Ruth Stalker-Firth

Steve Mann, inventor of wearable computing, came to the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in the 1990s when I was PhD student there. He had some difficulty getting on the metro as his head-mounted aerial added several inches to his height.

Watching him struggle to get through the door, I was inspired and excited by a researcher who wore and lived his work. Related MIT websites, where Mann was based, showed me how I could augment my reality by turning a gameboy into a wearable computer. The instructions came with a warning that it would affect my vision, though I would soon adapt to the constant red line. After all, the wearable was a lot smaller than Mann’s. (more…)

Another Apple marketing frenzy has led to the UK bracing itself for the launch of the iPhone tomorrow. The Carphone Warehouse is expecting large queues and Scotland Yard are warning customers to hide their new handsets so that they don’t get mugged.

Aside from the excitment there are criticisms. The main ones centre on the iPhone’s choice of network: O2. O2’s coverage isn’t great, apparently even in the Apple store on Regent Street. And unlocked iPhones that early adopters are already using, thanks to Ebay, won’t be able to download new software without damaging them. Vendor lock-in experts Apple are as bad as Microsoft with their need to dictate to customers how their products should be used, which ultimately is a big problem when you talk about the iPhone’s user experience and usability. (more…)

In the above picture a newbie gamer has organised a telephone for his Sim so that it can order pizza. Unfortunately, in the series of pictures which follows, the delivery girl arrives too late and the Grim Reaper delivers the pizza which means that the Sim dies of starvation. Apparently, Sim starvation is common in The Sims 2. (more…)