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Monday
1/14/2008 9:46:59 AM
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Michael Wells
In 2000 I was working on some product ideas for Encyclopaedia Britannica, and I was experimenting with a wallpaper idea. The concept was that we have a little application running that receives photos from an online source (typically a webcam), and it would download and then wallpaper the image every 30 seconds.
The design was simple enough, both for the client and the server... but what I didn't expect was the emotional impact...
My office at the time was in a large cubicle in the middle of a floor of the Britannica building in Chicago, so I did not have an adjacent window. But with the near-live photo displaying on my computer desktop, it felt like I suddenly had this big window, with an office view from the top of the Hancock Building, looking down on the city.
The feelings produced by this dinky little piece of technology were quite stunning. It was something about having a great view of the world, combined with the near-real-time effect. Being able to see the immediate weather patterns and time-of-day triggered the feeling that I was looking out a window, and that somehow mentally tripled the spaciousness of my cubicle.
Other cameras had similer but different reactions, for example, I could watch the sun rise in Bondi Beach, Australia, in the middle of the day. Or sit atop a cruise boat roaming the Caribbean.
I was enjoying some WIRED and came across this great excerpt, from an article regarding robotics development;
"I was very skeptical. There was a robot there, and I didn't like it. It would say things like 'Hug me! Hug me!" It really irritated me."
One day Movellan found himself using the robot to test an early version of the face-tracking program that he and Fasel developed here in La Jolla. "It worked really,r eally well. As I was testing it, I kept moving, and this robot kept looking at me, and his eyes moved in a particular way, and I got close, and this robot kept looking at me. And then it hugged me. And it completely got me."
Movellan was shocked by the strength of his own response. "I said, 'What's happening here? I know this thing is dead. I mean, it's not alive. But I would swear that this thing is alive.'"
[ Wired, 2005-Oct, "R is for Robot" ]
Perhaps attention needs to be paid to a new field of user-interface technology... emotionomics.
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Sunday
7/22/2007 8:10:33 PM
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Michael Wells
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Friday
6/8/2007 8:19:43 AM
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Michael Wells
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0
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Wednesday
5/17/2006 9:49:44 PM
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Michael Wells
A company named IO2 manufactures a display that seems to be a rear-projection screen, minus the screen. That is, rather than an actual physical screen, the image paints on something called transformed air. Interesting.
I imagine there are all sorts of environmental image disruptions (even moreso than how the arc-welders working on my hi-rise are wreaking havoc on my CRTs... must be one hallacious magfield.) But I love the direction these displays are going...
Video found on YouTube...
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Tuesday
7/5/2005 3:24:59 PM
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Michael Wells
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Tuesday
6/7/2005 3:27:42 PM
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Michael Wells
An interesting Wired article about the merger of mobile communications and religion. In particular, the Pope's SMS message-of-the-day is interesting, as is Deepak Chopra's similar program.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64624,00.html?tw=wn_story_related
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Thursday
6/2/2005 3:24:08 PM
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Michael Wells
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Thursday
6/2/2005 11:24:07 AM
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Michael Wells
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Thursday
6/2/2005 11:22:08 AM
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Michael Wells
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Thursday
1/8/2004 5:49:31 AM
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Michael Wells
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Friday
8/22/2003 9:30:39 AM
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Michael Wells
I've met a number of people lately who have had their love for music rekindled by the recent improvements in accessibility. This comes in two forms;
- Convenience of discovering and purchasing new music
- Convenience of listening to the music you've bought
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Thursday
8/14/2003 9:58:02 PM
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Michael Wells
Several years ago, Sony discontinued its Glasstron product... state-of the-art eyewear that gives the wearer the visual experience of a 52" video screen. They were expensive. But they were cool. No more boring plane flights, just jack into your portable DVD player, and watch cinema-sized movies. Plug into your laptop, and play a retina-shattering session of Unreal. The potential was there, but the market wasn't ready yet.
Fortunately, the product category seems to live on...
