Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
One Wearable to Rule Them All? Not likely.
This is actually one of the first articles I planned on writing when I started this blog, but I felt I needed to fill in some background first. While this article is my first article about wearables, it follows my articles The long goodbye to passwords and Who do you trust with your identity?, the reasons for which will become clear as you read below. Wearables is clearly an exploding category of products right now. Lots of money is being invested and lots of companies are springing up. I tried to look just at what companies I could find with Twitter accounts, and found over 100 companies. The technology, from sensors to screen quality to battery life have all converged at a 'good enough' level that has encourages lots of experimentation in this field. There are many types of wearables, but I think they can be roughly classified. Classification Let's start by breaking up the very large and growing category of wearables into a few types. While you can further break down the differences, I break them up into three groups: The all-in-one The single-purpose The multi-position The all-in-one is still emerging, but it generally takes the form of a…
Imagine that everything you are typing is being read by the person you are applying to for your first job. Imagine that it's all going to be seen by your parents and your grandparents and your grandchildren as well.
How I would re-design the Kinesis Advantage keyboard
Kinesis Advantage Pro
I'm a fan of the Kinesis Advantage keyboard, but it's definitely long-in-the-tooth these days. The keyboard's basic design reaches back over twenty years. The current USB version was introduced in 2002, and I don't think there have been any significant changes in the past twelve years. I've seen rumors of a re-vamped version, but nothing has been released. As you can tell from my previous posts, I believe there is a big difference between convenience features (such as wireless, backlit keys, etc.) and ergonomic features in keyboards. On the ergonomics side I don't think Kinesis needs to make many changes to what is a popular design. There are some changes that could be made, such as perhaps splitting the left and right sides, or making the keyboard more adjustable. On the convenience side, however, I think there are a lot of changes Kinesis could make to the keyboard. Here are my suggestions for the next generation of the Kinesis Advantage: Cut the cord When I originally wrote the heading above I was thinking wireless (see below) but the truth is, the one thing that has annoyed me the most over the years about the Advantage is that the USB cable…
In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
Samsung looking to Israeli tech to compete with Apple’s iBeacon
A couple of months ago I tweeted about an Israeli startup named ShopCloud that was showing off some fairly amazing retail technology: https://twitter.com/trauring/status/431121027528015872 https://twitter.com/trauring/status/431121374594080770 The interesting thing to me was that it enabled much of the functionality of Apple's iBeacon technology, without the need for physical iBeacons to be in place. It seems this fact wasn't lost on Samsung, which is now rumored to be trying to buy ShopCloud for about $80-90M. This was originally reported by the Israeli tech blog Geektime, and followed up by Israeli business news site Globes. This is particularly relevant if you look back at my post Who do you trust with your identity? which among other things looks at how Apple is using iBeacons to position itself as the preferred partner for mobile payments in the future. It's a smart strategy, giving the retailers powerful technology to engage their customers, while at the same time giving Apple access to those same customers. Google and various other companies have tried to use NFC to similar effect, but these efforts have largely failed. ShopCloud could allow Samsung, or whomever ends up purchasing it, an end-run around iBeacons and NFC. ShopCloud's INSIDE technology allows malls and store to map…
I am very aware of the fact that it's highly unlikely anyone will write an article via their mobile phone. I've done it, but it's painful. And it's not just about the small keyboard and the small screen - though that's awful. It's the emotional experience of writing an article.
A few interesting keyboards, nearly in existence…
Keyboard.io (Blog)
My last post, Why haven't there been any keyboard innovations in decades?, got some interesting responses. A couple of people said I was ignoring much of the progress in the past decade, citing lots of features added to keyboards like backlit keys, keys with displays built in, wireless, etc. These are all nice features, but they're convenience features. None of those features make typing more comfortable, or reduce repetitive stress injuries. Features that do those things are ergonomic features, and were the focus of my article. A few people said standard keyboards were just fine, so no innovation was needed. I suspect those people are still in their twenties, and haven't realized the effect of typing on their hands yet. Stay with your straight keyboard with membrane switches and then come back and tell us in a few years which ergonomic keyboard you've switched to... ErgoDox Someone also pointed out that I left out the enthusiast community, pointing out the ErgoDox keyboard and its distribution through MassDrop as an example. Now don't get me wrong, I love the design work done by individuals and collectively through projects like the ErgoDox. However, when the easiest way to buy a product is…