The Real Father of Multi-Touch Interfaces

A few weeks back I read this story on Gizmodo.com. Which says that some people would call Jeff Han the "father of multi-touch". In fact, Bill Buxton formerly of Alias Research was doing this in the 80's and established the grounds for which Jeff Han's research is based. He created all sorts of unique input devices and enhancements. You can view his old research videos here. There are various articles on his site that are specific to multi-touch input. Including a timeline history of such devices.

My new iSock

I had my wife sew the top of a sock as a temporary case for my iPod Touch. It works great. The shiny back is still nice and new. The sock also acts as a cleaner.

iPod Touch in the house!

I know I said I was going to wait but on Monday my wife called and said she just bought me the iPod Touch 16gb. The verdict? It's one sweet device. I love it. I can't put it down. Browse the web while sitting on the couch or in and around the office at work. I have to say that it is a "watered down version" of the web. No Flash support. Many sites don't display properly. You can only send plain text emails from Gmail. No blogging directly on Blogger.com. I had to send them to my blogger email address in plain text via Gmail. No support for Meebo.com for web chatting. You can't select text on a page or download images to the phone. On and on. But overall it's pretty slick as a browsing experience. My eyeballs did hurt by the end of the night from reading Engadget.com and Gizmodo.com on the tiny screen. Zooming via the pinching motion only helps to a certain extent and depends on the paragraph width. The lack of apps was disappointing but I'm counting on the hackers out there to unlock this and move apps from the iPhone over to the Touch. Syncing seems to happen at light speed. I put a bunch of my favorite music, some videos, lots of photos (including my portfolio) and only put about a 1gb dent in it so far. I plan to use a lot of smart playlists to manage content and stay within the 16gb. Especially once I start putting apps on it. There is one strange thing with Photos. I put a few high res photos in the sync folder and they made it to the Touch. But then when I zoom in on them they only go to a certain point. And the image seems to have a reticulation texture. I'm not sure if iTunes automatically resizes the images or what. It did create a new folder on my computer with lots of subfolders. I will have to check those to see if they contain resized images. All in all it's been a great experience so far. I haven't seen any of the poor black or negative effects on my screen. Although I would bet that the first software update will fix it for everyone.

iPhone or iPod Touch? That is the question.

The iPod Touch has showed up a few weeks early at Apple stores around the country. And in recent Apple fashion there are some glitches. It seems something is up with the displays. Even though it is supposed to be exactly the same as the iPhone. Users are complaining that the iPod Touch is having trouble displaying blacks and even resembles a negative in some instances. Combine that with the fact that they have crippled or removed many of the applications that existed on the iPhone. Now let's also remember that it has no camera, no bluetooth and of course, no phone. It sounds like the iPhone is a better buy. Even if you don't plan to use it for a phone. The only issue is that it costs $100 more for an 8gb iPhone vs a 16gb iPod Touch. Also, people have already managed to copy iPhone apps over to the iPod Touch. There are however still some glitches to be worked out with that. All said and done it sounds like the iPhone is still a better buy. So what to do? I think I will wait it out a little longer in hopes that either a 16gb iPhone or a better iPod Touch is released. My guess is that I will have to wait until January for them to dump all these old versions by Christmas before releasing something new. Possibly even longer.

Handsome Furs - Plague Park

With music reminiscent of Echo and the Bunneymen and vocals that recall greats like Ian McCulloch, Richard Ashcroft and Peter Murphy, this CD has a lot of things I love. Mostly the atonal 80's synth and guitar mixture and distinct vocal sound. Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and his fiancée Alexei Perry formed Handsome Furs as a side project for fun. Even though they only had a few songs, they were offered a tour. 9 songs later they gave birth to Plague Park. The result is a syncopation of sensory bliss. My personal pick is Snakes on the Ladder. With it's electrostatic beat and a twisted "music box" guitar line it weaves an ethereal web of passion as a bed for Boeckner's voice. Ramping up into a sort of marching drum beat and guitar strum it then falls back for the refrain in almost angelic form. Cannot get started is probably an indy rocker's wet dream. Pulsing beats and catchy phrasing let us all know this is a song to play on those bleary-eyed mornings when you are having trouble getting going.
I just can't listen to this CD enough. I wish there was a second album already. I can only hope there is a second and that Boeckner doesn't leave Hansome Furs behind to move on to a new side project.
Buy it today!
Amazon
iTunes
http://www.myspace.com/handsomefurs

FCC extends analog TV cutoff date to 2012 and cuts off my right arm!

