Category Archives: Uncategorized

Visual programming on (and for) multitouch handhelds

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I wonder if anyone who’s been following the iPhone, iPod touch, Neo1973 or any other multitouch handheld has considered the possibility of visual programming for these devices?

Since the devices, by nature, aren’t built to be the most adept typing machines (that goes for any mobile, since you can only use one of each finger at a time to type text on it), they are apparently not the best devices on which to create an application with a typed programming language (even the JavaScript that is used for any third-party webapps on the iPhone/iTouch). They are, however, *intensely* graphical, as the screens of these devices, which are used to display the information that is received or generated by the OS, tend to encompass the majority of the device’s front-end.

So if the combination of a graphical interface with an all-fingers interaction method is our only way to make sufficient use of these devices, then what about the applications which could be installed on these devices (the jailbreaking of Apple’s devices is another story)? At the moment, most applications for mobile devices, multitouch or no, are created trough the use of the keyboards for desktop computers, and are created in a variety of programming or scripting languages (sometimes with interfaces which make use of markup, stylesheets and vector graphics) which have to be typed gratuitously and fluidly.

But what if one doesn’t have a desktop or laptop device available, but has a multitouch handheld to, well, handle? What if the user feels like creating an application that isn’t already available on the device, like a plugin for a built-in audio player interface?

I think that, in this case, an on-device visual programming environment, one that is made for multitouch interaction, may be the best solution for creating applications on the device.

Since visual programming is, from my supposition, less driven by the keyboard and more driven by the mouse on a desktop computer (drag n’ drop and all that), then such a programming environment form could possibly be easily driven by fingers as well. This would make it extremely easy for the users of these devices to create installable programs and applications from within the devices rather than from without.

Now if only Firefox was ported to the iPhone so we could try this theory out.

Demo of visual programming, using Quartz Composer:

The lack of free SVG animation editors

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OK, 

[info]dragon_punk

, I find that Opera tends to possess greater capabilities with SVG and CSS than Firefox.

In fact, at the moment, I’m trying to learn more about SVG animation using Opera.

SVG, as very few people know, is the W3C standard for vector graphics which was first created in the late 1990s. With the development of the specification to its current state, SVG certainly rivals Flash in its graphical, animated and scripted capabilites; at the same time, it is dwarfed by Flash in market penetration, brand recoginition, Web predominance and scale of implementation. At best, it has found the most usage among free software projects (with whom Flash has long held a troubled history) and mobile device manufacturers.

So, what is the biggest issue with SVG animation at the moment?

To be honest, there are NO free SVG animation editors, as of 2008.

In other words, there is no easy and free means by which you can create animations in SVG. Unless you have the money to buy one of the shareware SVG editors, you’re stuck with having to learn and code SVG animations by hand.

So those who may be looking to create SVG animations for, say, Opera widgets will be out of luck.

Also, speaking of Flash:

Uninformed: Mozilla – the Intel of browsers?

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Is Mozilla the Intel of web browser makers?

As I’ve probably said before, I find the foundation/corporation to be rather set in its ways, convinced that the Mozilla platform, which has been ported for use on a number of operating systems, offers enough clout for them to continue development of their flagship web browser. Any issues that the users of the browser may face is the cause for further improvement of parts of the platform, rather than total replacement of these components.

For instance, Mozilla’s proponents and developers felt slighted when Apple passed over the Gecko layout engine in favor of KDE’s KHTML/KJS for their WebKit platform.

Furthermore, Mozilla tends to view itself as the vanguard of the web, and has promoted the Gecko engine as being more “compatible” with a variety of web sites and web standards than other layout engines, including the WebKit/KHTML engines.

But on another note, the comparison between Gecko and WebKit should take into account the folks who support, use or promote either engine. While Mozilla, a cross-platform browser maker, is the largest promoter and supporter of Gecko, WebKit tends to be supported and promoted by a variety of groups: the most monied of these supporters are the mobile device or software makers, such as Nokia/Trolltech, Apple, and Google (via Android).

Does this mean that Mozilla and Gecko is similar to Intel and its 30-year-old x86 chip architecture, while WebKit and its promoters are similar to the PowerPC architecture and its supporters (IBM, Freescale)?

Short: Dynamic tangible user interfaces

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I think that the next-generation dynamic tangible user interfaces (programmed computer expressions which are shown in a changing-by-the-second physical form) can make use of the toys of yesteryear, such as these:

Imagine trying to send needle imprint data from one side of the continent to a needle bed at the other side, which will then interpret the data in a form that will result in the above pictures.

