Greater Snow Geese (Anser caerulescens atlantica)

Introduce my Google Reader:

from A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania by connally

Posted on January 18, 2007

Greater Snow Geese (Anser caerulescens atlantica)
(Too small? Click here for a larger version.)

X on IP

电话能在互联网上传，有线电视也可以通过互联网传播。事实上，很多家庭已经使用了有线电视，其线路完全可以用于打电话和上网，当然要进行一些改造。这其中 商业的难度比技术上大，因为这些联入家庭的电缆控制住在有限电视公司手里。但是不管怎样，从技术上讲一条高速电缆线完全处理电视、电话和上网三件事，这一 切则通过类似于 VoIP 的技术来实现。让我们不妨来看一看思科为大家设计的远景。张家是个典型的四口之家，晚上上高中的儿子要看橄榄球赛，但是他回家时球赛已经开始了半小时，但 是他还是想从头看起。上小学的女儿要看今天同学介绍的最近电视台不会播放的卡通片，父母要看玩昨天看来一半的斯皮尔伯格的电影。这些要求以前是做不到的。 现在好了，儿子在电视机前设置了一下比赛的进度，电视台按晚半小时的进度专门为他传来橄榄球比赛。女儿在电视机前搜索到那个卡通片，在遥控器上选择了播放 按钮，电视机中就开始播放她想看的卡通了。中间有几个害怕的场面，她采用快进功能就跳了过去，以前她必须捂着眼睛等这些画面过去。父母看电影时从昨天看来 一半的地方开始，中间接了朋友的一个电话，他们就让电影停了五分钟，五分钟后，电视台从他们中断的地方继续播放。张家已经很久没有买 DVD 了，因为它们想看的东西在互联网上都有，而且影像效果完全是电影院的效果。张家接电话时，没有用现在的那种固定电话，而是用一个蓝牙耳机通过家里的网络路 由器实现的。看完电影后，女儿要把自己度假的 100 张一千万象素的照片传到网上去和同学们共享，她只等了两分钟就完成了。这件事，以前想都不用想，现在由于宽带互联网的飞速发展和 VoIP 以及类似技术的出现，在十年以内应该能成为现实。当每个家庭上网的速度达到现在 DSL 的一百倍，即每秒钟 100 Mbps，那么每个家庭可以同时收看三部高清晰度电影，每部需要 25 Mbps 的带宽，剩下来的四分之一可用于电话，浏览互联网，玩游戏，上传下传照片等等。 由于每家有自己的 IP，因此传媒公司可以根据 IP 为每个家庭提供不同的节目。由于互联网的交互性，用户可以自己控制影像节目的播放，一个电影今天看不完可以明天接着看，漏掉一段新闻可以重播，一场比赛因 为时间不合适可以以后补看。这些节目不需要录下来存在自己家，而是放在网络存储服务器上。

在这样一个宽频的互联网世界里，一切通信都通过 X on IP 来实现。

Google Blogger can recognize hyperlink and image within an article

Comparing the last post in 2007 with posts published in 2008, what's the difference?

Images, hyperlinks, maybe others elements can be recognized and auto-editted by Blogger systerm. (Gmail support this application long before.) It's a step forward on UCD design.

Example illustrated below: you needn't have to save the web image and press "add image" any more.

Download free Website Template

This sample Website Template will help You evaluate the quality of our products as well as to evaluate your skills right before You purchase. Feel free to view and download it free of charge for your educational purposes but please, note that there are “state of affairs” related with the free usage of this Website Template.

Gates and the New User Interface

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates sees a future where the hand and voice will be more natural user interfaces than keyboards and mice. He's absolutely right.

This evening, Bill Gates spoke about changing UIs at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Theme of this year's CES is the convergence of entertainment technologies and business.

The keynote was his last, since Gates is officially leaving Microsoft at the end of June. "This is the first time since I was 17" that Gates won't work at Microsoft, he said of his last day. Gates has appeared at CES 11 times—10 keynotes, eight of them consecutively. "My first keynote was in 1994," he said.

By the way, Gates was unusually relaxed and even funny. His exit keynote was perhaps his best for CES.

Gates referred to his past key keynote predictions about telematics, or auto computing, PDAs and interactive TVs, like Windows Media Center. These predictions all are examples of evolving computing user interfaces.

Gates predicted three trends that would drive technology innovation over the next decade: "High-definition experience everywhere"; "all of these rich devices will be services connected"; and "the power of natural user interface." The last two trends both are mechanisms for evolving user interfaces.

"People are interested in a more natural way to navigate the information," Gates said.

Gates' vision of the future resembles the original Star Trek, where voice commands and touch—manipulation by fingers—will replace mouse and keyboard.

Anthropologically, the mouse and keyboard are, used together, an unnatural user interface. Human beings are tool users that experience and manipulate the world through five senses. There is little in human biological or cultural experience that equates to either device. Most tools are really extensions of the hands; the mouse and keyboard UI is neither. The keyboard is a particularly unnatural construct, by the way fingers are used or by key's alphabetical organization, which is based on the number of times letters are likely to be used.

Microsoft's Surface and Apple's iPhone and iTouch are excellent examples of touch as user interface. Windows Vista has pretty good voice controls, and through the Tellme acquisition Microsoft will seek to make voice the primary UI for telephony devices. Microsoft plans to offer touch screen capabilities with Vista successor Windows "Seven."

