I dabble in music, sort of inspired in part by the likes of Brian Eno. I used to enjoy setting up audio "systems" where I was a participant, using a combination of cheap synthesizers, tape loops and overdubbing. Now I play guitar, record it and screw around with it in Garageband. I particularly like the "Voice Changer" plug in, combined with other effects. It kills my poor powerbook, but I do love Augustus Loop, which emulates a tape delay/loop unit. These devices are magical because of the decay effect that they provide; Robert Fripp uses two Revox tape decks to get the same effect.
For non-musicians, and perhaps traditional musicians, the sort of musical devices that are created for electronic composition and performance can seem quite other worldly. There are many devices that share characteristics with the Theremin such as the Photo-Theremin. The Alesis AirFX is something similar, where you feed it an audio signal, and by waving your hand over a sensor modify it in several different ways.
I have been a fan of the Suzuki QChords for some time. They are sort of like a autoharp, where you press keys and "strum" over a sensor. They were originally designed to teach children the basics of music, but the newer ones have midi out.
I remember having a discussion a while back with someone who felt that learning music was too hard; that it should be possible to create software that can do most of the work. I don't think I convinced them that not only was this an unnecessary thing, it is likely an unwanted thing. Playing with loops in Garage Band all them time gets quite boring.
While all of these tools simplify mechanical aspects of creating music, they still require work to master. The theremin is notorious for this -- it is a great toy, but to actually play music on it takes a bit of practice. However, the variability of the output from using these devices is what makes them engaging. It is a bit different every time. Ask any electronic musician about the evils of "quantitization", it sucks the soul out of a piano part. It is that little bit of variability in timing that makes it seem "natural". It's just a little bit of noise, a bit of dust.
So we are left with our musical devices, but it us that makes them go. Even when we look at compositions made up of nothing more that looped samples, it is our process of selection, not a piece of software, that makes it relevant for us. Even Eno's "systems" such as what was used in Discreet Music require some input to begin. We are the water for the mill.
I know that I am kind of meandering here, but I will come back to this again soon and try to make more sense.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Edit video online
Reading Bolther/Grusin's Remediation is at once a great reading experience and a opportunity to turn your world view into some sort of oppositional view for a brief while. The idea is quite infectious, that mediums combine and "remediate" each other; TV becomes more like the web, and the web expands out from text and still images into a experience that is not television -- something more and in my opinion much better.
I have spent a lot of time in YouTube, because I think they get it in a way that Google and some of the others (such as Veoh) don't get it; it is about a simple viewing experience enhanced with a social construct. It's pretty deep, I've written a paper on it for a course I'm taking, and I hope to publish it somewhere. It is close to offering the types of things that people might want in a future video sevice; the only thing that is missing now is ditching the web browser centric interface for a "10 foot" experience.
I talk a lot about how pervasive visual tools for contructing knowledge have become. Word processing is now something that doesn't live on your desktop, but is an application that lives in your browser -- Google has a word processor, Microsoft has Live Office, and there are a host of other simple word processing applications such as AjaxWrite. The folks behind Ajaxwrite continue to roll out web-based applications as a way to undermine Microsoft's move into this environment, but it is not clear to me that what they offer is a suitable replacement.
Eyespot is a online video editing and sharing environment. It has some aspects of YouTube, but offers the ability to mix and match content. "Editing" in this environment is essentially cuts-only editing, but given time I am sure that will change. However, the quality is not great, it is almost more of a technology showcase than a practical tool. But still, I am in favor of anything that makes this more approachable.
The mind-numbing truth is that we have always been visual thinkers, some more than others. Film and video were not invented by arbitrarily; it hooks into the way that our brains work. It is, to use a bad analogy, why Tetris is popular -- it uses a basic skill that we have, the ability to rotate objects in our head, and turns it into a game. Video editing combines the cultural (what is the proper way to tell a story, what is time, what is real) with the innate (we think in pictures).
Eyespot itself is not necessarily that important, but what it represents is important; that these once esoteric tools are becoming common as dirt. It is not the accessibility to the tools that is preventing us from embracing them and using them to construct knowledge, it is our attitude towards them. Education is not ready to deal with students that are heavily visual thinkers.
