Responsive websites have emerged as a significant issue in the online space. This is a concept that is simply defined as a website that can "flex" or respond to fit the device that the viewer is using. Increasingly this device is a smart phone. As smart phones continue to replace feature phones, and more importantly ourtsell desktop PCs

Roku. I wonder about the provenance of that word. I do not wonder about what Roku the company does. Roku makes a neat little set top box and service . Some call it OTT, short for "over the top" TV. An idea I like because it gives specialty content owners and creators an option to get their content across the "final ten feet". In short, Roku gives viewers a new means of accessing content that they want to watch, rather than what the network thinks they should watch. Roku gives the content creators a means of getting their content on televisions in living rooms. Television as commonly understood is a broadcast signal sent from a television station and received over the air or over a cable by a TV set in someone's house. The content in that signal is the end result of many people deciding what is fit for viewers to watch AND what is worthy of being supported by advertising. This is crucial. The "show" has always been the means to draw viewers to watch the ads.
Roku allows for content creators to load their content on a server and through the creators agreement with Roku, they then get that content "visible" via a Roku box that literally sits on top of the viewer's TV set. One end of the box is connected to the internet and the other end to the TV. The content comes from the creator via Roku. It DOES NOT COME FROM THE TV STATION. The TV statiions are left out of the decision about whether or not the content is good enough to support advertising. The viewers themselves are left to decide. Importantly, the creators then have to figure out how to monetize their content.
"How is this relevant?", you might ask. The answer would be that Quietwater Media is a Roku developer. We offer the service of setting up the Roku channel in order to make your content visible on the Million + set top boxes that Roku has in circulation.

Stay tuned for more info.

P.S. If you read this far, I Googled "Roku". Taken literally that word is the number six ("6") in the Japanese language. Although not confirmed by the founder, one Anthony Wood, Roku is also the sixth company in which he has been involved to some degree.

Here is an idea/company/service. Why? In part because it recognized opportunity and has made a business out of addressing someone else's pain point, to try and lessen the pain and in so doing, make a bit of money for themselves. I have always liked data visualization. I even made a first career out of it as an engineering consultant doing 3D numerical modeling of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. The first time around, the bandwidth and other aspects of the user experience just were not there. Fifteen years later maybe there is a bit more to work with as companies like Youreality go about their business. Some of which I hope to use as well.

Here is a gadget. It reminds me of an accordion. I also think it is a great way to show images in a novel yet user-friendly way. I'm using it to show the full images from which I took parts to make the upper right corner imagery on each of the pages in this site.

For many people this image is indeed worthy of a skunkworks page entry. It is unknown and never before seen. For others though, especially smart phone owners, this is an increasingly recognized, dare-I-say, common image.

USA Today includes at least one in every daily copy of their newspaper. Magazines are using these on top of imagery. This allows their readers to pick up their phone or tablet, scan the image and go to wherever the QR code takes them, presumably to learn more about what they are reading in the magazine. And -Yes- there is irony there.
In a refreshing twist, QR codes are technology aimed at paper. QR codes exist as a convenience so people reading something on paper can pick up their smart phone device, scan the QR code with the phone's installed reader and go online. Not vice-versa. So while the above QR code is live and will take you to a URL/video, it was made for a proposal that went on paper.