loose wire blog

Finger Painting, Angling and Tuning the Cello: the New Computing

I’m not overwhelmed by Nokia’s new appstore, Ovi, but using it does help remind one of what the real revolution in computing is (I have been talking a lot about revolutions lately, but there are basically three: the information revolution, the computing revolution, and the mobile revolution, which I’ll address later.)

The computing revolution is this: a small device, about the size of your hand, which is called a phone, but isn’t, really. It’s what Nokia can only dream of: a device so smart that even ordinary people can use it. It’s called the iPhone, and listening to some friends talk about it the other night brought home just how great an impact it has wrought, and will have.

One was talking about working with someone who, during a long car drive, would take his iPhone and look like he was about to throw it away. Then he would stop, his hand mid air, and then he would look at the screen. And then do it again. At first my friend thought he was having some sort of seizure, or was just really upset about something.

Then he realized he was angling. With his iPhone. (I can’t find the app right now.)

My other friend has a tuner in his, so he can tune his cello. “It’s geeky I know, but when I come home at the end of the day I can be up and playing quickly,” he said. Just point the device at the cello, hit a string and the iPhone display will indicate whether it’s in tune.

Both of these are great examples of how computing fulfills its promise by giving the user something they actually want, when they want it and in a form that fits their environment. What’s more, it’s easy enough for them to buy, install and use that they’re actually using it.

Which gives you some idea of how far behind the likes of Nokia are, and how long users have been waiting for this revolution to happen.

Then there’s the New Yorker cover, all drawn on the iPhone:

Colombo’s phone drawing is very much in the tradition of a certain kind of New Yorker cover, and he doesn’t see the fact that it’s a virtual finger painting as such a big deal. “Imagine twenty years ago, writing about these people who are sending these letters on their computer.” But watching the video playback has made him aware that how he draws a picture can tell a story, and he’s hoping to build suspense as he builds up layers of color and shape.

What I like about his story is that a) he has all the tools he needs in his pocket, just like the angler and the cello guy and b) he talked about not feeling too exposed—the painter, painting in a public place--because everyone assumed he was just checking email. This is a significant mini revolution in itself; a few years back, pre-Palm, someone poking around on a small screen in a public place might have seemed weird, but now the idea of what we do in social spaces has changed entirely.

(Now someone standing on a corner reading a paper or watching the world go by is viewed with suspicion.)

I’m no shill for Apple, but I think there’s a compound shift taking place here: by keeping the design elegant, making it easy for developers and users, the iPhone has captured the imagination of both. These guys may not be angling and tuning in a few years’ time, but already significant rivers have been crossed.

Now users have access to functions and features that they may not have considered the terrain of computing, but which now are part of their lives.

Computing will never be the same.

Technorati Tags: iphones,apple,nokia,appstore,usage,mobile,cellphones,portability,creativity

Still Sneaky After All These Years

I still retain the capacity to get bummed out by the intrusiveness of software from companies you’d think would be trying to make us happy these days, not make us madder.

My friend Scotty, the Winpatrol watchdog, has been doing a great job of keeping an eye on these things. The culprits either try to change file associations or add a program to the boot sequence, without telling us. Some recent examples:

Windows Live Mail, without me doing anything at all, suddenly tried to wrest control of my emails by grabbing the extension EML from Thunderbird:

This was unconnected to anything I was doing, or had asked. I didn’t even know I still had Live Mail installed. Shocking. Imagine if I hadn’t been asking Scotty to keep guard? Or that I didn’t have much of a clue what I was doing? (OK, don’t answer that one.)

(Just out of interest, launching Outlook Express will do the same thing:)

Still, I suppose the Microsoft defence is that everyone else is doing it. I installed WordPerfect Office the other day and found that, without asking, it tried to take over handling DOC files without asking first. Luckily, Scotty woofed a warning:

No wonder users are baffled about what is going on with their computer and end up heading off to the Apple Store for some TLC. Software companies have got to stop doing this kind of thing. (And no, I’m not saying that Apple are any better at this. It’s just they reduce the choices so people feel their computers behave more predictably. This, after all, is what people yearn for.)

