Surface Tension

What's that? How should I know? Ask your phone.

2009-12-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Introducing Google Goggles!

It looks like Google has continued its trend of walking the fine line between awesome and creepy. Their new "app" has the ability to search the internet on visual information taken from any Android phone. This includes books, places, and eventually pretty much anything you can think of. I've even read that it can identify people, although that feature will not be released initially (again, it's a fine line between awesome and creepy).

I find this as an interesting and innovative development on the part of Google. Basically, I see it as a counterpart to a move to natural gesture based interfaces. Rather than describing what you want your device to do via the interface, you allow the phone to use your environment as simply raw data, which you can process as a batch using huge compiled databases of information using traditional touch input.

Another interesting possible result of such a system is that a natural database of biometric identification might develop, especially if you consider that your personal information will become linked to every Facebook picture you might have ever posted. There are already places that have your credit card numbers, SSN, name and address; they might as well link a few hundred pictures of who you really are. Take that identity theft? We'll see.

-Tom

RTS on the Surface

2009-11-23T17:00:00.000-08:00

This week I'll be talking about Robert Wettach's great find of RUSE being played on the Microsoft Surface.

Personally, I'm a big fan of RTS games like "Age of Empires," so this naturally caught my eye. By now I'm sure many of you who have used the Surface have used the Microsoft Virtual Earth demo, or perhaps have seen the video of the surface in use for security at the Superbowl. These experiences have given me two distinct impressions. The first is that a touch based interface is perfect for navigating around a map. With a good map cache, you won't have to wait for loads, and with data mapping, you can view the location of information in the most intuitive way possible.

The closest a game has gotten to mimicking this type of interaction that I know of is "Black and White," where your character is literally a God's hand, albeit moved by the mouse. Direct comparison with the Surface demos gives me my second impression; contact detection still needs work. When using the mouse, your movements in "Black and White" are fluid, and as quick as you need them to be. On the Surface, the contrast is often too light to detect a faint drag, thus ruining the user's impression of a connection with movement on the screen. Perhaps combined with a traditional touch screen, when a touch is detected, the Surface could automatically become more sensitive in it's viewing of the screen? Also, the Surface's "sample rate" is far too slow to be adequate for quick movements within the game. I think this is the result of Microsoft's choice of hardware for the device. My two cents? For $15,000, beef up the thing.

-Tom

World Wide Web, as long as you are using latin characters

2009-11-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

It looks like the internet is about to receive some functionality that English speaking users have taken for granted for a long time. The DNS protocol will begin accepting non-standard characters in 2010. Currently, web sites must have Latin character extensions. This is "good" from the standpoint of the many users who speak those languages. It also provides some sense of conformity, and gives a standard that is generally easy to follow. Perhaps from a UI perspective, those speaking Arabic or Asian languages have felt left out or inconvenienced to some degree. I assume most countries use QWERTY keyboards at least, but only because they have been given no choice.

Unfortunately, this change will make visiting certain sites more difficult for users who only have font support for Latin characters. Many US based may already have difficulty with sites written in other languages; now they may not even get to them.

We'll get our first taste when sites in Egypt go up in the near future.

-Tom

Visual Java?

2009-11-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

I have been thoroughly enjoying Visual Studio this semester, and the possibility of using it to work with java code in 2010 intrigues me. Apparently, Microsoft has acquired SourceGear's Teamprise Unit, makers of java development software. I find that Visual Studio's solution based approach to code management really allows the programmer to focus on the product, rather than the syntax. I also enjoy the intelligent suggestions that can be used to complete a phrase before you finish typing. One thing that Visual Studio does not have integrated though, is good cross platform support. Should they choose to support the full range of java development, one could fully design software in windows that would work across the board.

We can only hope that Microsoft leverages the full talent they have gained, and not simply stick them in the closet and steal their intellectual property. This is likely because of Microsoft's size and unique culture. A good example can be seen just a few posts back, where they are designing the Pink phone.

-Tom

What's important is that your browser makes you happy.

