Friday, May 3, 2013

Your Daily digest for Tech Geek`s Tools, Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

Tech Geek`s Tools, Tips, Tricks and Tutorials
Pipes Output
Defense Distributed Has 3D-Printed an Entire Gun
May 3rd 2013, 23:59

Daniel_Stuckey writes with this snippet from Motherboard with an update on Cody Wilson's Defense Distributed project: "On Friday morning, Forbes's Andy Greenberg published photos of the world's first completely 3D-printed gun. It has a 3D-printed handle, a 3D-printed trigger, a 3D-printed body and a 3D-printed barrel, all made of polymer. It's not completely plastic, though. So as not to violate the Undetectable Firearms Act and guarantee it would get spotted by a metal detector, Wilson and friends embedded a six-ounce hunk of steel inside the gun. They're calling it 'The Liberator.'" (A name I'm sure that Wilson didn't come up with accidentally.)

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Google Formally Puts Palestine On Virtual Map
May 3rd 2013, 23:10

hypnosec writes "Google has indirectly walked right into one of the Middle East's most obstinate conflicts by labeling Palestine as an independent nation — wiping off the term 'Palestinian Territories' and replacing it with 'Palestine' in its localized search page. Google's move is more or less in line with the UN's October decision to name Palestine as a non-member observer state. The status given to Palestine will allow the state to join UN debates as well as global bodies such as the International Criminal Court, in theory at least. Up until May 1, anyone visiting http://www.google.ps were shown the phrase Palestinian Territories. This change is definitely not a huge one but, it has attracted criticism from politicians in Israel."

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EPA: No Single Cause For Colony Collapse Disorder
May 3rd 2013, 22:28

alphatel writes "Citing a wide range of symptoms, a federal report (PDF) released yesterday has concluded that no single event, pesticide or virus can be held responsible for CCD in North American bee colonies. Meanwhile, Europe has moved towards banning neocotinids for two years. EPA's Jim Jones stated, 'There are non-trivial costs to society if we get this wrong. There are meaningful benefits from these pesticides to farmers and to consumers, as well as for affordable food.' May R. Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a participant in the study, said, 'There is no quick fix. Patching one hole in a boat that leaks everywhere is not going to keep it from sinking.'"

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Staples Starts Selling 3-D Printer
May 3rd 2013, 22:08

An anonymous reader writes "Soon anyone will be able to head out to the store and buy a 3D printer: 'Staples, one of the leading office supply retailers in the U.S. announced it would begin selling 3-D Systems' entry level personal 3-D printer, The Cube. This is quite simply the single largest 3-D printer retail move to date by any 3-D printer manufacturer.' 'The Cube is one of a number of 3-D printers designed with traditional consumers in mind. Specifically, this unit can print items up to 5.5 inches tall, wide and long in one of 16 different colors. The retail bundle includes 25 free design templates to get users started but the real fun is designing and building something all your own.'"

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Is Buying an Extended Warranty Ever a Good Idea?
May 3rd 2013, 21:27

waderoush writes "Consumer Reports calls extended warranties 'money down the drain,' and as a tech journalist and owner of myriad gadgets — none of which have ever conked out or cracked up during the original warranty period — that was always my attitude too. But when I met recently with Steve Abernethy, CEO of San Francisco-based warranty provider SquareTrade, I tried to keep an open mind, and I came away thinking that the industry might be changing. In a nutshell, Abernethy says he's aware of the extended-warranty industry's dreadful reputation, but he says SquareTrade is working to salvage it through a combination of lower prices, broader coverage, and better service. On top of that, he made some persuasive points – which don't seem to figure into Consumer Reports' argument – about the way the 'risk vs. severity' math has changed since the beginning of the smartphone and tablet era. One-third of smartphone owners will lose their devices to drops or spills within the first three years of purchase, the company's data shows. If you belong to certain categories — like people in big households, or motorcycle owners, or homeowners with hardwood floors — your risk is even higher. So, in the end, the decision about buying an extended warranty boils down to whether you think you can defy the odds, and whether you can afford to buy a new device at full price if you're one of the unlucky ones."

