I did a research about Brain Computer Interfaces in my english course. This tecnology caught my attention because we always see themes like thought control and mind power in the movies.

But we can realy establish a trustful communication between electric signals from the brain and bits from a computer? I can’t assert, but after study this subject I’ve been asked to myself “It’s Science Fiction Becoming Reality?”.

Below follows my presentation:

Below you can see a video that explains the technology developed by Honda that enable control of a robot by human thought alone:

Here are some references that I used in my research:

- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/brain-computer-interface.htm
- http://informatica.hsw.uol.com.br/interface-cerebro-computador.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-computer_interface

Parto dal presupposto che la vostra scheda wireless sia funzionante, con i driver installati e sia solo da configurare. Vediamo dunque come farlo in modo semplice e senza usare applicazioni (NetworkManager) che a volte danno problemi e non sempre fanno quello che vogliamo.

Prima di tutto scarichiamoci l’essenziale per ogni decente connessione Wi-Fi (si spera dunque sia protetta da una chiave WPA almeno). Installiamo:
# apt-get install wpasupplicant wireless-tools
Il pacchetto wpasupplicant fornisce la negoziazione di chiavi con l’autenticatore WPA e controlla le connessioni con le reti IEEE 802.11i (WPA2). Invece il pacchetto wireless-tools contiene gli strumenti usati per manipolare le Linux Wireless Extensions (un’interfaccia che consente di impostare specifici parametri di una LAN wireless e ottenerne informazioni).

Le configurazioni della nostra interfaccia di rete si trovano nel file /etc/network/interfaces. Ma prima di tutto ci occorrono alcune informazioni sulla nostra scheda wireless, e le otteniamo con questo comando:
# iwlist scan
E sul tipo di connessione (WEP o WPA, dinamica o statica e se statica con quali indirizzi).

Una volta capito qual’e’ la nostra scheda (solitamente wlan0) e quale protocollo di protezione dobbiamo usare, possiamo cominciare con la configurazione vera e propria, procediamo quindi con la modifica del nostro file interfaces per fare in modo che la connessione avvenga in modo automatico.

Supponiamo che il nostro file di configurazione contenga queste righe:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

o poco piu’ magari quelle relative alla connessione ethernet. A questo punto dobbiamo aggiungerci le righe relative alla nostra connessione wireless.

WIRED EQUIVALENT PRIVACY (WEP) – Supponendo la nostra rete Wi-Fi sia protetta dal protocollo WEP al nostro file di configurazione:
# nano /etc/network/interfaces
dobbiamo aggiungere le righe relative alla nostra scheda wireless con DHCP (mettete il giusto nome della vostra rete e la chiave WPE per l’autenticazione):

---8<---
# Scheda di rete wireless con DHCP
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-channel 11
wireless-essid "NOMERETEWIRELESS"
wireless-key CHIAVEWPE
---8<---

o con indirizzo statico (mettete ovviamente gli indirizzi giusti):

---8<---
# Scheda di rete wireless con indirizzo statico
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.1.111
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 182.168.1.1
broadcast 192.168.1.255
wireless-channel 11
wireless-essid "NOMERETEWIRELESS"
wireless-key CHIAVEWPE
---8<---

L’assegnazione degli indirizzi o e’ statica o e’ dinamica, mai entrambe, quindi nel vostro file di configurazione mettete solo quello che corrisponde alla vostra connessione.

A questo punto non resta che riavviare il sistema. Potete anche riavviare solo i servizi di rete:
# ifdown wlan0
# ifup wlan0

Ora controlliamo con questo comando:
# iwconfig wlan0
che tutto sia riconosciuto correttamente.

