The Leap Motion releases today, promising to change the way we interact with the personal computer. It delivers on that promise, but change could mean for better or worse. On which side of the spectrum does the Leap land?
With the complete hardware, services, and pricing unveiled for the Xbox One at E3, we now have the totality of Microsoft’s “next-generation” consumer-oriented lineup: Windows 8 on the desktop, laptop, and tablet, Windows Phone 8 on the smartphone, and Xbox One in the living room.
On paper, this trifecta, seamlessly connected via Microsoft Account, SkyDrive, and Xbox Live, is almost perfect. In reality, though, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Where did it all go wrong for Microsoft?
“The world around you is not what it seems,” says Ingress, the virtual game that uses the real world as its gamespace. And, perhaps, when Google’s semi-independent division Niantic Labs is finished with its mission, we humans won’t be, either.
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and usable. Note carefully that Google says nothing about the Internet in that statement.
Well, it happened again – the same thing that happens every time any digital product is put through usability testing. We found out that the people designing the thing (people who know exactly what it’s supposed to do and how it’s supposed to work) are not the same as the people actually using the thing. And the people who are supposed to use the thing don’t get it. And because they don’t get it, they have three options for how they might respond.
You might think augmented reality is the way of the future, but really, it has its roots in the 20th century. Morton Heilig, the “Father of Virtual Reality,” patented the Sensorama Stimulator, which he called an “experience theater,” on Aug. 28, 1962. Over time, the idea of using technology to create a layer over the real world has been honed and refined and put in our palms, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones.
Summary: Hidden features, reduced discoverability, cognitive overhead from dual environments, and reduced power from a single-window UI and low information density. Too bad.
With the recent launch of Windows 8 and the Surface tablets, Microsoft has reversed its user interface strategy. From a traditional Gates-driven GUI style that emphasized powerful commands to the point of featuritis, Microsoft has gone soft and now smothers usability with big colorful tiles while hiding needed features.
The simple act of turning a page has begun to look outdated with iPads replacing books and manuals for many working professionals. But an augmented reality display similar to Google Glasses frees up wearers’ hands by allowing them to turn virtual pages using their eyes alone.
Image: Rendering of physical environment represented in the AbES software; in gamer mode, the player (yellow icon) navigates through the virtual environment using auditory cues to locate hidden jewels (blue squares) and avoid being caught by chasing monsters (red icons).
Blind people can learn the spatial layout of an unfamiliar building using a novel “video game” virtual reality environment that employs only audio-based cues, thus enabling them to learn skills that may improve functional independence, say US and Chilean scientists.
Video game characters with natural responses to human body language
Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London have been using theater performers to design computer software capable of reading and replicating the way in which humans communicate with their bodies.
Dr Marco Gillies from the Department of Computing has made virtual characters more believable by enlisting actors to teach them body movement. The actors interact with members of the public through a screen, and their responses to specific body language are memorized as algorithms by the software.
Much like a questionnaire — a topic covered in the last installment — an interview is for collecting subjective data. However, the face-to-face nature of an interview means that you can be more interactive in your data collection, which if done correctly, can lead to very rich data. However, it is also obviously quite time-consuming, and it is harder to analyze and quantify the data you get at the end.
The quality of what you get out of an interview will also depend greatly on your own skill as an interviewer, so here are some tips.