A post on Google’s research blog lists the major datasets for NLP and KB processing that Google has released in the past year. They include datasets to help in entity linking, relation extraction, concept spotting and syntactic analysis. Subscribe to the the Knowledge Data Releases mailing list for updates.

Berger cookies - those fudgey, fatty delights we can’t resist. 

These things have been around since 1835, when the recipe came to Baltimore from Germany via the Berger brothers. The cookies are now iconic to the area.

Last year, DeBaufre Bakeries, maker of the cookie, made $2.5 million in sales. Not too shabby for a hometown hero. But is the 187 year reign of Berger about to come to an end?

The FDA is proposing a ban on partially hydrogenated oils, a major source of trans fats, that could come into play as early as next year. Margarine, a main ingredient in Berger’s fudgy topping, has plenty of partially hydrogenated oils that have been linked to heart disease. Can’t DeBaufre just make a healthier cookie, free of the fatty margarine?

Apparently, the recipe is hard to break… it seems the margarine gives the cookie it’s extra-irresistible creaminess.

“I just know that when we tried the substitutes, without making any additions ourselves, it tasted nasty” - Charles DeBaufre, owner

What’s next for the cookie?

A healthier substitute? The black market? Or is it bye-bye Berger?

Public health experts have condemned trans fats for a long time, and New York City already banned the oils from restaurants back in 2007.

“The FDA deserves great credit for taking this step, which will help Americans live longer, healthier lives,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

Do you think the FDA ban is a step in the right direction? Let us know.

Just a few short years ago the majority of web designers wouldn’t have been able to spell skeuomorphism, much less provide an accurate definition. Now, skeuomorphism is set up as the pantomime villain; the Wicked Witch of the East to flat design’s Dorothy.

Flat design has come to define itself as ‘not skeuomorphic’, but this is misleading; skeuomorphism isn’t the polar opposite of flat design, in fact flat design is frequently skeuomorphic.

What skeuomorphism (really) is

A simple definition of skeuomorphism is as follows: a decorative feature that imitates a functional aspect of an earlier technology. For example, decorative arches are often used in architecture, mimicking the functional arches of earlier centuries; this is skeuomorphism.

Design movements — in fact, movements in most cultural fields — have a tendency to reject the previous generation’s values. Consequently culture progresses as a series of revolutions and counter-revolutions. Skeuomorphism frequently occurs when technology or fashion turns full circle and old values become popular again.

A neo-modernist working in the early twenty first century may well find themselves imitating the qualities forced upon modernists by the limits of the technology a century ago; we frequently see posters designed with simple flat color, not because we can’t print gradients, but because we’re imitating the style of poster designers like Toulouse-Lautrec whose style was imposed by the printing technology he had commercially available to him.

What skeuomorphism (really) isn’t

An oft-cited example of skeuomorphism in website design is a button styled with bevels and a drop shadow. The current trend is to make the button ‘flat’ by removing the bevels and the drop shadow, which supposedly removes the skeuomorphic nature of the button; in fact it does nothing of the sort.

A button remember, is a mechanical lever which changes state when one applies pressure. We don’t create buttons on web pages, we create an image of a button that we can touch or click and which mimics the function of the older technology. Any button, on any web page, is inherently skeuomorphic, regardless of its styling.

Another frequently cited example of skeuomorphism is the leather texture and stitching used for certain apps on older versions of Apple’s iOS. The argument is that the texture is carried over from traditional personal organizers and is therefore skeuomorphic.

I question whether this is in fact skeuomorphism. Certainly the leather texture imitates the earlier technology, but it’s decoration imitating decoration. You could perhaps argue that leather is hard-wearing and the texture is functional in the original design, but I think that would be laboring the point. The leather texture in early iOS apps isn’t skeuomorphic, it’s something much worse: it’s lazy design.

Skeuomorphism and flat design

Microsoft’s Windows famously embraced flat design and rightly received the plaudits for having the guts (if not the chops) to pursue a new direction. Apple followed suit with iOS7 and, if rumors are to be believed, will continue on a similar path with their next major OS.

Window’s initial jump, and iOS’ capitulation are widely seen as the first, and last nails in the coffin of skeuomorphism.

However Windows 8, MacOS Mavericks, and in all probability the next generation of both platforms are inherently skeuomorphic; they use the concept (and likeness) of files and folders; something borrowed from centuries old filing systems. Many people choose not to interact with data in this way and instead rely on the command line or terminal; but it’s very rare to find someone who doesn’t do at least a little dragging and dropping.

You might remove some superficial aspects of a design which are skeuomorphic, but you’re still looking at a web ‘page’, through a browser ‘window’, that sits on your ‘desktop’.

Flat design then, impacts very little on the amount of skeuomorphic design that we experience on a daily basis.

The inevitability of skeuomorphism

Arguably the biggest rejection of a skeuomorphic web occurred when we stopped clinging to the idea of web sites being screen-based versions of print design and embraced responsive design. However, unless we develop a William Gibson-esque internet, in which information is seen as it is — infinitely extensible, editable streams of interconnected data — then we’ll continue to treat the Web as a metaphor for real-world documents and the Web will remain skeuomorphic.

Just as uppercase letters are derived from stone carving, and old-style serifs are derived from cursive scripts, so too is all culture based on what preceded it. As Sir Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

One day in the not too distant future, print will cease to be anything but an historic process. The materials that we print now will be replaced by surfaces, the molecules of which will change their color to create text, images and movies — imagine a sheet of paper with the interactive abilities of a tablet. In that exciting future, you’ll still find the echoes of a medieval monk, ensconced in a library somewhere in northern Italy, painstakingly illuminating a copy of the Bible.