WI-FI PROTECTED ACCESS (WPA) – Vediamo ora il caso in cui la vostra rete wireless sia protetta dal protocollo WPA. In questo caso dobbiamo modificare il file wpa_supplicant.conf:
# nano /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
che deve contenere quanto segue:

---8<---
network={
        ssid="NOMERETEWIRELESS"
        psk="CHIAVEWPA"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        proto=WPA
}
---8<---

Ora, per far partire in automatico la connessione, andiamo a modificare il solito file di configurazione:
# nano /etc/network/interfaces
a cui noi dobbiamo aggiungere le righe relative alla nostra scheda wireless con DHCP (mettete il giusto nome della vostra rete e la chiave WPA per l’autenticazione):

---8<---
# Scheda di rete wireless con DHCP
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
up wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
---8<---

o con indirizzo statico (mettete ovviamente gli indirizzi giusti):

---8<---
# Scheda di rete wireless con indirizzo statico
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.1.111
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 182.168.1.1
broadcast 192.168.1.255
wireless-channel 11
up wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
---8<---

Anche in questo caso, l’assegnazione degli indirizzi o e’ statica o e’ dinamica, mai entrambe, quindi nel vostro file di configurazione mettete solo quello che corrisponde alla vostra connessione.

A questo punto non resta che riavviare il sistema. Potete anche riavviare solo i servizi di rete:
# ifdown wlan0
# ifup wlan0

Ora controlliamo con questo comando:
# iwconfig wlan0
che tutto sia riconosciuto correttamente.

Se avete dubbi, o volete configurare alcune opzioni particolari, oppure volete semplicemente approfondire vi rimando al manuale di interfaces:
$ man interfaces

Fonte: Configurazione di una connessione wireless

[^] torna su | post<li> | 

Cuando en 1998 elegí el tema para mi tesis doctoral no tuve ninguna duda. Desde hacía unos cuantos años venía leyendo libros y artículos sobre interacción persona-ordenador, usabilidad, hipertextos y diseño interactivo. Casi todos los autores, antes o después, confluían en un mismo punto: “la mejor interfaz es la que desaparece”, la que el usuario no percibe porque el dispositivo tecnológico se vuelve “transparente”.

Investigadores de primer nivel como Don Norman, Gui Bonsiepe o Ben Schneiderman no dudaron en convertir esta idea en un principio innamovible de la Human-Computer Interaction y el Interaction Design. Mi tesis, en pocas palabras, desarrolló una crítica a esa razón instrumental que reduce las interfaces a objetos que desaparecen y convierte a la interacción en un proceso transparente, casi natural.
Las interfaces, como los lenguajes o la comunicación, no pueden ser “transparentes” o “invisibles”: se trata siempre de dispositivos artificiales que, cuando están bien diseñados, se naturalizan y vuelven imperceptibles. La interfaz es como una metáfora: si está bien construida y colocada dentro del relato, el lector no la percibe (Borges). El principio de la transparencia, desde la perspectiva de los usuarios, está fuera de discusión: a todos nos gusta concentrarnos en la tarea u objetivo que queremos llevar adelante y olvidarnos de los dispositivos técnicos que tenemos entre manos. Sucede igual que con una prótesis: ¿Cuál es la mejor pierna artificial? La que no se siente cuando caminamos.

Sin embargo, desde una perspectiva teórica el planteo no convence… si algo nos enseña la semiótica y las ciencias del lenguaje es que no existen intercambios simbólicos transparentes. Siempre, incluso en las más básicas interacciones, existe un conflicto y al mismo tiempo una negociación entre el diseñador y el usuario; esta cooperación se define en un posible “contrato de interacción” entre el usuario y el diseñador. La interfaz es la sede de ese contrato que, no olvidemos, puede ser aceptado o no por el usuario.

En mi tesis de doctorado -publicada en formato libro bajo el título Hacer Clic. Hacia una sociosemiótica de las interacciones digitales (Barcelona: Gedisa, 2004)- traté de evidenciar estos conflictos interpretativos en diferentes tipos de interfaces, desde los procesadores de textos hasta la web de un diario online. Un breve resumen de este planteo se puede leer en el artículo que lleva el mismo nombre del libro publicado en el número 5 de deSignis.

El multi-touch screen de Jeff Han (su presentación en las TED Conferences es uno de los clásicos de ese ciclo) es uno de esos productos que reabre el debate sobre la transparencia de las interfaces. El mismo Han lo dice mientras sus dedos de mago digital se deslizan sobre la pantalla interactiva: Señoras y señores, aquí no hay interfaz, todo es transparente y natural! El mouse o el joystick dejan de existir  y la interfaz se vuelve transparente con un toque de magia tecnológica.