Everything has moved away from that; again I come back to the general ideas of "industrial revolution" thinking; repeatability, quality assurance, easily quantifiable knowledge, scaling. These goals are not consistent with this breed of learner. I will not call them a "new breed" because it is my strong belief that these people have always existed, what has changed is the opporunities they have to learn, and our attitude towards them. The schools of today and the near future do not embrace these students; they are considered abnormal -- borderline autistic, adhd, what have you. We give them medication to make them manageable, but we don't teach them. They have to teach themselves.
--hal
I have spent a lot of time in YouTube, because I think they get it in a way that Google and some of the others (such as Veoh) don't get it; it is about a simple viewing experience enhanced with a social construct. It's pretty deep, I've written a paper on it for a course I'm taking, and I hope to publish it somewhere. It is close to offering the types of things that people might want in a future video sevice; the only thing that is missing now is ditching the web browser centric interface for a "10 foot" experience.
I talk a lot about how pervasive visual tools for contructing knowledge have become. Word processing is now something that doesn't live on your desktop, but is an application that lives in your browser -- Google has a word processor, Microsoft has Live Office, and there are a host of other simple word processing applications such as AjaxWrite. The folks behind Ajaxwrite continue to roll out web-based applications as a way to undermine Microsoft's move into this environment, but it is not clear to me that what they offer is a suitable replacement.
Eyespot is a online video editing and sharing environment. It has some aspects of YouTube, but offers the ability to mix and match content. "Editing" in this environment is essentially cuts-only editing, but given time I am sure that will change. However, the quality is not great, it is almost more of a technology showcase than a practical tool. But still, I am in favor of anything that makes this more approachable.
The mind-numbing truth is that we have always been visual thinkers, some more than others. Film and video were not invented by arbitrarily; it hooks into the way that our brains work. It is, to use a bad analogy, why Tetris is popular -- it uses a basic skill that we have, the ability to rotate objects in our head, and turns it into a game. Video editing combines the cultural (what is the proper way to tell a story, what is time, what is real) with the innate (we think in pictures).
Eyespot itself is not necessarily that important, but what it represents is important; that these once esoteric tools are becoming common as dirt. It is not the accessibility to the tools that is preventing us from embracing them and using them to construct knowledge, it is our attitude towards them. Education is not ready to deal with students that are heavily visual thinkers.
Everything has moved away from that; again I come back to the general ideas of "industrial revolution" thinking; repeatability, quality assurance, easily quantifiable knowledge, scaling. These goals are not consistent with this breed of learner. I will not call them a "new breed" because it is my strong belief that these people have always existed, what has changed is the opporunities they have to learn, and our attitude towards them. The schools of today and the near future do not embrace these students; they are considered abnormal -- borderline autistic, adhd, what have you. We give them medication to make them manageable, but we don't teach them. They have to teach themselves.
--hal
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Reinventing Radio
I have been working on a simple streaming radio station project. In the process, I thought about the whole satellite radio thing.
Some speculation: what happens when wireless data access is good enough that it can be integrated into consumer products such as portable radios? There are some UI considerations, but what if Live365 was available on your car's stereo?
A while back, Nextel was testing the "wireless broadband" service in our area, and I was fortunate enough to try it. I really liked it. When reading the documentation, I noticed the curious admonition that I shouldn't use it while operating a moving vehicle. Of course, I then had to do just that to see why.
It still is not clear to my why they told me to not use it while driving my car, but I can say that it worked. It was cool to be able to drive around with a laptop streaming internet radio.
My guess is that we will be able to do that at some point with edge phones that connect to our bluetooth car stereo system. It should be interesting, since it is actually quite easy to set up a streaming service. I can see very focused regional broadcasters that otherwise couldn't be supported in traditional broadcasting.
--hal
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Video Furnace Mon Amor
I went to a demo of Video Furnace yesterday. It is a solution that allows you to offer cable services over IP. It has several pieces:
It's biggest appeal is that it allows telecom to stop using coax. They can use this to send TV channels over ethernet. However, it requires a separate encoder for each channel. If you carry 32 channels of TV, you need 32 encoders.
The system can support HD resolution video, but they can't encode it yet. The demo I saw yesterday showed content at 320x240, but I know it will do double that comfortably.
