I recently did a Podcast interview with Rick Mathieson for his GENWOW blog. I was joined by Sarah Ortman, senior group manager for consumer and shopper promotions for Clorox, and Dorrian Porter, CEO of Mozes, Inc. We talked about the projects we working on (I could not speak about too much because of NDA), and some of the trends we see shaping up in the Mobile world. One of the ideas I helped introduce was the concept of “reverse search.” Specifically, it’s the idea that, moving forward, with all the data we are collecting about individuals (via social networks, ecommerce, CRM systems, location, etc…), we could be approaching a shift in how we “find” things. For example, right now, when we want to find something on the web, we go to Google and, using the best “keywords” we can think of, we try to narrow in on what we are looking for. But, perhaps the next direction, or an augment to current Search, is to use what we already “know” about a person, to provide users with a direction, or suggestions of what might be valuable to them. Not unlike the recommendation engines we see now – but with more relevant and real time info as we can pull from multiple data stores, including location. Maybe, I can turn on my “antenna” for what I’m looking for, and the world will be waiting to find me!

Big thanks to Rick for the invite to join the discussion – I had a great time!

We have a Wii running 24 hours a day in our lounge at R/GA San Francisco. It’s only 20 feet away from me, yet I hardly have any time to play with it. However, my lack of playtime doesn’t stop me from realizing the huge impact that devices like this, as well as other gesture-based and multi-touch devices (iPhone, iPad/tablets), are having on the future of user interfaces. As well, we’re starting to work with Oblong, who are at the forefront of this movement – I’m super excited about that!

Will the Mouse go away from my desktop? Probably not too soon – but eventually, I’d expect to use it less and less and less. The ‘ol mouse was so useful to us for so long, but it has limits (not to mention health risks); it adds a physical barrier between the user and the experience. The iPad helped us see how we could come yet one step closer to the world of touch in our day-to-day computing. Now, we are seeing how this can be evolved to include larger, fully gesture-based interfaces that will someday change the way we interact with basic computer tools.

“There’s no reason why dealing with a spreadsheet or sorting e-mail couldn’t be as wonderful as tai chi,” said computer and social scientist Katherine Isbister at NYU’s Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn. “Games are the perfect ecosystems for evolving fun, and hopefully we might be able take those lessons elsewhere.”

And Microsoft’s new Kinect:

Interactive Puppet Prototype with Xbox Kinect from Theo Watson on Vimeo.

More on to get started with Kinect and the OpenFrameworks can be found here.

And Oblong, who are truly creating the future of computer UI:

Tab Candy is still in alpha, so the video below is just a preview of what may be coming to the browser some day. The goal is to help solve the problem of having an endless row of disorganized tabs within a browser session. Currently, tabs just appear one right after the other and there is no way to remember which tab has what inside, and certainly no why to organize the tabs in a meaningful way. As I watched the video preview, I couldn’t believe how close they have nailed my own challenges with Internet browsing. Particularly the “save for later” feature, where it allows you to store web pages that you want to read at a later time – but not before Firefox asks you “why will you ever look at this again?” How did they know that was what I was thinking? This is a great way to force us to only keep what we really intend to use. I wish I had that feature in my garage!

The preview does remind me of Apple’s Expose in terms of experience – it’s pretty slick. However, this Tab Candy demo is also a tad overwhelming, and it starts to turn a potentially helpful tool into something too difficult to understand or use – at least that is how I see it at this stage. For example, I’m not sure I’d be ready to invest the amount of time it would take to organize all my tabs for a given browser session. What an interesting challenge: on the one hand my tabs are driving me crazy because they are so random and I can’t keep track of them……but, I’m not sure I want to spend the time to clean them up because, to me, a browser session is more of a onetime, realtime experience; if I want to organize and store items for use at a later time, isn’t that what Favorites is for? If anything, I want my current browser session to be as clean as possible with just a few open tabs at a time (not to mention that too many open websites can often crash my browser!) Don’t I want to use my browser simply as a (relatively unintelligent) content container? All these features will just bloat my simple container and start to turn it into something more like an operating system.

But, perhaps I’m thinking too “old school” here? As the browser continues to become the “New OS,” I can see how these types of features will become more and more important. The ability to save, and then reload a current browser session, is already a common thing – so Tab Candy may be right around the corner. Interesting stuff to think about.

An Introduction to Firefox’s Tab Candy from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Thanks to Mike Chambers for posting this interview with Kevin Lynch at Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Kevin talks about Adobe, Flash, innovation, HTML 5, thoughts on the direction the web is moving, competition, and Omniture and he does so in a very open and down-to-earth way that I personally appreciate. I’ve been meaning to comment on all the recent hype going on between Apple and Adobe, specifically around Flash, but I’m also a bit sick of all the silly talk; most of which is just nonsense and not even based in reality. Hopefully it will calm down in a while and I’ll have some strength left over to dedicate to some thoughts.<br />

One of the great things about the job I have, is that I am truly technology agnostic – I use everything and I’m loyal to no one! Therefore, I am able to see technologies for what they are: tools to help me create. How do I choose which tool to use? Based on what is most appropriate for the job. This evaluation could include:

(1) Pure capabilities: can it do what I want it to? And at the fidelity I require?