La llegada del iPhone en el 2007 y la difusión de las pantallas táctiles vuelve a poner sobre la mesa la cuestión de la desaparición de los interfaces. Inclusive los diseñadores de videojuegos cada vez más hacen hincapié en estas formas de interacción en las cuales el dispositivo tiende a volverse transparente. La sensación de estar manipulando directamente objetos (un concepto elaborado originalmente por Ben Schneiderman en el lejano 1982) es total.

Me encantan todos estos dispositivos. Desde la perspectiva de los usuarios, ponen en pie una nueva generación de tecnologías que facilita notablemente la manipulación de la materia digital. Cuando Apple presentó el iPhone en el 2007 pocos dudamos en considerar que nos encontrábamos de frente a un arquetipo, uno de esos productos que marcan una época y generan descendencia.  Una vez que uno se acostumbra a la pantalla multi-touch no hay retorno atrás: cuando un amigo me prestó un eBook de la Sony, mis dedos fueron derecho a tocar la pantalla… mientas mi amigo me alertaba: “Tiene botones, eh!”

Sin embargo, esto que me entusiasma tanto como usuario sigue encendiendo una luz roja en mi tablero científico: las interfaces parecen naturales y creemos que desaparecen, pero siempre están ahí. Es en la interfaz donde se expresa el diseñador: ahí está su ideología, su visión del mundo y su concepción del intercambio que propone a los usuarios. Es el diseñador el que decide qué podemos y qué no podemos hacer con la interfaz, de la misma forma que determina nuestros movimientos dentro de una red a través de la creación de enlaces. En la interfaz se expresa  -como diría Lawrence Lessig- el poder del código (“code is law”).

Todas las estrategias (políticas, ideológicas, comunicativas, económicas, etc.) del diseñador se expresan en la interfaz y allí se confrontan con las tácticas de los usuarios. Las interfaces, como dice Umberto Eco a propósito de los textos, son la sede de un conflicto entre dos sujetos, y eso no es para nada transparente.

Carlos Scolari
Doctor en Lingüística Aplicada y Lenguajes de la Comunicación.
Profesor titular de Teorías de la Comunicación y Fundamentos de Comunicación Digital en la Universitat de Vic.
Coordinador del Grup de Recerca d’Interaccions Digitals (GRID).

* Publicado originalmente en http://hipermediaciones.com/ y reproducido con permiso del autor.

Tom Raynor’s blog post on cable boxes and the many inefficiencies they add to the TV viewing experience caught my attention because it jives with my own personal experience with these devices. My interaction with these boxes has not been all bad, however. In my experience, the interfaces on set-top boxes by cable companies have notoriously bad interfaces and subpar hardware under the hood. Comcast is particularly bad in the user interface department. Starting with the remote control, it feels like some short-sighted engineer oversaw the design of the system from start to finish. Lesson one: More buttons does not a better remote control make. Using only the necessary buttons and placing them in intuitive positions simplifies the user experience and makes navigating the on-screen interface more intuitive. Lesson two: On-screen menus should be responsive and well organized. Comcast has the luxury of a full-speed bi-directional data backend for its boxes. There’s no reason for loading information into a simple text-based interface should take more than a second. Also, relying on a dedicated, poorly placed remote control button for returning to higher lever menus is frustrating for new users. Lesson three: If a TV tuner can tune a channel faster than your cable box can, you’re doing something wrong. With one exception. The reason many cable boxes take so long to change channels is that they are buffering the video for DVR functionality.

I agree with Tom that the cable box is a redundant piece of technology, but if the features it provides extend beyond those the TV itself could provide, this isn’t necessarily a problem. Two solutions to the redundancy and performance issues I would be willing to accept are either a mass migration to CableCard technology or better performing, more featureful set-top boxes. The CableCard solution has the cable provider giving the consumer a decoder card for their service that they can use in any compatible TV to cut the extra cable box hardware out of the loop entirely. This removes extra video conversion steps from the playback pipeline and improves video quality in the event that the TV has better tuning and processing hardware than the cable box would have had. The improved cable box solution would bring the hardware components up to speed with the latest computing components and video processing technology. They would also have extra features such as internet connectivity and whole house media sharing. These improvements would make the cable box a tolerable, and maybe even desireable, A/V accessory.

