Think Different

Of course, as everyone raced to type their reviews of the iPhone 4S on Tuesday 4th October (myself included), little did they know that Steve Jobs was on his deathbed. And that Tim Cook, the new CEO, was having to deliver his annoucements almost certainly knowing that was the case.

I feel a great sense of loss of such a wonderful role model; many would say in the field of business, marketing, user experience - and clearly Jobs had so many talents in so many areas. But for me, all that rolls up into a genius for insight, innovation, simplicity and change.

It is absolutely immeasureable the influence Steve Jobs had on so many lives in the digital age. He may not have solved World hunger, but you can bet your bottom dollar that his legacy in bringing digital information to the masses marks a turning point in history.

So much has been said about Steve Jobs over the 48 hours following (over 4000 tweets per second) and will no doubt continue to do so, that it's hard to add a fitting tribute.

So, I'm going to play back some of Apple's own words, words that have Steve Jobs' DNA all over them. Words that, to me, are poetry.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Rest In Peace Steve

"Cleverbot" is still Stupid Bot...

Seen cleverbot.com ?

It's the latest in a line of Artifical Intelligence systems designed to hold human conversations. Being able to fool a human with such chatter was originally proposed by Alan Turning in the 1960's as some kind of test of "intelligence" and subsequently became known as the Turing test.

Latest results from Cleverbot are being hailed as (possibly) having passed the test, given that in a controlled experiment it convinced 59% of people it was human (although alongside it as a control, a human convinced only 63% of humans they were speaking to a human!)

It's available as an App and online - but I don't rate it much. I have some standard "tests" of my own that, to date, have never failed to identify a machine almost immediately.

Here's a transcript of our conversation - draw your own conclusions:

User: Hello.

Cleverbot: Hello?

User: What colour is marmalade?

Cleverbot: What part of mars?

User: No, not Mars, Marmalade?

Cleverbot: It doesn't make much sense to pass the Marmaduke.

Cleverbot (To myself): Nope.

User: Let's start again.

Cleverbot: What?

User: You seem to be quite stupid actually..

Cleverbot: What makes you think that?

User: You don't know what marmalade is.

Cleverbot: No I don't. I'm here to find out.

User: So, why not ask me 'what is marmalade'?

Cleverbot: Do you have wood for sheep?

[Click - I "hang up" on this pointless exercise!]

When is a holiday not a holiday?

We've now returned from our Scottish holiday, taking in 5 days of the Edinburgh Fringe and a trip to the Highlands. It's been a wonderful time away, my nails have grown substantially, and despite the food and whisky I only seem to have put on a pound in weight. 

Like many "holidays" it turned out to be rather busy and many of the things I thought I would do in my downtime (a lot of writing, for example) just didn't get done. 

Here's a run down of some of the things we got up to:

• We saw about a dozen shows, not including the freebies and impromptu acts in streets and bars. This included big names such as Rich Hall, Sarah Millican, Ed Byrne and Dave Gorman (who was brilliant) as well as less well-known acts such as James Acaster and Andrew Lawrence (also exceptional); of course, not forgetting our favourite magicians Barry and Stuart. 
• We frequented The Whiski Rooms - a wonderful bar, bistro and whisky shop, providing exceptional food and great live Scottish Music. 
• We woke up at 5.45am on our first day thanks to Veolia coming to empty the bins at the travelodge. Well done folks. 
• We walked between 20 and 30 miles over the week, as tracked by DeviceLocator and Google Latitude on my iPhone. That helped keep the weight down.
• We avoided blisters by wearing state of the art Rohan footwear. 
• We fed a Squirrel in Princes Street gardens and watched it burying his food. 
• We discovered bumblebees going nuts over Oregano and Marjoram. 
• We drove 1200 miles. 
• We had a spa day at Bannatynes in Edinburgh to try and recover. It really helped!
• I processed a few photos while on the move, but most still have to be done :) 
• We did some "baby sitting" with my niece Chloe, who was wonderful entertainment. 
• We gave an impromptu talk about bumblebees to a nursery of twelve 3 and 4 year olds. We managed to succesfully keep them entertained for an hour and got a wonderful thankyou card made by them all.
• We did a circular tour round the back of Loch Ness to soak up the scenery and make the best of a window in the weather. 
• I had a meeting with Cafe Beag who agreed to display and sell my scottish photos
• Roy Bridge post office also agreed to stock and sell my photos
• I had a very interesting and productive meeting with Me On My Wall canvas company who have agreed to licensing some of my images for their Highland Collection of canvases. This is a really exciting complement to my Scottish prints, which will see them on display in some prime locations.  