Likewise with starting programs. Once again it’s about predictability: If software starts loading without the user being asked first, then a) the computer is going to slow down and b) the user will have a bunch of new icons and activities to figure out. A couple of examples:

Windows Live forces its Family Safety Client to boot without asking:

as does eFax, the online faxing service:

These companies need to stop this. They need to stop it now. Consumer confidence is low, but so is user confidence. I am inundated with letters from readers of the columns who talk about their bafflement and sense of alienation from their computer. (Meanwhile, I read love stories from those who switch to Macs.) The point is this: Not that people believe Macs are better computers—although they may well be—but they are simpler to use, more predictable, more understandable, more, well, user-friendly.

What’s user-friendly about changing the settings on someone’s computer without asking them? Would a company try that with someone’s car, fridge, or dishwasher?

The Thin Yellow Lines of Innovation

Maybe you’ve already noticed this, but I very much like this feature in Google Chrome that lets you see at a glance matches for a search term within a page. The matches appear as yellow lines within the scroll bar (see above) so you can easily access them by dragging the scroll bar itself.b

Another nice twist with Chrome is that it will tell you how many matches there are on a page, and tell you which one you’re currently viewing:

 

Nice touch. I still think the Firefox search trick of being able to highlight all instances of a search term within the page is very helpful:

Which helps to make the matching words stand out on the page (along with the extra option of matching case:

What’s interesting here is the innovation in a feature that has, elsewhere, become largely moribund. Check out the search box in Microsoft Word 2007:

You can choose the Reading Highlight button to, well, highlight those terms you’re looking for, but frankly, I only just found that feature and I’ve been using Word for years. The features in Chrome and Firefox I found pretty much straightaway.

And the feature doesn’t really detract from the fact that the Find box itself is pretty poorly designed, and short of features. Surely in a program that is about processing words, this would be a feature you’d have a whole team working on to improve?

Bottom line: While old software stands still, we’re seeing a lot of incremental but valuable improvements in the new software—browsers, basically—and I think therein lies a lesson. Microsoft et al, you need to turn your attention to these small things, that may not be very belly or whistly (sorry, just wanted to use the word ‘belly’) but which we all use. A lot.

Loyalty to a program, whether it’s a browser or a word processor, may often come down to these small things.

Evernote’s Smart New Look

I like Evernote but I’ve always found the notes a bit messy: different fonts, lots of weird formatting, and not particularly easy to read and scan through.

That seems to have changed with their latest version, where the notes are decently sized, free of too much extraneous stuff and easily distinguished from each other with elegant gray space.

Amazing how a few user interface tweaks—to make things simpler and more intuitive than to impress and show off-turn a maybe into a must-have.

The Size of the Future

(This is a guest post from a friend and long-time colleague, Robin Lubbock of WBUR, who will be contributing to Loose Wire Blog. You can read his blog, the Future of New(s), here.)

Why don't you buy hard-back books? Either they are too expensive, or too big. They are too big to comfortably hold in one hand. So if you're sitting in bed trying to read you've got to find a way to prop the thing up. Not a hurdle you can't overcome. But an inconvenience.

Now think about the reader of the future. It's the same issues. Size, readability, and cost. Any lessons you've learned from book reading, apply them to the electronic book and you'll be imagining the electronic reader of the future.

So why hasn't anyone made a good electronic book yet?

I was in Staples the other day and an assistant asked me what I wanted. I said "I want something about three or four times the size of an iPhone which I can use for browsing the Web when I'm in bed." He said they had nothing like that, but he wanted one too.

So when I saw photos of a group of proposed readers in an article by John Markoff in the New York Times this weekend I thought my dream had come true.

But Markoff has a different view. He says he also used to think he was looking for a mid-sized reader for the Web. He went over some of the issues. But he reached the conclusion that although chip power means that you can't get book performance out of a phone sized reader yet, people could be comfortable reading newspapers on a three-and-a-half-inch screen.

I took his implication to be that if people are happy with a small screen for reading newspapers and blogs, there will be no call for a mid-sized reader.