That’s my idea of a tangible user interface, where physical impressions can be transmitted over a network to a separate tangible medium which then duplicates the physical impressions, and vice versa.

Short: Rethinking “hate”

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I think we should rethink the emotion of hate.

Those who are often described as hatemongers are described in manners which show them as soulless entities with reprehensible, unjustifiable agendas who use grotesque and anti-human means to achieve their goals.

But aren’t these “hatemongers” human as well? Aren’t they possessive of drives and ambitions which may motivate any individual who finds him or herself in such similar straits?

In my opinion, those who write media for a cause or purpose, professional or casual, tend to dehumanize, to various degrees, their opponents, sometimes throwing their names into such pools of steaming, stinking, seething acid water as the “liberals”, “neocons”, “Jews”, “Gays”, “fascists”, “fanboys”, “shills”, “big government”, “big tobacco”, “big oil”, “big telecom”, “Rothschilds”, “Freemasons”, “Godbags” and other such appellations.

Instead, why can’t we simply practice a separation of concerns? By that, I mean:

  • form from function
  • content from layout
  • people from personality
  • motive from action
  • emotion from judicial process

Maybe that will come in due time, but for now, the current reality is depressing.

A third option for net neutrality: Government, corporation, and….?

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 New article from Ars Technica.

Lessee, the current debate concerning Net Neutrality is over the necessity of government regulation of telecommunication companies’ actions concerning their customers.

Those who are against the Net Neutrality idea are undoubtedly anti-government, viewing the institution as a thieving, corrupt, violent and cowardly threat to human rights and freedom. Some may not be necessarily supportive of total corporate freedom, but may view government interference as an enabler for corporate excesses.

Those who are supportive of the Net Neutrality may not necessarily share such aforementioned anarchist or libertarian views, but may only show support of government regulation as a means – a messy means – to an end; very rarely will they view the government as a benevolent institution, primarily because of the bodies which serve or exist in the government’s name, including the military. Some, however, may view the anarchist/libertarian opposition to government influence in light of previous opposition to government interference in other, defunct social institutions, such as slavery and cross-racial civil rights.

However, is there a third way between governments and corporations in regards to such a public service as the Internet?

Governments tend to move slowly in regards to the ensurance of human rights for citizens (compared to those of its own employees), while moving at a fast pace for, say, military expenditures and acquisitions in order to boost their nationalism and land property. Corporations, as well, tend to be rather socially inept institutions, being slow at the ensurance of human rights or recognition for their customers (compared to those of its own employees), while moving at a fast pace for the sake of, say, technological expenditures and acquisitions in order to boost their brand and their intellectual property (i.e., patents).

Now, they both have their benefits. Governments can serve as a final resort for citizens who have been slighted by the actions of corporations, and can serve as founts for corporate standards; corporations, on the other hand, can serve as founts for new technological innovations and approaches, and can provide “gray areas” of techological development that sucessfully subvert the government’s stances.

Ultimately, the natures of both corporations and governments, tendencies which harken to prior centuries rather than forge an insight into the future, leave much to be desired as far as a potential ensurer of freedom, human rights and development on the Internet is concerned.

Maybe there is a need for a third type of institution that is relevant to this service-intensive era in which we’re currently residing. This one shouldn’t be driven by product/patent acquisition (corporation) or land/arms acquisition (goovernment), but by information/service acquisition.

Idea: Visualizing magnetic fields

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You know what they haven’t created yet? A way to digitally visualize the variations and intensity of a magnetic force or field.

Like, for instance, how to visualize whatever force that is holding up this frog:

Or this strawberry:

Or this water droplet:

Of course, those are simply amplified examples of diamagnetism, which is a non-superconducting magnetic state which is, actually, a ubiquitous form of magnetism that is exhibited in extremely weak forms in most “non-magnetic” substances, even plastic and gold. Diamagnetism, if exhibited in a particularly strong form, can levitate such objects, even as large as living beings like frogs.

So my question is: what if we were able to *view* the diamagnetic force that is levitating these objects? Is it possible to detect the frequency and strength of the force in a manner that could be rendered dynamically in a digitally graphic form?

I’m certain that I saw an instrument that can detect a magnetic field’s strength in gausses last night, so I guess we simply need to stick a number of these around a diamagnetic field in action; then the detectors can be connected to a device (which is far away from the diamagnetic field) that translates the measurements of the detectors into computer-interpretable form, which then results in a dynamic graphic representation of the field.

