I don’t typically engage in government conspiracy theories (with the exception of defending the NASA Moon landings…don’t get me started). It never once occurred to me that the events of 9/11 were anything more than what we were told on the news. Perhaps that’s a clear illustration of how the average American was “supposed” to respond to those horrible events. I, like many others, suddenly became overwhelmed with a feeling of patriotism and united with fellow Americans in believing that we were viscously attacked and “at war”.

Yesterday I sat through a well composed independent documentary making some strong assertions about how our very own government was solely responsible for executing the events of that day and the subsequent cover up. While I’m by no means convinced this is entirely true, it has made me question my own recollection of that day and the resulting actions of a government who became “justified” in several questionable actions over last few years. That day was a complicated set of events with a number of uncontrollable variables, namely people under extreme stress. Will we ever know the truth? Will the American public blindly swallow the government’s “story”. Are the Conspiracy theorists simply bored and need a new challenge? Or will this become the next conspiracy theory to be analyzed for decades like the JFK assassination.

It’s long, but well worth a look.

Forget Web 2.0 hype, forget shoddy limited vocabulary voice activation - this is true evolution of a UI. If you saw the under rated Michael Bay film The Island, this exact concept was superbly carried out with green screen special effects, but based on very realistic technology. In the movie an entire desk top was an intractable multipoint interface. I just had no idea its was real. Amazing. I can’t wait to find out more about it’s development.

Imagine the possibilities.

It’s simple really, the Internet’s greatest self propagating industry (besides porn) is quite obviously the search engine. Empires have been created with the seemingly simple task of finding what other people want. The trouble is, a good Search is isn’t so simple. Mankinds greatest mindshare is now over 4 Billion pages strong and rising by the hundreds every day. Without an effective way to filter and present requested material, we’d be in the middle of mankinds greatest cluster funk. Yahoo! took an early stab and has managed to stay in the game, I remember sending people to Infoseek (now go.com) as my preferred engine in the mid to late ’90s. Once searching the present was perfected, we then set out to search the past and when that got old (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) we started searching the Search.

Now that general web searching has been conquered our attention turns from global to local. A new breed of search engine is now on the prowl at the request of your query. Finding local restaurants, shops, and services is now driving new revenue opportunities and providing web searchers a higher level of customized, and convenient way to find things in a small geographic area. So at the prompt of a friend, the discussion began, what makes the best local search? Several have already laid down their cards: Google Local, Local.com, City Search and Zip Mouse. What I find interesting about all of the local search engines I’ve used is that they have all failed to provide me one complete request to a simple search. I’ve used a dozen different Searches with different theories of organization from hierarchical, linear, to context word searches, and they have all failed. So what was my unsolvable puzzle? I need an oil change. I’m relatively new to the city and I have no idea where I can take my car for an oil change that meets the following basic requirements (which I imagine everyone would consider relevant when looking for such services): good price, quality service, convenient location relative to me, and offering the correct products (in this case the right kind of oil). Sure I can bring up a list of services centers in my area but none contain important decision making details such as price, product brands, and the reassurance that they are proficient in servicing my unique model of vehicle.

I’m beginning to think this one case where one size will never fit all. The above engines nerver start out specifc enough so there is no hope of me ending with specifics. I need something for me. While my next door neighbor the Porsche owner will have very different needs, I need something that fits my specific brand and picky service requirements. I need a search engine that makes me feel like part of a unique club, one with reviews by others who share my strict requirements and similar automotive experiences. I want to read about the services company X offers before I bother with a phone call, I want to see additional, relevant services and products. Once I’m content that I’ve quickly found the service provider meeting my needs, I’ll gladly pony up the cash. I’d bet these businesses might just do the same to be featured on such a specific local Search.

Build it and they will come?

Oops, too late. Sorry.

Along with giving the booth worker a heart attack after closing the new portable’s display, the following are my first impressions of everyone’s favorite new ‘Book.

