Brad Lauster .com

I've been dreaming a lot about the future of the operating system interface lately, for a number of reasons.

The first is Amiga's recent release of an SDK for their "next generation" system. A good place to get an introduction to Amiga's vision is in Issue 1 of Amiga World.

The second reason is the discussions I've been involved in over at devicetop.com. ...trying to get programmers to think about computer interfaces in terms other than "desktops" and "windows" is TOUGH!

The third is the work that Eazel is doing on their Nautilus project. Check out these screen shots. From what I can tell, it's a zoomable interface for Linux.

The last is Mike Pell's, StraightFace column. Required reading alert! Mike thinks his first column, "The Desktop is Dead. Deal with it..." is required reading for us designers. I tend to agree.

Addendum: 08/25/2000 12:00:00 PM
I just read this again, and realized that I completely forgot to mention all the great work that Apple is doing on Mac OS X.

I went to the SFSU Bookstore this evening. They have Mac's on display. I am now quite sure that I want one of these, with one of these.

...and to think, I work for Intel. I suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself, right? Not likely!

Although my wanting a Mac can't be blamed solely on Intel, it can in part. Don't believe me? Consider this:

Intel has long worked to perpetuate the idea that a PC is just a box of parts. Only recently (after the iMac turned out to be an enormous success) did Intel take steps to change this perception (see Intel's Easy of Use concept PC's).

The campaign bombed though. Only a few PC makers had the balls to release a "stylish" computer (Dell's WebPC, for example) and they all failed. They weren't successful because PC makers have engrained the idea that a PC is just a box of parts, so deep into the psyche of their customers that even they were unable to convince them otherwise.

Apple, on the other hand, seems to have always focused on -or at least, marketed- the idea that their products are things of value.

This all brings up an interesting point: don't underestimate the power of your brand. This was essentially the idea behind the Crave conference, which incidentally, I missed.

Did anyone attend? Tell me about it!

I'm getting ready to start building my computer this weekend.

For the most part, I've already decided what I want, but I'm going to wander around Fry's today anyway. I guess I just need to flaunt the geek in me.

Why would I want to build a computer anyway? Remember what I said about the geek in me? Besides, it's just so much cheaper to build my own machine and put Linux on it. No sense in spending money on Microsoft Windows and Office if I'm not going to use them anyway.

So your next question is probably: Why Linux? Well, besides the fact that I can get it for free, there's also my deep seated disgust with Microsoft's business practices and buggy products. In the area of my own interests though, the Linux community is really starting to do some cool interface work. Eazel's project, Nautilus, is one of the most interesting.

Back to building a computer...

Here are the current planned base components:
The Case - I'm a sucker for that translucent plastic crap
The Motherboard - by Intel, of course
The Processor - 933 MHz, perhaps?
The Hard Drive - 20 Gig. seems like a good place to start.

I should also mention that I still want a Mac. More specifically, I REALLY want to play around with Mac OS X. Fact is, I can start playing around with Linux for a lot less $$, than I can Mac OS X. I'm also still holding out for OS X on Intel architecture. You've signed the OS X on Intel petition, right?

Finally, a technology I can really get behind: The Anoto Pen

This fabulous little gizmo records everything you write, while you write it! No more lugging your laptop over to the conference room, or to that cubicle on the other side of campus, to capture notes during your contextual inquiry.

...just write them with this pen (on the special paper) and beam it to your computer when you get back. Wonderful!

Not convinced yet? They've even got user scenarios on their web site!

You may recall my post from way back in August about future OS interfaces...well, Newsweek (which is apparently now part of MSNBC) has a good article that gives a decent overview of Apple's Mac OS X, Microsoft's .NET and Eazel's Nautilus environment. Mmmm...tasty!

Although I haven't actually used any of the interfaces mentioned in the article, I have seen demos of all three. Of course, since I haven't used them, I can only make off-the-cuff comments, but here goes anyway:

It seems that Apple's solution goes the furthest to solve what I think is the biggest problem with current OS interfaces - window management. With OS X, dialog boxes always appear with the correct window and I imagine the need to re-size and move windows around will be drastically reduced with the advent of the "dock."

