The Life and Times of Brock http://blog.brockatkinson.net I talk about my life as a geek. You love it. posterous.com Tue, 27 Dec 2011 08:55:32 -0800 4 Albums From 2010 that Should Have Been in Last Year's List http://blog.brockatkinson.net/4-albums-from-2010-that-should-have-been-in-l http://blog.brockatkinson.net/4-albums-from-2010-that-should-have-been-in-l
Yann Tiersen
Dust Lane
Genre: pop-rock | rock | experimental

This is an album that I listened to in 2010, and liked it, but had some reservations about it. I'd only listened to it once, and didn't really think anything of it, except that it was quite the departure from the other music that I'd hearn Yann Tiersen do (notably, his brilliant music soundtracks). This, however, feels more like a pop-rock album with happy choruses about painful (though sometimes joyous) happenings, and a wide range of samples used throughout--one must listen to it in headphones rather loud to pick up how well recorded, produced and mixed this entire album is. There are occasional drops into his previous soundtrack territory, such as the beginning of Dark Stuff which is his signature accordion sound, with wind samples playing in the background before picking up with jangly guitars and deep, intermittently spoken words and a choir backing, complete with fast mandolin picking, before moving into minimalist, repetitive piano and moving on from there. The song is pretty damn depressing.

The album is centred around mortality and death--during recording, Tiersen apparently lost his mother and a close friend. That is not to say that the entire album is as depressing as Dark Stuff, because much of it (I presume) is about the celebration of the life that those people lived.

The album begins with the song Amy, starting off with quiet birdsong and wind ambience before moving onto some type of fuzzy oscillating, analog synthesizer (I really have no idea) before moving into some warmer pads. The guitar kicks in with percussion and some form of background noise (I can't tell what that is, either), a high-pitched oscillating synth and, after a while, a series of spoken words appear from Tiersen himself. The music builds up to the first climax which is where the rest of the band comes in and multi-layered vocals singing together in a chorus-like fashion with the lyrics: "After the war we moved further to the West / Leaving Amy on a never-ending path / kinda lost, now I hope we're undone / Now we feel the anger crawling in our chest" --on the second tieration, there are lots of overlapping vocals overlapping (I'd have to say there are at least 8) in a real climax, complete with background beautifully implemented glitch-tracks. The song is incredibly complex from start to finish--the mixing and mastering during this section must have taken eons (the album did take two years to record and create, after all). Amy finishes with glockenspiels and some wind instruments in harmony before moving onto the next track.

The three standouts in the album are Amy, Dust Lane and Fuck Me. That is, the first two tracks and the final one. The others are also brilliant, but due to necessity of keeping this short

The buildup at the beginning of Dust Lane (the song) is superbly crafted--starting with beach ambience and dual guitars, moving into piano and glockenspiel, then mandolin and accordion with spoken-word female vocals. As it builds, it moves into heavily modified vocals, distorted guitars, and a large chorus--on the second iteration they are layed over one another, with the choir getting louder the more it continues. Toward the end of the song it finishes with high-pitched female vocals. 

Fuck Me is essentially a guitar-based singer-songwriter duet between a male and female, about sexual behaviour at inappropriate times. Again, this song is another buildup with many melodies of many instruments layered over one another, expertly. If you listen carefully, you can pick out some of the individual melodies, such as the two-note, alternative-picking banjo recording and mandolin. The album finishes by being taken over by a slow-moving Low-Pass Filter (with added grunge), and beautifully recorded string section and wind instrument, complete with synth-pad harmonies. The final note on the album is a reprise of the original synth used at the beginning of the first song, Amy. In this case, the album takes a full circle to get back to the beginning.

It's very rare that albums are made for both the types of people that love to intricately listen to their music critically, as well as those that love having raucous chorus to sing along to. Alternatively, it also fits beautifully well as lazy Sunday afternoon background music. Dust Lane really is Music for Many Situations.

Ef
Mourning Golden Morning
Genre: Post-rock | Gorgeous Music | Experimental Rock | Contemporary-Classical (rock)
Again, I honestly don't know how I didn't see the beauty of this album until the second or third listening. It feels like such a shame that I missed out on the appreciate of this album for such a long time.

However, if you don't know of Ef then I suggest you immediately go and start listening to them. They make the kind of music that I don't feel like anybody, after properly listening to their music, could dislike. That's quite a big thing to say about a band. I feel that, even the people that are initially scared of the long tracks (7, 8, 9, 12 minutes long) would enjoy them if they gave their time and effort to actually listening to it.

Ef are one of the greatest underground post-rock bands that I've heard. All of their music is brilliantly recorded, produced, and executed. Apparently they are one of the best live shows that you can see, as well.

The first track, Escapade #1 is entirely an instrumental buildup, moving to the next song, Sons of Ghosts. Escapade is primarily synth pads, cellos, violins, quiet drum rolls on the crash. The transition into the next song is brought about by the piano, playing a single quarter-note repeatedly. Sons of Ghosts moves more into a 4/4 instrumental rock song, with wailing guitars and strong percussion. The track (and the album as a whole), generally, is full of light and shade--blisteringly beautiful walls of noise and gorgeous minimalism. It manages to achieve this, while never getting boring. It's not until at least 5 minutes into the song that vocals actually begin, in a male-female duet. After that, it musically climaxes for a solid 3 or so minutes.

Standout tracks? The whole goddamn album. It's meticulously produced, designed, recorded, and mixed. There's not a boring moment on this album. Asking for the 'better tracks' in this album is like asking which of my future children is my favourite. I could answer it if I weighed up the pros and cons of each, but I'm not going to tell you, because that's unfair to the rest of the tracks. Be sure to listen from start to finish.

Audiocæneat!
Red Sessions
Genre: Shoegaze | Post-rock | Experimental Rock | Math Rock
I purchased Red Sessions quite some time ago, but I actually got a personal email from the guitarist thanking me. It was a really nice personal touch. He even replied to me when I sent an email back in return.

However, doing this review I realized that the version I downloaded has a different ordering of tracks than the one off Bandcamp. I'm not sure how this could possibly be, unless it was changed after I'd bought it. In doing this review, I have changed the ordering on my computer to reflect the one on Bandcamp. Now, listening to it in that order makes more sense--mine began with The Truth Unfolded I, which I didn't necessarily like as an introduction to an album. But now with From The Massives to the Masses as the first track, it makes sense. It gives you a full detail about what the album is perhaps going to be about--two guitars, bass, and samples of a person walking in dirt, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag. The character coughs, sorts something out, and is cold (I assume he's camping). My problem with this recording is really negligible, and I think even designed that way; every sound that is made is done directly into the microphone, with very little aspect of a 3D physical space. His footsteps come from the same sound source as his lighter and cigarette. It becomes incredible intimate, until the guitars start wailing, getting heavier, constantly changing their sounds and effects--this level of intricacy would be incredible to see how it could possibly be done live.

After taking a break from writing this, and subsequently watching their live shows (along with many other bands), I can see that each guitar player (as well as the bassist) have rather large collections of effects pedals. And, surprisingly, their live show replicates their albums really closely.

The juggernaut final track - Idylla, clocks in at over 16 minutes, taking the album for a math-rock spin with intricate guitar riffs and occasional changes in tempo. The quiet-loud progression that is much loved and sought-after in post-rock and shoegaze circles takes quite some time to get going, but when it does, it's powerful.

Listen to the whole album if you can. If you can't, or have a short attention span, I would still recommend Idylla because it's just that good. Make sure you listen to it with headphones on, though.

Stafrænn Hákon
Sanitas
Genre: Post-rock | Power-Ambient | Electronica
* this was actually really close to making last year's list. I can't remember why I didn't.

There's just something beautiful about Sanitas that I can't put my finger on, from the beginning to end. It's not an absolutely standout album, but it is well-formed, enchanting, and it takes you to another place through the euphoric walls of noise, the catchy vocals, and the sparse ambience found in between. Even in spite of the knowledge that Hakon lives in Iceland, there is some thread throughout the whole album that reminds me of an icey winter with warm cabins. I think some part must certainly be owed to the European-styled acoustic guitars. But there is something even more odd to Stafrænn Hákon--in the sense that they call themselves Power Ambient, or as it should be known: ambient post-rock with pop vocals and choruses. Because that's what it is. And it's awesome.

In a similar vein to Tierson's Dust Lane, this album feels like an incredibly intricate and complex singer-songwriter album. However, when Dust Lane moves into the analog synthesizers, Sanitas instead fares into the distorted, shoegaze-drenched guitars. And both albums beautifully balance up the vocals in their mix, making it never seem like it's unintentionally fighting with the music.

My only real problem with this album is not in its individual songs--of which they are all suitably fantastic--but the fact that the transitions between the songs are sometimes jarring. This is, I think, the natural problem with being an ambient pop band--your ambient sensitivities wants you to finish your songs with drawn-out sonic drones, but at the same time (on the pop-rock side) you've got the make the beginning of each song catchy enough to hook listeners in. It is, however, a minor problem that only a few people (like myself) will ever bother considering.

The two standout tracks on this album are easily Val Kilmer and Sanitas, but without the previous few tracks and preceding few, they are simply two exceptionally good songs. Val Kilmer is about--I'm assuming from the subtext of the music--the actor from Willow, whereas Sanitas is more solemn, about the affairs of a man who has either done something very bad, or has a bad job ("I'm lost in carrying the dead"). After that, You Have to Let Me Borrow This is shorter, happier, and has more of a indie folk sensitivity.