It's strength and weakness is that it is an end-to-end solution. As a replacement for cable television, I think it is quite viable. The player has nice features, you can open more than one channel at once, and the program guide is nicely designed. I'd use it instead of regular TV if they would let me time-shift programming (they don't). I did ask them about accessibility and the CEO said they supported captioning, but didn't know if the player would work with a screen reader. I didn't think to ask at the time, but I wonder if it would be possible to allow users to roam (log in and watch TV anywhere).
I am more skeptical about it being a solution to replace other kinds of video delivery. The channel metaphor it uses is limiting in some ways. It isn't a replacement for a commodity streaming media service, where content can be found using Google. It would be interesting if they were to integrate a search engine and RSS reader into their software, so that coursework content could live alongside Cartoon Network.
In the end, I think the whole channel idea is on it's last legs. I think what we see with YouTube, GoogleVideo and iTunes is the future.
--hal
- An encoder that takes a video source (s-video,composite or cable) and turns that into a mpeg-4 stream.
- A program channel manager and on-demand video server.
- A desktop client that has an integrated channel guide, authentication. It is essentially TV for your computer. It requires no install, but does require java.
It's biggest appeal is that it allows telecom to stop using coax. They can use this to send TV channels over ethernet. However, it requires a separate encoder for each channel. If you carry 32 channels of TV, you need 32 encoders.
The system can support HD resolution video, but they can't encode it yet. The demo I saw yesterday showed content at 320x240, but I know it will do double that comfortably.
It's strength and weakness is that it is an end-to-end solution. As a replacement for cable television, I think it is quite viable. The player has nice features, you can open more than one channel at once, and the program guide is nicely designed. I'd use it instead of regular TV if they would let me time-shift programming (they don't). I did ask them about accessibility and the CEO said they supported captioning, but didn't know if the player would work with a screen reader. I didn't think to ask at the time, but I wonder if it would be possible to allow users to roam (log in and watch TV anywhere).
I am more skeptical about it being a solution to replace other kinds of video delivery. The channel metaphor it uses is limiting in some ways. It isn't a replacement for a commodity streaming media service, where content can be found using Google. It would be interesting if they were to integrate a search engine and RSS reader into their software, so that coursework content could live alongside Cartoon Network.
In the end, I think the whole channel idea is on it's last legs. I think what we see with YouTube, GoogleVideo and iTunes is the future.
--hal
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
Tel: 408-536-6000
Fax: 408-537-6000
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
Tel: 408-536-6000
Fax: 408-537-6000
NOTIFICATION OF LICENSE REVOCATION
Dear xxxxx
It has come to our attention that you, or a user using your license code for our product Macromedia Flash MX 2004 has created content that is in violation of the agreed upon user license.
Section VIII, Titled "Extra Stuff You Should Really Think About", paragraph 5, states the following:
Macromedia Flash is intended for the use of content that does not do the following:
Piss users off with annoying, gratuitous noises (unless they want them) Mystify and frustrate potential customers with an obscure, too clever user interface that sends them off wherever. Does stuff that HTML does just as well, if not better. Oh I don't know, something that is just dumb the first time, super annoying after that.
The site in question is at
To prevent further legal action, we ask that you do the following:
1. Burn your Macromedia Flash MX 2004 License Sheet, and your installation media. Send the ashes in an envelope to the above address. If you live in the CA, VT, MA, you may shred the above items and send them, as burning some plastics can release gases that may be in violation of these state's air quality laws.
2. We ask that you remove the content in violation upon receipt of this letter from the above site. You should then delete the content, the project files, the whole damn directory it was in. You may want to consider reformatting the harddrive, and taking a nice vacation. You may either confirm that this has been accomplished by sending email to: support@adobe.com. Adding Code:4955 to the title of the email will ensure more rapid response.
3. Tell everyone that you are really sorry.
We appreciate your attention to this matter.
Adobe Customer Support
"We're here for you!"
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Why no Apple in the Palm
The cry of investors to "sell Palm" is actually a bit funny. What in the world would Apple want Palm for?
OS? The current release of the Palm is badly aging. They do have something else upcoming, anyone can look at it if they sign up as a developer, which is free.
But I think the request is based on wistfullness, a "coulda shoulda" glance at the iPod -- the thought that Palm should have been there.
