Xhaustive

Help!

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:45:00 +0000

Hej,
I flera år nu har jag levt med att personer på nätet (som jag aldrig har träffat) verkar veta vad jag skriver om på Facebook bl.a. Jag läser deras twittrar och bloggar och kan på så sätt spåra bakåt grejer som jag skrivit. Det hela är väldigt olustigt. Orsaken är troligtvis en grej som hände i ett slags "spel" på nätet 2005-2006. Vissa personer tog mig på lite för stort allvar och började vad jag gisssar snart påstå konstiga saker om mig som inte stämmer överens med verkligheten. Jag får känslan av att det finns ett ställe på nätet (som bara verkar växa och växa) där jag spelar någon slags huvudroll. Jag har frågat runt bland mina vänner men alla verkar helt ovetande. Det är som en stor svart låda för mig som det poppar ur grejer ifrån då och då. Det här är verkligen inte något jag bett om. Tvärtom. Jag har mått sjukt dåligt av det här i ett halvår nu. Det här jag skriver nu kanske verkar sinnessjukt och paranoidt. Men det är en risk som jag måste ta nu. Jag vill inget hellre än att detta tar slut. Det här håller på att knäcka mig totalt. Så om någon av mina vänner vet någonting om detta, så ber jag er att hjälpa mig. Vad är det för någonting? Hur kan jag stoppa det? Kan någon av er stoppa det åt mig? Jag har redan bett de här personerna i höstas att lägga ner vad det nu är men möttes av en oförstående sarkasm. Det här jag skriver nu är på fullaste allvar och helt ärligt. Som sagt, om någon känner till något av detta, så ber jag er att hjälpa mig. För jag mår sjukt dåligt av det här.

On the other side - The Flow

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:18:00 +0000

In my quest for finding a usage of a double sided mobile device I have tried to be as exhaustive as I can. I have put a flashlight on the backside. I have even put a mirror there for the vain mobile users. Here's my third attempt to fill that empty space. I've been thinking of the possible yins and yangs of a mobile device. My first thought was content/applications on one side and communication on the other. It may not be possible to separate those entities since they might overlap. Why not put the Flow there which I tried to describe in my previous post? It would be like a digital diary of your life. You can go back in history of your Flow as long as you would like to. From the days when you were a kid (if you wish) until now. You would also have the possibility to bookmark certain dates or events in your flow, so that you'll find them easier later on.

In some of my first posts, I was hallucinating about "context sensitive time navigators" and proposed the turntable. I don't know if that's the best way to navigate in the Flow. But since I came up with that idea then, I thought it would be nice to squeeze that one in as well. So, what you see below is the backside of your future mobile device. All events in the Flow go in the first tab, while the other tabs filter specific types of events. The Flow will not be bound to your mobile device since all handhelds will use fingerprint biometrics for authorization. That means you can access your Flow in any mobile device or computer. The Flow will be stored on the net somewhere, somehow. Hehe, when thinking about it, the Flow will be ridiculously long when you have turned 86... :-)

The Flow

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:45:00 +0000

The small pieces of updates sent to you from other people via services such as Twitter and Facebook "status updates" might be seen as nonsense and non-important information. Well, they may be that. They are the messages that are not worth to be sent via e-mail or instant messaging. But still, the messages are not meaningless. They can even be sort of addictive to read. Suddenly a friend or a person you met at a bus stop three years ago is telling the world what he/she is doing right now or what music he/she likes or whatever. And in a weird way it's interesting because you get that person in your mind's eye, which would not be the case otherwise. Flemming Funch writes about this phenomena in this blog post:

"But it keeps people on your radar screen. You don't have to respond, but you can, if something somehow rings a bell. It doesn't have to be your close friends either. It is surprisingly meaningful, even if it is people you've never met, but you have some kind of interest in what they're up to."

He continues:
"I watch a screen where a few dozen people say something once in a while, and I can say something too. Interestingly, they aren't all watching the same screen, as they have different groups of friends than I do, although they overlap. They aren't all there at the same time either, and they aren't all paying attention. But once in a while somebody feels like saying something. That will be something that relates to what's going on for them at the moment, and it will also be something they feel like saying into that fuzzy kind of space, usually without saying it to anybody in particular. They typically don't expect a response either. Other people do the same. Whether you directly comment on anything else or not, what you say will necessarily be colored a bit by what you see already on the screen."

I wish I could summarize this in some kind of a definition. I guess that will take a while. For now I call this phenomena "The Flow".

