tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34794579514458206732024-03-14T08:20:47.131+00:00MademethinkIdeas and thoughts. Big and small. Tech and art. Food and dance. Life and love.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-48427326408229456012017-11-09T09:13:00.007+00:002017-11-09T09:13:45.021+00:00What happens to a car brand when all cars drive themselves?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Autonomous cars are coming. The technology is improving all the time.
Consumer acceptance will take time but once exposed to the advantages I
think all but the most ardent petrol head will succumb. In the same
time space, say over 10 years, legislation, the main brake on their
deployment will change. In a future where cars can drive themselves, how
will consumer behaviour change?<br />
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We own a car so we are able to travel when and where we want. It
boils down to freedom and control. Since the Ford Model T this was the
dream delivered by car ownership. Ownership allows us to commute, have
time for fun with our family and friends, go to the shops when we want
and have occasional trips or holidays. But the downside of this freedom
is the need to purchase a machine which sits unused for the majority of
the time. Every second it is slowly decaying and loosing value. We gain
freedom but at a cost.<br />
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Integrated public transport systems would provide a lot of the
benefits of car ownership and are viable alternatives in large cities.
However, they require the user to adapt to their models and timetables
and routes.<br />
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Imagine a transport system where there was no walking to bus stops.
The vehicle collects you where you need it, and drops you exactly at
your desired destination. There is no timetable you have to fit into. No
other unwanted passengers. Boot space for your belongings, comfortable
seated environment – where you control the temperature, safe and
reliable. Like busses, trains and tubes you don’t have to do any
driving. Like existing public transport systems, you only paid for the
times when one was in transport and actively using the system ( I know I
am simplifying things by not acknowledging taxation and subsidies).<br />
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Autonomous cars allow this form of pay as you go services. Transport
from your A, to your B, when you want it. Reliable and with the
potential to select the type of vehicle for your journey: 2 seater, four
seater, estate, 7 seater etc.<br />
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<strong>Ownership or pay as you go</strong><br />
Given a pay as you go model, and the demise of the individual car
owner, what is the role of car marketing or even car brands? Today
manufacturers spend millions trying to make a consumer purchase one car
over another, one grade over another. Marketing tries to persuade
consumers to feel their purchase is the right one for their aspirations,
lifestyle, fits with their values, is more fun to drive or own or
simply is better value than another. If the consumer no longer buys a
vehicle and becomes a service user the whole model has to change.<br />
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The perceived value of a pay as you go service will be based on cost,
reliability and availability. All vehicles will have a minimum level of
comfort and equipment. The consumer may be willing to pay more for a
car with a better in car entertainment or productivity system or more
luxurious interior. The key point is that they will pay for the service
which provides it rather than select to only travel in an autonomous BMW
or Toyota etc. The automotive brand disappears, and is replaces by the
brand of the service provider. The king is dead long live the king.<br />
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In this world car brands have to adapt to survive. With autonomous
vehicles we will not need as many cars on the road. Initially there may
be a bounty period when the existing fleet is switches to autonomous
vehicles. But then, because ownership drops and cars are not sitting
idly on peoples drives and parked blocking up our streets, the number of
cars needed to transport everyone will drop. <br />
Think of how we choose a flight.<br />
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First choice point is about is there a flight from where I want to
start my journey to where I want to finish up. If you are lucky enough
to be in the position to have several possible flights then you have to
weigh up, cost, reliability of airline, level of service.<br />
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The passenger is highly unlikely to factor in the specific aircraft
in the equation: I will only fly if it is an Airbus, and I really want
to be in a A321 rather than the A320. (possible exception is flyers
selecting one flight over another because of radically new planes such
as the Airbus A380)<br />
This will be the mindset of the autonomous car service user. They
will select one provider, or one service package based on reliability,
ability to deliver a vehicle whenever I need it, if they do discounts
for non peak travel, cleanliness of the fleet, comfort, etc. But not the
make of the car.<br />
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In this new world car manufacturers will play second fiddle to the
service providers. It may be Uber or re-invigorated rental firms that
dominate. The manufacturers should tailor their products to the needs of
the service but also enter this space and become the service providers
themselves. They should set up new brands which are about the service
and not about the vehicles. The vehicles become the facilitators and not
objects of desire and status symbols.<br />
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(Post originally on my <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-happens-car-brand-when-all-cars-drive-themselves-tunde-cockshott/" target="_blank">Linkedin profile</a>)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-45449110973289417612017-03-02T13:27:00.002+00:002017-03-02T13:28:37.818+00:00EveryTaxi<img src="https://bp2.blogger.com/_yaTH6uVQujk/RiCj4HxQ_UI/AAAAAAAAABA/66Uumoqu39g/s400/everytaxi.jpg" /><br />
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Many years ago, long before the troubled behemoth Uber, I bought a web domain:<br />
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www.everytaxi.com<br />
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I bought it because of a idea I had to set up a go between the customer and the taxi firms/drivers. It was a time when I was developing ideas with a friend for potential digital business ideas. There were many and this did not make the grade. I found my notes on this recently and thought it is worth revisiting.<br />
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As you can see it was prior to iPhones and mobile web and was a txt based system.<br />
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<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Was thinking of how taxi cab companies juggle the customer/ location problem. I expect all use a basic manual system with GPS data thrown in to help the controller assign fares. But drivers can cheat these and other problems.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">So, what about a one stop shop for a taxi - anywhere in the uk. everytaxi.com</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">You txt your location and destination and time you need the car to a single text number - same no mater which part of UK you are in. The job is posted on a site where cab companies can bid for the job. The more they pay the more likely they are to get the job. So a short job will cost them a few pence and a long one might cost more. The auction is only open for a short time - say 5 min.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Once a cab company has won the auction you get a txt message back giving the company details and when you will be picked up. If no one has bid in the auction then the customer is invited to place their job on the auction again. Users would have a free txt back service where they could register a complaint if their cab was late etc.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">The aution site would be categorised by location and a company log in would track the location of won journeys so it would ensure the search location was dynamic and keep up with moving taxis etc.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">It would not be a replacement for the standard company controller but a source of other taxi jobs.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Revenue from the txt by the customer and the bids for the journeys. Large up front marketing cost to both taxi companies and to general public.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">This was first published in </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">http://ideazfactory.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/txt-me-cab.html</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-7663926060788572362015-01-26T15:23:00.002+00:002015-02-18T13:46:29.220+00:00What drives our desire for the new?This years model. The latest version. New and improved. Technology improves at a rapid pace and with it come ever shortening product cycles. New models of mobile phones, higher and higher resolutions of TVs, lighter, thinner and more capable tablets, new product sectors such as wearables and home automation. They all pour out of companies for our consumption.<br />
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The global economy is reliant on us all seeking the newest, the latest and dutifully paying the money down. A year later the purchase is positioned as so antediluvian we cannot understand how we can live with our selves if we don't upgrade.<br />
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As a child I was always interested in how a product you were perfectly happy with, could in the blink of an eye become old. The new model of BMW3 series may only differ in subtle visual ways, tiny clues as it its modernity. It may have some technical advances hidden under the skin. But on first sight it makes the previous version seem so inferior, bland or disgustingly old. How can this be, how are we turned so easily?<br />
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What makes something new and appealing? It comes down to several elements. One is its pristine nature. A brand new car is different from a merely new car. The brand new vehicle has the showroom shine, the quality of untarnished perfection. A quality the new owner tries to hang on to but over time spends less and less effort in maintaining and the product slips from pristine, brand new, to new, to current, to old.<br />
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How the item is packaged is an indication of the level of prestineness(?) of the product within. When buying a formal shirt we may open the packaging to feel the product and take a better look, but we will place the opened item back on the shelf and buy the unopened one. What was pristine a moment earlier is not as attractive even though we were the ones to change its state.<br />
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In nature we are drawn to the pristine fruit the perfect, vegetable because it is a sign of freshness, of lack of disease or pestilence. It is a safety issues. Pristine food is less likely to make us ill and more likely to be full of nutrients and be good for us.<br />
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A second element is the newness to me. Ownership of a product which is new to me means it has changed my state from being without the item to a new state where it is mine. The ownership has changed me and I value this brand new quality, brand new to me. This can even extend to a second hand item. Collectors get the same buzz from becoming the owners of an old item, which may lack the pristine quality, but is new to them, it is in their possession. The same is true for buyers of second hand (or vintage as they are now called) clothing, or cars, or ebay purchases. The newness, value and appeal is recharged by its passage from one owner to another.<br />
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Being the first to use an item is also one of the appeals of newness. To remove an iphone form its packaging, the various layers of protection and undressing that are required, before you get to switch it on for the first time. People relish this so much they post millions of unpackaging videos. Those lusting after or waiting for the delivery of their new purchase watch and imaging what pleasure they will experience when they go through the same experience. Maybe this is the fabled mirror neurons which makes these videos so appealing.<br />
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Another factor is status anxiety. The low background fear of being seen as less capable, lower status, less knowledgeable, poorer than a desired position in society as a whole, or within a peer group. Status anxiety is fueled by an awareness of newer products than those you already possess. There is social value in newness. However when speaking to others I have found a gender divide in this. Of course this is highly unscientific, but when talking to women this notion of the need to have the newest due to social pressure seems to be less evident. Maybe it part of hard to disguise macho heritage.<br />
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One example to drive this home was when my mother was looking to buy a new car. She sought advice and was told this year's Nissan Micra was a good economical city car. So off she went to the Nissan dealer and on entering the dealership she saw a Micra on her left. As an elderly woman it took time before a salesman bothered to approach her. She asked about the car and confirmed it was a Micra and that she wanted to buy it. Which she did, without a test drive, but she was perfectly happy with her purchase.<br />
