Written August 28, 2008 and published in Random | 0 Comments
This little gem is a USB memory stick that makes it look as if a bear has it’s head trapped in your laptop, especially if you put the lid down! Quite a gimmick and not at all practical but I like it. Might see one sticking out of my laptop soon.
Written August 28, 2008 and published in Random | 0 Comments
Is dust a problem for you? Can you write your name in the dust on your LCD screen? Well if you answered yes then this product is for you. It’s a dust cover that looks like a test card. Fantastic, I hope to see more ideas like this. While being a bit too loud for the livingroom, it would go very well on an LCD monitor in a bedroom or office space. I don’t know the price or availability though.
Written August 25, 2008 and published in Gadgets | 0 Comments
I really like this. It looks so touchable which is handy as it has a touch screen interface. It uses a very thin touch panel and an active matrix organic LED (AMOLED) so the colours are better (16 million) and it is far more energy efficient managing to play music for 40 hours even with the 3.3″ display.
I don’t know if it will be iTunes compatible as many other new players a becoming, and probably contains it’s own unique take on music management software. iTunes is the most user friendly music management / mp3 player syncing software I have used so I hope that it would.
No idea on pricing or availability, the site is not all in English so who knows. Nice though.
Written August 25, 2008 and published in Random | 0 Comments
Just found this and it uses the same Arduino technology that we had in iLab for the past project. Just goes to show what you can do. It’s all about the ideas. Must have more ideas.
Check it out here.
Written August 22, 2008 and published in Random | 0 Comments
iPhone. LG Viewty. Microsoft Surface, HP Touch Smart. All these touch screen phones are already on the market and there are many more on the way as every company follows suit wanting to have at least one touch screen product on their product line-up.
These are great technological achievements and showcase some of the best gadgets we have to offer…
BUT… They don’t have buttons! The traditional click button is one of the most fundamental, subtle, interactive experiences. The feeling you get when you press a button and hear the ‘click’ that it makes is fantastic and feeling the different textures of buttons is such a tactile experience that connects you to your gadget. You know the feeling of buttons that are familiar and you almost form a bond through that familiarity.
So now the world is moving away from this tradtitional technology towards an ironically named ‘touch‘ interface when the experience is a much more visual one. The visual experience is an obvious experience and with a new technology that many people are jumping on the band-waggon with. Few companies have considered the impact of a button-less design, some are experimenting with Haptic feedback. A vibration is felt when a virtual button is pressed, giving the user a physical cue confirming that they have actually pressed the button (a common problem with touch screen interfaces).
Now don’t get me wrong, touch screen interfaces do provide a great deal in place of traditional button interfaces such as the ability to instantly change the look of a virtual button or change the language. The best of which is to have contextual buttons based on the current screen you are viewing.
There needs to be a middle ground though. Something a few companies are experimenting with. The first that springs to mind is the iPod, a touch sensitive surface for scrolling and volume control but also a click button interface for making selections. Perfect. A few more examples examples are the LG KF600 which has a small contextual menu at the bottom of the main screen but has traditional buttons once the phone slides open. A happy compromise I think. Another example is the Optimus Maximus keyboard that has the traditional button layout but each button is a small OLED display capable of changing depending on what is required. So depending on what application you are using, contextual buttons appear. The best of both worlds is doable.
Touch screen works, but should not be exclusive. Users have other senses that need to be stimulated to create a more complete experience. Touch is a very important way of connecting with objects and I believe it should be used in harmony with the visual connection for the user to be able to have the best experience possible.
Written August 22, 2008 and published in Personal | 0 Comments
I have been offered a work placement at ITV Future Technologies in Camden. Great! I’m not writing about that now but I’m sure I will post about what I can while I’m working there. It has got me thinking about my future though. What do I want to do? Who do I want to do it for? Will it make me any money?
I am talking about employability of course, and not just getting a job after my BA Honours but ‘being all that I can be’. I am concerned that my BA may not be enough let me reach the heights that I want to in my career. Fate could deal me some great cards in terms of working for the right people and being in the right place at the right time but if there is something I can do now to give me the edge over my competitors then I owe it to my future to do it. I have learnt from my father’s experience when he reached a point from which he could not ascend because of a piece of paper (or lack thereof) regardless of experience and being the best in his field. I don’t want this to happen to me, so any qualifications I can get now, I won’t have to struggle without later and may open doors for me sooner than would have otherwise opened. Read more…
Written August 20, 2008 and published in Random | 0 Comments
MaxMSP is a great tool for creating interactive experiences using a method of programming similar to a flow diagram. You simply position the objects on the canvas and connect them in order to accomplish a goal. I used this program to create the Shoutbox application.
