The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions
A great visual depicting the many digital distractions that we encounter on a daily basis.

Study:  Fewer fields in a contact form sharply increases conversions
In the fall of 2007 and again in the spring of 2008, Imaginary Landscape performed a comparison of two types of contact forms on its Web site at www.imagescape.com.  The test compared an 11-field Contact Us form with a 4-field Contact Us form. The more abbreviated form resulted in a 160% increase in submitted forms.

Electrical Circuit Runs Entirely Off Power in Trees
You’ve heard about flower power. What about tree power? It turns out that it’s there, in small but measurable quantities. There’s enough power in trees for University of Washington researchers to run an electronic circuit, according to results to be published in an upcoming issue of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Transactions on Nanotechnology.

How to Design Buttons to Help Improve Usability
Buttons can play a big part in how visitors interact with a website. They come in varying shapes, sizes and styles but there are a few things to consider when designing buttons.

10 Productivity Tips for Web Designers and Developers
Productivity is something that all web designers and developers strive for. We all have too much work to do so anything that can help us along the way can make a big difference.

South African pigeon faster than broadband
A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country’s biggest web firm, Telkom. Winston the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles – in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data.

Zooming Interfaces for Augmented Reality on Phones
A video demonstrating this technology.

Digital Information Design Best Practices
What are some best practices for digital information design? There are many information design resources, however there are a few attributes that can make for an effective story with information design and infographics.
 
50 things that are being killed by the internet
The Internet has wrought huge changes on our lives – both positive and negative – in the fifteen years since its use became widespread.

The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data
What if you could do a little something to improve the world during your daily drive to work? Some interesting ideas from the official Google Blog.

Communicating User Experience Design
When trying to communicate the process of user centred design to senior managers it helps to convey the idea as concisely as possible. This infographic conveys the various steps and phases of user centred design on a single page.

User Experience Designers vs Creative Director
With roles constantly in-flux, how do these two differ and overlap?

9 Things You Can’t Forget When Designing a Blog
Designing a blog can be quite a daunting task, to be sure. To-do lists alone for could fill pages if you were to include all the minor details that accompany the project.

The Definitive Guide to About Me Pages
One of the most important and least used aspects of any website is the “About Me” page. It’s not enough to have an interesting site and great product if your visitor can’t find a way to relate to you.

Monopoly City Streets
Now you can play Monopoly using Google Maps! 

Organizations Should Leverage Social Sciences to Place Next-Generation Technology Jobs
As individuals and organizations progress in their adoption and leverage of the Web, new work streams and needs will arise, resulting in companies utilizing social sciences to fill next-generation technology jobs, according to Gartner, Inc.

The freelancer’s toolbox: 33 useful apps & websites for the freelance designer
As a freelancer, managing your time and business is mandatory if you want to get some time for designing. All the softares and websites introduced in this article can save you some precious time and money.

Web Design Trends: Call To Action Buttons
Call to action buttons are the buttons that you, as a web designer, want all your users to click on when they land on your page. Usually they’ll be a link to a download, sign up or sale. Seth Godin calls them bananas and your users are the monkeys. The objective is for the monkey to find the banana in less than 3 seconds (before they give up and leave). “Force yourself to design each and every page with one and only one primary objective. That’s the banana. Make it big. Make it blue (or red). Make it obvious.”

Moodboarding Methods for Web Designers
Moodboards help you gain a complete understanding of what you are trying to achieve design wise. They also keep you inspired, and you can create as many as you like for any one project.

10 Elements of Highly Effective Articles
Generally speaking, people visit your site for one of two reasons.  First, they come because you engage with them personally.  They are your friends and they visit to connect with you.  Second, they come for your articles.  They come because they view you as an authority in your field and they want to learn from you.  Or maybe they come because your writing entertains them. 

Best of Best WordPress 404 Error Page Designs
High bounce rate can negatively impact your website by decreasing your revenue from advertisers and more. You can reduce the bounce rate and increase pageviews by simply optimizing your 404 Error Page.

5 Steps to Streamline your Creative Process
This article summarizes how to streamline a creative process to make it as efficient as possible.

How They Did It: District 9
How did a largely unheralded Vancouver VFX facility land the job of creating amazing CG aliens for one of the coolest movies of the summer?

