Over the past 30 years, designer, writer and Principal Researcher for Microsoft Research Bill Buxton has collected input and interactive devices whose designs he found "interesting, useful or important. In the process, he has assembled a good collection of the history of pen computing, pointing devices, touch technologies, as well as an illustration of the nature of how new technologies emerge." This week, he unveiled his collection at the Computer-Human Interaction conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. An extensive gallery has been posted online with images and notes at The Buxton Collection. [more inside]
posted by zarq on May 11, 2011 - 6 comments

Inspired by Andrew Sullivan's recent post on views outside airplane windows, BuzzFeed compiled a collection of "100 incredible airplane window views" from Flickr. (bandwidth-heavy single page version.) Click through slideshow at Business Insider.
posted by zarq on May 9, 2011 - 56 comments

Picture-History.com has "thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years", organised by collections and themes.
posted by MetaMonkey on Sep 21, 2006 - 17 comments

Igor Sergeev has been collecting full, unopened cigarette packs from all over the world since 1976. His site now features over 21,000 photos, arranged in alphabetical order by brand name. Some are fascinating simply for the way they differ from what we're used to seeing at the 7-11; others are straight-up nine kinds of awesome.
posted by Gator on Mar 20, 2006 - 38 comments

Another "magnificent obsession" site, seasonally spiced: oldchristmaslights.com is a huge attic space, packed to the rafters with illuminating images and information; history and pre-history, manufacturer backgrounds, timeline, patents, vintage advertising, trivia - it's all here, plus a "Light Set Gallery" and more. Plug in and enjoy.
posted by taz on Dec 7, 2002 - 23 comments