Friday, November 16, 2007

Maintaining An Election

As the presidential election draws closer, the pressure to learn about each candidate and figure out who might be the best choice grows. A new site, Glassbooth, is aiming to make this task a little bit easier by doing all the research for you. The first step in the process is a quiz, in which users have 20 points to assign to major issues (e.g. the environment, Iraq, immigration and healthcare) in accordance to their importance to the user. Once the point values are assigned, a set of questions based on those issues most important to the user appear. Users rate each question on a scale ranging from “strongly opposed” to “strongly support.” Additionally, certain phrases or terms in each question link to explanations on Wikipedia, which in turn offer more information on concepts such as "privatized social security", "guest worker program" and "unilateral", which help users to make more informed decisions. Once these questions are answered, Glassbooth presents the three candidates whose campaigns most closely embody the user’s thoughts and opinions, broken down by the issues they selected in the beginning. A click on each issue reveals the candidate's position on that issue, as well as links to quotes and videos depicting the particular candidate’s stance on the issue. Users curious to know where other candidates in the running stand in terms of their views can choose from a fourth candidate drop down menu to see the results. With so much information out there, the task of learning about every candidate and where they stand on important issues can be overwhelming. Often times, the issues themselves are confusing and make the decision of who to vote for even more difficult. By aggregating information, and harnessing the educational power of the Internet, Glassbooth acts as an efficient, unbiased filter. I expect this site to generate major buzz among people young and old.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

He's Just Not That India

You know the drill: A quick call to customer service gets you some guy with a thick foreign accent living across the International Date Line. But answering your warranty question isn’t the only thing that’s being handled overseas these days. Allow me to introduce you to TajTunes, an over-the-phone singing telegram service straight from India. It’s the brainchild of a Cambridge guy who once had to visit the country to study — you guessed it — outsourcing. Here’s how it works: Pick the song (birthday, get well, I heart you) and the recipient (mom, S.O., fave trend forcaster), and a lyrical stylist will call on the selected day (except weekends) and belt out the quirky tune. They’ll even send the call in an e-mail, so the performance can be saved for all posterity. Which may make the $5 price tag hard to believe. But that’s what happens when you go straight to the outsource.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Dish Water

Designer Erdem Selek came up with this smart design, called the Planter Dish Drip, which waters a houseplant with water from hand-washed dishes. The plastic dishrack can hold several dishes at once, though obviously not as many as your everyday dishrack. Still, it's a smart design that lends a whimsical, green touch to an everyday chore, which is something I can definitely support. While this design is still just that—a design—I'll let you know if and when it hits stores.