If you were on a budget for time, I would recommend starting from Bright and listening through to the end. I feel bad for admitting it, but this is also what I did when I didn't want to listen to the entire album in a single sitting.

---------

Well there you go. I will also mention that I have been keeping my list of top for 2011, and that will be coming in the next few days.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Thu, 19 May 2011 20:38:29 -0700 Quora: Why would anyone use Android if they can get an iPhone? http://blog.brockatkinson.net/quora-why-would-anyone-use-android-if-they-ca http://blog.brockatkinson.net/quora-why-would-anyone-use-android-if-they-ca Why would anyone use Android if they can get an iPhone?
There seems to be no advantage. Some people say "Android is open and will have more apps than iPhone", but all the Android apps so far are pretty bad and are far worse than iPhone apps.

My Answer

Because Choice.

It's that simple. Choice. It may sound like a buzzword, and it kind of is, but that's what Android was designed for. Android is designed, in pretty much every software stack, to be the antithesis of iOS, and as a result can be manipulated for a vast array of devices and carriers.

While some may complain that Android has too much choice, I'm going to have to disagree, and the sales reports of Android vs. iOS proves that point.

The result is that, essentially, different people have different contexts. They like or dislike different things. They use their devices in different ways. One single phone can not possibly hope to account for every type of user. Android, on the other hand is simply a platform and, by definition, is agnostic to both the hardware and interface. Meaning they can be completely different, yet Android still ticks away in the background, doing its job.

If I want a phone with a physical keyboard, I can't get an iPhone without sacrificing that. I like having dedicated search and back buttons. I like being in any app, pressing the search button, and being able to do a contextual search. I like constantly knowing where the back button is, because it never changes. The menu button hides settings and options when I don't need them so I can see more of an app's UI, instead of settings buttons.

I perhaps want a screen that is larger than 3.5" (like 4", 4.3", 5" even), because I might have big fingers. Or a screen smaller than 3.5", because I have small fingers.

If I want to use a different keyboard than the one iPhone supplies me with; sorry, you're out of luck. If I dislike the Dialer app for my Android phone, I can just change it. Also, I happen to dislike iPhone's implementation of Messaging; sorry, you're just stuck with it.

Maybe I like having the weather on my main page to see what the temperature is going to be tomorrow, without having to click. Sorry, on the iPhone you must go into an app first before it tells you. Perhaps I'm not happy with the Launcher (home screen) that iOS uses--you're stuck with it. Android allows users to go to the Market and simply download another one. Safari is not bad, but I would like my default browser to be Firefox. No can do. Default apps cannot be replaced on the iPhone.

I desire having certain apps persistent in the background which routinely check for my location in the world and change settings, such as disabling wifi when I'm not at home, and disabling GPS when I am at home. Oh, you can't do that. Also, checking for when I turn it on silent so it can ask me how long I want it to stay silent for, so it can turn itself off silent after that time. Nope, can't have that either.

I dislike iTunes, and prefer using other software for media. iPhone requires a person to sync with iTunes on a single computer (it can not use another computer's session without removing all media and starting again from scratch). They simply do not have the choice to use anything else. Android does not require me to use anything, not even a Gmail account if I don't want to. But if I do, there are options which allows me to sync with media software either through USB (doubleTwist), or over wifi (Winamp, doubleTwist's AirPlay, and also Google's Music).

I like that I don't have to plug my phone into my computer when I first buy it, and can simply start using it straight away (one can sign up or log into Gmail, but that's about it, and is certainly skippable), without having to download and install iTunes to activate my phone or device (what happens if I don't even have a personal computer to use?). Android also has a 'cloud-to-device messaging API' which allows a user to send an Android intent to a device, and have your phone react (example: browse the Android market website, select the app you want to install, send to your phone, and your phone will download it automatically).

If I want to make apps (and I do), I don't need to go out and buy a Macbook, iMac, or Mac Mini, nor do I have to spend hours trying to force Mac OS X to work on my Windows machine. I can simply download the SDK, and the emulator is up and running. If my computer uses a variant of Linux, the SDK is also available there. Also, if I am a Mac user, I can still download the SDK and use it there. Choice: all major bases are covered.

I happen to be a strong user of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Search, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Maps. The mobile implementations of all these are fantastic, and sync up automatically in the background. When I make a change on the web version of these apps, the mobile version also changes. When I draft an email, it's available minutes afterward in the Gmail app. When I perform a search on the web version of Google Maps, my phone remembers that search and offers it as a suggestion when using Google Maps Navigation. The same can be said for Google Search. Android is very closely interrelated on these Google services, and as a result is a pleasure to use. I also have the choice of not using any of these.

Android is available on nearly every major carrier, with support from nearly every major hardware vendor. This, again, amounts to more choice.

So there you go. That's the reason Windows won the war, and it's the reason Android will this time around. Choice.

As Yishan Wong has on his bio: "Quantity has a quality all its own".


Note: I did not mention specific carriers, because the person asking the question might not actually be an American (and I do see many American-centric answers already). Also, I did not mention rooting capabilities for Android devices, because the iPhone can be jailbroken (jailbreak'd?) to do some pretty incredible things, too. However, these are still limited by iOS; you wouldn't necessarily see MIUI or CyanogenMod on the iPhone, for example.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:18:00 -0700 [Quora Question] What are some good 'long' songs? http://blog.brockatkinson.net/quora-question-what-are-some-good-long-songs http://blog.brockatkinson.net/quora-question-what-are-some-good-long-songs

From: http://www.quora.com/Which-are-some-good-long-songs

Fantastic. I happen to really enjoy a good series of long songs. So here are my favourites:


 | Post-rock / Cinematic Rock |
 Mono - Ashes in the Snow
Japanese cinematic rockers at their best. They have some other fantastic songs, too, but I chose this because it's the first on their latest album Hymn to the Immortal Wind and takes my breath away every time I hear it.
Ef- Hello Scotland
I can't even describe this song properly without you listening to it first.
Explosions in the Sky - First Breath After Coma
See: above. Just listen to it, trust me.

 Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven
 The whole album. Each song is roughly 22 minutes (except Antennas to Heaven, which is 19 minutes). Brilliant album.
| Ambient / Classical |
 Jóhann Jóhannsson - Fordlandia
 (song has been shortened to fit into YouTube's previous ten minute limit--most of the song is still there, except the 2 minute near-silence introduction)
 This song's actually about Henry Ford going to South America to steal rubber. I'm not quite sure how, but it is. This is layered perfectly, and one of the main songs to inspire me to write my own music. Incredibly powerful.
John Tavener - Fragments of a Prayer
From the Soundtrack for Children of Men. This song is brilliant.
The American Dollar - Starscapes
Mixture between ambient and rock, as it incorporates IDM-style drums to ambient music. Really well produced and created.
pg.lost - Siren
Beautiful, especially at the ending when the 'Siren' calls.
| Progressive Rock |
 Karnataka - The Gathering Light
Cinematic, bagpipes, progressive rock. Very 80's throwback style, but not in a bad way.
Karmakanic - Send a Message from the Heart
 (shortened version, only ten minutes long--this song is normally 19:30 min)
 Another 80's throwback, again incredibly uplifting.
Moving Mountains - Lights & Shapes
 (shortened, radio version)
 (full version)
 Moving Mountains are, as far as I can tell, emo that has matured and grown up. If you were strongly against the emo phase, don't let that turn against you listening to this.
This Will Destroy You - Little Smoke
This is off their most recent album, and makes me think the world is going to end when I listen to it. Really powerful stuff. Could also go down with the noise/other genre. They call themselves of the genre 'Doomgaze', which I think makes sense when you listen to it.
Sweek - Thanx for Sundays (nothing to do with any god!)
I don't really know much about Sweek except they released a fantastic album with this song at the beginning. It's good.
| Other |
 Fuck Buttons - Olympians
This is noise rock, but uplifting at the same time. If you're really against noise you probably won't like this.
Counting Crows - Mrs. Potter's Lullaby
 (8 minutes)
 Not quite as long as the others, but still long enough to be considered. This is an alternative rock song (from a band most would already know). According to a YouTube comment from Blueeyesblack81, the record company wanted Adam (I'm presuming the songwriter) to shorten it for radio play, which they refused to do.

I have placed YouTube videos because they are universally accessible, and because I live in Australia I can't get any of the major Internet radio sites (including Spotify, Pandora etc). I haven't necessarily checked all of these, so if some are wrong (incomplete etc) suggest some edits, please.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Tue, 28 Dec 2010 10:04:30 -0800 More Honours Considerations http://blog.brockatkinson.net/more-honours-considerations http://blog.brockatkinson.net/more-honours-considerations So I haven't been keeping this blog updated. It's bound to happen with all blogs, eventually, unless there's a strong readership or a series of comments that make their way through here to push me into updated more. Or I could just keep it updated more to make me more interesting to future employers.

Anyway, I had been considering scalable interfaces, focusing specifically on touch-based interaction. Sure, I think touch-based interaction is The Future (2010), but I've also realized that Microsoft, while they get touch (which explains why Windows Phone 7 is so sleek), their fantastic Kinect product moves into the gesture group of their concept of a NUI, or Natural User Interface. However, to try and explain what a natural interface is, is incredibly difficult. Just ask these guys. The main problem, I believe, is context - what is natural to one person is incredibly unnatural to another.