2009-11-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

It seems that Google Chrome's advertising campaign has reached Hulu! In all honesty, Google's new browser running on a Vista/Seven box is a thing to behold. It easily wins for a streamlined and intuitive tabbed interface at the top, and even takes advantage of compositing. Furthermore, it uses the tested idea of information bars. Changes and security related bars slide down from the top, while download information quietly pops up from the bottom. Google has, in all honesty, removed as many obstructions from the user's perspective as possible, and it's fast to boot. Too bad I'm afraid of their growing dominance, as the cloud slowly blots out the sun from the land of personal computing.

But my real beef right now is with Firefox 3.5, which has picked up an annoying new habit! It seems like the guys on the interface design side forgot that the appearance of speed is more important than actual speed itself. Randomly, when I enter a string into the address bar, instead of searching for the page on google or bing, Firefox spits an error out at me. It looks like it's defaulting to some file address that obviously doesn't exist! Now this wouldn't be a huge deal, except that while it loads this dead page, the entire program becomes non-responsive for about 15 seconds. If I hadn't become so comfortable with the ability of Firefox to use extensions, I'd leave right away and go back to IE8. C'mon Mozilla devs, get your act together.

-Tom

Windows 7 doesn't need any Windex

2009-10-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

Yay! Windows 7 was released over break!
In all seriousness, I was saving a chat about Windows for this week. I've been using Seven for months now, and I like it. That's the short version.
Yes, Seven is mostly a polished version of Vista, but that's what sells apps, polish. I appreciate every feature besides the Mac styled taskbar icons (I turned those off and built up a Quick Launch Bar pretty quickly). Here's the thing. Windows is a platform, and the most important thing is for all of my third party applications to work. Windows 7 does that well, and so has every version before this (despite whatever complaints you might have).
The real test of Seven will come in repairs. XP was a simple enough system to repair because it is feature-wise light years behind both Vista and Seven. Vista just wasn't stable enough to disinfect. Hopefully when all the features designed to keep malware off are circumvented (and they will be) it is easy enough to revert the system to a clean state without losing vital data.

-Tom

iPhone, You Phone. Do we all really need smartphones?

2009-10-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Google News today was dominated by aggregated stories on smartphones, including Android and some issues with Microsoft Pink. I would write a bit about the iPhone as well, if there was anything interesting to say. (That's right, I just psyched you out.)
I haven't gotten my hands on an Andriod device yet, but I think it's safe to assume the platform is fairly fluid and stable. Even though Google is possibly becoming the next major monopoly, you have to give them credit where due. They have worked with partners to design well rounded devices that spread in popularity simply by word of mouth. A few critics seemed skeptic, but I'm confident that Andriod will grow to be a major competitor fairly quickly.
This is very different from Microsoft's Pink, which I only learned of today. And what people are saying isn't positive. Pink is supposedly an integration of Windows Mobile 7 technology (First warning sign: Does it even exist yet?), Zune Media (I actually love my Zune.), and Danger's Sidekick (These people might really understand how to build a platform.). What it might actually turn out to be is a kludgy device running old Windows CE and the Zune Marketplace. No wonder it's been kept a secret. On the flip side, when another, established device already exists, should you really be keeping your own development in the dark? What do you have to hide? Microsoft is always trying to surprise the world with their latest and greatest, especially in market segments where they have little or no footing. I have some simple advice. Take your time. Release a solid first generation product. Show your consumers some faith.

-Tom

Five mice with exceptional vision... No. Wait. That's not how the song goes...

2009-10-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I've felt like my past few blog posts have been cop-outs. Thankfully I found this interesting little video from Microsoft Research.

Mouse 2.0

Basically what we see here is surface technology built into a mouse for at least two designs, a design with electrodes that imitate surface technology, and a SideSight based mouse (which gives a raw input fairly reminiscent to that of the Surface anyway). So there you have it. The basic tech that costs $13000 now also can already be crammed into a tiny mouse and enjoyed for much less. Potentially.

