Nerd Stalker

Gut bacteria found to have a role in both PTSD and Alzheimer's disease We are rapidly discovering that the vast community of bacteria that live in our gut are actually playing roles in everything from Multiple Sclerosis to depression. Two new studies have now found connections between the gut microbiome and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Alzheimer's disease.

GM's SURUS: A Modular Electric Truck Platform (and We Do Mean "Platform") For decades, automotive design has been limited by the components necessary to make the car run. The interior and exterior forms we can create evolve as the mechanics evolve. As our tool correspondent David Frane pointed out in his write-up on the Bollinger B1, "Traditional [vehicle] design flies out the

A development platform for decentralized applications built on top of the blockchain.

The Role Of Storyboarding In UX Design To come up with a proper design, UX designers use a lot of different research techniques, such as contextual inquires, interviews and workshops. They summarize research findings into user stories and user flows and communicate their thinking and solutions to the teams with artifacts such as personas and wireframes.

The Future of Online Dating Is Unsexy and Brutally Effective When I give the dating app LoveFlutter my Twitter handle, it rewards me with a 28-axis breakdown of my personality: I'm an analytic Type A who's unsettlingly sex-focused and neurotic (99th percentile). On the sidebar where my "Personality Snapshot" is broken down in further detail, a section called "Chat-Up Advice" advises, "Do your best to avoid being negative.

How Start-up Businesses Can Get PR with a Minimal Budget      (Editor: We are pleased to share an article on some practical tips for bootstrapped startups on PR from invited contributor Cristy Brusoe of Brusoe Communication. Enjoy.) By  Cristy Brusoe, Brusoe Communications By Small businesses don’t always have the budget to include public relations, yet it is a crucial aspect of success for any business. Even with a budget, oftentimes these start-ups aren’t sure where to turn for PR support. Aligning your business with the right partners is essential in taking the next step and growing the business. Included below is a few helpful tips for those small businesses owners who are searching for a way to increase their brand exposure and bring publicity to their product/service.             Tip 1: Avoid Corporate PR . With a smaller budget, avoid large corporate PR firms that often ask you to w...

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SCORE Releases Infographic on Video Marketing for Small Businesses Image courtesy of SCORE Who isn't trying video today. Barrier to entry is as simple as a smartphone but what videos should a small business focus on? Businesses are creating cost-effective promotional videos in a range of categories, including explainers, product demos and testimonials, and these videos are performing well with customers on small business websites and social media pages. Below are some stats on videos that can help you tell your story.

Tim Cook assures fans the Mac Mini isn't forgotten It's been quite a while since Apple updated the venerable Mac Mini. In fact, it's been three long years since Apple devoted any attention to the beloved machine. In that time frame, Apple has gone through three full iPhone release cycles while also managing to refresh and update all of the other Mac models in its product lineup.

GOLD.

The cult of conversational design and why forms aren't dead yet 2016 was the year of the conversational interface. Everywhere we looked, conversational UIs were breaking out of messaging apps and into the products we use every day, from shoe shopping to cosmetics and everything in between. Many of these were successful, but many others were not.

Designing for the unpredictable A good designer is a good problem solver. Interpreting evidence and digging deeper to understand what problem is to be solved is one of the most important skills in UX design and research. But what happens after we've fixed the problem? Once we introduce a new design solution in the market, we often witness unpredictable upshots.

5 Tools That Help Overstimulated Kids Calm Down and Focus While not everyone was thrilled about the fidget spinner explosion of 2017, one thing it did bring is more awareness about tactile aides for kids with ADHD, autism and other disorders, or those who may simply be feeling overstimulated and anxious.

Airbnb Alternative for Architecture Enthusiasts An Airbnb alternative for design and architecture enthusiasts, PlansMatter allows customers to explore new cities and places while staying in stunning modernist homes. Founded by trained architects Connie Lindor and Scott Muellner, the company has...

Ron Popeil's ingenious crap Once, humanity was challenged with the effort of scrambling eggs. Then came Ron Popeil. Ron Popeil is like the dad in Gremlins, except he was real. The man invented everything cool you could buy from a tv commercial when I was a kid. The Popeil Pocket Fisherman? The Smokeless Ashtray?

Aurora Wall Planner Written by Katie on October 16, 2017. Permalink If you like a subtle gradations of pastel hues, you're going to love the Aurora Wall Planner. The poster-sized pages all display lovely colors fading into each other with open-dated months, so you can start your planning at any point during the year.

Netflix may spend $8 billion on content in 2018 Netflix has never been afraid to spend big bucks to acquire existing content and develop new programs. On the comedy front alone, Netflix over the past 12 months has spent hundreds of millions of dollars via deals signed with A-list comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle.

