paul walk’s weblog

It hasn’t even occurred to me to look for a user-manual. This user-interface is so much better than any comparable device, it’s just not funny. It’ll be copied for sure, but right now the iPhone is fast heading for the horizon and those other poor phones and PDAs out there are going to have to run to catch up.

This is the first gadget I have brought home where the family have soon clustered around it, wanting to touch it and play with it. The ‘wiggling’ icons had my 3 year old giggling, and he played for ages with with the way the iPhone senses its physical orientation and rotates images accordingly. My partner, who often rolls her eyes at my love of gadgets, was browsing YouTube videos within minutes of picking it up. I had my all my contacts, appointments, music and podcasts synced from my Mac without even really consciously thinking about it.

As a phrase, user-friendly just doesn’t cut it. We need a whole new phrase, something which implies that the fact that it’s easy to use is just an obvious starting point, barely worth commenting on, but which also expresses the sheer delight that it can bring. Maybe something like user-loving?

I think that the iPhone is going to change the way I work in all kinds of ways, now that I’m connected most of, rather than much of, the time.

I’m still having way too much fun with this thing to write anything like a real critique, so I’ll leave it there. Even if you don’t buy one (and it’s certainly not the greatest deal in the world in terms of tariffs etc.), you really should have a play. In many respects it’s utterly brilliant.

And Mike (if you still read my blog) as far as our long-running argument about integrated versus multiple, specialised and connected devices goes….. well, you win

Tags: iPhone

David Flanders and I share an interest in the notion of the ‘unconference‘, so I’m pleased to be participating in the CRIG Unconference which David and the ‘WoCRIG’ team has organised. David introduces the idea of the unconference thus:

An un-conference is a combination of the best parts of a conference (face-to-face discussions generating new ideas, passionate debates and genuine information exchange) with all the PowerPoint stripped out. The agenda is set by the attendees on the day in a very simple and direct way - there is no signing up for predetermined break-out sessions and no sitting through interminable PowerPoint presentations. We are using this unconventional method because we want to encourage new thinking and new outcomes for the repository landscape.

I have participated in meetings before which were run along ‘open space‘ lines, but nothing with the time-scale of the CRIG conference. I’m optimistic that this will work well and deliver interesting results. The WoCRIG team intends to use a facilitation method called ‘Dotmocracy‘ which I’m especially looking forward to experiencing.

Related CRIG support activities have included a series of conversations, recorded and made available as podcasts. A really nice touch here is the use of mind-maps to give the ‘at a glance’ summary of what each podcasted conversation has covered. I think this is important because it makes the podcasts browsable - with transcripts they could also become searchable.

David and the WoCRIG team should be commended for a competent and determined attempt to raise the bar on community/project support and engagement.

So, last Monday, right in the middle of University Challenge, it became apparent that our second child (sex then unknown) was announcing his/her intention to arrive a week early. After a certain amount of drama, including my forgetting how to drive a car and repeatedly stalling at traffic lights, and a record-breaking drive by my brilliant parents from Portsmouth to Frome to come and take care of number-one-son (Joe, 3), Helen delivered a little boy at 01:08 on Tuesday. We’re calling him Harvey.

Mum and number-two-son are now home and in fine fettle. I’m proud, happy and shell-shocked. Sleep is already nothing but a fond memory….

Welcome to Planet Earth, Harvey!

Technorati Tags: Harvey Walk

Quite a bit of excitement has been generated by Blaise Aguera y Arcas’s Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo. The demo starts with a quick run-through of the capabilities of Seadragon, now owned by Microsoft, and then follows this up with a demonstration of Photosynth. I think it’s rare to hear a round of applause in the middle of a technology demonstration….

Photosynth is the real jaw-dropper, and I’m inspired by the promise of being able to construct elaborate 3D models of spaces from the aggregation of many, tagged, 2D images in systems like Flickr. But it’s Seadragon, which takes progressive refinement to another level which has really piqued my interest, because of its potential for general applicability. The embedding of an advert into the Guardian newspaper page was a fascinating moment in the demo - I can imagine all kinds of ways in which this approach could start to challenge our notions of information and information linking. Taken to a (possibly ridiculous) extreme, within a single website this approach could do away with the need for linking at all from the user’s perspective - where we currently have a hyperlink for example, this kind of technology could allow the ‘linked’ information to be simply embedded at a ‘deeper’ level of resolution.

Anyway - it’s just a technology preview/demonstration at this point, albeit a very slick one. Good to see Microsoft innovating - or acquiring innovation at least….

Windows only. Makes me wish I’d bothered to install a Windows emulator on my MacBook, and I don’t find myself thinking that very often!

Technorati Tags: Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Microsoft, Photosynth, progressive refinement, Seadragon

The 6 billion Others project by Yann Arthus-Bertrand:

In 2008 you will be able to listen to the thousands of testimonies which have been collected, and add your own testimony to the site.

Simple idea, neat & stylish execution, powerful impact.

The system is built on Flash which works very well for the actual gallery of testimonies (unfortunately most of the rest of the site also runs on Flash which seems a little unnecessary, but this is a quibble). The back-story, about the inspiration for the project and a little about how it is being executed is also very interesting.

Now, if only this was mashable…..

(Yann Arthus-Bertrand is the man behind the marvellous Earth from the Air project.)

Technorati Tags: 6 Billion Others, 6billionothers.org, Earth from the air, Yann Arthus-Bertrand