Small Surfaces

Camera UI tour

Gabriel White — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:06:20 +0000

“Here’s a sampling of user interfaces across compact cameras from every major digital camera maker: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, Casio, Olympus and Fujifilm. User interfaces matter in these cameras more than ever because they’re increasingly the major way you drill down to change settings or switch modes—rather than manually cranking a dial, like on a pro DSLR. Some are pretty good (Canon, Samsung) while some are pretty bad (Casio).”

Link: Click: A Visual Tour of Camera Interfaces (gizmodo.com, thanks Dan)

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Not big in Japan

Gabriel White — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:59:16 +0000

“And then there’s the matter of compartmentalization. A large portion of Japanese citizens live with only a cellphone as their computing device — not a personal computer, said Hideshi Hamaguchi, a concept creator and chief operating officer of LUNARR. And the problem with the iPhone is it depends on a computer for syncing media and running software updates via iTunes.”

Link: Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone (wired.com)

Update: Nobuyuki Hayashi argues he was misquoted in the article (thanks Bruce)

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Engadget is underwhelmed by Windows Mobile 6.5

Gabriel White — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:45:41 +0000

“Instead of demonstrating its technical prowess and vast resources, Microsoft limped out a half-hearted rehash of an OS we’ve seen all too much of, and managed to blind most onlookers with a storm of big time partnerships and bloated PR. While their major competitors (and even some allies) in the mobile space seem bent on changing ideas about how we interact with our portable devices, the company proved once again that it’s content to rest on its laurels and learn little from its mistakes.”

Link: Editorial: Ten reasons why Windows Mobile 6.5 misses the mark (engadget.com)

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Gauges are back!

Gabriel White — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:20:20 +0000

Leaked photos of an upcoming Samsung camera show memory and battery gauges. Reminds me how wonderful analogue controls and displays are.

Link: New Samsung TL320 (WB100) has OLED display and analog gauges (1001noisycameras.com)

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Saffer talks about gestural interfaces

Gabriel White — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:58:22 +0000

Link: Tap is the New Click (vimeo.com)

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All Thumbs

Gabriel White — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:09:26 +0000

“Ask anyone over 25 what digit they use to ring a doorbell and most people will pop up their index finger. But ask a youngster and they are much more likely to extend a thumb. “Where texting is happening they use the thumb,” Anand Chandrasekher, head of Intel’s ultra mobility group, told BBC News at CES.”

Link: Texting a signal of wider trends (bbc.co.uk)

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Context, Sensing and Mobiles

Gabriel White — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:30:00 +0000

Here’s the presentation I gave in Sydney at Web Directions a week or so ago (great conference!).

Link: Context, Sensing and Mobiles (slideshare.net)

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Google on the future of mobile

Gabriel White — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:20:28 +0000

Google’s Andy Rubin thinks this of the future of mobile:

Smart alerts: Your phone will be smart about your situation and alert you when something needs your attention.
Augmented reality: Your phone uses its arsenal of sensors to understand your situation and provide you information that might be useful.
Crowd sourcing goes mainstream: Your phone is your omnipresent microphone to the world, a way to publish pictures, emails, texts, Twitters, and blog entries.
Sensors everywhere: Your phone knows a lot about the world around you.
Tool for development: Your phone may be more than just a convenience, it may be your livelihood.
The future-proof device: Your phone will open up, as the Internet already has, so it will be easy for developers to create or improve applications and content.

Safer software through trust and verification: Your phone will provide tools and information to empower you to decide what to download, what to see, and what to share.
Link: The future of mobile (googleblog.blogspot.com)

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The iPod can’t scale

Gabriel White — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:09:14 +0000

Dave Gustafson pointed to a great Gizmodo post that looks at the absurd place the clickwheel iPod has gone over the years with all the functionality that slowly got added to something that originally was designed only to play music.

“To put this eyeball cacophony into perspective, the new menu system has over 60 places to click—nearly triple that of the original iPod version (and that’s not including Nike+ integration on nanos). Plus, the new system has five screens just for settings, all of which are unrelated to the main “Settings” menu. How did things become so complicated? The iPod went from doing one thing really well to doing a bunch of things pretty well. But the UI was never redesigned to accommodate the functionality…Right now Apple’s sending city traffic down a one-lane, unpaved road.”

Link: A Sad Fact: The iPod’s Clickwheel Must Die (gizmodo.com, via)

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The future of search

Gabriel White — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:52:07 +0000

It’s not specifically about mobile, but when Marissa Meyer of Google writes about the future of search it’s worth paying attention.

“So what’s our straightforward definition of the ideal search engine? Your best friend with instant access to all the world’s facts and a photographic memory of everything you’ve seen and know. That search engine could tailor answers to you based on your preferences, your existing knowledge and the best available information; it could ask for clarification and present the answers in whatever setting or media worked best. That ideal search engine could have easily and elegantly quenched my withdrawal and fueled my addiction on Saturday. I’m very proud that Google in its first 10 years has changed expectations around information and how quickly and easily it should be able to be retrieved. But I’m even more excited about what Google search can achieve in the future.”

Link: The future of search (googleblog.blogspot.com)

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Mobile crossover in TxtPert

Gabriel White — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:34:55 +0000

I posted a few months ago about a PC keyboard that uses a Bell keypad and predictive text. Now Carlo Longino at MobHappy spotted this in USA Today:

Link: Text Games, On Paper (mobhappy.com)

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Enhancing social connections on mobile devices

Gabriel White — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:41:10 +0000

Video from the Business to Buttons conference, with Hampus Jakobsson and James Haliburton of TAT talking about social connectivity on mobile devices.

“Mobile phones are some of the most advanced personal objects we have, but still there are just technical inventions or stylish skins. What can be done to improve personal communication and social connections? TAT Tenk researches social patterns around mobile applications and will present some of its findings during first half of 2008.”

Link: Can mobile phones become useful as social tools? (businesstobuttons.tv)

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How Canon prototypes camera bodies

Gabriel White — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:42:58 +0000

Taking the form of a DIY tutorial, the Canon web site shows how they prototype the forms of their cameras.

Link: Balsa Wood Mock-up Modeling Tutorial (canon.com)

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The state of touch technologies

Gabriel White — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:25:53 +0000

The latest of the Economist’s Technology Quarterly has a survey of the history and state of touch technology.

“The double click does not translate terribly well to touch screens, however. This has led some researchers to look for alternatives. In developing his multi-touch screen, Dr Han found that there can be more to touch input than simply detecting contact. He has found a way to determine how much pressure is being applied. Adding a thin polymer layer, scored with microscopic ridges, to his touch screens causes the bright spot created by a finger touching the screen to vary in size and brightness depending on the pressure. This makes it possible, for example, to drag an item on the screen and then, by pushing harder, to slide it under another item. ”

Link: Touching the future (economist.com)

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Shredding on a Keyboard

Gabriel White — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:52:44 +0000

JamLegend, a Guitar Hero / Rock Band service for the PC, piqued my interest just because of the illustration that showed how you can play along with your keyboard by holding it guitar-style. It spurred the thought: how can we hold ordinary objects in different ways so that they become different things entirely?

Link: JamLegend (jamledgend.com)

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