DesignAday

Googgles

Two weeks ago, Google posted their visionary video introducing Project Glass, a head-worn display (HWD) for your phone. At least, I assume it is “for your phone”, rather than “as your phone”, mainly due to the fact that, in the near future, they won’t be able to fit the components into that small and light a form factor. None of the articles I’ve read have given details of the technology, but I’m assuming the device communicates via Bluetooth with an Android phone.

Some have questioned the technical feasibility. I have no doubts about this. I was working with wearable computers and HWDs back in 1999. The wearable group in CMU’s Robotics Institute had an impressively small and powerful wearable named Spot that I designed some software for. We were using a prototype HWD from IBM that was only a little bulkier than the Google prototype.

Not quite as stylish as Google’s glasses, I know, but it was state-of-the art in 2002. It was the equivalent of viewing an 800 x 600 pixel, 15 inch, VGA display at 12 inches. So, ten years later, I have no doubt that it is possible to produce something similar to what is shown in Google’s video.

However, I have to agree with Mark Wilson’s article for Fast Company. The technical hurdles are the smallest ones. Wearables were a very popular area of research at institutions such as MIT, CMU, and Georgia Tech. There were several companies, like Xybernaut, that tried to make a go at commercializing them. They all failed. It’s reminiscent (if worse) of the tablet market prior to the iPad, and it seems Google wants to pull an Apple. Is it possible to do for wearables what Apple did for tablets?

One thing Google has going for them is that we are already wearing the CPU. We all carry a phone in our pocket or purse that has far more processing power than Spot, as well as multiple wireless communication antennas and contextual sensors. Another advantage is that speech input is finally becoming an acceptable method of interaction. Back in the day, we were dealing with novel input devices: dials, joysticks, and chording keypads like the Twiddler. These were interesting experiments, but they were barriers to adoption.

So it all comes down to fashion. Yes, there’s that word again. What will it take to make HWDs not just socially acceptable, but fashionable? We don’t want to look anything like Steve Mann from the ’90s. I’ve seen many men walking around with Bluetooth ear pieces, but let’s be honest—nobody thinks that’s cool. Google’s hardware is more attractive than any other headgear I’ve seen, but is it sexy? Could it accrue the same social currency as Apple’s white earbuds? It’s possible, but I wouldn’t count on it.

App App

In July of ’09, I made a posted titled “What’s Hiding in My Apps Folder?” I bemoaned the fact that I had 145 items in my Applications folder, many of which I had forgotten about or didn’t even know what they did.

My first conclusion is that I should take some time to clean out my Applications folder. My second conclusion is that I think I’ll try introducing a little bit of organization with some choice sub-folders. My final conclusion is that I need another application—one that helps me manage my applications the same way iTunes does my music. I should be able to say, “I need to convert an audio file,” and the app would then show me all of the tools that I have that might help me to do that.

I wanted an app app—an application for managing applications. One might say, “Well, that’s what the operating system is for, silly!” No, it’s too general-purpose. Then, earlier this year, Steam was released for the Mac. I thought about it a lot, and I decided that given the success of Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and iPad, as well as the success of Steam for games on both Windows and the Mac, it only makes sense for Apple to broaden the App Store to include Macintosh software.

Sure enough, Apple announced last Wednesday that they will be opening the Mac App Store in about three months. Not only will it provide an easy way to find and purchase applications, but will also simplify installation and keeping apps up to date. Pair this with the new Launchpad feature they showed in their preview of OS X Lion and I think my application management problem will have a solution.

Mo’ Drobo

The industrial design of the Drobo, while simple, is quite good. The front of the device is translucent black plastic. This covers the slots where the drives go while letting the status lights shine through. There is one green LED that indicates power, and another that indicates drive activity. Then, each drive bay has it’s own larger light to indicate health. Green is healthy. Yellow indicates that you should add a drive to the slot soon. If the light flashes between yellow and green, you shouldn’t remove that drive. When a light is red, it is telling you to add a drive in that slot. Finally, a flashing red light indicates that the drive has failed and must be replaced. There is also a row of small blue lights along the bottom that act as a capacity gauge, showing how much of your storage space has been filled. This is all clearly communicated on the back side of the front panel, which easily pulls off, revealing the drive bays. This is my favorite part: the front panel is held on by magnets, so it separates quite easily and magically snaps back into place. This is a product that is elegant to use physically as well as digitally.