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Tuesday
8/12/2003 4:50:03 PM
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Michael Wells
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Friday
8/8/2003 5:24:15 PM
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Michael Wells
As of late, I find myself building a lot of tools that I would put in the "less-memorization" and "fewer-keystrokes" categories. The most general tool is a central project console, for managing a large number of active projects I'm working on. The tool groups projects into categories (since many are related), and enables me to launch deployments, open the project for editing, and even store programmer's notes--like my planned enhancements lists.
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Saturday
7/12/2003 11:54:30 AM
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Michael Wells
Organic Light-Emitting Displays (OLEDs) are a technology that has been in the works for nearly 20 years, and which many believe is now poised to replace LCD's.
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Friday
7/4/2003 8:39:46 PM
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Michael Wells
Despite the advancement of touchscreens, digitizers, webcams, and microphones, the keyboard+mouse still reign as the primary input device for today's PC's. I personally like the Microsoft Natural Keyboard format, which is very comfortable for my XXL paws, and despite regular 16-hr programming binges, my wrists -never- cramp.
Never satisfied with standing still, I've been scouting for the next generation of keyboard-style input devices. Here are a few to make you think...
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Thursday
6/19/2003 7:08:48 PM
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Michael Wells
About.com has a good article that will help you understand the important factors in your LCD buying spree.
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Thursday
6/12/2003 11:40:33 PM
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Michael Wells
There are a number of multi-headed cards on the market. After speaking with a few people (and having a mediocre experience with my existing Maatrox card), I've quickly decided to go with a Colorgraphic card. To choose the right card, you need to make some decisions...
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Thursday
6/12/2003 11:06:29 PM
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Michael Wells
It is possible (and probably more cost-effective) to assemble your own array. However, unless you have access to a machine shop, expect to pay quite a bit for the mounting base, or to avoid it alltogether and stick with the regular monitor stands.
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Thursday
6/12/2003 11:04:20 PM
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Michael Wells
After scouting the market, I have a decent eye for the good, the bad, and the ugly. These pointers may help...
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Thursday
6/12/2003 5:09:18 PM
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Michael Wells
First of all, the present state of the LCD monitor market [Summer 2003] is quite nice. Prices have come down significantly, and there are a lot more manufacturers to choose from.
Still, there are several factors to take into consideration when building a high-end LCD monitor array...
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Thursday
6/12/2003 2:35:02 PM
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Michael Wells
First on the list of items is to figure out what my options are for multi-monitor workstations. This includes both the (LCD) monitors themselves, and the graphics card to drive them. On the monitors, there are essentially two routes to go. You can buy a pre-designed monitor array from a specialty company, or you can build the array yourself...
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Thursday
6/12/2003 2:27:53 PM
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Michael Wells
I've begun a personal quest to build The Ultimate Workstation. A PC unlike any other, which consolidates all of the capabilities that I currently need 5 PC's (and 5 monitors) for.
As I journey, I encourage suggestions, ideas, and warnings from others who have use these technologies.
As a basic goal, this workstation is intended to...
- Support multiple monitors (at least 4)
- Use most-efficient input technologies. Looking for the best combination of technologes, for keyboard, mouse, microphone, and webcam.
- Achieve highest affordable performance, using best-of-breed technologes. That means best processors, fastest RAM, best harddrives, solid peripheral technologies, high-performance video, and so on.
- Make the system as componentized as possible. Plans are to build this in a rack, rather than in a single chassis. Reason is that I want to be able to add and remove peripherals like a DVD writer (or swap them among several workstations) painlessly.
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Saturday
5/24/2003 11:32:21 AM
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Michael Wells
Despite years of tweaking my work environment to make it more efficient, I'm still not satisfied. But I think I know why...
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Saturday
5/24/2003 11:14:37 AM
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Michael Wells
After seeing hundreds of Hollywood movies that herald the new and cool user-interfaces that your desktop PC will someday have, it's surprising that Microsoft hasn't gotten the message. The traditional "desktop" is very usable and satisfying in a work environment, but it really isn't an efficient interface (i.e. lots of clicks to do simple tasks), and it certainly isn't cool anymore.
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