Back, for a little while

Hi folks!
Just recently, I returned from the short vacation in Borlänge. Beautiful scenery, I've got tons of pictures which I'll try to upload during the next few days. As I returned, I read a couple of interesting news stories that I'd like to share with you.

First of all, there's a new "thing" on iTunes Store called iTunes U. It looks like a co-operation between Apple and some universities and colleges in the States, and the result is a lot of classes, from schools like MIT, PennState or Berkeley, available online - for free! There's a broad range of classes availeble and if your interessted I recommend you to check it out at iTunes Store->iTunes U.

The other news is the introduction of something called Microsoft Surface. I saw a demonstration of this kind of device about a year ago at some Internet TV Channel on Democracy. Then, it was a scientist introducing a working device, and it made a huge impression on me. Now it looks as Microsoft is rolling it out in the winter of 2007. Go to the website and check out those three short video films now! It's seriously cool stuff...

A big update.

The second time I woke up today was at 2pm - exacly the same moment as Apple introduced its new , speed-busted MacBook update. You see the connection? No...? Neither do I. Anyway..

The first time I woke up today was about six hours earlier, at 8am. You might think that's late, but considering the amount of work I've lately put into a damn project at school, and the fact that I came back from school at 1.30am that night, you may understand. The project was pretty much done today at 11am, so after handing it in to the project leaders, I felt that a quick nap might be just what I need.

What else can I say? My life has been circling around that project lately. Wake up, workout, think about what needs to be done today, get to school, work, eat, work, eat, work, get back home, think about what else could have been done if there was more time, eat, try not to think about the project, fail not to think about the project, eat, hit the pillow, try not to dream about what needs to be done tomorrow...

Aw, I just figured out that there's a short description of the project online. Feel free to check it out over here, under "Student Projects" -> Health Check.

I feel kind of guilty about not updating this blog in almost a month. As I realized the visitors number dropped to below 1 person/day I thought it's time to lighten things up again.

One more thing (I almost forgot that one): photos from the "celebration" of Valborg, over two weeks ago, are online. You should see them in a box below. These are un-edited so don't expect too much quality this time. I just wanted to put them online so I could get rid of them and stop answering those "when-are-you-gonna-upload-the-pictures"-questions.


That's it for today!

E-paper at school

This week, during our interaction design class, we were able to play around with some different portable devices, in order to evaluate the different interfaces. One of this devices, the prototype of the iRex iLiad is one of those new upcoming electronic paper book/newspaper readers. It was really nice to have the opportunity to play around with tomorrow's technology during class, and of course, I took some shots!

Two different types of tablet PC's running Windows:





Since these devices do not contain keyboard (unless you attach an external one), there must be some way to do the (in)famous Windows trick: Ctrl+Alt+Del. So how did they solved it? Like this (look closely):



That's right, use the pen to push the reset button which sends the Ctrl+Alt+Del command to the system. This reminds me of my Windows-age back in the days (before Linux and just recently OS X). =)

What else do we have? The Samsung Q1 is a real hottie. The interaction, considering the size of the touchscreen, is impressive.





And finally, we have the electronic paper device, iRex iLiad (who came up with this kind of name anyway?!). You can read more on electronic paper on the Net, a good started is (as always), Wikipedia's article on the subject. Here are some pics:








Okay, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this post! (And sorry about those two last pictures, I can't understand why Blogger has such problems with rotating my photos properly.)

/JW