Drobo

Almost a year ago, I replaced my tape-based digital video camera with a high definition camera that records to an SD card. 720p video takes up a lot of storage space, and I’ve about filled up both my 300 GB external drive and the 320 GB internal. I decided to splurge on a long-term solution. I just got a Drobo.

Made by Data Robotics, the Drobo is an intelligent RAID. I’m no expert on RAIDs, but as I understand it, the hard drives typically all have to be the same size, and once a RAID is set up, it has to be completely reconfigured to be expanded. The Drobo uses Data Robotics’ own, non-standard RAID level called BeyondRAID. Rather than just mirroring, as in RAID 1, or just striping, as in RAID 0, the Drobo can use either one of these schemes independently, or both simultaneously, based on the context of the disks and data. I got the base model which has four drive bays. Each bay can take any size drive up to 4 Terabytes, and you can mix sizes. I’m starting with two 1 TB drives, which will give me about 1 TB of actual storage with full redundancy, so I’m protected against failure of one of the drives. I can add additional drives at any time—the Drobo will format a new drive and add it to the array, redistributing the data automatically based on the new context. Eventually, I’ll be able to swap out drives for a larger ones, maxing out my storage at 16 TBs.

The Drobo makes sophisticated storage easy. Like the best technology products, it just works.

Apple does the right thing… eventually.

Saturday morning, I checked my email before heading to a rehearsal. When I returned home, around 11:00, I discovered that my network was down. I looked over at my Time Capsule to see that the light was off. The Time Capsule is Apple’s back-up device that works with Time Machine. It contains a hard drive (Mine is 1 TB.) and also acts as a wireless router. I have three Macs that back up to it hourly.

I tried unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in. I tried pressing the reset button. It would not power on. So, I used my iPhone to do a quick search, and I found some reports of first generation Time Capsules dying after about 18 months. I purchased mine in April of 2008, so that puts mine at about 19. Apparently the power supply, which is inside of the unit, can’t handle the heat produced by the device and goes bad. Of course, the warranty is only a year.

After I got my Verizon router configured to provide the network, I found these threads on the Apple discussion forums. It seems a lot of people have been having this issue, starting back in August. I ended up calling Apple Care, even though I don’t currently have an Apple Care policy on my machines. Once I explained that I was experiencing the same power supply issue that a lot of others have had, the representative took down by serial number and put me old hold while he looked it up. When he returned, he told me that Apple will be sending me a replacement unit free of charge.

This is a rather serious issue. People are using Time Capsules as their primary means of backup. They should be more dependable than this. That said, I only use it for backup, so I haven’t lost data. Some people simply use it as network attached storage.

It has taken Apple a few months to finally decide to do the right thing and replace units that are obviously suffering from a design flaw. Many customers who were victim to the issue early on have already hacked there units to install external power supplies, or to remove the drives so they could retrieve their data. They won’t be eligible for new units. Many people already replaced their Time Capsules.

Apple has decided to do the right thing, and I applaud them for that. Once again, they have won my loyalty and proven that they are a good and trustworthy company. I must question, however, if I would feel the same way had my unit gone belly up back in August.

A litl More

After my brief post last week about the litl, I was contacted by James Gardner, litl’s VP of marketing. He pointed me to a post on Pentagram’s site and to a video on YouTube. As I was hoping, they painted a picture of very thoughtful design and filled in a lot more detail. In fact, as it turns out, they had an all-star cast working on this thing. Lisa Strausfeld lead Pentagram’s team in the design of the GUI, and Pentagram was also responsible for the visual identity, designed by Abbott Miller. The logo, business cards, and packaging are all exquisite.