Related posts:

1. Best of the Web Weekly Roundup: Aug 29 – Sept 4
2. 20 User Experience Books you should own
3. The 10 Commandents for Designing Less Evil Forms

The Cardinals now join the Bills, Seahawks, Titans, Bengals, Panthers, Chargers, 49ers, Raiders, Vikings and the Lions on NFL’s club technology platform. Congrats to all who made this possible. We hope the fans love their new Cardinals home.  Check it out, and all comments are welcome!

Related posts:

1. DetroitLions.com redesigned and ready for new season!
2. Raiders.com Redesigned and Launched
3. 49ers Redesigned Site Now Live

The Lions now join the Bills, Seahawks, Titans, Bengals, Panthers, Chargers, 49ers, Raiders, Vikings and the Cardinals on NFL’s club technology platform. Congrats to all who made this possible. We hope the fans love their new Lions home.  Check it out, and all comments are welcome!

Related posts:

1. Raiders.com Redesigned and Launched
2. AZCardinals.com Revamped for 2009 NFL Season Kickoff
3. 49ers Redesigned Site Now Live

The Raiders now join the Bills, Seahawks, Titans, Bengals, Panthers, Chargers, 49ers, Lions, Vikings and the Cardinals on NFL’s club technology platform. Congrats to all who made this possible. We hope the fans love their new Raiders home.  Check it out, and all comments are welcome!

Related posts:

1. DetroitLions.com redesigned and ready for new season!
2. AZCardinals.com Revamped for 2009 NFL Season Kickoff
3. 49ers Redesigned Site Now Live

The Emotion Jacket

Paul Lemmens, a cognitive scientist in the User Experiences group of Philips, is researching the connection between emotion and touch, and how this can be used to evoke a wide range of emotions from excitement to relaxation. A jacket is worn by the user and it responds to signals encoded in a watched DVD. These signals trigger 64 independently controlled vibration motors that are distributed across the arms and torso.  This complex system of touch can then cause a shiver to go up a viewer’s spine or create butterflies in their stomach; and many other emotions to compliment the viewing experience. This kind of experience will heighten viewer empathy, by creating an emotional connection between them and the characters in the movie. Scientifically, this is a relatively unexplored territory, but as humans we have an intimate and innate connection between emotion and touch. Things look very promising for Philips as they strive to create a richer and more immersive entertainment experience for their customers.

The Hug Shirt™

This invention became famous when exhibited at Wired magazine’s NextFest and was named one of the best inventions for 2006 by Time Magazine. The Hug Shirt™ is worn and used to send and receive hugs over distance. Embedded in the shirt are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the wearer. Actuators (receivers) also recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug that has been sent from the distant sender. This experience is created by sending data from the shirt (via Bluetooth) to your mobile device, which in turn delivers the hug data to your friend’s phone, and ultimately to their shirt.  Even if one of the two doesn’t have a shirt, the “shirtless” can create and send a virtual hug using HugMe™ software running on their mobile device. Apart from the technology itself being noteworthy, a user-centered approach including prototypes and user testing was part of the product’s design process. Furthermore, this approach moved it to market more quickly with better results.

Shape Shifting Garments

In the spring of 2007, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan exhibited a range of clothing which demonstrated the use of memory shape alloys in haute couture design. Shape memory alloys potentially allow for perfect fit adjustable shaped garments. When you run a particular current through a fabric, a shape is created which is ‘remembered’ when the current is switched off. Apply a different current and a different shape is created. In other words, you have programmable clothing. This allows zippers to be closed, cloth gathered, and hemlines to rise, without human assistance.  Now you have fashion as you see fit, literally.

The Kickbee

Corey Menscher, a father-to-be, has constructed a device called the Kickbee that notifies him when his unborn baby kicks inside the womb. The Kickbee is a stretchable band with attached sensors, and is worn by a pregnant mother over her stomach. A micro-controller in the band then captures the movement of the baby kicking, and transmits the signals wirelessly to an application on a nearby computer. The computer in turn broadcasts short messages of “I kicked Mommy!” on Twitter, which can be shared with family and friends. As an expecting father, I see this as some kind of surrogate experience, a substitute for the real thing.

Force Feedback Gamer’s Vest

TN Games® has come up with an incredibly immersive impact-generating technology that utilizes an air compressor system to fire pneumatic cells, each capable of delivering up to 5 lbs of force. These cells fire at their own rates, force, and duration, giving players a wide set of sensory experiences that include punches, kicks, stabs, bullets, blasts, G-force, and other types of environmental contact effects. So if you were playing your favorite First Person Shooter, and you got hit by a bullet, you would feel the physical impact of the round, just as the game character would. The 3rd Space vest is the first product to harness TN Games’ impact-generating technology. The vest communicates with compatible games to give precise, 3 dimensionally accurate impacts where it happens, as it happens. You have to wonder about the safety of technology like this, especially under prolonged use and its potential for modification.

