The plan is to go for a complete open release allowing the public to develop its features through extensions. At the moment we are alpha-testing the prototype and more details about the open release will be provided soon on this blog, so stay tuned…. Kindly direct all press enquiries to press@itsme.it. We would be happy to provide more details.

Read on further for a quick recap(Glimpses from work in progress over the past few months)…

- Latest in the itsme prototype

- This is the latest video we made to show some of the features that we have introduced in the prototype.

-  itsme OS (Prototype) architecture update

All those, who are interested to learn more about the development of the prototype,  click here and here for  more videos.

Wired Italia is taking a poll to find out what the public thinks. The innovation that gets maximum votes gets awarded at the Expo in shanghai, So VOTE FOR ITSME!! (All you have to do is click on the stars under the post title)

More details about the expo will be provided soon on this blog, so Stay tuned.

An italian site, pazienti.org, has been launched to collect stories from patients. Healthcare is surely a relevant domain, and this seems very interesting from an itsme perspective

Closing speech is by Professor Jonas Ridderstråle, the most influential thinker and author of numerous works including “ Karaoke Capitalism “, which will provide its provocative vision of the future.

Time and Date: 10.30 am, 13th May

Venue: Building U6, Aula Magna- Piazza Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milan

For more info click here

Gestural systems are no different from any other form of interaction. They need to follow the basic rules of interaction design, which means well-defined modes of expression, a clear conceptual model of the way they interact with the system, their consequences, and means of navigating unintended consequences. As a result, means of providing feedback, explicit hints as to possible actions, and guides for how they are to be conducted are required. Because gestures are unconstrained, they are apt to be performed in an ambiguous or uninterruptable manner, in which case constructive feedback is required to allow the person to learn the appropriate manner of performance and to understand what was wrong with their action. As with all systems, some undo mechanism will be required in situations where unintended actions or interpretations of gestures create undesirable states. And because gesturing is a natural, automatic behavior, the system has to be tuned to avoid false responses to movements that were not intended to be system inputs. Solving this problem might accidentally cause more misses, movements that were intended to be interpreted, but were not. Neither of these situations is common with keyboard, touchpad, pens, or mouse actions.

What do you think about this kind of interfaces? What do you think we should have in itsme?

via Don Norman’s jnd.org / Natural User Interfaces Are Not Natural.

• Launched the itsme Emulator and tested it
• Won the most innovative and promising startup in Italy
• Featured in leading publications such as Il Sole 24 ore and Abitare
• Travelled through Europe, US, North Africa, Australia and India discussing the project with people from all over the world
• Introduced Fster
• And most importantly Implemented the itsme prototype

As you might guess from the above mentioned, we’ve spent the last year spreading awareness about the project, gathering feedback and evaluating what we are doing works well not only for us but also for itsme’s potential users, but even more importantly we have been implementing our findings in the itsme prototype(Will be shared very soon with you all).

What will the future bring? Only time will tell, but we look forward to another great year!

“Microsoft and Apple aren’t going to open up all their stuff. But they all create programs that put pixels on the screen. And if we can modify those pixels, then we can change the program’s apparent behavior,” said James Fogarty, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

…

His research allows people to personalize programs based on their needs.
The UW tool, named Prefab, takes advantage of the fact that almost all displays are made from prefabricated blocks of code such as buttons, sliders, check boxes and drop-down menus. Prefab looks for those blocks as many as 20 times per second and alters their behavior.

…

Prefab can also produce more advanced effects. One demonstration that will be presented at the conference creates multiple previews of a single image in Photoshop. Behind the scenes, Prefab moves the sliders to different points, captures the output and then displays all of them on a single screen. This could save time by showing a range of effects the user frequently adjusts.
The system could also allow programs to move from computer screens to mobile devices, which do not have a standard operating system.

What do you think about this project?

via Newswise.

The fact is working at the computer means we miss out on the social aspect that most other jobs require so if we aren't careful we end up getting very rusty in the social skills which translates to fewer and fewer friends and eventually to lonely unhappiness.

Interesting (short) reading for a Friday afternoon, right before the weekend

via Happiness and IT: The hidden dangers of working in IT.

Google Apps Migration for Microsoft® Exchange works with Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, and both on-premise and hosted Exchange. It's available free to Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers here. If you’re considering the switch from Microsoft Exchange, you can find resources to help make your decision here.

via Official Google Enterprise Blog: Now it’s easy to switch to Google Apps from Microsoft® Exchange.