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Epic and Mozilla Bring HTML5 OpenGL Demo To the Browser
May 3rd 2013, 21:03

sl4shd0rk writes "Mozilla and Epic (of Epic Megagames fame) have engineered an impressive First Person OpenGL demo which runs on HTML5 and a subset of JavaScript. Emscripten, the tool used, converts C and C++ code into 'low level' JavaScript. According to Epic, The Citadel demo runs 'within 2x of native speeds' and supports features commonly found in native OpenGL games such as dynamic specular lighting and global illumination. This concept was previously covered on Slashdot, however the Citadel demo has just been released this week."

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New Device Sniffs Out Black Powder Explosives
May 3rd 2013, 20:43

sciencehabit writes "The Boston marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly purchased several pounds of black powder explosive before the bombing. Used in fireworks and bullets, the explosive substance is both deadly and widely available. It's also very hard to detect. Now, researchers have modified one bomb-sniffing device to accurately spot very small amounts of black powder, an advance that could make us safer from future attacks. What has prevented detection of black powder by IMS in the past, however, is that sulfur and oxygen -- which composes 20% of air—hit the detector at almost the same time. A strong oxygen signal can thus mask a small amount of sulfur, like what a bombmaker's dirty fingers might leave on a luggage strap. A group led by chemist Haiyang Li at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in China modified an IMS to eliminate the oxygen signal. 'We have tested the sensitivity of TR-IMS, and its limit of detection of black powder can reach as low as 0.05 nanograms,' Li says."

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Sequoia Supercomputer Sets Record With 'Time Warp'
May 3rd 2013, 20:21

Nerval's Lobster writes "The 'Sequoia' Blue Gene/Q supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has topped a new HPC record, helped along by a new 'Time Warp' protocol and benchmark that detects parallelism and automatically improves performance as the system scales out to more cores. Scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and LLNL said Sequoia topped 504 billion events per second, breaking the previous record of 12.2 billion events per second set in 2009. The scientists believe that such performance enables them to reach so-called "planetary"-scale calculations, enough to factor in all 7 billion people in the world, or the billions of hosts found on the Internet. 'We are reaching an interesting transition point where our simulation capability is limited more by our ability to develop, maintain, and validate models of complex systems than by our ability to execute them in a timely manner,' Chris Carothers, director of the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations at RPI, wrote in a statement."

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Ex-Employee Busted For Tampering With ERP System
May 3rd 2013, 19:59

ErichTheRed writes "Here's yet another example of why it's very important to make sure IT employees' access is terminated when they are. According to the NYTimes article, a former employee of this company allegedly accessed the ERP system after he was terminated and had a little 'fun.' 'Employees at Spellman began reporting that they were unable to process routine transactions and were receiving error messages. An applicant for his old position received an e-mail from an anonymous address, warning him, “Don’t accept any position.” And the company’s business calendar was changed by a month, throwing production and finance operations into disorder.' As an IT professional myself, I can't ever see a situation that would warrant something like this. Unfortunately for all of us, some people continue to give us a really bad reputation in the executive suite."

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Pentagon Approval of iOS and Samsung KNOX Is Bad News for BlackBerry
May 3rd 2013, 19:17

rjupstate writes "The Pentagon is quickly moving to approve the latest devices and platforms from BlackBerry, Samsung, and Apple. That's good news for two of those companies. It's not-so-good news for BlackBerry. 'The Pentagon currently has about 600,000 smartphone users – almost all using BlackBerrys – but ultimately aims to have as many as 8m smartphones and tablets, under the terms of a scheme made public last November.' 'In its effort to expand into the high security government niche, one that BlackBerry has enjoyed near singular control of for years, Samsung recently created a government advisory board made up of Samsung executives and security experts from various U.S. and foreign government security agencies. ... In the end, the program will likely elevate that status of both Apple and Samsung within military and civilian government agencies in the U.S. and other western countries.'"

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Turbulenz HTML5 Games Engine Goes Open Source
May 3rd 2013, 18:55

New submitter JoeKilner writes "The Turbulenz HTML5 games engine has been released as open source under the MIT license. The engine is a full 3D engine written in TypeScript and using WebGL. To see what the engine is capable off, check out this video of a full 3D FPS running in the browser using the Turbulenz engine and Quake 4 assets. You can see some of the games already developed with the engine at Turbulenz.com. (Note — to try the games without registering, hit the big blue 'Play as Guest' button.) Also, IE doesn't have WebGL support yet, so to play without a plugin try Chrome or FIrefox."