The Kokoro

Anaid Gomez Ortigoza, a student at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, is working on a project called ‘kokoro’ which is a wearable play-list generator for the iPod. What really stands out is the device’s ability to play music based on the pace of the user’s heart-rate. The idea is that your heart-rate changes based on your emotion or activity, and through rate change, your heart becomes an interface between you and your iPod. Matching songs to these variable rates will ideally match songs to your emotional or physical state. And while you may want to rely strictly an automatic match, there is still the ability for the user to override their heart’s choice by choosing a faster or slower setting. This works by picking up the wearer’s heart-rate via a sensor, and then transmitting the data to the Kokoro electronic device, which is housed in a textile pouch connected to an iPod.  This is a pretty simple concept but it represents a much more complex idea. That is, our body interfacing with devices on a passive and emotional level, and in doing so, freeing up our attention to focus on work or activities that require cognitive effort.

SmartLife HealthVest™

SmartLife® Technology have developed a textile based technology platform that monitors vital health signs such as ECG, heart rate, EMG, respiration, tidal flow and skin temperature. When worn, this technology continuously monitors a person’s vital signs throughout their daily lives on a 24/7 basis. The garments are designed in a very user-centric fashion, whereby the sensors are automatically in contact with the skin, their position is correctly located and the wearer requires little instruction for set-up or routine use. Data collected by the SmartLife HealthVest™ can be transmitted in real time via Bluetooth to a remote computer, PDA, or even a cell phone which in turn can alert medical personnel if necessary. The technology represents a paradigm shift from traditional high cost patient monitoring in hospitals to affordable unobtrusive remote personalized monitoring in the home or on the go; and is also an excellent example of how technology can enhance rather than disrupt life. SmartLife® stays true to their name by following a user-centered design, and turning health monitoring into a pleasant user experience. Now if only this replaced visits to the dentist!

“HAL” Robot Suit

Tsukuba University’s professor Yoshiyuki Sankai can stand tall as the inventor of this “Hybrid Assisted Limb®” or HAL. This technology is essentially a robot suit that can expand and improve the wearer’s physical capabilities.  When the wearer attempts to move, nerve signals are sent from the brain to the muscles. At this moment, HAL detects bio-signals on the surface of the skin and interprets the wearer’s intention before they actually move.  This enables HAL to move  as the wearer moves, in a synchronized non-delayed unison. Cyberdyne has embraced the overwhelming potential of HAL, and is expected to produce units for rehabilitation and physical training, disabled people, heavy labor, disaster rescue and entertainment. To own one will set you back nearly $60,000.

Soldier’s Suit

Whether we agree or not with how money is being spent on arms, the military is constantly looking to gain the edge through innovation. This desire provides a unique opportunity for technology and designers to save U.S. soldier’s lives. In 2020, the U.S. Army will roll out a suit that integrates nanotechnology, exoskeletons and liquid body armor. The suit’s helmet will house a GPS receiver, radio and network connections which enable each solider to be in constant contact with each other, and act either as individuals or as a collective. Closest to the body, a Warrior Physiological Status Monitoring System contains sensors that monitor physiological indicators such as heart-rate, blood pressure and hydration. This data is then relayed to medics who can determine whether to send in support, or provide feedback, and will be able to easily see where the solider is on a map. As protection, liquid body armor made of magnetorheological fluid protects the wearer. This fluid remains in a liquid state until an electrical pulse is applied. At this point, the armor changes from a soft state into a rigid state within thousandths of a second and protects the soldier by deflecting incoming bullets. Improving the soldier’s strength by 300% is made possible by a lower body exoskeleton made of lightweight composite devices attached to the wearer’s legs. The exoskeleton will also serve as a platform for mounting high-powered weapons. Researchers hope to see this developing technology mature in the next 15 to 20 years.