I’m certain that once we can get such a combo working, then we will be on our way to other useful developments, such as spontaneous/dynamically-created mass, which would be useful for network-generated augmented reality object data.

Idea: wireless “dumb terminal” touchscreen display for smartphones

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OK, just thought about this last night:

I notice that most smartphones, including the multitouch fullscreen ones like the iPhone and Neo1973, are built as all-in-ones, with the hard drive and processing unit placed directly behind the display.

Then I saw the video of the most recent Macworld keynote by Steve Jobs last night, in which he introduced the MacBook Air. I had already read from Digg about how this new notebook computer, in order to accomplish one of the thinner laptop form factors, sacrificed such long-standing laptop components such as the optical disc (CD/DVD) drive, replacing it with an external optical disc drive that streams optical media data (even DVD-borne software titles such as Office ’08 for Mac or OS X 10.5) to the MacBook Air, where such data can then be copied or installed to the hard drive. This essentially rendered the MacBook Air, in Jobs’ words, a “wireless machine”; this may suit Apple’s modus operandi, which is directed more to digitally-transmitted data (iTunes) than to hard-based data on CDs, DVDs, or Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.

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Now, the following is becoming increasingly true:

The more mobile and free-wheeling the device, the smaller the form factor, the greater the network dependence, and the greater the need for interaction with the display.

The MacBook Air, the iPhone, and the iPod touch are all Apple’s mobile “wireless machines”. The software in these devices rely upon a wireless, streaming network in order for several applications to function correctly, and the interfaces use a greater immersion of the finger for various tasks, whether its widening a photo or dialing a phone number.

However, in the mobile industry (including Apple’s mobile products), most of the components (CPU, hard drive, etc.) are tied underneath the display (or, if its not multitouch, then both the screen and buttons). The same goes for other multitouch computer devices, such as the Microsoft Surface which is due for sale by at least 2009.

But what if the multitouch display could be used for the same communication purposes as your average smartphone without it being welded or tied to the computer that holds the hard drive and electronics?

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My idea is what I call “the commoditization of handhelds and other mobile computer devices”.

What this will allow is for someone to use one or more displays for a single, more stationary phone device, and for someone to cheaply upgrade their stationary phone device with greater hardware enhancements than would be feasible with the phone device tied directly to the display.

The phone device will “talk” wirelessly with the portable display, which doesn’t have a hard drive and very few electronic components except for those which allow for the display itself to function at all. The display will recognize any touch motions, which are then sent back to the stationary smartphone device where the operating system is stored. The smartphone is also wirelessly connected to the Internet though a wifi router.

This will be a more cost-effective approach to the creation of smartphones, as it will let both the computer and the portable multitouch display be true to the concerns within either components’ own domain.

This also allows for greater innovations within the display field that will eventually make it to the mobile market. This is one example:

The Green movement and sub-Saharan Africa

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OK, I don’t know how to put this down correctly, so this post will look a bit bleh.

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I don’t think that the Green movement will get that much foothold in Africa, at least not in the near future.

Right now, the dominant political parties in the countries’ parliaments and executive mansions espouse (at least on paper) some common threads: Pan-Africanism, religious conservatism, nationalism, and populism.

Also, most of these countries’s demographies, because of the history of cross-continental dialogue between Africa and Europe, tend to be averse to any political ideology or social cause of a supposed Western origin: anarchism, environmentalism, civil rights for LGBT citizens, etc.

The only case of an African “Green party” that is enjoying any publicity is the Mazangiri Green Party of Kenya, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who is an ally of the current (disputed) president Mwai Kibaki.

Heck, even the Green political movement in South Africa has taken a turn for the worse in the post-apartheid era. From the Wikipedia suggestion, most Greens in South Africa are currently allied with either the ANC or the DA, primarily because of how the most outstanding  (token) environmental excesses of the apartheid regimes, including nuclear weapons and power, were cleaned up or scaled down by the Mandela government.

Perhaps the most outstanding issue, however, in South Africa and most of sub-Saharan Africa, is the rise of AIDS/HIV, something that no national Green party has similarly incorporated to the very top of their political agenda (except for this; see if YOU can find the reference to AIDS/HIV in all that text). While Africa is scared as hell about this epidemic and its effects on their populations, livelihoods, and media images, most Green parties are more concerned with the prevention of nuclear power, whaling, or other matters which are of less populistic appeal to the electorates.

I would like to see that change, as I will either vote for a Libertarian or Green in November, but the lack of Green participation in national and local government in Africa is worrying to me.