TAT - Mobile User Interface Blog

We have moved...

2010-11-17T18:16:00.003+01:00

The Mobile User Interface Blog has moved to http://www.tat.se/blog. It is new, improved, and just downright pleasant.

We hope to see you there!

Free TAT Live Wallpapers for Android

2010-11-11T10:48:00.032+01:00

That’s right! This is a unique opportunity to try out three Live Wallpapers from TAT. Normally, TAT only creates these kinds of wallpapers for device manufacturers and network operators. Now we’re releasing three TAT-designed, interactive wallpapers for free, to show off some of the cool things we can do with our powerful TAT Cascades™ UI framework. Our three promotional wallpapers are:

Artemia: a soothing, yet spectacular undersea wallpaper

Artemia is the beautiful home of glowing creatures. Poke them to make them swim a bit faster or tap on the water to see bubbles. Try catching a glimpse of the largest creature in the ocean! Artemia changes dynamically throughout the day, and it even responds when you charge your Android device.

Blue Range: a fun, isometric and living landscape

This fun loving live wallpaper is full of animals with great personalities. Poke them and see what happens! You can affect land elevation and tilt trees and flowers by moving the phone. Watch darkness fall during the nighttime and don’t miss the cool sunbeam effect while charging your device…

Retro Pixels: a game-like wallpaper with old school aesthetics

Explore a retro-style pixelated world. Flowers bloom when you receive text messages and calls, leaves fall when you shake the phone, and at night the moon rises. This wallpaper also has four hidden secrets. Will you be able to find them all? And can you really trust the duck?

Check out the trailer below, then go get the live wallpapers for free from Android Market!

Artemia QR code or download directly from your Android phone

Artemia needs access to the accelerometer.
The world in Artemia will rotate when the device is tilted. Bubbles will appear when the device is shaken.

Blue Range QR code or download directly from your Android phone

Blue Range needs access to the accelerometer.
The trees in Blue Range will lean with the device when tilted.

Retro Pixels QR code or download directly from your Android phone

Retro Pixels needs access to sms/contact data and accelerometer.
The flowers in Retro Pixels will bloom when texts and calls are received. Leaves will fall off the tree when the device is shaken.

Supported Devices

Samsung Galaxy S

HTC Desire

HTC Nexus One

Motorola Milestone/Droid

Abracadabra (UIST 2009)

2010-11-10T09:15:00.002+01:00

You could try this out on a regular mobile device. Most of the iPhones and Android phones have a compass.

/SLincoln

Beautiful Modeler

2010-11-05T22:04:00.002+01:00

This looks fascinating. There's something about these half finished prototypes that captures me. I've certainly never seen anything like this before. But I don't know what the heck I would use it for. It seems like a brilliant, useless idea. Unless...

There is potential here. I can sense it.

Anyway. Thanks Karl D.D. Willis. I hope I may one day stand on your shoulders and do awesome things with these techniques.

Does the Ford UI Destroy Night Vision?

2010-10-25T09:48:00.006+02:00

The first rule of designing for night time use is: Do NOT use blue, because it destroys your night vision. Red is much better.

Ford's been making cars for longer than anyone. Certainly they have people who know about this. Why then?

Or is the difference between colors on night vision overstated?

AlphaUi Back Type

2010-10-22T08:40:00.003+02:00

I don't really know what to make of this one. It's fun that people are breaking with tradition. Real buttons perform better than touch screens and I'm sure expert users can write faster with fewer errors on this device, than say a touch screen with the same size. So, if you're a secretary taking notes for a boss that walks around a lot, maybe this is something for you.

For the rest of us, having to learn a new keyboard layout is just too much to ask. Most of us know the alphabet as one long row, and when you break it up into three rows we have genuine difficulties finding characters. That's why alphabetic layouts fail.

Frequency based layouts, where you have the most common characters in the middle fail for another reason. Coming from Sweden, I typically switch a lot between writing in Swedish and English. If I had two different layouts I would make mistakes all the time. The same is increasingly true in many other places as english is becoming the de facto world standard language.

AlphaUi

Your vital signs, on camera

2010-10-18T10:41:00.003+02:00

Amazing!

Put this in a car, and then customize the interface to minimize interruptions while I'm stressed out. Hold all calls. And flash a hush sign to silence passengers. This could make driving a bit safer.

More at MIT.

Fabian Hemmert: The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone

2010-10-13T08:45:00.003+02:00

I think the timing for Fabian's ideas are really good. I would love to have my phone be flat in my pocket, and thick enough to give me a really good grip when I hold it. Holding my iPad at the thin end of the wedge feels really dangerous. I'd much rather handle expensive fragile devices with thick wedged edges.

The weight shifting technique is really interesting, but definitely farther away. If you expand the device when it's in your hand, you have extra room to move stuff around. The battery is usually responsible for most of the weight, so if you could move that around you wouldn't have to add a dedicated weight.

But I would be worried about dropping a weight shifting shape changing device.

Maybe this would fit better in a TV game controller, where you have a better grip, and where you have more room inside.

Anyway, great work Fabian.

Prototype: NTT DoCoMo's Touchable 3D display with Haptic Pen

2010-10-08T08:45:00.004+02:00

As usual, filming a 3D Stereoscopic screen with a one camera lens does not do it justice. So the chameleon looks blurry, but I'm sure it looked great at the fair.

What caught my attention in this piece was the force of the haptics in the pen. It looks like it really kicks you in the hand. I'm still not sure how well finger touch works on stereoscopic screens, where you may need to interact with things that appear to be a few centimeters behind the screen. Maybe a pen can help you get the most out of such a screen.

Original article here.

Mozilla Seabird

2010-10-04T14:10:00.004+02:00

This is not a product that Mozilla plan's to build. But it has some really nice ideas that can become reality once you have two built in pico projectors and some infrared sensors.

Compact Chinese

2010-10-01T13:33:00.002+02:00

When you design user interfaces in english you usually will have to make extra room (about 30%) on your rows to make sure you can translate your labels into languages like German and Finnish, which tend to have much longer words.

Look at all the space in this list! Chinese is really compact. I don't think the layout would look like this if it was intended for the local chinese market. If I had this much space in an interface I'd probably use it for split screen, or something else. I'm glad we translate our Swedish phones from American designs, rather than from Chinese. It would be a nightmare to be able to come up with meaningful words with three characters for every label.

Microsoft Research: Buttons Beat Multitouch Mouse

2010-09-29T08:29:00.000+02:00

Always interesting to see the giants bashing each other. Here, Microsoft basically says it's better to have real buttons.

