Siftables - Physical, Natural Way to Interact with Information and Media

Interesting user experience concept from MIT - Siftables.
Presented by David Merrill.

I like it as it makes the 'out of the box' phrase real.
In this case - instead of a 'box'/screen it provides multiple display and interactive objects. This truly it breaks down the current interaction concepts by making the screen part of the interaction and not just the canvas.

"...

Siftables:
Imagine overturning a container of nuts and bolts, then looking through the resulting pile for a particular item. Or spreading photographs out on a tabletop and then beginning to sort them into piles. During these activities we interact with large numbers of small objects at the same time, and they utilize all of our fingers and both hands together. We humans are skilled at using our hands in these ways, and can effortlessly sift and sort - focusing on our higher level goals rather than the items themselves.

Siftables aims to enable people to interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives. As an interaction platform, Siftables applies technology and methodology from wireless sensor networks to tangible user interfaces. Siftables are independent, compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media. Siftables can be used to implement any number of gestural interaction languages and HCI applications.

The Siftables interaction platform is a collaboration with Jeevan Kalanithi.

..."

E.T.

The History of the Internet (Picol/RRW)

RWW shared a very interesting movie on the history of the Internet.
The movie was crated by PICOL (picol.org - stands for Pictorial Communication Language) - it's a project that aims to create "a standard and reduced sign system for electronic communication." PICOL is free to use and open to alter.




E.T.

Sony EyePet

Sony EyePet is a great example for user interaction and design that breaks down the 2D I/O concept and supports cross generation user interaction.
It is so cool to see how every-day objects become part of the virtual world, as the virtual world become part of the physical world...




Not sure when this would be available.

E.T.

Running on (Adobe) AIR

I was working on some interesting prototypes using Adobe Flex recently..

Well… some of them got achieved before more than 2 people saw them, while others got some traction.

One of the demos I supported was the SAP xApps Spend Analytics demo, shown during Adobe MAX this week.

SAP xApp Spend Analytics is a next generation analytic application that allows organizations and the end users to consolidate their spend data for end to end visibility into their supplier base. Identify savings and sourcing opportunities and to facilitate regulatory and internal compliance while identifying Supplier's rationalization opportunities.

The application is based on SAP Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver), and it aggregates data from heterogeneous data sources, prepares and enriches the data for analysis and accurately classifies the spend data for budgeting and sourcing savings.

Note: SAP xApp Spend Analytics is currently in Ramp-Up, so please stay tuned to additional information on SAP.com.

(Additional SAP Spend Analytics information is available here)
(Adobe Max keynote coverage is available here and here)

some screen shots:

Opening a briefing book from a list of available books on the server




Sorting data




Using the page-flip experience...

The most interesting part of the demo ( at least from my point of view ) was showing a scenario when the presenter added some information, gathered during off-line, by D&D a table from MS-Excel into the book, as well as updating the book’s data from the server (per page or the whole book).


E.T.

Technorati Tags: beta, Adobe, Flex, AIR, Demo, Beta, AdobeMax, SAP

Notes from reading "The Myths of Innovation" by Scott Berkun

The book includes many interesting topics and anecdotes about innovation, innovators and other factors, effecting and building the myths around innovation.

Scott did a great job encapsulating different phases and steps an innovative person or team go through doing the 'innovation' process as well as the different perspectives people have on the innovation before and after the acceptableness of it.

For Example:

Challenges: Find an Idea, develop a solution, secure sponsorship or funding, reproduce, reach customers.

Probability: (assuming 50% success rate and based on the challenges)
50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%=0.390625%
(do not get depressed, just yet...)

Feedback you better expect:
It will never work, no one will want it, it cannot work in practice, this is not the problem... Get out of my office...

and why you got it:
Ego, pride, politics, fear, priority, sloth, security, greed and consistency.

The bottom line is that there is no magic (now you can get depressed...) but there is a lot of hard work, timing, luck, curiosity, knowledge and focus involved.

the book includes many interesting quotes, such as:

"...History is written by those who wind and those who dominate... - Edward Said"
"...History is the lie commonly agreed upon... - Voltaire"
"...It does not matter where you start, as long as you start... - John Cage"
"...How do you systematize innovation? ... You do not... - Steve Jobs"

So - get back to work and hope one day you could look back and notice/appreciate your innovations.

E.T.

Technorati Tags: book, innovation