Techdirt. Stories filed under "colors"

Techdirt. Stories filed under "colors" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "colors"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Bullet The Blue Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120210/14024217733/dailydirt-bullet-blue.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120210/14024217733/dailydirt-bullet-blue.shtml

Different languages describe colors in ways that sometimes can't be translated exactly, and these linguistic definitions can affect how people perceive colors. The Russian language has very specific words for different shades of "blue" (and no term for "blue" in general), and Russians have distinctly different reactions to blue than English speakers do. [url]

A color-coded analysis of various English texts according to word origins can show some interesting patterns that could be unique to certain genres of writing. British literature has more words from Anglo-Saxon origins, but other kinds of writing has different mixtures... if only spam were easily identified by this kind of analysis. [url]

Ancient greeks wouldn't have described the sky as blue.... Homer did not use "blue" at all, and maybe Greeks didn't see colors the same way we do today. But other ancient civilizations didn't use blue in their written languages, either. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120210/14024217733 Wed, 9 May 2012 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: A Logo With Any Other Name..? Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100528/0853469618/dailydirt-logo-with-any-other-name.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100528/0853469618/dailydirt-logo-with-any-other-name.shtml something....

Would you even notice if the name and logo didn't match? A project by Tommaso Guerra mixes up a few recognizable logos and brands; Guerra isn't the first to do this and he won't be the last... [url]
A hundred web brands and their logos make a pretty rainbow. Except the main colors are either blue or red -- with just a little green, yellow, orange, purple and gray. [url]
LogoLounge has published its 10th annual logo trends report, pointing out a few common logo elements that some designers are (over-)using. With the potato chip logo, perhaps once you pop, you can't stop. [url]
To discover more interesting advertising-related content, check out what's floating around on StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100528/0853469618 Thu, 7 Jan 2010 01:10:42 PST You Can't Be A Fan Of University Of Cincinnati's Sports Teams Unless You've Paid The Proper License Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091231/1111117566.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091231/1111117566.shtml resell sporting event tickets without being an "official sponsor" of the event, Public Citizen's Paul Alan Levy wrote about how it wasn't that long ago that anyone could make their own fan gear. And then greed set in:

The case is reminiscent of a revenue grab by sports teams in the 1980's. At one time, anybody could make up a shirt that said "Dallas Cowboys" or "Boston Red Sox", and then wear it or sell it. The fans wearing those shirts didn't care one whit about whether the Cowboys or Red Sox made the shirt or had taken a cut of the shirt-makers' revenue. But Major League Baseball and the National Football League, armed with surveys created by consumer survey expert Jacob Jacoby, started filing lawsuits claiming that some minority of fans would automatically assume that the Cowboys or Red Sox had endorsed or at least approved of the shirt sellers. By winning a couple of cases, they created a new rule of law -- you can't sell shirts showing support for a team without paying the team off for the privilege of doing so.

That has since expanded further and further, including college sports teams as well. Reader Sys Admin alerts us to a story out of Cincinnati, where the University of Cincinnati is being so aggressive in enforcing these sorts of claims that it says pretty much any type of clothing that might be mistaken as supporting the team (t-shirts with red and black? watch out...) it needs a license. The University says it doesn't matter if the University's name or logo isn't on the clothing at all. Even a shirt that says "Go Cats!" needs a license. Even worse, they're not just looking to stop people from selling such clothing, they're happily putting them in jail for it.

Be careful what teams you cheer for, and what color clothes you wear when you do...

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]]> don't-wear-red-and-black http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091231/1111117566 Wed, 4 Mar 2009 05:06:00 PST IP Issues Force Basketball To Back Down From Krypto-Nate Promotion Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090303/0054513955.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090303/0054513955.shtml until issues surrounding potential fights with DC Comics, owners of certain IP around Superman, came into play. The story isn't entirely clear concerning who made the final decision to back down from the promotion -- and, it may have just been folks at the NBA hoping to do future deals with DC Comics -- but the planned promotion was clearly shelved and worries about IP issues were the apparent reason. It's not clear that DC Comics would have had any actual legal claim on such a shirt, but just the fact that IP worries over such an obvious and reasonable promotion caused it to be killed (once again) highlights the ridiculous impact of IP laws gone nuts.

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]]> seriously? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090303/0054513955 Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:20:00 PST Does It Take A History Lesson To Figure Out You Can Make A Product In Different Colors? Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081210/1041223077.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081210/1041223077.shtml "what Apple Learned from Kodak". It says that Apple's decision to give consumers a choice of colors was borne out of Kodak's 1926 release of its Vanity camera in different colors, an attempt to make the product more attractive to women, and that "What Apple did was learn from history, and adopt, adapt, and assimilate past success to current context." So figuring out you can make a product in different colors requires an immensely skilled designer with an acute knowledge of the history of colored products? That seems to be buying into the mystique of industrial design just a little too much. While it was beneficial for Apple to expand the iPod color palette, that move in and of itself wasn't all that innovative, was it? Furthermore, the success of the Mini, and continued success of the iPod, is because of many factors beyond design -- the ability to deliver more functionality at lower prices, for a start.

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]]> mindblowing,-like,-wow http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081210/1041223077