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That afternoon she told me about her purchase of a new car. Some days later when I visited I saw a 2 year old Micra outside her house. By selecting a car from her left, she had purchased from their used car stock. If she had looked to the right she would have seen the new stock including this year's Micra. From her perspective the older model fitted her needs and she had no desire for the newest one. This is partially down to her age, the fact she was just following the advice she was given. But also she had no notion of the new model being better or more desirable in her world view.<br />
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Going back to the BMW of my youth. None of this adequately totally explain how a new car, without any marketing, social, heritage or external factors, can make last year's model seem so inadequate. I am still at a loss. Any thoughts?<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-32401348958086275702015-01-26T15:04:00.001+00:002015-01-26T15:04:46.793+00:00Predictions for 2015<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A bit late I know, but these were to be published elsewhere.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Forget the tech, when it comes to phones Status Anxiety may be all there is left</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At least to sell smart phones. Each year we are bombarded with new model releases and leaks of the features of the next iPhone, Samsung etc. But we have reached the point where all the big things have been solved. We do not need bigger screens, or more sensors, or slightly better cameras. Unless someone can give us a battery that will last a week, most of the latest phones are marginal improvements on last years. Status anxiety is the only thing that will drive purchases in the next year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The iPhone 7 will be bought to make it clear that you are digitally fit and competitive and a valued member of the herd who cannot be looked down upon. Not because we need any of its features. For Samsung who are already reeling from low end and high end competition this will be a big problem, expect their slide to accelerate. Apple may cling on to the top slot, but phones are becoming so homogeneous that even they will have to work extra hard to chase the upgraders.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Digital heritage comes of age</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People have been immersed in digital for a generation. We have amassed enough digital output to create historic documents. The recent Portrait of Lotte, a time-lapse of 14 years of a daughter growing up <a href="https://webmail.amaze.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=_fySPnIsU0Sclo0IQeYpKwmlsSUQDdIIIEtErT7g1iwItfEWItWLUIs659KZ6Gbf-bYjVmN96rQ.&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fwatch%3fv%3dUH1x5aRtjSQ" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH1x5aRtjSQ</a> is an example of how (with foresight) this legacy can be used to create compelling content. While the consumers may be leading the movement we can expect brands to find value in their digital legacy and find ways to tell stories using their heritage.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Facebook will continue to win and context will loose out</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The demise of the web is often foreseen. Facebook, twitter, Flipboard and countless others are attempting to serve as a conduit to all the webs riches. Increasingly with features such as auto play videos they are reducing the need to traverse links and see the content at source. This control has big implications for the rest of the web. Content will still be found through other routes and Google will still reign supreme, but for many the context and richness of related content is lost. A creators ability to shape a complete story through multiple content elements and a editorial position. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Digital Natives move from consumers to shapers</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Digital natives are reaching a critical point. They are not only a massive part of the global market, they are also coming of age. The web was 25 this year and so the university graduates are starting to deliver true digital natives onto the job market. Rather than just being the consumers they will move into jobs where they will shape the content, functions, approaches and delivery of digital experiences. Their impact should not be underestimated. Their experiences are devoid of analog heritage and models. They only think digitally. Within organisations across the world a new mindset is coming on tap. Expect wonderful things.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-32046094814311348512014-11-10T12:19:00.001+00:002014-11-10T12:29:15.349+00:00Amazon Echo analog data collection gets cute<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JG_ZRF7cckI/VGCrPrlFHrI/AAAAAAAAC1k/urZRmQLKKEg/s1600/amazon%2Becho.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JG_ZRF7cckI/VGCrPrlFHrI/AAAAAAAAC1k/urZRmQLKKEg/s1600/amazon%2Becho.jpg" height="180" width="400" /></a></div>
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Some time ago I wrote about <a href="http://tcperspectives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/kinect-2-welcome-to-marketers-dream.html" target="_blank">Kinect 2 and its potential to provide deep insights</a> into not only the games you play but what you watch, when and the real time emotions of the TV viewers in your home.<br />
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While Kinect2 is loaded with sensors to capture different channels of data, other "simpler" devices are already acting as covert data collectors in our homes. A <a href="http://doctorbeet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/lg-smart-tvs-logging-usb-filenames-and.html#comment-form" target="_blank">year ago it was discovered</a> that some LG Smart TVs were collecting viewing data without the users consent and send it back to LG servers. We should assume LG are not the only connected playing this game. Now it appears that Amazon will be expanding it data collection activities further into the analog world. Last week they announced the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/oc/echo" target="_blank">Amazon Echo a voice controlled</a> music streaming and general home digital servant.<br />
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Echo will play music, answer questions via web searches, set reminders, compile shopping lists, check the weather all through simple voice commands. Its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkOCeAtKHIc" target="_blank">promotional video</a> shows it as a cute, augment to the family, helping everyone in small ways to make their lives easier. It gives a feeling of, "how did I ever live without this!" To achieve this magic it follows the Siri, Google Now and Cortana model of sending your requests to the relevant brand's cloud for analysis and returning answers. It is an extension of Amazon's approach of always trying to help their customers. And as with its recommendations and personalised offers it comes at a price. When you are explicitly out to make a purchase consumers may be aware of the trade off of data in exchange for personalisation. But when a device sits in our living room and appears to just be a helpful music streaming, note taking, alarm clock ...thing then we may not be so aware of the trade off. Amazon have done a great job in creating a cute domestic disguise for their spy in the living room. Even the voice is lovely and unthreatening.<br />
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The Amazon Fire was the sales assistant in your pocket and <a href="http://pocketnow.com/2014/10/23/fire-phone-sales" target="_blank">despite its lack of success</a>, we know Fire 2 will be much improved. The history of Kindle shows they just keep evolving and improving. Now Echo gives them a spy in our living rooms. I expect Echo2 will extend its capabilities to home automation. So it will increase its scope of data collection to your whole home environment. Amazon have gone from desktop, to mobile, to domestic. As they say in their copy, the more you use it the more it/<i>we</i> gets to know you.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-81466796858605044062014-10-23T01:10:00.000+01:002014-10-24T11:08:28.139+01:00Smartphones - what ever happened to ergonomics?<br />
Smartphones have become the swiss army knife of the digital age. The expression, <a href="http://youtu.be/szrsfeyLzyg" target="_blank">"There's an app for that"</a>, describes the seemly endless diversity of functions you can use your smartphone. While many of us have dozens of apps most of use very few. Mostly we habitually use a core set which allow us to communicate, discover and record. These three categories also describe three modes of holding our phones.<br />
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To communicate we can phone, email, text, or post to social media. To phone we tend to hold the phone up to our ear in the traditional, making a call mode. Despite siri and the improvements in voice to text dictation, the other communication modes are usually done with the phone in one hand at approx 18 inches from our face. Frequently we do this one handed.<br />
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We surf the web and discover information using the same single handed mode. When possible we will use two hands for this task, but frequently we are in situations where one hand is more convenient.<br />
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Finally we use our smartphones to record our lives in the form of photographs and video. This tends to be a two handed operation, but again it can sometimes be done single handed.<br />
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While this is what we want to do with our phones their design is driven by the need to improve the technology that allow these functions to happen. How we actually physically hold the device is not a focus of improvement. What ever happened to ergonomics?<br />
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Pick up your iPhone, Samsung, HTC, Sony or any other new smartphone. Their design is primarily focused round the conflicting goals, of incorporating as large a high resolution screen as is practical combined with as much battery life as possible within the slimmest size. The camera, additional hard switches are added in there, but their location and utility is of lower consideration than the screen/battery compromise. The whole package is encased in materials which say as much about the brand values and social statement as the functional needs of the device.<br />
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Coupled with this is an ever shortening product cycles. New models come out every year. The core technology increases in capability, the camera gets more better, the pixel density gets higher and the screen seems to inevitably get larger, and the products get more anorexic. The product cycle is more driven by the same forces that gave us ever increasing fins on the American automobiles of the 1950's. It makes last years, or hopefully the competitor's current phone seem, so yesterday. At no stage in this headlong rush does the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_factors_and_ergonomics" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Human factors and ergonomics">ergonomic</a> failings of the slim cuboid seem to be addressed. <br />
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When looking at our high definition, retina displays we do not actually hold our phones, we cradle them in our hand balanced on our pinky. One of our most personal and valuable habitually used possessions is balanced in a precarious position. All the people who we see with cracked screens stand testament to this. The larger the screen the slimmer the form factor the harder this single handed use becomes. If you try and grip your device tightly and then use your thumb to select things on screen it quickly becomes tiring. You need a relaxed grip to comfortably use your thumb.<br />
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When we take pictures we are holding a thin slab, with none of the ergonomic enhancements actual cameras have, no hand grips, or ridges to make griping easier. Not even a tactile surface which offers some friction to aid grip. And when we hold these slabs to our ears we increasingly need to stretch our fingers to grasp the device.<br />
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The software attempts to make concessions to the ergonomic problems which Steve Jobs so rightly pointed out at the iPhones birth. The arc of reach of the thumb is a limiting factor in the size of the display. So now the <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone-6/design/" target="_blank">iPhone 6</a> has an software trick which brings the top of the screen within reach.<br />
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<a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Jonathan Ive">Jonathan Ive</a> is a very clever man, he is a leader of the cult of the design object. Beauty in the materials and details of the finish. Shaving a tenth of a millimeter here, a new radius there. But for all his passion about making the perfect product he rarely makes phones which are holdable in use. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)" target="_blank">original iPhone</a> and up to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_3GS" target="_blank">3s</a> were much more ergonomic devices. But as the phone has evolved and grown to today's iPhone 6 Plus they have increasingly failed in terms of ergonomics. It is not an easy task. Can a multi capable device have one form which satisfies all uses? Maybe not. But which single use do our current phones actually do well.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-66651777586706013082014-08-21T12:49:00.001+01:002014-08-22T09:12:26.026+01:00Looking at the Scottish Referendum: what drives social media engagement?As a Scot living in Glasgow, the phrase "we live in interesting times" could not be more apt. In less than a month on the 18th September the country will vote to leave or stay within the union of the United Kingdom.<br />
