiled their re-boot of windows mobile, now called Windows Phone 7. I’m so happy that they decided to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. Where everyone else was trying attain the success of the iPhone by basically replicating the device, Microsoft chose to create a new user interface with a function-centric appeal.

So what does this have to do with the Bauhaus? Those guys were all about stripping away ornamentation until you had a naked core function. In this absence of fluff, beauty arose from simplicity. Some of my greatest design heroes come out of this era of design, know as modernism, and I think this is why I love the Windows Phone design so much. I’ve grown so tired of the over polished, glossy look that we’ve seen everywhere for so long and it is incredibly refreshing to see what has been a growing revitalization of the modernist style finally hit a mainstream device. To be more specific, I’m talking about the clean, minimal layouts that use flat colors and large, thin sans-serif typefaces in order to bring information to the forefront as the user interface.

This can be seen especially in the pure typographic layout of the calendar shown above. When the design is simplified like this, it is easy to use basic tools like color to make different types of information conspicuously stand out from their surroundings (in this case, the business and personal appointments are shown in separate colors). I know that a lot of the visual aesthetics shown in Windows Phone 7 were used in the Zune platform (whose look and style I loved, by the way) but the difference is that this base style was greatly expanded upon and done so on a platform that has a huge market share and much wider appeal. Anyway, the phones are supposed start hitting the market by the holiday season and I can’t wait to see more information on them. If you would like to find out more now, you can check out Engadget’s hands on post or gizmodo’s post on the ui among many others.

I was walking down the street the other day, listening to my iPod and complaining to myself about the stupid plugs I had stuck in my ears. The ear buds are uncomfortable, always get tangled up, and they inhibit my awareness of what’s going on around me. So, I started thinking about how they could be better or how they might work in the future. I then remembered about a sound weapon under development by the U.S. military and it hit me: maybe the headphones of the future won’t be headphones at all!

The technology I’m referring to is called MEDUSA or Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio and it works by projecting microwaves that are converted to sound when they interact with your head so no one else can hear the sound except you. The military is, of course, developing this to send excruciating sound directly into your head to incapacitate or deter you. This device currently fits onto a tank but think if the same tech further evolved into a gadget that you could clip onto your shirt. From there, it would interface with your digital media player and pump the sound directly into your head. If it worked the way I think it should, you would hear it as if there was a radio playing in the room with you. Only you could hear the music and you could also pick up on any other sounds in the room. But, what if you want to cancel out the background noise? I would think that because the sound is going directly into your head, you would be able to just put in ear plugs and voilà, sound isolated music. You could basically have your own personal sound system playing for you where ever you go. You could actually have a sound track for your life. Sounds pretty cool to me. Let me know what you think.

This idea has been rolling around in my head for a while and I’ve heard inklings of it on podcasts such as TWIT and Buzz Out Loud but have never heard/seen it really put together in the way I see it. I keep hearing about how cloud computing is the next big thing, how it is going to take change the we work, and how we will never be tied to computers because everyone will use web apps or desktop apps that sync to the cloud.

The problem with this way of thinking arises when you look at people, like myself, who need to use power hungry applications like photoshop that simply can’t currently function well as a web app. Now, I know that there are options available like Aviary or Adobe’s Photoshop.com but these are, in my opinion, hobbled apps that are just short of what I need in my work flow. What is very interesting however are the emerging technologies like the cloud gaming device/software, OnLive, that promise to bring full fledged, powerhouse computing to you through a minimally spec’ed computer or through a tiny device that can be plugged into your tv. What is amazing about this tech, if it indeed works in the real world environment, is that you will no longer need some incredibly expensive gaming rig to play games at their highest potential.

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