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Florida Supreme Court Rules Police Need Warrant To Search Cell Phones
May 3rd 2013, 18:35

An anonymous reader writes "In a case stemming from a Jacksonville burglary, the Florida Supreme Court ruled 5-2 Thursday that police must get a search warrant before searching someone's cell phone. 'At this time, we cannot ignore that a significant portion of our population relies upon cell phones for email communications, text message information, scheduling, and banking,' read the majority opinion (PDF), authored by Justice Fred Lewis. 'The position of the dissent, which would permit the search here even though no issue existed with regard to officer safety or evidence preservation, is both contrary to, and the antithesis of, the fundamental protections against government intrusion guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.'"

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Warner Bros. Sued By Meme Creators Over Copyright Infringement
May 3rd 2013, 17:51

Krazy Kanuck sends this quote from the BBC: "Warner Bros is being sued for the alleged unauthorized use of two cats that have achieved internet fame. ... The complaint alleged that the cats were used without permission in Scribblenauts, a series of games on the Nintendo DS and other platforms. Court documents alleged that Warner Bros and 5th Cell 'knowingly and intentionally infringed' both claimant's ownership rights. 'Compounding their infringements,' court papers (PDF) said, 'defendants have used "Nyan Cat" (designed by Christopher Torres) and "Keyboard Cat" (created in 1984 by Charles Schmidt), even identifying them by name, to promote and market their games, all without plaintiffs' permission and without any compensation to plaintiffs.' "

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What Modern Militaries Can Learn From Battlestar Galactica
May 3rd 2013, 17:01

An anonymous reader writes "Modern warfare these days is all about a 'networked environment.' But what happens when such things that make a modern military work breakdown? How would America's armed forces fight if their computers crashed, could not communicate, or were hit with massive viruses? What then? 'There's wisdom in science fiction. The conceit behind the reboot of the sci-fi epic Battlestar Galactica was that networking military forces exposes them to disaster unless commanders and weapons designers think ahead to the repercussions should an enemy exploit or break the network. The mechanical Cylons, arch foes of humanity, are able to crush the humans' battle fleet and bombard their home worlds with nukes by insinuating viruses into networked computers. They sever contact between capital ships and their fighter forces, and they shut down the fleet's and planets' defenses. Having lost the habit of fighting without networked systems, human crews make easy pickings for Cylon predators.'"

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Ask Slashdot: How To Handle a Colleague's Sloppy Work?
May 3rd 2013, 16:22

An anonymous reader writes "I'm working on a new product with one of the more senior guys at our company. To be blunt: his work is sloppy. It works and gets the job done, but it's far from elegant and there are numerous little (some might say trivial) mistakes everywhere. Diagrams that should be spread over five or six pages are crammed onto one, naming is totally inconsistent, arrows point the wrong way (without affecting functionality) and so forth. Much of this is because he is so busy and just wants to get everything out the door. What is the best way to handle this? I spent a lot of time refactoring some of it, but as soon as he makes any changes it needs doing again, and I have my own work to be getting on with. I submit bug reports and feature requests, but they are ignored. I don't want to create bad feelings, as I have to work with him. Am I obsessing over small stuff, or is this kind of internal quality worth worrying about?"

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Robot 'Fly' Mimics Full Range of Insect Flight
May 3rd 2013, 15:40

ananyo writes "A robot as small as a housefly has managed the delicate task of flying and hovering the way the actual insects do. The device uses layers of ultrathin materials that can make its wings flap 120 times a second, similar to the rate that a housefly manages. The robot's wings are composed of thin polyester films reinforced with carbon fibre ribs and its 'muscles' are made from piezoelectric crystals, which shrink or stretch depending on the voltage applied to them. Weighing in at just 80 milligrams, the tiny drone cannot carry its own power source, so has to stay tethered to the ground. It also relies on a computer to monitor its motion and adjust its attitude (abstract). Still, it is the first robot to deploy a fly's full range of aerial motion, including hovering (there's a video in the source)."