Far from it. Palm has never had particularly good media play back support. This has been a critical failure of the product. It is telling when $99.00 cell phones has superior media support to a $300.00 Palm.
The article makes several bad assumptions. While the TabletPC has defied my expectations, and has not sunk like a rock, it is hardly selling like gangbusters. The form factor remains an unfullfilled promise -- something we would all like to really, really work. Windows TabletPC OS has too much legacy tied to conventional Windows (including the dumb start menu with nested menus, which is hard to navigate on a Pen interface) to be truly useful. I know, I have tried my darnest to like the one I have on loan. Ultimately, I end up using a keyboard to do just about anything, simply because it is more efficient. I have noticed this to be true of most tablet users as well. It is really worth the price differential between a tablet and conventional laptop to be able to use a pointing device to point at the screen?
I am confident that someone like Apple could make a tablet UI that would be more useful. Inkwell isn't bad at handwriting recognition, Apple has some promising accessibility tools that could be repurposed for a tablet environment (Voiceover). Will they do it? Recent patents hint that they are thinking about it, but it remains to be seen that there is a market.
My guess is that instead of a general computing device, it should perhaps be more like the Nokia 770 -- a web-centric device that is inexpensive and easy to use, inside of it's tightly focused functionality.
So, don't expect to see an Apple buyout of Palm. There simply isn't any value there, nothing that Apple could not invent themselves. Perhaps a stripped down version of Mac OS X, with a simplified UI, running on one of Intel's processors normally used for PDA's. Have it support dashboard widgets as a integral part of the user experience -- many of these would be quite useful in a mobile context.
Will that happen? Who knows? Everything at Apple is incremental, it is often best to predict what they will do by what they have done.
--hal
OS? The current release of the Palm is badly aging. They do have something else upcoming, anyone can look at it if they sign up as a developer, which is free.
But I think the request is based on wistfullness, a "coulda shoulda" glance at the iPod -- the thought that Palm should have been there.
Far from it. Palm has never had particularly good media play back support. This has been a critical failure of the product. It is telling when $99.00 cell phones has superior media support to a $300.00 Palm.
The article makes several bad assumptions. While the TabletPC has defied my expectations, and has not sunk like a rock, it is hardly selling like gangbusters. The form factor remains an unfullfilled promise -- something we would all like to really, really work. Windows TabletPC OS has too much legacy tied to conventional Windows (including the dumb start menu with nested menus, which is hard to navigate on a Pen interface) to be truly useful. I know, I have tried my darnest to like the one I have on loan. Ultimately, I end up using a keyboard to do just about anything, simply because it is more efficient. I have noticed this to be true of most tablet users as well. It is really worth the price differential between a tablet and conventional laptop to be able to use a pointing device to point at the screen?
I am confident that someone like Apple could make a tablet UI that would be more useful. Inkwell isn't bad at handwriting recognition, Apple has some promising accessibility tools that could be repurposed for a tablet environment (Voiceover). Will they do it? Recent patents hint that they are thinking about it, but it remains to be seen that there is a market.
My guess is that instead of a general computing device, it should perhaps be more like the Nokia 770 -- a web-centric device that is inexpensive and easy to use, inside of it's tightly focused functionality.
So, don't expect to see an Apple buyout of Palm. There simply isn't any value there, nothing that Apple could not invent themselves. Perhaps a stripped down version of Mac OS X, with a simplified UI, running on one of Intel's processors normally used for PDA's. Have it support dashboard widgets as a integral part of the user experience -- many of these would be quite useful in a mobile context.
Will that happen? Who knows? Everything at Apple is incremental, it is often best to predict what they will do by what they have done.
--hal
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Narratives gone wrong
About 4:00 Friday afternoon I received a SMS from cingular on my cell welcoming me as a Cingular customer. I didn't think much of it at the time, but discovered by 5:00 that my phone had ceased to work. Ironically, I discovered if first when I went to check my email, and it couldn't connect. I then tried to call my cell phone, when I got a "beep beep beep" -- secret code for "your phone isn't answering anymore".