Meanwhile, Apple's spindoctors call their product Magic Mouse. For a product that has no affordances for it's new functionality, it's a very flattering name. Seems to me that the new features are hard to discover, pretty hard to remember, and I'm worried about triggering functionality by accident when I handle the mouse. But, to be fair, I only used it for a minute in a store, so who am I to bash it.

pCubee: A Perspective-Corrected Handheld Display

2010-09-21T20:36:00.003+02:00

Shaking cows around is such a brilliant idea. I smile every time I see it. This looks like a wonderful toy. To be able to render the scene in correct perspective, they use some kind of magnetic head-tracker mounted on a pair of headphones.

Horizon 2D-3D transitions

2010-09-16T14:36:00.004+02:00

Recently, 3D has made a splash in the media and tech world; we see it in everything from blockbuster 3D movies to TVs and handheld devices with stereoscopic 3D (S3D) screens. What does this mean for the future of user interfaces (UIs)?

At TAT we are thrilled by the design possibilities 3D graphics have to offer (as we explained in this whitepaper). We believe S3D will dramatically increase the demand for 3D UIs. Of course, we don’t expect 3D to replace 2D anytime soon, as most users are familiar and comfortable with 2D UIs. Nevertheless, there are obvious advantages to both. Now, we have invented a way to combine these approaches, based on a solution that we call the Horizon 2D-3D transition.

Take maps, for example. Not so long ago, most maps were in 2D. These maps are typically simplified, making it easy to orient yourself in relation to stylized images of roads and blocks of buildings. Recently, digital map providers such as Google and Microsoft (Bing) have begun to offer maps in a “street view” 3D layout. These 3D maps allow users to actually see the height, shape and surfaces of objects such as buildings, which is useful when looking for a particular landmark.

Clearly, there are advantages to both 2D and 3D maps, and they coexist side by side in many map solutions. The problem however, is that users risk losing their visual points of reference when switching between 2D and 3D views. We think that the Horizon 2D-3D transition is the solution. In our Horizon Map demo, we show how 2D and 3D maps can be combined into a singular application where layout alterations are seamless and dynamic. This is much more comprehensible than the mode switching of current map solutions. The demo is built with TAT Cascades and it uses stunning 3D map meshes from C3 Technologies.

The Horizon 2D-3D transition is not limited to maps, however. For instance, in our Horizon List demo, we show how a standard contact list in 2D transforms into a more complex 3D list, which also shows status updates. While maintaining the simplicity of 2D when looking for a specific contact, it is easy to switch to the information-dense 3D list to find out if someone has shared any news. With full support for both 2D UIs and 3D UIs, TAT Cascades now makes it possible to move dynamically and seamlessly between both, in any application.

Tactilis

2010-09-13T14:05:00.002+02:00

This drawing app is just full of novel interaction design. It may be the first time I see commands issued by crossing the edge of the screen. I'm sure you could do lots of other things with that.

It's the first time I see the circular ruler in a paint program. The gesture is interesting for that one, because it differentiates between a two finger rotational gesture where both fingers move, vs two finger rotational gesture where only one finger moves. Interesting.

Multitouch on stamps

2010-09-03T11:00:00.003+02:00

I always thought the idea of multitouch on tiny screens was kind of ridiculous. So I kind of laughed when I heard Apple was going to but multitouch on the iPod nano, because it's really no bigger than a stamp.

But Apple got the last laugh, because they found a really nice use for it. Instead of having an accelerometer guess what orientation you want, you use two fingers to rotate the screen, and you get what you want. Simple to learn. Easy to remember.

I thought the automatic switch would be the best, but I've learned when living with the iPad and iPhone that it often rotates when I don't want it to. Stopping the guesswork and just using two fingers to rotate the screen is a step in the right direction. I think.

Future os Screens - Experience video

2010-09-01T11:02:00.006+02:00

Capacitive screens has now become a commodity for touch screen devices. Screen technology is now taking the next leap and the coming years imagination is the only thing stopping us. We will soon have dual screens, malleable screens, screens built into wifi connected mirrors, desks or backside of gadgets clothed with e-ink screens, tactile feedback, color screens with great contrast in sunlight, holographics/stereoscopic screens, color e-ink touch screens, or screens actually knowing where they are in relation to other screens thanks to ultrasonic emitters and microphones.

We want to show some of these things in an "experience video", that shows a normal day in a couple of years when all these technologies are affordable enough to be used everywhere. This video is the result of our experiment with open innovation, read more about our experiment here. Big thanks to all the people from TAT and around the world who helped out and sometimes shared their ideas and sometimes gave us homework on our own ideas.

Ringo by Ivan Tihienko

2010-08-24T09:15:00.002+02:00

Holographic Interface - round interface - Ringo from Ivan Tihienko on Vimeo.

Circular user interfaces are very futuristic. I think real interfaces are often square because it's more space efficient than circular shapes, and space is always at a premium. But when you project on the ground, you have lots of space. Pico projectors are just around the corner so it's time to start thinking about what's different about a projected interface.

Exploring Tablet Interfaces

2010-08-20T16:27:00.002+02:00

In 2010 and 2011 there will be a device explosion in the Tablet space. We can expect to see a wide variety of new devices ranging from 5 to 12 inches on operative systems such as MeeGo, Android and Windows 7. What kind of user experiences will these devices offer? How do you design astonishing tablet interfaces?

On one hand we have companies that scale phone UIs to tablets. On the other hand we have companies offering the full blown desktop experience scaled down to tablet size. We believe that both of these approaches will result in crippled user experiences. For example, the tablet form factor is perfect for media consumption and this could be manifested in the UI. TAT recognizes tablets as a radically different type of device - personal and mobile yet powerful and creative. We are now on a quest to design fantastic UIs that are optimized for this device space.

Follow the link to check out Velvet - a playful concept UI for MeeGo tablets by TAT and Wind River. With full support for 3D graphics and shaders, TAT Cascades enables astonishing UIs on MeeGo, Android and other tablet OSs.

Microsoft Experimental Adaptive Keyboard

2010-08-19T16:48:00.002+02:00

One of the things that you really miss when you design for touch screens is tooltips on mouse-over. Nobody wants to look stupid, and mouse-over can really help users avoid pressing the wrong buttons, by providing more information about what they do.

A physical keyboard with real keys could still have a touch sensitive surface. Then you could have tooltips when you rest your finger on a button. This is not included in the Microsoft Prototype, but I like to dream. It's nice to finally see some serious adaptive keyboard hardware. Although I think I would prefer an e-ink screen instead.