My skepticism of the pricing aspect aside, there are some major cool points to these designs. In many cases, the touch based input can allow for very accurate manipulation of onscreen objects. This is obvious in terms of any image editing program. Unfortunately, in every case actually holding the mouse while making gestures seemed awkward. The best interface was probably the SideSight mouse, as the surface you were touching was not physically a part of the mouse.

-Tom

One box to rule them all...

2009-09-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about digital technology is that there is nearly no lost data transmission quality. That is what confuses me about "digital cable television." Cable companies are responsible for easily the worst, but most widely used, and most expensive, system and interface I can think of. And guess what? It's totally redundant.

Easily the weakest component of anyone's home theater is their cable box. For a very long time, my family never had a cable box; as long as the connection was good, our TVs could pick up the analog signal just fine. Jump to modern times: in order to receive the channels we pay over $60 a month for, we are forced to use a large black box that makes changing the channel take 30 seconds, adjusting the volume slower, and displays a 480i signal that has clearly been compressed. Pressing the menu button on my home cable box results in a minute long process to bring up an interactive schedule with poor response time and low resolution. On top of that, in the segments on channels that are for local advertising, we are constantly bombarded with commercials about just how magical our cable service is, and just how dumb telephone and satellite companies are. Clearly the cable executives are blind to just how much potential their service actually does have.

The hidden strength of cable service is that every TV bought ALREADY HAS A TUNER! Usually, your TV's built in tuner is of much higher quality than that of the cable box, and has a both quicker and snappier interface. So if the cable executive's stopped to think for even one second, they would realize that they could remove the entire cost of building, selling, and maintaining their horrible cable boxes, while continuing to collect over $60 a month from many of their customers. Additionally, if they converted to a purely ASTC based signal (hopefully one compatible with the government subsidized boxes for older TVs), they'd be able to transmit everything in HD and maybe even save bandwidth, which could be dedicated to all of their other services. I think they'd be surprised at how effective a simpler interface and higher quality service would be at keeping customers.

-Tom

Touching is good.

2009-09-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

I think the Nintendo PR guy who thought up that catch phrase must be patting himself on the back right now. So far, I've shown about three other people the Surface machine and the general consensus has been very positive.

This week debuted yet another touch based media device. I am talking of course about the Zune HD. Being the proud owner of a (now) retro 16GB Zune, I can safely say from experience that Microsoft is on the right track. The software is fluid and lightweight. The flip side of this is that it lacks versatility in terms of codec support. The hardware has always been solid. As someone who primarily uses his Zune solely for music, I don't plan on purchasing a Zune HD anytime soon; I think I'd actually miss my squircle anyway.

Personally, I don't see the hype of these new touch devices. Call me old fashioned, but there's nothing quite as satisfying as the click of a hardware button. That was the beauty of the old Zune squircle; it was a touchpad, but also incorporated a center and directional buttons, with Play and Back buttons on either side. All the functionality was right there. (Ironically, I never liked the iPod's circle. The design itself is not intuitive, but rather learned because of the device's prevalence. But, hey, that's your luxury when you're a market leader; Microsoft has done the same in it's core divisions.) When you move to a completely touch based device, functionality gets put in menus.

Now that Microsoft has a foothold, it needs to consolidate. In terms of media distribution, the Zune Marketplace needs to be spread out among their other devices. Probably the best example for this is the Xbox Video Marketplace which offers video rentals at a price on par with Blockbuster. Except you don't get a week to watch your purchase, only one viewing. Useless. Bring people the video content already available for Zune. Also, functionality needs to become more uniform. Windows 7 uses the media framework developed with Vista, but includes new native codec support. The Zune player should be able to at least play everything allowed by WMP12. With more media support, using a Zune HD with your TV becomes a very attractive proposition. For now, I'll have to stick to that 25ft. HDMI cable I picked up on Amazon and Hulu.

-Tom

P.S. - It looks like we can use the Surface SDK on x64 Windows!
Check it out!

Holobands anyone?