Bad news for HD subscribers but more importantly, broadcast HD viewers. The FCC just extended the original cutoff date for Analog broadcasts from 2009 to 2012. This means that instead of getting even more free HD channels in the next couple of years there will probably be no new over-the-air (OTA) broadcast HD channels until right before the deadline. As someone with an HDTV and who only watches OTA broadcasts this sucks. Read all about it here.

Are we all completely spoiled?

I think it is safe to say that when the iPhone was announced and everyone saw the interface there was an audible gasp heard around the world. While gesture-based touch-screens are nothing new (See the Bill Buxton videos from Alias | Wavefront in the mid 90's. He also specifically addresses the iPhone here.) it was the first time anyone has seen this sort of UI on a handheld device. At least something as elegantly designed. This is the type of gadget you would expect to see in a SciFi movie. You couldn't carry that many albums, movies, etc in your pocket just a few years ago. This is the type of advancement that will force every other Portable Media device maker to "Up" their products.
Ok, so recently the iPhone prices were dropped. What does everyone do? They complain about it. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!! Things go down in price every day and better stuff gets released every day. You will never be ahead of the curve. The best you can hope for is keeping up with it. And even that isn't possible unless you have a bottomless wallet. Well, for all the early adopters/whiners out there Apple is giving you $100 to spend in their stores as a way to say "Thank You". That's pretty damn cool. Creative wouldn't do that. Archos wouldn't do that. I don't know any company that would do that. Don't get me wrong, I hate Apple in a lot of ways. I use them daily at work. But that's a pretty cool gesture for them to refund money.
In steps the iPod Touch. Let's just call it the iTouch even though Apple legally can't. So the iTouch is basically an iPhone without the phone. Which is what I was hoping they would come out with. It still has Wifi and speculation is that it will eventually have Bluetooth turned on as well. It also has a standard headphone jack unlike the iPhone. Well, the day of the announcement everyone is all excited until they announce the size. 8gb and 16gb. I think pretty much everyone responded with "WTF!?". Including me. Sure, 8gb and 16gb is nothing these days. Especially when they release a "new" iPod called the "Classic" that has a 160gb hd. But let's think about this for a minute. When you buy new music don't you want to put it on your iPod? That requires hooking up to a computer right? So what's the difference of hooking up to put some fresh playlists on your iTouch? Although I am hoping that we can use WIFI to sync as opposed to a hard connection. Anyway, I think that 16gb could be more than enough if you simply rotate playlists every few days or weeks. Personally I'm more excited by the ability to check webmail, browse the web, use widgets and to play videos on trips. I'm rarely sitting anywhere long enough to listen to much music. Other than in the car or at my desk working. So I guess the question is, "do I really need tons of storage?". I mean, it's just that much more stuff to sift through. It makes the device a little bigger and heavier to add a hard drive. Honestly, I think limiting the content to my favorite stuff would be much easier to keep clean and manage. Am I just trying to convince myself that 16gb is enough? Maybe a little. But I think realistically being able to carry around 3500 songs or 20 hours of video is more than enough to keep track of. I have a 20gb iPod which I retired once I got my 4gb Nano. 4gb was pretty small and I found that I never updated the thing. But with as many features as the iTouch I have a feeling that I will be adding more widgets than music and video.
Overall I just think we have all become completely spoiled with the rapid advancements in technology and we have come to expect more and more. Until we get to the point of unrealistic demands. We should be excited that companies like Apple are pushing the envelope of UI and technology. The iPhone and iTouch have in many ways exceeded anything we could have dreamed up. I'm going to go place my order now. And if a bigger better one comes out in a couple of months. This one will go to my beloved wife. ;)