After the introduction of the iPhone it seems like people have fallen in love with touch screen technology. Including yours truly. So why not apply this technology to laptops. Introducing the TouchBook, just get rid of the conventional keyboard and track pad and just make two flat LED screens. On the bottom screen you will notice something familiar but foreign at the same time. A full size touch pad keyboard!! I can see it now black background white letters with an orange square outline around each letter. How amazing would that be? I guess the problem that has to be over come is getting the touchpad technology to have a fast enough response time to handle people who type at 100 wpm. There will be no mouse because the top screen will also have touch pad technology (but for those who need a mouse there will obviously be a USB port). But that’s not all! Just as the iPhone has an accelerometer, so will the TouchBook. Open up the computer 180 degrees and turn it on its side and you will notice that your screen size has doubled in size. Now all you need to do is plug in a mouse and a keyboard and you have your own iMac! The bottom screen (11in wide by 7 in tall) combines with the top screen (11in wide by 7 in tall) to create a screen that is 14 inches wide and 11 inches tall. The only problem to overcome is making the gap between the two screens integrated so that there is no gap between the two displays. Patent Pending! Jk or am I?
Monday, February 16, 2009
My Ideal MacBook – The TouchBook
After the introduction of the iPhone it seems like people have fallen in love with touch screen technology. Including yours truly. So why not apply this technology to laptops. Introducing the TouchBook, just get rid of the conventional keyboard and track pad and just make two flat LED screens. On the bottom screen you will notice something familiar but foreign at the same time. A full size touch pad keyboard!! I can see it now black background white letters with an orange square outline around each letter. How amazing would that be? I guess the problem that has to be over come is getting the touchpad technology to have a fast enough response time to handle people who type at 100 wpm. There will be no mouse because the top screen will also have touch pad technology (but for those who need a mouse there will obviously be a USB port). But that’s not all! Just as the iPhone has an accelerometer, so will the TouchBook. Open up the computer 180 degrees and turn it on its side and you will notice that your screen size has doubled in size. Now all you need to do is plug in a mouse and a keyboard and you have your own iMac! The bottom screen (11in wide by 7 in tall) combines with the top screen (11in wide by 7 in tall) to create a screen that is 14 inches wide and 11 inches tall. The only problem to overcome is making the gap between the two screens integrated so that there is no gap between the two displays. Patent Pending! Jk or am I?
Flash. A Love or Hate Relationship
Hello fellow bloggers. I have been working on a project to improve the user interface on a machine (can’t give too much detail I signed a NDA ;) ). Anyway I have been using Adobe Flash to create an interactive interface, and I have never been so frustrated in my life! At the same time I love the end results I am getting. I guess I’m just not use to using ActionScript. The main problem that I want to throw out to the world is how do you make a dial? I only learned how to make buttons, and the buttons don’t effectively convey the functionality of my design. It is so frustrating! Is Flash really the best program to use to create a user interface with buttons and knobs? At this point I am not so sure. Flash seems like a great program to use for web design and has a lot of versatility. Maybe the problem is I am too much of a novice. I think I am going to go buy a book. Flash could become a vital tool in my tool kit and I might as well take advantage of my free time to learn it while I am still in school. I just wish ActionScript were more familiar to me like C++ is. I am also interested in learning web design. Is Flash the best place to start or should I look into HTML? Thanks!
Monday, February 9, 2009
First Blog Ever!
I never thought I would see the day when I would join the millions of bloggers online. To be honest I always thought that it was a little sill, but that day has finally come and I am going to have some fun with it.
In the end of January Jodi Forlizzi, from Carnegie Mellon, came to speak to our class about her research on human computer interaction. Unfortunately I was unable to attend for I was at work. What I have gathered from my classmates and from online articles I really missed out on seeing a great speaker. Her focus is mainly on new experience people can have from their interactions with computers and/or robots. She also stressed the importance of design research, a very important tool that is underutilized in the design world. Valuable insights are lost when you do not observe people in their environment. I am not an expert on everything and I do not know what other people want, like, need, or how they solve their everyday problems. So how I am suppose to design for these people? I guess I have two options. First, I could take my best guess at what people want, and in the real world I am learning is sometimes the necessary approach. Second, I can utilize an iterative process of research, ideation, research, prototyping, research, research, and more research… you get the point. The second approach definitely seems like the more logical one because of key insights you are able to acquire along the entire process. So why is option one sometimes necessary? MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!!!!!! Research costs money and the reality of things is that if a company comes to you with a project, budget, and a timeframe, and there may be no room to do research.
Dr. Forlizzi also discussed her research on the SnackBot. The SnackBot is a robot that goes around campus distributing snacks. The beauty of this robot for Dr. Forlizzi, is that robot’s function to distribute snacks, is also the means in which she conducts her research. Because the robot is handing out snacks, students are basically forced to interact with it. Thereby Dr. Forlizzi is able to see how humans are interacting with robots and what kind of responses they are having.
Over all I would say this blogging business isn’t so bad. I look forward to writing my next post. To give you a little preview I think it will be on flash. I’ll even give you the title “Flash. A love or hate relationship.”
In the end of January Jodi Forlizzi, from Carnegie Mellon, came to speak to our class about her research on human computer interaction. Unfortunately I was unable to attend for I was at work. What I have gathered from my classmates and from online articles I really missed out on seeing a great speaker. Her focus is mainly on new experience people can have from their interactions with computers and/or robots. She also stressed the importance of design research, a very important tool that is underutilized in the design world. Valuable insights are lost when you do not observe people in their environment. I am not an expert on everything and I do not know what other people want, like, need, or how they solve their everyday problems. So how I am suppose to design for these people? I guess I have two options. First, I could take my best guess at what people want, and in the real world I am learning is sometimes the necessary approach. Second, I can utilize an iterative process of research, ideation, research, prototyping, research, research, and more research… you get the point. The second approach definitely seems like the more logical one because of key insights you are able to acquire along the entire process. So why is option one sometimes necessary? MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!!!!!! Research costs money and the reality of things is that if a company comes to you with a project, budget, and a timeframe, and there may be no room to do research.
Dr. Forlizzi also discussed her research on the SnackBot. The SnackBot is a robot that goes around campus distributing snacks. The beauty of this robot for Dr. Forlizzi, is that robot’s function to distribute snacks, is also the means in which she conducts her research. Because the robot is handing out snacks, students are basically forced to interact with it. Thereby Dr. Forlizzi is able to see how humans are interacting with robots and what kind of responses they are having.
Over all I would say this blogging business isn’t so bad. I look forward to writing my next post. To give you a little preview I think it will be on flash. I’ll even give you the title “Flash. A love or hate relationship.”
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