12 16th, 2007
Certainly a novel interface. It calls to mind the Nintendogs bubble-blowing function. The “twist” (sorry!) here of getting into the mindset of a blender is funny.
Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own. Materials are a 1950’s Osterizer blender altered with custom made hardware and software for sound analysis and motor control.
People induce the blender to spin by sounding the sounds of its motor in action. A person may growl low pitch blender-like sounds to get it to spin slow (Blendie pitch and power matches the person) and the person can growl blender-style at higher pitches to speed up Blendie. The experience for the participant is to speak the language of the machine and thus to more deeply understand and connect with the machine. The action may also bring about personal revelations in the participant. The participant empathizes with Blendie and in this new approach to a domestic appliance, a conscious and personally meaningful relationship is facilitated.
…but seriously, folks, what about areas in which it would be important to get into the mindset of an appliance? Have you never had the experience of trying to accomplish some task on a computer, and saying to yourself, “Now, where would they have put that function?”
If you speak the language of the computer (programming code), then you are a software programmer with the mindset of a blender anyway. Sorry. If you aren’t a software engineer, it’s a lot nicer to have the appliance go to the trouble of speaking your language rather than vice versa. Which is why the Macintosh OS is so much easier to use than DOS was.
Certainly when trying to understand other people and especially other cultures, we have to ask: Does speaking their language in fact help you to think their thoughts, feel their feelings? Yes, learning the language shows respect and facilitates communication, but does it run deeper than that?
Who couldn’t find a use for “neko-neko,” an Indonesian word for “one who has a creative idea which only makes things worse,” or “skeinkjari,” a term from the Faroe Islands for “the man who goes among wedding guests offering them alcohol”? Some words […] are surprisingly affecting, like the Inuit word “iktsuarpok,” which means “to go outside often to see if someone is coming.” And then there’s “tingo” itself, from the Pascuense language of Easter Island: “to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by borrowing them.” (from Amazon.com’s description of The Meaning of Tingo
, by Adam Jacot de Boinod)
On a PRI Geo Quiz podcast, I heard the above author say there is a Norwegian word for dunking someone’s face in snow!
Having a word for an idea means you have the idea in your mind. Lack of words can result in lack of recognition of subtle distinctions and nuances. When one culture expresses these distinctions in its vocabulary and another doesn’t, important meaning gets lost in translation.
A very basic example that I’ve often noticed is in the Israeli and English words for “blue”. In English, we use blue as a general term for everything from pale sky to dark navy. In modern Hebrew, techelet is used for light blues, and kachol for darker blues. As a non-native Hebrew speaker, I have referred to an object as kachol only to get a blank look from the Israeli who can’t figure out what I’m pointing to; all he sees is something techelet. There is no mental equation of the terms; kachol and techelet are seen as distinct colors, just as blue and purple are to English speakers.
I’ve found that when someone behaves in a way that I’m having trouble interpreting, if I mimic the facial expression and tone of voice (no, not in front of them!), I can try and answer the question: “What feeling would I experience or thought would I think that would cause me to react this way?” Language is not always be expressed as words (hence the term “body language”).
Speaking the language -> understanding the mind.
Garr Reynolds is the guru of presentations. I have subscribed to his blog for a very long time, although I don’t always make time to read it. I subscribe not because I am specifically looking for tips on creating attention-grabbing presentations (although that doesn’t hurt), but because his blog is focused, passionate, and speaks with authority. This post is a keeper.
Presentation Zen is great example of someone finding something he is good at (or wants to be good at) and becoming an expert. Not just good, but great. If only every manager (and company founder) were forced to read this blog as part of their training… the world would be spared much of the pain and suffering of PowerPoint. Let’s not get me started on PowerPoint tonight. If Darwin’s theories of evolution were true, PPT would have gone the way of the Dodo, and for the same reasons. (Ungainly. Over-hyped. Inefficient. Inept. Irredeemably stupid.)
Via Telecoms.com:
“On Tuesday it emerged that Vodafone Germany had won an injunction against the iPhone’s exclusive German carrier, T-Mobile, forcing the company to sell a version of the device without a lock to the network.”
If that happens (it hasn’t yet), how many travellers do you think are going to rebook their flights for layovers in Frankfurt Airport?
Update (Nov. 22, 2007):
“T-Mobile Germany has been in touch and informed us that in order to purchase an iPhone at the Eur399 price, the buyer must sign a contract for a two year subscription to T-Mobile’s service. This and the Eur999 price tag for an unlocked model may just put the kibosh on a grey market for the iPhone developing in Germany”
Update (Dec. 6, 2007):
Earlier this week, a German court confirmed T-Mobile’s right to sell the iPhone locked to its own network. 03 France, however, is selling an unlocked version of the iPhone.