Source: http://alexdasgrosse96.blogspot.com/2009/09/one-box-to-rule-them-all.html

I don’t know if there is a precedent on this one. Some real-life flesh-and-blood dude actually married a character from a Nintendo DS dating simulator, in a church in Guam. Left for the rest of us to imagine is how they will have t3h s3x and what the babies will look like…

By the way, here is the bride.

Additionaly, it is quite interesting to note the profound tone of some discussions that popped-up after the Kotaku article.

She argued, even if they don’t communicate, the digital coding, on the binary level, in each copy of the game for this girl, is exactly the same; essentially making this girl and every other player of the game who has chosen her an adulterer. -Dallas Peterson

[Edit] And here’s the video report by Lisa Katayama from Boing Boing.

(via Kotaku, more Kotaku and Gizmodo)

204482     การโต้ตอบระหว่างคอมพิวเตอร์กับมนุษย์     Computer-Human Interfaces

การออกแบบและสร้างระบบติดต่อระหว่างผู้ใช้กับคอมพิวเตอร์ สถาปัตยกรรมด้านฮาร์ดแวร์และซอฟต์แวร์ของสถานีงานส่วนบุคคล ระบบการโปรแกรมเชิงวัตถุ การจัดการส่วนแสดงผลแบบโต้ตอบ และช่องหน้าต่าง

(Design and construction of human-computer interfaces; hardware and software architecture for personal workstations; object-oriented programming; interactive display management and windows.)

(204482 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

3-D Natural Interfaces Will Control a Wide Range of Gear ‘ From PC’s to TV’s and Much More, Says Canesta CEO – so with all these machines responding to gestures, how will your PC know it’s you who’s waving?

Accessible World Presents – ?Rick HHarman will talk about SendSpace and Mydropbox on November 24th.

accessible world tek talk presents the apex braillenote november 16 2009 

mp3 audio

HypnosEye Projector and Screen Set – Japan Trend Shop – works especially well with iPhones and Touch, but can be used with other backlit devices. Very portable, not even a power supply.

accessible world tek talk presents internet explorer 8 with jaws window-eyes and system access 

mp3 audio

Adobe Accessibility: AIR 2 Beta, Introducing Accessibility Support

Are PDFs More Important Than Web Accessibility? « AccessTech News – an example of a website where the web pages could be fully accessible but the content not, as it was contained in inaccessible PDF files.

BBC NEWS | England | Tees | Blind able to ‘read’ bus timetables

BrowseAloud – text-to-speech program that may help people with dyslexia and / or mild visual impairments.

Cutting-Edge Invention for Blind and Deaf-Blind Travelers Launched at Chicago Assistive Technology Conference – ClickAndGo Wayfinding Maps have narrative to direct blind and deaf people to where they want to go. They can be received on a mobile phone and saved on a notetaker.

DAISY: DAISY Members Have Launched Monthly Giveaway of Literary Classics in DAISY Format

Digital Britain: Barriers And Solutions To Internet Use By Persons With Disabilities | Gov Monitor

Enhanced Vision Offers 10 Percent Off for the Holidays – Blind Bargains – look out for accesstech seasonal offers from elsewhere, too.

Free PDF Converter – convert many file formats into PDF. Has had good reviews.

Google’s Intent on Fostering Net Access for Disabled – Tonic – so they’re going to do something about Chrome, then are they?

Internet Explorer 9 not coming at PDC | Beyond Binary – CNET News – Despite claims that IE9 will be the best ever browser, we’re not going to get a look at it yet.

Kurzweil partners for new e-reading software – The Assistive Technology Blog – free software for computer and mobile devices will facilitate buying and reading e-books.

Macy’s User Assistance Tool – this looks like the IBM Easy Web Browsing program. 

Get started with the Assistance Tool. 
This only works with Internet Explorer 5, 6, and 7.

Multilingual Braille Output For Snow Leopard | ATMac – change from English-only Braille.