Micro-blogging

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:11:00 +0000

Our brains seem to become more and more connected. This is of course a good thing. What would the world be like if there was no international net open for all? Pretty boring. Blogs have given us the opportunity to read about other people's ideas, knowledge and lives. Using instant messaging and social networks, we get increasingly bombarded with information sent by other people. Facebook introduced a new type of communication a couple of years ago - the "status update". Probably it was just a fun thing created by the Facebook developers. Short, sometimes meaningless sentences like "Jim is watching TV" pop up in the never ending history of Facebook events. The idea was adopted later by Twitter, and really took off. By answering the question "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or less, you can send your friends updates ("Tweets"). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS and RSS. Anyone with a cell phone can send and receive updates any time, anywhere. Users can send messages as text, video or audio. Other sites such as "Jaiku" and "Yammer" have taken the idea even further. They all go in the category "Micro-blogging" and are now used by millions of people.

Double sided mobile device - Yin and Yang

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:24:00 +0000

In a series of posts I have argued that it is a waste of space to use just one side of a mobile device. By thinking out load I have tried to find possible usages of such a device. You know that Apple's IPhone has a touch screen to interact with the device. Why not put a touch screen on the other side as well? Why would you do that you might think? Why would you not? I bet there are lots of situations where a double sided device would be more practical, more intuitive and easier to use. As a hypothesis, would it make sense to split up the most common usages and put them on each side? Like the Yin and Yang of a mobile device. I can think of several possible Yins and Yangs of a mobile device. Here are some of them:

Yin - Content and applications. Yang - Communication.
Yin - Geography. Location services, GPS, Navigation. Yang - The rest.
Yin - Media and gaming. Yang - The rest.
Yin - Health meters (such as pulse, blood pressure) Yang - The rest.
Yin - Authentication. Fingerprint sensors. Security. Yang - The rest.
Yin - Practical functions such as a flashlight or a mirror. Yang - The rest.

The question is: Is the single sided mobile device sufficient for all of the examples above? Is it more logical, more intuitive to use only one side? Are two sides only confusing for the user? I don't know since I haven't used a double sided one. An interesting aspect is if the two sides could be able to communicate with each other. How would that work? To be Xhausted...

Authentication - OpenID

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:00:00 +0000

For those who haven't heard of OpenID, it is an open, decentralized user identification standard, allowing users to log onto many services with the same digital identity. OpenID authentication is used and provided by several large websites. Organizations like Google, IBM, Microsoft, Myspace, Orange, Verisign and Yahoo act as providers. Authentication can be made through normal passwords, but also with smartcards or fingerprint biometrics. It seems very promising. I tried to find out if there are any mobile phone vendors out there that support fingerprint authentication using the OpenID standard. I couldn't find any. I think it would be awesome to just press your finger on the sensor of a mobile device, and *swoosh* - you're online, ready for e-mailing, chatting, using banking services, online purchasing , blogging or whatever you do on the net that requires a login procedure. No need for user names, passwords or certificates. Just a fingerprint recognition and all service providers know that you is you and nobody else. I'm sure that this idea is in the makings somewhere. It cannot be that far away that this could be available to everyone. I mean, the Asians use fingerprint biometrics for online banking already. Hope that they also hop on the Open ID train.

On the other side - A flashlight

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:53:00 +0000

Imagine you're sitting on your sofa watching a good movie a late Friday night. Then suddenly, a "click". Everything turns dark. Your TV, your room, and all the street lights outside. It's a major power outage. You can't see anything really. Luckily you have your mobile device in your pocket as usual. You slide up the backside face of the mobile device and turn on the built-in flashlight. Your room lits up, and you can navigate in your apartment.
In an earlier post, I argued that it was a pity that the IPhone only uses half the space available. One side is full of goodies, while the other side is just an empty space of plastic - useless. So, since the backside of the IPhone gives no value at all to the user, then anything that adds value would be infinitely better (mathematically speaking, that is). Your mobile device is a thing you carry with you all day long. Why not put as many usages as possible to it since it's available all the time? Maybe it would feel kind of dorky to have a built-in flashlight in your mobile device. But I think you'd appreciate it in the scenario described above. In an other post, I came up with the idea of having a built-in recordable mirror on the backside. I guess that would attract the vain mobile users of the world. But what do I know, I'm just thinking out loud.