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Is Google Glass Too Nerdy For the Mainstream?
May 3rd 2013, 14:59

New submitter some old guy writes "Marcus Wohlsen writing in Wired Business makes a good case for why no amount of marketing hype will cure Google Glass of its inherent dorkiness. 'Google Glass fails to acknowledge that walking around with a camera mounted on the side of your face at all times makes you look dorky. Think of the Bluetooth headset: it’s a really sensible way to use your phone without having to take it out of your pocket—so sensible that there’s really no reason not to keep that headset in your ear most of the time. But you don’t, do you?' He also makes an interesting comparison to the Segway debacle: 'If we were all riding around on Segways now, cities would probably be better places to live compared to the car-infested streets we still endure. But that transformation hasn't happened. And it won’t. Why? Because Segways are lame. They’re too rational. They fail to acknowledge all the irrational reasons people love their cars.'"

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The Smart Grid Has Arrived
May 3rd 2013, 14:16

SternisheFan sends this excerpt from MIT's Technology Review: "The first comprehensive and large scale smart grid is now operating. The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent, and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it. ... Dozens of utilities are building smart grids — or at least installing some smart grid components, but no one had put together all of the pieces at a large scale. Florida Power & Light's project incorporates a wide variety of devices for monitoring and controlling every aspect of the grid, not just, say, smart meters in people's homes. ... Many utilities are installing smart meters — Pacific Gas & Electric in California has installed twice as many as FPL, for example. But while these are important, the flexibility and resilience that the smart grid promises depends on networking those together with thousands of sensors at key points in the grid — substations, transformers, local distribution lines, and high voltage transmission lines. (A project in Houston is similar in scope, but involves half as many customers, and covers somewhat less of the grid.) In FPL's system, devices at all of these places are networked — data jumps from device to device until it reaches a router that sends it back to the utility — and that makes it possible to sense problems before they cause an outage, and to limit the extent and duration of outages that still occur. The project involved 4.5 million smart meters and over 10,000 other devices on the grid."

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Today Is International Day Against DRM
May 3rd 2013, 13:34

jrepin writes "Digital restrictions management (DRM) creates damaged goods that users cannot control or use freely. It requires users to give-up control of their computers and restricts access to digital data and media. Device manufacturers and corporate copyrights holders have already been massively infecting their products with user-hostile DRM. Tablets, mobile phones and other minicomputers are sold with numerous restrictions embedded that cripple users freedom. The proposal at table in W3C to put DRM into HTML goes even further. Fight it: use today's today is international Day Against DRM, so spread the word and make yourself heard!" The EFF suggests making every day a day against DRM.

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Barnes & Noble Adds Google Play Store To the Nook
May 3rd 2013, 12:51

An anonymous reader writes "When Barnes & Noble first released its Nook tablets, one of the big problems with the devices was that their custom version of Android only had access to the Barnes & Noble app store. They took the 'walled garden' approach, preventing users from accessing Google Play, which had a much larger selection of software and many more options when it came to free apps. Now, the company is reversing that decision. A software update is being rolled out to give the devices access to Google Play. 'The bottom line: if something's available for Android, it's now available for Nook, assuming it's compatible from a technical standpoint. Among other things, that means you'll be able to install Amazon's Kindle app on a Nook and read books you've purchased from Amazon. For the first time, the notion of someone with a heavy investment in Kindle books buying a Nook doesn't sound completely impractical.' The company is gambling that the devices' increased utility will make up for the loss in app revenue. Either way, it's good news for Nook tablet owners."

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Quanto non mi piace il meglio del meglio del Web italiano
May 3rd 2013, 10:28

Ma per piacere. Ma facciamola finita. Non se ne può più di certe filippiche stantie che puzzano di marcio e appaiono ormai abusate e logore. Parlo del meglio del meglio del Web italico che oggi reagisce (male) alle dichiarazioni di Laura Boldrini, la neo Presidente della Camera, che si è giustamente scagliata contro l'anarchia della Rete.

La storia ve la riassumo in due righe. Circolano centinaia di immagini e messaggi violenti contro di lei. Fotomontaggi a sfondo sessuale. Fotomontaggi che la ritraggono violentata da un uomo di colore. Fotomontaggi del suo viso appiccicato sopra al corpo di una donna sgozzata. Continue minacce di morte che rimbalzano ovunque, incontrollate, su ogni angolo della Rete. Lei ha detto soltanto: «sulla Rete campagne d’odio, è tempo di fare una legge».