Invisibility Cloak

Firstly, as ridiculous as this sounds, inventing an invisibility cloak is based on physical laws. We see objects when the light falling on these objects is reflected back from their surface and into our eyes. The idea is to develop a device that prevents light from reflecting back into our eyes. Glass is already accomplishing such a thing, as we look right through it, but obviously wearing glass is not going to make us invisible. So what can possibly make the wearer invisible? Well according to researchers, the cloak design makes use of tiny needles to be fitted into a hairbrush shaped cone at angles and lengths that would force light to pass around the wearer. The major limitation of the current design is that it can bend light of a single wavelength and so only renders the object invisible under that specific wavelength of light. Developing a similar device that can bend lights of all wavelengths is still a technological challenge for researchers, but they have stated that it is possible according to the laws of physics. Even with invisibility under a single  light wavelength, the cloak could shield soldiers from night vision goggles. It could also be used to hide objects from laser designators used by the military to illuminate a target.  Sorry Harry Potter fans, you’re going to have to wait until technology catches up to you.

Bullet Dodging Body Armor

IBM was recently granted a patent for bionic body armor, originally filed last March, that’s intended to enable the wearer to dodge bullets. The device works by constantly emitting electromagnetic waves that bounce off any fast-moving projectiles. If the object in question is determined to be a threat, muscle stimulators activate and cause the wearer’s body to contort in such way to avoid being hit. It works under the idea that a sniper typically fires from a distance, given the armor time to detect the oncoming bullet and react accordingly. You have to wonder if The Matrix was a source of this inspiration.

Wearable Agriculture Suit

The Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has developed an agriculture robot suit tailored to the 40% of Japan’s farm workers who are over the age of 65. Shigeki Toyama, a professor in robotics who developed the robotic harvesting and pruning suit, sought to make it industry and task-specific in order to generate cost savings in producing the suit. With Japan’s aging population, this solution seems to present a transition between human workers and what will ultimately become fully robotic ones. So you want to retire at 65? Forget it! Put this suit on and get back to work!

So what does all of this mean to us as designers?

• Firstly, I think it means we need to be aware of what technology exists and what is being developed out there. Think creatively and figure out how it can be leveraged and harnessed appropriately.
• Big corporations appreciate the massive potential of wearable technology, and are already filing patents, building prototypes and releasing to market. Take note of emerging players and follow them closely.
• Identify which industries are hungry for this kind of innovation. So far, entertainment, health care, fashion, sports and the military are embracing wearable technology.
• As designers we should be looking for lifestyle and vocational problems to solve. We have the ability to create experiences that can dramatically improve productivity through highly functional and pragmatic design. Designs can literally save and improve the quality of lives.
• Conduct ethnographic research by observing users “in the wild”.  This should be done prior to design to get an idea of how they go about their daily lives, and then again once they’re wearing the technology to see how it’s positively or negatively affecting them.
• Understand that designing wearable technology might be about allowing users to express themselves. This is especially true in the fashion and lifestyle industries.
• For certain applications, users will expect to experience things emotionally and physically.
• Identify data points and triggers on the human body. Think of how the wearer’s anatomy can be an interface for technology, in both directions. We are after all, a wonderful showcase of biological, chemical and electrical technology.
• Become skilled at sketching concepts and storyboarding. There could be many visual ways to communicate an idea, but make sure to place emphasis on storytelling. We may be dealing with abstract user interfaces that do not need wireframes, but rather require visual explanations for how the interface is used and technology works.
• A new kind of designer will be needed to pioneer and support the advancement and design of wearable technology. A hybrid set of skills will be required, with ideal candidates possessing a deep understanding of user experience principles, industrial design, and perhaps a background in technology too. There might also be demand for designers from specific industries such as fashion, health care, sports, etc.  But either way, designers that are massively out-of-the-box thinkers, will be highly sought after by both start-ups and corporations alike.

With this emerging technology and rapidly evolving user experience frontier, we should not abandon a user-centered approach to designing wearable technology. Staying true to this philosophy will make the transition for both users and designers a less stressful and more enjoyable one.  Yet while we stay the user-centered course, as designers we need to adapt and evolve our skills. Who knows, it might not be long before we’re wearing technology to design wearable technology.

Related posts:

1. IBM patents Matrix-style, bullet dodging armor
2. 20 User Experience Books you should own
3. 'Wearable Agrirobot' Power Suit Helps Aging Farm Workers

Using the Web can still be a very annoying experience!

We’ve come a long way on the web today. Or have we?  While we’ve innovated in many areas, we’ve also continued to disregard pre-existing issues. And in some cases, we have also created new ones. Here is my list of the top 65 most annoying things about the web today. They’re in no particular order, but I have organized them into what I consider core groups.