But I still want one. And I still believe the company that successfully develops a tool that has the same benefits as a novel, in usability, portability and ruggedness, will make a fortune.

Bye Bye, Laptop?

The day seems to be getting closer when we can do something that would seem to be pretty obvious: access our pocket-sized smartphone via a bigger screen, keyboard and a mouse. Celio Corp says it's close.

Celio Corp have two products: their Mobile Companion (pictured above), a laptop like thing that includes an 8" display, a full function keyboard, and a touchpad mouse. At 1 x 6 x 9 inches and weighing 2 lbs, the Mobile Companion promises over 8 hours of battery life and boots instantly. After loading a driver on your smartphone you can then access it via a USB cable or Bluetooth. (You can also charge the smartphone via the same USB connection.)

Uses? Well, you can say goodbye to coach cramp, where you're unable to use a normal laptop. You can input data more easily than you might if you just had your smartphone with you. And, of course, you don't need to bring your laptop.

The second product might be even better. The Smartphone Interface System is, from what I can work out, a small Bluetooth device that connects your smartphone, not to the Mobile Companion, but to a desktop computer, public display or a conference room projector  -- these devices connect via a cable to the Interface, like this:

The important bit about both products is that the Redfly software renders the smartphone data so it fits on the new display (this will be quite tricky, and, because it will carried via Bluetooth, would need quite a bit of compression. The maximum size of the output display is VGA, i.e. 800 x 480, so don't expect stunning visuals, but it'll be better than having all your colleagues crowding around your smartphone.)

The bad news? Redfly isn't launched yet, and will for the time being be available only for Windows Mobile Devices. Oh, and according to UberGizmo, it will cost $500. The other thing is that you shouldn't confuse "full function keyboard" with "full size keyboard": this vidcap from PodTech.net gives you an idea of the actual size of the thing:

this is the keyboard size relative to Celio CEO Kirt Bailey's digits:

Until I try the thing out and feel sure that the keyboard doesn't make the same compromises as the Eee PC, I'd rather use my Stowaway keyboard.

For those of you looking for software to view your mobile device on your desktop computer, you might want to check out My Mobiler. It's free software that purports to do exactly that for Windows Mobile users.

Technorati Tags: keyboards, celio corp, redfly, foleo, umpc, ultramobiles, smartphones, bluetooth, windows mobile, microsoft, usb

Broadband on a Moving Bus

I don't know if it's anything to do with my recent column  (probably not) about the need for flat data rates("The Price is Wrong," from Nov 2's WSJ.com), but m1 of Singapore is now offering unlimited data for its mobile broadband plans. So now you can get 512 kbps for about $15 a month, 1.8 Mbps for about $25, and 3.6 Mbps for $45.

I use the 512 kbps service and frankly, it's fast enough for me. Of course, with the island state embracing free WiFi this all becomes a bit academic at some point, but I still find it easier to crank up the Huawei modem than log in to the WiFi, and there's something about surfing on a bus that is positively liberating. Not something I ever tried on the moving robbery carts that are buses in Jakarta, I must say.

M1 broadband

Technorati Tags: flatdata, mobile broadband, singapore, m1, modem, HSDPA, mobility

Journalists Should Bite the Bullet

 
screenshot from CNN's website

It's the one area where old-style journalism hasn't really made the strides it could. I can understand why: Journalism is a very, very conservative profession. But The Journalism Iconoclast, written by Patrick Thornton, makes a telling point when he points to a nice new feature of CNN.com's website -- the bullet point:

One of the features many people may have noticed with the relaunch of CNN.com earlier this year is that CNN offers succinct bullet points above articles about the key points of the story. Most people skim stories anyway, so why not give them the ultimate way to skim an article? Maybe they will read the whole thing, but use the bullet points to help them remember key points.

Patrick suggests newspapers adopt this for their online offerings; I would actually be in favor of their doing it for their offline offerings too. Buzzmachine, for example, is not the only one bemoaning a buried lede. Indeed, I often find the inverted pyramid approach outdated and less useful for the sort of rapid scanning we do now we're so webcentric.