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We are immersed in a continual discussion of the pros and cons of independance. Almost all conversations contain reference to or are focused on the debate. In pubs, on the bus, at the shop till, in restaurants everywhere you turn it is being talked about. None more so than on social media. What is strikes me about the debates on social media is how different they are form other political campaigns or discussions.<br />
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In recent years the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_presidential_campaign%2C_2008" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008">Obama 2008</a> campaign stands out as <i>the</i> text book case of how to use the new channel of digital social media to powerful effect. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html" target="_blank">The NYT summed</a> up the importance of his campaign in the wider context of political use of the media:<br />
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.815000534057617px;">“</span><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/thomas_jefferson/index.html?inline=nyt-per" style="background-color: white; color: #666699; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.815000534057617px;" title="More articles about Thomas Jefferson.">Thomas Jefferson</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.815000534057617px;"> used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television, and </span><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/howard_dean/index.html?inline=nyt-per" style="background-color: white; color: #666699; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.815000534057617px;" title="More articles about Howard Dean.">Howard Dean</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.815000534057617px;"> saw the value of the Web for raising money,” said Ranjit Mathoda, a lawyer and money manager who blogs at </span><a href="http://mathoda.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #666699; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.815000534057617px;" target="_">Mathoda.com</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.815000534057617px;">. “But Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work.”</span></i><br />
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<a href="http://www.usnews.com/dims4/USNEWS/3c78c93/2147483647/resize/652x%3E/quality/85/?url=%2Fcmsmedia%2F8e%2F3168908d30b98018c482d1b7b8573a%2F7932FE_DA_081118facebook_obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.usnews.com/dims4/USNEWS/3c78c93/2147483647/resize/652x%3E/quality/85/?url=%2Fcmsmedia%2F8e%2F3168908d30b98018c482d1b7b8573a%2F7932FE_DA_081118facebook_obama.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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Obama did this with the help of some of the founders of the web 2.0 age, such as <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Marc Andreessen">Mark Andreessen</a> the founder of Netscape and on the Facebook board. He used a central site barackobama.com to sign up over 2 million supporters and provide the digital and real world tools to campaign on the issues which he stood for and that resonated with them and their communities. He had over 1.2 million friends on facebook trumped his competition on twitter and YouTube. Through the empowerment of a grassroots movement his message of hope can across loud and clear.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zbr_aSejsOI/U_XSUydgmcI/AAAAAAAACeE/ZZGnyjxHl7Y/s1600/petsfuryes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zbr_aSejsOI/U_XSUydgmcI/AAAAAAAACeE/ZZGnyjxHl7Y/s1600/petsfuryes.jpg" height="73" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nokvm5G0De8/U_XTlQRRKYI/AAAAAAAACeU/BHtMCgvKspM/s1600/wings%2Bover%2Bscotland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nokvm5G0De8/U_XTlQRRKYI/AAAAAAAACeU/BHtMCgvKspM/s1600/wings%2Bover%2Bscotland.jpg" height="135" width="320" /></a></div>
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In Scotland today the way the Yes and No camps use social media has one striking difference. The No campaign feels very centralist. There is a single message delivered by the BetterTogether group, and echoed by the no sub groups. The Yes camp is a collection of diverse groups who all share the same common goal but have different personal views on why it is important and what it means to them. There is the "official " <a href="http://yesscotland.net/">yesscotland.net</a>, which models itself on the Obama campaign and disseminates information and motivates independent action. But it is just one in the digital crowd. Many are not SNP(the party who has a majority in the scottish parliament and are the traditional voice of independence) supporters, there are groups from the Greens, The Labour Party, the Socialists the Liberals. Many professions have formed groups, there are groups defined by location, by interests, by race, by gender, by the type of pets they own. Each one is not a carbon copy of the official Yes campaign. They are all singing their own tune. This is in stark contrast to the sense of a monolithic No camp.<br />
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Both camps may use stories from traditional news outlets as the kernel of a posting, but rarely is it just a case of sharing a story. Often a group will dissect and analyze the story. Admittedly each is full of their own prejudices and biases, but the effort that goes into blog postings and Facebook and twitter discussions is impressive. Neither are the Yes or No postings/blogs always preaching to the converted. Yes and No supporters will comment and post on each other's blogs and postings. Real discussion goes on. Most of the time it, or what I have seen, is genuine discussion and friendly banter. Only occasionally are real insults thrown.<br />
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Celebrity endorsement comes from both camps, but organised collective efforts such as the <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/in-full-lets-stay-togethers-letter-and-its-signatories.1407407759" target="_blank">over 200 celebrities who signed a letter </a>urging Scotland to stay in the Union was met with confused shoulder shrugging by most Scottish social media commentators. However when <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27317721" target="_blank">economists</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28825677" target="_blank">historians</a>, <a href="http://www.cnplus.co.uk/data/industry-barometer/scottish-independence-could-disadvantage-uk-construction-firms/8659366.article#.U_XQe4BdVqo" target="_blank">industry leaders</a> or academics take a stance and provide endorsement or evidence one way or another, they are seized upon by both camps and thrust to the fore to become unlikely champions. Politicians statements from both camps are met with greater venom than those of mere mortals.<br />
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Scotland is not voting to elect a president or even a government. Alex Salmond is presented by the No camp as the leader, the boogie man who is attempting to con the Scottish people. To the Yes camp he is merely a vehicle for their ambitions and his role is far less important than that of the people who want Yes. The vote is about the future of the country. It is a very, very significant and unique moment for the people of Scotland. The level of passion it arouses is tangible and is manifest in the digital out pourings. It is this passion which is at the heart of the Yes and No campaigns.<br />
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The centralist approach is the model that each official leading campaign group has adopted. But why is it that the Yes campaign groups have run and taken the campaign as their own where as the Nos have clinged to the parent ship more closely? The No campaign has always been on the back foot as it is arguing for the status quo. We are doing very well thank you why rock the boat, why take risks, why go into the unknown?<br />
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The Yes groups are all embracing the risks, the uncertainty the lack of hard facts about tomorrow's future. They are characterised by optimism and, to borrow from 2008, Hope. The energy that is seen in the Yes campaign is a reflection of a sense of excitement for a new future, for the work ahead, for the opportunities, not the continuum of the norm. <br />
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This campaign, whatever the result, shows that we should not think about engagement. Engagement is a word describing, taking part, sharing, participating. The people of Scotland are not using social media simply out of a desire to take part, or share their views. This is about passion. Intensity, a desire to make change a real need to add their weight to the argument.<br />
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In the commercial world the brands which have an active and intense following are those which support or deliver services or products which allow individuals to express or fulfill their passions. When a dull brand or product reaches out to social media to "engage" consumers, they have a real challenge. Humour, incentives, endorsement can all buttress their efforts, but nothing will replace real passion. Seek out the activities, views, needs, desires which induce real passion in your audience and you will have a far greater chance of inspiring genuine interest and productive engagement.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-57204588324041153482014-08-19T12:08:00.002+01:002014-08-19T12:08:46.644+01:00My number one top feature for an iWatchSeptember is coming round and with it the announcement of new Apple iPhones. This year there is a real chance we may also get to see the iWatch. If it does appear, I have a single must have which I feel it needs to succeed.<br />
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I must want it on looks alone. Forget all the features and added functionality it may bring to my life, but if it does not look gorgeous then you will have hard time winning me over. <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101812950" target="_blank">Recent staff hires</a> and reports seem to be suggesting that Apple is hoping to position the iWatch as a luxury product. All Apple Macs and iPhones Except the 5c) of recent years have oozed quality and precision engineering. But to make that move into luxury they have to go further.<br />
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Long ago watches lost their primary purpose as just timepieces. I could spend £0.69 for the cheapest watch on Amazon or £55k for the most expensive, and potentially gaudie example. Amazon is not the place most people buy their luxury watches, and you can spend considerably more. By doing so you are not simply wanting to know the time, you are making a statement about you, what you want to be seen as.<br />
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So for Apple to make a luxury watch they do not have to compete with the very high financial end but they do have to compete on statement terms. The watch has to be a proud addition to a wrist, it has to stand for sometime, and the user has to want to broadcast their ownership. Existing smart watches have failed in this aspect. Pebble has a small but loyal following but despite the ability to use custom watch face designs, it has never shouted out "wear me with pride".<br />
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LG, Sony, Samsung have all failed to excite the market. They may have great technology and <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Now" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Google Now">Google Now</a> is a very powerful desirable feature, but some - <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/28/samsung-galaxy-gear-smartwatches-have-embarrassing-30-return-rate/" target="_blank">the original Samsung Gear</a> - had very high numbers of customers returning the products. Some of this will be due to functional problems but I suspect a lot are to do with the diminishing desire to actually own the item.<br />
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To excite the buyer in a luxury market Apple has to excell at the visual and tactile details. It has to fell like a perfectly made object, with precision details and exquisite visual clarity. It must not be a chunky item, bulked out by the need for a long battery life, it must be elegant and restrained. <a href="https://www.behance.net/gallery/16757337/CONCEPT-SMARTWATCH" target="_blank">More like this concept design by Charlie No of New York</a><br />
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Than this ,</div>
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<a href="https://m1.behance.net/rendition/modules/99640361/disp/c6f82dd80acd6e2754cebfc48f7dffb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://m1.behance.net/rendition/modules/99640361/disp/c6f82dd80acd6e2754cebfc48f7dffb1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The first is about a precision watch, the second is about a digital device. Now Apple has amazing UX and design skills, and may well create a new visual identity which manages to express the later and make it appear luxury and highly desirable. But to do so is much harder than retaining some of the visual language from existing forms. To appeal to the masses it has to not look like a geek only device. Its visual language should speak of quality, luxury, refinement, elegance, not of utility and Swiss Army Knife capability.</div>