The NUI Group are against the GUI because it requires a process to be explained and learned first, and then implemented or adapted into action later. They want people to essentially walk up to a device and understand how it works immediately. Whether this will be possible or not is another debate. For the record, I don't think it will, because a truly intuitive interface is based on previous familiarity - for example, in the paper I just linked, he explained how he saw a person first used a mouse for the first time ever, and got it wrong on several accounts. However, once that process was learned, it was (relative) smooth sailing. Even an interface like Microsoft's Kinect requires people to cognitively understand that their action has a reaction on a computer, even when they're not touching it. Also, for some people, walking up to their TV and pressing the buttons seems natural, yet it will entirely not work. In the future, the idea of the NUI will essentially become a mish-mash of many types of interaction that can all do roughly the same thing, but some are better than others. It is up to the individuals to decide upon what they believe is the most natural interface for them in that context.

I know that, in that last sentence, I placed italics on quite a few different portions there, but they do matter; each individual must look, understand, process, and then finally carry out their actions for every computational interaction (or any interaction, for that matter). Whether that's considered natural or not will be decided then. I personally think people will still complain about something when that time comes, though. People tend to.

Regardless, I'm moving further from my point. So I'll dive straight back into it:
I started thinking, if I were to do a survey of some sort, what questions would I ask? After some thinking, I was curious to ask people what the working desk would look like in 2010. Generally, we've been notoriously wrong when predicting future interfaces (according to some sci-fi movies, in the future we will all use FaceTime (or another variant of face-to-face chat), in every situation, including the car), and how they would look, and how they would feel. This is because I'm interested in text input, software keyboards etc. in a touch-screen world. If by 2025 everyone uses an Internet Tablet and does all their technical writing on that, how would they do it? Writing recognition? Wouldn't that be less efficient? Wouldn't that be going backwards?

It seems, as we inevitably make our machines easier to use for the general populous, their advanced features start to become more and more difficult to utilize. How do we strike a balance? Just have two devices - one for general stuff, the other for customization and advanced things (such as large amounts of text input)?

I think what we're looking at here is context. Context matters. Context is everything. A mobile user's context is different to a TV viewer which, again, is different to a desktop user, and so forth. This is not just in the form of input mechanisms (remote control, touchscreen, mouse + keyboard etc), but also their state of mind, their location in the world, their comfort, their social situation, their connectivity to the Internet, and so on. This all matters, and needs to be taken into account.

So this lead onto my idea of Scalable Interfaces. I think I should possible describe it as Contextual Interfaces.

Essentially, they start off small. They learn about the user and what they like. Google is already doing this with Web History and search suggestions, and also their Stars--of which I still have no idea how they work (are they just a contextual pseudo-bookmark?), I just hope they do. Very few others are really going deep for a contextual approach (unless you consider Facebook, Twitter, Gmail's Priority Inbox etc contextual as they show more relevant information readily etc). While these systems have the ability to learn a lot about me in a short space of time (the data that can be scraped off a single user's visit on Facebook would be enormous), they want consistency between users. Of course. It makes it easier for the designers to create a website when every user is practically the same.

For example, computers have several input devices that are severely under-utilized for various reasons. Sometimes, even if my phone (or tablet) was set to leave its screen on for 10 minutes, I think I would like it if it could snap open the front-facing camera for a quick second, have a peek out to see if it's being used, and turn itself off. Now, there certainly would be other contextual problems, such as if you're using its screen light as ambient light for other things. But if such a thing happens, and you don't want it to, you should be able to scold it (tell it to stay on etc), and it won't do that as readily as it normally would.

That's a simple complaint I have about my computer, tablet, and phone, and other devices; they don't look at me, or listen to me, at all, even if they have the capacity to.

This is where the creepy factor may go too far, and some people won't appreciate it.

I want my computer to be able to see where I am in the room. If I'm sitting on my chair, that's fine. But if I go to lie down on my bed, the text suddenly becomes too small, and unreadable. This is obvious; the further away we are, the harder it is to distinguish small objects. But what if said objects knew I was a distance away and changed themselves accordingly? Or showed more contextual information depending on your distance? If I want to read text from bed, I shouldn't have to have two users with separate text-DPI settings and change from one to another when I want to watch a movie without getting out from my bed (on cold mornings especially). I can currently use my Logitech MX Air Mouse (which is very nice, mind you) to turn my monitor on and try and find the music I like - but the text is small and unreadable, I've just got to hope that I can squint and read, or recognize the album covers. Why do I deal with this? My software should just know that I'm in my bed and change itself accordingly. The icon changes larger when I use the MX Air, but nothing else, because it has nothing else to base itself on.

Contextual uses of technology can go in other directions. My Microwave should have a tiny camera which sees if a person's there. Hell, even add some facial recognition. If you cooked the food, it will recognize you as The Cooker, and if you are in its field of view when it's done, and facing it, it will make a quieter sound than if it couldn't see you at all. If it could see you, but not recognize your features (i.e. you're looking away), it will make a medium-volume sound to alert you.

So there you go. My idea to tackle: Scalable, Contextual Interfaces.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sat, 25 Dec 2010 18:41:00 -0800 Favourite Albums for 2010 http://blog.brockatkinson.net/favourite-albums-for-2010 http://blog.brockatkinson.net/favourite-albums-for-2010
I had a rough time trying to whittle down my original list of Favourite Albums. I started with 40-odd greats - albums that I really enjoyed - and weighed them up against one another. It took a while, but I was able to take it to 25. At the start there are the Notable Mentions; 15 albums that I thoroughly enjoyed, but not quite enough to go into the top ten. There was a lot of competition, and a lot of infighting.

But here it is, in no particular order:

Notable Mentions
While I probably should have added We All Inherit The Moon's album 月継, as I listened to it more than most others on here, it was a compilation album - an amalgamation of three separate albums - and felt that it didn't break any new ground, and thus, didn't qualify. Also it made three albums redundant (four if you include the split with The Ascent of Everest). Still, it deserves a place somewhere in here.

Seabear
We Built a Fire
Genre: Indie Folk, Indie Pop
Released early March in 2010, it was one of the first solid albums that I'd listened to, and it made a large impact on my listening habits for the first half of the year. However, when writing this list I nearly occluded it because I simply forgot it was a 2010 album, believing it to be a late 2009 piece. Almost. Regardless, the album is exquisitely nice, even though it, at times, does feel like the same song repeated 11 times (not that that's necessarily a bad thing, in that it gives the album consistency), it reaches some worthy peaks, such as the violin-laden instrumentation on "We Fell Off the Roof". Highly recommended, relaxing, graceful album.

Frontier Ruckus
Deadmalls and Nightfalls
Genre: Alt-Country
Deadmalls_nightfalls
An outlier album that I didn't expect to make it on this list, as it doesn't seem to be attention-grabbing in any particular way. After several listens, I think I've realized that the guys at Frontier Ruckus know who they are, and what music they want to make. They feel very comfortable about it. The major problem with that, is that there doesn't seem to be any standout tracks; the album itself feels solid, even though it loses somewhat toward the second-half, before returning strongly toward the end. So much that, if you start listening to this album and quit before the last 3 songs, you lost.

The lead vocalist, Matthew Milia, sings and writes with a wiseness and coarseness that seems too old for what he is presenting. But I think that's half of the appeal.

Coffee Project
Moved On
Genre: Folk Punk
Moved_on-small
This will certainly not win any awards on musical or writing prowess. Considered 'folk punk', following acts like Fake Problems and Tom Gabel, I grabbed this album on chance alone, and the fact that I liked the album cover. On first listen, it oozed with catchiness and familiarity; it wasn't long until I decided I liked it. After researching Coffee Project, I found that half its duo was from Less than Jake (only my favourite teen-angst band in history ever), and immediately understood where the familiarity came from. Where Coffee Project lacks in extreme musical aptitude, it more than makes up for it by providing as much charm as can be packed into 11 songs. And it's catchy as all hell.

Emeralds
Does it Look Like I'm Here?
Genre: Ambient
Does_it_look_like_im_here
This album just works in all levels. If you don't trust me, I guess try this instead?

I'm just going to go ahead and say they sound like Mountains. Which is a good thing.

Balmorhea
Constellations
Genre: Ambient Folk
I have been a fan of Balmorhea ever since I heard their brilliant song 'Settler', and had my heart taken away by its, well, everything (note: hand-claps at the end). When Constellations came out, I was rather surprised, and originally found it disappointing except for a select few tracks. I think my expectations were asking them to take a step outward further than they did in All is Wild, All is Silent. When I realized they didn't, and begun to understand the comfort in their selection of instrumentation, it came around to me. While it does not stand out as much as the aforementioned All is Wild, All is Silent, this album pleases me greatly every new time I hear it. Their attempt at another 'Settler', as far as I see it, 'Bowsprit'; both shorter, less ambitious, and more introspective than the former--which is not to say it isn't good--it stands out in an album of nice. Attempting to choose a favourite between the two (considering both those individual songs, and also the albums as a whole) would be like trying to select a favourite child; something a parent can do, but doesn't want to tell anyone lest they think worse of them.

Except I might have made it painfully obvious.

Basically, I enjoyed this album, but wanted more, which is what I expect good music to be able to do.

