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| Joking Computers and Comparison of Visual Search Engines |
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posted by Editor
on Saturday July 31, @04:31PM
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Humor may be the next frontier in natural language processing. One research team is working on a way for computers to automatically tell jokes based and scanning dictionaries and processing global humor rules, while another team is developing ways for computers to simulate laughter. Put these efforts together with a new spoken language designed specifically for robots, and we're one step closer to A.I..
Robin Good's Master New Media has a comparison of 16 visual search engines that use innovative graphics to display search engine results.
Bitcoin is a digital currency based on peer-to-peer networking. The peer-to-peer design means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. As a result, it becomes easy to transfer money through the Internet, without having to trust middlemen.
Google has acquired Bumptop, a 3D desktop that adds more realism to traditional GUIs by using a physics engine to simulate the behavior of desktop objects as they are dragged and tossed with the feel of characteristics such as friction, mass, collisions, and displacement (see this YouTube video for a demonstration). The idea is to allow users to employ the same strategies they use in the real world to organize their virtual desktops, making the interactive experience feel more continuous and analog (see this research paper describing the concept). One speculation is that Google will integrate Bumptop into its Android operating system.
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| Google Command Line Interface & What Comes After Second Life? |
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posted by Editor
on Wednesday June 30, @05:16PM
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A command line interface for Google called GoogleCL gives text-based access to services like Calendar, Picasa, and YouTube (see also this earlier CLI for Google called goosh, which can be used directly from a browser). Greg More, from the Spatial Information Architecture Lab at RMIT, compares Second Life with Vastpark, and concludes that the component-based approach of Vastpark is more flexible, and will enable smoother integration into new virtual worlds ("Second Life is like writing in html, Vastpark is like coding in php"). Finally, computer scientist and designer Bill Buxton takes a long walk through the history of multitouch interfaces.
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| Will Apple Still Dominate When The Economy Picks Up? |
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posted by Editor
on Monday May 31, @05:56PM
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The big story in technology is that Apple has surpassed Microsoft in terms of market capitalization. This NY Times article (free registration required) points out that Apple's success may be a result of consumer tastes overtaking the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology. That may be the case today, when business is still recovering from the Global Financial Crisis, but when the economy starts roaring again (hopefully for rational reasons), will Apple's consumer focus still prevail over Microsoft's traditional success with business users? If so, what is the killer business app for the iPhone/iPad?
In the meanwhile, Apple's iPad is thriving, with one survey saying that it is killing NetBooks, while the experts have finally weighed in on iPad's usability.
Edelman Digital has a nice roundup of social network Visualizations, including Twitter Venn (shows how many times each term is tweeted a day and if two or even all of the keywords are mentioned in the same tweet) and Friendwheel, which shows the connections you have within your Facebook friend community, as well as mutual friends within connections.
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| Does Steve Jobs See Flash as Obstacle in Apple's Frantic Dash to the Cloud? |
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posted by Editor
on Friday April 30, @05:12PM
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| Touch Interfaces and Displays Take Off - Literally |
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posted by Editor
on Wednesday March 31, @05:21PM
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As mobile devices appear destined to become the dominant computing form factor, innovations in touch interfaces are heating up. Here are pointers to some recent developments related to new mechanics for interacting with and displaying data, as well as some commentary on the transition from PCs to mobile computing:
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| Mainstream Media Declares Dominance of Mobile Computing |
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posted by Editor
on Sunday February 21, @06:20PM
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| Televisions Becoming More Interactive; Mobile Computing Reaches Pivotal Juncture |
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posted by Editor
on Monday January 18, @07:10PM
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The television set is getting some significant interface enhancements. 3D televisions were the big story at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and some TVs are starting to integrate key applications such as Skype. Looking forward, MIT is working on screens that can detect 3D gesture input from viewers.
2010 will be a pivotal year for mobile computing. Now is when the key players for the decade will be defined, just as the PC industry was shaped in the early 1980's. Smartphones continue to surge in popularity, and Google's Nexus One and Apple's forthcoming iTablet/iSlate are some of the most-watched products in the industry.
The key question is whether Windows Mobile 7 will be able to restart Microsoft's lagging momentum in mobile computing when it finally ships, possibly as early as next month. Windows Mobile is certainly holding its own against the iPhone with IT managers in corporate computing. However, Wired argues that it was just this focus on corporate applications that may have cost Microsoft the mobile consumer market.
Meanwhile, some developers are focusing on applications for simple cell phones (i.e. non-Smartphones), which many users are quite happy with. Also, everyone seems to have an app store these days, so why shouldn't there be an app store for smart pens? Finally, has Second Life become an adults-only playground?
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| Using Creative Processes to Mine Scientific Data |
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posted by Editor
on Thursday November 19, @06:02PM
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This video from the Creativity and Technology (CaT) conference in New York this summer has an impressive demo of the AlloSphere at UCSB, an "instrument" for visualizing, hearing and exploring complex multi-dimensional data. The AlloSphere merges composed sounds and high resolution 3D visualizations of scientific data in an immersive space that is three stories tall (the demo also got a lot of attention earlier in the year at the TeD conference). While room-size CAVEs have existed since the early 1990's, earlier systems usually depended on some kind of head-mounted device for users to visualize data and hear sounds, which inhibited the interactive sensation. The AlloSphere is designed to provide a more neutral space, employing an echo-free chamber for representing the sounds of interaction. Construction of the system has not yet been completed, but the demo reel shows how its design takes interaction with data to a new level, vividly representing such behavior as chemical activity inside of the brain and the spin of electrons. The AlloSphere concept of artistically integrated, multi-sensory input still has to prove whether it will actually help enable researchers achieve new scientific breakthroughs, but if nothing else, it sure looks like a great way to perceive real-world phenomena.
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| Data Becomes Space With Zooming User Interfaces |
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posted by Editor
on Wednesday November 04, @08:50AM
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Users are becoming more comfortable with zooming interaction thanks to basic iPhone apps like its Safari web browser. With small screens becoming the most familiar form factor for a growing set of users, the time may be right for the rise of applications employing full Zooming User Interfaces (ZUIs), in which the Z-axis is connected with actual parameters such as data categories or time. Two strong tutorials explaining ZUIs have recently appeared with lots of links to examples. Gabriel Svennerberg
projects the rise of ZUIs, linking to this video of the Aurora concept interface for Mozilla (jump to 2:00 mins to see a great use of ZUIs for visualizing data). Dmitry from usabilitypost considers how ZUIs might work on the desktop, pointing out the Zoomism concept interface. Meanwhile, the Zoom Quilt continues to grow, with 33 artists now contributing immersive scenes for its zoomable space.
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| How Multi-Touch Interface Should Be Applied On Desktops |
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posted by Editor
on Sunday October 18, @06:41PM
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The multi-touch interface has been popularized in handheld form factors on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices, but how could it be applied on traditional desktop computers? 10/GUI is a concept for how multi-touch interfaces might work in a desktop environment. This video demonstrates how a multi-touch GUI can overcome some of the shortcomings of the current mouse-driven GUIs. Rather than allowing windows to overlap, tasks are lined up horizontally in the order they were invoked. Different classes of actions can be triggered depending on how many fingers are used at a time.
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Is the end near for the file/folder metaphor?
The superficial "look-and-feel" of an interface is distinct from the more fundamental issue of how it represents data to the user. In this regard, potentially dramatic improvements are possible.
Read More
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