Recently I have discovered Yahoo Pipes which is a web based program allowing you to create a custom web 2.0 application using a library of existing APIs and filters from Google, Yahoo, Flickr and loads more. The surprising thing is that it also uses a visual programming style in order to simplify the experience and open it up to developers who are not as well versed in the various development languages.
I have only just starting using it but I will post whatever it is that I make. Check it out for yourselves at http://pipes.yahoo.com/
Written August 20, 2008 and published in News and Rumours | 0 Comments
Many of you may be aware that this week the government in their ‘infinite wisdom’ have decided to trial a facial recognition system at Manchester & Stansted airports. Lets have a little look and see why this is a pointless endevour to “add another layer of security and not repace existing systems”.
A test on this scale is normally to work out any final bugs out and produce a final system that will then be rolled out across the rest of a network. There will be a few problems with this for our beloved UK gov.
To start with, facial recognition technology has NEVER been accurate, throwing up false-negatives and false-positives so this appears to be as much a test of the technology as it is of the security system and as far as I can tell it is based on existing technology. Concerns by the Biometrics Assurance Group (pdf) [show] that there is still work to do on both the facial recognition standards and the format in which facial images are stored.
This means the government is committing to a system upon which there are NO standards to adhere to, basically making this a very risky operation. Considering the biometric chip in passports may be incompatible with other systems, or at the very least when a standard is agreed UK residents with the chipped passports may end up having to get yet another passport. Normally standards are agreed before any large-scale testing goes ahead so this seems rather fool-hardy.
Now lets consider people who have gone before. There have been many tested applications of facial recognition and nearly all have been scrapped after only a few years in service as they proved impractical and inaccurate.
“Boston’s Logan Airport also ran two separate tests of facial recognition systems at its security checkpoints using volunteers. Over a three month period, the results were disappointing. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the system only had a 61.4 percent accuracy rate, leading airport officials to pursue other security options.”
If this is supposed to be another layer of security, to augment the already ludacris systems that are in place, then passengers will see no benefit at all. Did I mention that the whole process will be overlooked by securities staff who can step in at any time and take you to a real person to match your picture.
If all goes well and the system works then it will be truely remarkable and may indeed speed up entry through immigration. However, I feel that given the problems many people have with technology the so-called speed may be just an illusion, a target, similar to the fiasco at Heathrow Terminal 5. Not to mention the fact the system may fall flat on it’s face irrispective of whether people can use it. I predict an amalgation of both which will troublingly create some of the longest queues, the opposite of the desired effect.
Written August 18, 2008 and published in Photography | 0 Comments
I have been receiving so many compliments about my photography from the Bahamas that I posted on Facebook, and yet I haven’t plugged them here. So, I shall — here are may favourites.
As always click on the images to view the full set in Flickr. The sunset is my desktop wallpaper at the moment :D
Written August 15, 2008 and published in Gadgets | 0 Comments
While I was in Vegas I had the opportunity to go to the Rio hotel and casino and to the bar with Microsoft Surface tables in it. At first I was really quite amazed at how seamlessly they worked with the decor and surroundings but as I explored them further there were a few usability issues with them.
So start with, nobody was really ‘using them’. I sat down with a few other people at one of the tables, they were trying to communicate with the table next to us. On the screen was a CCTV feed from all the other active tables. It seemed as though you had to drag and drop words from the sides to the screen and the message would send. This didn’t happen, to the point where we were running backwards and forwards between the tables defeating the point of the casual flirty comment between tables.
Another thing was that nobody was putting their drinks on the actual screen, even though cool effects happen when you do, nobody seemed to have noticed this. The problem was that there was a rim round the edge that was a different colour to the screen so people put their glasses on the edge as they didn’t want to break the screen.
I’m sure there were many more features that these tables have (like ordering drinks and playing games etc) but after the initial frustration with the technology nobody seemed interested in exploring further. The average usage time from what I observed was less than 10 minutes.
The more you drink, the more you want it to work but the less it does.
All in all, it was a gimmick for the bar and for Microsoft.
