Microsoft Surface Hands On

Since I was out in Las Vegas last week, I decided to stop by the Rio iBar to give the Microsoft Surface a spin.  I don’t know of any place else in the US that has these installed right now, so it was nice to actually get to use one of these in person.

The first thing you notice is how beautiful the interface is.  Microsoft has put a lot of effort into giving the interface a polished look with smooth transitions & animations, gradients, and lush colors.  Overall, everything was intuitive and easy to use as you grabbed, pinched, and slid objects across the screen.

Most of the applications are easy to learn mini-games, and social/party games, which makes sense given that they are meant for a bar setting.  Each table has network connectivity so apps can talk to each other and access the internet.

One of the more interesting apps I used was one called Flirt.  There are cameras pointed at each of the Surface tables around the bar, and you can send messages to the other tables.  I guess the idea is if you see someone you are interested in, you can send them a pickup line through the table.  My lines never worked in person so I don’t think a creepy text message saying I’m watching them on a camera would help.

Here is another game called Last Call.

They also have a bowling game called High Roller which is obviously not meant to be a simulation.

This is definitely a first generation attempt and will require quite a bit more tweaking before it is perfected.  Several of the apps would not load and I encountered some issues with the touch interface (mostly while using the maps).  At one point I was able to hold my hands an inch away from the table and was still able to move the maps around.

Hopefully Microsoft can work out the initial kinks, I think the Surface has a lot of potential for building interactive applications.

Paola Antonelli Interviewed By Charlie Rose

A little bit late in posting this as Design And The Elastic Mind is not on display anymore, but here is an interview with Paola Antonelli (curator at New York’s MoMA) discussing her thoughts on the intersection of art and science and some history leading to the creation of the exhibition.

Ben Fry Interview

Ben gives a short interview discussing a little about his background, Processing, Hollywood interfaces, and more updates coming to his website (which just launched a re-design last month).

http://www.ddj.com/architect/207000454

First Impressions Of Visualizing Data

I finally received my copy of Ben Fry’s Visualizing Data in the mail. I have read through several chapters now and am really liking the book so far. Fry takes the concepts he originally introduced in his Ph.d. dissertation, Computational Information Design, and expands on how to actually implement the concepts of: acquire, parse, filter, mine, represent, refine, and interact. Examples are ones you’re sure to be familiar with if you have been following Fry’s work but he offers links to the source code and data sets so you can really begin to explore on your own. This is a beginner-intermediate book and is a great next step from Processing, which came out last year.

Article In The Economist

Nice article in The Economist which references some classic statistical graphics …

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278643