Poor Design

1. Illegible text. I can’t read that, it’s too small. And what on earth is that font called?
2. Busy backgrounds.  Oh MySpace, why do you allow users to create profiles like that? My eyes hurt.
3. Obscure links. I’m confused, can I click on that or not? Oh I get it, you don’t want me to view other pages.
4. Flyouts that are too large. Holy crap Yahoo!  This is a page within a flyout!
5. Drop-down menu navigation too many levels deep. OK, if I slowly move my mouse this way first… dammit Jim, I’m a doctor not a magician!
6. Complicated navigation. I just want to get to that page, the one over there! Oh I see, you want me to complete the maze first.
7. Abused centerpieces. Aren’t centerpieces supposed to serve as mechanisms for promotion, rather than areas to cram an entire page’s worth of content into itself? Call me an idealist, I guess.
8. Poor navigation labels. Give me a clue and use labels that make sense!
9. Clutter & chaos. With no emphasis or information hierarchy, it’s difficult for me to know what to look at, and what to do next.
10. Ugly WAPs. Many companies treat their WAP sites like a deformed step-child they keep in the basement.
11. Splash screens. Nice, a road block between your user and your home page.

Unfindable Information

1. Dysfunctional site search. (Sigh) Why didn’t this site just use Google?
2. Too many blog categories. Isn’t this what tags were meant for?
3. Contact info. I just want to speak to them on the phone! And when I say “them” i mean a human.
4. Invisible sign in. OK, so I registered, but how do I sign in?
5. Hidden account closure. I guess I’m a member for life now?
6. Unscannable info. I want to quickly know if this article is relevant. But alas, huge paragraphs, long headlines and no subheadings make for an unscannable chunk of data, and an indigestible piece of gristle.

No Content Strategy

1. No focus. Yada, yada, yada. Get to the point, what’s your message and what do you offer?
2. Spelling & grammar. Spelling mistakes are hard to forgive and really hurt credibility.
3. Ineffective product pages: What am I buying? Why should I buy this? Help me understand, and I’ll move down the purchase funnel!
4. Outdated. There’s nothing more thrilling than seeing a blog frozen in time. At some point, a landfill for websites is going to be needed.
5. Small photos. Why would I buy something I cannot see?

Auto-Behavior

1. Auto-playing home page video. Take note ESPN.com: the first thing I do when coming to your site is scramble to find the video pause button. And that’s when I’m surfing from home.
2. Auto browser resizing. And you did that because?
3. Customer service nags. Ironic really. Chat pop-ups appear like genies out of a lamp when I don’t need them.
4. Theme tunes. Got to love that auto-play music, especially when it cycles over and over and over, and over.
5. Auto opt-ins. It seems like an automatic opt-in is a contradiction in terms to me. No I don’t want your newsletter, and if I did, I’d opt-in.

Evil Forms

1. Unreadable captchas. Pure Evil. If I had a brick, why I would…
2. Too many fields. This is utterly exhausting. Oh forget it, I’m going to abandon this form.
3. Cryptic error messaging. OK, so I made a mistake. If you used English, I might be able to fix it.
4. No confirmation. Was I successful or not? I’m looking for anything here, a “thank-you”, a “job well done”, a “good boy”… anything that confirms the form was indeed a submitted form.
5. Too many constraints. I want to add my Canadian zip code, but you’re validating against the US format only!
6. Too small fields. How I’m supposed to enter my street address in that state-sized field?
7. The reset button. Do we really need this? I especially love it when I accidentally press “reset” instead of “submit”. It’s especially satisfying when it’s a long form.

Intrusive Advertising

1. Pop-ups. And that includes those fancy, flashy, moving, hard-to-close ones. Are you serious? This is 2009.
2. Interstitials. Thanks for adding another click and creating a barrier between me and your content! Give me a reason to leave, I dare you.
3. Flyouts via links in content. Oh darn, I didn’t know that was an ad! Thanks for punishing me.
4. Too many Google ads. I know there’s some content around here….
5. Long video pre-rolls. Is this ad ever going to end? Hang on; I forgot what video I clicked on.
6. The bus stop. Home pages that resemble bus stops — flyers, posters, graffiti all shouting at me. Sometimes, I swear I can even smell urine.

Accounts

1. Remembering user names and passwords. Seriously, how many do I need to keep track of? Just give me Facebook connect already!
2. Being forced to register for purchases. I just want to buy it, OK? Forget it, I’m going elsewhere.
3. Forced password reset. I just want to know my password! The one I chose but have forgotten. I know you know.
4. Getting locked out. I get the three-attempts-and-you’re-out idea, but it would be nice to know the rules before hand!
5. Password sent by “snail mail”. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Should I expect a scroll to be delivered and read by a messenger?

