I'm sure that everyone has heard of the Google Chrome OS, Google's foray into creating an operating system running on Linux where everything is centered around the browser especially Google Chrome. Well, the Google Chrome OS has already been reviewed, with source code available. Engadget has the story. Apparently, the Google Chrome OS is much different than regular operating systems, it has been designed in the beginning for simplicity, security and ease of use.
Google Chrome OS is not meant to totally replace existing OSes like Windows, MacOS or Linux. In my opinion, it is meant for totally web-based computing. There are certain things where a native application is much faster and you can do more than with a web-based application. However, with AJAX and JavaScript, the performance of web-based applications is nearing that of native applications, which makes the game change. But it reminds me now of how the computer will become just like a dumb terminal in the 1960s and 1970s before the PC era. All you need to do is just boot up and everything is on the web, just like before on the mainframe server. Now that everything is going to the cloud, what does this leave for the native client?
Will the PC return back to a dumb terminal? Will rich native clients be replaced with web-based applications running in a browser. Will a browser-based OS make the computer more secure so therefore there isn't any loopholes to have viruses running on the native system exploiting ports from native applications like Outlook and the OS?
What do you think?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
All in one email, instant messaging and social networking in one client: Nokia Messaging http://ping.fm/fu6Y1 #nokia
Friday, November 06, 2009
Exertion Interfaces talk from Floyd Mueller
Today, I attended a talk from Floyd Mueller who is visiting researcher at Microsoft Research Asia and is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne. He is talking about exertion games.
Abstract
Exertion Interfaces are interfaces that require intense physical effort. Their recent success stems mostly from their use in games, as demonstrated by the Wii and Natal. It is believed that these games facilitate not only physical health, but also more social play than traditional computer games. Over several years, Floyd has investigated the influence of technology design on exertion games. His research has contributed to an understanding of how people play computationally-augmented exertion games and how we can support exertion and social play in future designs. Floyd's research has produced several prototypes, including 'Jogging over a Distance', a system that allows joggers who are located in different cities to motivate one another while running using mobile technology, which was used last month between expat joggers in London, UK and Melbourne, Australia. Floyd will focus on the 'Jogging over a Distance' work to describe challenges and opportunities in using mobile technology to enhance people's fitness activities through a distributed social approach that aims to enhance the engagement with the activity while it occurs, unlike most pedometer work that focuses on post-reflection after the exercise.
Floyd is talking about how Dance Dance Revolution and the Nintendo Wii really changed the face of gaming using physical activity. There is an exciting research for engaging people over the internet using physical activity. For example, a group of cyclists come together and can connect with and cycle with other cyclists over the internet using Skype video conference. How to do the design between exertion play and social play? According to Floyd, we need to focus on mediated environment which can extend opportunities for social interaction.
The first research project was on Table Tennis for Three which involved a table tennis table with one side showing a screen and video conference to show the remote players. A player uses the table tennis racquet to hit the ball onto the screen which the other player on the other side will see and will hit the ball.
The second research project was Jogging Over a Distance, using spatial audio for showing whether your partner in jogging is close to you. Using a heart rate monitor, joggers can then speed up depending on the other partner in order to catch up to that person based on the spatial audio.
The third research project was Remote Boxing, which is boxing over a distance where users would hit the screen and get points for doing so when they saw objects appear on the screen.
All in all, very interesting research work and something that really brings HCI and ubiquitous computing to real every day life.
Abstract
Exertion Interfaces are interfaces that require intense physical effort. Their recent success stems mostly from their use in games, as demonstrated by the Wii and Natal. It is believed that these games facilitate not only physical health, but also more social play than traditional computer games. Over several years, Floyd has investigated the influence of technology design on exertion games. His research has contributed to an understanding of how people play computationally-augmented exertion games and how we can support exertion and social play in future designs. Floyd's research has produced several prototypes, including 'Jogging over a Distance', a system that allows joggers who are located in different cities to motivate one another while running using mobile technology, which was used last month between expat joggers in London, UK and Melbourne, Australia. Floyd will focus on the 'Jogging over a Distance' work to describe challenges and opportunities in using mobile technology to enhance people's fitness activities through a distributed social approach that aims to enhance the engagement with the activity while it occurs, unlike most pedometer work that focuses on post-reflection after the exercise.
Floyd is talking about how Dance Dance Revolution and the Nintendo Wii really changed the face of gaming using physical activity. There is an exciting research for engaging people over the internet using physical activity. For example, a group of cyclists come together and can connect with and cycle with other cyclists over the internet using Skype video conference. How to do the design between exertion play and social play? According to Floyd, we need to focus on mediated environment which can extend opportunities for social interaction.
The first research project was on Table Tennis for Three which involved a table tennis table with one side showing a screen and video conference to show the remote players. A player uses the table tennis racquet to hit the ball onto the screen which the other player on the other side will see and will hit the ball.
The second research project was Jogging Over a Distance, using spatial audio for showing whether your partner in jogging is close to you. Using a heart rate monitor, joggers can then speed up depending on the other partner in order to catch up to that person based on the spatial audio.
The third research project was Remote Boxing, which is boxing over a distance where users would hit the screen and get points for doing so when they saw objects appear on the screen.
All in all, very interesting research work and something that really brings HCI and ubiquitous computing to real every day life.
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