Archive for ‘Innovation’ category

Sibi Media Player: an innovative media player 2

5 July, 2009 | admin | Comments

Well, the previous post let you know the main structure of the media player. If you’ve not gone through it, check the post at Sibi Media Player: an innovative media player 1 before continuing this post.

Now, let’s get closer to the Player Control Area.

Control Area

Control Area

Like I told you earlier, the image above speaks. ;)

Playlist

Playlist

The player will look as below.

The Player

The Player

So, that’s it for the present. The UX designs for the player is still under development. If you’ve your say, don’t forget to leave me a comment.

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Sibi Media Player: an innovative media player 1

5 July, 2009 | admin | Comments

Sibi Media Player is an innovative media player designed keeping in mind, the word – Simple.

The player is mainly developed for the emerging mobile market although a PC (or Mac) version of the player sure do play a major role in its marketing strategies. And accordingly,  I can’t give you all the details about the player, but through this post you can get a glimpse of the UI for the PC version of the player.

The player consists of 3 main parts or modules, of which this particular post focus only on the main player module. The player is designed as an application to be made available online, that means, the media player is an ONLINE MEDIA PLAYER. So let’s get to the UI.

SIBI Media Player Modules

SIBI Media Player Modules

The above diagram talks!! I guess you have got the hunch why the Media Player is developed as an online application?? The player has the options to upload your music collection online, manage it, create playlist from your own collection and blah blah. The music has to be streamed online, such that you don’t have to carry a high capacity storage music player wherever you go. Personally, I don’t own a music player which have the storage capacity of ~40gb which is my collection in my PC.

If you are a music lover and a frequest travellor, as most of us are, you might have faced the problem of wondering which songs to put in your PMP? This is rather a hard task coz of the thousand songs, (remember, one’s music collection increases with each passing day), you won’t be  point out which songs you are going to hear during your tour; and it’s not that you can carry your system with you wherever you go!!

Ok, leave it…let me get to the UI.

The Main Player Module

The Main Player Module

The main player area is divided into 3 sub areas

  • Player Control
  • Playlist/Current Playing Info
  • Playlist Control

1) The Player Control Area consists of the buttons for Previous, Play, Stop, Next, Shuffle, Repeat, Volume, and equalizer slide in/out.

The Player Control

The Player Control

2) The Playlist/Current Playing Info are combined together in one place to reduce screen area. Unlike typical media players from Windows media player to itunes, the playlist and the current playing info display is separate eating up more screen property. SIBI playlist structure reduces the valuable screen property.

The Playlist

The Playlist

3) The Playlist Controls are pretty intuitive and simple. The almost all of the controls can be done through keyboard shortcuts. To inform the users about these shortcuts, the TIPS are displayed in a slide show format.

The Playlist Controls

The Playlist Controls

For more, check the next post Sibi Media Player: an innovative media player 2

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The Missing Gmail Labs feature (Re-post*)

5 July, 2009 | admin | Comments
Gmail Labs

Gmail Labs

Google has done a lot to improve its emailing features and User interaction through the Labs module. However, I strongly felt that the gmail labs lack one ‘mundane’ feature which everyone needs and would be happy to include with; and that is – an urgency rating system.

If you are one person who uses the email service frequently to communicate, you perhaps must have come to notice that the rating system is extremely essential.

What Google can add to its labs feature is a 5 options rating module, say something like the one shown on the right. The module is suppose to rate the urgency of the email.

What one usually does is read the email he or she receives first, and so the last email you sent, even though it is urgent, could be read last. It’s kind of a FIFO arrangement. You can mention in the subject line, the degree of urgency but there is a better way to do that.

You can simply send a ‘Someone’s Dying’ rated email. The subject line will appear in the corresponding color and one will identify it as soon as he sees the subject, (everyone reads the subject to the mails they received..don’t they?).

Someone’s Dying:

Feature

Feature

This is an email of the greatest priority. You rate this when there is and extreme need for the recipient to read the mail as soon as possible.

Finish your Coffee:

This are normal emails. The recipient reads it as when he feels like reading. Most emails should fall in this category.

I’m Feeling Lucky:

It is a Google style rate. The recipient reads it as he wants. You can rate this when you think the email is really interesting.

Actions Required:

You give this rating when the recipient needs to perform some Actions; as the likes in which site administrators sent to its users to inform the change in its privacy policy and the users need to accept it before continuing using.