- MagSafe: Genius. No polarity on the plug. Not to hard, not to soft, the magnet seems like the right strength. Booth workers assure us that having a magnet of such strength neighboring the other laptop components is “not an issue”. *cough*

- Relocated wireless antennas: Fear. They are now located at the base of the display hinge (the matte silver insert). Does anyone else remember the joys of wifi on a titanium PowerBook? Booth worker response: “It’s better than the previous generation”. So is the current hydrogen bomb.

- 8 is Great! No wait, the marketing fluff said 4x faster. Whatever. It was noticeably faster, Safari page renders where better than G5 towers I’ve worked on. The IR port on front is distracting and ugly, it’s a shame they can’t solve that (little) aesthetic issue. We can put men on the moon but IR port covers will forever remain a startling black-red.

- Built-in iSight camera: A natural conclusion. I’m sure these will appear in every CPU from now on (except of course towers). If they don’t appear in the next rev of the displays, someone missed a meeting.

- $1,999: Worth every penny.

Although I seem to travel a regular amount as of late, this travlers convience made me double-take as I was walking through a concourse in the Atlanta airport.

Impulse buyers beware.

While that equation probably wont show up on your math final, it was the result of last night’s pre-holiday get together at a local pub. Drawn together by one common link (thanks Norm!), a group of total strangers really can connect, drink, and end the evening with an impressive light show (thanks Curt!).

Check it out.

Apple’s presence on Jeopardy! the other night reminded of a recent SNL bit that was well executed.

In yet another example of how one unique company continues to reach an ever increasing audience, an entire Jeopardy! category was devoted to Apple trivia last night. Sadly, I missed the episode (if you happened to record it please send it my way) but found a few of the questions online which were presented to the participants:

- An Asian feline that shares a name with the latest Mac OS X version: What is Tiger?
- The type of computers the iBook and PowerBook are: What are laptops?
- This man has a salary of $1: Who is Steve Jobs?
- This product shares its name with a place where aircraft take flight: What is Airport?
- A “speedy” product that works on the Mac or PC: What is QuickTime?

It would have been a hot day in San Francisco were I to have answered that second question correctly. What is a Macintosh computer? What are personal computers? What are portable computers? And countless other completely logical answers…all would have been wrong. What where they thinking when the decided on that question? Did they see it as a clever trick, or was it their lack of experience on the topic that created a flawed question?

This brings up something that has always bothered me about fact finding, specifically in the news media. Ever read a local newspaper article discussing something your overly familiar with? Ever sit through a painful 4 and 1/2 minute piece on your profession aired on the five’o clock news? Every time this happens for me I’m irritated by the inaccuracy of the information presented. I understand that it’s my job to know more on the topic than these all-purpose reporters, but then what about the information that I learn from them on other topics that are foreign to me? I have to assume they are riddled with the same surface details, misconceptions, and tainted facts.

Enjoy your morning newspaper.

I’ve always said that no matter how important the processing power of a workstation is, the usable display size is even more impactful to productivity. Even if the processing speed of a task you’re performeing is slower, having more usable screen space allows you to do something else, like simply reading a displayed page while waiting for a process to complete. Finally, some proof:

On the bigger screen, people completed the tasks at least 10 percent more quickly - and some as much as 44 percent more quickly. They were also more likely to remember the seven-digit number, which showed that the multitasking was clearly less taxing on their brains. Some of the volunteers were so enthralled with the huge screen that they begged to take it home. In two decades of research, Czerwinski had never seen a single tweak to a computer system so significantly improve a users productivity. The clearer your screen, she found, the calmer your mind.

One thing that never ceased to amaze me while consulting, was the average users ignorance in utilizing available screen space. It’s like people had tunnel vision, they focused all of their windows in the center of the screen leading them to work habits that would never allow them to be as productive as they could be if they were fully exploiting the screen real estate they paid had for.

