Posted by on under menlo park ca, hci researchers, stanford research institute, douglas engelbart, innovatis, th trip, public debut, menlo park, video interface, modern computing, th time, computer mouse, sessi, douglas c, human computer, trappings, menlo, two books, ground | 
I like to take one or two books with me when I travel, and one of the books I chose for this trip is HCI Remixed.
Sometimes the books I choose are a bust. Fortunately that didn't happen this time.
HCI Remixed covers all the major milestones in the field of human computer interaction. And when I say major, I mean it: things like Douglas Engelbart's famous demonstration, now referred to as The Mother of All Demos:
On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface.
So, all those trappings of modern computing that we take for granted today? Engelbart demonstrated them all two years before I was born. It just took a while for the rest of the world to catch up to his vision.
That's the lesson of many of the groundbreaking HCI discoveries presented in this book. Some people see further. Engelbart was so far ahead of his time in 1968 that his demonstration wasn't taken seriously -- it seemed absurd and impractical. It really makes you wonder which of today's HCI researchers we're ignoring but shouldn't be.
The book also takes an interesting approach; it doesn't summarize the papers, instead, it presents the reflections of current working HCI professionals on the papers. It's a little bit meta. You're hearing the impact of these HCI discoveries -- some big, some small -- as related by young researchers who were heavily influenced by them.
As a primer and overview of the field of human computer interaction, it's tough to beat. Reading this reminds me how far we've come, and yet how far we have to go.
Tagi: menlo park ca, hci researchers, stanford research institute, douglas engelbart, innovatis, th trip, public debut, menlo park, video interface, modern computing, th time, computer mouse, sessi, douglas c, human computer, trappings, menlo, two books, ground
Posted by on under guiness book of world records, guiness book of world, static images, northern italy, book of world records, huge ass, moving image, kaka, zoetrope, predecessors, creators, 19th century, sy, cy, balls, high speed, paint, soccer, photos |
A new Sony Bravia ad from the creators of the Balls, Paint and Play-Doh ads is currently in production in Northern Italy, and we have some shots of the shoot. It looks just as crazy and awesome as its predecessors.
I'm not sure what the ad is going to end up being, but I do know that it stars Brazilian soccer player Kaka and the huge-ass zoetrope you see being constructed in these photos. The zoetrope, when spun around at a high speed, will create a moving image out of a bunch of static images. It was a very early "movie" device invented in the 19th century. Tonight, it's being certified as the largest zoetrope in the world by the Guiness Book of World Records, and I can't wait to see it in action.
Tagi: guiness book of world records, guiness book of world, static images, northern italy, book of world records, huge ass, moving image, kaka, zoetrope, predecessors, creators, 19th century, sy, cy, balls, high speed, paint, soccer, photos
Posted by on under tokyo street, novel approaches, gizmodo, target, reticle, telling time, ants, last days, current time, graph, locks, watches, scope, bugs |
These watches from Tokyo Street take three novel approaches to telling time: one draws a target, the other makes a graph, and the last displays ants. Glowing, inscrutable little ants.
The Ever-Increasing watch slowly draws a graph of the time which, though it displays what some might call a rather predictable function, gets the point across just fine. The SCOPE II is more direct: a small targeting reticle locks onto the current time, which is arranged among a bunch of incorrect ones. Then there's the ANT.
It's not clear what each of the the ANT watch's ants symbolize, but if you take for granted that they probably correlate somehow to the current time, then you can accept that it's at least a useful icebreaker. The SCOPE II and Ever Increasing watches are priced at $180 and the ANT at $120 from Japanese ??berimporter and Gizmodo Gallery suppoter Gizmine. [Tokyo Street at Gizmine]
Tagi: tokyo street, novel approaches, gizmodo, target, reticle, telling time, ants, last days, current time, graph, locks, watches, scope, bugs
Posted by Jonathan Schwartz on under innovatis, software models, amaz, coue, glassfish, amazon, social networking, target, developer forums, profound change, bootable cd, proprietary software, rollback, software industry, competitive advantage, repository, high performance, clouds, operating |
We made some big announcements this week at our annual developer forums, CommunityOne and JavaOne. I thought I'd highlight a couple in particular.
We announced the first commercial release of OpenSolaris - targeting high speed developers and development teams (not consumers...). OpenSolaris focuses on developers wanting to be freed from proprietary software models, who see innovation and automation in operating systems as a source of competitive advantage.
If Solaris 10, OpenSolaris's older brother, is for IT departments prioritizing carrier grade stability over rapid innovation, OpenSolaris targets the exact opposite - developers, from high performance computing to social networking, that prioritize a constantly refreshing repository filled with community innovations (and ZFS-based automated rollback) over an unchanging qualification target. Go to OpenSolaris.com to download a free copy, or click on the OpenSolaris logo to have a bootable CD delivered to you (free of charge). Or if you want a simpler way of trying it out... just go to Amazon!
We also announced a partnership with Amazon, through which we've made OpenSolaris, alongside MySQL and Glassfish, available with commercial support on Amazon's elastic computing cloud. From where I sit, this is a profound change in the industry - the world's most popular database is now available, and commercially supported, as a cloud service. As is the fastest growing Java container, and a redefined OpenSolaris for the modern world.
The traditional software industry, first revolutionized by open source, next by software as a service, is now embarking on a third revolutionary change... infrastructure as a service.
Sure feels like the clouds are parting.
(And again, if you'd like a free copy of OpenSolaris sent to you on a bootable, "live" CD, just click on the OpenSolaris logo above.)
Tagi: innovatis, software models, amaz, coue, glassfish, amazon, social networking, target, developer forums, profound change, bootable cd, proprietary software, rollback, software industry, competitive advantage, repository, high performance, clouds, operating
Posted by on under mths, fia, kitten, bnet, ace, zoo, cats |
A couple months ago, my wife got a bee in her bonnet about us getting another cat. We already have two cats and a dog that could pretty much pass as one. However, my wife wouldn't relent, and I eventually caved.
A couple of weeks ago, we welcomed a Scottish Fold kitten into our zoo home. Coming up with a name for her was hard, just because I think my wife and I place a lot of importance in a name -- probably more so than most and definitely to a fault. However, we eventually arrived at "Fiona," and this is her:
You'd think at this point we'd be at capacity, but we can't forget the other little addition scheduled to show up two months from tomorrow.
Tagi: mths, fia, kitten, bnet, ace, zoo, cats