Here's a mock of up what's coming:

example canvas

Not a moment was wasted - my last meeting took me to within 15 minutes of my planned leaving time for the journey home and I still had to pack! Most of my photo processing, blogging and writing all had to go on the back burner and  didn't get done. But as you can see, it was a very productive and busy time nonetheless, and I was really delighted to be making progress with getting the photography "out there". All part of the long term Scottish plan. 

Thanks to touch, 9 Billion websites need changing; is yours one of them?

Does your website make a basic error in its user interface?

Out of curiosity I decided to see how many sites on the internet used the word "click" (according to Google).

Why?

Because ever since the emergence of the web, the standards bodies, user experience experts and design specialists have always said "don't use the word 'click' for links". They did that because using the word "click" pre-supposes the type of device that the viewer is using - namely a mouse of near equivalent.

But it has always been recognised that users have alternative access devices available to them. For the first decade of the web it was always felt that speech input would be the #nextBigThing. (It hasn't really happened yet, although google voice search on your smartphone is pretty cool these days and works really well in my experience).

Futhermore, "accessible" versions of browsers (e.g. text browsers) typically used alternative input methods, such as numbers on the keyboard to choose links.

"Clicking" therefore is not relevant to everyone. And never has that been truer, with the explosion of touch devices: smartphones and tablets. Apple's share of that alone is over 100 million and 15 million devices respectively at the time of writing (Summer 2011).

"Touch", "Press", "Swipe" and so on is now a predominant action for many users. "Click" is old hat.

So, what did I find?

searching Google just for the word "click" returns 9.12 Billion sites.

The phrase "Click Here" occurs on 2.97 Billion sites. Delightfully, the very first result returned by Google's automcomplete is the W3C's advice page saying "Don't use "click here" as link text".

Too bad - that's between 3 billion and 9 billion sites that need changing. (Some of mine included).

Should've listened to that advice after all.

You have no guts, man. The fingerprint of a scam.

I got a call  from 020 0982 3420 this evening from someone "authorised by Microsoft" offering to scan my PC for all manner of unnamed things that apparently make it run badly. I kept "Paul McKenzie" (with an Indian Accent) talking for about 25 minutes with the lure of 6 or 7 PC's to fix, knowing full well this was a scam.

I know it's a scam because a family member fell prey to it in 2010. And by how my call ended.

It is a well executed scam, very well executed actually; these folks have all the answers and play out a very convincing story. But, in the final analysis, when you consider that someone is prepared to stay on the phone for 25 minutes to make a sale of "PC healthcheck", something smells fishy - around about the 3 minute mark actually.

I stuck it out with this guy for a couple of reasons. One - just to save someone else being caught - my 25 minutes on the phone might have used up time scamming 3 or 4 other people, so it was part community service. Two - I also wanted to get a full sense of how they operate. I certainly got that.

