Prototype No. 5
Wet mega
Once I was a little light
You are here
100 years of prototyping
Gene at Fredshouse.net – reflecting on Rem Koolhaas / IDEO’s Prada disappointments – does some expectation-setting around deploying tech beyond the desktop:
“I’m not surprised that Prada’s experience has been less than delightful. We did some large-scale demo systems and real-world user experiments in cooltown, and we discovered some serious challenges in deploying even relatively simple ubiquitous computing technologies.
…what seems straightforward to build and run in the lab, is an order of magnitude harder to make work in the world. Using wireless LAN? Count on interference. Using infrared? Count on sunlight and heat sources. Using RFID? Count on damaged tags and misreads. Using PDAs? Count on dead batteries, lost styli, frequent crashes, both the soft and hard (floor) kind. Oh, and everything will be obsolete or broken in a year or two, so count on plenty of ongoing support to keep things fresh and fun….
Ubicomp is hard, understanding people, context, and the world is hard, getting computers to handle everyday situations is hard, and expectations are set way too high. I used to say ubicomp was a ten-year problem; now I’m starting to think that it’s really a hundred-year problem.”
Free as in speech
Fantastic news! Our correspondent writes that the BBC has decided to release the 2004 Reith Lectures in downloadable DRM-free mp3 – they should be available on the site tonight.
A great move, and hopefully the shape of things to come.
I wonder what the licence is, and whether derivative works from the lectures? The thought of DJ Dangermouse releasing ReithHop mash-ups might be an advance too far for Radio 4 stalwarts for now…
Ironically, the subect of this year’s lecture series given by playwright Wole Soyinka is “The Climate of Fear” – good to see Auntie (at least BBC Radio & Music Interactive… other recent news has not been as encouraging) bucking the trend.
The most important movie of the early 21st century
I have just watched the most important movie of the early 21st century
It’s name is Loony Tunes: Back in Action.
Everything is in there – it’s a knockabout satire of late captialism and it’s entertainments, and it’s a visual essay on the magical nature of our fictions and our technologies as we enter the rapture of the spectacle. Or something. So, so now!
And it’s got Duck Dodgers.
“Two thumbs up”- M. McLuhan
“I dug it, fully” – G. Deleuze
“Whoa! Basta! That f**cking ruled!” – U. Eco
Too early? Too often?
From Matthew Thomas’ post “Why Free Software usability tends to suck”:
“The practice of releasing early, releasing often frequently causes severe damage to the interface. When a feature is incomplete, buggy, or slow, people get used to the incompleteness, or introduce preferences to cope with the bugginess or slowness. Then when the feature is finished, people complain about the completeness or try to retain the preferences. Similarly, when something has an inefficient design, people get used to the inefficiency, and complain when it becomes efficient. As a result, more user preferences get added, making the interface worse.”
[Found via Phil]
Royksopping a look and feel
An advert for energy megacorp Areva rips off Royksopp’s video for “Remind Me” which excited us so a while back.
Except it can’t be a ripoff if it’s directed/created by the same team who did the original video. Right?
No mention in the behind-the-scenes supporting Areva website [where you can also watch the advert] if the ad execs phoned up and said “we want one of those Scandopop infographic epics for our energy corporation spot” – somewhat unsuprisingly.
Also nice to see yellowcake on TV again. A little French subversion slipped in there? Are these ad-agents provocateurs?
Petafloptimism 