E i "guru" prezzolati nostrani, invece di mostrarle solidarietà o quantomeno di provare a discutere sull’argomento, di che si preoccupano? Del fatto che non serva una legge contro l'anarchia ma piuttosto una legge per diffondere il Web in Italia. Ma che c'entra, dico io? Che razza di conclusione è? Al massimo, se proprio vogliamo essere onesti, servono entrambi. E forse, se la vogliamo mettere sul punto della tutela degli individui, darei la priorità alla prima.

Ora, provate a mettetevi nei panni della Boldrini per un secondo o in quelli di una donna qualsiasi a cui viene riservato lo stesso trattamento. Immedesimatevi in quelli di un marito la cui moglie viene sottoposta a un simile sciacallaggio. Altro che satira e umorismo nero. Credo che sareste tutti molto meno accondiscendenti verso certe forme di quella che definite come “ironia”.

Viviamo in un Paese dove secondo i dati dell'Istat viene assassinata una donna ogni tre giorni. E se un rappresentate delle Istituzioni solleva l'altra faccia di questo problema che striscia pericolosamente nei meandri della Rete, voi l'unica cosa che sapete dire è che il problema del Web non è quello? Il problema del Web è anche quello!

Ma siete ciechi? Irresponsabili, incoscienti? O semplicemente non sapete ripetere altro al di fuori del mantra che tutto quello che gira attorno al Web è sempre tutto figo ed è sempre tutto bello? Mi ricordate tanto quei bambinetti privi di spirito critico che passano le giornate rinchiusi a giocherellare nella loro stanzetta piena di giocattoli pensando che il mondo inizi e finisca dentro quelle quattro mura. Ma per piacere. Finitela qui.

Infinite Scrolling: Let’s Get To The Bottom Of This
May 3rd 2013, 10:03


  

Infinite scrolling promises a better experience for users. However, the good is often accompanied by the bad and the ugly. Once we understand the strengths and weaknesses of infinite scrolling, we can begin to use it to enhance our interfaces.

Human nature demands hierarchy and structures that are easy to navigate. But infinite scrolling sometimes leaves users feeling disoriented as they travel down a page that never ends.

The NeverEnding Scroll

The Good

Long lists are not new, but the way in which we scroll these lists has fundamentally changed since the arrival of mobile interfaces. Due to the narrowness of mobile screens, list items are arranged vertically, requiring frequent scrolling.

Infinite scrolling is highly trending as an interaction behavior on pages and lists. The basic functionality is that, as the user scrolls through content, more content is loaded automatically. With the popularity of social media, massive amounts of data are being consumed; infinite scrolling offers an efficient way to browse that ocean of information, without having to wait for pages to preload. Rather, the user enjoys a truly responsive experience, whatever device they're using.

Pagination vs. Infinite Scroll
Pagination versus infinite scrolling (Large version)

Websites with lots of user-generated content today are using infinite scrolling to handle content that is being generated every second. By unspoken agreement, users are aware that they won't get to see everything on these websites, because the content is updated too frequently. With infinite scrolling, social websites are doing their best to expose as much information as possible to the user.

Twitter integrates infinite scrolling effectively. Its feed fits the criteria: a large amount of data (tweets) and a real-time platform. From the perspective of the user, all tweets are equally relevant, meaning that they have the same potential to be interesting or uninteresting; so, users will often scroll through all of the tweets in their feed. Being a real-time platform, Twitter is constantly being updated, even if the user leaves their feed unattended. Infinite scrolling seems to have been created especially for websites like Twitter, which successfully employs the technology.

Infinite scrolling appears to have found its niche on the Web. However, there are also drawbacks that must be considered before assessing its value.

The Bad And The Ugly

With so much data to browse, users must stay focused on the information they are searching for. (Remember about being goal-oriented?) Do users always want a never-ending stream of data? Analytics show that when users search for information on Google, only 6% advance to the second page. So, 94% of users are satisfied with receiving only 10 results, which suggests that users find Google's ranking of results to be relevant.

