Data Visualization in Sports web sites

While we are seeing a increase in the usage of RIA technologies in sports web sites, they have been predominently for video streaming and blog purposes.

Now they have brought in data visualization of the tonnes of data they have. Check out the "Stats Machine" tool of NHL (National Hockey League. Its Java based so dont expect the richness of Flex. However this is a good start and pretty neat in terms of functionalities.

http://www.nhl.com/cgi-bin/superstats/process_stats.cgi?source=NHL.com&statType=team&seasonType=playoff&season=20072008

Flash Plugin touches 12 million downloads per day?

Not only due 98-99% of the browsers in the world have the Flash Plug-in but has about 12 million downloads per day.

This should be a bigger push when trying to sell Flex technology :)

However - i read about the 12 million statistics, but am yet to come across proof of the same.will post the same as soon i get my hands on them.

Some general statistics about Flash player penetration:-

http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/PC.html

RIA For mobile devices

I have been trying to come up with a RIA POC for mobile devices. However the main constraint has been to zero in on the right RIA technology.

I found a good blog on the same topic in jajahdevblog.com. I would recomend this blog highly.

http://jajahdevblog.com/guy/2008/03/30/ria-on-the-mobile-phones-and-small-devices/

3D Interactive Video using Flash & ActionScript 3

Now this is what i call a video - a real interactive video. Imagine a video where you can decide which angle and the depth (zoom) you want to see.

I would have expected this functionality in a advanced 3D or a movie software. But achieving this in Flash using ActionScript 3 is really awesome. This was achieved by the folks at Immersive Media, check out their videos - without fail (http://www.immersivemedia.com/)

This is going to be the next Youtube of videos :)

If you want to know how they do this - here is all the info u need (http://www.immersivemedia.com/demo/demo.php#)


Many thank to Aasim for sharing this link with me :)

Flex based search engine

Vizzl - The Visual Search Tool.

A really cool search engine. But only to search within sites like Amazon, ebay and youtube. The power of sorting the search reults is show cased here.

A must use tool if you a online shopping freak.

http://www.vizzl.com/

Microsoft's Expression Design Event @ Chennai India

Well i got to attended the recently held Microsoft's Unique Design Event (Expression) in Chennai at "Dublin, ITC Hotel Park Sheraton & Towers".

Supreet Singh, User Experience Evangelist, and Pandurang Nayak, Technical Evangelist , did manage to impress the audience who had turned out in pretty large numbers.

What i was most impressed with was the sample solutions they showcased especially the travel website. You can check that out in http://www.silverlight.com/.

What i was not impressed by was by the claim that this tool can be used by designers who don't know any coding. The target audience should have been Usability Sales professionals, Business Analysts, Competency Leads, and RIA/usability analysts who need to come up with quick walk through for their clients.

One the whole Microsoft Expression tools shown did promise a lot but the real question was can it generate requirements from the client?

With its immediate competitor Adobe already way ahead and still going strong in this race track we need to see if this rookie can catch up.

Digital Bucket - online file folder

Came across this interesting and elegant site for online file storing and sharing.

http://www.digitalbucket.net/

I like the simplicity of the functionalities in the site - where they have maintained our age old windows explorer feel in a web based utility.

No software is required to install.
Fully drag and drop capability between files and folders.
Copy, Cut, Move, Delete, Rename and zip files or folders.
Folder publishing using direct links or RSS feeds.
Sharing with digitalbucket.net users with permission assignment.
Photo Album and Photo editing capabilities.
Word, excel online editing and PowerPoint presentation viewing.
Online music and video players.

1GB space is there for free. I tried it and i liked it. :D