Here are the tell-tale signs I noticed:

• A call from a London number; when answered 3 or 4 seconds of silence before speaking = classic power-dialling = wanting to sell something
• The chap then started referring generically to my PC. Rather than ask how he knew I had one (he, doesn't by the way, he's guessing; and if you ask the question he'll say it's the error reports you get from crashed programs), I asked which one. Pause.
• The one with windows on. Yeah, doesn't really narrow it down does it? Which windows?
• Err.. either windows XP or Vista. So immediately I know he's fishing, I own neither. This is almost like getting a psychic reading.
• He proceeds to ramble on about windows auto updates and how it downloads junk and my computer is full of it and do I want a healthcheck. I play along.
• I say I am recording the call. He says he doesn't mind, which proves he is reputable - a scammer would hang up, he says.
• I say I know what's going to happen - he'll get me to download something and access my PC. Evasion.
• I question his identity - he says he is a partner of microsoft, sort of implies doing it on their behalf.
• I push the whole identity thing and he takes me to microsoft's website and claims to be SB3 INC. Would microsoft allow a disreputable company on their website?
• When I question that I have no proof he is SB3 INC he says surely I trust microsoft. That an intelligent person would realise that a company associated with microsoft would not be disreptuable. I don't disagree, but my question is about proof he is SB3. And he insulted my intelligence; that raised the stakes.
• He says he is my system admin and he is just trying to help. I say what? Do you access my PC without my permission? No, he just wants to help. Just a check, like going to the doctor, then you buy the medicine. (Good of him to spell that out for me).
• He just wants to check my PC for bad things, what would a reputable company do that's bad? I say, you could install a keylogger and get my bank details. He repeats, why would a reputable company associated with microsoft do that?
• I push the "prove you are SB3" line and he suggests I look at the SB3 INC website. I say this is not proof. I say I could tell him I'm from HP and show him an HP webpage - what does it prove?
• Backed into a corner he asks what proof I want? I say it can't be given - what I'll do is call the SB3 number. He says Ok, he'll give me the number so I can call back and speak to him. I say no, I'll call the number on the microsoft site that I DO trust. He insults my intelligence again and asks why I don't trust microsoft. Calmy, I again explain to him that I do, but I don't trust him.
• In the end I force this point and he says "you have no guts, man; you have no guts" and disconnects. 
• I guess mr unintelligent here outsmarted him. 

Let me tell you - his persistence was wearing and convincing. I can see how it would be ever-so-easy for someone to be socially engineered into following his instructions. When you step back and analyse it, however, the whole scam revolves around the association with microsoft as a claim to be reputable (I hear all the Apple fanboi's - and a few others - sneer in the background!). The point is, at no time is there any proof of his identity, no proof of that association. This is where they trick people - they labour that point, state it as if it is fact. That's what convinced my family member.

How do you protect yourself?

Well, if you know nothing about technology, it doesn't matter; just follow this simple rule:

NEVER, EVER, EVER buy something if you are approached by someone you cannot verify - this applies as much to the doorstep as it does to the phone. If you get an incoming sales call, leave the decision to later. Make it your policy. Tell doorstep sellers "I never buy on the doorstep; leave me your details and I'll get back in touch". NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!

The second thing is to realise something about microsoft: this is not how they operate or authorise anyone else to operate using their brand. Furthermore, this is not the market that microsoft partners are in. MS partners are business solutions partners - they create systems and integrations for business, using email, instant messaging, sharepoint, communications, and all sorts of stuff that if you haven't worked in a big IT department will probably have never heard of. Microsoft retails through the usual channels to consumers, but it does not sit behind this kind of consumer support.  

Finally, make sure your computers are up-tp-date with virus checkers, windows/operating system updates, and run regular scans for malware. This is just as good as what these scammers can do - and the truth is, they don't even do that properly - it's a subterfuge to get you to pay for their services. It's all about impression. Be warned. 

Why Apple integrated iOS5 with Twitter, not Facebook

If you look around the blogs there's lots of speculation about complexity of integration, history of sour  negotiations over things like Ping.

I don't think it's anything like that - here's my really simple list of reasons:

Raison D'Etre

Facebook is essentially an "Application" - it collects content, stores it, aggregates it, distributes it. It allows users to have "space" on the web - a virtual home, so to speak, albeit connected with their circle of interests. 