One commenter to the story, Marc Matteo, points to one of the key problems with newspapers introducing this kind of bullet-point approach: Shrinking budgets and harried editors. In which case I would farm the bullet pointing out to people who aren't even journalists. As Marc himself points out, non-journalism websites don't seem to have this problem. How about allowing readers to add the bullet points themselves? Indeed, it may even be possible to automate the process.

The nasty truth is that a lot of what we take to be good sound journalistic writing was designed for an earlier, slower time. Now we want to catch the gist of something in a few seconds, and we're looking for reasons not to read them, rather than feeling we should, we have to, or (God forbid) we want to.

Bottom line: Newspapers and all traditional media should not just be looking for new ways to deliver their news, but new ways to write it too. An example of good, pithy writing is actually Techdirt, which rarely strays (unlike this blog) over 250 words, including story, background and (usually quite tart) analysis.  

The Journalism Iconoclast

del.icio.us Tags: journalism, newspapers, media, CNN, design, citizen journalism

Google's New Interface: The Earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've written before about how I think Google Earth, or something like it, will become a new form of interface -- not just for looking for places and routes, but any kind of information. Some people call it the geo-web, but it's actually bigger than that. Something like Google Earth will become an environment in its own right. I can imagine people using it to slice and dice company data, set up meetings, organize social networks.

Google is busy marching in this direction, and their newest offering is a great example of this: Google Book Search. This from Brandon Badger, product manager at Google Earth:

Did you ever wonder what Lewis and Clark said about your hometown as they passed through? What about if any other historical figures wrote about your part of the world? Earlier this year, we announced a first step toward geomapping the world's literary information by starting to integrate information from Google Book Search into Google Maps. Today, the Google Book Search and Google Earth teams are excited to announce the next step: a new layer in Earth that allows you to explore locations through the lens of the world's books.

Activating the layer peppers the earth with little yellow book icons -- all over the place, like in this screenshot from Java:

 

 

 

 

Click on one of the books and the reference will pop up, including the title of the book, its cover, author, number of pages etc, as well as the actual context of the reference. Click on a link to the page

Is it perfect? No. It's automated, so a lot of these references are just wrong. Click on a yellow book in Borneo and you find a reference in William Gilmore Simms' "Life of Francis Marrion" to Sampit, which is the name of a town there, but it's likely confused with the river of the same name in South Carolina.

Many of the books in Google's database are scanned, so errors are likely to arise from imperfect OCR. Click on a book above the Java town of Kudus, and you get a reference to a History of France, and someone called "Ninon da f Kudus", which in fact turns out to be the caption for an illustration of Le Grand Dauphin and Ninon de l'Enclos, a French C17 courtesan.

But who cares? By being able to click on the links you can quickly find out whether the references are accurate or not, and I'm guessing Google is going to gradually tidy this up, if not themselves then by allowing us users to correct such errors. (So far there doesn't seem to be a way to do this.)

This is powerful stuff, and a glimpse of a new way of looking, storing and retrieving information. Plus it's kind of fun.

Google LatLong: Google Book Search in Google Earth

Technorati Tags: information visualization, infoviz, google earth, google, search, interfaces

The Gecko in the Machine

 (This is the text of my weekly Loose Wire Service column, syndicated to newspapers like The Jakarta Post. If you're an editor interested in subscribing to the service, drop me a line. Regular readers of the blog, meanwhile, will be familiar with some of the themes here)

I found myself reading the words of one Timo Veikkola one morning.

Frankly, before then I did not know that Timo existed, although I do know of his colleague at Nokia, Jan Chipchase. Not only do these men have far more interesting names than I, they also have far more interesting jobs: peering into the way we use technology and how we might use it in the future.

But this column isn't about them. It's about you and your computer. Timo and Jan made me realize that often we focus on the minutiae of computing, as if that's where the whole thing stops.

It's as if we're car owners who blame the car for our being stuck in traffic. It's worth remembering that if we are not happy with our computers, it's not all the computer's fault.

First off, I can understand why you're frustrated. Computers don't work very well (though a lot of Mac users, and even Windows Vista users, convince themselves that their particular computers do). The truth is they don't, because computers don't help us think better.

