Category: general

Sounds like a line from some dystopian future movie, but surprise, it’s a real question, i.e. where can I see the fantastic and amazing dueling robot arms? If you’re attending Oracle OpenWorld next week, you can find the robotic arms, controlled by the Leap Motion, at the following venues and times: 2013 OPN Exchange &… Read More

I told you, we need more robots. A while back, Misha (@mishavaughan) asked us to build something fun. So, we decided to put our new-ish Leap Motion controllers to good use to control robotic arms, specifically the OWI 535 with the USB interface, because why not. Here you have Anthony (@anthonslai) and Noel (@noelportugal) dueling with… Read More

I keep saying this, but if you read here enough, you’ll recognize that I tend to repeat myself. Noel (@noelportugal) pointed me to this “60 Minutes” segment from January of this year called “Are robots hurting job growth?” It’s an interesting segment to me, mostly because it showcases new (to me) uses for robots in… Read More

For those so-inclined, here are some design-related goodies I found recently. Enjoy. Dark Patterns: inside the interfaces designed to trick you This is a great read. We’ve all run into counter-intuitive features that seem designed to confuse. Although I like to think the best of humanity, in some cases, confusion is intentional, and this post… Read More

This week featured big news for smartwatches with the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Gear, Qualcomm Toq and Sony SmartWatch 2. These watches are all essentially smartphone accessories, but in the event that you want an independently smart timepiece, the Omate TrueSmart Kickstarter project is for you. RWW has dubbed this flood of devices, the… Read More

It’s nearly September, and OpenWorld is coming up quickly. If you’re attending and are interested in user experience, Misha (@mishavaughan) has a rundown of all the Applications User Experience goings-on during the mega-show. We’ve got a bunch of sessions, the on-site usability labs, a demopod featuring the simplified UI and mobile goodies, and for those… Read More

Don’t think I’ve ever used so many exclamation marks, ever. File this one under brand promotion and feel free to ignore. The voting period for SXSW Interactive 2014 has begun and continues through September 6, and we have a session proposal that could use your support. It’s called “Take Your Glass to Work,” and it builds… Read More

Last week, while I was procrastinating about writing up a review of the Leap Motion, the Chromecast arrived. Nothing like a new shiny object to distract me. For the unfamiliar, the Chromecast was announced a couple weeks ago at Google’s Android and Chrome OS event. It’s a small HDMI dongle that plugs into a TV… Read More

Remember when I went to Mexico earlier this year? Remember the innovation challenge that combined Profit Magazine data with Endeca Information Discovery? Well, it wasn’t by accident that Profit’s archive of articles dating back to 2005 was a component because Profit’s editor, Aaron Lazenby (@alazenby) was looking ahead to the August issue of Profit, which focuses… Read More

Editor’s Note: Here’s another post from John Cartan, some heavy philosophical musing for your Wednesday. Personally, I cringe when people throw around the word “delight” when talking about software. Usually, it’s just noise, considering how low the bar has been, so delight when framed in software terms means a lot less than it does in… Read More

When we started blogging back in 2007, we had grand visions of this as a place to share our innovative work and insights. That hasn’t panned out exactly as we drew it up back then, but there are some stories that stand the test of time. Today, I give you one of them, the story… Read More

Happy Monday. Tech that is always listening Fresh on the heels of the news that XBox One will always be listening, comes a rumor that the upcoming Moto X will also have passive listening capabilities. Add this to the long list of technology that feels invasive and creepy for consumers, but will be extremely useful… Read More

After Kscope 13 and a week of staycation, I suppose I should get back to blogging. Not really much on my mind lately, so I figured a collection of links would do. You’ve been quiet lately too. Real comments have been scarce since I moved away from Disqus. I hope those aren’t related. Say hi… Read More

Google Reader will be gone when today ends, not sure what time zone Google is using for the apocalypse. Turns out Google Takeout doesn’t extract everything you could ever want, so some resourceful folks have whipped up a Python utility that will get everything out of the dying service. Check it out at readerisdead.com. I… Read More

As Anthony (@anthonyslai) mentioned yesterday, we’ve been experimenting with his new toy, Google Glass. It’s our job as a research team to investigate emerging technologies and explore how they might affect the users of Fusion Applications in the near and long-term future. So, don’t get ahead of yourself, this is a research project, not product.… Read More

Lately, I have been working on a Glass App for Fusion CRM, as a research project for my own personal edification.  As developers,  the normal way to create a Glass app is to use HTML 5 and JSON to construct the timeline cards.  Building on Glass is like building a web application.  When going through… Read More

Google Reader will be gone for good in less than three weeks. Since the announcement, I’ve continued to use Reader, the denial stage, but this week, I finally decided to investigate replacements. I used this crowdsourced list of alternatives as my starting place. My criteria were: A for-pay service: Not that this is a guarantee… Read More

Last week, in a meeting, we got on the subject of Terminator vision. For the uninitiated, here’s what that looked like in Terminator 2: Judgement Day: If you recall, Robocop had a similar overlay readout: So, for about 25 years, Hollywood has been seeding this vision (ha, pun) of augmented reality, i.e. an overlay of… Read More

Kscope 13 (#kscope13), ODTUG’s (@odtug) annual conference begins in less than two weeks. I know, it sneaked up on me too. If you happen to be making the trip to New Orleans for the show, which runs June 23-27, and you feel like getting up early on Monday morning, I’ll be speaking with Jeremy Ashley, the head of… Read More