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I have no doubt that the functionality will blend seamlessly with my other iOS devices. I expect Apple will provide wireless charging and somehow give it a battery that will last at least 48 hours. I expect it will be priced at an expensive but not outlandish cost of between £150 and £200. New capabilities such as health monitoring, fingerprint security, effective and accurate voice activation will all increase the desirability, but if it does not immediately delight my eyes then my wallet will stay in my pocket.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-49471434975651361512014-08-05T17:39:00.000+01:002014-08-06T17:24:32.238+01:00Is Google Material the future "stuff" of mobile?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Google has
recently launched, if that is the right word, their new unified UI. It is named
Material</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Design and has made big waves
in the UX and design communities. When it arrives on commercial products end
users will be able to experience this new approach to user interfaces.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The <a href="http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html" target="_blank">aim of material design is defined as</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: #F9F9F9; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Develop a single underlying system that allows for a
unified experience across platforms and device sizes. Mobile precepts are
fundamental, but touch, voice, mouse, and keyboard are all first-class input
methods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">So consitancy is
a core principle, lets come back to this later. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The inspiration,
or foundation material is paper and ink:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: #F9F9F9; font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The material is grounded in tactile reality, inspired by the study of
paper and ink, yet technologically advanced and open to imagination and magic.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">John Wiley, one of the
Principle Designers at Google, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-material-design-android-2014-7#ixzz39RJw8tEg" target="_blank">gave this insight about how Material Design cameabout</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I'm one of the instigators of material design. It
actually came about a couple of years ago when we were working on a design
problem involving Google Search. I was looking at mobile results on cards and I
asked "what is this made of?" People gave me funny looks, like
"what do you mean? It's just pixels." But I didn't think that was a
good answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When you physically interact with software – actually
touching the cards and links and buttons, etc. – you bring a lot of
expectations around how physical objects behave. If the interface isn't
thoughtful about those expectations – if it's just a bunch of pixels – it
leaves you with a rather unsatisfying and inauthentic experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The key point is
“what is this made of?” . We spend hours staring at and prodding and swiping
this stuff but what is it? A good question.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Material Design
is the work of a design team, whose heritage and inspiration is the 2.5D world
of layers of paper. It is graphic design minimalism applied to digital design
and is a direct response to and rejection of the skumorphic design which
typified the first few iterations of the Apple mobile IOS. Skumorphisim grew to
be seen as an over ornate and decorative form of UI design. A gothic form of UI
design. Its attempts to literally ape the physical appearances of the core
analog devices indicative of an application’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>function became to be viewed as excessive and unnecessarily visually
complex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">We need to take a
few steps back to understand the initial rational for skumophic design.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Skumorphic design is a visual imitation <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of another object by replicating its visual
form, shape and functionality. Lets start by looking at the two worlds, that of
the being presented to the viewer in one form or an other and the world of
experiences, memories and cultural inheritance of the user. <a href="http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html" target="_blank">As Don Norman putsit</a> :<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the world of design, what
matters is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If the desired controls can be perceived<br />
1.a. In an easy to use design, if they can both readily be perceived and
interpreted<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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2.a. Whether standard conventions are obeyed<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">When a design
borrows from or copies aspects which make it easier to perceive its function
then it helps the user to match their model of how the system will behave to
the actual system model. This borrowing form the established norms of a
previous medium or cultural experience is not unique to the computer user
interface.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Often when a new
form or medium appears the creators seek an appropriate reference point or
model upon which to build the new way forward. They learn from the past. When
Guttenberg created the first movable type he chose a typeface which mimicked
the gothic script of hand produced bibles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q3fhi59BTyQ/U-EBYcXjXzI/AAAAAAAACcA/jjBqLuYXyqc/s1600/guttenberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q3fhi59BTyQ/U-EBYcXjXzI/AAAAAAAACcA/jjBqLuYXyqc/s1600/guttenberg.jpg" height="310" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from the Guttenberg bible</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">A page In order
to achieve a look which mimicked the hand manuscript his typeface, Blackletter,
<a href="http://www.typographia.org/1999/graphion/gutenberg.html#)" target="_blank">had over 300 characters</a> to accommodate the many ligatures and flourishes of the
then traditional model. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although his
method of production was revolutionary Guttenberg employed the established
aesthetic, he was using a new technology to improve the production of books but
was sticking with the understood and expected visual appearance. Partly for
commercial reasons, but also because that was what he and his audience knew and
expected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The first moving
pictures with a constructed narrative were modeled on the experience of
watching a theatre performance. The camera was static and contained none of the
techniques we now expect, pans, close ups, cuts etc. It was only later that
film developed a language of its own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-REaZ1eUV2Mk/U-EBYwTIqcI/AAAAAAAACcI/uhsP8ThOEas/s1600/mac+os.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-REaZ1eUV2Mk/U-EBYwTIqcI/AAAAAAAACcI/uhsP8ThOEas/s1600/mac+os.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The revolutionary
Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer, user interface developed by Xerox took the
existing office desktop as its central metaphor. The environment where these
new desktop computers were to be used was in a paper based office environment. WIMP
desktop UI is still the default model for PCs Laptops etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SWGAiRghjF0/U-EBYXrGciI/AAAAAAAACcE/2-_cp4N3tO8/s1600/ios+home.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SWGAiRghjF0/U-EBYXrGciI/AAAAAAAACcE/2-_cp4N3tO8/s1600/ios+home.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">When Apple sought
to enter the smartphone market it was clear the WIMP and desktop metaphor was
not applicable. They retained the notion of icons and buttons which were
touched instead of clicked, but did away with windows and a pointer. The notion
of files was now hidden from the user and the limitations of screen size meant
windows were infeasible. Instead of using a consistent model across the system
screens and all applications, each Apple app was designed to express the
functionality it provided by mimicking its analog equivalent. Its hard to remember but making a tablet work for users was an unsolved problem until the iPad came along. Others had failed and, one of the reasons Apple did succeed was to do with making it unlike a computer. Skumorphism was a big element in this.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-puxVnI5lRFo/U-EBYNBmb8I/AAAAAAAACb8/qvCVL_HdtDs/s1600/ios+compass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-puxVnI5lRFo/U-EBYNBmb8I/AAAAAAAACb8/qvCVL_HdtDs/s1600/ios+compass.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Skumorphic designs
were employed to help users understand the capabilities of the new mobile
computing platform. Buttons were given visual clues, highlights and shadows to
give a 3D appearance and lift them off the screen. Functional areas which
required users to touch were given clear boundaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Where there was
no real world analogy which could be readily employed, or widely understood by
the audience, then a new visual language should have been applied. This was the
case in most elements of the actual system level of the iOS UI but not so with
some of the Apple apps. While it makes sense to mimic a calculator or a note
pad, a feature such as “find my friends” has no real world equivalent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7WKjj14unwQ/U-ECguQ3f-I/AAAAAAAACcc/KQbK-WF9VKM/s1600/find+friends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7WKjj14unwQ/U-ECguQ3f-I/AAAAAAAACcc/KQbK-WF9VKM/s1600/find+friends.jpg" height="320" width="186" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-icLgZbgYMvM/U-EC-e_nlVI/AAAAAAAACck/FfXwaPtrUoc/s1600/ios+system.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-icLgZbgYMvM/U-EC-e_nlVI/AAAAAAAACck/FfXwaPtrUoc/s1600/ios+system.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I would argue
that for this new medium a skumorphic approach made good commercial and
usability sense. The stuff that the early iOS UIs were made of was, in the case
of applications, the stuff the users already knew, and in the case of system
level interface items it was buttons, switches and sliders and established
concepts such as dialog boxes. What failed was the need to acknowledge that not every application needs to be skumorphic and those without analog equivalents, or where slavish mimicry hindered usability, a different design approach was needed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">A new language
for a new medium</span></h3>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RKO7k9u1Ho4/U-EDd1DexOI/AAAAAAAACcs/dM-UDZdA_oY/s1600/material+one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RKO7k9u1Ho4/U-EDd1DexOI/AAAAAAAACcs/dM-UDZdA_oY/s1600/material+one.jpg" height="320" width="262" /></a></div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jks_YiJef_8/U-EDdx47dfI/AAAAAAAACcw/r22kvapeIKc/s1600/material+two.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jks_YiJef_8/U-EDdx47dfI/AAAAAAAACcw/r22kvapeIKc/s1600/material+two.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Google’s Material
world is an attempt to move beyond the previous medium and to create a new
digital language which is appropriate to the new mobile digital world. The
argument is that the user base understands how to interact with mobile
technology and the skumorphic approaches of the past are no longer necessary or
desirable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">I question the
universality of a paper based metaphor, but the looseness of its definition
means it should be adaptable to many different circumstances. I am concerned that the dominance of a minimalism aesthetic may result in throw the baby out with the bath water. The affordances and cultural heritage which gave skumorphic designs their validity and could be used to the user's benefit. But they are removed from the new language and users will need to take a greater leap to learn how to work this new stuff. This is always the case as a medium develops and the benefits of a truly digital language should out weight what is lost.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">However the
primary aim of establishing a consistent experience across different mobile
platforms is welcome, but harder to achieve. In terms of the OS level, it is within Google’s
power to at least deliver consistency within non-forked versions. When it comes
to 3<sup>rd</sup> party applications the problems are much harder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Consistency is a
cornerstone of user good human computer interaction. It provides users with a
stable predictable environment where things happen as they expect. Items are in
the same locations. Visual symbols have the same meaning regardless of the
application they are used in etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Today achieving consistency is much harder than it has ever been. For a
while Apple achieved this for their desktop environment. Early 3<sup>rd</sup>
party applications for the first few iterations of the desktop OS, had a
somewhat cavalier approach to consistency. Application developers ignored many
of the Apple Interface Guidelines. Finding items in menus on some early
packages was a pot luck affair. Over time the (much smaller ) development
community appreciated the benefits of consisteny over the need to be unique and
the consistency of the Apple environment became one of its strongest assets.
