In February of this year, you could see the following video of Microsoft’s vision of how the world might appear in 2019.

Now as reported by Gregory T. Huang, Craig Mundie gave some more insights on the Future Vision in helping to kick off Microsoft Research’s 10th annual faculty summit. These were the top five takeaways from his talk:

1. It’s all about the natural user interface.

Today’s devices are able to understand voice, handwriting, and touch commands better than ever before, but nobody has really put it all together yet. Advances in computing algorithms will lead to software that is “better at anticipating what you might want.”

2. It’s time for the digital assistant—but fear not, real assistants.

In a demo, Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz talked to a “robotic receptionist” (on a screen) to schedule a meeting. The software used machine vision to track Horvitz’s movements, gaze, and orientation to the screen, speech recognition to understand what he was saying, and speech synthesis to communicate back to him—all in real time.

3. It’s not all about the cloud.

As we move to continuous, contextual awareness, the idea that we can time-share these things is not practical. Processing, communication, and integration with any other software needs to be done locally, not by a remote server in the Internet cloud. – clearly countering the Google approach to the cloud.

4. It’s four devices, not three.

Mundie outlined four types of devices in his broader view of computing: phones, laptops, desktops, and something he called “specialty computers.” These are handhelds specialized to do certains kinds of computationally intensive tasks, like environmental forecasting, medical imaging analysis, or even delivering prenatal care in rural regions of a developing country.

5. The room is the successor to the desktop.

In the office of the future, there will be high-definition displays on walls, a keyboard projected onto a desk surface, gesture recognition software that lets you move things around on a digital whiteboard, a digital assistant on the screen, a video conference with a colleague with interactive graphics within the video screen, and so forth.

This Microsoft vision is certainly an impressive display of what may well be available.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

A Microsoft Future Vision

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One of the problems created by the Internet is that everywhere is as close as your mouse. If you’re trying to find something for the significant other in your life and they’re in to techy stuff, it’s not as easy as wandering around your local mall. Google is so voluminous with its information that there’s just too much to explore. What is needed is something where some human selection has been applied.

Where better than the Gadgets Galore Store, you might think? In a way that galore word may be the danger sign: it seems to cover too many types of artifacts. PC World might home in better on the right kinds of gadgets but again it overwhelms with the quantity of information. A more focused one for technical news that seems more useful is the Gadget Advisor for PC Hardware, Software and Tech related items. It provides advice on what it covers and I found useful info on best extensions for Firefox and best Windows software. A Blaze Media Pro review also caught my eye: that software seems to be almost the Swiss Army pen-knife approach to handling images.

If gadgets are on your Christmas list, then hopefully this will give you some places to start your research.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Gadgets Galore – The Christmas Rush

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Instapaper only came on my radar screen this morning when I read a post from Mark Evans, a blogger worth watching, who was extolling its virtues. As the FAQ says:

Instapaper facilitates easy reading of long text content. We discover web content throughout the day, and sometimes, we don�t have time to read long articles right when we find them. Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don�t just forget about them or skim through them.

I have been using ReadBag, which for me was OK and has some neat features as you can see from the ReadBag blog. Once I had checked out Instapaper however I was hooked. Some people like the fact that with ReadBag you login via your Google account. That is an inconvenience sometimes. Instapaper has the easiest possible of entries: your username, your email address – it’s whichever you choose. That was the clincher for me.

In general both do very similar jobs but Instapaper shows more of the KISS principle. Its elegant design made me think of those fine appliances that Braun often makes. It’s the ultimate in usability without any unnecessary features.

The only quibble I have is its name. It rolls off the tongue easily enough but what on earth does it mean. That is the only aspect on which I think ReadBag did it better. I guess it’s because it also has a feature, Give Me Something To Read. So if the Internet flood has given you absolutely nothing of interest, then you can check out this online paper. Do not try it until October 6th, since the editor is currently on his honeymoon.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Instapaper should be ReadBag

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According to the New York Times, Bill Gates is leaving his position at the head of Microsoft in a time of great change. Perhaps there is less change than one might imagine. Just over a year ago we thought Microsoft Goes Customer-Centric. In June 2006, we wrote:

Now the buck no longer stops with Bill Gates. Ray Ozzie is presumably the final authority on most strategic questions, even though they must be confirmed by the largest shareholder. Ozzie is much more attuned to the grassroots nature of Internet market places. Perhaps the latest moves on Microsoft brands might have gone slightly differently if done a year from now.