Toshiba Libretto W100 PALW100MNG Dual screen UMPC multi-touch review

2010-08-17T13:06:00.002+02:00

There are a number of new challenges for dual screen devices. One is how to solve interaction between the screens, such as moving windows between the screens. Here is one solution. I don't know if it's the most elegant one, but it seems to work.

I like the fact that they placed all the heat generating components behind the top screen, to avoid burning up your lap. With my current Macbook, I usually have to have an extra book in my lap to shield my legs from the heat.

Readius

2010-08-11T10:26:00.003+02:00

While new to me, this video is already two years old when I blog it. Things are really happening with the rollable displays for e-readers. The promise of the rollable display is: Pen sized in your pocket - book sized in your hand.

This e-book reader is also a phone. If anyone has a chance of disrupting the mobile phone industry, it's someone coming from a different angle. I think the rollable e-book reader is a dangerous angle.

Storyboard for Open Innovation

2010-07-08T14:27:00.010+02:00

Here is the storyboard for our inspirational movie, we are shooting it just now as I write this text. It goes a little something like this:

Harold wakes up and snoozes the alarm using a gesture above the phone.

He then continues to read some news in his bed.

He finds an article he likes and expands the screen to get a better reading experience and decides to share it to his friends.

Somewhere in the meantime Ana is brushing her teeth in front of her mirror. The mirror shows widgets and news.

She controls the UI on the mirror using gestures. She then finds Harolds shared article and decides to share it to her other friends as well.

At the same time Will is just arriving at work.

He sits down by his transparent screen and starts working when he sees the piece of news shared by Ana. He tells his co-worker to have a look at it. He can see it from his side of the transparent screen. Will does a quick mash-up of the news. He puts it on his phone.

He meets Harold on his lunch break, the guy who started the sharing link, and gives him the mash up while the phones are stitched together. And they lived happily ever after...

Keep posted because the video is coming soon.

Tobii Glasses - eyetracking

2010-06-23T08:19:00.003+02:00

This seems like a neat technology.

Say that you want to create a music player for a car. Then you want to know if your design is safe for use while driving. One criteria for an unsafe design is:
"The driver needs to look away from the road for more than two seconds at a time."

The Tobii glasses should be able to provide you with that data in a jiffy.

Wireless in the World: Overlaying Urban Space with Wireless Technology

2010-06-21T08:49:00.002+02:00

Wireless in the world 2 from timo on Vimeo.

From Timo Arnall, this is a visualization of the invisible.

It feels like science fiction. Partly because we don't have the kind of technology to overlay networks in the world with that kind of precision. Partly because it feels like we're invading someone's privacy. These things take some time to get used to. Just like public diaries (blogs) were kind of scary when they came.

And the winner is...

2010-06-18T14:27:00.005+02:00

... screen technology! By the slimmest margin possible (almost)

It has been great to share ideas and thoughts and we hope you liked it too.

This experiment has now been running for two weeks and it's time for us to take all the input and start making an inspirational video. The forum part is now closed and we will work internally for a couple of weeks with some concept design and then start the final production of the movie.

If you want to see just what happened during the two weeks of open innovation you can still take a look at the forum parts for our three topics. We also wish to publish a lessons learned from our little experiment so if you want to do it yourself you can get our DOs and DON'Ts.

Open Innovation Day #8

2010-06-17T11:15:00.003+02:00

THE FUTURE OF DRIVING
Benjamin from flinc showed us his demo of the hitchhiking service, nice!

THE FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION
This sketch was made to visualize what Ash was talking about getting rid of the laptop:

THE FUTURE OF SCREENS
Antoine RJ Wright shared yet another idea with us, we like creative and productive people, this one being about using the camera as a sensor to capture gestures.

Open Innovation Day #7

2010-06-16T11:20:00.002+02:00

It's now the final countdown. Just a couple of days remaining of exchanging ideas at our open innovation website.

FUTURE OF DRIVING
Handful shared some ideas and gave us a link to his blog where he had sketches of his one on scenarios much like ours. Really nice to see!

THE FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION
Maybe not in the right section, (but who cares, we are not running Wikipedia here) Ash posted his idea about mirrors so the sketch macine a.k.a Per made this one:

THE FUTURE OF SCREEN TECHNOLOGY
I expressed that i liked transparent screens and Per wasn't late to reply with a sketch:

Open Innovation Day #6

2010-06-15T13:55:00.003+02:00

FUTURE OF DRIVING
A good discussion spurred from the hitchiking idea - especially that this application could be used within a network: friends of friends on Facebook or within a company - to increase trust.

It almost feels like the two categories FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION and
SCREEN TECHNOLOGY are more and more merging into one. We're keeping them separated on the page, but probably the end result will be an amalgamation if it will be any of these two that wins.

Ash brought up a lot of good points on that smartphones are complete computers if only the peripherals worked, and also that we are surrounded by things that should be screens - one of the things Ash wanted was a mirror that showed weather info etc, and I am happy to see that other geeks are already working on it:

A lot of good discussions on making screens "smarter" and more aware of who's watching created the following picture:

And Antoine's wish on making it easier to share content between screens created this:

SAMSUNG Flexible AM OLED

2010-06-11T19:56:00.002+02:00

I´m still unsure of what I want to use the new flexible screens for. But they seem extremely sturdy. And I like the AMOLED song. Very catchy.

Open Innovation Day #4

2010-06-11T14:36:00.004+02:00

Here is the video made from Kars input:

FUTURE OF DRIVING

Mowitz wants to eliminate the tunnel effect that occurs while driving at high speed.

Neldeborn suggested using facial recognition and streaming the video to your cell so you could see if your car got nicked. Could be coupled with additional features to be a stronger case

FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION

Mike would like to get a better view of when his enemies are around, could also be used for friends i guess for those of us that has that :)

Roger shared his thoughts around group calls and having those groups consistent over time, thinking about Google Wave and why that isn't picking up.

FUTURE OF SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

Olof introduced the idea of sharing screens and getting control over them by using facial recognition.

Antoine and roger pirched ideas arouund expanding the screen space either by sticthcing, sharing contexts between screens or flexible size. We produced a sketch around this:

Open Innovation Day #3

2010-06-10T11:15:00.002+02:00

We have the most traction in the driving section (been waiting for that pun) right now on our open innovation forum. But it's not in the lead when it comes to votes, isn't that strange?

We are now seeing input from people trying to reach further than what happens behind the steering wheel. Concept concerning traffic jams and person-per-car density is keeping us busy.