The French iPhone is selling for Eur399 with a two year service agreement and rate plans ranging between Eur49 per month and Eur119 per month. The device can be acquired for used on any non iPhone specific Orange plan for Eur549 and for an additional Eur100, Orange said it will sell the device unlocked and without a contract.
Alternatively, Orange subscribers can get the device unlocked after six months, without charge.
Unlocked devices on eBay France seem to be selling for just under the Eur600 mark, suggesting that there’s not much of a grey market.
Wow, free unlocking after six months… that’s really appealing. I wish my phones offered that, if only so that I could use them in other countries with more economical SIM cards.
You couldn’t miss Amazon.com’s new Kindle device if you visited their site today. It was the main attraction. Kindle, Amazon’s own e-book (a mobile computer specifically designed for reading digitized books) is being set up in direct competition to Sony’s e-book “Portable Reader System”. Both utilize the new e-ink display technology, which draws virtually no power when on, except when the screen refreshes.
Sony has been working on their product for years and years now. It’s only recently that the newest version (2.0) has gotten good enough to really garner the interest of the greater consumer electronics world. Even with the fabulous industrial design that Sony brings to their e-book, and even with years of testing the waters of the market, estimates on product sales are in the thousands of units.
Why hasn’t the market been more welcoming? Perhaps it’s a simple matter of solving a problem that doesn’t exist. Americans don’t read on the go much; if it’s digital, it’s on a PDA. Japanese read manga and novelettes on their cell phones. Why own another device to carry around (after all, you could just bring a book)?
Or maybe it’s the price. At close to USD$300, a Sony e-book is a substantial investment. You can buy a good stack of books for that money.
Or maybe it’s a straightforward case of user experience: reading is (mostly) pleasure and relaxation. Otherwise, you’d be online researching something. A computer just doesn’t have the feel of a book in the hand, just doesn’t feel the same to the eye, just doesn’t feel… like a book.
Why does Amazon think they can do better in this market-that-might-not-be-a-market?
Let’s be blunt: they’re not going to succeed on product design. Kindle is the most incredibly awful looking product I’ve seen in years. It looks like a cross between a Motorola Q and a pack of dental floss. It doesn’t hold a kindle candle to the Sony’s elegance.
Telecoms.com offers a reasonable answer: it’s about the business model. Whereas Sony makes their money on hardware (yes, I know that the hardware manufacturers are moving into online content sales), Amazon makes their money selling content. Take a look at the Telecoms.com link. It’s an interesting premise.
What should strike you most is the offer of free data. The cost of the cellular connection is included in the cost of the device. What a concept! Most countries are still struggling to bring flat-rate data to the masses; Amazon is upping the ante to no-rate data.
Might this be more than just another e-book? Might this herald the future of the always-on, always open network?
Update [Nov. 26, 2007]: In follow-up to the points made by Telecoms.com, it’s worth noting a comment left on Robert Scoble’s blog:
56. One thing about the Kindle introduction that sticks out to me-Bezos saying this isn’t a device, its a “Service”.
I’m guessing the 1.0 hardware is just something they had to do to get things started-but they must have a bigger strategy here. I’m wondering if Apple is going to release:
a) an update to the iPhone that can access the Kindle “Service”
b) a Tablet Mac that can access the Kindle “Service”
(Steven Levy even dropped a hint about something in his Newsweek column-”(I’ve been reading Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” on my iPhone, a device that is expected to be a major outlet for e-books in the coming months.)” )
Comment by Totoro — November 25, 2007 @ 8:13pm
On the meaning of small messages, oft repeated:
Apple’s Mail, Blackberry OS and surely most other enterprise applications always put the “work” number preferentially at the top of the stack if you have multiple phone numbers for a contact. “Home” gets pushed down towards the bottom. The (reasonable) assumption is that if you have a work number for somebody, you probably do business with them, and are most likely seek the work number.
The subliminal message? Work matters more than home.
Goebbels (and Hitler) are both quoted as saying that you can get people to believe anything if you repeat it often enough. What is the impact of the constant reinforcement of the Work Over Home message? How does it affect our relationships at work and at home?
I’m going to drop a bucket of Blackberry posts in a heap here. I suspect that I won’t be making any friends at RIM anytime soon, if they read these.
First noticed when bedridden with the flu: Keeping your Blackberry 8700 too close to your 30GB 5G iPod may be harmful to your hearing. The electro-magnetic radiation bursts emitted by the BB will trigger and randomly mess with the iPod’s volume control, meaning that you may suddenly find that you are on full volume. Quite a shock, let me tell you.
Is this indicative of a lack of shielding of the Blackberry? I have noticed that while all cell phones trigger speaker activity, the Blackberry does so more than most. Or is it a lack of EMI shielding of the iPod?
Whatever the case may be, let me encourage you to allow your iPod and your Blackberry some personal space; don’t drop them both into your pocket or purse (or pillowcase) if you’re going to have earbuds in.