The interview today might raise questions about that. It featured Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, and his designated successors: Craig Mundie, head of research and strategy, and Ray Ozzie, top software architect. There is an emphasis on products similar to what has been seen in the past:

Microsoft is calling its strategy “software plus services,” an approach that is intended to protect the company’s existing installed base. .. Microsoft is now moving quickly to offer new Internet services for personal computer users. Centralized data storage will make it possible for PC users to gain access to most or all of their information from all of the different types of computers they use, whether they are desktops, laptops or smart phones, and wherever they are located.

Bill Gates said the center of gravity in the computer industry has dramatically shifted toward software. “Why do you like your iPod, your iPhone, your Xbox 360, your Google Search?” he said. “The real magic sauce is not the parts that we buy for the Xbox, or the parts that Apple buys for iPhones, it’s the software that goes into it.”
…
Microsoft’s chairman said it was unlikely that Google would be able to make inroads into the Microsoft’s share of market for mobile phone software. The ability to create compelling software will determine the winners. “The phone is becoming way more software intensive,” he said. “And to be able to say that there’s some challenge (from Google) for us in the phone market when it’s becoming software intensive, I don’t see that.”

That sounds as product-driven as ever, but perhaps if Bill Gates is taking a back seat, his successors will apply a more customer-centric viewpoint.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Microsoft Still Product-Driven

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.. or should that be Bookmarks and Favorites. Bookmarks are what Google, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Mozilla Firefox and many others call them. However Microsoft Internet Explorer sticks to the U.S. spelling and calls them Favorites even in the UK. However you refer to them, you know what we’re talking about. It’s your list of your favourite spots on the Internet to visit. You might even send one of them to a friend if you think it’s a particularly memorable experience.

Given that your friend may use a different device, perhaps even a smart phone, it would be ideal if everyone stuck to the One Web Principle. This ensures that content provided by accessing a URI yields a thematically coherent experience when accessed from different devices. In other words, even if your friend doesn’t see it exactly as you do, they will get something that hangs together and gives the essence of what you experienced. So the traditional view is that your Bookmark list or Favorite list is a set of URIs.

That’s fine in principle, but it currently doesn’t work in practice. This is why StayGoLinks is promoting the idea of a Multi-Web Practice, where website owners arrange associated web pages that contain the same essence but are suitable for a variety of devices. Each web page has its own URI but the set is held in an array that is called an AGI (Array of Graphic Identifiers). If the Bookmark or Favorite list contains AGIs instead of URIs, then any viewer can see the content in a view optimized for their specific device. Such an AGI Bookmark can safely be sent via e-mail with the assurance that the recipient will see the content in a satisfactory manner.

Typically such an AGI might contain URIs for web pages suitable for a Desktop PC, a PDA and a cell phone. However the idea can easily be extended to include other URIs that are often already in existence and are linked to the particular web page content. In a sense these are developed for other “devices”. For example there may be a news feed associated with the web page (viewed in a news feed aggregator). There may also be a print version of the web version (output to a printer), perhaps provided in a PDF format. There could even be a podcast or a video. Provided each of these is identified by a URI, then the AGI for this could include all the URIs for these other “devices”. The AGI would then be displayed in the following format:
(UPC,UPDA,Ucell,URSS,UPDF,Uvideo)

Pushing the concept even further, other types of associated files can be listed in the AGI. For example at the moment, web designers try to ensure that web pages will be coded in such a way that they are accessible to those with visual acuity problems using a Screen Reader. Such Accessibility for web pages is now becoming a legal necessity in some jurisdictions. With the AGI concept, an associated web page could be designed specifically for a Screen Reader and its URI would then become a further element in the AGI. This is a very much easier project than trying to apply a special CSS style sheet for the aural media type (intended for speech synthesizers) to a regular web page. Again the Screen Reader would only have to download the URI specifically prepared for it, thus reducing bandwidth requirements.

In summary, with AGIs you really can exchange your Bookmarks or Favorites with your friends with reasonable assurance that they’ll be as impressed as you were.

