Linked List: July 12, 2011

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Edward Tufte’s ‘Slopegraphs’ 

Great piece on data visualization by Charlie Park:

What’s interesting is that over 20 years before sparklines came on the scene, Tufte developed a different type of data visualization that didn’t fare nearly as well. To date, in fact, I’ve only been able to find three examples of it, and even they aren’t completely in line with his vision.

When the Internet Turns Vicious 

Interesting discussion on the Andy Baio/Jay Maisel fair-use conflict at The Online Photographer. Don’t miss the comments.

‘We View a Tablet as a PC’ 

Electronista:

Microsoft’s Windows Phone president Andy Lees at the Worldwide Partners Conference once again tried to shoot down hopes for tablets based on Windows Phone 7. The use of the mobile OS would be “in conflict” with Microsoft’s notion of having the full speed of a computer in any design, including truly mobile tablets. He insisted that users would want to do PC-style activities on a tablet and saw Windows 8’s networking and printing support as being important.

“We view a tablet as a PC,” Lees said.

It’s no surprise that I think Microsoft is wrong here. There’s a tectonic shift going on, and they’re in denial. But regardless if you think they’re as wrong as I do, there’s no denying that Microsoft and Apple have a fundamentally different view of the coming decade: more PCs vs. post-PCs.

Lees might as well have said, “We think Apple is fundamentally wrong on the iPad.” But so how does Microsoft rationalize the iPad’s success and popularity?