Joe Clark reports on the accessibility of an Ajax application. There hasn't been nearly enough written on this important topic, so this is a welcome addition.
Even if, like me, you're not a big video game fan, you should still read Time's article on the Nintendo Wii. (The Wii is their next-generation video game system). What is interesting, to me, is Nintendo's approach to competition in a very competitive market. For example:
Here's Microsoft's plan for the Xbox 360: faster chips and better online service. And here's Sony's plan for the Playstation 3: faster chips and better online service. But Iwata thinks that with a sufficiently innovative approach, Nintendo can reinvent gaming and in the process turn nongamers into gamers.
And:
But the name Wii not wii-thstanding, Nintendo has grasped two important notions that have eluded its competitors. The first is, Don't listen to your customers. The hard-core gaming community is extremely vocal--they blog a lot--but if Nintendo kept listening to them, hard-core gamers would be the only audience it ever had. "[Wii] was unimaginable for them," Iwata says. "And because it was unimaginable, they could not say that they wanted it. If you are simply listening to requests from the customer, you can satisfy their needs, but you can never surprise them. Sony and Microsoft make daily-necessity kinds of things. They have to listen to the needs of the customers and try to comply with their requests. That kind of approach has been deeply ingrained in their minds."