This is nothing like what Apple/iOS needs. As a device and operating system, iPhone/iOS needs connectivity; it needs conduits for information - channels if you like. That's what email is, that's what SMS is, that's what instant messaging is.

That's also what twitter is - twitter is not an application as in the sense above; it is a transport hub, a conduit for realtime data to flow between relevant users. It might be described generically as "social media", but its modus operandi and purpose are entirely different to facebook. Twitter is a way for information, of almost any type, to flow between users. Facebook on the other hand is designed as a place to land to consume content.

That's not to say that Twitter doesn't intend to move up the "value chain" to become a place of higher value consumption - indeed, its acquisitions of the likes of tweetdeck and the long overdue enhancements to its online experience, such as the tie in with photobucket, clearly signal this intent. 

But quite simply, the DNA of twitter is more akin to the phone line as Facebook's is to the phone. 

Culture Clash

There is a complete cultural mismatch between Facebook and Apple. Apple lead the way on user experience and strive for total customer satisfaction. Apple's mantra is to put users first. Apple is slick and consistently good. (Yes, they've had their hiccups, but they deal with them sensibly.)

Little could seem to be further from the truth for facebook. Facebook acts first in its own interests, then retracts if the backlash is sufficient. Their mantra is clearly "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission". Facebook is clumsy and self-centred. 

Shoddy user experience and scant regard for user privacy have been demonstrated by Facebook time and time again. These two brands do not make good bedfellows. 

And that's it - these two reasons alone, in my opinion, have killed for the forseeable future any likelihood of Apple and Facebook joining forces. Personally I see it as no great loss. 

Zoomable Pixels

Here's an idea for improved ability to zoom and crop photos from a smartphone or digital camera. I don't know if anyone has had this idea or patented it; but if they haven't then I'm giving it to the world for free :-) 

Let me start by describing the problem.

Your average smart-phone has something in the region of a 5 Megapixel to 12 Megapixel camera. Of course, this is increasing all the time, but at the price of greater memory usage and greater trouble at sending pictures over email and mobile networks. This type of resoluiton is actually quite good - when you consider one of the first DSLR (Digital SLR) cameras, such as the Canon 10D, was a 6 Megapixel camera, you can see that pocket cameras and smartphones have really begun to compete on resolution. 

However, what a smartphone lacks that a DSLR doesn't, is optics. You don't have the option of high precision, interchangeable and zoom lenses for a smartphone. This makes it difficult to get "close to the action" unless you literally are close to the action! The only way to zoom-in on most smartphones is to "digitally zoom", which is basically the same as cropping the picture and increasing its size.

Unlike a zoom lens, this process doesn't add any new information to the picture, it simply scales up the data that is there. So, if you zoom in on the centre of a 5 megapixel picture by a factor of 5, you basically end up with a 1 Megapixel picture. And consequently the quality pretty much sucks.

So, is there a way round this?

Well, a couple of things occurred to me:

• if you want to digitally zoom into a picture and retain good quality, you need a good resolution (i.e. lot of megapixels) to start with in the area you are zooming into
• Most of time I just want to zoom into the middle of my picture, that's usually where the interesting action is

Traditional digital pictures are all captured using sensors with a linear arrangement of pixels; i.e. the density of the pixels on the sensor is evenly spaced across the whole area. But does this need to be the case?

So, my idea is a camera sensor which has non-linear density of pixels. It would have a greater density of pixels towards the middle. So, for example, around the centre of the sensor the density could be equivalent to that of, say, a 30Megapixel camera. Towards the edges the density might be more akin to a 5MP camera. 

The advantage of this system is that in the most important part of the picture you would have 30Megapixel resolution to work with but you wouldn't be storing the whole picture at 30Megapixel resolution - it might average out at, say, 10Megapixels.

The image would have to be taken in some kind of custom "raw" format and converted to a linear version to view on normal screen and computers, but this is easily achievable - there are examples of various formats already that have special properties (such as the panoramic images generated by photosynth). If the pixel density variation is essentially rectilinear, rather than radial, then the conversion algorithm would actually be fairly simple to implement and quick to execute. 