Associated Concepts: URI << One Web || Multi-Web >> AGI

Tags: favorites, bookmark

Post from: StayGoLinks

Bookmarks and Favourites

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Jacob Nielsen in his latest Alert Box discusses the Netcraft November 2006 Web Server Survey. He suggests that the Web has experienced three growth stages:
A) 1991-1997: Explosive growth, at a rate of 850% per year.
B) 1998-2001: Rapid growth, at a rate of 150% per year.
C) 2002-2006: Maturing growth, at a rate of 25% per year.
As he says, only on the Web would we call 25% a “mature” growth rate. Any other field would be happy to grow at half that speed.

There are some fascinating details in the Netcraft study, but one of the most interesting aspects of that Web growth still remains hidden. It seems probable that the Mobile Web is now growing faster than the Desktop PC Web. So how does that 25% “mature” growth rate split between the two.

To be more precise, how do the number and growth of new websites that work well in the Mobile world compare with those designed only for the Desktop PC world. By working well, we would suggest that this should mean a satisfactory user experience. This is more than just the ‘thematically coherent experience’ suggested under the One Web Principle. On this basis, it would be interesting to know how the growth splits among the following groups:
1) Websites that work well only on Mobile Devices
2) Websites that work well both on Mobile Devices and on Desktop PCs, and
3) Websites that work well only on Desktop PCs

It seems likely that the growth rate for type 2) websites is much smaller than for the other two types. Even such as an initiative as the launch of a new Mobile standard (CC/PP) to provide Web content to a broad range of devices will probably not do the trick. Currently the situation is that the Public is often shunning the mobile web, as represented by that type 2) group. A consumer survey commissioned by Hostway highlights problems with accessing the Internet on the move.

73% of people hate using the Internet on the move. Despite being able to access many internet services from their telephones and PDAs, just under three quarters of people are not taking advantage of this. Amongst the reasons for not using mobile Internet were

• being frustrated by slow-loading pages (38%),
• problems with navigating websites from a phone or PDA (27%) and
• some websites being completely unavailable on mobile phones (25%).

The research was conducted by independent research body TNS and surveyed 1484 consumers in the UK.

Despite these problems, it is clear that there is strong demand for the mobile Web. Regrettably how the size and the growth rate of the Mobile Web compare with the same parameters for the regular Web is still to be determined.

Tags: Mobile, website

Post from: StayGoLinks

100 Million Websites – How Many To Go?

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An earlier post on The One Web Principle Or A Multi-Web Practice suggested that the One Web Principle will perhaps never get sufficient traction. The reasons for this are that the One Web Principle is
(A) technically challenging, given the wide variety of devices
(B) involves web pages that are too large for mobile devices, given costly bandwidth and limited battery capacities
(C) is unlikely to develop any momentum among web designers given Reasons A and B, and
(D) given Reason C, other solutions will be developed to avoid the need for the One Web Principle

This position may be seen as too pessimistic by some. However there is some support for the view that the Tower of Babel would have been more likely than a consensus on mobile standards.

One alternative to the One Web Principle is the Multi-Web Practice. This encourages website owners to develop a number of associated web pages, each optimized for a particular device. For a small number of these, this can sometimes be achieved by using alternative CSS style sheets. However this does not avoid the extra burdens imposed on Mobile devices that were discussed above.

Accepting that different but associated web pages will be provided for different devices can avoid the Mobile device burdens. Each device can receive a web page optimized for its own capabilities. The one penalty that attaches to this approach is how associated web pages can maintain linkages to show this association. This is where StayGoLinks has a solution to propose

The One Web Principle sets as a goal that content provided by accessing a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) yields a thematically coherent experience when accessed from different devices. The AGI, which stands for Array of Graphic Identifiers, is the equivalent entity when considering the Multi-Web Practice. If a series of associated web pages are developed for a series of devices, then the AGI for this series of associated web pages is a vector of the URIs for the individual web pages. A simple example will illustrate this.

