User Interface Design Part 4 (Minority Report Reality?)

Today, I want to focus on something very large scale. Imagine being in a room with a giant screen and all the people in that room can participate on that screen together. Take this one step further by touching the screen..without  actually touching the screen! That is exactly what the video below shows. For a large group of people this may be the best collaboration tool available. It works by the user wearing some sort of gloves that allow interaction with the screen without actually touching it. This allows the user to manipulate large scale objects with relative ease.

I think this technology could be incorporated into large televisions for a more integrated user experience once they work all the bugs out. As usual some of these ideas seem a little weird or unlikely at first, but thats what people said about the computer and many other devices we now use on a daily basis. You be the judge.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMVZqJk8s4&hl=en&fs=1]

User Interface Design Part 3 (Napkin PC)

For part 3 of this series I want to focus on something very creative and special. Ideas are not to be wasted, and this concept ensures that good ideas can be brought to life.

Ok, this may be very far off or may not even happen, but its a really great concept. The napkin PC by Avery Holleman is something that could let your creativity flow in the most natural way. Some of the best ideas are thought up in the most odd places and at the most odd times. This allows you to collaborate with multiple people and save the work for later in a very slim portable design. By encouraging creative workflows, the napkin PC enables creative professionals with the most basic tools for bringing together great ideas. Imagine being able to just be sitting there and take this device out when you have a good idea and just let it flow, making it perfect for people in business, marketing, and design fields.

The design centers around a napkin holder that  holds multiple napkin PC devices along with the electronic pens that is not unlike some of the pen and tablet devices that are out there right now. The user can grab a napkin and pen from the stack and just go at it! By using RF and OLED technologies, this is something that can definitely be brought to the market. The way the device is powered is by using inductive circuits to power the napkin when the pen is close to the napkin making it power efficient. However if I had to guess, a set of napkins and pens would set you back a few thousand dollars. When the prices of OLED displays come down though this could be much more affordable.

In honor of Earth Day, this product is also very "green"

User Interface Design Part 2 (Aurora Desktop)

Mozilla has a concept for a new user interface called "Aurora". It takes the Bump Top concept to a whole new level by incorporating an extremely intuitive design for navigating your computer and using smart technologies to find and update data dynamically. The pointing device is also very cool. It is not a mouse, but rather a ball on an arm that you move naturally to navigate. Looks good but I wonder how this device would holdup in the real world. The desktop side bars look a little cluttered and clumsy, but you get the point when watching the video. Those things can always be tweaked.

The video is best watched in full screen high definition which I have linked to below. Enjoy!


Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

User Interface Design Week! Part 1 (Bump Top)

This week is going to be dedicated to some of the most amazing concepts for the future of the user interface on a computer. To kick things off, I am going to talk a little about the most logical next step in the computer interface with a product called Bump Top. The user interface on a computer has been largely unchanged in the past three decades. We still click on little icons on the desktop or in a window to get what we want. With BumpTop that is transformed into a 3-D space with real physics when you take action on a particular file. The best way to view and explain this is on the video below from one of the designer's himself. This represents a great evolution in how we may very well be interacting with out computers in the next few years.

Throughout the week, I will be writing on some more futuristic, yet amazing and realistic technologies that will change the way we will interact with computers in our not too distant future. For now, check out this great video on Bump Top!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqcmPJ-oVL0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Relaxation at it's best!

Today I'm going to talk about something fun. This is something that I stumbled upon on a site that specializes on cool design techniques on just about anything. The picture below is from Maia, A Luxury Hotel in The Seychelles. This is simply relaxation at its best. The atmosphere looks amazing! One word, Paradise.

Hotel Website

Do you really know how much your text messages cost?

Most of us text right? If you don't then I'm sure that you know someone who does. There is a very disturbing fact when it comes to how much you are being charged for text messaging data. Some of you have what is called a "data plan" on you phone, which allows you to browse the internet on your handheld device. This plan allows you to go through gigabytes of data every month, usually for $20-$30. Lets now put this into perspective of text messaging. A typical text message plan for 200 messages is around $5/month. Now, lets think about this mathematically. A full message is $0.20. This message weighs in at 140 bytes. Yeah thats bytes as in REALLY REALLY small. If you do the math, this is roughly $1,500/megabyte. If this was a song from iTunes (3-4 megabytes) then you would be paying about $5,000 for your favorite tune. Thata a pretty hefty price tag for moving a few bytes of data from phone to phone.