Once you have the raw image, you could use it as taken. Or, for example, you could crop out the centre section to zoom in. The centre section might, for example, contain 8 Megapixels of data and so still provide a high quality digital picture.

So, when can I have it?

Please forgive me - it's fossil fuel...

This household is about to buy a new car, a supermini, and it won't be electric and it won't be a hybrid.

Before you yell, no-one is sadder about this than me.

As an early adopter and general planet-hugger, I already switched to a diesel car with double the MPG (and diesel particulate filter) a few years ago. So, the prospect of a car that is cleaner still and costs about 90% less per mile is a very tantalising idea. [By the way, I won't even enter a debate on the stats and benefits of electric - if you want a decent argument on the topic, follow Bobby Llewelyn on twitter or read his blog - he knows his stuff.] 

So, firstly, the car is not for me, but my better half; so ultimately it's her decision and has to fit her needs. I will only drive it occasionally. (Unless, perhaps, she was getting a car that was faster than mine, in which case I might hanker after it all the time :-) But she's not.)

Secondly, electric cars currently just don't suit our needs. A lot of criticism comes the way of the current breed of electric cars, most centred around range, which is typically 100 - 140 miles on a charge. For many, many people who are based in towns and doing lots of short trips and school runs, this type of vehicle would surely meet their needs. However, it just so happens that our life doesn't follow that pattern - in fact we both have long distance journeys to do as our main journeys (so not only can we not share one car, but we need two). Turns out those journeys are beyond the distance of the average electric range and we also don't have the necessary charging means at the other end. I think an electric car would be brilliant to have - but we need a simpler life. (I reckon that's true regardless.)

So, much as I believe that electric cars represent a realistic future and can deliver some cracking performance, the current range limitation rules them out of our driving pattern for the time-being. Next time round might be a possibility though.

Now, what would be a good alternative for our lifestyle is a hybrid car, which combines fossil fuel and electric power to deliver more MPG and extended range when there is no battery power. Volvo, for example, have just announced an S60 saloon than can deliver about 125mpg and drive 1000 miles on a tank. Awesome. Truly Awesome.

The issue with this breed of cars basically comes down to cost and choice. There are not that many models available at the moment and they are also beyond our current target budget (and form factor) of a super-mini. I can pretty much guarantee that if Skoda produced a hybrid Fabia at Skoda prices, it would be a no-brainer purchase.

But they don't. No-one does. 

So, that leaves us going for a conventional fossil burner. Another requirement is to have an automatic, which also limits the choice and price - and in the end the best all-round value vehicle we have found is the Skoda Fabia with 7 Speed DSG auto box (a beautiful piece of equipment in its own right, complete with "flappy paddles" as the girls on Top Gear would say). Better still, the auto is actually more economical than the equivalent manual! I am confident it will be a smooth and economical drive, as I have the 6 speed DSG on my Octavia and it's nothing short of fantastic. These cars must be popular as the waiting list is currently 4 - 5 months.

Once again, it will be a step change in economy and lower emissions compared to the car it is replacing - so it's all in the right direction. I hope you feel forgiving. 

Fixing the desk-spaghetti

This weekend I decided to tackle the mounting cable problem on my desk. Which was somewhat serendiptous, as at the moment I'm also involved in a project at work about "workplace transformation" that also happens to include small desks over-run with cables.

The problem arose because I had a "laptop refresh" at work from a Dell to an HP and consequently could not use my existing docking station. (Over the years I have come to love the simplicity and tidiness a docking station provides, especially at home.)  The company does not provide docking stations, but I was fortunate that my last work and personal laptops were the same model, so I had my own dock.

Anyway - the cable problem was getting out of control with power cable, monitor cable, network cable, USB printer cable, USB wireless keyboard adapter, mouse cable, microphone cable (for VOIP calls), USB webcam cable, and 2 x audio cables - one for my TV/Monitor and one for the cinema system. Practically every slot on the PC was used up, and unlike the old Dell, the ports on the HP Elitebook are spread round 3 sides of the machine, so it's all exceedingly messy when it's all wired up.

