Don't Panic Labs Reading List

DPL Reading List – February 2, 2018

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| February 2, 2018 | in

Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week.

Perfectionism Is Increasing, and That’s Not Good News – “Perfectionism is a misleading trait. It promises meticulousness, hard work, and dedication but, although it can deliver motivation and performance, also delivers mental health difficulties. Our research suggests that perfectionism is increasing. Expect the frequency of these difficulties to do the same.”

Microsoft’s “Ink to Code” turns drawings into user interfaces – “Currently, the app is only an early prototype-a basic proof of concept rather than a fully fledged development tool. It recognizes only a few interface elements, along with rules and guidelines for aligning things, and it produces only basic code with no functional parts. The company has various ideas of how to develop it further but wants to hear from real designers and developers where to focus its development efforts.”

Google Spent Years Studying Effective Teams. This Single Quality Contributed Most to Their Success – “The best companies are made up of great teams. You see, even a company full of A-players won’t succeed if those individuals don’t have the ability to work well together. That’s why not too long ago, Google set out on a quest to figure out what makes a team successful. They code-named the study Project Aristotle, a tribute to the philosopher’s famous quote “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.””

How One Typeface Landed on the Moon – “By the time of the space missions, Futura’s sheer ubiquity (helped by its numerous American-made copies) meant that the irony of its German roots would have been lost on most public observers, and almost certainly on NASA’s decision-makers. In this way, Futura, Helvetica, and the space program represent one of the best (and sometimes worst) aspects of American culture: its ability to adopt and adapt new ideas into its mainstream.”

Everything You Need to Know to Start Your IoT Project – “It is -by any account - a magical feeling to open your eyes up to lights that wake up with you in the morning, to have the kettle on by the time you get into the kitchen, have Alexa tell you the news while you’re brushing your teeth and generally give your home a living personality mirroring yours. But it’s important to do it right. IoT devices are not mere gadgets. With every device you are adding to the network, you are building an intelligence around your home, a brain for what used to be brainless and that’s a responsibility you cannot take lightly.”

4 Ways You Can Use AI to Enhance Every Step of the Customer Journey – “AI-powered tools have made it easier for even non-techie CMO’s to deliver a highly personalized experience by anticipating consumer needs and making real-time predictions. AI-powered marketing is helping marketers to satisfy increasing customer expectations. It’s with the help of artificial intelligence that even small- and mid-scale retailers are able to provide an exceptional one-to-one customer experience like Amazon, Walmart and Nordstrom.”

What This Ping-Pong Robot Tells Us About the Next Phase of Human-Robot Interaction – “Again, this doesn’t have to be interactive, such as a personified robot rolling up to you and predicting what you want next or a pingpong-playing robot helping you improve your volley. It’s about the technology inside those easy-to-conceptualize bots that can sense who you are and want you want. It could take the form of a smart home integrated system that senses you’ve arrived home from work and automatically adjusts the lights.”