Narrative TV Network Offers Visually Impaired Programming – unobtrusive description track is added to movies and TV. 
NTN web site

On Web Typography – A List Apart – with many more fonts soon available for the Web, what will actually work and be legible?

Orator Screen Reader for the Blackberry – audio by artist michel pepin products manager humanware | Accessible World 

mp3 audio download

Pact Aims to Reduce Cost of Braille Displays – US, China, Hope Affordable Technology Will Expand Braille Literacy

Possible Free Web Space for Your Own Blindness-Related Website – Blind Bargains – got an idea for a cool web site on a blind topic? Why not get in touch with these guys?

reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books – the audio alternative to CAPTCHAs, and more.

Screen Reader User Survey Results – WebAIM – WebAIM has now conducted two screen reader surveys. These are results from the second one.

Tables « PDF Accessibility Documentation – it may be hard work, but proper tables in PDFs aid a great deal in accessibility.

Technology failing disabled net surfers: forum

Thanksgiving Tech: Demy Recipe Reader » ZiggyTek » Blog – a digital recipe box that can sync with your computer. The font can be adjusted but there isn’t apparently any speech or Braille.

The iPhone Is Most Popular In The U.S, Not So Much Overseas » ZiggyTek » Blog – Mozilla Firefo

The Monomouse – useful for people who want a simple magnifier, but be sure to order the right model (different ones for TV and PC).

Thunderbird 3 is coming out soon, and it’s accessible!

U.S. Colleges and Universities Partner with Bookshare To Expand Collection of Accessible Textbooks for Students with Print Disabilities

Web Usability

Who would win in a fight: Apple iPhone or Google Android?

Why Shouldn’t the Blind Drive? | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET – Virginia Tech Students are working on just that.

YouTube Captioning and Accessible Controls

Hoje trago uma entrevista com David de Oliveira Lemes, ou “Dolemes”, professor da PUC-SP e criador do blog GameReporter. Ele vem trazendo dicas para uma pessoa que quer seguir a carreira para a área de designer e também criação interfaces. Segue na íntegra:

1 ) O que é necessário para um gamer se tornar um profissional na área?
Estudar, estudar e estudar. É preciso conhecer o processo de produção de um jogo, desde o roteiro, passando pelo 3D e programação, até sua finalização em uma engine de primeira linha. Tudo isso pode ser aprendendido em um bom curso de graduação em games.

2 ) Precisa de algum conhecimento prévio para iniciar os estudos na área?
É preciso ter vontade. Mas por incrível pareça, jogar muito também faz parte do aprendizado.

3 ) O que seria a interface de um jogo?
Interface é o ponto de contato entre o ser humano, a máquina e o software, ou seja, o jogo. É o elemento liga o real com o virtual.

4 ) Qual a importância de uma interface amigável para o jogador?
Uma interface amigável faz com que se jogue um game com mais facilidade e naturalidade. Uma boa interface de jogo é invisível, ou seja, o jogador nem percebe que está interagindo com ela.

5 ) Qual o primeiro passo para fazer a interface de um jogo?
O primeiro passo para se desenvolver uma boa interface de jogo é começar com um projeto em papel. Tudo começa no papel, inclusive os jogos digitais.

6 ) Quais os softwares que podem ser utilizados para fazer esta interface?
Software de ilustração vetorial e edição de imagens em bitmap, como Adobe Illustrator e Adobe Photoshop

7 ) Até que ponto a escolha das cores e do visual do jogo é importante?
A cor transmite sensações e ajuda a criar o clima do jogo. Este clima precisa, necessariamente, ser transferido para a interface do jogo.

8 ) Quais seriam as dicas que você daria para quem quer iniciar na área?
Estudar, procurar uma boa universidade, jogar muito e ler o GameReporter e o Planeta Gamer.

Caso você queira saber mais um pouco sobre Game Design e conhecer melhor o trabalho do professor Dolemes, venha participar de um bate-papo sobre o ensino de games em universidades que ele vai oferecer no SESC Itaquera, São Paulo, dia 28/11 às 13hrs.

Aguardem por mais entrevistas e materiais interessante….!