This brings to mind my recent joy when upgrading to the latest PowerBook which sports a screen size 26% larger than the previous model. It’s still just a drop in the bucket compared to my primary desktop system with a combined resolution of 3200×1600, but 1440×960 makes this portable system an even better tool than before.

Innovation is a funny thing. I’ve seen a few say recently that everything possible has already been thought up. To quote Dave "Someone, somewhere, already had the conversation that you and your buddy are drawing out on a napkin over beers." There’s also that email being passed around that supposedly quotes Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S.  Office of Patents in 1899 at saying "Everything that can be invented has been invented" and then some nonsense about the patent office actually shutting down for a time because they thought there was nothing left to patent. I didn’t spend the quality time with Google to see if that actually happened, I’ll simply hope that it didn’t. So moving beyond the overused cliché about necessity, I wonder what prompts some particular innovation. Is it a careful evaluation of a products short comings? Is the result of thorough UAT to improve usage? Or is it simply because we can.

Along with an increased displacement to a wonderful round 6.0 liters (read: yes, you can have my first born in trade), the 2005 Corvette includes a host of "innovative", new-to-Chevrolet features. Since I can’t seem to get off my UI kick, let’s focus on one that should be fairly straight forward from a user standpoint. The ignition. Every morning my C5 requires such basic attention from me that I can usually start her up even before the intervenes Starbucks feed. Key in, turn to "On", engine fires. I’ll leave the (not-so) complicated procedure to turn off the car to your imagination. For years this reliable and simplistic procedure has served us all quite well and shown no need for enhancement. Enter your friendly GM engineer. Along with several other late model cars including the Honda S2000, Toyota Prius, and Cadillac XLR, the C6 now includes a push button ignition. A key is no longer required, simply push the "Start" button on the dash and the LS2 engine breathes life. Chevrolet is touting it as one of the best new features on the vehicle. But what was the reason for the change? It wasn’t necessity, the old way got us through 50+ years. Improved functionality? Lets see what improvements the new way offers. 1) You no longer have to remove your keys from your pocket to enter or start the car (proximity of the correctly paired key fob also unlocks the door). 2) Possibly improved theft deterrence. 3) Is there a third reason? I’m stuck at 2. So fair enough, 2 enhancements sound great. Technology moving forward is why I wake up in the morning. But before you feel completely jaded by continuing payments on that antiquated "key turner" you’ve got sitting in the drive way, consider also the draw backs of this new fangeled system.

The key fob is paired to a receiver in the car, they must have matching codes. A code which is lost if either the key fob battery dies or if the car is disconnected from the battery. I assume there is a simple re-paring procedure for these events. But what I haven’t read is what happens in that moment when your door wont unlock because the $1.25 battery in your keyfob has passed on. The Prius decided that if all the technology fails, we’ll just give you back your key…there is a key cleverly embedded inside the key fob, which can be removed to unlock the door or start the car. I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe there is even a key hole on the new Vette. So if not being able to open the door to drive your premium performance vehicle under such a circumstance isn’t enough to make you question the technology, take a look at the GM posted tech article explaining the operation of the new keyless ignition system.

By my count there are 7 different vehicle states in which pressing the ignition button will produce 7 different results. And yes, it’s a two position switch, you do the math. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, "On" and "Off" just consumed two pages of your new car owner’s manual. I might suggest a Grande Carmel Mocha and a calculator before reading the chapter on putting gas in this sucker.

So to repeat a theme, doesn’t increasing the complexity of something this simple invite greater possibility for failure? Be it human or technology. We’ve taken a state of "on" or "off," (ironically the root of everything digital) and muddied it with additional options. There is an inherent complexity that now exists in this user interface which could cause the user to receive unexpected results, leading them to frustration and possibly dissatisfaction in the product. I have the growing concern that this kind of over engineering "because we can" is spreading to the mass consumer market, with only a thickening user guide to comfort us.

So Dave, while your point is well taken, hold your hat, they just managed to reinvent (and complicate) the on/off button.