To Click or Not to Click

Google has implemented infinite scrolling for image search results but has yet to implement it for its general results. Doing so would eliminate the need for users to click to reach the second page. Google will probably maintain pagination because this pattern is quite symbolic for its brand. If it does switch to infinite scrolling, when would users typically stop scrolling? After 20 results? 50? When does an easy browsing experience become more complicated?

Looking for the best search result could take a second or an hour, depending on your research. But when you decide to stop searching in Google's current format, you know the exact number of search results. You can make an informed decision about where to stop or how many results to peruse because you know where the end is. According to studies conducted in the field of human-computer interaction, reaching an end point provides a sense of control; you know that you have received all relevant results, and you know whether the one you are looking for is there or not. Knowing the number of results available provides a sense of control and helps the user make a more informed decision, rather than be left to scour an infinitely scrolling list.

Pagination: The Click Barrier
Pagination is a barrier of clicks. (Large version)

When items are distributed across Web pages, they are framed and indexed and have a start and end point. The information is presented clearly and orderly. If we select an item from a paginated list and are taken from that page, we know that clicking "Back" will return us to that page (probably to the same scroll position). Our Web search will continue right where it left off.

If you scroll the same list of results with infinite scrolling, you are left without that sense of control because you are scrolling through a list that is conceptually infinite. Let's say you count yourself among the 94% who stop reading after the first page (i.e. 10 results) of a Google search. When the list scrolls infinitely, there is essentially no end to the first page. Rather than look for the end of the page, which doesn't exist anyway, you decide to stop scrolling at the 10th item. This poses a problem with infinite scrolling, because the 11th item is directly in sight. With a paginated list, on which you wouldn't see the 11th result, deciding not to continue browsing is easier. However, when the next results are already there, you'd probably just keep on scrolling and scrolling.

As Dmitry Fadeyev points out:

“People will want to go back to the list of search results to check out the items they've just seen, comparing them to what else they've discovered somewhere else down the list. Having a paginated interface lets the user keep a mental location of the item. They may not necessarily know the exact page number, but they will remember roughly what it was, and the paginated links will let them get there easier.

Not only does the infinite scroll break this dynamic, it also makes it difficult to move up and down the list, especially when you return to the page at another time and find yourself back at the top, being forced to scroll down the list once again and wait for the results to load. In this way the infinite scroll interface is actually slower than the paginated one.”

— Dmitry Fadeyev, When Infinite Scroll Doesn’t Work

When Infinite Scrolling Fails

The best companies are constantly testing and studying new interactions with their users. Increasing numbers of these studies are showing that infinite scrolling does not resonate with users if it does not support their goal on the website.

Temptation

When you're looking for that perfect search result and are tempted to continue scrolling into a wasteland of irrelevant results, time is wasted. Chances are that the best result will appear in the first 10 items. Therefore, infinite scrolling merely tempts you to continue reading, wasting time and decreasing productivity in the process.

Optimism

Even more annoying is that scroll bars do not reflect the actual amount of data available. You'll scroll down happily assuming you are close to the bottom, which by itself tempts you to scroll that little bit more, only to find that the results have just doubled by the time you get there.

Exhaustion

Infinite scrolling overwhelms users with stimuli. Like playing a game that you can never win, no matter how far you scroll, you feel like you'll never get to the end. The combination of temptation and optimism play a big role in exhausting the user.

Pogosticking

Infinite scrolling often causes your position on the page to get lost. "Pogosticking" happens when you click away from an infinitely scrolling list and, when you return by clicking "Back," are brought to the top of the previous page, instead of to the point where you left off. This happens because the scroll position is lost when you navigate away from an infinitely scrolling page, forcing you to scroll back down each time.

Loss of Control

Infinite scrolling leaves you with the feeling that you might be missing out on information. You continue scrolling because the results are right there, but you feel overwhelmed because you're losing control over the amount of data being shown. There is something nice about defined pages on which the amount of content is quantified, where you can comfortably choose whether to click to view more or to stop. With infinite scrolling, you don't have control over the amount of data on the page, which becomes overwhelming.

Distracting

Etsy, the vintage e-commerce marketplace, implemented infinite scrolling, only to find that it led to fewer clicks from its users. Infinite scrolling was unsuccessful because users felt lost in the data and had difficulty sorting between relevant and irrelevant information. While infinite scrolling provided faster and more results, users were less willing to click on them, defeating its very purpose.

