A few ideas

A couple of interesting concepts struck me today as i was driving home from Wellington (the city, not the footwear).

First I was considering the problem this day and age of transportation; giving people the freedom to move where they want, when they want, with great speed and convenience. This is ultimately the problem that, if solved, would have people give up cars. As it is, other transportation methods always fail on one of these criteria, or are too expensive for most people to afford. The ideal solution would either use the infastructure that is already in place (e.g. electric/hydrogen cars) or something which needs a minimum amount of both up front capital cost and regular maintenance.

This is where a decision has to be made: any system which has no infrastructure cost (or low cost) will likely not allow the conveyance of the fuel supply along it (the problem with roads, you can't transmit any sort of power or energy through it/along it efficiently. The example of this i choose to take is that if we use the skies as our road, as aircraft do, it is impossible to transmit the fuel source through such a medium. The polar example for me is rail, where electricity can be transmitted through it or along it (with some additional infrastructure). This also raises the other paradigm shift that occurs between these two situations; if one carries their own energy/fuel source they are free to roam to the limits of their vehicle. If a user relies on the infrastructure for their fuel they can't go outside of that infrastructure, one thing that has limited electrified rail (because the infrastructure is so expensive and rigid).

The only option to move forward in vehicles that don't have their own fuel source is to create a new infrastructure. Something that can (unlike roads) transmit some source of energy, be it electrical, magnetic, kinetic, etc. And something that can be extended to every home, just as we have extended roads to every home. This is the key in the end if we hope to move away from cars as a mode of personal transportation. Some people would believe that this is what happened with cars; but cars came over a thousand years after the first paved roads. Rail was a different story, because of it's usefulness as a heavy transport medium. It is logical that there is no business case in creating an entirely new transport framework for people to use when the one they currently use isn't broken. So the challenge in creating a new mode of transportation that doesn't require people to carry a fuel supply is two-fold; can we make use of a medium or framework that already exists, as cars did? or can we start a technology like this by first monopolising a small community of users as electricity did?

These are only the issues that surround the creation of such a system, let alone the technical issues of building the system itself.

August Update

I know last blog i said i'd try update more often, but i also said last blog that i would be busy this semester :-P

All my projects are in full swing, i'm dealing with most of them, although two of them feel like i''m the only group member actually doing anything. Oh well, i'm not great at giving people a chance to participate when i'm thinking about something.... i just tend to sit there trying to get it straight enough to regurgitate to whatever assignment i'm working on; it takes enough effort to get it to a form i can understand, let alone something someone else can take away and work with. This blog is probably a good testament to that.

Galaxy (My UI concept) has been on hold for a while now, but my Marketing lecture yesterday (on idea generation) really inspired me to give it another go, and try and develop it some more. The main problem i've been running into it is that new products/technology/whatever are really supposed to be spawned from a need or requirement. I think the need for Galaxy comes from the advancement of visual display technology (3D screens coming soon apparently?) and a lack of advancement in the user interfaces we use. Windows Vista (not to pick on it more) is a shining example of such a thing; it boasts a great many features and improvements, but hardly any of those filter down to the average joe user because it is obscured by an over-simplified interface or confuscated access method, or these features don't provide any measurable benefit that is apparent to the user. One of the staples of GUI design is not to change what people know, but at the same time we need to be innovative in breaking down the barriers between human-computer interaction. Part of this is the limitations of the input systems, which i have also thought about a great deal; there is only so much you can do with someone else's hardware.

Ok let's analyse the target market and the niche we're aiming for. People want an interface that will be so intuitive that it is almost transparent; i.e. people don't actually want to manipulate an interface and jump through hoops to get it to do what they want it to do. They just want said computer to do what they want it to do. This is all fine and well in theory, but as the technology stands people have to give a computer information in order for it to know what to do. People can't read minds (well most of us can't), neither can computers. Until computer mind-reading technology is developed (apparently sony already have patents in for that sort of stuff), computers will have to try and get as much information from users as possible. Current methods of cutting down the amount of input a user has to do includes using historical data, statistical inference and interpolation of a user's behaviour, and random guessing. Ok so i'm making this up as i go along, but how is this any different from normal.

The point is i'm using my brain to come up with these examples, piecing them together with information i have gained from other sources, and then extrapolating. How can we make computers do this?
I think the conclusion i'm rolling myself along to is that ultimately user interface design has a big affect on how much information we can get form the user, and how much information we can give them. This is why giving interfaces a third dimension will help us with collecting information, and likewise allow us to display more information. The problem that is faced with 3D interfaced is that our peripherals are still 2D. Even touch screens only allow us to work in 2D.