At Intel's Day Zero we were treated to the fragrant Australian and English-disliking Genevieve Bell, now a fellow at the company and who we met at an IDF eight years ago. I am a Scot.
Bless her. She started off by saying that it was a pleasure to meet the international press again - the first time when she met me, she said, was eight (actually six years) years ago and she claims she was stumped by one question - when I asked her if she'd ever been arrested for being an anthropologist.
I remember it slightly differently - my question as I recall it was about the ethical aspects of anthropology. She may be right.
There then followed an astonishing series of revelations from Bell. She said that when she was a kid "she killed things. I thought it was perfectly normal". She then showed us a picture of her and her brother as evidence of this killing frenzy. Her brother now works for the Australian special services. We don't know if the Aussies believe, like David Icke, that we're infiltrated by lizard races.
She got round to talking about user "interfaces" and mocked the English by illustrating a shower with the options hot, tepid and cold. The English, she said, don't feel they deserve to have hot water. I am a Scot so don't even deserve water, whether it's cold, hot or tepid.
Her lab is trying to figure out how computing will be in 2020. People love the TVs they already have and Intel has moved away from trying to incorporate PC functions into TV. Intel has realised that Viiv was a really really bad idea.
A better starting question is for Intel to work out why people love TVs so much. People like TVs because it's not complicated - not needing passwords. The question of why people love things is really important.
Intel has spent money on social research and working out "what people love". Genevieve has had to go to sporting events like the World Cup in South Africa, go to church and go shopping as part of her onerous tasks.
Intel will move towards a more holistic approach for user interfaces.
She introduced Horst Haussecker who is in charge of the technolgy at Intel's interactive and experiences research lab, talked about developing applications for mobile devices and they need other ways of approaching using an interface that can't rely on keyboard or mice. Of course Apple is into this, isn't it?
Intel is working on matching image matching, flexibile partitioning between clients and servers, location based data qeries, power analysis and optimisation. Intel has invented techniques that tap into publicly available sources such as Wikipedia.
Researchers tend to build hammers that haven't really got a nail that fits. Intel starts with user experiences, he said.
* EyeSee After her presentation we chatted to Bell. She said that she had put her hand up to object to Intel's doomed Viiv plan, and she believed that was one of the reasons for her advancement in the organisation.
an R&D team of social scientists, interaction designers, human factors engineers, and a range of technology researchers to create the next generation of compelling user experiences across a range of internet-connected devices, platforms, and services. She will drive user-centered experience and design across the compute continuum.
I applaud. I suggest adding linguists to the groups, if not there already.
Interfaces don't need to be globally uniform. In the same way that language follows varying grammatical rules, certainly, Microsoft Windows Help has gone from mediocre to obtuse.
People are not opposed to PC functions in TV, but in the traverse from point A to B. One person's security is another's thorn in paw.
Customisation and programmability is increasingly denied in the user interface. Windows 7 exhibits obtuse circular conversations that only frustrate/cheat the user. Obviously, Microsoft Bob never had to hold a real job. Was this helpful? Gee, I don't know.
I believe that user interfaces will become increasingly ocular. Attachment interoperability will be key.
Freedom of Fair Use is tantamount. Get a grip on that hammer before you let fly.
"And I will say: Make a way: give free passage, turn out of the path, take away the stumblingblocks out of the way of my people."
__ (Isaiah 57:14)
"I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning."
__ Plato
BTW, I don't object to the undeserving poor English (genitive or no) unwillingness to shower in hot water; only to the presumption of sociality so as to make their practice a universal Hegelianism. Not The Audacity of Change you were looking for?