While there were notable exceptions such as </span><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kai
Krause most Apple applications were easy to switch between.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Then the CD-ROM
era and subsequently the web created a free for all development environment
where anything went. While this was good for experimentation and innovation, consistency
went out the window. With millions of developers and no agreed set of guiding
principles or unifying force, consistent patterns and behaviors have only been adopted
through mimicry, conservatism, and recognition of the benefits of following best
practice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The same is true
for mobile applications. Many iOS and Android developers embraced skumorphism,
others experimented with new ways of delivering content and functionality
within a touch environment. As Apple has found even with its much stricter
policing of the distribution process, imposing a consistent UI experience
across all apps is very hard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Google will show
case Material Design with Gmail and its core apps. I have no doubt that these will be visually stunning. Some of the biggest names in
the app ecosystem will readily adopt it. The appetite for a shift away from
skumorphism is widespread in the design community. However, the example of
Windows 8’s touch tiled UI demonstrates that while it is visually appreciated
by designers, not all applications fulfill its potential. In the case of
Material the design guidelines are a beautiful expression of its capabilities,
we will have to see if this new material will be the unifying aesthetic of
Android experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-51325434967021251322014-07-10T13:41:00.000+01:002014-07-10T13:43:40.404+01:00Jaguar Land Rover and the self learning carI saw this today and my initial response was enthusiastic. It is great to see such innovation from <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.jaguarlandrover.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Jaguar Land Rover">Jaguar Land Rover</a>. This is the sort of thing we expect from <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.google.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Google">Google</a> but not a UK automotive company.<br />
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There is lots of context aware solutions personalised to the individual and informed by different data sources and sensors. Great, the future is just around the corner, type of stuff. But it highlights a problem with the mass automation of products. Brands will want to develop their own solutions to demonstrate forward thinging and add USPs, (although they in five years they will be a requirement and mainstream). Each tailored to the features of the product but based on information about the individual and their usage patterns. </div>
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This could lead to a world where we have loads of different automated systems offering advices and context aware decisions making. Sometimes we may get multiple products offering similar options to use. Google Now, an <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Autonomous car">automated car</a>, a smart heating system, a tailored diary system etc all acting on our behalf because we are running late due to traffic congestion. </div>
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Obviously each system can be tailored and its ability to act on our behalf will be set by the user. But it seems that there will be so much duplication. Google and <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.33182,-122.03118&spn=1.0,1.0&q=37.33182,-122.03118%20(Apple%20Inc.)&t=h" rel="geolocation" target="_blank" title="Apple Inc.">Apple</a> are pushing one home automation system - or ecosystem to rule them all, and consequently bind users closer to their brand. They are also offering in car solutions. So far these are in car entertainment and connectivity but there is good reason to expect this "self learning car' approach will be rolled into the offering. </div>
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The cost of making concepts such as the self learning cars a reality is not small and it takes a level of digital expertise many companies do not currently have. The Apple and Google options allow brands to avoid doing the heavy lifting and concentrate on the things they know well and can do best. If jaguar Land Rover put this into production will be be self grown or will they pay their shilling to the big boys? Time will tell but from a user perspective a unified solution has an appeal over a collection of disparate solutions.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-31060909370591230892014-06-12T12:43:00.000+01:002014-06-12T12:44:29.795+01:00The internet of me <div class="MsoNormal">
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There is an old gag that on leaving the
house a man makes the sign of the cross. He is not religious, it stands for:
spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch. A quick check to see they have all the
essentials items a man needs to be a man.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Today’s version would have to include the
phone. It is far more vital to our daily existence than any of the others. In
fact increasingly we are now leaving home with a digital ecosystem which
defines what it is to be a digital citizen. Each item no longer exists in
isolation. Our smartphones are the key, the hub for all our new devices and has
the potential to replace at least one of them, the wallet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This trend will only continue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As we adopt wearables we move from having a
single digital device to a collection of independent but symbiotic internet
devices. Our wristbands and smart watches can act as information conduits but
also collect data, and feed it back to our smartphone. They will assess our
health and wellbeing. Some of the work in deciding what to do with the data
will take place on the device but most will be done on our smartphone apps
talking to external health databases and where appropriate to our health
providers and insurers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Smart glasses will augment our experiences,
again using the smartphone as the conduit to the external data sources. Image
recognition, location services, pricing comparison, social communication will
all travel through the smartphone hub to our personal internet of devices. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A lot of the time this will result in automatous
actions that do not require input from the owner. Where you are, your schedule,
your habits, your diary, your needs will be assessed to make decisions on your
behalf. Within your own ecosystem of physical devices and the wider personal
information stored in countless cloud services rules will run and instructions
will be sent out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">While we are still awaiting the impact of
the Internet of Things we are starting to see the Internet of Me. A world where
devices are networking and making decisions for my benefit. Based on my very
personal needs and state. The internet of me means the power of my network of
devices is greater than of them individually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If a new device comes along or I upgrade my health monitoring device
then the other devices in the network could have access to this new data and
functionality. The combination of the data from more personal sources makes the
decisions which can be made more accurate, wider reaching etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Google always have, and recently Apple have
been opening out their platforms so that third parties can<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>build solutions that will easily communicate
and co-operate. For the time being we have to be in one or the other camp, but
device makers will profit from supporting both. The added capabilities and ease
of collaboration will determine what is capable on each platform. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Commercially it will open a whole new
market, where tomorrow’s Apples and Facebooks will be born. Certain device
combinations will hit the sweet spot and deliver killer apps. A man will not be
judged by the cut of his suit but the configuration of his internet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Socially, The Internet of Me will further
widen the digital divide. Already just having access to the internet gives an
advantage over those without access. If we extend this to the Internet of Me then
the individual with their own ecosystem has a definite advantage over one who
does not. They may be able to get access to beter healthcare or lower insurance
premiums. They can have immediate access to greater amounts of contextual
information. They are more likely to be targeted with promotions and offers and
make savings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How will society and
governments deal with these digital inequalities, or will they even try?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So what is the new sign of the cross?
Smartphone, smartwatch, ARglasses, biometric earphones, and not forgetting
testicles. Somethings never change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-88321426003527723312014-04-07T16:23:00.002+01:002014-04-07T16:23:53.313+01:00In praise of Random<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2540/3771732645_cd3a065f8e_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2540/3771732645_cd3a065f8e_o.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">When I was at school studying for my school
leaving exams we got time off to revise in the city library. In my case the
Central Library on George the IV bridge in Edinburgh. A wonderful Carnegie
funded edifice. In the upstairs reading room shelves and shelves of knowledge
surrounded you. In reality it was a tiny slice of knowledge, not as
comprehensive as what is available to us all today at any time and any place,
but the experience of the library was far more impressive and humbling than
typing into Google. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The librarians took pains to make sure all
books were cataloged correctly and always in their right place. What I found
interesting was not the subject I was meant to be studying, but the other
stuff. Even when I sought out a book for my studies I was always drawn to the
boundaries where one subject abutted with another. Here I could stray into new but
often related worlds. Even more exciting were the miss-placed books which had
escaped the librarian’s labours. Happenstance, serendipity, random, call it what
you may, but these chance encounters held more interest and had the power to
freshen my mind far more than the subject under study.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Teenage boredom was partly at the root of
this, but in subsequent years it has been the mixing of disparate disciplines
or association of separate concepts that I have found the most profitable for
the generation of new ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Today I very, very rarely visit a library.
Occasionally a book store and I catch glimpses of this distant excitement. Now
I research and find my knowledge in the digital world. Most of our digital
tools are designed to filter out what we are not interested in. We search and
expect to be delivered the most relevant and informative content based on our
query. We follow like minded people and they feed us articles which match our
interests. Despite the internet being full of incredibly diverse information we
tend to stick in one or several very small areas of interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Serendipity has no place in tools designed
for efficiency and accuracy. Which, I think is a loss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6RWtoUC_M9U/U0LBp4r1igI/AAAAAAAACWQ/vtx9E4JqqAw/s1600/photo+1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6RWtoUC_M9U/U0LBp4r1igI/AAAAAAAACWQ/vtx9E4JqqAw/s1600/photo+1.PNG" height="320" width="180" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">That is why I love a new app from Finish
developers, <a href="http://www.random.co/" target="_blank">Futureful</a> . Its called <a href="about:invalid#zClosurez" target="_blank">Random and is currently available for IOS</a>. It has been called an irrational browsing experience. The experience is
unlike other news feeds or aggregated content delivery systems. Okay it is not
completely random. But it is sometimes hard to see why subject X is with Y. The
set of subjects and sub subjects you can choose from are all related, but in a
more loosely and tangential way than most news feeds. I cannot tell but I think
the strength of associations is built up through my and other users use of the
system. I hope the evolving associations do not become too strong and it looses
its diversity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5-ECb8vX5KE/U0LBusum6QI/AAAAAAAACWY/dzEfdkX98-w/s1600/photo+2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5-ECb8vX5KE/U0LBusum6QI/AAAAAAAACWY/dzEfdkX98-w/s1600/photo+2.PNG" height="320" width="180" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I also like the way the links are
represented with just a single or couple of words. There is no indication of
the source or additional information. Your interest is triggered by the words and
you follow a path, the spine of the book not a preview of the content. If it is
not what you are interested in you backtrack. But when you do so the link
selection is refreshed with new content and a new journey opens up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Using Random I have discovered content I
would not have sought out but which I found interesting and thought provoking.