(2) Audience reach: it may be an amazing tool, but can anyone else actually see what I create?

(3)  Speed to deploy: how fast can I get something moving? This is perhaps the most controversial. The process of creating traditional (boxed) software was one of slow moving teams; perfecting every single line of code in order to get it in the box before the shrink wrap stuck. In the digital world today, as companies like Google and Facebook have shown us, this type of software life-cycle/philosophy is potentially a detriment to your business. Today, it’s about getting ideas in front of users fast, collecting feedback, and iterating on your masterpiece; it’s not about spending 5 years to get it perfect the first time.

Interestingly, not as important of an evaluation point, to me anyway, is whether or not my tool of choice is necessarily deemed an “open standard.” Perhaps this decision point could relate to #2, Audience reach….someday maybe….

However, certainly in the case of HTML5, THE open standard of the hour, it is also the tool with the smallest audience!

Of course, as Steve Jobs would argue, we should be thinking of the future – when one day open standards will rule everywhere (unless you want to develop a native app for a Mac product, in which case you’ll need to live in the closed world of Apple native app development). PLEASE NOTE the distiction between the two very different uses of “open”:

1). Open standards apply to WEB technologies. HTML(x) is an open standard and supported by Apple. Flash is not because it is a plug-in (ironically, it is also the most prevalent piece of software on the planet, more than any single operating system or browser, which one could argue makes it a Standard!)

2) Open (development) environment points more to how you create your work (software). Apple’s environment is CLOSED – while Flash is OPEN. You won’t hear Steve Jobs talk up this point.

I do agree with Steve about WEB open standards, and I’m excited about HTML5, and the future of our biz. I feel that over time, this will be the direction where we will see the industry moving – and it could be a relatively quick move. However, it’s important to remember that the people creating and using these experiences….don’t really give a crap if a technology is considered open or not, and certainly are not interested in waiting around for another 10 years for the next improvements on their tool spec (I believe that HTML4 was ratified in 1999??.…which means it has taken over 10/11 years to get HTML5 going…..and it’s still not even here!) This doesn’t even account for how long it takes these open standards to make their way out into the “working world.” Ask any employee of a large corporation which browser they are using right now – chances are it is IE 7 – a non-HTML5-ready browser. Many of my clients, who work for huge corporations are still using IE6 because their IT departments have not yet upgraded them yet. IT departments for huge corporations don’t just upgrade thousands and thousands of computers just because someone is excited that HTML5 is out.

I hope I don’t sound too harsh on open standards, because I truly do believe this is the way to go, and I’m excited to start focusing much of my attention in this directions. However, putting all the hype and dirty talk aside, I’m realistic to know that (a) it will take time for any “standard” to become adopted, and (b) in the meantime, certain tools (including Flash) are far more ubiquitous and continue to make significant improvements every single year – not every 10 years. This is important to me too.

I enjoyed watching Kevin’s talk because he seems to be more in-line with my thinking: It’s not about the tool (it’s not Flash vs HTML5), it’s about allowing users the freedom to choose and create what they want in the tool of their choice. Perhaps that is the ultimate Open Standard.

The current issue of WIRED has an interesting article about Tablets, focusing mostly on the iPad of course. It talks about the game-changing positives: revolutionizing the GUI and the impressive creative potential (advertising being one). It also points out some potential flaws in the dream: the learning of new standards, a new development environment and the closed world of Apple (contrasted with the open world of Google/Chrome).

When talking about some of these future ideas, and in viewing some the demos others have produced (2 are listed below), it’s amazing to see how these new executions are virtually identical to what we’re already doing on the web. Therefore the question becomes: is the move to a new “touchable”, more mobile GUI,  THAT much of a difference? Did we need a new device and a new way of interacting with the device in order to realize the potential of these interactive ideas? Don’t we already have magazines online? One of my personal favorites is.

How the Tablet will change the world  (WIRED Article).

The Future of Advertising on the iPad (thanks to Rick Mathieson for the link)

The future of Magazines. First, watch these ancient prophecies from 2007, 2008.

And now, on the iPad

VIV Mag Interactive Feature Spread – iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

Now this is very cool. SIKULI uses screen recognition to allow you to build applications from  screenshots. I can immediately think of the potential for rapid prototyping, particularly for complex applications or processes that can included actual live content/data.

OK, now we’re talking: the future of interfaces, currently on display at SIGGRAPH. Some Augmented-Virtual-Reality and the like. Although it’s not a true hologram, the touchable holography is pretty sweet, and I’m sure it will soon get attention for creative media/marketing applications; interacting with games and/or sports for example. I was excited to see the Augmented Reality for Ordinary Toys. One of my minor beefs with other implementations of AR, was the prep required to make an object recognizable. This solution seems to show any object getting some sort of identity for the system to respond to.I think I like the scratchable input example the best. I tend to like things that start with raw, dynamic data, and then offer the ability to visualize (or realize) this data in any form; plus, I like doing stuff with sound! Just think about all the cool uses for this. As someone else commented, it would be neat to see this done with multiple input devices (instead of 1) so that they could measure the gestures in 2 dimensions.