We got a little ambitious and started to make a movie so today you we didn't produce any sketches around the other concepts. But don't worry, it's on our todo list for today:

Open Innovation Day #2

2010-06-09T09:37:00.006+02:00

FUTURE OF DRIVING
We've had some discussions around parking and the problems around it. Good input and we hope to get something visual done in this area soon. So far its just whiteboard sketches:

We found some cool concepts on cars that park them self:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGuSRuSunjo

Sensors (heartbeat) are stirring up some thoughts and must be investigated further, sensors in cars that senses the drivers and passenger are cool to think about since most applications of sensors are around making the car sense it's surroundings.

In our project room we are also pushing for more concepts around the dashboard & peripheral devices so it was nice to see Neldeborns comments about remote access to your parking via an phone app.

FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION
We are working with the idea of "cross device handover" of a call. How can a call go from using the portability of the mobile phones to the screen size and video call possibilities of a TV? We want a smooth experience where you don't hang up on the phone and initiate a Skype call. The thing that needs to be brainstormed is the "super cool hand over mechanism".

Click the picture to see the movie on flickr:

Holographic displays are now in the mix thanks to Jeremias. Here is a video for you who discard it as sci fi, boyaka, it's here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFMxUqxOaBs

FUTURE OF SCREEN TECHNOLOGY
Screen technology is now in the lead if we count the votes, but the second day we haven't seen any creative input. So we are hoping for more ideas on how we will use screens and what they will be able to do in the future.

If you don't like to read (but somehow made it this far) you can go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tatmobileui/ for our output in picture format.

Open Innovation Day #1

2010-06-07T15:29:00.006+02:00

Yesterday morning we opened up or innovation process in an experiment to see if we could make user feedback earlier in the process improve the results with our way of working with innovation. Summing up the first days concepts:

FUTURE OF DRIVING

With the wind screen potentially being one big screen there are plenty of things we could improve. One idea was to block out the light from meeting cars (using an eye tracker) so that you wouldn't be blinded but still could see the approaching car:Using the windows (side screens in our example) to show tourist info would guide you through the city (the front screen could show you the street name):

And with a pico projector in a mobile we could have all these ideas in an app:

FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION

This has so far been a fairly dormant subject.

FUTURE OF SCREEN TECH

E-ink desks would give us a lot of interesting info:

and the possibility to sync devices or to send devices between them more tangible:

Also here augmented reality of course quickly became a topic (with Petit Invention's classic example):

Another topic that was discussed was to improve the feedback from screens, to be able to feel buttons before you press them.

The Phone Manual, Back To Basics

2010-06-01T13:11:00.002+02:00

Out of the box - book from adrian333 on Vimeo.

Designers Clara Gaggero, Adrian Westaway and Jaako Tuomivara are behind the "Out of the Box" concept. I think it is really neat. But unfortunately, it can never be anything but a dream, since the people who work with documentation and the people who work with packaging work on different departments that can never cooperate.

No seriously. This is awesome. Just do it.

Nice way to show performance upgrade

2010-05-24T19:06:00.002+02:00

In this video about Android 2.2, the first new feature in the package is faster rendering speed, something close to our heart at TAT. But most of the time it is hard to sell better performance in a Youtube video, since the framerate of the video typically is way below the framerate of the device in real life. But, here they show two examples with an increasing amount of graphical objects, and color the entire screen red when the framerate drops below a certain threshold. Very persuasive. Although I would probably set the threshold framerate at 60 fps to ensure a solid gaming experience.

/SLincoln

Manual Deskterity: An Exploration of Simultaneous Pen + Touch Direct Input

2010-05-17T20:24:00.004+02:00

I kind of like the use of pen and fingers on the same device. By using them both at the same time you can get a simple mode switch similar to right clicking on your mouse. But writing on a thick glass surface where the display is a few millimeters under the surface is not like writing on paper. Its more imprecise, like drawing with a really thick crayon. The distance makes it hard to predict exactly where you get ink when you set down your pen. I think you can see the effect of this on the graceless handwriting in the demo.

When there is a layer of glass between the pen and the pixels, you get a mismatch that depends on your viewing angle. I tried the Wacom Cintiq and it has this problem. If only you could have a camera on the device, that could track your face and calibrate based on the angle, then you could solve this problem. Or, just have an incredibly thin glass.

Microsoft Kin One

2010-05-13T20:08:00.002+02:00

This device has a dedicated search button. That seems like a real nifty thing to have.

Text 2.0

2010-05-12T19:38:00.004+02:00

I think this is very exiting. Just like you have adaptive music in games that heightens the mood, so too could you have music in your book, that changes depending on what you´re reading right now. Or, you could even have a song book, that played accompaniment in the speed you´re reading. Or maybe that would just be weird.

It would be nice to experiment with dimming text that you´ve already read. Distracting, or awesome? Only testing it will tell me for sure.

Counting the word-speed could help find passages in a text that are hard to read. This would be awesome for wikipedia, as it could automatically flag passages for revision.

Exiting times ahead, when built in cameras will be hi-rez, and hi-speed, and computing power will be endless. Then, eye-tracking will be cheap, and reliable. This is within reach in a few years.

RidgePad: Doubling touch accuracy

2010-04-16T12:56:00.005+02:00

From the paper at CHI this week:
The Generalized Perceived Input Point Model and How to Double Touch Accuracy by Extracting Fingerprints

Patrick Baudisch et. al. has figured out a way to dramatically increase touch accuracy by measuring the finger angle.

They argue that by using new techniques, we could make smaller buttons for touch screens. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of half the width and half the height. Today, the standard recommendation minimum size for touch screen buttons is 1x1cm.

Occlusion-Aware Interfaces

2010-04-13T10:30:00.003+02:00

Although I don't think the call-outs are very elegant, I do think the model of hand and arm occlusion is interesting for pen based interfaces.

From CHI 2010.

UIST'09: Bonfire: a nomadic system for hybrid laptop-tabletop interaction

2010-04-09T08:26:00.003+02:00

This is a nice concept for laptops. You can use space next to the laptop to interact with. Always interesting to see what Johnny Chung Lee is up to.

Human-Robot Jazz Improvisation (Highlights)

2010-04-04T12:04:00.007+02:00

I would love a virtual version of this for my iPhone. Or just to be able to lay my iPhone next to a piano and start playing, and get a little accompaniment here and there when I play. Is there something like this already in the appStore?