Mobile authentication of today

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:31:00 +0000

I googled the topic of fingerprint authentication for mobile phones and found some blog posts on that subject. This engadget blog post describes the Pantech PG-6200 as a "new handset for the security-conscious Taiwanese citizen who also wants some pretty capable multimedia features in his/her cellphone". Here is another example from Toshiba. In fact, there are 40 mobile phones with integrated fingerprint sensors shipping today. Most are sold in Asia. Biometric cell phones are widely used in Asia for mobile commerce (M-commerce), online banking and for securing the device in the event of loss or theft.
How could we benefit from online identification in the future? Well, a whole lot if you'd ask me. To be Xhausted...

Image courtesy of Pantech Wireless,inc.

Sensors - Authentication

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:45:00 +0000

Future scenario:
It's the year of 2025. Ben wakes up at 6.30 in the morning and grabs his mobile device. He puts his pointer finger on the authentication sensor which reads his fingerprint. The device tells him that he's logged in as an authenticated world citizen and welcomes him back online. From now on all his online communication is signed with his world citizen id. Ben presses the built-in money button and sends the 1000 world coins he owes his brother. Ben's brother is also online and quickly expresses his gratitude that he finally got his money back. Ben switches to incognito mode and comments in a forum that he'll be late to that damn A.A meeting. Then he goes to the shuttle just outside his house which takes him to his work place. The fee is automatically paid by his device.
A good friend of mine (Odd Möller) came up with the idea of an authentication sensor.

A double sided cell phone of today

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:11:00 +0000

I searched the net to find out if there is any phone vendor that has created a double sided mobile device. I found Samsung UpStage SPH-M620. On one side, it’s a cellphone, digital camera and camcorder. On the other, it’s a dedicated music player with touch-sensitive media controls. That sounds great. But can you take this idea even further somehow?

image courtesy of Samsung Inc.

IPhone - A waste of space

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:48:00 +0000

Don't get me wrong. I love my IPhone. It has all the functionality that I need to retrieve information and to communicate with other people. Plus a whole lot more: a camera, calendar, maps, Ipod, YouTube, weather etc. My previous phone, a Sony Ericsson, is light years behind IPhone when it comes to usability. The touch screen is surprisingly easy to use. You almost don't even have to read the manual to get started using this device. The user interface is so slick and utterly well designed that every task you perform becomes joyful. To put it shortly, it's a hallmark of design by Apple.

According to the technical specification for IPhone, the height is 4.5 inches (115.5 mm) and the width is 2.4 inches (62.1 mm). It has a 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen with 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi. Nothing strange about that. But take a close look at the back side of the IPhone here beside. It looks slick with the rounded corners and the silvery Apple logo. But what else? Really, it's just an empty black plastic surface which gives the user no value at all. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. To me that seems like a great waste of space. A mobile device of the future needs as much space as possible to squeeze in functionality and content. Instead of using the total area of the both sides together (143.4 cm²), IPhone is only using half of that. I'm going to try to find out possible usages of a double sided mobile device. To be continued.

images courtesy of Apple Inc.

Scratch it!

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:16:00 +0000

I've been thinking a little of the idea of a context sensitive time navigator. Is there any use for such a thing? Isn't the good old scroll bar sufficient for that purpose? Maybe so. To test the idea, here's an example of how a time navigator, the turntable, could work in order to move in time. Spinning the inner circle allows the user to move in time at a faster pace than the outer circle. In an e-mail application the inner circle could represent moving by weeks, whereas the outer could a represent a more fine-grained period such as days. I don't know if a round time navigator like this would take too much space inside the frames of a mobile device. Maybe it's better to put it at the outside frame of the device? To be investigated...

Time machines

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:02:00 +0000

You might know that Apple's operating system Mac OS X has a backup utility called "Time machine". It creates incremental backups of files which can be restored at a later date. It allows the user to restore the whole system, multiple files, or even a single file. For example photos, contacts or calendar events. That's awesome.

But what about the "time machines" in the applications we use every day? Take the web browser for example. I can give you an example: you’ve just visited Yahoo's home page and then clicked on a News header to read a certain story. Then you have the choice to go back where you came from (Yahoo home page) using the built-in "Back button" (arrow left). That's choosing to go back in time where you came from. Let's say you've clicked the "Back button". Then you're back to the Yahoo home page again. By clicking the "Forward button" (arrow right) you'll come back to the News story. That's choosing to go forward in your browser history to a page you've already been to. Back to the future, if you know what I mean.