The day has come. Our desire for photorealistic interactive graphics has outpaced the capability of a workstation-class computer. Coming to the rescue is NVidia with their RealityServer solution, essentially the graphics equivalent of a storage area network. Now,  a website can serve up real-time photorealistic 3D graphics to users without the user needing any 3D acceleration in their own computers.

This technology is crucial for scientists and engineers who want to be able to visualize complex data in three-dimensions in real-time, but it also has important implications for the consumer market as well. Technology like this makes it possible for the same quality image data to be available on all platforms, including low power ones like netbooks and smartphones.

3D technology and representations will become more and more important as our interfaces with computers become increasingly organic. Our world is three dimensional. The ultimate in intuitive computing will be too.

Source: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2355677,00.asp

#4 Separate Message Construction from Message Delivery

There are a variety of scenarios where you will build a message and deliver it to a destination. The message itself could be free-form text, delimited/fixed-length text, XML, or some other format. The destination itself could be a system, service, application, a server, or a human user or group of users (in the case of email). If you decouple message construction from its destination, that will drive in reuse of both of these assets. For example, you can take a message and send it via email or send to a message queue. In the same vein, you can potentially use the same code that sends email to send a newsletter message and a reminder message.

To illustrate this idea, take a look at this code fragment:

MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
message.addRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO,
new InternetAddress("someone@xyz.com"));
message.setSubject("Hello there...");

FileReader fr = new FileReader("some-template.html");
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(fr);
String line = reader.readLine();
while (line != null) {
     sb.append(line);
     line = reader.readLine();
}
reader.close();

message.setText(sb.toString());
// Send message
Transport tr = session.getTransport("smtp");
tr.connect("host-name", "user", "some-password");
message.saveChanges();
tr.sendMessage(message, message.getAllRecipients());
tr.close();

There is a file that is read from the file system and a data buffer is being constructed. The data is then used to send an email. However, this class isn’t very reusable because of the tight coupling between message construction and delivery logic.

Now examine, a newer version that has modularized this code – Publisher sends the message using an EmailConfiguration and TemplateBuilder constructs the message using an instance of Template.

Publisher publisher = new Publisher();
EmailConfiguration eConfig = new EmailConfiguration();
publisher.setConfiguration(eConfig);
TemplateBuilder builder = new TemplateBuilder();
Template template = builder.build();
publisher.publishMessage(template);

Now, Publisher, EmailConfiguration, Template, and TemplateBuilder are all candidate assets that are available for other classes to reuse. If you have other types of configurations, they can be included as well and bound polymorphically. This concept can be further extended based on the quantity and quality of variations. For instance, the message construction can be realized using a common interface with multiple implementations. The message itself might have standard and personalized content.

You may move to a more modular version iteratively. Which version do you think facilitates reuse, faster integration, and higher productivity? This new design will make it easier to test message construction independently from publisher.
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I received an invite to Google Wave the other day.  Having heard lots of buzz, I was looking forward to learning more about it.  While Google Mail is not my primary mail platform, I already have an account and use lots of other Google stuff.

I accepted the invite, went through a few setup choices, and was dropped into the main Wave interface.  And stayed there.  Now what?

This is not an indictment of Google Wave; it’s too early to pass judgment.   My real concern is that every new tool we confront seems to have the same “now what?” moment.

Twitter is awash with people who never made it past “now what?”  You can see these abandoned accounts everywhere, with three tweets from six months ago.  The first is upbeat: “Trying out twitter!”  A bit later, an effort to fit in: “Meeting Harriet for dinner; we’re thinking Italian.”  Finally, their last tweet, a few weeks later: “Need to use twitter more often!”

Facebook, LinkedIn, Naymez, Ning, Xing, and all the rest: every collaboration platform has the same problem.  They make it easy to sign up, they promise to change your world, and they leave you high and dry, wondering how to unlock all that promised value.  This is a hard problem, and I’ve not seen too many good solutions.

Facebook tries.  When they aren’t annoying their entire user base with gratuitous attempts to be more like Twitter, they pop up little messages on behalf of the newbies: “Harriet has 7 friends. Help her find more!” Although inadvertently making Harriet the laughing-stock of her limited social world, the idea is that others would reach out and help Harriet use Facebook more effectively.