Touch-Display Keyboards (TDK) Keyboard Concept Protytype

2010-03-31T18:39:00.003+02:00

Here's a group of people who have taken the display keyboard concept for a thorough spin. Provided you can manufacture a display keyboard cheaply, I think it's promising. For sure, it would make the keyboard look real clean when you switch it off.

Touch Projector: Mobile Interaction Through Video

2010-03-02T21:18:00.003+01:00

I think this is absolutely crazy. This solution is so computationally expensive it's ridiculous. Still. In a few years, computing power will be tremendous, so who cares. Just do it!

Well done Sebastian Boring, et al.

Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface

2010-03-02T20:52:00.002+01:00

Microsoft has found a way to measure acoustically when you tap a part of your body. Neat. I wonder if you could use microphones in a mobile phone to measure what goes on in the arm when you're holding the phone. Then you might have a really cheap touchpad on your arm.

Nintendo DSI demo video using Facetracking to control Parallax

2010-03-01T11:38:00.002+01:00

It's nice to see these ideas catching on. It feels more 3D, and best of all, no extra glasses.

Touchable Holography

2010-01-30T23:09:00.002+01:00

I've blogged about ultrasonic tacile displays before, but this technology seems so magical to me that I couldn't resist posting about this video. And it always helps the imagination with more examples. I love the little elephant right at the end.

Touch-free input interface using a single camera

2010-01-30T22:48:00.003+01:00

Really nice. I would like to try out what this feels like. His typing seems rather quick. It would be a nice way to avoid smudges on your screen if nothing else. You can still have haptic feedback in the air as shown here.

One might have problems with ergonomics and fatigue as you have nowhere to rest your hands or fingers, but you won't know until you try.

DIY Touchscreen Analysis

2010-01-11T22:46:00.002+01:00

DIY Touchscreen Analysis from MOTO Development Group on Vimeo.

Nice test! And a great reminder for designers to be careful at thee edges of the screen, where sensitivity generally is not as good.

UIST'09: Integrated videos and maps for driving directions

2009-12-21T21:06:00.002+01:00

I love how they can choose a camera angle after they filmed it because they recorded it panoramically.

Some great ideas here.

Mag+ (Bonnier R&D concept video)

2009-12-21T20:52:00.002+01:00

Elegant button free mockup. The designer in me cheers!

Great insight into how we consume magazines.

"...They can be completed. They are very knowable. That one can read through it and finish it. And have a sense that they've consumed an editorial package, without neccessarily the kind of endless infinitely expanding RSS-feed, for example, where there really is no end."

/SLincoln

Beyond the touchscreen, finally the future is here!

2009-12-14T14:56:00.002+01:00

With help of TAT UI technology in combination with leading edge hardware providers, we at TAT we constantly strive to push the limits for mobile device user experiences, and showcase the future trends for user interaction. Today, with the unveiling of the Fuse concept device, we see the birth of a new generation of multi sensor devices, beyond the current generation of touchscreen phones. TAT together with partners (Synaptics, Texas Instruments, Immersion and Alloy), for the first time shows an integrated range of multiple interface technologies— including multi-touch capacitive sensing, haptic feedback, force, grip, accelerometer and proximity sensing all brought together in a fully OpenGL|ES 2.0 hardware accelerated 3D User Interface.

Using TAT Cascades we have implemented a user interface bringing all these modalities together to tackle some of the challenges of current-generation touchscreen phones by on-the-go users, namely the difficulty of single-handed usage and the need to look at the screen. The Fuse’s sensing technologies surrounds the entire device. E.g. grip sensing is achieved via force and capacitive touch sensors on the sides of the phone, and it also introduces for the first time 2D navigation from the back of the phone, enabling single-handed control without obstructing the display.

The output feedback technologies include next-generation haptic effects and ground breaking 3D user interface effects. The TI OMAP3630 platform has been put to the test with the implementation of a dynamic UI design, highlighting the sensor control mechanisms using realtime OpenGL|ES 2.0 shader effects for things like light sources, dynamic colors, reflections, shadows, animated 3D meshes and much more.

The movie below shows a couple of the UI mechanism and effects, and the fully functional device with all sensors and haptic actuators will be available to try out for the first time at CES 2010. Don’t miss it!

TAT makes business apps useful on Android

2009-12-11T10:49:00.002+01:00

Making a complex desktop internet application useful on a mobile phone is not easy.

QlikView knows this and have turned to TAT for the design and technology expertise required to meet their high demands on usefulness when mobilizing their popular business intelligence application QlikView. The Android version will be their first implementation using TAT Cascades, and it seems QlikView may in turn be the first ever business intelligence application to launch on Android.

Using TAT Cascades on top of Android makes it possible to implement an application design that does not compromise, neither on QlikView’s brand values nor on the application functionality or usefulness. And after implementation on Android, scaling to other operating systems or form factors is made easy by the functionality provided in TAT Cascades.

The First Else

2009-12-09T11:16:00.003+01:00

This seems nice. I like how you can quick access the content of the application with a simple sideways gesture. Looks kind of like a widget on demand, or a peek preview.

More here.

More info here >>

Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you

2009-12-07T12:06:00.007+01:00

Desktop widgets have reached hundreds of millions of users in recent years - OS X Dashboard, Windows Gadgets, Yahoo Widgets and tons of web widgets have all helped the uptake of lightweight, single purpose applications that run in a limited screen estate.

The mobile space has - as many times before - been inspired by the desktop and a number of widget standards are out there; JIL, W3C, Android to name a few.

From a design point of view, widgets are often fun to create. They should do one thing very well, compared to full blown apps that have tons of edge cases that take months to design and specify. Designing a widget is a perfect mobile interaction design 101 task, a bit like when architecture students design a chair during their first semester.

So how come there are so many badly designed widgets out there?

Consider the OS X Dashboard weather widget. It looks great and tells you the weather right now, but most people are able to look out the window to see if it's sunny. Sure, knowing the outside temperature in the morning helps you decide what to wear, but should it cover a majority of the widget area?

Wouldn't it be wiser to spend more on the upcoming weather and less on the current weather? You can expand the OS X widget to show the upcoming weather as well, but it’s still using half the widget area to show the current conditions. And that’s still using numbers instead of graphics ot show the temperatures.

Doesn’t Apple know that an analogue (bars) representation rather than a digital one (digits) makes it easier to compare temperature between days?

In a mobile context, spending a lot of screen estate on the current weather is even worse because a) Screens are small and every pixel counts

You’re more likely to be outside and thus don’t need a widget to tell you it’s too cold

We really love what HTC has done with Hero and their awesome Sense UI. The visual design is flawless and they have really taken Android beyond vanilla. But still, we never use the weather widgets. The small one doesn’t show any forecast, and the big one steals too much space.