Suppose web pages are designed to present the same content or summary of the content to the following devices:

• High Resolution Desktop device
• Low Resolution Desktop device
• PDA
• Smart Phone
• Cell Phone

Each web page has its own URI. The full series are U1, U2, U3, U4 and U5. The AGI for this series of web pages would then be a vector of the 5 URIs usually displayed as follows:
(U1, U2, U3, U4, U5)
Under this arrangement, the 2nd device would always use the 2nd URI in the AGI vector. If someone else had looked at the same content using a device of the 4th type, they would then have been using the 4th URI, which is U4. If they store the AGI as a Favorite, they can access that same web page content via another device, say the first device, and automatically their device of type 1 would use the first URI, that is U1.

Equally they could e-mail the AGI to a friend and their friend’s device would then view the web page content by accessing the appropriate URI.

The AGI concept is very powerful and can be extended in a variety of ways. This will be discussed in future posts. The whole is the subject of a pending patent.

Associated Concepts: URI << One Web || Multi-Web >> AGI

Tags: Mobile, device, AGI

Post from: StayGoLinks

AGI, a multi-dimensional version of the URI

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Some returning visitors may notice the change in the header of the StayGoLinks blog and will feel a certain sadness. Andy Capp, the friendly ambassador of my birthplace, Hartlepool in England, has been pushed off stage right. Enter stage left, the new StayGoLinks logo. Firefox users will recognize it as an enlarged version of the website favicon, , that has been visible for some weeks. IE users, for whom favicons are a more illusory element, may or may not have seen it.

So what does it mean? The logo typifies the central concept of StayGoLinks, which will be described in greater detail in the weeks to come. The central circle signifies the content of a web page. The downward-pointing arrows signify hyperlinks to Desktop PC devices. The upward-pointing arrows signify hyperlinks to Mobile devices.

As to the concept, it is concerned with the association of ‘Desktop PC’-friendly and ‘Mobile device’-friendly web pages. As discussed in the previous post, the Multi-web Practice proposes that any given content be displayed within a series of associated web pages, each designed for optimal viewing in one of the devices. The StayGoLinks concept provides the way of associating these web pages. It is the subject of a pending patent. Watch this space for further details.

Tags: Mobile, desktop

Post from: StayGoLinks

The New Logo Bumps Andy

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The One Web Principle is a most laudable endeavour. It is a key feature of the Mobile Web Initiative now being supported by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is set out within the Best practices for mobile Web application development.

The One Web principle requires that content be accessible on a range of devices irrespective of differences in presentation capabilities and access mechanism. It ensures that content provided by accessing a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) yields a thematically coherent experience when accessed from different devices.

Although the One Web principle is most commendable, there have been no obvious signs that a broad consensus is developing around it. Perhaps for this reason, Roger Johansson of 456 Berea Street, a Swedish web professional specialising in web standards, accessibility, and usability, has very recently written about Best practices for the Mobile Web and declared his support for the One Web principle. As he states, “I believe the One Web principle is worth working towards.”

It will not be easy to get everyone to agree on this One Web principle. Even among those who commented on the Johansson article, there were some naysayers. Currently there are many counter-examples to show that individuals and groups are heading in different directions on this, rather than converging. Particularly for the Mobile world, different standards each have their own powerful advocates.

Even if a single standard were to be agreed, it is not obvious that people will develop websites that embody the One Web principle. The present approach of using different style sheets to render the same content in an acceptable way on different devices presents many challenges. At present, there are a limited number of media that can be used to render (display) content in different formats. The ‘screen’ medium style sheet must provide a satisfactory rendering or display on all Desktop PCs. Given that the current PC screen resolutions go from a width of 800 pixels up to 2048 pixels and still counting, few web designers currently achieve this satisfactory rendering at all PC screen widths. Even more variation in screen width is seen in mobile devices, which are covered by the handheld medium style sheet. For handheld devices, screen width can go from 120 pixels to 700 pixels.

It might be possible to consider another one or two media to complement the handheld medium, say a PDA medium for wider handheld devices and a cell phone medium for the very narrow handheld devices. Even so it would then be a significant challenge to design content that will display satisfactorily in all devices by modifying only the content. Currently few web designers seem interested in taking on such a challenge. What happens is that a given web page displays best in one given device. In some cases, it may then be viewable in another device, but somewhat less satisfactorily.