In this, we find skeuomorphism’s salvation: skeuomorphism isn’t a design trend particular to the Web, it’s a characteristic of all human culture. Without skeuomorphism our ability to experience the Web is substantially diminished. Without skeuomorphism every leap in technology would be accompanied by a learning curve so steep, it would be prohibitive. Without skeuomorphism, I wouldn’t be typing this, I’d be in a forest somewhere hitting a nut with a stick.

The non-skeuomorphic web

This is not to say that all aspects of the Web are skeuomorphic, or that there is no progress without skeuomorphism.

Take for example the hover state of buttons. Whilst buttons themselves are deeply skeuomorphic, the change in the visual nature of the button, not when it is pressed, but when the user is considering pressing it, is (to my knowledge) unprecedented.

Some cutting edge developments are equally unique. Take for example the experiments with gaze-tracking that scroll a page up and down based on the motion of your eyes or head.

One of the truly great achievements of the Web is the distribution of information to the visually impaired. Text readers have made billions of pages of data available to those with visual disabilities. No books, magazines, or print of any kind ever had a function that read content to you. The development of text readers, and more recently speech control is a genuinely new technology and as such carries with it no skeuomorphic decoration.

The future of skeuomorphism

Skeuomorphism exists, and will continue to exist because it guides our paths into new technologies and new experiences.

Skeuomorphism is a positive force within design, it teaches new interfaces in the same way that children learn: if ‘a’ means ‘b’ in ‘c’ situation, then in all probability ‘a’ means ‘b’ in ‘d’ situation. Imagine a world in which the cold faucet in the bathroom was colored blue and the cool cycle on a washing machine was colored orange — skeuomorphism accelerates communication.

What then is the problem with skeuomorphism and why are so many people keen to reject it? The answer is twofold. Firstly, people rarely reject skeuomorphism, what they reject is lazy design and superfluous decoration; secondly, as with most design techniques, if users notice it you’re overdoing it.

So it’s wise to drop the bevels and drop shadows if they’re drawing attention to themselves, but be aware that everything you design on screen uses skeuomorphism to some degree.

As is so often the case, don’t blame skeuomorphism, blame the designer who over uses it.

Is flat design the antithesis of skeuomorphism? Does skeuomorphism still have a role to play in web design? Let us know your opinions in the comments.

Featured image/thumbnail, skeuomorphic button image via Shutterstock.

Sketch iPhone or Website Mockups with UI Stencils Kits – only $25!

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*DEADLINE TO APPLY is Monday, December 9th*

Name:  Wei Gao

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: University of Maryland, Baltimore - School of Medicine

Major(s)/Minor(s):  Biological Sciences

Expected Graduation Year: 2014

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service- learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

Currently, my project seeks to determine the effect of Msi-1 on hPC1 expression in HEK cells. PC1 is an enzyme that has been shown to have proinsulin and proglucagon cleavage activity. Therefore, Msi-1 may play a key role in future research on regulating glucose levels for diabetic patients.

My work involves transfecting HEK cells with Msi-1 and comparing the levels of secreted protein and retained mRNA levels using enzymatic assays and western blots.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I love working and interacting with people who are so passionate not only about conducting their own research, but about helping me learn more about research as well. Everyone is always so eager and willing to give up their time to explain a foreign molecular concept to me or to help guide me through a new experimental protocol. Their extensive knowledge and unwavering patience day in and day out has helped me become a better biologist and a better scientist.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

Do it! Contact the principal investigators directly and show them that you’re interested in their research by reading a few of their papers. During the interview, bring up any questions that you have about the methods they used or the results they found.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

Being relatively new to the research field, I find that every day in the lab is filled with learning experiences. Without a doubt, this experience has been meaningful to me because I have learned so much about science and scientific methods. However, more than that, I hope this research experience can be meaningful to others as well. Perhaps my results will one day be useful for designing a better treatment for diabetes.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process / the Shriver Center:

I love the idea that I am exploring uncharted territory with my work. Since Msi-1 has not been very well-researched, often times there are questions no one (not even Google!) knows the answer to. My job is to ask those questions and find those answers.

Name:  Wei Gao

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: University of Maryland, Baltimore - School of Medicine

Major(s)/Minor(s):  Biological Sciences

Expected Graduation Year: 2014

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service- learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

Currently, my project seeks to determine the effect of Msi-1 on hPC1 expression in HEK cells. PC1 is an enzyme that has been shown to have proinsulin and proglucagon cleavage activity. Therefore, Msi-1 may play a key role in future research on regulating glucose levels for diabetic patients.

My work involves transfecting HEK cells with Msi-1 and comparing the levels of secreted protein and retained mRNA levels using enzymatic assays and western blots.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I love working and interacting with people who are so passionate not only about conducting their own research, but about helping me learn more about research as well. Everyone is always so eager and willing to give up their time to explain a foreign molecular concept to me or to help guide me through a new experimental protocol. Their extensive knowledge and unwavering patience day in and day out has helped me become a better biologist and a better scientist.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

Do it! Contact the principal investigators directly and show them that you’re interested in their research by reading a few of their papers. During the interview, bring up any questions that you have about the methods they used or the results they found.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

Being relatively new to the research field, I find that every day in the lab is filled with learning experiences. Without a doubt, this experience has been meaningful to me because I have learned so much about science and scientific methods. However, more than that, I hope this research experience can be meaningful to others as well. Perhaps my results will one day be useful for designing a better treatment for diabetes.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process / the Shriver Center:

I love the idea that I am exploring uncharted territory with my work. Since Msi-1 has not been very well-researched, often times there are questions no one (not even Google!) knows the answer to. My job is to ask those questions and find those answers.