The UI has the polish one would expect from Apple. Animated transitions bring a natural flow to state changes. The dial that is used for serial navigation in “easel” mode is repeated on the remote. They designed several channels that deliver specific information from the internet, like the weather, as well as a number of “widgets” like a clock or a feed reader. Visual treatments clearly distinguish between widgets, channels, and standard webpages. Arrangement of these items is automated much like the rearranging of photographs in iPhoto. It hooks up to your hi-def television with an HDMI cable to play movies or show photos. And, if you have more than one in the house, they can be set up to share things with each other.

Also working on the project were Cooper, Fort Franklin, and Fuseproject, although I don’t know what their contributions were. Fuseproject was also behind the OLPC XO laptop, so I’m betting they worked on the industrial design.

The video is pretty awful—lot’s of “um-uh” and fumbling around, but the product shows off well. They should really put together a professional video demonstration of the UI. I think they have a lot to be proud of. This could be a very successful product, although I’m curious to see if they’ve hit a low-enough price point. At $699 or $1,398 for a two-pack, it seems a bit much for something without local storage.

Like Magic

I started using Apple’s new Magic Mouse today, and I absolutely love it. I find it very comfortable, a perfect weight, and with just enough resistance as it slides across my desktop. Of course, the best feature of it is the swipe to scroll. I really liked the scroll ball on my old Mighty Mouse, but this is a vast improvement. The scroll ball worked well, but just like the wheels, it could only scroll as far as your finger tip is long. This required you to move your index finger repeatedly to scroll down a page. With the swipe, you have the entire length of the mouse. On top of that, they have added momentum scrolling, like on the iPhone, so that a good swipe can send your page scrolling quite a distance. Also, the scroll ball would collect gunk over time and stop working. Then you would have to turn the mouse upside down and rub it rapidly back and forth on a piece of paper to clean it. That will not be a problem with the Magic Mouse’s touch surface.

Apple has received a lot of criticism over the years for its mouse designs. This one is a winner—likely the best mouse ever. Of course, I’ve been partial to Apple’s mice, so make of my review what you will.

A Litl Something

A new netbook-type product has been released: the Litl. I find this one more interesting than the underpowered laptops we have seen thus far, however. It takes what I consider to be an Apple approach. The creators must have asked the question, “If we were to design a laptop that was strictly for web use only, what would it be?”

The Litl looks like a small laptop—it folds open revealing a screen in the top and a keyboard and trackpad on the bottom. However, the lid rotates around to an angle at which the device can stand like an easel. The hinge acts as a handle.

The biggest change is that they realized a typical desktop OS was unnecessary. Much as Apple did with the iPhone, they created a custom UI designed specifically for web use. It is truly a case of browser as operating system.

The one flaw, to my mind, is that it doesn’t have a touch-screen. Instead, they opted for a dial on the hinge that allows you to flip through selections. I haven’t yet seen a demonstration of the UI in action, but this is begging for touch input.

Toner Moaner Part 2

So, I’ve been using my printer for a couple months since it started telling me to replace all three color toner cartridges. I wrote about that back in September. Last night, I was trying to print out two pages of black text, and the printer refused to print, displaying an error message stating that all three cartridges were “end of life”. A quick search turned up a number of discussion forums with the instructions on how to circumvent this premature money grab on the part of Brother.

There are little windows on the sides of the cartridges through which you can see the toner. Apparently, the printer has some kind of optical mechanism for testing the amount of toner left. Of course, once the toner gets below a certain level, it no longer detects it, even though there is still some in there. According to the instructions, placing electrical tape over these windows causes the printer to think there is still toner in the cartridge. That doesn’t make much sense to me, as the chances of all three cartridges reporting empty at exactly the same time are highly unlikely.

I didn’t test that procedure, as there were also instructions on how to access a special menu via the console that lets you reset the life of each toner cartridge. This worked just fine, and I was finally able to print my pages. We’ll see how much farther I get before printed pages actually start showing signs of low toner.