We are currently in the midst of designing a suite of Android widgets and have put some thought into the ultimate weather widget, that according to us should: 

Emphasize upcoming weather rather than current
Offer short term forecasts at a glance (should I bring an umbrella today?)
Offer long term forecasts with minimum effort (what's the best day this week to go mountainbiking?)
Stay compact unless specifically interacted with
Be beautiful and give an aha/wow/smile

Here’s what we came up with:

A compact mode that shows the current and upcoming weather with the same priority. Temperature is color coded to give information at a glance:

An extended mode that shows the weather with a bar representation so that you can easily see how it’s going to vary the following days:

How do you get between these modes?

The widget is 3D so you can swipe to rotate between the modes.For some extra love we’ve added physics, making it even more playful:

Another thing we’re experimenting with is more exotic input methods. Here you blow into the microphone to switch from temperature to wind information:

TAT goes retro with an anaglyphic UI

2009-12-04T11:15:00.003+01:00

Remember those nice glasses from the 80’s? Well guess what - now you can use them on your next mobile UI as well.

So if you have a pair of red-green glasses laying around, put them on and enjoy the cool 3D effect in the anaglyphic version of our previously released RedDish demo below – all powered by our astonishing UI framework; TAT Cascades.

Of course these types of glasses won’t be needed for the new wave of stereoscopic 3D experiences, so stay tuned for more 3D UIs by TAT.

What is anaglyphics?
Anaglyph images are made up of two superimposed color layers that are offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect. Usually the main subject is in the center, while the foreground and background are shifted laterally in opposite directions. When viewed through 2-color glasses, each eye perceives a slightly different picture. The visual cortex of the brain fuses these into perception of three dimensions.

How to build a coverflow on Android in just 5 minutes

2009-12-03T08:34:00.002+01:00

Using TAT Cascades for Android, Fredrik Berglund shows how easy it is to build an attractive coverflow UI on Android in just five minutes, and have it running on a device.

NOTE: Programming section is five minutes, but fast forwarded to 3 minutes

With TAT Cascades for Android and TAT Motion Lab, Fredrik has a really flexible toolset that allows him to check performance directly on target, change design direction at anytime and create a prototype that shows a UI concept with great performance. Working with TAT Cascades makes it possible to actually sketch on device.

Why create a concept movie when you can create a working prototype in the same amount of time?

Did you know this about TAT Cascades for Android?

• TAT Cascades enables the Android framework to be a modern architecture not only to come on par with today's high end UI’s but also to go beyond.

• TAT Cascades provides next generation UI driven approach rather than the programmatic UI in Android

Benefits:
• CTS compliant pre-integration on Android
• Using hardware acceleration to its full extent
• Bleeding-edge user experience, with full support 3D in the UI
• Rapidly scale your Android implementation across other operating systems, such as Windows Mobile, Symbian etc.

Spotify on Symbian, powered by TAT technology

2009-11-23T07:13:00.006+01:00

The market for downloadable applications will continue to grow in a rapid pace and for content and service providers’ like Spotify mobile reach is of essence
Despite the hype, the Apple App store only accounts for 13% of the total market for downloadable applications; e.g. Symbian/S60 (Nokia) accounts for 46%.

To make a downloadable application (one version) for the Apple App store is easy,
but when you need to go beyond the App store, more or less everything becomes difficult. TAT can have the downloadable application look astonishingly beautiful on Symbian/S60 and also makes sure that you can port this across different platforms, such as Symbian/S60, Android, Windows Phone and iPhone.

Turning a great internet service into an equally attractive and easy-to-use mobile application that works across platforms such as Symbian is challenging both from a technology and a design perspective. TAT had the software solution and design competence required to meet the high demands of Spotify.

The technology used for Spotify's downloadable music application has for long been used by several of the leading handset manufacturers to create advanced user interfaces across various mobile platforms. Using that same technology to build downloadable applications is a logical step as post-loaded services on mobile devices rapidly expands from iPhones to the much larger total smartphone market.

Check out the press release >>

UIST'09: Relaxed selection techniques for querying time-series graphs

2009-11-21T06:45:00.002+01:00

Imagine changing someone's dialect in a sound editor. I have a vision of editing sound in the same powerful way we can edit photos. This research tips the scales a little bit in favour of sound editing. From a song track, you would be able to trace the shape of a vowel, and select all similar vowels across the track. Change every a to e, and you get a weird dialect. Funny.

We're not there yet. But this is one step in the right direction.

Ripples: Utilizing Per-Contact Visualizations to Improve User Interaction with Touch Displays

2009-11-19T15:45:00.002+01:00

From UIST 2009.

I like how they turn the dot into a line when you move fast. An elegant way to cope with low framerate systems.

/SLincoln

Microsoft "Courier" secret tablet

2009-10-22T11:07:00.002+02:00

Flawless recognition of handwriting. Will it become reality this time around?

Body-based Interaction for Desktop Games

2009-09-29T20:20:00.002+02:00

I think this looks super-intuitive. In my experience, novice gamers tend to move like this anyway, and it looks like a good way to immerse yourself more.

Substitute the prototype on her head for a web-cam posture detection solution and you're home.

This is from CHI 2009.

TAT RedDish

2009-09-21T16:01:00.002+02:00

TAT RedDish is a new demo UI that shows off the 3D capabilties of TAT Cascades. Running on Mali-200 GPU based target hardware, the demo uses Open GL|ES 2.0 shaders and 4xAA anti aliasing.

The design concept shows how 3D can enable seamless UI navigation. It allows users to navigate between applications in the front to widgets located in the background in one, coherent space.

The dish shown in the video is a people-centric communication application, which combines a contact list with social network applications. By spinning the lower part of the disc, different contacts can be accessed. Depending on the ways in which one can communicate with this contact, different applications and channels appear at the top of the disc. This marks a step away from traditional, application-centric UIs, where users first must open a social network application before selecting the person they want to communicate with.

Adaptive Pointing – Implicit Gain Adaptation for Absolute Pointing Devices

2009-08-25T22:14:00.002+02:00

If you've tried using a laser pointer, you know it's very hard to hold it still. Some guys at the University of Konstanz have found a way to make it easier to point with a device like the Wii-mote.

They assume that most clicks are a combination of a fast move to get close to the target, and then a slow move to accurately position the cursor. During the fast move they use absolute position, but they switch to relative position as soon as the cursor slows down. I think this sounds like a great idea. My only fear is that it will feel a bit sticky. But then, I think I would prefer a slight stickyness to the jittery feeling you get with absolute pointing.