Perfect Wall Calendar Written by Katie on September 28, 2017. Permalink Ugh, is it really time to talk about 2018? Let's face it, as soon as the holidays hit we won't be in the mood to shop for calendars. So, is this the perfect Wall Calendar, as its name suggests? Maybe.

Amazon Echo can now differentiate between users' voices While Amazon Alexa came first, Google has been adding features to Assistant at a rapid pace. Google Assistant has long been able to differentiate between different people's voices on the Google Home. This means that your whole family can use the Home with their own suggestions, accounts, [...]

The impossible dream of USB-C While a wide variety of USB-C dongles are available, most use the same handful of unreliable, mediocre chips inside. Some USB-A dongles make Wi-Fi drop on MacBook Pros. Some USB-A devices don't work properly when adapted to USB-C, or only work in certain ports.

Agile/Scrum: The Way I See It I considered Agile to be a myth until, not long ago, we actually transitioned to the Scrum framework for software development. It has been a year since we made this transition, and I have since been assigned the role of ScrumMaster. We faced many unknowns, and chaos ruled over our entire team in the beginning.

How To Use Scrolling To Fight Increasingly Lower Attention Spans and Skimming Behavior of Users In the world of social media, constant stream of tweets, and content saturation people's attention spans are getting narrower each day. One thing becomes quite obvious when you do any usability testing is that how little attention people give when they through the websites.

Drs. Michelle Joy and Jody Foster Share Thoughts on Empathy in the Workplace Editor: We are pleased to have authors Dr. Michelle Joy and Dr. Jody Foster share their insights into one aspect of creating a comfortable work environment by learning to understand your boss. By Dr. Michelle Joy and Dr. Jody Foster A boss can make the workplace miserable. Given how much time people spend in the office, life itself can become wretched. You start to feel angry, humiliated, anxious, and depressed. You tell your coworkers just how bad this supervisor is, how they treat you, how they make you feel. Your boss really is a “jerk,” you claim, “a schmuck” you all agree. You consider doing something about it but take no steps. You hope that they stop acting this way and that everything can just get better on its own. But of course they don’t stop. They keep yelling at you, keeping you late, making you redo reports. They criticize your work. They criticize you. You start to realize th...

SAN FRANCISCO -  October 13, 2017 :   Awair, the creators of products that track air quality in homes, has released new data revealing that the several wildfires sweeping through California have caused a significant drop in  indoor  air quality in the homes of Bay Area residents. The air quality data was collected from hundreds of Awair devices that are in-use in San Francisco. According to the data,  up to 85% of Bay Area households (with Awair units) have reported unhealthy indoor air . Chart showing the increase of households with unhealthy air quality in the Bay Area during the timeframe of the wildfires The drop in indoor air quality is attributed to the increased concentration of dust and particulate matter carried down to the Bay Area from the wildfires in the North.  Between October 7th and October 11th, the concentration of dust and particulates indoors dramatically increased to unhealthy levels.   Chart showing the i...

There is not one simple definition so there is not one simple strategy to reach them and connect. The 37 Year Old Millennial Is… Everything you’d expect from a millennial – and in some cases more. Moosylvania has been evaluating millennial consumers for five years. Each year, we ask about values – how they view themselves, how they connect with brands – and what emotions their favorite brand evoked in the last 30 days. When we started the group was 13-33. We now have a group that is 17-37. (We define millennials as a 20-year generation, born in 1980.) Most marketers have pre-conceived notions of younger millennials – obsessed with themselves. But what’s up with the older group? What drives them? Hello – they’re three years under 40. This year, we decided to parse the data by 17-27/28-37 to see how they feel – what their habits and responses were by decade. The interesting thing is that in many instances, they are more connected – more involved and more socially conscious than...

Crowdsourcing initiatives like Kickstarter are hurting innovation , according to a new study from top business school INSEAD ( ranked #1 MBA in the world ). Researchers found that the ‘crowd’ appetite for investing in innovative products is startlingly low. Claims of novelty and usefulness are viewed unfavorably and result in lower pledge figures on crowdfunding initiatives. This is significant  as the equity crowdfunding industry is set to surpass venture capital  as the leading source of startup funding. Data from Kickstarter—the world’s largest online crowdfunding portal—from its inception in 2009 to 2017 was interpreted by state-of-the-art machine learning technology that incorporates speech and image recognition, seasonality, perceived risk, etc. to determine the funding success of both ‘novel’ and ‘useful’ products. This is the first time large-scale speech analysis and image recognition has been applied to the study of innovation. For example:  Sun...