Category Archives: Interfaces

Articles relating to various interface specifications

WebRTC

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WebRTC is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose.

Our mission: To enable rich, high quality, RTC applications to be developed in the browser via simple Javascript APIs and HTML5.

The WebRTC initiative is a project supported by Google, Mozilla and Opera. This page is maintained by the Google Chrome team.

via WebRTC.

And the latest current events surrounding WebRTC is this:

From: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling!

For the first time, Chrome and Firefox can “talk” to each other via WebRTC. WebRTC is a new set of technologies that brings clear crisp voice, sharp high-definition (HD) video and low-delay communication to the web browser.

KeePass Password Safe

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KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish). For more information, see the features page.

via KeePass Password Safe.

I haven’t tried this yet.  Using something like this requires a complete paradigm shift as to how one uses the web.  I currently have a password system in my head that has worked for quite some time.  It will be interesting how useful this is in real life use cases.  Having the ability to have some other entity remember usernames and passwords can lead to very secure authentication.  There will be no way to  authenticate however if one does not have contact to this password database which could be a problem.

Why Touch Screens Will Not Take Over

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There are three big differences between these handy touch screens and a PC’s screen: angle, distance and time interval.

The screen of a phone or tablet is generally more or less horizontal. The screen of a desktop (or a laptop on a desk), however, is more or less vertical.

via Why Touch Screens Will Not Take Over: Scientific American.

My belief is that touch screens make sense on mobile computers but not on stationary ones. Microsoft is making a gigantic bet that I’m wrong.

From: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

With the recent launch of Windows 8 and the Surface tablets, Microsoft has reversed its user interface strategy. From a traditional Gates-driven GUI style that emphasized powerful commands to the point of featuritis, Microsoft has gone soft and now smothers usability with big colorful tiles while hiding needed features.

Microsoft says Google trying to undermine Windows Phone

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According to Heiner, Google has denied Microsoft’s YouTube app access to metadata that would allow it to deliver all of YouTube’s functionality, including such features as user ratings and the ability to search for videos by categories.

Because of this limitation, he says, Microsoft has been forced to deliver an app that’s really nothing more than a repackaged version of the YouTube website running in a browser – unlike the apps for other platforms, which offer richer experiences.

via Microsoft says Google trying to undermine Windows Phone • The Register.

Mass-blocking IP addresses with ipset

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It has been shown, the hash approach as implemented by ipset clearly beats traditional mass-rule-blocking. It extends netfilter in a very useful way by decreasing the average response time. In the average over all samples made, IP sets are over 11 times faster. To conclude, let me show you another plot, this time I compared the ipset and iptables approaches within the same graph. The yellow bar shows ipset delays, the red bar does so for iptables.

via Mass-blocking IP addresses with ipset » daemonkeeper’s purgatory.

A Light Bulb with a Computer and Projector Inside from the MIT Media Lab Augments Reality

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The LuminAR device, created by Linder and colleagues at the Media Lab, can project interactive images onto a surface, sensing when a person’s finger or hand points to an element within those images. Linder describes LuminAR as an augmented-reality system because the images and interfaces it projects can alter the function of a surface or object. While LuminAR might seem like a far-fetched concept, many large technology companies are experimenting with new kinds of computer interfaces in hopes of discovering new markets for their products (see “Google Game Could Be Augmented Reality’s First Killer App” and ”A New Chip to Bring 3-D Gesture Control to Smartphones”).

via A Light Bulb with a Computer and Projector Inside from the MIT Media Lab Augments Reality | MIT Technology Review.

BlackBerry 10: AWESOME. If the hardware matches it, RIM jobs are safe

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For example, the BlackBerry knows when it’s in a holster. It knows when it’s on a nightstand so it can do all kinds of “I’m in a nightstand now” things. You know what’s “incoming” without taking it out of its case – you can tell that from the LED indicator. (Enthusiasts have written programs to allow you to set sophisticated ‘Blinkenlights’ sequences of coloured flashes, telling you in much more detail what is going on.) The obsession with usability extends to giving everything a shortcut key. You can set up a custom shortcut key to show you all the emails from Alice in the last three months, for example.

via BlackBerry 10: AWESOME. If the hardware matches it, RIM jobs are safe • The Register.

Once you’ve got used to it, and that the Hub is the home screen, BB10 is by some distance the most brutally efficient multitouch interface I have used so far. It makes the others look like hard work.

Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice & Power Users

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The new design is obviously optimized for touchscreen use (where big targets are helpful), but Microsoft is also imposing this style on its traditional PC users because all of Windows 8 is permeated by the tablet sensibility.

How well does this work for real users performing real tasks? To find out, we invited 12 experienced PC users to test Windows 8 on both regular computers and Microsoft’s new Surface RT tablets.

via Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice & Power Users Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox.

The underlying problem is the idea of recycling a single software UI for two very different classes of hardware devices. It would have been much better to have two different designs: one for mobile and tablets, and one for the PC.