Karnataka
The Gathering Light
Genre: Melodic Progressive Rock
Looking at Karnataka's attire between the original 80's progressive rock band to the current one is quite embarrassing - it's as though your parents donned Glam Rock clothing and started a band. Yes, these guys do certainly contain cheesy 80's rock ballad lyrics and conventions through their entire album, complete with inspirational bagpipes at the start; certainly reminiscent to pre-war scenes in blockbuster movies (well, mostly Braveheart, but still). Regardless of this, Karnataka themselves move on without a care in the world, and by God it works. At the end of this album, I most certainly wanted to do something with my life; I could run a marathon, fight in a war, and single-handedly cure cancer that afternoon. This would most certainly win the award for 'Most Inspirational Album of 2010'.

Kyte
Dead Waves
Genre: Shoegaze, Indie Pop
This begins with magic. Pure, utter, shoegaze magic. It's a tad disappointing that not all of it is magic (in comparison to the other magical shoegaze album listed below), as it has some weaker parts that don't quite seem to hit the mark. But for the most part, I really enjoy it. From the spacey, waving synths, deep rollicking bass, and whispy vocals in "The Smoke Saves Lives", to the catchy chorus in "Fear From Death", the album has some brilliant things going for it. If you're a big fan of the shoegaze movement, or even aren't and want something slightly more accessible, Dead Waves from Kyte shouldn't disappoint.

Loscil
Endless Falls
Genre: Ambient
This could be the epitome of an album that's hanging on a single song. If it were only the first seven songs, it would not come close to being on this list. I'm certain of that. While the first seven songs are good drone ambient songs, they are nothing definitive or exciting in the way Eluvium is for me. I liked them. I really did. But it wasn't an unashamed love that made me swear Loscil's name from the rooftops. However, the definitive song of Endless Falls, "The Making of Grief Point", utilizes the vocals of Dan Bejar from Destroyer. In this single song it takes an existential route on an album itself - a fictional album called 'Grief Point' - using that as a blunt weapon against itself. It actually becomes an ambient album about the creation of an ambient album. It's as though the first seven songs could be considered 'Grief Point', an ambient album which is just pure ambience, and nothing more; "The Making of Grief Point" is the artist's take on its own album.

It's hard to describe. Consider it an album-within-an-album, which is why it deserves to be here. It's incredibly ambitious, providing a desconstruction of itself (in the sense of making an album about deconstruction of an album, if that makes sense). Also, if you're interested, read this, and if you've got it, please don't skip straight to the end, as it won't make as much of an impact without listening to the whole. Trust me on this.

Parlor Hawk
Hoarse and Roaring
Genre: Alt-Country, Americana
Hoarse_and_roaring
Hoarse and Roaring, to me, is indicative of the next explosive movement in the Alt-Country / Americana genre. Very reminiscent of wonderful artists like Wilco, Calexico and Ryan Adams, Parlor Hawk are able to continue onward seamlessly.  At the level that these guys are playing, it's not difficult to see them more popular than they currently are. They are an incredibly talented bunch of people with, at the time of this writing, 433 listeners. It's (slightly) upsetting, and something I hope doesn't stay that way. They're simply too good for that. Produced by the wonderfully fantastic Joshua James, Hoarse and Roaring weaves through different themes and ideas, all the while making it sound so natural, and so easy.

It's good. Give it a listen.

Daft Punk
Tron: Legacy (Original Soundtrack)
Genre: Soundtrack, Instrumental, Electronic
Tron-_legacy
After watching the movie in question, which was rather enjoyable, I walked out knowing that the soundtrack would have to be at least nominated for best soundtrack. It's cinematic, electronic, grinding, moving, and ties in incredibly well to every accompanying scene. Then, once I had downloaded it, it only took one listen to overtake Trent Reznor and Atticus Rose's fantastic OST for The Social Network (2010). A few minutes in, it's pretty obvious that Daft Punk, for the purposes of this movie, shed their skins, and started doing something grand. The major problem with this soundtrack? It may soon be considered the most overrated soundtrack of this year. I don't care. It's staying here.

Phoenix and the Turtle
Swallow up the Moon
Genre: Post-rock, Indie Rock
After a recommendation from The Sirens Sound which praised this four-track EP, I decided to give this a listen. I went in with no expectations, and came back truly blown away. Phoenix and the Turtle have somehow made four songs seem both familiar and unique at the same time, which I assume is incredibly difficult to do.

The Books
The Way Out
Genre: Folktronica, Electronica, Experimental
The_way_out
I'm just going to embed my favourite song of the album below, and you can do what feels natural.

Bitcrush
Of Embers
Genre: Ambient, Post-rock
Very few ambient albums come out that one can listen to and, within the first two to three minutes, decide that it's good. Usually it becomes a rigorous exercise in making the most out of speaker real-estate. Bitcrush, however, covering nearly an hour in 6 songs (really five songs, as the final "Demons & Dandelions" is not even 3 minutes), it covers a wide range of ambient soundscapes without sounding like it's repeating itself. Highlights? The musical explosion in the middle of "Fray to the Middle to Meet the Ends", and the 16-minute brooding, moody juggernaut "Ascension".

Chumbwamba
ABCDEFG
Genre: Alternative Folk
Abcdefg
This is the one that I will cop the most for putting up here, but it deserves it. I did enjoy this album. A lot. My enjoyment could be considered as a response when all my friends panned it entirely, but I don't think so. Their songwriting is actually top-notch in this entirely acoustic album, around the concept of music itself. Each song explores a different human element in the power of music; using music as racism ("Wagner at the Opera"), to torture ("Torturing James Hetfield"), as a weapon ("Ratatatay"), to the enjoyment and collective synergy of singing in a group ("Voices, That's All") all feature in their ever-present chirpy vocals, even when the content possibly shouldn't. All I can really say is throw previous constructs of Chumbwamba away and give ABCDEFG a go to see how it goes for you.

The Tallest Man on Earth
The Wild Hunt
Genre: Folk
To not put this in here would be pure blasphemy. One of the first albums to come out this year that totally blew me away. I immediately burnt it onto a CD to play in my car. For nearly the whole year, I've been rocking out to The Tallest Man on Earth, every few car trips. It never seems to get too much, or repetitive, regardless of its simplicity of instrumentation (meaning, only utilizing vocals and guitar except for "Kids on the Run" which replaces the guitar for some piano work). There's just something enchanting about his voice that can't be described - he sings like an old bluegrass American when he's really a young Swedish rocker (originally from a band called Montezumas which are a difficult band to source - their site is down and their myspace hasn't been touched in years). This was, when it came out, competing with Band of Horses' Infinite Arms for time, and eventually won.

Top Ten

10. Frontier(s)
There Will Be No Miracles Here
Genre: Experimental Progressive, Noise Rock, Post-hardcore
Frontier
It's difficult to define Frontier(s). I originally defined them as Progressive Rock, except they have far too much of a grunge/noise influence - in essence it sounds like "dirty" progressive rock, and I don't mean that in a negative way. No, this album feels like a perfect example of controlled chaos. It begins with distorted guitars, an angry bass, and gutteral vocals that can't really be considered 'singing', yet aren't 'screaming' - they're more like a middle-ground between the two, that I shall call 'calling'. Very hoarse and rough, just like the music itself. The album, overall, is thrilling and well-constructed, even though I've no idea what he's 'calling'.

On their facebook page, they're referred to as post-rock. Odd: "Here it's abundantly clear that the vast experience of Frontier(s) is transparent in the band's masterfully assembled post-rock sound."

9. Marble Sounds
Nice is Good
Genre: Indie Rock
Nice_is_good
Clocking in at just over 39 minutes, this album is what would be considered short, except on a full play-through, it's actually incredibly satisfying. There are some fantastic moments, such as the post-rocky end to "Two and Still Counting", the entire song "Good Occasions", and the wilting section of "My Friend", when a voice repeatedly chimes "at times I wish I were dead". The only downturn of this album comes in their longest song (only by a margin), "We Slow", which is its penultimate, before finishing strongly. However, I wouldn't consider the song bad, it's just after "My Friend", nothing could really compare.

This is a brilliant album from a Belgian band you've never heard of. You should listen to it now, and thank me later.

8. Eluvium
Similes
Genre: Ambient
Eluvium_-_similes
Eluvium's foray into singing seemed to be sidelined by Pitchfork, but enjoyed immensely by Coke Machine Glow. Similes is Eluvium's first foray into singing (his first movement into vocals, I believe, was 2006's When I Live by the Garden and the Sea - though this was into the spoken word), and it quite certainly does not disappoint. As opposed to taking the lead with his vocals, nor into utilizing the spoken word, he sings through a low murmur; a humming between syllables that somehow makes its way into lyrics that nobody can decipher, yet the ones that try tend to assume he's talking about existentialism, life, death, or some other heavy themes. Whether I understand what he's singing about (I don't), or whether I feel I have the musical knowledge to deconstruct his instrumentational choices (I don't) does not seem to matter. Eluvium has created the perfect sleep album, the perfect dreaming album, the perfect study album, the perfect 'pondering life choices and decisions' album, for me. No matter what, every time I'm in one of the previous moods (which is every now and again), I will play Similes and appreciate it, and find something new with it every time. That alone is worth being on this list.