Later, I tried to make a phone call on the phone, and got the "Welcome Cingular Customer" greeting. I was asked if I wanted to activated service -- Well, yes, I would like my phone to work ;-)
After giving them my last 4 digits of my social security number, I then got the following spiel. This is a paraphrase, I am sure that I may missed specific wording, but it's close enough:
"Welcome Cingular Customer! Understand that by agreeing to the terms of the following contract, that you will be liable for all charges. Any trial services may incur additional charges after the first month of free service. This contract will be for a 2 year period of time. Press 1 to agree to the terms of this contract, press * to hear this again."
Beyond the obvious question, whether this is actually an enforceable contract (by pressing one key on my cell phone, I am signing a contract worth a minimum of $1200, , there is a secondary issue. Whoever thought of this was an evil genius. There is no secondary option, which would be "decline" -- at least none is presented to the user. Of course, I just hung up. But I wonder if someone could be felt to compelled to press "1", because "there was no other choice". I have to believe that this was designed on purpose.
This is another example of how computer/human interactions can be shaped by playing off of the user's expectations. Up until this last menu, I was always given a secondary option -- press the number 2 to exit. But here, at the point where I am presented with the contract agreement, that option is taken away, implying that there is no other option.
I have been thinking about this a lot. I certainly don't want to paint Cingular as a evil entity -- in fact, I have been up to now quite happy with my service. However, I am reminded of examples of this very same phenomena in educational environments, where the plot is shaped in a way that on purpose, or even worse, by accident, the narrative is broken. The irony remains that in many of these cases, it is simply brushed off as a "programming mistake" or "oversight", but the very process by which the narrative is delivered can shape how the user interacts with it -- okay not so profound, but when we think of things like LMS systems, web publication systems, presentation software, things where in the interest of simplicity options are limited, unintended consquences may be the result. And it may be that we will not see this ourselves, immersed in the center of these software systems.
--hal
p.s. yes, I got my phone working again. A helpful fellow at a Cingular store set me straight. The irony is that it is because I am getting a Blackberry for testing, in addition to my existing phone, and wanted it added to my service. The University won't pay for service on cell phones, so I am paying for it out of my pocket. Another example of the ongoing cost of education ;-)
Later, I tried to make a phone call on the phone, and got the "Welcome Cingular Customer" greeting. I was asked if I wanted to activated service -- Well, yes, I would like my phone to work ;-)
After giving them my last 4 digits of my social security number, I then got the following spiel. This is a paraphrase, I am sure that I may missed specific wording, but it's close enough:
"Welcome Cingular Customer! Understand that by agreeing to the terms of the following contract, that you will be liable for all charges. Any trial services may incur additional charges after the first month of free service. This contract will be for a 2 year period of time. Press 1 to agree to the terms of this contract, press * to hear this again."
Beyond the obvious question, whether this is actually an enforceable contract (by pressing one key on my cell phone, I am signing a contract worth a minimum of $1200, , there is a secondary issue. Whoever thought of this was an evil genius. There is no secondary option, which would be "decline" -- at least none is presented to the user. Of course, I just hung up. But I wonder if someone could be felt to compelled to press "1", because "there was no other choice". I have to believe that this was designed on purpose.
This is another example of how computer/human interactions can be shaped by playing off of the user's expectations. Up until this last menu, I was always given a secondary option -- press the number 2 to exit. But here, at the point where I am presented with the contract agreement, that option is taken away, implying that there is no other option.
I have been thinking about this a lot. I certainly don't want to paint Cingular as a evil entity -- in fact, I have been up to now quite happy with my service. However, I am reminded of examples of this very same phenomena in educational environments, where the plot is shaped in a way that on purpose, or even worse, by accident, the narrative is broken. The irony remains that in many of these cases, it is simply brushed off as a "programming mistake" or "oversight", but the very process by which the narrative is delivered can shape how the user interacts with it -- okay not so profound, but when we think of things like LMS systems, web publication systems, presentation software, things where in the interest of simplicity options are limited, unintended consquences may be the result. And it may be that we will not see this ourselves, immersed in the center of these software systems.
--hal
p.s. yes, I got my phone working again. A helpful fellow at a Cingular store set me straight. The irony is that it is because I am getting a Blackberry for testing, in addition to my existing phone, and wanted it added to my service. The University won't pay for service on cell phones, so I am paying for it out of my pocket. Another example of the ongoing cost of education ;-)
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