Give it a go.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
<a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=6c1ba6ae-f954-4e8b-b56e-36af5d1e3737" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-6148307708301831462014-03-27T13:59:00.001+00:002014-03-27T13:59:14.421+00:00How Facebook should use Oculus Rift<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/51d1949aecad04ad3e000000/heres-what-happened-when-we-strapped-a-bunch-of-people-into-the-oculus-rift-virtual-reality-headset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/51d1949aecad04ad3e000000/heres-what-happened-when-we-strapped-a-bunch-of-people-into-the-oculus-rift-virtual-reality-headset.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/25/facebook-buys-virtual-reality-gaming-firm-oculus" target="_blank">Oculus has been purchased by Facebook</a>. A $2
billion dollar bet on what may be the
future digital platform. Virtual
Reality is not new it has a long history. The common impression of VR has been
shaped by the film industry but real systems have been around for decades.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">First described in the 1935 science fiction
short story, </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pygmalion's Spectacles b</span>y
Stanley G Weinbaum as a pair of goggles which provide:<br />
<br />
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"<i>a movie that
gives one sight and sound [...] taste, smell, and touch. [...] You are in the
story, you speak to the shadows (characters) and they reply, and instead of
being on a screen, the story is all about you, and you are in it.</i>"</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.mortonheilig.com/sensorama-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.mortonheilig.com/sensorama-1.jpg" height="320" width="250" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In the fifties Morton Eilig made the
Sensorama, an immersive theatre system using a stereoscopic film display device
with fans, and a moving seat. In 1968 Ivan Sutherland, the father of computer
graphics, built the first computer based virtual reality head mounted display
system. The 70’s bought us flight simulators, the 90’s gave us the Nintendo
Virtual Boy, and as an owner of one I can tell you it is a real, not virtual,
pain to use. Along the way the military, architects, and surgeons have found
uses for the tech.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Today, with is the Oculus Rift, the
technology can finally deliver on the promise of truly immersive, highly
responsive environments. In a form factor, and a price point where it has the
chance to go mainstream. The price is high but is bound to come down. Oculus
are not the only game in town, technological advances, mass production and
competition from <a href="http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2014/03/26/now-can-watch-sonys-project-morpheus-virtual-reality-gdc-demo/#!BAytr" target="_blank">Sony</a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and another notable competitor, the
<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/avegantglyph/a-mobile-personal-theater-with-built-in-premium-au" target="_blank">Avegant Glyph</a>, will help lower prices. Facebook might even sell the headset at a loss. Because the immersive nature of the experience is so different, so compelling, they could set up a pay per experience market. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The question is what will Facebook or the
other players do with the technology? Mark Zuckerberg’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101319050523971" target="_blank">statement</a> seems to me
to have hit the nail on the head: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.15pt; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica;">"After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many
other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a
classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a
doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.15pt; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica;">This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly
present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your
life."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The key word is “experiences”, its all about the
experiences. Before working in the web, I came from a games background, one which excels at experiences. I have
always though that what is lacking from accessing the web via the traditional
pages model is the ability to deliver emotions. Sure you can watch an emotional
video or read a poem that moves you to tears or emotionally respond to a song
delivered through the web, but the experience of using the web does not
inherently have the capacity to deliver emotions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Games deliver excitement, loyalty, fear,
tension, humor, you feel your whole body respond to games. Heart rates
increase, you shout at your real or virtual opponents and punch the air when
you win. When was the last time you got any of this from a web page?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The web we have designed is a content delivering
system. We do it very well, and I am sure will get much better at it. We have
interfaces which provide quick access to content structures. We try to minimize
the number of interactions to access content. We have established conventions
for how we organize and manoeuvre through content. We keep is simple and intuitive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i>
put on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my VR goggles to attend a
conference or take a guided tour of the Sistine Chapel, learn about a new
subject through rich immersive media, or meet my friends in a virtual
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A vastly improved second life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">However, using three dimensions to navigate
through a collection of news articles and video reports is laborious and
inefficient. Currently we navigate in a 2d digital world. Adding that extra
dimension brings big cognitive, UI and learning overheads. It is worth investing
in these to receive an emotional hit, but not to read the news, or manipulate a
sales tool. A 3D world is not a good way to deliver the written word. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/46fcd73d2648e8b2ea075f1a09d3cac7/tumblr_n2k8l0ZpoM1qav3uso2_r1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/46fcd73d2648e8b2ea075f1a09d3cac7/tumblr_n2k8l0ZpoM1qav3uso2_r1_500.gif" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Firebox a VR browser by James McCrae, Toronto University</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I
remember conversations in 80’s where people spoke of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cathedral builders as a model for content
delivery. Use the 3d architectural structure and details as a way to access
content. People are still <a href="http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~mccrae/projects/firebox/" target="_blank">playing with this notion</a>. In my mind failing. The cathedral model was more a story telling mechanism than content delivery.
It worked in the middle ages partly because it was a way of expressing the
power of God and of the ruling class but also because of high illiteracy rates.
Give me a decent 2d information architecture any day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Today content and context are the kings. In
a VR world it is the experience. I do not see VR replacing the way we consume
the bulk of our content, not in the next ten, twenty years at least. The
current 2d world will live along side the 3d virtual ones. Increasingly
augmented reality driven by context will deliver a third way, but that is
another story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
<a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=ec449335-457b-43de-ae38-0a80b03bb6c4" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-90527917876954441402014-03-26T10:42:00.001+00:002014-03-26T10:42:35.940+00:00The birth of the iPhone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-CL082B_APPLE_G_20140325185022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-CL082B_APPLE_G_20140325185022.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
What we see here is a 2006 prototype test bad for what was to become the iPhone. Taken from a WSJ article where we get another insight into how the iPhone came into being. In 2005 Jobs gave an engineer who had been toying with the idea of a touch screen phone an ultimatum to show real progress within two weeks of the project would be given to someone else. That threat made a small team work like crazy to show their worth. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303949704579461783150723874-lMyQjAxMTA0MDIwNTEyNDUyWj" target="_blank">Well worth a read.</a><br />
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
<a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=75047e24-b063-4a3c-83bc-9d1f3563a5cd" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-81966075778869163212014-03-25T12:14:00.000+00:002014-03-26T09:27:56.159+00:00Tesco could know more about you than you think.<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TvCw3yjmYKs/UzFx-zzqKQI/AAAAAAAACVE/ejL1jrJJjF4/s1600/tesco+pumps+news+clipings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TvCw3yjmYKs/UzFx-zzqKQI/AAAAAAAACVE/ejL1jrJJjF4/s1600/tesco+pumps+news+clipings.jpg" height="285" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In November last year it was announced that
Tesco would place face tracking technology at the tills in 450 petrol stations
through the UK. The press spoke of Big Brother and Minority Report style
intrusion. The tone was one of “how dare they” our privacy it seemed was under
threat. All this in the world capital for CCTVs with an estimated one camera
for every 11 people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Tesco are putting camera’s at the tills in
the petrol stations, so that they can perform some simple segmentation of the
audience and display “targeted” adverts on displays beside the tills. In the
land of the CCTV and in terms of snooping or invading privacy it is hardly
Sherlock Holmes material.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What Tesco is doing is just scratching the
surface. There is so much that can be done without the cameras at the pumps.
Knowing the gender and height of the user is the cherry on the cake. Depending
on your perspective, you should either enjoy or fear the cake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Lets start from the bottom up and look at
what information we need to create more and more targeted advertising. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b_FNW4rANwE/UzFyHcYvFjI/AAAAAAAACVM/DUPEztF-5oo/s1600/personalisation+data+heirarchy+ambient+data.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b_FNW4rANwE/UzFyHcYvFjI/AAAAAAAACVM/DUPEztF-5oo/s1600/personalisation+data+heirarchy+ambient+data.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For Tesco to construct targeted adverts
they need to pull in information from a range of sources, a pyramid of data.
Some are public and free others have to be paid for and some are data
collections that Tesco already own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Ambient
data</span></b></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Ambient data is all about our environment,
our culture, time and place. It is the public data that we all swim in. Ambient
data fills the stores with hamburgers and ice creams when a hot weekend is
anticipated. The shelves groan under crates of lager when a cup final is
played. The umbrella sellers come out on Oxford street when it rains. The
perfume adverts clog our ad breaks as we run up to Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In the digital world where adverts can be
selected and constructed in real time it we can go further. Tesco know the time
of day you are filling up and the location of the petrol station. They can do
simple things like use the time to alter the message, lunchtime snacks, late
night munchies, early morning lattes. They know from the data collected from
the millions of previous customers, the kind of products that sell most in
different parts of the country. The purchase patterns in a forecourt close to a
motorway, may be different from that in a city centre. They may even know that
particular pumps in a forecourt are more frequently used by larger vehicles and
HGVs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">They know the weather at each forecourt,
and the impact that will have on the feelings and needs of the customers. A
wet, windy February night makes one dream of being away somewhere hot so
holiday adverts may be appropriate. Alternatively a warming soup or offers of
wellies for the kids etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">One more item of location data is whether
the customer has driven into the forecourt before or after doing their shop.
