Maximum Entropy: On Resolving one of the Greater Mysteries in Our Information Universe

July 8, 2011 Leave a Comment

So where is the CD-ROM for this Springer ebook title - Entropy and energy?

If you follow the link to SpringerLink  (or my MyiLibrary version) to the actual ebook you won’t find it there (or really any clear indication from the contents view that anything is missing (you’d need to get some indication or reference to that in the text and then you’d still need to ask the right people to connect with the material).

If you go to  http://extras.springer.com/2005/978-3-540-24281-9  – voila! Now our Springer rep had to point me to that site when I inquired about the missing CD-ROM material and how that could be accessed. She suggested that we could just create a link in the note field of our bibliographic record for now until they can do better in the future…a good deal of needless energy to expend on our end, I’d say (and still somewhat confusing for the user if they don’t see the note in the record).

So for those with Springer ebooks, you should look to http://extras.springer.com/ with the ISBN for the book if you need to find a CD-ROM or other ‘extra’ material to go with your Springer book in ebook format. This is at least until Springer integrates/articulates the extra material with the ebook (sometime in the future).

You’d think in a more digital universe it’d be easier to bring all electronic material together (after all, it seems like it is far more complicated to arrange the electronic data on a physical medium and then bring one physical medium (the CD) together with another physical medium (the book).

Hopefully the coincidence of humour in using this title (Entropy and Energy) is not lost here as it seems rather arbitrary (or perhaps not) for our electronic information universe to be arranged (or disarranged) so. It was one thing for there to be incongruity with physical and electronic mediums, but I’m sure we can all do better in a digital information universe than this and have everyone spend a good deal less energy in trying to bring it all together.

Don’t get me wrong with this post that this is just an issue with Springer. Springer has shown it is a progressive publisher, especially in terms of publishing one of the largest STM DRM-free ebook collections (see Springer Launches DRM-free E-book Repository) and I certainly enjoyed having someone from Springer speak on the ebook panel I moderated at the 2008 SLA/MLA PrariePartnerships Conference to raise awareness and set expectations very high in what we could expect for ebooks. However, I don’t think we are doing ourselves any favours by not integrating our systems and simplifying our interfaces. We need to start pulling this all together and start by doing it in the right places.

Filed under eBooks, Scholarly Communication, Scholarly Publishing, User Experience

Gestural Interfaces: Are Wii having Fun in Physical Therapy?

January 8, 2009 Leave a Comment

Gestural interfaces were in their infancy not even a decade ago and they have really come a long way very recently.  About ten years ago when I was at NASA-GSFC, I attended a presentation by Joe Paradiso from MIT on his Gesture Wall.  I think Jeff Han’s presentation at TED in 2006 really grabbed some attention in terms of interacting with systems with a gestural interface.

The iPhone may have an abysmal battery life, but it is the first widespread consumer device to really have a gestural interface with its touchscreen.  Now the BlackBerry Storm and other phones are implementing the same kind of touchscreen technology. Like the iPhone and the iPod Touch, the Wii is a good example game system that uses a gestural interface.  I recently came across an innovative use for the Wii game system:

Nintendo Wii as Therapeutic Tool
Jon Udell’s Interviews with Innovators
20 minutes, 9.4mb, recorded 2008-12-15
Topics: Health and Medicine Science and Technology (general)

Although host Jon Udell isn’t an avid gamer, and neither is his wife Luann, he was intrigued when she came home from a physical therapy session raving about the Nintendo Wii. In this episode Luann talks about how the Wii, the Balance Board, and the Wii Fit application are helping her retrain the proprioceptors in her legs. Then we’ll hear from Anna Domyancic who, with Darren Gerber, runs Keene Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine. Like other physical therapists, they’re finding that the Wii can be a valuable therapeutic tool.

A number of research articles published in the past year show that the Wii game system has been used by many in physical therapy. Some are calling the use of this system in physical therapy ‘wiihabilitation’.

From having my own Wii and just using it out of the box, it’s amazing how sensitive the controllers are and the haptic feedback that some of the games provide to the game controllers.  It’s also amazing how immersive the games can be with having the Wii hooked up to an LCD projector when playing Metroid.

O’Reilly just published a new book on Designing Gestural Interfaces:

Designing Gestural Interfaces, 1st Edition
by Dan Saffer
Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Pub Date: December 3, 2008
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-596-51839-4
Pages: 272

Designing Gestural Interfaces provides you with essential information about kinesiology, sensors, ergonomics, physical computing, touchscreen technology, and new interface patterns — all you need to know to augment your existing skills in “traditional” web design, software, or product development. Packed with informative illustrations and photos, this book helps you: Get an overview of technologies surrounding touchscreens and interactive environments. Learn the process of designing gestural interfaces, from documentation to prototyping to communicating to the audience what the product does Examine current patterns and trends in touchscreen and gestural design Learn about the techniques used by practicing designers and developers today See how other designers have solved interface challenges in the past Look at future trends in this rapidly evolving field.

In the movie Minority Report, it seems that gestural interfaces are science fiction.  However, science fiction has quickly become science fact with technological innovations and a number of social and market forces at play.  Going from conventional keyboard and mouse to gestural and interactive environments., there are so many future possibilities in terms of how we design and develop these new interfaces.

Filed under Gaming, HCI, SciFi, Serious Games, Trends, User Experience, Visualization Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Geek Metaphors and Finding Religion this Holiday Season

December 20, 2008 Leave a Comment

Thanks to Darlene Fichter for re-posting the very viral posting If Programming Languages Were Religion (which is based on If Programming Languages Were Cars).  Dabbling in several languages, I know several very serious programmers that are completely monotheistic with this language or that.

This also reminds me of Neal Stephenson’s In the Beginning was the Command Line, where he likens various operating systems to cars (or, more aptly, various forms of land transportation): BeOS = Batmobiles, Linux = Tanks, Windows = Stations Wagons, amd Mac = MGBs (…though, he says, Batman fans might challenge me on classifying the Batmobile as a land vehicle).  In his book, Stephenson sets these four operating systems in dealerships in an automall and hits on the underlying ideologies in the following dialogue:

HACKER WITH BULLHORN: “Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!”

PROSPECTIVE STATION WAGON BUYER: “I know what you say is true…but…er…I don’t know how to maintain a tank!”

BULLHORN: “You don’t know how to maintain a station wagon either!”

BUYER: “But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music.”

BULLHORN: “But if you accept one of our free tanks, we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!”

BUYER: “Stay away from my house, you freak!”

BULLHORN: “But…”

BUYER: “Can’t you see that everyone is buying station wagons?”

This also reminds me of a popular College Humor video “If People Were Fonts“…which also reminds me of the fact that only geeks get this style of humour and that we love to pimp our products. Of course, resistance is futile, and, if you can’t keep up with technology and improve your skills, here’s where you may find yourself …Autoexec.bat editing or worse.

Filed under Geek Humour, Humour, Open Source, Trends, User Experience

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