No Reply:

This is an email sent when you don’t need a reply but want to inform the recipient.

*This post was originally made on FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2009 on my other blog.

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Open Innovation, the future

27 April, 2009 | admin | Comments

Innovation, the key thing to bring changes, making the developmental process for this society existing, is the major talk these days. Every company is now getting an innovation department or something more or less the same.

“Open Innovation“, as Henry Chesbrough, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, coined describes a growing number of initiatives by companies to reach beyond their own walls to use talent and ideas from others. Open Innovation is supported by various Companies seeking for the fruit from the mass to solve challenging problems with simple and elegant ideas where anyone can participate. InnoCentive, a Waltham (Mass.) company spun out from Eli Lilly (LLY) in 2001 is one of the company running online to recruit Innovators who could be anyone..even you. 

The key thing is that, these companies are tapping ideas from the mass to bring out changes in the world. Who know, maybe the idea you propose today becomes the world of tomorrow. The challenges ranges from Physics, Chemistry, Science, Engineering, a greener earth and so on. Non-Profit organizations raised challenges, and we, the general people, who have ideas proposed their ideas and you are rewarded if your idea turns out to be the next big thing!

Take a look yourself at Innocentive, the places where innovators are groom. See the various sections and the pavillions to find the right topic you are interested at. Open a project room for the challenge you want to participate, make your proposal. Wait for the result.

Open Innovation: let’s make a change!

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SIBI Online Music Player : Concept

21 February, 2009 | admin | Comments
SIBI Online Music Player (Alpha):
1) What is SIBI?
SIBI is a new generation Online Music Player. The main concept lies in its portability and user friendly aspects.
In SIBI, users can upload their own mp3s on the SIBI server, create their own SIBI playlists, manage their uploaded files and listen it through the SIBI online player from their home PC or Mac, PMPs such as the Ipod, or through their mobile devices which supports the required platform.
2) Why SIBI?
SIBI is different, or in fact the first of its kind. It is NOT an online Radio Player.
It is different because users can upload their own music collection on the server and access it from anywhere on this planet (of course when you are connected!!). It can be imagined as the Winamp combined with your hard drive online.

Many people usually have a wide collection of music in their PC or Mac, which usually of course, exceeds the capacity of a common PMP (say of 4gb or 8gb, I myself have a collection of more than 90gb!!) and almost everyone hears music while on the travel, on the way to college, on the way to his friends place and so on; but none have the time or the patience to choose out his favorite ones to be uploaded in his 4g or 8gb PMP. No one likes to sit down and make a new collection of his mp3s which will squeeze in his PMs Memory capacity and at the same time includes all his favorites. As a person’s music collection grows over time to time, he may have a lot of albums that he may like to carry around with him but which is not possible because:

  • Low Memory capacity of PMPs (Large Memory PMPs cost a fortune!)
  • Doesn’t have time to sit and pick out the ones he like; or to be precise, hardly if anyone is asked what are their favorite ones, he’ll be able to say just a few out of his huge collection. The truth is, the brain doesn’t give out like a printed list saying, ‘Here’s the list you would want to put in your PMP’… pardon us, we are HUMAN!!
  • But when you are on a journey, say a cross country tour, you won’t want to carry your laptop or PC over to everywhere you go, but the PMP, sure is meant for that time and moreover, you won’t know which type of songs you are going to listen during the journey; it depends on the place you visit, or the people you meet or it could be anything.
Bottomline: You do not know which one to put around. You just want to listen to it when you feel like listening to it.
3) Challenges to bring SIBI into production?

i) Users have to be provided a large online storage area, say 50gb for the start.

4) Purpose for SIBI?

SIBI provides users the ability to listen their favorite music anywhere, everywhere without any unwanted extra efforts, provided he has a supported connection on his PMP.

5) Monetization.
SIBI is targeting to grab the music market. On the SIBI main page, ads for new album releases or monetized services related to music can be displayed so that users can buy them. (refer the UI design section). To increase sales, displayed new album should be displayed by finding out the user’s favorite band or music which can be known by checking out the most played songs in his or her playlist. By checking what type of songs the user uploaded, such as which bands, which region of the world the user belong, displayed new album info can be on the basis of user interest which increases the chances of sales.
SIBI USER INTERFACE: Updating.
© SIBI Music Player, 2009

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