Sensors on the ground can provide insight into which route they have taken, or surveillance
cameras can track route to pump. Aggregated data about customer purchases can
give insights about what items are most likely to have been forgotten off a
shopping list and adverts can promote these to the post shopping visitor. While
pre shopping visitors could receive messages of offers and promotions to tempt
them into the store or to nudge them into making purchases. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span lang="EN-US">Agrigated Data</span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Lets step up the pyramid. Some of the more
valuable elements of the data mix are not the ones about you and me personally
but the aggregated data about us all. When you serve millions of customer who
purchase billions of items and a large proportion of them are Clubcard customers,
then you can gain very detailed insights into shopping. You can find
correlations that make it easier to predict what consumers are likely to
purchase. It is not about you, but people like you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We can infer a lot of data about people
like you from the car that you drive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Firstly what category is it, a small city car, a family car, and MPV, a
sports car, a van etc. Then there is the colour, the colour of the car you
drive says something about your personality and about what you want to say to
the world. Maybe it is not a conscious decision to broadcast this to the world
but on the scale of millions of consumers it is possible to identify
correlations between car colour and purchase patterns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Then we come to the actual make and model
of the car. Would you serve the same marketing message to the driver of a ten
year old Fiat Panda as to a brand new Mercedes S Class? Maybe other factors in
the data mix might trump this element but it is still a strong differentiator
and indicator of likely income, social demographics, spending patterns etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span lang="EN-US">Personal Data</span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The cake is almost read for baking, We now
finally, arrive at the point where we look at you. Firstly your number plate. A
DVLA look up and we can find the name and address of the owner and cross
reference this with house prices and home income data. In Tesco’s case they can
go further and cross reference their Clubcard membership, home/travel/pet/car
insurance and telco, banking and most likely other proprietary data sets, to
see if they actually know you or your household.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they do find a match then they could pull
on all applicable past purchase behaviour and feed it into the mix.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Assuming they do not strike gold, they can
use image detection to identify how many people are in the car, is there a
child car seat, bike rack, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Finally, finally the cherry steps out of
the car and image analysis discovers the gender, age range, body type of the
individual. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is a lot of data that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> be used to make the adverts you
see while standing in the queue to pay – or better still while filling the
tank. Masses of business logic created to determine what should be seen. It
begs the question is this application of big data all worth it? It depends, on
how many people you see every day, what you are selling and how much of a
difference it makes to actual sales. It is a leaning game where the algorithms
would be tested and retested, tweaked and changed, hypothesis challenged and
reformulated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Big data is often seen in a purely digital context:
the digital traces we leave from browsing, searching and purchasing. But the
data analysed does not have to be digital in origin. When you marry data form
many sources you can find correlations which may provide profitable insights. Tesco
is an old master at this game. You can be assured that it is highly unlikely
that Tesco – or another retailer<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is doing all of the above, but I would be
surprised if they will not go beyond just fuel pump cameras.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-23513880588117935452014-02-26T09:40:00.004+00:002014-07-10T15:06:20.087+01:00Fin, ring based interaction device<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/297504/files/20140108064704-product-fin.jpg?1389192424" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/297504/files/20140108064704-product-fin.jpg?1389192424" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I have always thought the finger and rings are ideal places for control devices. This new project seems very versatile and natural to use. Would work well with Google Glass.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/zi26-V0pJFs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fin-wearable-ring-make-your-palm-as-numeric-keypad-and-gesture-interface" target="_blank">More... </a><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-70971593387412549552013-10-09T10:16:00.000+01:002013-10-09T10:16:02.242+01:00BBC to revisit the 1980's with new computing initiative<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/img/making_most_micro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/img/making_most_micro.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The BBC micro and its associated courses along with the Sinclair Z80 are often credited with helping to start the UK computer games industry. An industry where we can legitimately claim to lead the world. For proof look no further than <a href="http://www.rockstargames.com/" target="_blank">Edinburgh's Rockstar Games</a> and the recent launch of <a href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/09/28/gta-5-sales-hit-1-billion/" target="_blank">GTA5</a>.<br />
<br />
On hearing the news that the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24446046" target="_blank">BBC wants to get the country coding</a> (again) I sought out evidence of the impact of the original BBC micro. I discovered this <a href="http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/96408611?access_key=key-24iz35lrfnsjloxac09f&allow_share=true&view_mode=scroll" target="_blank">NESTA funded report from 2012 by Tilly Blyth</a>. It makes interesting reading. This graph really stood out to me.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zVQbnVr-Fvs/UlUYZyHdyzI/AAAAAAAACIU/wqP6KU5YesI/s1600/owneed+a+bbc+micro+what+are+you+doning+now+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zVQbnVr-Fvs/UlUYZyHdyzI/AAAAAAAACIU/wqP6KU5YesI/s400/owneed+a+bbc+micro+what+are+you+doning+now+2012.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It shows that getting children interested in coding at an early age can impact their future careers and of the industries that it fostered. The report stresses how important it was to take computing out of just the classroom but into the home. The role of informal learning was just as vital to the success as the more formal school and broadcast courses.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"The lesson from the 1980s is
that the availability of hardware and the
use of television to stimulate
demand for computer
literacy was not in itself enough. The
project relied on the creation of a large amount of training, informal learning and curricular material;
the broadcasts were part of a complete
instructional package further widened by
the growth of home computing
magazines. Informal, rather
than formal, learning
seems to have been particularly influential on those who subsequently founded companies."</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Raspberry Pi">Raspberry Pi</a> has already put affordably home computing environments into the hands of many and its success indicates the interest and demand, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24435809" target="_blank">1 million sold and counting</a>. Lets hope the BBC's plans will stimulate and add to this.<br />
<br />
One issue maybe the need to train the trainers. Few of today's generation of school teachers were nurtured in the home computer era of the 1980's, in order for them to help and inspire their pupils they will need to get their hands into the code as well.<br />
<br />
The words of John Radcliffe when he started the BBC micro project are still very apt:<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">“The </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">effective</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> exploitation of microprocessor
technology in Britain will ultimately depend on the creativity and imagination
that is brought to bear on the problems and possibilities of computer
applications, and hence the capacity of the subject to attract the best minds
and the liveliest talents. Our failures over the past years to compete
in world markets for industrial goods have probably been at least
partly due to the shortage of good
scientists and engineers, through a failure to attract more young people to
science based subjects.”</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-49040009679432501422013-10-07T10:07:00.000+01:002013-10-07T10:07:00.728+01:00Great article on birth pains of the iPhone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/10/06/magazine/iphone_ss-slide-WXU1/iphone_ss-slide-WXU1-articleLarge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/10/06/magazine/iphone_ss-slide-WXU1/iphone_ss-slide-WXU1-articleLarge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Live tech demos are always a nightmare, but with all the pressure and potential pitfalls riding on this one, it must have been unbearable. Read all about it in this nail biting article on the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/and-then-steve-said-let-there-be-an-iphone.html?_r=0" target="_blank">New York Times site.</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-74490724319919694472013-10-07T09:56:00.000+01:002013-10-07T09:56:22.133+01:00Facebook link bait<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-crWqqCsI4Rs/UlJw0y5yJeI/AAAAAAAACHs/odIHV3ksoc8/s1600/Facebook+trawler.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-crWqqCsI4Rs/UlJw0y5yJeI/AAAAAAAACHs/odIHV3ksoc8/s400/Facebook+trawler.jpeg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
These are the kind of posts you often see on Facebook. They appear to ask a reasonable questions, which you realise you can easily answer. Then you think of another, and another answer. And you wonder how could someone ask such a stupid question. I usually pass them by or get slightly annoyed but still pulled in and answer the question.<br />
<br />
It was only today that it dawned on me - sorry for being so dumb, that these are designed to be so simple/stupid, that many, many people fall into the trap of answering. In this case 926K comments. They are just bait to generate likes, comments and shares. They end with a provocative challenge :<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>"I bet you can't ;)"</b></div>
<br />
The cheeky emoticon adds to the friendly, bit of fun, nature of the message and helps to egg the user on. And boy do they work. Hundreds of thousands of people take the bait and so the challenge is spread and the original poster gains the credit for the apparent richness of the content.<br />
<br />
This one hit my feed at UK primetime, ready to be read at breakfast or on your way into the office. It has been doing the rounds for 17 days. In the 65 minutes since I took the original screengrab from my iPhone the post has appeared again in my feed and this time with an additional 6.5k comments. Not bad.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WE8L987K-PA/UlJzykzsk5I/AAAAAAAACH4/nvl__TOxCTU/s1600/Screenshot_07_10_2013_09_38.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="350" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WE8L987K-PA/UlJzykzsk5I/AAAAAAAACH4/nvl__TOxCTU/s400/Screenshot_07_10_2013_09_38.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-23405001949360082422013-09-24T16:12:00.000+01:002013-09-24T16:12:04.426+01:00Pinterest and the age of image overloadWe often talk as the internet as a source of information overload. There is just too many emails, articles, blog posts, news reviews etc. Too much to consume. This is usually thought of in terms of copy and the burden its consumption puts on our limited time and cognitive capabilities. Copy requires scanning to understand what it is about, then checking to see if it is of interest, and then either moving on or engaging to one level or another and digesting the text.<br />
<br />
But we are also bombarded with images. A lot has been said about the number of marketing messages we are exposed to, but there is also the images we want to see. The success of sites such as Pinterest must in part lie in the fact that their visual nature implies that they are likely to be easier to browse and consume and require less effort on the part of the user. But even within a primarily visual domain the same, scan, understand, evaluate and then reject or consume process has to be applied. It is just done without a conscious reliance on language processing. Or at least a minimum.<br />
<br />
I spent a lot of my time, too much, sitting at my computer. I have recently become more and more aware of the sheer quantity of images I am consuming. I follow design blogs, photography sites, Pinterest, the news and Facebook. The visual book marking sites condense the filtering work of millions of users into a compact, almost pre digested form. Which I then further filter into collections of items which I find inspiring, stimulating or memorable. They act as a augmented memory when I can store these scraps for later. The images just continue to pile up. And one gains a vicarious sense of creative action through the act of collecting, whilst never actually creating anything at all.<br />
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Approach</h3>
I wanted to find out how many images I am being exposed to and how this compares with traditional print media. My approach was basic but informative. I screen recorded myself browsing various sites and then played back the videos and counted the number of images. My screen area was 1280 by 700 pixels. I chose to record 4 minute time segments from which I could get an average. How you define an image is difficult. For my test I did not count icons, but did include advertisements and photographic avitar images.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e8p3UG7Q8mM/UkGdBqwbY9I/AAAAAAAACF8/455uZz_9Fd4/s1600/avitar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="34" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e8p3UG7Q8mM/UkGdBqwbY9I/AAAAAAAACF8/455uZz_9Fd4/s320/avitar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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When scrolling down a page any new images would be added to the total, but if I scrolled up again I did not add any image which reappeared. However when I left a page and returned I counted all images even if I had seen them previously. I did this because of the change of context and the potential for images to have alter either because they were replaced or their status or appearance may have changed, ie greyed out etc. Even if it was only a momentary action I still had to visually assess the images.<br />
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The sites I chose were:<br />
<b>BBC</b> news site - scanning the headlines and reading three articles and 35 seconds of video<br />
<b>Amazon</b> - searching for a product, bluetooth speakers<br />
<b>Facebook</b> - reviewing status posts and following 3 links<br />
<b>Pinterest</b> - scanning my home page for all feeds and investigating 3 items one back to the source article.<br />
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I also spent 4 minutes browsing and reading the Guardian paper, and the same time looing at the Ikea 2014 catalogue. <br />