Here's the original paper.

Pressure Sensitive Keyboard

2009-08-12T21:15:00.002+02:00

Looks like pressure sensitive physical keyboards are ready for mass production.

I like it how different technologies cross fertilize. The pressure sensitive sloppy type algorithms were made for touch screens, and now they can migrate back to physical keyboards, if you just make the characters pressure sensitive.

TAT Augmented ID

2009-07-14T13:23:00.002+02:00

Augmented ID is a TAT concept that visualizes the digital identities of people you meet in real life. With a mobile device and face recognition software from Polar Rose, Augmented ID enables you to discover selected information about people around you. All users control their own augmented appearance, by selecting the content and social network links they want show to others. Modifying your augmented ID is easier than fixing your hair in real life and, of course, TAT Cascades will make sure you look great!

An evaluation of Techniques for Selecting Moving Targets

2009-07-10T21:52:00.004+02:00

Anyone who's tried to photograph a toddler knows that targeting moving objects is hard. Tyler Gunn, et. al. makes selection easier by enlarging the targets in the direction they travel. I think their Comet Tails design for generic targets is promising.

I'm interested in converting this design into one that would make photography easier, because this is a mass market problem. Below I made a sketch of what it might look like in the camera viewer while taking a photo. Maybe you could make a blurred trail of moving foreground objects. If you barely missed the subject and pressed the button while targeting the trail, your focus would still be on the subject. Or are trailing images of people just creepy?

"Hiya-Atsu" media: Augmenting digital media with temperature

2009-06-27T22:17:00.003+02:00

In this video from NTT in Japan, they have a heat-display on a mouse. A surface changes from hot to cold depending on the voltage applied, and the sign on the voltage.

Imagine putting this on a phone.

Applications:
More immersive movies. Heat at explosions, etc.
Feel a spot on the device in your pocket. If it gets cold when you press it, the sound is off.
Send vacation messages and convey how hot/cold it is.
Weather widgets can be more intuitive if they display heat/cold.

Wikipedia describes the Peltier effect.

Topology-Aware Navigation in Large Networks

2009-06-25T21:27:00.002+02:00

I think this is a promising idea for displaying geographic connections. In the video, the example is international flights. But you could visualize subway stations or data traffic the same way.

Morphing Gesture Feedback

2009-06-25T21:02:00.006+02:00

This idea, by Shumin Zhai, and Caroline Appert, solves two important feedback problems with gestures. When you've made a gesture, you can see what gesture the computer thinks you did, and how it's ideally drawn.

In the example, a delete gesture is drawn.

Great idea.

Their paper contains a lot more on gestures.

Layar

2009-06-23T14:03:00.005+02:00

Augmented reality is starting to get such an old dry idea now that it's ready to explode. The combination of compass and GPS is finally going to make it possible. The first phone that had this combination was the G1. So they get the cred for a lot of the innovation happening in this space. The new iPhone is also going to have a compass, and others will follow.

This shows the power of adding more sensors to a phone and hoping for the best. If you have an open platform you can get really lucky. Good work Google.

Discovering the Chiaroscuro of Mobile

2009-06-16T09:30:00.003+02:00

by Rachel Hinman

Hampus Jakobsson presented a fantastic talk at this year’s MEX conference about the “wild west” gold rush mentality surrounding mobile app stores. Hampus warned most players in the mobile space are merely mimicking Apple’s model, leaving many user experience challenges that hinder the app store experience unaddressed. This talk inspired a host of great discussions about many of the fundamental user experience issues that plague app stores and ways to improve the process through design.

However, Hampus’ talk brought focus to a question that’s been lingering on my mind for a while now. As the once innovative app store strategy quickly becomes “hygiene” for many in mobile, I can’t help but wonder if all this fast follower behavior is an incremental step to something much bigger.

What if the real problem with app stores doesn’t stem from Apple’s ridiculous application approval process, scalability problems, or mediocre social recommendation functionality? What if the real problem with app stores is what they are selling?

What if the real problem is the notion of applications on mobile phones?

Applications as a means for both expressing and manipulating information in a mobile context is an interaction model we’ve borrowed wholesale from the PC. While application stores have solved many issues – ease in application development, downloading applications to a device, payment – it’s easy to forget the application model was originally developed for a fundamentally different context. A static context....

Read the full post here >>

Google Wave

2009-06-12T20:56:00.002+02:00

This is amazing!

The basic metaphor is a bulletin board. It replaces e-mail. I think it kind of looks like a cross between Skype(without voice and video) and Google Docs.

It runs in a browser, and it's open source.

1h:13m. IT HAS REALTIME GOOGLE TRANSLATE BUILT INTO CHAT!

Project Natal

2009-06-11T21:12:00.002+02:00

The rule of gestures is that you can't do them in mid-air. It's too hard. Seems like the guys at Microsoft just made up a new set of rules. We will all have to go back to school.

Malmö University K3: Bubble UI

2009-06-05T15:37:00.002+02:00

As part of their mobile applications course, Ivar Boson, David Christensen, Tomas Lundqvist, and Axel Jacobson prototyped this branching UI concept.

They envision this as a user customized homescreen/launcher. It explores new methods of exploring applications and media. Though there are some issues with the concept (e.g. attaching a novel free form, branching menu structure to a rigid cube), it is impressive to see design students questioning existing UI paradigms - and creating hands-on prototypes!

Along with the rest of their class, they were over to TAT today to present their concepts and show a wide range of applications. Thanks to K3 and all the students.

Juggle UI

2009-06-04T08:51:00.008+02:00

Today, several smartphones support copy, paste and multitasking. However, these features are often difficult to use or unattractively designed. TAT believes that multitasking can be a more natural and useful part of the user experience.

Juggle UI, a new demo by TAT, allows users to conveniently get an overview of all open applications. By using touch surfaces outside the screen, switching between different applications and transferring content between them becomes easy.

Juggle UI is seamless and open applications hover in the extended space just below the idle screen. The user can access the open applications at any time by swiping a finger over the touch surface to the right.

When using an application in full screen mode, content such as images and text can be copied and stored on a clipboard under the left side of the screen. Content from the clipboard can be accessed at any time by swiping a finger over the touch surface to the left.

Brown University's Lineogrammer

2009-06-03T22:05:00.003+02:00

There are so many interesting pen-related ideas in the above video, I'm just baffled. The alignment tool near the end seems very nice.

