While search and information reterival (IR) have made great strides we all know too well that the results spewed by the search engines mean nothing other than a matching keyword.
Can we add context to search? What we are looking for cannot always be translated into keywords and the same keywords have different meaning. Hard problem.
Syed Yasin, my relative, who works in R&D at Sobha Renaissance has been working on this interesting problem. Some time back they had a press release where they announced LMai. Below is the Video.
Some time back, I was looking at a demo in TED that talked about a multi-touch interface that allows for a different way to interact with computers. Well it has moved from the concept from Jeff Han lab into a more commercial space with Microsoft launching – “Milan”. You can watch the video on cnet: Microsoft Milan Video.
Underneath it is a Vista OS with a infra-red multi-sensor that allow the system to recognize more than one touch points. It is too expensive to buy for the home yet, but that will surely change in a few years.
While it has very interesting applications, it would be interesting to see how it can change our interaction with the PC?
One of the most difficult things is not to learn new things, but to unlearn what we already know.
Kiran, a good old friend send me an email with a link to a video on Human Computing Interface (HCI) researcher – Jeff Han, from Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU. Watch the video at: http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=j_han&flashEnabled=1
While we strive to achieve better user experience using Web 2.0/Ajax, Windows Vista Aero, Mac Aqua – maybe there is a way to leap frog and stop thinking in terms of the mouse and keyboard. We should be thinking HAL or the computer on the Star Ship Enterprise (don’t tell me StarTrek did not at least arouse your curiosity!)
My take on the connected world is ubiquitous computing – everything is connected and computing devices are a natural extension of your everyday life. When you use something so naturally, that you do not give it a second thought – that is UI perfection. There was an interesting project called “Aura” from Carnegie Mellon that I came across a few years ago. Not sure what the status of the project is now, but you can find out more at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aura/
HCI and wireless networking (my area of research) and a lot more will go into realizing the “true” digital world seamless.
Today I got to listen to Dr. Raj Jain in person, giving a talk on Internet 3.0 (a term he coined). He was was talking about what he though were the problem with today’s Internet and what he thought the new architecture would have – learning from our past experiences.
While there were may interesting aspects he covered under the GINA (Generalized Internetworking Network Architecture) like
Seperation of ID and address
Virtual seperation of control and data
Packet and Circuit swithing at differnt levels of abstraction for QoS. Best of both worlds – circuit and packet switching.
The most interesting thing was the architecture itself. For most of the issue today we have work around – be it firewalls (port blocking!), shortage of IP (NAT), etc. As he pointed out the foundation should be strong and broad so that implementers and user can then pick and choose what they want to implement or use. The more limited the scope the more we force the network onto the final user. Ideally the network have fundamental concepts that allow users to develop or use any kind of service that they want.. hard problem but solvable. All we need to do is distill the core concepts as building blocks that can then be used any way the user deems fit.
As users of any device, the more we use it the more sophisticated we get. As we use it more and more we see the limitation of design and wish for features that would extent our user experience. This is true especially with software and knowledge workers. That is were you can see where Google stands out.
Like many users when I am researching a topic on the Web you want to store urls, clips etc so that you can summarize your findings and then use them to form a more cohesive picture of the area you are investigating. I would do this using Microsoft OneNote or just Notepad or MS Word. It was a work around not a solution.
Futher my requirement changed – I work from 4 -5 different computers and want access to the same set of notes, as I move from one computer to another, so I was looking at how I could do this. Voolla! I found Google Labs – Google Notebook. Very easy to use does what I was expecting it to do.
Google is anticipating its user’s evolution and software needs. No wonder they are able to keep top of mind awareness – anticipate and innovate.
There are a lot of unsolved problem in the world. From as profound as “Where did we come from?” to as trivial as “Where did I come keep leave my keys?”.
One very interesting problem, that I had mentioned in one of my previous posts was the lack of online geographic data on places outside the US and Europe. So can the mass participation of people on the web help tackle this problem?
Today when I got home, Sabah showed me a cool site, Wikimapia – a play on wikipedia and maps. It turns out is a mashup using google maps and the concept of open participation of a Wiki.
I marked all the places I know of pretty quickly (talk about being territorial) and was able to find them because of information put up by other users. Soon I hope every inch of the globe is covered with relevant tags.
I was reading an interview on ENIAC’s co-inventor J. Presper Eckert and found out that Unisys had its root in ENIAC. Kind of nostalgic. I really liked what he said – “I am happiest when I am working on the edge of something — where there are not many people who have done it. When nobody has done it, it is pretty tough. That gets me excited.”
Now I know the feeling and why I get bored with something that I know has been done already.
You can read the interview here: Link to Article
About
Inventor of Y1D2-Model II - an advance robot capable of commonsense reasoning, natural language processing, gesture recognition, expressions and an uncanny set of dance moves .
It can even do your dishes and laundry. Seriously ;)
Kiran, a good old friend send me an email with a link to a video on Human Computing Interface (HCI) researcher – Jeff Han, from Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU. Watch the video at:
As users of any device, the more we use it the more sophisticated we get. As we use it more and more we see the limitation of design and wish for features that would extent our user experience. This is true especially with software and knowledge workers. That is were you can see where Google stands out.
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