2009-09-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

While there have recently been many attempts at interface innovation, many of them ultimately fall flat. The Wiimote is easily the most popular of the group, and it is often relegated to goofy mini-games. Using the Playstation Eye as an indicator of Project Natal's future success, I don't expect Microsoft to create an interface truly worthy of replacing the tried true classic 360 controller. In contrast, the touch interface of the latest iPhones has been repeatedly praised and imitated. From an analytical viewpoint, there are a few things that the iPhone and Wiimote interfaces have in common. First, the best parts of them leverage the most natural gesture, pointing. Second, they are implemented with actual physical hardware. The hardware allows an accurate and reliable capture of intent, while tactile responses like "rumbles" provide a venue of feedback to the user. I believe that some type of feedback is key in any product that allows you to virtually touch something.

Until work is done to expand the range of ways users can receive feedback from their devices, innovative methods of input will be wasted. (Virtual Reality anyone... ?) In the meantime, smarter software can still offer an improved user experience. Just look at the standards for any of today's new operating system software. Users expect content to be accessible. Taskbars can be organized. Automatic lists based off of previous activity are maintained. Office 2007 introduced the ribbon toolbar to bring all of it's powerful functionality to the front. Ultimately every aspect of computing can be modified to adapt to what the individual user expects.

Both improving interfaces and making software smarter could potentially lead to a devastated future, as exhibited by popular science fiction. Nobody dreams of becoming addicted to the Matrix, or of fighting off cybernetic life-form nodes who are such good friends that they want to save us from ourselves. Yet, the advance of this technology does have a great potential to improve quality of life. Making software smarter is something that can readily be implemented today, unlike interface advances requiring hardware possibly years beyond our grasp.

You're Gonna Be A Star

2009-09-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

I'm finally the proud owner of a new Xbox 360. (And it looks like it's a Jasper build, too. ;-P) This is important, not because of project Natal, but because I will no longer have to borrow consoles to play Rock Band like I have for the past three years.

I love music, and always have. When I was younger, I would incessently hum tunes to myself. Eventually I realized that to an outsider that might seem a bit odd, but I still catch myself doing it unconsciously. I play the clarinet and the piano, but my tastes are a bit fleeting (for example, I'm going through a R.E.M. kick right now), and I'm not quite good enough to pick songs up on the fly. Rock Band gives one the illusion of being an awesome musician through it's simple but intuitive interface.

The plastic guitar is essential to the experience because it puts the player in the correct basic posture, which is what counts, not the actual operation. Compared to a real guitar, it really only emulates one string, but when playing "chords" on it, even that similarity is lost. On the software side, Harmonix combines quality samples, well thought out note charts that scroll in a way that allows one to prepare for the next key combination, and real-time virtual crowd response. Even when played alone, Rock Band is a rewarding experience do to it's nearly flawless execution, and it only gets better when you add a good set of friends.

Below is one trailer from the upcoming Beatles game. If you've never played Rock Band and some of the tracks intrigue you, give it a shot.

-Tom

Welcome

2009-08-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

Just to start off this blog on a lighter note, I thought I would post a link to the video that first introduced me to the Microsoft Surface a while back.

Just a big table?

All jokes aside, the video addresses an issue that I am most concerned about in regard to many new forms of human computer interaction, namely their practicality.

I first became worried about this after using the Nintendo Wii controller. To be fair, there were a number of situations that really lent themselves to the new interface. FPS controls that incorporated the point and shoot model were very intuitive; the pointer also enhanced one's ability to navigate quickly through menus. Unfortunately, the accelerometers designed to aid with real-time motion capture left much to be desired, and most Wii games were quickly programmed to take advantage of such functionality.

One other thing the Wii made clear to me was that new interfaces alone cannot be simply added to current generation machines. Allowing the user to relate to virtual material on a more intimate level also brings them closer to the inadequacies of the technology. A certain amount of raw computing power will always be required to effectively sample user input using innovative HCI schemes while outputting an environment able to immerse. Over the course of this semester, I'll be watching to see how the Surface measures up.

-Tom