Another example of going back and forth in time is in the media player (such as a movie clip from YouTube). The round indicator shows where in time the movie is right now. You can also stop the movie (and time) by clicking the "pause button". By dragging the indicator back and forth you can navigate over time in your movie.

In my first post I wrote that the inbox of an e-mail client uses a list – the stack, to order messages by time. The last message received comes at the top of the stack. To locate a message from two years ago you have to adjust the scrollbar position until you find it. Yeah of course, you can search for it as well, but that's another matter.

That's three examples which illustrate how to use "time machines" in our most popular applications. They might seem very obvious and natural since you're used to them. But think how nice it would be to reduce the number of ways to navigate over time. Maybe to a single one. A time navigator which is context sensitive and adapts to the current application and it's own time representation.

Hey Mr DJ!

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:58:00 +0000

Have you ever visited a really fancy night club? With the coolest, the most good looking people. But there is one guy at the place who is cooler than the rest. He's often standing in a corner by himself. Looking very serious. He is Mr DJ. At least he thinks he's cooler than the rest. But really, he controls the place. He makes people dig, he makes people dance. So why do we need Mr DJ? Wouldn't be easier to put a tape recorder in a corner? No. The rhythm and beats have to be unchanged when switching songs. The change must be seamless. So how does he do it? He has some important tools. Two turntables and his headphones. Right? One of the turntables is playing the current song. The other one is used for the next song to come. With his headphones he controls the transition between the two songs. He adjusts the position of the needle on the second record until both songs are in sync. Then releases the second song to the sound system. In an earlier post I tried to argue for a round all-in-one mobile device, just for the sake of it. And how you might could navigate through your messages and content over time using the clock metaphor. Think about it. Mr DJ's turntable is exactly that. It's a circle that navigates over time. Spinning the record back and forth is a Time Machine to find tracks and tunes. Wouldn't it be cool to be in control like Mr DJ? Spinning the circle, finding your messages and content over time? Being cool, controlling your own club - your mobile device, at ease.

Shape - The round mobile device (discs)

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:05:00 +0000

One advantage with a round all-in-one mobile device would be the ability to load media content from discs such as CD:s, DVD:s, Blu-ray etc. Just insert the disc into your device, and you're ready to consume the media content. Just like an ordinary portable CD player. I guess you could have a disc player in a rectangular device as well. But the round one would be optimal when it comes to minimization of a device's size.

Shape - The round mobile device

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:34:00 +0000

I have to start somewhere. Why not explore shapes? So, in the name of being exhaustive, lets start with the circle. Why would you need a round mobile device? I don't know. It sounds ridiculous, I know. But think of it this way: If the human race faced extinction unless we all used round mobile devices, then what would we do? Create one of course! How would it work? Are there any advantages with a round mobile devices compared to a rectangular one? Let's see...What other things are round? Well, the clock of course. Lets take a look at the clock.

It measures time. It's a metaphor we're very used to. Time goes round and round. A day is a single rotation of earth with respect to the sun. How could we apply this metaphor to a round mobile device? Well, the obvious answer is the ordering of things by time. All of our applications today such as the e-mail inbox, the SMS messages received to our cell phone, uses a list. The last message received comes at the top of the list. It's a stack of messages. It works quite well. Can you beat the list? What if you could steer the circle somehow using your finger to move in time back and forth among your messages. On the outside frame of the device? Inside the device, like an Ipod? What if a certain span of the circle would represent a time unit such as a day or a week. So, in order to find all messages from one week ago, you would rotate the circle the same distance as you would to find other messages from one month ago. The circle would just be in different "period modes", such as the "week mode". Maybe this circle steering could produce narrower lists, such as all messages two weeks ago? But would that beat the list we're used to? I don't know. But it might work better for other types of messages we will receive everyday. Maybe the switching between "period modes" will be difficult to manage. But I guess it could be done. The idea of a round mobile device needs to mature in my head and explored even further . It may not be convenient to have a round thing in your pocket. But on the other hand, who says we have to carry our mobile devices in our pockets? To be continued...

Prologue

matti.hultstrand@gmail.com (Matti Hultstrand) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:41:00 +0000

Welcome! In this blog I will try to think of how tomorrow's computers, the handhelds, will function and look like. This blog is about getting my thoughts out. Stupid or clever ones. No filtering. To be completely exhaustive. If you find one of my ideas interesting, don't hesitate to comment or add your own perspective and thoughts to it. I'll embrace them all.