7. Beta Radio
Seven Sisters
Genre: Folk, Alt-Country
Seven_sisters
Moving from what I'd consider the 'perfect sleep album' to its near antithesis; the 'perfect' morning album. To be fair, though, it really depends on the morning in question. But there's no doubt that listening to Seven Sisters upon waking up conjures thoughts of greatness. As with several previous albums, while I can't pinpoint exactly what it is I find so great about it, I think, again, it's the inherent charm that is pulsating through. Oh and that beautiful violin. Listen to this and you will not regret it--that's something you're going to have to trust me on.

6. Magic Man
Real Life Color
Genre: Electropop, Synth Pop
Last.fm | Bandcamp (buy album, pay-what-you-want, including $0)
Real_life_color
The instrumental half of Magic Man is none other than The Tumbled Sea, who is my most listened-to artist on my Last.fm. It was only natural that when Andrew mentioned Magic Man and its relationship to The Tumbled Sea, and that it was free (or rather, pay-what-you-want) on Magic Man's Bandcamp page, I immediately grabbed it and we started listening to it together. It became obvious early on (I'm going to guess, roughly two minutes into "Monster") that this album was destined for greatness. It seamlessly integrates pop sensitivities with brutally happy chiptune, with a layer of fuzz over the top just because, and never ceases to stop giving, until its final song. All I'm going to say is that it's free, and available for download right now, and if you don't download it I will come to your house and spit in your eyeballs. Both of them. Don't think I won't. I've got a script running in the background that has identified your IP address, your ISP, your address, your credit card details and mother's maiden name. And I'm not afraid to use it.

The only negative parts about this album? A couple of songs are slightly 'meh', and it being referenced to as 'similar to Owl City' (it's because they're both electronic pop, and their voices are slightly tuned, am I right?).

5. S. Carey
All We Grow
Genre: Ambient Folk, Singer-songwriter
All_we_grow
Another surprising addition to the list, as I've only recently started listening, but it was clear from the beginning. S. Cary, also known as Sean Carey, is one of the original members of Bon Iver; after he heard that Justin Vernon was making a band, he forced himself into his bedroom for two weeks, listening to For Emma, Forever Ago on Myspace, learning the vocals and drums so well that it was only natural that Vernon had to pick him up as a touring member. And, I'm almost going to wager that it was S. Carey's influence that made Blood Bank's second half (as in, "Babys" and "Woods") so vastly different to anything we'd heard on For Emma - eschewing that acoustic guitar work (and electric guitar in the case of Blood Bank's first two) for the piano / vocals.

Alas, I've spent the whole paragraph talking about a band that didn't write nor record the wonderful All We Grow. Even though I've considered it both Ambient Folk, it's more like classically-infused music with folk influences. Even though I've written Singer-songwriter, he doesn't necessarily 'sing' so much as breathlessly whisper when required. He's been classically trained in percussion, and he breathes a lot of those elements into this music. It's a delicate, fleeting, and gorgeous album.

4. Hey Marseilles
To Travel and Trunks
Genre: Folk, Indie Folk
To_travels_and_trunks
Being their debut album, Seattle's Hey Marseilles poured everything they could into To Travels & Trunks. They've grabbed influences from the modern folk revival (Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens etc), earlier Americana, Bluegrass and Alt-Country works, and added orchestral instrumentation to it. And by God it works. Sounding - to me - like previous favourites Horse Feathers (coincidently, the bands live roughly 150 miles apart) they are layed with their vast use of instruments; accordion, zither, musical saw, violin, cello, xylophone, banjo, among the regulars - though it only rarely has the notion of sounding as though it's too much. After their first nostalgic piano introduction (which crescendos in a classically-infused post-rock style), they launch into three songs "To Travels & Trunks", "Cannonballs" and "Rio" which are the album's finest - they are both beautifully textured, with a mysterious absence of notable choruses (except "Rio" which is only repeated thrice, and seems integrated into the versus anyway), even though they play like they do. A few others ("Hold the Morning" and "Cigarettes") also do well in keeping up their theme of anti-rock sentiments.

Occasionally they dip into pure instrumentation, usually in the form of a piano with slight accompanying extras, which does its job at breaking up the album into several chunks. The final song, "Goodbye Versaille", concludes their first song to round off the album, except it has a minute silence and then a noise which I can't place, but sounds like an old organ. It's weird and out of place. I'm not going to try and deconstruct its purpose; I'm just going to assume they made a mistake and left the recording equipment on.

3. Peter Broderick
How They Are
Genre: Ambient Folk, Chamber Pop
How_they_are
"Everybody seems so sad."

Peter Broderick seems to draw inspiration from both Float, his brilliant ambient soundscape album, and Home, which turned for a more vocal folk-driven album, into a delightful mix. Every song on this album (which, at 32 minutes over seven songs would be more considered an EP) has its own purpose and meaning, each telling a different story. It's not a concept album by any stretch, nor do the songs really require listening to chronologically. This music is  never boring, at times sad, touching, and beautiful in every way. Absolutely deserves your 32 minutes.

This album in one word: delicate.

2. Bedroom Eyes
The Long Wait Champion
Genre: Indie Pop, Indie Rock
One brutally optimistic indie pop album. It explodes onto the scene, begging direct and full attention until the song is up--subsequently cross-fading into the next iteration of explosive joy. For The Long Wait Champion's ten songs on my library, it has a ridiculously high batting average; it only scores two 4/5, five 4.5/5, and three 5/5 songs. If this were a test, and I was the marker, it would be getting 91%, based on my inaccurate and ultimately un-trustworthy calculations. I'm to believe that, if I were to see Bedroom Eyes (real name Jonas Jonsson) actually singing, I assume he would be beaming with happiness the entire time. It's that obvious that he's pouring so much love and enjoyment into this. That's not to say he doesn't cover other bases (he quite certainly does), it's just that the moniker of Bedroom Eyes seems like the medium in which this mysterious Jonas Jonsson fellow is truly able to express himself, his desires, dreams, and hopes.

This album in one word: joy.

1. Butterfly Explosion
Lost Trails
Genre: Shoegaze, Post-rock, Dream Pop
Last.fm | Bandcamp (buy album, €3)
Lost_trails

Completely deserving to be number one on this list. Looking through my plays for the previous year, Butterfly Explosion are my 9th most popular artist. As of writing this, Eluvium's Similes has 345 listens for the year, against Lost Trails' 344. Behind that stands Kyte at 291 (when discounting other non-2010 albums, that is, except it's only beaten by The Tumbled Sea). Butterfly Explosion is, regardless of its bad name, a piece that works beautifully as an amalgamation, as a whole. Out of context, Butterfly Explosion sounds lame, until you hear the music that accompanies it. Gorgeous instrumentation with breath-taking vocals come together to create a fully realized album that stands on the shoulders of previous shoegaze juggernauts like My Bloody Valentine, infusing it with post-rock (using one of the God is an Astronaut guys as a producer), and taking it even further. It's as though they realized the potential, and decided they could do it.

While this album is certainly not perfect, as there are some moments where it lulls a little too much, there are some moments of true magic in here that require being unlocked. If I could describe this album in one word, it would be none other than Majestic.

Highlights include: the first two tracks ("Closer", "Tracing Stars"), "Turn In You", and the gorgeous vocals toward the end of "Crash... See You On the Other Side".

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:51:32 -0800 Eluvium - A Life in Tides Less Current http://blog.brockatkinson.net/eluvium-a-life-in-tides-less-current http://blog.brockatkinson.net/eluvium-a-life-in-tides-less-current
A Life In Tides Less Current by Eluvium Listen on Posterous

Give a listen to this song, at night, with your eyes closed, and no distractions. It's 10 minutes and 41 seconds. I'll wait.

Now, tell me what you feel.

I'll update this later with context. At the moment, this is just for a friend to listen to, so we can share ideas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Eluvium - A Life In Tides Less Current Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:12:20 -0700 Weird Dream http://blog.brockatkinson.net/weird-dream http://blog.brockatkinson.net/weird-dream I tend to have a habit that I remember quite a bit of my dream, and then tell people about it the next morning (or tweet it). I'm always under the assumption that people find my dreams interesting. And they certainly should; my dreams are awesome! I think the habit comes from my Mum who would tell us what she dreamed about, except hers were always tragic (as in, I ran away to Hong Kong because I owed money to the mafia and she had to come and kidnap me to bring me home, or I had a kid and decided to take it to uni to look after, etc) - they were almost certainly never positive.

My dreams, on the other hand, have celebrities (mostly nerdy celebrities, but there's a wide range), and me doing awesome things like flying around, or having to forward-roll everywhere.

This morning, I can't exactly remember what my dream was about. But, I know that I realized that I was dreaming, and forced myself to implant the concept that I was dreaming into memory, so I could tweet it in the morning (seriously). Then, a little bit later (again, no memory of what I was actually doing within the dream), I woke up. Looking around my room, things weren't exactly right, and I laughed. I knew that I woke up from within the dream, and decided that I needed to tweet about that too.

After that, it goes hazy, but just before I woke up I dreamed I was at a social dancing class, and we were doing ballroom, and I was trying to be decent at it but not showing off - then the 'teacher' danced with me and wasn't impressed, so I decided to actually try and out-dance her in a Viennese Waltz, but the music finished. Then I was teaching a tall fat guy how to do the quickstep.

Then as soon as I woke up, I reached over for my phone to tweet, but it was too long. I looked around the house for someone to tell. Then decided to posterous it.

