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Thursday, May 02, 2002 |
"You can't afford usability testing! ...Or can you? Suneet puts usable design in the hands of the masses as she explains discount usability techniques." [Usability News by CodingTheWeb.com]
I'm hoping to get in some usability testing on the current SLS web site in order to start planning for the future one, so I'll be reading the above article very carefully.
11:42:55 PM Permanent link here
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" Our first product is the world's first fully functional wireless PDA keyboard. Its design is so compact that even when carried together with your PDA, it fits in your breast pocket. When unfolded, it offers traditional keyboard functionality....
With the relative size of a Palm m500, the Pocketop Keyboard is the smallest keyboard that offers the user the traditional touch, feel and functionality of a laptop keyboard. The wireless feature gives the Pocketop Keyboard the added advantage of universal compatibility with most Palm OS and PocketPC PDAs....
Wireless means universally compatible - its compatible with most Palm and PocketPC PDAs. Simply download the software from our web site if you buy a different PDA, and keep the same keyboard....
Rotational software allows Palm OS users to rotate the screen orientation on their PDA, which gives you added flexibility and multiple set-up alternatives." [via meryl's notes]
I've already had to get a second keyboard because my original GoType wouldn't work with my Sony Clie. This would be an excellent solution to the problem of obsolesence. It doesn't say when it will be available or how much it will cost.
I have to say, though, that if your Palm is laying flat on the surface, the glare would make it difficult to read, and if you prop it up, then it might as well be attached.
10:58:32 PM Permanent link here
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"To help develop Mr. Kellner's unfortunately common (at least in Hollywood) view of copyright, LawMeme offers the top ten new copyright crimes, as well as further choice quotes and commentary from Mr. Kellner's interview." [Lawmeme]
Definitely go read the whole thing for yourself (hint: librarians and librarians come out on top!), because Ernest also does a great job of summarizing reactions across the web to Kellner's recent comments about stealing his beloved content. I'm not sure which is my favorite part of his post - the fact that he found the site J. Kellner, Source of All Evil, or the anonymous comment that reads, "What if you fast forward through the plot of porn movies to the good parts?"
10:39:47 PM Permanent link here
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"Passengers on packed trains could unwittingly be exposed to electromagnetic fields far higher than those recommended under international guidelines. The problem? Hordes of commuters all using their mobile phones at the same time.
Tsuyoshi Hondou, a physicist from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, who is currently working at the Curie Institute in Paris, says Japanese commuter trains are often packed with people surfing the web on their mobile phones. The trend spurred him to find out what effect this had on the electromagnetic radiation in a train carriage....
'At the moment, we have no regulation on the use of mobile phones in areas where many people are together,' he says. The problem could also arise on buses and in some types of lifts (elevators), he adds." [New Scientist]
10:00:31 PM Permanent link here
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"Homes of the future could change their wallpaper from cream to cornflower blue at the touch of a button, says Dirk Broer. His team has developed paint-on liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that offer the technology....
Current LCDs on digital watches, mobile phones and laptops sandwich the crystal between heavy glass plates. The complicated production process is time-consuming, expensive and restricts the size of screens to just 1 metre square.
Broer and his colleagues have devised a new open-sandwich technique that instead deposits a layer of liquid crystal onto a single underlying sheet. Working at Eindhoven University of Technology and Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands, Broer's team has already produced prototypes on glass and plastic; fabric could be next.
The technique could create giant TV screens, digital billboards and walls that change colour. Slim, plastic LCDs sewn into fabric could display e-mail or text messages on your sleeve. 'It depends what future societies want,' says Broer.
The technique should feed people's thirst for smaller, cheaper gadgets. Conventional glass LCDs now make up an increasing part of a laptop's weight - plastic versions could change that, says Peter Raynes, who studies LCD technology at the University of Oxford, UK....
'Don't expect to buy a watch featuring one of the new displays in the next six months,' warns Raynes, however. He cautions that the technique needs work: compared with glass, the thin outer layer may be more easily penetrated by oxygen or water that degrade the crystal.' [Nature, via Slashdot]
This has definite implications for ebooks, PDAs, and wearable computers, among other things. Can the OQO be made even lighter? Or maybe you'll just plug it into your jacket and look at your sleeve. Does this make computer displays embedded in glasses even more feasible? Could I project a map onto the corner of my car's windshield using my PDA? So many ideas....