In most other platforms, there is little help for the new user.  Instead, users must work to get engaged, figure out the tools, figure out the culture, and find people to interact with.  It takes time and is not for the faint-of-heart.  Those not up to the challenge fade away, lamenting that they “never got much value out of it.”

That’s unfortunate, and it’s the fault of the platforms, not the users.  New users should be welcomed with open arms and drawn into some sort of quick start program that yields quick value.  Instead, people are confronted with creating a profile (again) and wrestling with CSV files to import their contact list.  Hardly a nice way to start out; it’s not so much a warm welcome as it is a hazing ritual.

I don’t have a ready answer for this.  Every platform is different, so each one needs a different solution.  But regardless of the details, having a Welcome Wagon for new users would go a long way to broadening the value of these systems to a big group of interested new users.

On Friday, I purchased a Droid from Verizon Wireless. The Droid is a new smartphone from Motorola that runs version 2.0 of the Android operating system from Google. To make a long story short: This is, in fact, the Droid you are looking for.

I realized exactly what I was missing from my days without a smartphone today when it became clear to me that the ease of my day today was facilitated by the Droid. I had to stay in contact with someone via email and communicate with someone else via instant messaging because they were in a building on campus with no cell phone signal, all while being, myself, in situations where staring at my computer screen wasn’t an option. The Droid handled this with ease. Vibration notifications and an ingenious on-screen notification area make this a very powerful communications device. The notification area is a drawer you can pull down from the top of the screen that lists all of your most recent notifications from email, SMS, phone, calendar, IM, and other apps in a way that allows a quick glance at the pertinent information, or, if you choose, gives you the option to switch to the app in question with one touch of the notification in question.

The Droid’s hardware back button makes it easy to return to what you were doing before reading your message. On-screen views are represented in a global stack, with separate views within an application potentially separated by views from different applications. This way, you don’t have to quit the app you were using to pop into a communication app to view one message. You click the message in the notification drawer and it switches to the messaging application you need. Switching back is as easy as pressing the back button until you’re back to the activity you were performing before you viewed the message. The back button “pops” views off the global stack until you see what you want. This is very intuitive and very efficient.

I am very happy with my Droid and am impressed by the great work done by Google and Motorola on this device.

MindSource specializes in placing technology professionals with companies in the Silicon Valley Region and beyond. We have an immediate need for a SENIOR JAVA FLEX DEVELOPER with a passion for quality design. We are looking for local candidates only!

This is a CONTRACT POSITION for 3-6 months with our client in SAN JOSE, CA. In-person interview is required after a phone interview.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Participate in the development of utilities and applications to support the development of network-related applications. Qualified candidate will be responsible for contributing innovative ideas on design architecture, interfaces,  and develop complex modules.

SKILLS REQUIRED:

• At least 7-8 years of software development experience, end-to-end from design through supporting QA.
• Object-oriented design and development
• Good team player, go-getter attitude
• Technology experience MUST haves: Flex, and ActionScript with some experience with Blaze DS
• Experience with complex projects and developing RIA (Rich Internet Application)
• Very strong UI experience (both design and development)
• Hands-on experience with Java/J2EE technologies.
• Knowledge of networking and cloud computing is a plus.
• Good understanding of design patterns, multi-threading and client server applications.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, team and people skills.
• Shares information and communicates clearly to team members and has ability and skills to mentor junior team members.

If interested, please send us your most recent resume along with the rate per hour, contact number and availability for a phone interview to raj@mindsource.com.

Microsoft has begun providing hints at a new technology allowing users to interface with computers without actually touching them. That’s right, you may soon find yourself having your eye and body motions being tracked by a PC.

Find out more at this great article (and video) from Popular Science.

Users are in a tough position.  They’ve evolved to the point where they cannot do their jobs without computers.  The systems that they use are becoming more and more sophisticated, with equally sophisticated interfaces.  Worst of all, they have little or no control over how those systems are built.

Our users rely on us to build systems that are easy to use, reliable, and consistent.  They have no idea how we do this, not do they care.  They trust us to take care of the awful details of system design and development to make things that they find useful.  Regrettably, I don’t think we on the IT side of the house do as good a job as we could on their behalf.

