Category: HCI

From The Register and Tech Digest:

Miminalism is the key here – the Play has no screen and just a single joystick for control. It plays MP3, WMA and ASF files for up to 12 hours on a single charge of its built-in battery, has five equaliser pre-sets and can support up to four playlists or play through randomly in shuffle mode.

No screen and just a joystick control? How can you navigate through menus then?

The Asono Play uses different sounds to let you search through folders and choose different playing options. This really tackles the issue of lack of screen space investigated by Brewster and Cryer to an extreme level.

I’m not sure how easy this would be to use, but I guess once you got used to the different sounds and what they meant, it would be pretty cool.

I’ve noticed lately that here and there, there are useful functional object being designed that look pretty good too.

 First up is the Radiator Heat Wave:

Compared to the white boring rectangular radiators you usually find in most homes, the Heat Wave radiator is a refreshing change. It looks really nice and it’s not obvious that it’s a radiator.

Next is the Titan refillable lipstick:

The big thing about this for me is that it’s refillable – it’s always struck me as a bit crazy that there is huge amounts of packaging for most products and then once you’re done with them you throw them away. Even though some make-up containers are recycleable, it’s not always obvious where you should take them to be recycled and so most people don’t bother. Other great features are that you can put it on a keyring with the rest of your keys – so no crazy rummaging like a baglady to find it, and it’s incredibley shiny.

 Shiny in the heatproof, crushproof metal kind of way. 😀

 Lastly is the Boynq Vase Speaker:

It’s a speaker that looks like a vase and connects to your laptop via usb (which also powers it). It looks nice, doesn’t take up too much space and would help solve the problem of most laptop speakers being kind of tinny.

The darker side of Human Computer Interaction!

With unmaned Predator drones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RQ-1_Predator) being armed with hellfire missiles for state-sponsored assasination from the skies, now they are developing automated drone guns! By taking all the risks out of warfare for the richer countries, you have to ask yourself whether this is a wise move. The only thing that seems to stem the might of the American military invading several more middle-eastern countries is bad press they get at home when their serviceman die; take that factor out and there’s no denying that the world will become a much less safe place for countries that are not west-friendly. Not good…
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2006/02/metal-storms-deadly-rain.html

In recent years, computer technology has hit a level at which you don’t really ‘need’ to upgrade in the same way you had to every 6-18 months (if you wanted to have a reasonable speed computer during the late 1990’s). You only need a 3 year old CPU and so much RAM in order to browse the net/word process. As a result of this decline in the need for a ‘yearly upgrade’, computer components manufacturers have been increasingly focusing their attention on performance enthusiasts most commonly found in the computer gaming community (where regular hardware updates are still mandatory in order to give you a performance edge in your gaming). The range and variety of high profit margin ‘impressive looking’ performance hardware has increased steadily, including ‘perspex windows’ so you can see the computer components inside your case, RAM modules with LCD displays spooling out performance information and UV reactive water cooling equipment (yes, many enthusiasts cool their computers with water!). Recently, one of the five leading hard disk manufacturers has attempted to ‘get in on the game’. Western Digital has released a version of their top of the line Raptor 150X with a clear window so that hardware enthusiasts can see the inner workings of their hard disk in action. This hard disk is available for £200 without the window or £240 with the window for exactly the same performance. You have to question the value of such an upgrade when you consider watching hard disk activity is barely a step above watching paint dry! Feel free to watch the video:http://www.wdraptorx.com/video/ (Caution, High Bandwidth).
Its not only hardware manufacturers who are desperately trying to increase their profit margins, software companys are also following suit. Microsoft has for a long time stated if you wish to watch HD-DVD’s on your pc, you’ll need a copy of their new ‘swanky’ operating system Windows vista. This is due to the introduction of more advanced digital rights management (DRM) techniques to try and reduce piracy. There has also been some talk or users having to buy DRM-compatible monitors (at a high cost), or their screen will not display the HD-Videos at all! As far as the software implementation goes, there is no reason why the HD-DRM interfaces cannot be programmed into the current incarnation of Windows (XP).

It seems microsoft is on an offensive to get people to upgrade windows, having recently announced the sequel to their flagship game licence Halo2 will only work on Windows Vista (despite the fact the console incarnation still works on an X-Box which uses ‘off the shelf’ 4 year old pc hardware and an simple OS).

Has microsoft shot themselves in the foot with Windows XP? I myself am of the opinion XP is the first decent enough and easy to use operating system Microsoft has ever released. As a company, of course they are within their rights to want to prompt customers to buy newer versions of ther products, although with the customer base/brand loyalty of the Windows family, they don’t have much in the form of competition from the likes of linux and MacOS! As computers and access to the internet have become an intrinsic part of so many peoples lives, is it right coroprations are still 100% in control of the software that billions of people regularly use/rely on for work..?
DRM (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25124)

Halo2 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4698072.stm)

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/134

Interesting story about the first case (i am aware of) where a company has required all employees who access a secure area to get a verichip implant.

Its not good to think that some kind of personal data can be read off you by scanners where ever you walk. Especially when it would appear verichip tags could possibly be easily cloned with the right equipment http://cq.cx/verichip.pl. If so this could be a bigger security hole than the old card systems used by the company in question. It is possibly a mistake by the company to rely for security purposes on such a new technology, especially as when questioned they where unaware of some of the security issues around the devices.

A would be ID thief would have to get within a foot of the subjects implant, due to the range of the chips. I personally think that some one who had thier mindset on such theft could easily do this, i often have people within such a range whether i am queueing at a petrol station or in a lecture.
Also with the constant moving of technology and security how many of these implants would an employee be expected to have over their working life. Every couple of years as one item becomes obsolete are they just going to demand employees get another implant, and how many of these things are people going to end up with in their bicep.

One thing I noticed when looking at the list of blog groups for those taking the HCI module this year, is the number of people who have got the address of their blog wrong.

If you sign up for a blog that uses the blogger software, you have to sign up on Blogger.com. So, logically, your blog would be hosted there right? Wrong. Blogs that you sign up for at Blogger.com are actually hosted on the Blogspot.com domain. This accounts for the wrong addresses given for a number of the blogs and is an understandable mistake. Perhaps Blogger should reconsider where users sign up for their blogs, or make it more clear where the site will be hosted.

Towards a Playful User Interface for Home Entertainment Systems

This would be useful for people like my dad who has trouble reading the small print in tv guides and the tiny labels on remote control buttons and as it seems to be fairly intuitive to use, if my parents did have something like this for their tv, especially if it could pick up the channel the vcr plays on, there would be fewer phone calls asking me “how do I get the video to work?”.

Another interesting point, considering Monday’s lecture on questionnaires, was the various questionnaires used in the testing of the interface and the answers given to the questions.