On the Web, search is the most successful UI, in part for its simplicity. Search is like the command line for the Internet. All these examples suggest dramatic PC user-interface changes are well underway.

Microsoft is no stranger to pioneering new user interfaces. The much-maligned Microsoft Bob and Clippy are examples of Microsoft attempts to simplify how end users interact with computers. Years ago—and for several of them—Gates stood on the CES stage, and also that of Comdex, touting Tablet PC.

Gates is a big Tablet PC supporter, but Microsoft's execution is too complex. A stylus is supposed to be like a pen or pencil, and so a more natural and familiar user interface than the keyboard and mouse. But the process of using a stylus on a Windows Tablet PC is more complicated than using a pencil or even keyboard and mouse.

Touch is the extension of the stylus, and it's a much more natural user interface. For the human tool user, hands, fingers and touch are especially important for experiencing and manipulating objects or surroundings. The shopping mall is a great laboratory for understanding how people interact with things. First buyers look, and then they touch. For retailers it's an irritating experience, all that touching. People examine as much with their hands as their eyes.

Good user interfaces build on the familiar—and there is nothing more familiar than me, myself and I. See, say, hear and touch. Gates' vision is sensible. But vision doesn't always become reality, and Microsoft's co-founder has before talked about future products or technologies that the company couldn't deliver.

The underlying biological mechanisms of hand movement are complex, but the complexity is largely hidden from people. By contrast, complexity too often defines technology and the accompanying user interfaces. Ear, eye, hand and touch and voice are extensions of "me" that technology must embrace, like iPhone, iPod or Touch.

During Gates' keynote, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, demonstrated several new user interfaces, "Sync" auto information system and Tellme's "Say and See." Bach predicted that mobile search would be the most important application for the cell phone market. There, voice command would be an important user interface, he said.

But Microsoft also is taking an autonomic nervous system approach to user interfaces. Gates spoke about the "connected experience" with respect to Web services and information following people around. There, Microsoft continues to advance information and services integration around Windows Live.

Gates demonstrated a visual recognition system for mobile phones. The visual recognition system uses the phone's camera to bring up information on people or places. The system also uses Live services, such as Virtual Earth.

Finally User Experience rules mobile development

2008 will be the year of iPhone competitors rivaling the user experience introduced by Apple Inc on mobile handsets.

The interesting part is that there are several new comers in the Open Source segment. Linux seems to dominate the field, while taking different approaches, the goal seems the same; Establishing solid alternatives to Windows Mobile and Symbian.

LiMo is developing middle ware as open source, arguing that the UI is the area providers will use to differentiate themselves from each other. LiMo is supported by several strong players and just announced that their member base is further expanded:

LiMo will announce Monday that Acrodea, ETRI, Huawei, Purple Labs and Trolltech are joining the consortium, which launched a year ago with founding members Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung and Vodafone.

OpenMoko is the odd kid on the block. They are also building a working phone and a developer kit for hackers that want to build their own customized phone. Nice twist in this competitive market:

Apple’s iPhone may come with numerous features for consumers, but for developers, it offers limited customization options. The movers behind the OpenMoko open-source project, announced in November 2006, want to offer those developers an alternative with unlimited customization. OpenMoko: An iPhone Alternative for Developers?

For the more adventurous of you check out the hacker kit:

Neo Advanced

This Hacker’s Dream Box is a heavy duty, mysterious black box that houses the OpenMoko development board. The Advanced kit is padded to protect your Neo 1973, development board, and accessories for hackers in transport.

Last but not least you have the G-phone or Android. The previously announced $ 10 million challenge is now on, and this open source mobile linux with Java including UI elements and functions to create a consistant user experience on both keypad and touch screen phones.

I think that by the end of 2008 the true winners will be the users. Never before has the industry been so focused on User Experience. Driven by Apple, we will not only see more functional smart phones but more important with user interfaces that works!

Gmail designer leaves Google

Posted by Maggie Holland at 5:26PM, Monday 7th January 2008

Kevin Fox, the man who helped design Gmail, is leaving Google to join the world of start-ups.

The man responsible for designing the first version of Gmail has left Google for pastures new.

Kevin Fox, who also counts Google Calendar 1.0 and Google Reader 2.0. amongst is career achievements at the search giant, announced his departure late last week, in the form of a blog post informing people that he is off to join a small start-up.

Until Friday Fox served as senior user experience design lead at the company, having worked there since 2003 after a stint in a similar, but less senior, role at Yahoo.

"I can't say enough good things about the friends I've made and the talented people who have taught me so much," Fox said in his parting post. "When I started here I never could have guessed that I'd be helping create a world-class user experience team and products that so many strangers love. The experience will always be a reminder to recognise every opportunity not only for what it is, but for what it can become."

The name of Fox's new employer hasn't been made public as yet.

"...It's not just moving, it's excising a part of yourself, a strange cleaving of personal relationships that used to be about friendship and products, but is now just about friendship," he added.

"Will it be awkward when I talk with friends about the web and they have to censor themselves to prevent discussing confidential products? Even more novel, how easily will I adapt to working in an environment where we're far more open about the projects we're working on, to the point of evangelising them?"