Can posterous become a verb, like Google?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sun, 10 Oct 2010 06:13:23 -0700 Matt Ridley - The Rational Optimist http://blog.brockatkinson.net/matt-ridley-the-rational-optimist http://blog.brockatkinson.net/matt-ridley-the-rational-optimist I bought another book on Kindle today by Matt Ridley called The Rational Optimist.

He was on a TED Talk, which I'll embed here.

Here is a short snippet:

"When I was a student in oxford in the 1970s the future of the world was bleak; population explosion was unstoppable, global famine was inevitable, cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was gonna shorten our lives, the acid rain was falling on the forests, the desert was advancing by a mile or two a year, the oil was running out, and a nuclear winter would finish us off.

None of those things happened.

And astonishingly, if you look at what actually happened - in my lifetime - the average per capita income, of the average person, on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has trebled. Life-span is up by 30% in my lifetime. Child mortality is down by two thirds. Food production is up by a third. And all this at a time when the population has doubled."

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:17:41 -0700 Honours Thesis http://blog.brockatkinson.net/honours-thesis http://blog.brockatkinson.net/honours-thesis For most people that know me, you should know that by now I'm applying for Honours next year, with the intent of researching some good old fashioned UI / User Interface (or the more poetic but abstract term, UX / User Experience). I have been incredibly interested in the practical side of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) for some time now, and was excited to see if I was able to flex my creative muscles when I did that as a unit (in ICT325). Unfortunately, that was not so much the case, in that the unit was largely the theoretical side of the study of how users use computers, and it did teach me some very important lessons; user testing and feedback is paramount to the success of a product's interface, and that I am not the user of the software I'm creating (this is the basis of user-centered design, which I'll touch on later). 

Even though I was certainly far from being the best student in the unit, my lecturer, Graham, ended up seeing something in me when I was constantly probing him for answers and new concepts, and then I would end up, post-lecture, in a stream of consciousness of my ideas for particular interfaces pertaining to that software and how to improve this software, he must have saw something inside me; a burning desire and passion to move into research and development of my own software. And he became quite vocal about my future at Murdoch as an Honours student.

I guess if it wasn't for Graham mentioning it, or the series of talks we had before and after lectures, I would probably be sitting at my house right now freaking out that I didn't know what to do for the next year.

So, thanks Graham.

Anyway, onto my topic. I have been fascinated with the concept of touch as an interface (if you read the first few posts and didn't pick that up, I'd suggest reading them again, or, at least the titles), and have been seriously considering doing something with it. Talking with Fairuz (another lecturer at Murdoch that just recently moved from Mississippi), I played around with his iPad and rambled on (again, another stream of consciousness) about keyboards and general text input with touch-screens, while showing him Swype. He seemed impressed by the idea, but I countered that it was limited by the qwerty keyboard, and that I wanted to see theoretically if I could improve the layout of the keyboard (much like Dvorak did in the 1930's, even though that never caught on). While the concept of having platform-optimized text input methods (that is, different versions of the keyboard depending on what device you're using) sounds cool in theory because you're using (arguably) the most efficient and fast way of typing, the fact is that humans don't adapt very well to such changes which require their muscle memory, which touch-typing very much does. Nobody wants to re-learn a new keyboard every time they pick up a new device just to save 5 seconds every 10 or so words, when it takes them several days to train themselves - the initial loss of productivity generally overshadows the later benefits gained, which would be one of the reasons I've not learned Dvorak's keyboard yet (well, that and that I can't seem to find a keyboard that really enjoys being swapped around easily).

So we have continued talking, and discussing different opportunities afforded to not only touch input but other paradigms, such as body and hand gesture, and even eye-based interfaces.

This wouldn't be a true HCI-based blog without an image of Minority Report somewhere in it.

Just for a brief note, I actually believe the input methods of the near future is a hybrid between touch, body- and hand-gesture, speech, and yes, even keyboard + mouse and (to a lesser extent) stylus. They will all be used in different aspects when it makes sense, much like how keyboard shortcuts are used in conjunction with mouse gestures and movements (compared alt-tab versus clicking on the desired window, both have pros and cons). The far future will, I believe, primarily utilize thoughts, intentions, emotions, eye movements, and maybe the rest when particular things won't necessarily work (such as brainstorming or trying to write free-hand using a mouse), but that won't be for some time.

Now, reverting back. Essentially I need to write a thesis statement about what I want to tackle. I have considered this:
  • Software Interfaces between mobile phones, slate PC's, touch-based desktop PC's, and desk PC's (Microsoft's Surface) are entirely different, and should be treated as such. People use them differently, and these differences need to be taken into account, and utilized when developing software interfaces for each platform.
That should sufficiently give me enough content to write between 10,000 - 50,000 words on, right?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Mon, 04 Oct 2010 06:42:16 -0700 My Thoughts on the Future of Computing http://blog.brockatkinson.net/my-thoughts-on-the-future-of-computing http://blog.brockatkinson.net/my-thoughts-on-the-future-of-computing We are in an interesting time of transition right at this moment. Computers surround us in nearly every part of our daily lives. It is quite literally impossible to live in a city without interacting with at least a single computer connected to the Internet. It's come so amazingly quickly that most people no longer recognize a computer when they see one. Going to an ATM, you're using a networked computer that communicates with your bank's computers. In one word, computers are now ubiquitous.

The major computers people currently use are standalone desktops, with mouses, keyboards, monitors, and usually a tower or case to support the actual computer. Some are going all-in-one, and others are designed to be portable (notebooks, laptops). These computers are designed for productivity or entertainment.

The mobile world, also, is thriving. Mobile phones, portable media players, and slate computers (tablets or pads) are often heralded as the future of computing. These are smaller, lighter, and usually follow a person around wherever they go.

The third major computer designed for consumers' time is the game console on a television.

Currently, there's a concept of a fourth type of computer entering the market, known as the slate or tablet PC. Essentially, a touch-screen based computer, light enough to carry (nearly) anywhere, and is always connected to the Internet.

Note: I'm not considering the other computers, such as servers, or single-use computers like ATMs, or computer-based ornaments that don't require a person's time (like the computer on a fridge or microwave etc). These I will probably talk about at a later date.

When the iPad first came out, there was a large flurry of people believing the imminent death of the laptop market. Tablet computers are here to stay! They will revolutionize the world! There will be absolutely no need for anyone to use a PC anymore!

Now, while I agree that believe that slate PC's will have their place in the future, I certainly don't think it's here to outright replace the PC. Instead, I think it's here to complement it. Along with their mobile phone and Internet-connected television (currently, the game console). The one thing in common these all have? Internet connection.

By the way, this is what the Internet really looks like when you glance through an ethernet cord.

Sure, sure, there's no doubt that the Internet has revolutionized computing, and I'm stepping on absolutely no new ground by discussing those concepts above. But just hear me out.

Currently, I have four computers, and I'm a poor university student. I have my desktop PC (Frankenstein, self-built), my laptop (MSi Wind), my phone (HTC Desire), and my music player (iPod Touch - albeit largely taken over by my phone). Currently, I'm running four completely separate operating systems (Windows 7, Windows XP, Android 2.2 - Froyo, and iOS), with very little interaction between them. Currently, I have my music on my PC, and can stream that to my phone using AudioGalaxy, provided that the computer is actually on, but can only stream music to my laptop if they're on the same network (and even then there's trouble). The idea: place everything on the cloud and every device can stream.

In theory, that can work. But the major problem, bandwith and storage costs will eventually get in the way.

cloud-computing
Here is a simplified, abstracted way of seeing cloud computing.

I think that, instead of going entirely Cloud Computing, we are going to transition into a hybrid between both Mesh and Cloud Computing.

mesh topology
Here is mesh computing, except imagine that they are modern computers, and replace some of those with a laptop, mobile device (phone), slate PC, your TV (game console), your microwave, fridge, toaster, and so on. The main advantage of this is that it's robust, efficient, and scalable. However, the main problem is that it's difficult and complicated to set up, especially when it's all wireless (which, as far as I can see trends go, it will be).

Note: Grid Computing works too.

Currently, programming is designed for a pre-determined amount of processors. Inside every computer, there is a CPU, or Central Processing Unit, which calculates the logic behind the computer. The movement in the last decade or so is to - instead of just making it faster - add in multiple cores. Two, three, four plus cores are in a single CPU. Code can be specified to run on multiple cores in parallel, making processing (generally) faster and more efficient. The problem with this is that most code is written with a lowest common denominator mindset, or only has the capacity to run on the amount of cores that the programmer specifies (most programs only utilize single-core, with some games using both the CPU and GPU simultaneously, but it's rare outside of research departments to go much beyond this).

Instead, the Operating System of the Future (now called OSoF) will be coded to run on n amount of cores. There will be an intelligent agent who will quickly be able to designate multi-processing (parallel processing) on the fly. It will be able to communicate with computers nearby (or rather, those with the lowest ping), and be able to borrow unused resources (such as a few cores here and there, some left-over RAM, or even some GPU cycles if we're talking graphical or physics-based calculations). Most of this will happen without either user even knowing it's happening. The concept of sharing will be encouraged, but not essential (similar to Seeding in the torrent world--you can choose to not seed, but you're not as good of a member as those who do).

Hopefully, there will be an open standard for sharing of resources between computers, and thus, the type of OS won't even matter (similar to how both TCP/IP and a browser is currently found in all modern operating systems). The only thing that will need to be done, therefore, is to shape the User Interface based on the hardware constraints (input/output types, location, user etc). Essentially, you'll have near limitless back-end hardware.