In typical Microsoft fashion, the .NET solution seems to be focused on technical accomplishment rather than solving actual usability problems or improving user experience. Their solution, to make everything a web page, must surely have been born in the executive washroom, rather than in a meeting of skilled interaction designers. I do like the idea of a "universal type-in" bar though. Jef Raskin discusses this is his fabulous book, "The Humane Interface." It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft implements it.

Eazel's inclusion of a "beginner, intermediate, expert" selector seems like the kind of solution that people who don't really know too much about interaction design would support. I can't tell you how many times I've heard frustrated computer users say, "I wish I could just set this to beginner," as if that would magically solve all the human-computer interaction problems. Further supporting my opinion is the fact that their solution seems to be getting a lot of support from industry heavyweights like Dell and Sun (or at least from their execs - who probably don't know the first thing about HCI). I must applaud Eazel's efforts though. They'll need big industry support to capture the market away from other desktop environments, such as KDE. I also like their inclusion of a zoomable interface. Unfortunately, I think the idea of having to worry about files and know about the file system is an idea whose time had passed.

I don't really think any of the solutions above solves all of the problems with current OS interfaces, but I feel confident in saying that they are all taking at least some steps in the right direction. Plus, all this activity at the same time is exciting!

By the way, Andy Hertzfeld, of Eazel, will be giving a talk entitled, "Improving the Usability of Free Software" at the 01/BayCHI meeting tomorrow. Anyone want to join me?

The meme, "Ginger," is apparently a new product dreamed up by well-known inventor, Dean Kamen. I first heard about Kamen last year when I saw a report on his invention, the iBot Wheelchair. The iBot is nothing short of astounding! Not only can it travel up and down stairs, but it can balance, let's call it "stand up," on two wheels. Through a system of gyroscopes and microprocessors, it has the ability to keep its balance. I couldn't believe the demonstration I saw on TV...you literally CAN'T tip it over. It's absolutely freaky!

I first heard about Ginger on Slashdot. The Slashdot article pointed to an article on MSNBC. MSNBC pointed to Inside.com. Inside.com had a boat-load of links in their message boards, including a link to Dean Kamen's company and a link to the related patent on Delphion.com. It has since spread to ZDNet and Reuters, among others.

The excitement and wild speculation was further stirred by comments made by Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs, both of whom have seen prototypes. Bezos said,
"[Ginger] is a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?" And Jobs was quoted as saying, "If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen." Pretty big statements, eh?

The patent suggests it's some kind of scooter, but regardless of what it turns out to be (we'll find out in 2002), the excitement it has generated in just a few days, has just blown me away!

The PhotoMesa Image Browser is a zoomable image browser created by Ben Bederson, one of guys in charge of the Jazz Toolkit for Zoomable User Interfaces. This thing is SO COOL...a must have for you digital camera owners.

This hoax article, "A Real Alternative?," appeared on Slashdot this afternoon. Despite it being a hoax, it does touch on several technologies that a real next-generation operating system ought to be built upon (such as XML, an OODB "file system" and separate modules for presenting the visual interface on a variety of devices).

...forget that whole 3D GUI business though. 3D interfaces will never work until displays can present a real third dimention, rather than just perspective on a two-dimentional screen.

A discussion on the Technology Review article, "The Next Computer Interface" (one of my favorite subjects) is forming over at Elegant Hack.

Come on...throw your thoughts into the mix!

Developed jointly by Gazelle, Nike, Stork and TNO, the MITKA is designed to increase the distance under which people tend to choose the bicycle as a mode of transportation.

Basically, it looks like an electric motor-assisted bike with three wheels - not a particularly novel idea, in my opinion...but, the pictures were pretty cool, so I posted it anyway. Enjoy!

"DENIM is a system that helps web site designers in the early stages of design. DENIM supports sketching input, allows design at different refinement levels, and unifies the levels through zooming."

Download DENIM now!

Ahh, the concept car. The epitome of pie-in-the-sky product design.

Follow the link for the Auto.com photo gallery of cars from the show. I particularly like the Saab 93-X.

My only wish: more fuel-cells. Combustion engines are, like, SO 20th century!