Abuse

1. Spam. We still cannot cure this disease?
2. Viruses. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d say the anti-virus companies were creating these. You know, supply and demand and all.
3. Phishing. Particularly sneaky; and definitely a step beyond annoying.
4. Trolls on messageboards/blogs. Oh well, that’s life I guess – art imitating life and all.
5. Fake profiles. Am I following the real Steven Hawking on Twitter? It says here he went bowling last night.
6. Facebook app invitations. For the thousandth time, no I do not want to play Mob Wars, and no I don’t want a “pet in an egg” either.

Technology

1. Explorer 6. I speak for all developers here, if there’s a plug attached, please pull it. RIP Explorer 6.
2. Plug-ins. Not only do I have to download another plug-in, I have to keep these things current!
3. Entire sites built in flash. I don’t get it, why?
4. PDF overuse. Why couldn’t this PDF just be a web page?
5. Dell’s Netbook trackpad. Designed to be web browsing device, Dell’s Mini 10 trackpad has a trillion bells and whistles, but cannot fulfill basic tasks like moving the cursor from point A to point B without going to C first.
6. Small netbook screens. While mobile devices have optimized views for their screens, Netbooks and their 9 and 10 inch screens are caught in a weird place.
7. Inconsistent colors. Optimizing colors and contrast across both Macs and PCs is a designers nightmare.
8. Charging for Wi-Fi. Provide it free of charge, and the patrons will come!

Waiting

1. Slow page load. OK that’s it, I’ve been patient and their 3 seconds are up.
2. Comment approval. I thought, I articulated, I commented, I waited. Nothing.  That will teach me to contribute.
3. Black-hole between ordering and shipping. I took me 5 minutes to order this laptop, why isn’t it getting shipped? Should I place my order again? Should I cancel this order? What’s the order status?
4. Twitter is down again. I’m starting to think this is a feature. One akin to a long line outside a trendy night club.
5. Customer service. Since I cannot get a human on the phone, a 24 hour response time to my e-mail is not acceptable. Well look at that, I guess you just quantified the value of my business.
6. Submission timers. I saw this really great article! I know, I’ll post it on Reddit. And there’s another one, I’ll post that on Reddit too. What, I have to wait 10 minutes to post another article? That will  teach me to contribute.

Related posts:

1. The 10 Commandents for Designing Less Evil Forms
2. Best of the Web Weekly Roundup: September 5–11

Touchable Holography - feeling raindrops

Mid-air displays have been seen in Science Fiction movies for several decades. As an example of this interactive holographic experience, the recreational “Holodeck” in Star Trek, instantly springs to mind. 

While holograms already exist as virtual objects hovering in front of the user, you cannot touch and feel this object. However, amazingly the University of Tokyo is now demonstrating touchable holography, an emerging technology that brings with it the sensation needed to complete the interactive experience between user and object. For example, when the raindrop hits the user’s palm, he feels tactile sensation. And in another demonstration the user sees and feels a small virtual creature running on his palm.

These are definitely early days, but this opens up call kinds of opportunities for how we interface with applications, games, and even each other.

Watch the video below to see the technology working!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts:

1. VisionAire Multi-touch Holograms
2. U-Tsu-Shi-O-Mi Virtual Humanoid
3. Palm Pre Video Capture Test

How this works
Each of your senses (touch, smell, sight, taste, hearing) sends information to the brain at a different frequency. The brain determines where the sensory information it receives comes from by the frequency at which it resonates, it can then process it in the appropriate way (e.g. turn sight information from the eyes into pictures in the mind).  

An array of resonators positioned on the surface of an Eye Candy transmit information from the tongue to the brain at the frequency that the eyes usually send visual information to the brain. A pleasant sensation of soda bubbles can be felt on the tongue as the mind decodes this sensory information as vivid pictures.

What are the available flavors?

• RELAX –  Tranquil fish swimming through the streams of your consciousness will help you to unwind.
• SOCIALISE - The shooting stars will encourage sociability.
• ASSERT – A big thumbs is guaranteed to reassure and motivate you.
• MEDITATE – The the slowly shrinking circle helps you to meditate.
• OVERCOME – Images of spiders will enable you to overcome your fears.
• FOCUS – Direction giving arrows help to improve focus and attention.