This is the path I believe Windows Azure is headed. And this is certainly in Ray Ozzie's goals in the near future.

I personally can't wait. I just feel sorry for the people that have to create the security for such a system. Would be enormously complex.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sun, 03 Oct 2010 08:29:45 -0700 Five Different Cameras of the Same Picture http://blog.brockatkinson.net/five-different-cameras-of-the-same-picture http://blog.brockatkinson.net/five-different-cameras-of-the-same-picture

Looks pretty neat, no?

Shot_1286075022589 Shot_1286075053175 Shot_1286075069724 Shot_1286075086477 Shot_1286075126570
See the full gallery on Posterous

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sun, 03 Oct 2010 08:14:05 -0700 Seabird: A Mozilla Labs Concept Series Phone http://blog.brockatkinson.net/seabird-a-mozilla-labs-concept-series-phone http://blog.brockatkinson.net/seabird-a-mozilla-labs-concept-series-phone By now, the stories around the web are far and wide on the new Mozilla concept phone called Seabird. If you've not read, you can see it on the following link: https://mozillalabs.com/conceptseries/2010/09/23/seabird/

And it looks sexy:
Seabird Concept 1

It uses Android (but only looks like Eclair; would like some Froyo love to make it look more modern), and has some interesting things, such as the concept of dual pico projectors for keyboards.
Seabird Concept 2

Seabird Concept 3

While these both look cool and will undoubtedly give you awesome bragging rights to anyone you showed this to, I'm not sure exactly how comfortable these will be to use. Soft keyboards (touch-based, software keyboards) have a problem of usually being too small, and the fact that your finger covers the keys, but the problems on a projector-based keyboard is that it removes Haptic feedback (something that comes in handy on nearly any type of touch screen), and that the surface it's on will still be entirely flat (depending on what it's on). Also, it has problems with camera input, in that it's capable of multitouch (it uses a basic camera, after all), but it has trouble differentiating between fingers if one goes in front of the other. For the upper picture (split keyboard), I can see overlapping fingers being a real problem. Of course the software developers can just go the Xbox Kinect route and develop fingers as bone structures and try to internally render where it believes the fingers to be touching.

For most words, it won't be a problem. But if we get words that use multiple keys on a single line, such as sad, agree, typewriter, among others, will become quite annoying, and force users to make exaggerated movements when typing (those who employ a two-finger typing scheme - a slower typing scheme - will ironically be least affected by this technology constraint, I'm guessing).

I think that Pico-based keyboards need their own input style also, similar to the concept of Swype (using a gesture to trace a word's path on a keyboard). The projector could map out the path (even offer a line trailing the finger). The good thing about using this type of soft keyboard is that the keyboard size and way it functions can change on the fly, and offer word suggestions as part of the projector (instead of using valuable screen real-estate for such things).

However, my big problem is seeing a full version of Windows 7 running the Firefox browser coming out of a projector. I'm not sure if that's an RDC client running through the phone or what, but it's a tad unreasonable to assume it could run a fully-blown OS like Windows alongside Android on a phone.

Seabird Concept 4
While that's certainly a nice looking phone, I don't like that it has a Mini-USB and not Micro-USB. Mini-USB is the past, whereas Micro-USB is the future, is thinner, and much more durable.
Look how sexy the right one is, in comparison.

Another thing that I'm not so sure about is how top-heavy it looks. The bottom of it looks rounded, and therefore unstable when on a flat surface. Also, it doesn't seem to be the most comfortable of devices when reaching for the top-half of the screen (something Android users tend to do quite an amount, with the slide-screen notification bar at the top).

Still, the concept is cool and it's amazing to see what geeks with a certain kind of passion and finesse for design can create. Certainly, go and look at the video posted on the site, and tell me what you think.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sat, 02 Oct 2010 20:10:58 -0700 Picture taken with Retro Camera on my HTC Desire http://blog.brockatkinson.net/picture-taken-with-retro-camera-on-my-htc-des http://blog.brockatkinson.net/picture-taken-with-retro-camera-on-my-htc-des
Shot_1286074977747

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:22:00 -0700 The Infamous Tablet Computing Interface http://blog.brockatkinson.net/2010/03/infamous-tablet-computing-interface.html http://blog.brockatkinson.net/2010/03/infamous-tablet-computing-interface.html

So the iPad came on sale the other day, and has sold huge numbers and generated massive amounts of hype. The computer is a tablet, or a slate, which is a form factor that is designed to sit squarely in-between smartphones and laptops.

The world was split the day the announcement came out. Half of them (mostly first-gen iPhone users I’d be willing to bet) praised Steve Jobs on his incredible vision of the future, while many others gave it one massive ‘meh’. The concept of this computer is designed so that anyone is able to use it without much hassle, even people who haven’t used computers before.

But for power users, it’s not exactly their type of beast. I couldn’t see myself scurrying off to spend a minimum of US$500 on this type of device, in that it lacks what I want of my computers: multitasking (background processing) and access to some sort of file structure.

Firstly, due to the small screen size and limited processing capacity of the iPod Touch and iPhone, it makes sense for a user to only want to be running a single application at a time. Using too many applications drop battery life significantly, makes programs run much slower, and there is also the idea of switching tasks on such a small screen which is difficult to fathom (from the Windows Mobile- and Android-based devices I’ve seen and used, it’s failed quite considerably, though apparently the Palm Pre is quite elegant in multitasking). However, in a screen that is 10 inches, people would assume there would be room to have some type of dock on the bottom that would allow for task switching. But it wasn’t so.

Secondly, I want to be able to access the file structure of programs. Apple has moved away from the old ‘Explorer’ interface where everything is controlled by apps, which exist in a form of virtual vacuum. Sometimes I want to share files between computers just by dragging and dropping, and not having to go through some intermediate middleware that nobody really needs that much (I’m looking at you, iTunes!). I would like to be able to synchronize Live Mesh with my tablet, and be able to access and edit those files from anywhere, but it’s not so. It must be done through some sort of intermediate app.

In other news, Microsoft released details of their concept of tablet computing, which is basically the antithesis to Apple’s iPad, named the Microsoft Courier (which is a far better name anyway). Gizmodo went on to blog about the Courier and basically what it does, where it’s headed, and how it’s used.

http://cache.g4tv.com/ImageDb3/177127_S/Microsoft-Courier-Revealed.jpg

Rather than being a single screen tablet, the Courier establishes itself in an incredibly nice metaphor of a newspaper, booklet, or journal, which automatically enables multi-tasking—the ability to use several apps at a single time. While one screen is using the web browser, another one can be taking notes, chatting to friends, looking through photos, playing music… the list is endless. I assume that, by the video posted below, there will be some pretty handy gestures that we’ll end up using to change applications.

 

The main movement that these big companies are trying to do, is that they’re trying to extend this metaphor of invisible computing: not necessarily that the computers themselves can’t be seen, but that they are not noticeable distinctly as computers. The way the iPod market is, I would be willing to bet money that only a minor percentage would consider any iPod a ‘computer’, because of the basic things: no keyboard, no mouse, it’s either worn, or carried in a pocket, and isn’t used in the same way that a ‘regular’ computer is used. The punch-line is: these companies want us using computers without even realizing we’re using computers. Hence why there’s such a strong attraction to the Microsoft Courier: we are all familiar with books, pens and paper, so why not just digitize what we are familiar with, in a familiar way?

If we are talking about invisible computing, why not just give a quick mention to the Microsoft Surface?

microsoft_surface_main

Here, the basic idea of having a coffee tablet as a computer is incredibly appealing (as much as naysayers would disagree, I’m sure). It uses a strong metaphor of an actual desktop, meaning that objects in the computer have physics and collision detection attached to them, in a way to trick us into using these devices, not as a computer, but as we would a real-world object. It will even interact with your objects just by placing them on the table.

microsoft-surface

This way, it can be as intuitive and natural as possible. If you’ve got an image on one device and want it copied to the other, place both devices on there, grab the image and throw it to the other phone. The computer will do the rest of the work, which is usually pretty messy work, all the while the user is believing that they actually ‘gave’ a phone an image, which it accepted and took for its own. This is Surface’s idea of using Windows’ File Explorer interface, but with a much stronger visual metaphor running behind it.

* * *

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:08:00 -0800 Touch-based Mobile Games http://blog.brockatkinson.net/2010/03/touch-based-mobile-games.html http://blog.brockatkinson.net/2010/03/touch-based-mobile-games.html

Okay so the main problem with the mobile space is that it’s currently dominated by touchscreens, and as such it makes it difficult to create first-person immersion in a game.

The technology is near-perfect for games that require an overhead view (such as an RPG a la Final Fantasy), or a third-person view (a la Diablo), where the touch commands can be quite easily mapped and pinpointed. Also, because of gesture-based movements (using the accelerometer) it’s quite easy, and possible, to have racing games.

Casual, puzzle and racing games basically dominate the market. However, now with Final Fantasy I and II on the market, hopefully the RPG market will get heavier (and then eventually saturate, but that’s a story more inclined with economics instead of game ideas).

As I see it, the main problem that people have with touch technology is that they’re still stuck in the days of having either a mouse pointer, a keyboard, or a controller. As such, nearly all games I’ve played that require some type of first- or third-person controls, it will emulate the PS3 and Xbox controllers, essentially having two touch-based ‘joysticks’ on the screen.