Etsy's Home Page
Etsy's home page (Large version)

Unreachable

Have you tried reaching the footer of Facebook lately? The footer block exists below the news feed, but because the feed scrolls infinitely, more data gets loaded as soon as you reach the bottom, pushing the footer out of view every time. Footers exist for a reason: they contain content that the user sometimes needs. In Facebook's case, the user can't reach it. The links are repeated elsewhere but are harder to find. Infinite scrolling impedes the user by making important information inaccessible.

Facebook auto-loading News Feed and the unreachable footer
Facebook's auto-loading news feed makes the footer unreachable. (Large version)

Footers serve as a last resort. If users can't find something or they have questions or want more information or explanation, they often go there. If they don't find it there, they might leave the website altogether. Companies that implement infinite scrolling should either make the footer accessible by making it sticky or relocate the links to a sidebar.

Not Exclusive

Pinterest does not have a footer at all, which makes sense given the problem we just saw with Facebook. Through infinite scrolling, Pinterest emphasizes its profusion of data, an endless sea of inspiration taken from all over the Web.

Pinterest Ocean of Pins
Pinterest's ocean of pins (Large version)

Images are faster and easier to scroll than text, so Pinterest and Google Images succeed with infinite scrolling to an extent. However, billions of images are on the Web, and users would prefer to see only the best of them. There is something to be said for exclusivity, which seems to be lacking in Pinterest's layout.

Limiting the number of images on Pinterest's home page, with an "Editor's picks" or "Most popular" list, might make the website more appealing. How exclusive can a pin be when a ton of other similar pins are next to it?

Pinterest's tactic of using infinite scrolling for its plethora of data suffers because it overwhelms users. The collection looks bottomless, but its immensity is somewhat daunting, and browsing it might seem a waste of time. Ultimately, Pinterest is trying to expose users to infinite inspiration, but that actually undermines the human need for control. The amount of data becomes intimidating, and users are left with mixed feelings.

When Usability Wins

As mentioned earlier, Twitter integrates infinite scrolling effectively. The user sees an infinitely growing list of tweets and can comfortably click on a tweet to expand it in place, preventing the page from refreshing and, as a result, maintaining their scroll position.

Twitter's torn feed
Twitter's torn feed (Large version)

On its mobile version, Twitter even adds a "torn paper" marker, indicating to the user where to resume reading. This subtle and simple solution enables the user to scroll up and down the list, while having a recognizable point to return to. Psychologically, that marker reassures the reader by dividing read and unread content. Such markers give the user a sense of control and a better perception of the content's depth and how far they've gotten into it.

Twitter is not the only one. Discourse, an emerging discussion platform, also has infinite scrolling that empowers the user. The company considered the importance of infinite scrolling to its user experience and implemented an intriguing and unique progress indicator. The indicator appears when needed and remains in view (without interfering) while the user reads the content. The indicator numbers the item currently being viewed out of the total number of items. This is a great way to make the user feel in control, even with a lot of data.

Smart progress indicator on Discourse.com
The smart progress indicator on Discourse (Large version)

Go Hybrid

A hybrid of infinite scrolling and pagination is also a good option in many cases. With this solution, you would show a "load more" button at the end of a preloaded list, which, when clicked, loads another batch of items onto the list. The same behavior that infinite scroll does automatically, this button does on demand. The interface gains some of the advantages of infinite scrolling, without some of its drawbacks.

Because infinite scrolling requires the website to fetch so much content, the hybrid solution is used at times to control the data load. In Facebook's news feed and Google's image search, the infinite scrolling is automatic at first but becomes on-demand once a certain number of items have loaded. This maintains the interface while limiting the load on the server.

Hybrid Infinite Pagination on Google Images
Hybrid infinite pagination on Google Images (Large version)

Infinite Pages

Infinite pages take the concept of infinite scrolling to a new level. Websites that employ this concept are "one-pagers." To remove the barrier of clicking to the next page, the designer turns the entire website into one long scrollable page. Examples are Unfold and Lost World's Fairs.

On these one-page websites, the sections are spread vertically, one after another. This makes the whole website less comprehensible — hence, less accessible. These websites might not have infinite scrolling, but the user might still have that feeling of a never-ending page.