They kind of gloss over their very interesting GestureBar. A common criticism to gesture interfaces is that gestures are hard to discover and remember. I think GestureBar improves the approachability of their gesture-based interface in an elegant way.

More about GestureBar below.

Kweekies - mobile augmented reality game

2009-05-25T12:56:00.002+02:00

Cool idea for an augmented reality game. The game is an overlay on the video stream from the built-in camera, and it could be implemented in an iPhone today, given that there are official APIs to the camera video stream.

Tilt Techniques - Investigating the dexterity of wrist based input

2009-05-24T21:47:00.003+02:00

I love it when someone does your homework for you. If you want to use an accellerometer or gyro to do interaction, this video covers the basics of human wrist motion as well as how to quantize or discretize your raw tilt data into useful blocks or ranges.

Bezel Swipe

2009-05-24T21:14:00.001+02:00

This is too wierd and inelegant. But it does have the advantage of being compact.

DynaSpot, Speed-Dependent Area Cursor

2009-05-23T20:29:00.002+02:00

The faster the cursor moves, the bigger the cursor area is.

With an ordinary mouse pointer in Microsoft Windows, the pointer area is always just one pixel.

This technique should allow faster clicking, as well as cursors that are easier to follow when they move quickly.

This video also has some nice examples of the classic bubble cursor.

VPlay from Microsoft Research

2009-05-23T20:18:00.002+02:00

There is an aspect of this software that I've totally fallen in love with. In a graph view, move two items together, and they will automagically connect. It's so playful and elegeant and wonderful.

SiteLens: Situated Visualisation Techniques for Urban Site Visits

2009-05-22T20:23:00.002+02:00

Technology in phones are leaping towards making these kinds of visualizations possible.

The Google G1 phone has GPS and compass. If you assume that the phone is located about 1.5 meters above ground level, this could be prototyped on that phone. Augmented reality is just around the corner.

The design and Evaluation of Multi-Finger Mouse Emulation Techniques

2009-05-22T20:04:00.002+02:00

This looks kind of interesting for large screens. Use your index finger for pointing, your thumb for left clicking, and any other finger for right clicking. What could be more intuitive?

MicroRolls: Expanding Touch-Screen Input Vocabulary by Distinguishing Rolls vs. Slides of the Thumb

2009-05-22T10:43:00.003+02:00

Here's a new gesture for you: Microroll.

It's when you move a finger a small distance on the screen without sliding it. Screens of today can't discriminate between these gestures, but it certainly feels different to your finger. I've tried doing these gestures one-handed on diffent parts of the screen and it gets incredibly awkward on some places. Try it.

These guys say you can distinguish between slide and roll by doing analysis. But in my opinion that will intruduce unacceptable lag for direct manipulation. Maybe it could work on an offscreen keyboard. But for what?

What’s Next? Emergent Storytelling from Video Collections

2009-05-21T22:44:00.002+02:00

This is the first time I've seen facial recognition and emotion recognition in video.

This video editing software can suggest the next clip based on who's in the frame, and what mood they are in.

Looks like you can film all day, and then have the computer automatically segment and categorize all your video for you. What an amazing future we all have ahead of us.

Samsung Alias 2 Review

2009-05-21T19:48:00.002+02:00

I haven't gotten a chance to feel how this feels yet. But I think the buttons with E-ink display looks very promising. It certainly looks like they have all the benefits of standard hard buttons, while retaining much of the benefits of using a display to dynamically change the content of the buttons.

I wonder how long we'll have to wait before we get full size e-ink keyboards for our laptops and PC's. Caps Lock and Num Lock would be so much more elegant if the characters could change.

PenLight: Combining a Mobile Projector and a Digital Pen for

2009-05-21T06:18:00.003+02:00

Soon, projectors will be so small that you can put them in anything. The question becomes, what kinds of interaction will they enable.

At 2:20 - Take a look at the menu that varies its level of detail as you move the pen closer or further away from the projected surface. Novel.

Cyclopath: Editing Streets and Trails and How They Connect

2009-05-16T12:51:00.003+02:00

I don't know about you guys, but I've never edited roads before, so it's nice to see just any solution. Cyclopath is a wiki, so anyone can edit.

Check out the use of bubble targets at 3:20

PTZ Control with Head Tracking for Video Chat

2009-05-14T16:20:00.003+02:00

In a video chat, you usually can only send video in low resolution, because of limited bandwidth. On the other hand, your camera may well be able to record video in high resolution. So, should you scale the image down, or should you send part of the image. And what part?

I really like this idea to use headtracking for zooming and panning. This way, you can send only the zoomed and panned part of the video, which makes the best use of your available bandwidth.

TapTap and MagStick

2009-05-14T16:15:00.000+02:00

This looks kind of cool and unintuitive on the same time.

Occlusion-Aware Menu Design for Digital Tabletops

2009-05-14T16:08:00.001+02:00

Nice to be able to use the information from the hand. Now, you can finally rest your hand on the surface.

Sky Map - Astronomy App for Android

2009-05-13T17:02:00.004+02:00

Amazing. The first fully working augmented reality application! The G1 phone has GPS, accellerometer and a compass, which makes it possible for the device to know exactly where you point it on the sky. You can see the stars and planets.

Now, someone only needs to hack it and add trajectories for google earth sattelites. That way you can know when it is safe to pee on your neighbours lawn.

StarGazer experimental typing system

2009-05-12T16:20:00.005+02:00

This is basically a dwell-based system, that zooms while you dwell, to make selection more accurate.

More at Gazegroup.

Eyetwig

2009-05-11T08:35:00.002+02:00

This looks rather nice. With this technology, you could get rid of a rather large portion of the trackpad on your laptop. Just keep the buttons for left, middle and right click.

OR, you could use it for something silly, like testing glasses.

Download and try at www.eyetwig.com

miniMusic Pianofly

2009-05-04T15:20:00.004+02:00

I love the scrollable piano keyboard. The thing with how you play the piano is that you often play keys that are close to each other. Nice.

Senseg haptic texture

2009-04-29T16:31:00.003+02:00

It's so exciting to be in this industry right now, with all these new haptic innovations going on. If you run a mobile phone company, prepare to hire haptic designers to team up with your visual designers. It's going to be a design area in its own right.

Senseg's website has slightly more information about how their technology works.

Love Tools Demo

2009-04-29T15:07:00.003+02:00

This 3D editor has so much eye candy, it is awe inspiring.

Great work Eskil Stenberg.

More here: http://www.quelsolaar.com/files/index.html

Solid UIs and framerate

2009-04-29T14:23:00.002+02:00

What's a solid framerate for touch UIs?