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Pasta Sauce and Product Development

I'm sort of hooked on TED Talks, which can be easily downloaded via iTunes.  This video of Malcolm Gladwell had me grinning from ear to ear.  In it Gladwell talks about the career of Howard Moskowitz, the man who is directly responsible for the endless varieties of products on our supermarket shelves, particularly Pasta Sauce.  It sounds obscure but this video touches on an amazing number of aspects of product development; aspirational buying, the fact the customers can't tell you what they want, products don't exist on a hierarchy, and my favorite, "the platonic dish".

iPod Touch needs offline Maps

ipodtouch_maps.jpg

Google Maps on the iPod touch is great but with only Wi-Fi for internet access, it's often inaccessible when you need it most: in the car. I'm really hoping someone uses the new iPhone SDK to create a Maps application that works offline by locally saving maps of the entire US. Even iPhone users could find this useful as it would probably run much faster than Google Maps over the EDGE network.