They are merely tools, when they should be more than that. They help us send e-mails. They help us download and listen to music. They help us draft long resignation letters we never send. They help us crunch numbers.

All of this would make the early developers of the computer initially excited ("All that computing power in the head of a pin! Back in my day we had to make do with the computing power of a toilet brush in a box the size of Angkor Wat"). They were also, quickly, disappointed ("So everyone has these computers in their homes, bags and hands, and they do WHAT with them?").

But it needn't be like that. Computers can be used for good stuff. Here's how:

* Collecting stuff: Computer hard drives are big enough now for you not to worry about storing stuff (unless you take 5,000 videos and photos a day, in which case you may want to consider an external hard drive or six.)

The trick about collecting stuff -- whether it's words, pictures or audio -- is to organize it. After all, you want to find it again quickly. So, if you're not a Mac user (who has Spotlight) install Google Desktop, which will index your hard drive and let you find stuff as easily as if it were on the Web.

But that shouldn't be an alternative to organizing your stuff. Each batch of photos you store on your computer should have its own folder, usually organizing by date (for example, 20070722 as today's date is best).

If you're saving information you find on the web, save it to one place. I use something called MyInfo, an outlining program that includes a button you can install in your Firefox browser, which makes it very easy to save anything you read online.

* Brainstorming: there are some great tools out there to help you brainstorm, but in my view the best are those that bring mind mapping to the computer. (A mind map is a drawing where the central idea is put at the center of the piece of paper, and other ideas are added to it, floating off like branches.)

If you've not done mind maps I recommend them; if you're a big computer user then it makes sense to do them on your computer. (Mindjet's MindManager works on both Macs and Windows; for Mac users there's also NovaMind, which looks promising.)

* Think stuff up: The computer won't think for you, but it will do the next best thing -- help you recall things you forgot. You're probably aware of the fact that however smart you are you won't be able to remember what you want into the kitchen to get. Most of what we do, read, hear and say is forgotten within minutes. This is where the computer can help.

But whereas it's great about storing stuff, it's not good at recalling things that we don't know we knew. Search is great if we know what we're looking for, but for that tip-of-the-tongue stuff I'd recommend something else: PersonalBrain.

PersonalBrain is a program that I have bored my friends with for several months now -- it works on Mac, Linux and Windows, and has a free version available.

It looks odd, and will take some getting used to, but think of it as a place to throw everything you know into. You add "thoughts" and then you link those thoughts to other thoughts: The more the merrier.

For Timo Veikkola (the Nokia guy) I added a thought called "Timo's predictions" and "Timo's ideas". To the latter I added all the ideas I liked, including one "travel is the best stimulant".

This is something I know but I keep forgetting. So I linked that to another thought I had elsewhere in my PersonalBrain called "Guiding principles".

Already linked to that thought were a bunch of ideas I had added (and promptly forgotten about) which, together, form a philosophy of sorts (if you call "Don't write columns like this before your morning coffee because they won't make any sense" a philosophy.)

Put simply, the brain works not by hierarchy, but by connections. We watch a movie and it reminds us we haven't sent a letter to Auntie Marge. We find a website we like but it looks vaguely familiar: We don't realize we actually visited the same website two days ago. We are looking for a friend in Nongkhai but can't think of anybody, forgetting that Bob used to work there five years ago.

PersonalBrain helps you add this data when it first hits you and, more importantly, map its connections to other things so that you can find them again when you need them. When I add my friend Bob to my PersonalBrain, for example, I can link him not only to my other friends, but also to the places he's worked at, the places he's lived in -- anything that may increase the chances of his name popping up when I might need him, but when I might not have thought of it.

PersonalBrain is the kind of software that makes you realize a) You spend way too much time using your computer to watch YouTube videos; and b) Your brain may be big, but you can't remember anything that happened more than 30 seconds ago.

So, grumble as much as you like about your computer and what pain it causes you. But then set your sights higher and turn it into something that really complements you and the way you do things.

Technorati Tags: outliners, productivity, myinfo, personalbrain, mindmaps, google, search