The first fps I played on a mobile device was actually Doom for Android, which used a virtual D-Pad (horrible) to move, and a roller ball for shooting (press it to shoot) and moving (roll forward/backwards to move, left/right to turn). All in all, it gave me a bad feeling in my throat every time I played it and tried to like it. Basically from that moment on, I told myself there had to be a better way to manipulate a character in first-person.

Needless to say, there are problems with the current idea of using touchpad-based joysticks, for a few reasons.

  1. The touch-sensitivity is very broad, especially based on one’s fingers. Movements are very ambiguous, and hard to make concise and accurate.
  2. A double-edged sword: either the ‘joystick’ pads are too far in the middle of the screen, and cause the fingers to take up too much visual content, or they are too far to the bottom corners that it makes it nearly impossible to move it backwards or to the side (on both sides where the edge is).
  3. The pads are usually too big, and take up too much space, or they are made too small (reference point number 1) and hard to use (the optimal thing to do here would be to make them semi-transparent, anyway).

Basically, what I’m saying is that we are using a new input technology, and both the software and our way of thinking also needs an update.

Noting here, Final Fantasy I is using an arrow-based D-Pad approach to movement in the game. It’s not actually that bad because it’s a boolean approach (ie. there are only four points that are either on or off, and not a more fuzzy approach of a joystick-like movement scheme), and that it’s transparent. It keeps the fingers away from the content of the page, while still being easy enough for a user to automatically learn how it works.

The battle screen here is thankfully touch-based, with big, bold icons to show what act a person could do. A lot of thought has gone into this to be optimal for touch devices.

http://images.pcworld.com/news/graphics/167403-iphone-3gs-final-fantasy-7_original.jpg

If we have a look here, it’s an emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch, using exactly the same controls. I can understand why this is like this (after all, it’s en emulator, not a completely rethought game), but the reason I put this here was to show that this is the mind-set of most developers at the current moment (that is, grab a pre-existing technology, and hack it into a touch-based game. Profits ftw!).

In keeping with my idea of updating the user interface to match with the touch-based device, here is what I would have personally done if I were making an RPG on a mobile touch device (and who knows? I still actually might):

phantomtrainlocomotive1

Of course it would look slightly better than that (hopefully with transparent images around the side that maybe blur the background like Aero Glass, but not exactly destroy the game’s vision), but I’m sure you can catch where I’m coming from here; both hands are used to do an even amount of tasks, and it’s visually taking up less of the main content (the central area) than the version of Final Fantasy above (not that above is necessarily bad, I just believe that this is more optimized for touch). And of course I would try to offer the option of changing back to the other option if the user wanted, but I just prefer this solution.

If the player wants to access the menu, they won’t mind so much if their fingers cover the central area (they are, after all, going to a splash screen). If the player wants to talk, or interact with anything they are facing, pressing the middle part of the screen (with either finger, and the character would start interaction (or fire the event, whichever works).

Also, with exactly the same buttons I’ve got here, I can cause the characters to run (by double-tapping a button and holding it, or pressing both up/up or down/down buttons for multitouch-based devices), or turn but not move (by tapping one of the ‘buttons’ for less than a few milliseconds).

What I’m saying is, this idea fills the criteria for an RPG, while optimizing it for touch by not trying to make it exactly as its last platform was (as in, a D-Pad on the left side, action buttons on the right etc).

Then I started thinking, “why can’t we apply those principles of simplicity to first-person games?” and this is what I came up with:

Quake-2-3D-FPS

Again, simple movement touch-pads that surrounds the main area, stopping the user from obstructing the vision with his own fingers. In order to sprint (if this is a multitouch device), both forward buttons can be used at the same time (and same with running backwards, I suppose). If the device is not capable of multitouch, a double-tap can be substituted on one of the directional buttons. A player can still move diagonally forward (there would be a hot-spot between the side-keys and the forward/back keys which enables diagonal movement), and change weapons quite easily (when the weapon-change button is pressed, the menu pops out—it is not there for regular gameplay). The reload section would have a quick visual interface which would show how many bullets were left in the current gun, and the menu would subsequently pause the game.

I imagine that the facing of the game would either be controlled by the accelerometer (by moving the device itself) or by swiping the finger across the middle, as is seen in most applications.

From here on, the part about shooting the weapon (which even begs the question about why we need so much violence in a mobile, handheld game?): we can choose to press wherever on the screen, and the weapon shoots in that direction, or we could choose to have the weapon honed in the middle of the screen, unmoving. Either way, they both have their own reasons, and I would have to try it out to make a proper decision as to which way I prefer.

In most games, there is the ability to aim ‘down the scope’ of some weapons. This would be handled in the same section of “tap to shoot”, but would be done by holding the finger down for a set number of time. This would cause the weapon to be placed close to the eye, and subsequently more accurate (as opposed to ‘firing from the hip’ as our good friends in Call of Duty 4 inform us). To break from aiming down the scope, one can tap and hold the middle, or just choose to sprint somewhere (as mentioned above).

So basically all I need to do now is create a prototype of this. If someone is reading this, and such an interface already exists on a mobile device, I would like to know to try it out and see how it works (if it does, come to a realization that I’m in over my head here and quit, and if it fails, pretty much radically change my ideas and release a Family Guy-based jigsaw puzzle—Either way it’s back to the drawing board).

Either way, tell me your thoughts.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:22:00 -0800 The Problem with Computer Touch Screens http://blog.brockatkinson.net/2010/03/problem-with-computer-touch-screens.html http://blog.brockatkinson.net/2010/03/problem-with-computer-touch-screens.html
Okay, so touch-screens are certainly not a new thing, and even integrating them into laptops are not even new (Microsoft and its partners have been doing so since the early 2000’s), but have always remained a niche market. There are a couple of reasons.
  1. The touch technology has no been very good until capacitive touch – that is, they’ve needed to use some type of stylus or it just was not accurate enough for a finger to use
  2. Touch screens have been integrated into monitors, which are standing vertically, meaning that, in order to interact with them, the fingers and hands must cover the content of the monitor to actually use them. Also,
  3. Nobody wants to lift their arms up all day to work on a single display. This phenomena is what is called the ‘gorilla arm’, where it would cause strain in the arms and shoulders of the users if it went for too long.
The iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as a series of fantastic touch-based phones (mostly made by HTC) are doing fantastically well. But this is due to the fact that they are smaller than a 4” screen, and are designed to be used with the thumbs. It’s natural, intuitive, and our hands don’t usually get in the way.
Try that with a proper monitor, though, and it just doesn’t work.
Hence, my idea to bring touch completely into the desktop world is deliciously simple. Basically, we throw out our mouse and keyboard, and replace that with the same sized monitor laying flat on the desk. It should have the same size and resolution of the main monitor, and have capacitive touch technology to it.
Top 10 Coolest Laptop Concepts
This picture gives us a quick idea of how it would be, except that, in my idea, both monitors will show exactly the same content. The hands would be rested at the bottom, with indicators for where the fingers are located at the top. The mouse cursor would be gone entirely, with everything touching directly to the bottom monitor.
Essentially, here we have destroyed the need for the mouse. The scroll wheel can be controlled by gestures, and both right-click and left-click are handled by default in Windows 7 (regular tap to click, then either click and hold, or put two fingers down to right-click).
Now, the main problem is the keyboard. Most people would define a dual-screen computer or laptop with a regular-sized keyboard, such as this concept from Hewlett-Packard:
Top 10 Coolest Laptop Concepts
Just by looking at that, one can tell it’s not going to be fantastic to type on. Firstly, there’s no tactile response for the keys, and one can’t properly tell where their fingers are (because there’s no feeling, it’s just a flat plane, I’m sure mistyped words would be commonplace).
The iPhone here works because we can use our thumbs, see what buttons we’re about to press, and when we do press the buttons a large indicator shows up above the finger (where it would previously be blocked). This works, because it’s a smaller device. But if we make the device bigger, then it’s not quite as optimal.
So I’ve decided to change our concept of the keyboard somewhat. Microsoft had a decent idea back in their earlier touch-screen days called DialKeys:
I imagine my concept would be somewhat similar to that, without spreading it out as much. Make it less circular, more to the ergonomics of how we use our hand. Here is Windows 7’s default touch keyboard looks:

There are a couple of problems with the default. Firstly, it covers up too much screen content. Secondly, it’s too rigid and square.
My touch keyboard would be curved, more in-line with the DialKeys (but maybe a midpoint between the two), with everything being Glass (transparent), so that the top screen can still see content behind it, yet see what the fingers are touching.
Now, the positioning of the keyboard would be crucial. Should it go low, just above the taskbar (as are the DialKeys), or should the taskbar be moved elsewhere (to the top or sides?), and then how do we access it when we need it (I’m going to assume we throw the keyboard away when we don’t need it, and activate it when we do).
I still need to do some concepts, and will update this post with drawings and so on. I imagine there is a tab on the side of the page (as is with current Windows 7 touch interface) that is ‘dragged out’ and becomes the keyboard.
Then, finally my last concept is to have vibration creators just in the corner of the screen which are activated every time a key is pressed, to give the user tactile feedback every time they tap a key, as per most Android devices.
This post is far from finished. Hopefully if I’m able to purchase a touch-screen monitor, I’ll be able to figure out how to hack it up and turn it into a mouse/keyboard replacement.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/506897/brock-smoking.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5fiLYSWysrtL Brock Atkinson brockatkinson Brock Atkinson