This is completely ridiculous and should not be happening, but it is. Your texts are DATA! and you already pay for a data plan! This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, yet we all put up with it. The phone companies should be ashamed of themselves for doing this. It is literally robbery when you think about it. You are better off just getting an AIM client for your phone (if available) and use that instead. So, I hope you all think a little differently now that I put things in perspective of how much you are really paying for those pithy little text messages.

Cable company woes?

There is something really interesting going on right now with the way we consume media. There are services like Hulu, YouTube, and of course "other methods" for watching your favorite shows and movies. These services are allowing us to consume media much more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Now you can imagine what the cable companies think about this, NOT GOOD, well...for them at least. For us it is great though! This seems to be causing some companies to rethink the way they $charge$ for internet access. As it stands right now, there are no huge limitations to how much one can download every month. However, the cable companies may start a tiered system for consumers. In other words, they will have different packages available depending on how many gigabytes you consume every month. What is scaring them the most though is that people are actually calling up and canceling their cable service and just paying for broadband. Well, this cuts your bill roughly in half every month, and the cable companies do not like that very much. Think about it... with services like services like Twitter, the news gets to people often times faster than on watching the television. All the major news organizations are on Twitter as well and have live internet video of their news. It is no wonder people are canceling their cable television service. I have considered doing such a thing, but have not totally convinced myself to do so at this time.

Now there is something that may be on some of your minds when it comes to consuming media like TV shows and movies through services like YouTube or Hulu, and that is quality. "Well sure I can get all this on the web, but it doesn't look as good as a DVD or Blu-Ray" is what some of you may be thinking. This is a 100% true statement, but this is all about tradeoffs. Blu-Ray discs are far too expensive right now for most people to even care about quality, especially with out weakened economic status as a country. Also, the quality is not that bad for most people. People have become a little spoiled with HD quality images and movies, including myself. Only you can decide what solution is best for your particular circumstances. My advice is that if the cable companies do decide to do this tiered service of internet service, be prepared. Monitor how much you are downloading every month. There are some great tools out there for both the Mac and Windows platforms. A google search will provide plenty of choices for both platforms. What are your thoughts on this possible change? Leave some comments and let me know.

Possible changes for Best Buy and CompUSA

There are some big changes that are rumored to be happening at both Best Buy and CompUSA. We all remember CompUSA right? It was the computer superstore for many years that refused to have competitive pricing and eventually tanked. Well, they are looking to open 30 new retail stores with what they call "Retail 2.0". I don't know if this is going to work but I hope it does! I used to love going to CompUSA to look at variety of goodies they had. But in the end, stores like Best Buy beat them out. That leads me to my next topic...Best Buy.

It seems that not even Best Buy is recession proof. They are rumored to be going through a major employee reorganization and may ask people to take pay cuts or even "streamline" its operations. Lets just hope the tech industry doesn't suffer too much longer.

Wacom Intuos4 Tablet Released!

The new Intuos4 tablet was just released last week by Wacom. I currently use a Bamboo tablet but I plan on purchasing the new intuos4 as soon as I can. There are some major upgrades to this new line of tablets. The major new features include:

- 2048 levels of pen pressure for even smoother drawing (up from 1024)

- Completely new touch customizable touch ring for even more control over commands

- 8 customizable buttons that can be used in any application

- Now comes in 4 sizes rather than dimensions (small, medium, large, and extra large)

- 2 LCD screens that dynamically change button labels depending on what app you are working in (available on med, lrg, and ex lrg only)

- New pen holder that also houses the pen nibs (tips)



When I get the tablet in the next couple of weeks I will post a full review. Until then, for more specs see www.wacom.com/intuos

Greetings All!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my new site and blog. This website is designed for everyone to be able to see my digital portfolio and other links of interest. My portfolio includes photography, digital artwork, and video. Enjoy!