The always informative xBlog pointed me to this New York Times article: Wish List: 9 Innovations in Search of Inventors.

My favorite: the TIVOCORDER. I already carry a digital voice recorder everywhere I go (SUPER handy, by the way), but it doesn't have a rolling recording window like TiVo does. Man, that would be sweet!

Impressions after riding a Segway HT is a thorough review of the Segway HT. Unlike many other articles about the HT, Dan describes the experience of his two hours behind the, uh, handlebars.

Truly wireless 'blogging is now closer than ever with Handspring's announcement of the Treo 270.

I've always wondered what it's like to thumb one of those tiny keyboards. When I worked for Intel, everyone I knew had a Crackberry. The Treo keyboards look about the same size as the Crackberry's, but it's hard to tell from the pictures. I can't wait to play with one.

I wonder if our friends at IDEO had anything to do with this little gem? I know they worked on the original Treo.

The Amiga lives!

That's right, coolest OS from "back in the day" is still alive and still being developed.

Amiga recently published a preview of AmigaOS 4 containing screenshots of the upcomming OS.

At this point it looks largely like most Linuxes, save Intuition's snazzy menus. Also, there are no descriptions of how a user will interact with the system, but that's (unfortunately) to be expected from an OS company at this stage of the game.

If you poke around the Amiga website a bit, you'll find some of the principles guiding the development of the new OS. Quite interesting...

The Stanford Report is running a short story about a decanting cradle designed for a 27 liter bottle of wine from the Charles Krug winery. There is also a short video of the students at work. Neat!

(click on the image to view the related video)

Ben Bederson sent a message to the jazz-announce list today announcing Piccolo, a lightweight library for building interactive 2D graphical applications (with or without zooming). It's based on Jazz and was written by Jesse Grosjean, with support from Ben.

Lately, I've been looking for a way to endulge the programming geek in me. I've done a pretty good job of hiding it these last few years (most of the people I work with at Stanford don't even know I used to be a programmer). This toolkit looks like it might be a nice, digestable, way to start playing around in the oh-so-interesting world of ZUI's.

According to CNN, VW is going to release an updated Microbus in 2005.

For more about the Microbus concept, be sure to check out the Concept Cars page on VW.com.

Three Mac OS 10.2 quick hits this evening:
Chimera (now at ver. 0.5) is getting really good.

Ken Bereskin, the product manager for Mac OS 10.2, has a blog (thanks Thomas).

I downloaded iCal today. My life just got a whole lot more organized.

A couple new digital cameras were announced recently: FinePix F410 and the Nikon Coolpix SQ. Gadget. Lust. Setting. In.

A potentially historic moment: at 11:33 pm this evening, I ran Chandler 0.1 for the first time.

Ran across the new Canon Powershot SD10 today. According to the specs, the tiny SD10 is a 4 megapixel digital camera, able to take 3 minute long movies. Nice! Seeing as my old Fuji FinePix 40i is broken at the moment, a purchase might be in order - after a bit of saving, of course!

At this time last year, I was hard at work with a team of extremely talented developers, designing and building the humane computing environment that Jef Raskin described in his book, The Humane Interface.

That project basically fell apart after Jef passed away (for a number of reasons), but some of the developers went on to start a company founded on the principles of humane computing. That company is Humanized.

Today, Humanized released their first product, Enso, which comes in two flavors, Launcher and Words.

Launcher gives you lightening fast, mouse-free access to launching your programs by making use of a quasi-mode that you invoke by pressing the caps lock key. Finally, caps lock does something useful!

Words is invoked in the same way, but is adds a spellcheck that works exactly the same in every program - even programs that don't have spellcheck built in. Brilliant!

Both of the products do other things as well. I recommend checking out the demos on the Humanized site. You can also download trial versions of both products. You might also want to check out Walt Mossberg's review of the products.

I'm very proud of what the guys at Humanized have accomplished in less than a year. They've carried on Jef Raskin's work in a practical, accessible way that I'm sure will lead to some exciting innovations in both user interfaces and ways of interacting with your computer.

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Side note: Some of the work we did is still available at the Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces website.