We often make design decisions that cause users great angst.  I’m not talking about sweeping design changes; I’m thinking more about the small, subtle things that can make a big difference in a user’s life.  The layout of a screen, the ordering of a menu, the arrangement of a list can dramatically affect the usability of a tool.  Poor usability results in unhappy users.

Many times, these kind of decisions get made on the basis of how complicated it can be to implement a better alternative.  In short, we reduce development time and expect the user to deal with a less-effective interface.  We reduce developer pain at the expense of user pain, and that’s wrong.

I’ve written about this before.  One of my biggest peeves in just about every web site on earth is that you cannot enter anything but digits into a credit card number field.  The developer will not set the field to “numeric only;” instead, they’ll put some awful text near it that explains that you should not type dashes or spaces in the field.  Here’s a big idea: how about you write some code to strip out dashes and spaces, so I can type the number in a way that make sense to me?  The developer saved twenty minutes; users spend collective years trying to type things correctly.

There are countless examples of this in every system we use.  Time and again, developers and designers make their lives easier by asking users to do a little bit more.  The problem is that the development time is incurred once; the user time incurred over and over and over again, for years.

We owe our users better. They trust us to build systems they can use.  We need to feel their pain, take it on ourselves, and remove it from their day-to-day lives.  Users are the most important part of any system; we need to show that we understand that by building things that respect their time and energy.  Show your users some love: build things that put them first.

I’m tired from the early plane trip back from Athens, mentally exhausted for all the stuff I saw at ACE 2009 and I am also slightly sick to boot.

Given all the above, I am seriously unable to even comment on such shocking news…

“[Baby and Me] takes doll-playing to the next level by incorporating motion control (and balance board support!) into 18 game modes (…). Not only that, this hellspawn will actually cry through the Wiimote’s speaker. You quiet baby down by rocking, burping and teaching him/her/it to walk. There’s even a feeding exercise. I’m sensing a Wiimote breast pump attachment down the line.” – via Kotaku

Couldn’t have said it better.

With the flood of new smartphones on the market running Android, Windows Mobile, and Palm’s WebOS operating systems comes an interesting set of new functionality that merges the traditional contacts list with other online identity information in the palm of a user’s hand. With so many people utilizing one or more means of online communication, be it social networking, email, instant messaging, or microblogging, it’s not hard to see the many uses for this technology. But are these features a necessity for everyday productivity, or are they a distraction that will cause unnecessary user frustration?

The first phone to provide this new way of managing contacts was the Palm Pre. With it’s Synergy feature, WebOS offers users the option of automatically connecting their phone’s contacts with Facebook in addition to multiple email services. This provides updates from Facebook in addition to email and text messages from this contact.

Android has similar functions in two incarnations, one in the form of third-party widgets added to devices made by Motorola and HTC, and the other in the latest version of the core OS (SDK 2.0) that has the functionality built into the core contact applications. This allows the same connectivity as Palm, but does so in an extensible fashion wherein a developer can write a sync plugin for any service they would like. This allows users to sync with any service for which a plugin has been written rather than with just the services Palm has approved. Android’s implementation also allows the user to choose either to automatically sync ALL contacts with names that match those of contacts that user has on their various social networks, or to choose manually the people they would like to sync.

Palm was visionary in its introduction of Synergy to the Pre, but I question whether an all or nothing approach to syncing contacts with all possible services is the right one. I can imagine situations in which I may not want to have the Facebook status of ALL of the people I have in my phonebook synced to my phone. The lack of extensibility is also a concern. The technology is a fantastic idea and will serve the needs of many quite well. It definitely makes the Inbox concept more universal and easier for the average user to understand.

the transport of information over a technical media, maybe modified, to understand things better in a visual way!!! or to make this input information available for yourself!!! i tried to find out adequate things we can discuss on thursday: transport visual information from your environment by a digital camera to the computer and modify it / to get in touch with a cashpoint / mobiles / screens in lectures, etc. many things felix has already mentioned!!!
one special thing maybe making banners from a beamer (look at the photo) transport the information on a wall and transport it again to the white blanket!!! easiest way