9:50:08 PM Permanent link here
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"Along came My.UserLand, an RSS-based portal with a difference: archiving. While MNN displayed only the latest version of a particular channel, UserLand archived snapshots on an hourly basis. The RSS 'aggregator' was born. Aggregation brings with it a new concept, the decoupling of items (stories) from their parent channels. Rather than a set of web sites being boiled down into rectangular news-boxes, RSS can be presented as a confluence of feeds from disparate sources with a focus on timeliness rather than channel. While maintaining an item's original association with its channel, Meerkat ('An Open Wire Service') presents items in reverse-chronological order, also allowing filtering, searching, grouping, and sharing." [via CodingTheWeb.com Newslog: RSS]
Unless you've seen and used an RSS news aggregator, you won't really understand that paragraph, but there is a lot of power in it. I'm struggling with the concept of RSS because I know how it helps me and I can see its potential in so many other contexts. But I don't know enough about it to help move my vision forward. Radio's news aggregator is a great starting point, but sometimes the limitations frustrate me.
This article by Rael Dornfest provides a nice, concise history of RSS that even I can understand (at least, on some level). It was written in July, 2000, and even then the whole metadata issue was rearing its head:
"As RSS continues to be re-purposed, aggregated, and categorized, the need for an enhanced metadata framework grows. Channel- and item-level title and description elements are being overloaded with metadata and HTML. Some are even resorting to inserting unofficial ad-hoc elements (e.g., <category>, <date>, <author>) in an attempt to augment the sparse metadata facilities of RSS.
Discussion forum syndicators are forced to rely upon title-based threading. Aggregators are grappling with the problem of providing information about the original source of an item when removed from its channel context. News syndicators are wondering where to embed a company's stock symbol, currently relegated to <title>(YHOO) Yahoo! announced...</title> silliness.
Solutions to these and future RSS metadata needs have primarily centered around a) the inclusion of more optional metadata elements in the RSS core, b) XML-namespace based modularization, and c) putting the RDF back into RSS. For an overview of the modularization versus core extension discussion, take a look at Leigh Dodds' recent XML-Deviant column, 'RSS Modularization.' "
Obviously some of these things have been addressed in the interim (Radio and other tools now support categories, titles, etc.), but as a librarian, I'm really missing the contexts that would link everything together. I should be able to easily find all of the blogs written by lawyers, librarians, or law librarians. Rael concludes that metadata is the key, and I find myself agreeing:
"RSS has seen a large degree of adoption from independent content producers, yet has failed to grab the attention of mainstream content providers. Perhaps the high eyeball/effort ratio message just hasn't been delivered. Or is it the "terminal beta" feel of RSS with its < 1.0 versioning that makes anyone but early adopters nervous? The word needs to get out, in executive summaries, and white papers, and adoption by more key mainstream web sites.
RSS also needs more "killer apps," which can be provided (in this author's opinion) by a richer metadata framework within which to build. Scalable extensibility is a must if RSS is to continue being re-purposed. Yet this extensible RSS must remain relatively simple (somewhere between HTML and hard-core RDF should do!) and backward-compatible in a way that will bring the current user-base along, rather than leaving it behind."
Obviously the generation of RSS feeds by the New York Times, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, and the Baltimore Sun are one giant leap for mankind, but we've still got a ways to go. So almost two years later, I'm asking the same questions Rael was - how do we get there?
9:22:34 PM Permanent link here
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"The Snewp is a revolutionary search engine serving today's results for today's searches, literally. Snewp indexes almost 6,000 sources every day, continually gathering news headlines from around the globe to provide a distinct twist to the standard search portal." [via Content Syndication with XML and RSS]
I hadn't seen this site before, but I was particularly thrilled to see that when you do a search, the results include an RSS link so that you can throw the feed into your news aggregator to monitor it. A search for librarian only shows four results, so I'd like to see what they're indexing, but it could be one to watch.
It would be great if all search engines could provide results as RSS feeds. I'll have to ponder this as we think about VIC version 2.
6:56:31 PM Permanent link here
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Apparently at least some Chicago Public Schools are testing blogging and even k-logging using Manila, thanks to Albert Delgado. Bravo for them! Hey, is the school library involved?
"If Chicago Public Schools wants to take learning technologies to the next level, they need to aggregate the wisdom and knowledge that resides in the CPS schools. Yes, most of the experts exist in the system and are already putting heavy hours in troubleshooting networks, servers, desktops and portables and planning and co-planning with their own staff in integrating technology into the curriculum. This is the wisdom that has been won with sweat, blood, unpaid extra hours and lack of sleep. There is no vehicle to aggregrate this information for the many educators saddled with the title of "school technologist". How about "re-wiring" the term "off the chain" ( I owe that one to Lee) How about using K-logs built around a Radio Community Server and really taking "off the chain" from our technology sages and eager newbies. We are waiting for the large beheamoth called Chicago Public Schools to wake up. Why wait! DYI " [Blogging from the Barrio]
5:33:57 PM Permanent link here
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"It’s not clear how many stores use the so-called 'wireless point-of-sale terminal,' but they are clearly on the rise. For example, Kmart announced last year it planned to install wireless technology in all 2,100 stores. Home Depot has wireless registers in more than 1,200 stores, according to published reports.