Thankfully my desk is a home-made affair: a slab of board strung between two walls mounted on batons. I'm no DIY expert, but this setup has done me proud since 2003. So, there is no problem drilling it, making holes in it, or generally sticking things to it. It already has several holes to take cables from the top to the underside; and also has plenty of plastic trunking already screwed underneath along the back to keep cables tidy. I even have a small cisco network switch mounted to the underside to provide me with four network ports. 

However, so far I have not had any trunking on top of the desk, because I've not had that many cables needing to trail across it. That's changed with the new laptop, as well as the addition of docks for my blackberry and iPhone. 

The piece de resistance in sorting all my required cables out on top of the desk is some trunking I have used many times in my recording studio from studio-spares. 

This trunking comes in different sizes, but the great thing is you can stick it down with the built in double sided pad, or screw it down. You can cut it to size and it is very easy to insert and remove cables even in situ. I mounted some of this along my desk edges (side and back) and also from front to back underneath, so that I could bring audio cables out to the audio ports on the PC. It has made a huge difference. 

My other trick was to mount a USB hub on the wall (just using "no more nails" double sided tape) behind my TV/Monitor, which is also wall mounted. This means only one cable running to a USB port on the laptop, back to the hub. Then all the devices are plugged into that, such as printer. All these cables are almost totally concealed now. Result.  

Dangling the Apple Ipad2 of Temptation

So, the iPad 2 has arrived amid the usual Apple back-slapping and re-use of the "magical" rhetoric.

And this time round I'm actually tempted. 

This is not so much about the iPad 2 device and specifications per se - indeed, I would dearly love a better screen resolution and screen shape. So what is it? 

Well, when Jobs launched the iPad in 2010 he called it "game changing" and I chortled somewhat dismissivley under my breath; after all, the tablet concept had been tried before and not really taken on. The big bets were on netbooks which were gaining ground on laptops and well, to some critics, it seemed to be more a triumph of form over function. 

But, you know, Jobs was right. You can't ship 16 million devices (where others have failed) and not consider it some kind of success. And what that whole process has done has shift expectations. It's perfectly natural now to see tablets in use in all manner of environments from the corporate world, to healthcare, to teaching to starbucks.

So, setting aside arguments over whether iOS beats Android or a 7 inch screen is better than a 9 inch screen, the bottom line is the translation of the iPhone interface onto the iPad has introduced a new form of interaction that has created a compelling user experience. (And, after all, that's what Apple trades on).

So while I've been spending the year hacking away on my Netbook, the whole process of getting to grips with my iPhone 4 and Kindle has been teaching me that there is a user experience out there waiting for me, that is not simply a miniature re-incarnation of a legacy PC experience.

And that experience is not just about the user interface on the device, but also the whole lifestyle experience that surrounds it. It incorporates the ability to "pick up and go" in an instant; extended battery life; to travel with the device easily; to hook into a content and applications eco-system. These are factors that make simply owning the device easier, before you even consider the joy of its usability. 

My weekly routine of commuting to a travelodge and back, often late at night, is certainly a drag. And it's that dragworthiness that often saps me of the energy to even contemplate unpacking, unfolding and plugging in a laptop or netbook. Yet I've never had that problem with my iPhone. Always there, always on, quick and simple to use in bitesize chunks: that's just how my life is structured, if only I had a bigger screen. Enter the tablet. 

So, despite my utmost scepticim initially, I'm now at the point to embrace an iPad or tablet device (though most likely an iPad, because I'm sucking into the Apple eco-system. Clever Apple.) It's form, its performance, its behaviour, its slickly beautiful intuitive user experience all serve to address my emerging needs. Needs I didn't realise I had, because there was nothing to satisfy them in a neatly integrated way. But I can now see a perfect fit for this device in my nomadic life.