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<h3>
Results</h3>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cAr0JytOHvQ/UkGfYtybC2I/AAAAAAAACGI/UvsZB3oPPTg/s1600/images+per+day+graph.001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cAr0JytOHvQ/UkGfYtybC2I/AAAAAAAACGI/UvsZB3oPPTg/s400/images+per+day+graph.001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Okay this is a non scientific exercise, but even though the results are quite striking. Digital browsing throws up far more images than the same time on traditional media. While I knew a broadsheet like the Guardian was likely to have the lowest number of images, Ikea surprised me. In 4 minutes I went through 73 pages on the Ikea catalogue, but this only delivered 93 images. I expected Amazon to have a high number of images and to be close to the social media sites. Once you move from the search results pages a lot of the page space is taken up with reviews and copy descriptions. If you compare this to Pinterest, its thumbnail mosaic approach covers the whole screen area most of the time. (Infographics - which I counted as a single image but could be seen as many - can reduce the image density.)</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5KjUejMVXJs/UkGhsoCpbgI/AAAAAAAACGU/69qbC1NeyJ8/s1600/pinterest+screen+grab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5KjUejMVXJs/UkGhsoCpbgI/AAAAAAAACGU/69qbC1NeyJ8/s400/pinterest+screen+grab.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Facebook and Pinterest display their content in a chronological sequence using "never ending" pages. This means you can just keep consuming. The average visit time to Pinterest is <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/04/29/pinterest-interest/" target="_blank">14.2 minutes</a> meaning they would see 4192 images. And on a monthly basis they spend <a href="http://rismedia.com/2013-05-23/pinterest-should-it-be-a-part-of-your-marketing-plan/" target="_blank">98 minutes</a> seeing 28,934 images.</div>
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So we are undoubtedlyexposed to a large number of images, far more than in the past. It is fair to feel image overload, but is there a fundamental difference in the self induced overload of sites like PInterest?</div>
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/nov/19/advertising.marketingandpr" target="_blank">In 2005 a study found we were exposed to 3500 marketing messages per day</a>. This did not take into account any online activity. While image processing is what we do all the time when we look around the world. When we normally look at a scene we do not see it as individual chunks, or attempt to categorise and potentially store some of them. If you think back to what you did in the last 24 hours, how many images do you recall? Photography freezes the image and in doing so also makes decisions about what is included and excluded. Further more, Pinterest and others present us with images that we are likely to find interesting and want to see. These are not unwelcome intrusions, this is an activity we elect to do. Brands may use Pinterest but their presence is only accepted if the use wants them to be there. </div>
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The continuing growth of Pinterest and the diversification of the demographics of its users seems to point to, not only a capacity to deal with this wave of images, but an active desire to become immersed in it.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-6961440337713525262013-09-23T16:17:00.001+01:002013-09-23T16:17:54.042+01:00Conduct the world with Myo<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
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<a href="https://static.thalmic.com/img//dark_myo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://static.thalmic.com/img//dark_myo.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />This is a very <a _mce_href="https://getmyo.com/" href="https://getmyo.com/" title="exciting piece of technology">exciting piece of technology</a> from the people at ThalmicLabs. They have taken the problem of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Gesture">gestural</a> inout and turned it on its head. Most systems, the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.crunchbase.com/product/xbox" rel="crunchbase" target="_blank" title="Xbox">Xbox</a>, kinect, the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.crunchbase.com/product/leap-motion-controller" rel="crunchbase" target="_blank" title="Leap Motion Controller">Leap Motion controller</a> all work by using cameras to sense motions being made by a hand/body within a 3d space. </div>
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This has drawbacks, you have to be within range of the cameras and facing them, and the solutions are only as good as their ability to do image recognition. This new approach is to give the user an armband which they wear.<br />
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The armband has sensors which monitor your muscle movements and the movements of the arm as a whole. This way you can teach the device unique gestures for any given situation and the device will respond to those gestures. It is almost like you conduct the world around you.</div>
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Surely this is very applicable to sign language, useful for people with limited movement but who need to control devices etc.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-77658462518296847882013-09-23T16:10:00.000+01:002013-09-23T16:10:12.171+01:00Memories in a silent worldMy daughter has special needs and her most profound difficulty is that she cannot talk. She uses symbols and a assisted communication device to talk. Through the wonderful program Proloquo2go she navigates pages of symbols to express her needs, wants, fears and desires. Sometimes she won't use it and just points to things in the room or in photographs, or relies on us, her parents understanding her needs.<br />
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She has always loved books and stories and photographs. One of her most used requests is "Can you show me the photos on your phone?". She pours over images and wants to know who they are. The best ones are about her and what she has done.<br />
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She needs us to provide a narrative for her life, to speak for her, to put words into her hands and mouth. Every week we record a story for her, which we then put on her iPad to listen to when ever she wants.<br />
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This is a poem about what it is like to be part of her memory process.<br />
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<h3>
<br /><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">History makers</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">how does memory work without language to articulate it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">in a silent world outsiders words are the carriages of experiences</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">our words mollify potential fears, current events narrated</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">and history recorded</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">as her week revolves</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">we stumble through adventures and torments, banality and battles</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">moments of joy and of despair, with or without us</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">all of which to be remembered, for future reference</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">friday is history day</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">eagerly anticipated and demanded with rightous vigour</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">finger stabbing at the symbol</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">pleading and confirming, it is today, it should be now</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">the subject matter has to be agreed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">there is little room for negotiation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">repetition is the order of the day</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">hopes and anticipate events are also to be conjured up</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">egocentric recounts of daily activities</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">events we never witnessed are re-imagined </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">minutia of encounter, actions, scares and outcomes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">constructed as claustrophobic adventures with Ruby as the principle character</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">she is the heroine, or aggrieved party</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">at once the wise observer, then the initiate</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">the happy participant, the leader, always playing her part</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">always the focus of our love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">some stories spill like lego from a toy box</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">colourful, multi-shaped detail ridden</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">others, through weary parents, trudge forth, stubborn to be born</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">all must be produced, history must be recorded</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">round and round we go with the same same stories</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">the same places, the times and locations merge</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">a stream of average happenings</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">samples of a life's routine </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">she devours the finished product, again and again</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">falling to sleep, MP3s burying it into her dreams</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">filled away in her growing collection, the catalogue of her life</span></div>
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<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">as retold by us, for she who cannot recount</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-23628520344711053982013-09-23T16:02:00.001+01:002013-09-23T16:02:02.738+01:00iPhone Maps For The Blind, Using Haptic Feedback<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.fastcodesign.com/multisite_files/codesign/imagecache/1280/poster/2013/02/1671924-poster-1280-blindmaps-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://www.fastcodesign.com/multisite_files/codesign/imagecache/1280/poster/2013/02/1671924-poster-1280-blindmaps-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/35462652?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></div>
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It is just a <a href="http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671924/iphone-maps-for-the-blind-using-haptic-tech" target="_blank">prototype</a> at the moment but it is an interesting addition to an iPhone that gives a brail pad. It is designed to provide mapping and direction information, but surely it could give other forms of content.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-17482184983150139362013-09-23T10:39:00.000+01:002013-09-23T10:39:09.537+01:00Liftware amazing technology for those with motor difficulties<div style="text-align: center;">
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Originally designed for sufferers of Parkinson's and other conditions with motor tremors, <a href="https://www.liftlabsdesign.com/index.html#prettyPhoto" target="_blank">Lifeware</a> is a brilliant application of technology. It uses trickle down technology from smartphones and cameras in the form of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_detection" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Motion detection">motion sensors</a> to help counter the effects of tremors in people's hands while they try to eat. By doing so it makes eating a relatively easy process, which in turn allows the person to focus on the social side of eating rather than just the mechanics.</div>
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I hope they will sell these in the UK as I will buy one for my daughter Ruby.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00937593100326097601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3479457951445820673.post-43525422025833617512013-09-10T10:01:00.002+01:002014-04-07T16:36:45.691+01:00Interacting with wearables - the ring is the thingLets face it, the method of interacting with <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Glass" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Project Glass">Google Glass</a> via swiping the leg of the glasses is far from ideal. Voice is also available but very public. What is needed is a small wearable input device that allows gestures, menu selection, cursor movement, mouse clicks etc.<br />
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In the <a href="http://students.sabanciuniv.edu/~kamer/Magitact/References/GestureWrist.pdf" target="_blank">wearable PC labs</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Genius-31030048102-Wireless-Ring-Mouse/dp/B004RF52DO" target="_blank">geek tech</a> corners of the web are gloves, bracelets and ring mice. These all tend to look bulky and not something you would want to be seen wearing away from your desk, or even in public. However a recent <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.kickstarter.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Kickstarter">Kickstarter</a> project funded a device which shows promise.<br />
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<a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/445075/photo-main.jpg?1359831957" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/445075/photo-main.jpg?1359831957" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.mycestro.com/" target="_blank">Mycestro</a> is a touch sensitive 3d mouse that fits on the finger. It uses low power <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Bluetooth">Bluetooth 4</a> to pair with your PC, but could be iPad, Glass or Smartwatch. It uses the 3D gestural motion of your finger to control a cursor, and a touch sensitive pad for selection and initiation of the device.<br />
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I would not be surprised if <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.33182,-122.03118&spn=1.0,1.0&q=37.33182,-122.03118%20(Apple%20Inc.)&t=h" rel="geolocation" target="_blank" title="Apple Inc.">Apple</a> did not create a ring input device as an addition to other existing and future devices. It could work with Apple TV, your Mac, iPad or a future glasses project. With their design and engineering flair they could make it usable, discrete and fashionable.<br />
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I see a future where we will wear multiple connected wearable devices. Selecting the best of breed for each situation. Just as we can currently pick the mouse and display that fits our needs and budget.<br />
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Update:<br />
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<a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/4/7/1396863152031/ba4938dc-2fd5-4c45-94e2-be77f44f8fa7-620x372.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/4/7/1396863152031/ba4938dc-2fd5-4c45-94e2-be77f44f8fa7-620x372.png" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2014/apr/07/wearable-smart-ring-wonderring-in-pictures" target="_blank">Another entrant into this area</a>. These are just concept designs form a competition on crowdSpring but even if this device does not eventually appear I have no doubt that rings will be important input and control devices. They are small, personal, unobtrusive and can be used without making large gestures.<br />
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