But there’s a downside to the nifty wireless technology. The data is broadcast as a radio signal, which carries outside the store.
Hackers, using laptop computers equipped with a special antenna, can listen in on such traffic, and if it’s not encrypted, they can read it almost like office workers read e-mail.
An anonymous security researcher announced on a computer security research mailing list Wednesday that several U.S. retailers have made the mistake of installing wireless cash registers and transmitting the traffic in clear text, without encryption. By sitting in the parking lot, the researcher said, he could 'listen in' on credit card numbers being beamed around the store.
Several researchers chimed in to say it was old news, discovered by the computer underground as much as two years ago....
Best Buy, the nation’s No. 1 consumer electronics retailer with 480 stores, was the retailer most often cited in the notes. The company responded quickly on Wednesday — spokesperson Donna Beadle, in an e-mail, said the company had 'deactivated our wireless temporary cash registers that transmit information via LAN connections....'
'I assume half the mailing list is going to be driving around their towns tonight scanning for this problem. I know I will,' wrote one." [MSNBC]
9:50:50 AM Permanent link here
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"She's hoping you'll pay $19.95 for the Britney Spears Wireless Fan Club (Britney WFX for short), which allows fans to receive voice and text messages from Britney Spears, lifestyle and fashion tips, exclusive logos and picture messages, horoscopes, fan polls and monthly contests and prizes via wireless phones.
Britney WFX, which goes on sale at Best Buys next Sunday, includes a membership card and a static cling decal." [Computer News Daily]
Even though I think Britney's popularity is waning and this service won't survive, I know it would intrigue Kailee.
8:50:04 AM Permanent link here
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"Two companies have announced plans to launch personal GPS 'location devices' this year, which will act as a kind of LoJack for everyone from meandering children to nervous executives in kidnap-prone countries.
One is a bracelet, which parents can lock on their kids' wrists to track their location and movements over the Internet, that is made by Wherify.
Another -- and the most sci-fi application by far -- an implantable GPS device that Applied Digital Solutions of Florida plans to develop within the next eight months....
Like a pacemaker, the device would be implanted in the upper clavicle area, he said. It would be powered by a lithium ion battery that can be recharged through the skin and use a proprietary antenna capable of transmitting signals through flesh and muscle....
Wherify, of Redwood Shores, California, has developed a bracelet that combines GPS and wireless technologies to allow parents to plot their kid's location and movement on a map over the Internet.
The device, which costs $400 plus a monthly $25 service fee, can be locked onto the child's wrist.
The company plans to launch the product by summer's end and is developing similar GPS location devices for adults, said Wherify president Timothy Neher.
'This technology is going to change the way people feel about stealing kids and raping women on bike paths,' he said. 'It's really going to help people feel safer.' " [Wired News]
I understand people who voluntarily want to be tracked in foreign countries, but I'm not sure I agree with forcing this on kids. Sure, as a parent I'm concerned, but I don't think I could implant a chip in my kids that removes all of their privacy. Putting GPS in a scooter so that you can find it when a kid loses it is one thing, but this is totally different. I'll be surprised if this gains general acceptance.
7:27:52 AM Permanent link here
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" 'The report dares to be un-sexy,'' he said. 'It does not call for legislation to solve this problem,' despite a strong push in Congress to pass laws requring such technology tools as pornography filters in schools and libraries. One such law, the Children's Internet Protection Act, is currently being challenged in federal court by a coalition of librarians and civil liberties groups; a decision in that case is expected this month....
The language of the report is meticulously balanced, but wryly conclusive. Filters designed to block naughty sites, the report explained, 'can be highly effective in reducing the exposure of minors to inappropriate content if the inability to access large amounts of appropriate material is acceptable....'
The report compared the problem of protecting children from online risks to dealing with a more mundane hazard of daily life. 'Swimming pools can be dangerous for children,' the authors wrote. 'To protect them, one can install locks, put up fences, and deploy pool alarms. All of these measures are helpful, but by far the most important thing that one can do for one's children is to teach them to swim.'
Herbert Lin, the director of the study, said, 'We think it's the most comprehensive report that's ever been done' on the subject.
Even those who disagree with its conclusions agreed with that evaluation. Bruce Taylor, the president and chief counsel of the National Law Center for Children and Families, said that the report will be the basic document for judges and lawmakers approaching these issues for the forseeable future: 'This is going to be the topic of conversation, the book on the coffee table, for the next two years,' he said....
Mr. Lin, echoing a statement by Mr. Thornburgh, said that the process of studying the issues shook the preconceptions that each participant brought to the process. Many of the participants, he said, believed at the beginning 'if only people would just do this - whatever `this' is - the problem would be all over. Nobody realized how complicated the process was,' he said." [NY Times: Technology]
7:20:50 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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