Head on over to EyeCandy.com and order yours, just make sure not to mix flavors! Is this a step in the path of replacing chemically induced “highs” with electronically induced “highs”?

Is this legit?
I’ll admit, it’s hard to believe this is legit.  But before you make your mind up, watch the Wired Science video below, which shows a very similar device used by a blind person to read numbers on playing cards as if he was looking right at them, and even follow a path drawn on the ground.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Update: Well it turns out the Eye Candy product is actually a spoof, but the technology is very real.

Related posts:

1. Nintendo Wii 2.0: A mind-controlled console
2. 'Wearable Agrirobot' Power Suit Helps Aging Farm Workers
3. Touchable Holography, an Emerging Technology

Refocus Imaging, Inc. is an early-stage company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Refocus is taking the next big step in photography, transforming the camera into a powerful computational platform.

A Refocus camera can do things that have been considered impossible since the invention of photography. The ability to focus a picture after you take the shot is one striking example, and only the tip of the iceberg.

The device captures the entire light field entering the lens, which can be compared to a three-dimensional CT scan, enabling doctors to effectively look at the interior of a person from any direction.  This technique has several possible advantages. For one thing, being able to focus images after the fact means that cameras could take a picture sooner without waiting for an auto-focus mechanism to lock in. For another, because the depth of field also is adjustable along with focus, a pro photographer could fine-tune a picture to properly blur a background or get just the right amount of a subject in focus.

Refocus Imaging’s approach has produced revolutionary results. Refocus Imaging is redefining photography. Computational imaging is the future.

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The Kickbee is a stretchable band with attached sensors, and is worn by a pregnant mother over her stomach. A microcontroller in the band then captures the movement of the baby kicking, and transmits the signals wirelessly to an application on a nearby computer. The computer in turn broadcasts short messages of “I kicked Mommy!” on Twitter, which can be shared with family and friends. 

The device is not yet available for purchase, but you can follow the Kickbee on Twitter.

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Megan Fox on the cover of Esquire Magazine, June 2009.

Captured on the Red One Digital Camera (that’s a frame resolution of 4096×2304, or 9.4 megapixels), the video-sourced cover image of Megan Fox,  is thought to be a first in the magazine industry, challenging traditional SLR photography and the distinctions of photo vs video.

In terms of where this technology is best suited, I would imagine this approach makes more sense for shooting sports and other high-speed subject matter. Where a millisecond can make the difference between a great shot and a bad one.

Sadly, this is yet another step towards automating the photographic process, and leaving the photographer’s skill of anticipating and capturing a moment in time, obsolete.

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The Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has developed an agriculture robot suit tailored to the 40% of Japan’s farm workers who are over the age of 65. Shigeki Toyama, a professor in robotics who developed the robotic harvesting and pruning suit, sought to make it industry and task-specific in order to generate cost savings in producing the suit.

With Japan’s aging population, this solution seems to present a transition between human workers and what will ultimately become fully robotic ones.

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Obscura Digital has teamed their special multi-touch software with the Musion Eyeliner Hologram Projection System to produce an amazing interactive tool for presenters to use whereby they can manipulate 3-D holographic images in the air. Aptly called VisionAire, the single or multiple users can shrink, zoom and turn the images by simply moving their hands.

It’s best not to toss out the laser pointer just yet as the expense and scope of this technology is clearly earmarked for large scale presentations. But it’s cool to know handling holograms like this is not just the stuff of movies like Minority Report.

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The world’s first iBar was installed at 24, a high-end Soho nightclub in London, and is already a smashing success! The $147,000 table tops have sensors that detect what you’re drinking, so when you can’t remember how many something-tinis you had, the gizmo will figure it out for you by scanning the shape of your glass.

If that doesn’t blow your mind, experts are guessing that in the not-so-distant future, picking up your tab will be as easy as placing your bank card on the 12 ft bar. They also say the interactive device will be able to upload pics and vids from your mobile to show off to other drinkers in the same way. Plus customers will be able to flick through food menus, special drinks offers and jukebox tracks using their finger.

Check out the video to see the iBar in action!

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Moving away from sloppy remotes, Nintendo Wii is entering the brainwave era with a slick mind-controlled console. At least this is the thrilling desire of hi-tech dreamers over at T3 Magazine who want to see jaws dropping and brain cells working their way through gaming.