On infinite pages, the height of each section will vary according to its contents. Although the approach can make for some creative interactions, it can leave users disoriented and unsure where to scroll for the next piece of information. The scroll bar is hidden on many such pages, leaving users feeling lost as they unconsciously look for the scroll position to track their progress. Hidden scroll bars deprive users of that chance for rescue. Users shouldn't be left helpless; the interface should clearly show them how to navigate the page.

Infinite Page
Not knowing where they stand can leave the users disoriented.

UX engineers need to take extra care when designing infinite pages. They must take into account accessibility; tell users where they stand by showing the length of the page and how much they've viewed. Solutions could include a fixed menu, a map of the page or a scroll progress bar.

Another trick is the parallax effect, whereby different layers on the page move at different speeds according to the user's scrolling, creating the illusion of depth (as seen on Andrew McCarthy's website). While it can help to create beautiful and innovative experiences, it is sometimes heavily overused, and users can get confused by how much they need to scroll for more content. When the parallax effect is combined with animation, the user can get confused about whether the page is being scrolled by their movement or is moving autonomously. It’s wise to use the technique to enhance content, not as the content itself.

Let's Get To The Bottom Of This

Infinite scrolling can be an innovative feature that greatly improves an interface by exposing content and making performance more efficient. But it needs to be used correctly.

Avoid the following sinkholes to achieve a strong infinite scrolling experience:

  • Users want immediate access to exclusive data.
    Users don't want to be left to explore all of a website's data on their own. When implementing infinite scrolling, identify what data is exclusive to your website and elevate it to the top of the page, and filter less relevant information.
  • Users want to feel in control.
    Infinite scrolling sabotages that feeling of control. Add a smart progress indicator, a fixed menu or a map.
  • Users often look for landmarks when scrolling.
    When scrolling through long lists, users expect to be able to easily distinguish between new and viewed data. Add landmarks along the interface to keep users oriented.
  • Consider conventional pagination or a hybrid solution.
    Good old pagination is always an alternative to infinite scrolling. And if that doesn't fit the context, then a hybrid solution, using a "load more" button, could greatly enhance the interface.
  • Provide interesting content without an ambiguous interface.
    Having to traverse a never-ending list is logical only if the user leaves feeling that it was worthwhile.
  • Users often expect a footer.
    If footer-type information is functional to the interface, then it should appear at the bottom of the page. A fixed footer is usually the way to go with infinite scrolling.
  • An infinite list is still a list.
    Infinite scrolling still needs to meet common interface standards. Whether users take their eyes off the screen for a moment or click a link and then click "Back," they expect to return to the exact point where they left off. Whatever your interface, make sure it meets users' expectations.
  • Effects are nice to have but not a must.
    Many infinitely scrolling interfaces have various effects to show more data (whether by sliding in new content or another method). Be mindful not to focus more on effects than on presenting data in the most effective way possible.

Use It Correctly

Users are goal-oriented and find satisfaction in reaching the end of their exploration. To be effective, infinite scrolling has to account for this. Nothing is really infinite, not even these infinitely scrolling lists we've looked at. Users should always know where they stand, even when the content has not finished loading. They should know what the total amount of data is and be able to easily navigate the list. Infinite scrolling has to be implemented in the best possible way so that users can always find their way.

(al)


© Yogev Ahuvia for Smashing Magazine, 2013.

A True Responsive jQuery Lightbox Plugin for Free
May 3rd 2013, 07:01

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Magnific Popup is a free responsive jQuery lightbox plugin that is focused on performance and providing best experience for user with any device. The majority of lightbox plugins require you to define size of it via JS option. Magnific Popup does not – you can use relative units like EM’s or resize lightbox with help of CSS media queries. Update content inside lightbox without worrying about how it’ll resize and center.

Plugin has an option to automatically switch to alternative mobile-friendly source on small screen size. Default controls are made with pure CSS, without external graphics. For the main image there is a built in way to provide appropriate source for different pixel density displays. Magnific Popup displays images before they’re completely loaded to take full advantage of progressive loading. For in and out transitions CSS3 is used instead of slow JavaScript animation.

magnific-popup

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://dimsemenov.com/plugins/magnific-popup/
License: MIT License

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