Interaction impoverishment: My pompous term for the things that we can’t do, and don’t seem able to imagine our way out of, when it comes to making our devices do what we want them to do. The key to all this — and where we might end up going — are down to those millimeter-dimension things we never see: sensors.
When is innovation just another stab at the past, and when is it revolutionary? When it becomes a bit of a Twitter storm in a teacup, is possibly when. Here’s an interesting case study in the offing: You might need to get your head around some unfamiliar terms, like bi-directional linking, breadcrumb navigation and transclusion. … Read more
My former employers used (I’m stressing used here ) to like my tech stories because they had never heard about the stuff I wrote about before, which was considered good. But in later years as the editors were replaced by other, saner heads, and there were grumbles. Write about what’s happening now, not what’s going … Read more
Good piece in the New Scientist about why we’ve always hated video calls: When another New York Times reporter went to Pittsburgh in mid-1971, however, he found only 33 Picturephones in operation, with just 12 able to dial outside their own buildings. Aside from impracticalities such as cost, it seemed that, against all predictions, no … Read more
Regular readers will know I’ve been looking out for this to happen for a while: the use of sound, or rather ultrasound, as a form of interface. Here’s a Reuters piece I did on it a year ago: From pixels to pixies: the future of touch is sound | Reuters: Ultrasound – inaudible sound waves … Read more