The ground-breaking concept, part of the magazine’s future tech feature, introduces the idea of a Wii headset accessory that allows the mind of the user to control edgy characters through the popular action games and sporting events. Also featuring immersive in-ear headphones for enhanced experience, the cutting-edge Nintendo will be able to capture the brainwaves of the excited gamer and turn it into a digital action in the cyber world.

Inspired by the revolutionary Emotiv wireless device, the Nintendo Wii 2.0 relies on technology that is not simply a spark in the science fiction sphere.

Could this bring a whole new meaning to the word, “Couch Potato”? At least with the current Wii, folks are up-and-about, burning calories, twisting ankles and breaking HD TV’s.

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Because there are so many things to consider in choosing a Content Management System that fits your needs, I’ve included a series of articles that each takes a slightly different angle at addressing this challenge.

Choosing a CMS
You’ve decided that your organization needs a content management system ( CMS), but what’s the best way to find the right system among the many out there? We’ll discuss strategies for choosing the best one for your type of organization and walk you through the selection process. Read More >

Also worth reading:

10 Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS  
(By Smashing Magazine)

How to choose the right CMS 
(ByWebdesigner Depot)

Always remember to research a CMS before investing time and money in it. Never forget that the main purpose of a CMS is to make creating and editing content simple and easy. Never sacrifice the user experience for functionality.

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As in "The Matrix", this armour will enable the wearer to dodge bullets

IBM was recently granted a patent for bionic body armor, originally filed last March, that’s intended to enable the wearer to dodge bullets. The device works by constantly emitting electromagnetic waves that bounce off any fast-moving projectiles. If the object in question is determined to be a threat, muscle stimulators activate and cause the wearer’s body to contort in such way to avoid being hit. It works under the idea that a sniper typically fires from a distance, given the armor time to detect the oncoming bullet and react accordingly.

Background of the invention
According to the patent:

Historically, certain individuals have been exposed to the threat of assassination because of their status in society. Examples of these individuals include, but are not limited to, high ranking politicians, clerics, successful industrial entrepreneurs, and military personnel. These individuals tend to be most vulnerable during those times when they are publicly addressing large crowds, making them easy targets for snipers.

In the past, the only effective protection against “sniper fire” has been to wear bullet proof body armor. Numerous types of bullet proof body armor are available, many of which are constructed of multiple layers of ballistic fabric or other ballistic-resistant materials assembled into a ballistic panel. However, bullet proof body armor is typically heavy, clumsy, and uncomfortable to wear, and generally leaves the head of the individual wearing the body armor completely unprotected and exposed. Furthermore using armor-piercing ammunition renders body-armors even less effective and desirable.

When a marksman (such as a sniper) is attempting to fire a projectile from a firearm, the marksman typically prefers to be as far away from the target as possible, thus giving him or her a head start for the escape after the firing. As an example, the longest reported sniper hit was from a distance of about 2500 meters, resulting in a time of flight of about 4 seconds for the projectile/bullet. Had the target been aware of the inbound projectile, avoiding it by simply walking away would have been possible. As almost everyone can appreciate, the best protection against the damage caused by an impacting projectile is to avoid being hit in the first place.

Figure from the Patent

 I’m curious to know how the wearer is going to feel, after they’ve been jerked around like a rag doll.   I suppose the only consolation is that a bad user experience is better than a dead user experience. My apologies, I couldn’t resist going there.

You can read the full patent here >

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Channels could be changed using voice commands or gestures, Pearson told The Daily Mail. “You will just pop it into your eye in the morning and take it out at the end of the day,” he said.

Pearson’s predictions are in contrast to how consumer electronics companies have been pushing bigger TVs. In the last few years, advances in plasma and LCD panel technologies along with falling prices have made it easy to buy TVs with up to 100-inches in screen size.

But Pearson believes that trend will change and contact lenses that double up as personal TV sets could be reality within the next ten years.

Already scientists have taken the first steps towards making contact lenses more powerful and versatile, says LiveScience. Digital contact lenses that can zoom in on objects and display related information have been tested on rabbits for up to 20 minutes. Digital and programmable contact lenses will be the next big step, say futurists like Pearson.

Wow, cool. But something just doesn’t seem right here. The human eye does have limitations, especially when it comes to focusing on an object that close. Furthermore, there are the safety issues.  Cell phones are controversial enough, can you imagine gunning down the freeway, while watching the Champions League final, and not the road.

This is in my opinion a classic case of something that sounds good, but is full of impractical baggage. OK, so it might work itself nicely into the next Bond flick as a gratuitous gadget. Enter Q.

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