Another mechanical difficulty of the One Web Principle is raised in the Comments on Johansson’s article. If a single web page must contain the content that any of a series of devices might require, then the total web page file must be downloaded by all devices even if they use only a fraction of the content. For example a cell phone might use only 1/10 of the total web page content, but must download the total content. This is a major inefficiency, particularly for mobile devices, faced with high broadband costs and limited battery lives.

Given that the One Web principle is so difficult to apply from a technical viewpoint and given also that there is no ground swell for its widespread adoption, is it really a principle that deserves our support? Is there perhaps another way that equally rich collections of websites can be developed for the many types of devices? Certainly as a minimum, this should cover PCs and Mobile devices. In an ideal world, perhaps it should cover different sized screens for mobile devices. It might even be extended to cover other devices such as screen readers for those with visual acuity problems. The driving idea behind this would be to ensure that versions of any web page would be available and provide a satisfactory user experience for most commonly available devices.

So instead of the One Web principle, the alternative might be designated the Multi-Web Practice. This would encourage website owners to develop in parallel associated web pages that were satisfactory in a variety of devices. Each of the associated web pages would be designed to given an optimal user experience in the specific device for which it was intended.

This can be contrasted with the way the world is evolving. Indeed to a large extent, there seem to be two separate worlds that are developing. One is the more traditional Internet world that has websites that are viewable in Desktop PCs. The new world is the Mobile world. The divided nature of these two worlds is being confirmed by the search engines, which are powerful forces in shaping people’s views. Google for example seems to index separately these two collections of websites. You can even search only among those websites that have already been designed to fit the screen of your phone or device.

Websites viewable only in either the Desktop PC world or in the Mobile world can nevertheless have huge audiences. So it is not surprising that we see such strong growth in the Desktop PC world and even more so in the Mobile world. However there are strong advantages in having related websites available for whichever device an Internet surfer may be using. If someone is surfing on their mobile device, there must be an easy transition to “the same spot in the Internet” if they want to resume their surfing via their Desktop PC.

What is critical in this approach is the way in which related websites are identified. How can we best show that two web pages, one suitable for a Desktop PC and one suitable for a Mobile device, relate to the same content and thus represent “the same spot in the Internet”? That is where StayGoLinks has an important identification or linking method to propose.

.. to be continued

Associated Concepts: URI << One Web || Multi-Web >> AGI

Tags: Mobile, desktop PC, link

Post from: StayGoLinks

The One Web Principle Or A Multi-Web Practice

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This post follows on from the earlier post on the Genesis of StayGoLinks. The CDAP of this title is an acronym for Cross-browser Device Assessment Panel. This facility was developed by the Cre8asite Forums in the early months of 2006. It aimed to help web designers who were trying to get their websites viewable by as many viewers as possible whatever their browser and device might be. It responded to the following realities:

• Websites may look very different in different browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox.
• As the mobile Internet world explodes, very different devices are being used by website visitors.
• Checking websites in a variety of browsers and devices is not always easy.

As the staff of Cre8asite Forums discussed the concepts prior to launch, it was clear that, if the aim was to ensure websites were viewable by the widest audience, then this must include the question of Accessibility. This deals with how accessible websites are to people with disabilities. Elizabeth Able, one of the moderators, was a particularly strong advocate for this. She agreed to be a co-moderator on the Panel with Barry Welford shortly after the Panel launched on March 7th 2006.

It’s now six months since the launch and although some interesting questions have been raised in the Panel, there have been very few requests to assess how well particular websites do perform in a variety of browsers and devices. In a sense the Panel is an aid in helping website owners create websites that conform to the One Web Principle. This sets as an objective that content provided by accessing a URI should yield a thematically coherent experience when accessed from different devices.

Perhaps the slow start for CDAP points to the difficulty in applying that One Web Principle. Could it be that the One Web Principle is too difficult to apply? A thread has been started at the Cre8asite Forums entitled,”Is The One Web Principle Do-able?” So far there have not been too many replies, which may be an indicator of how enthusiastic people are about trying to apply the Principle. The replies seem to indicate that the benefits of applying it do not justify the effort involved. We’ll explore in a later post how people are trying to apply the One Web Principle and putting efforts into promoting its wider usage.

Tags: Mobile, Desktop, One Web Principle

Post from: StayGoLinks

Six Months of CDAP

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