Terrafugia's flying car. No, really.

Last week, I attended TiECON East as a finalist for the TiE Challenge accelerator program. One of the most interesting keynotes was given by Carl Dietrich, a young aerospace engineer and entrepreneur who leads Terrafugia -- a company building a flying car.

Dietrich joked in his talk that flying cars are featured seemingly every year on the covers of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. But none of these inventions have been taken to market. Terrafugia is serious about approaching this challenge, which is multifaceted. Besides the engineering problems associated with building a vehicle that can drive on city streets and take off from a runway, there are also significant regulatory and business issues that must be overcome.

Dietrich laid out a very convincing business case for this type of vehicle, which he said would cost $270,000. The savings for pilots comes in the fact that storage fees and inconveniences associated with bad weather can be avoided (you'll never be stuck at a remote airport again because of bad weather!). His team is also working on the regulatory issues (he and several members of the senior management team participate on FAA advisory panels and standards groups). But the plane, the Transition, was the star of the show. He showed a flight video and it was hard not to be excited. Here's what it looks like:



Note the fact that it works on normal unleaded gasoline, not airplane fuel. And it fits in a garage. I can't wait to see these in the skies.

Samsung Exhibit II and Android: Three months and counting

Last November, I finally made the plunge and bought a smartphone. Not an iPhone, but rather an Android phone (see my original Samsung Exhibit II review).

Why didn't I get an iPhone? It basically boiled down to price. I love Apple's mobile operating system and own an iPad and iPod touch, but can't afford to pay $80 per month for iPhone service, which is what AT&T and Verizon charge. That's nearly $2000 over a two-year contract, and right now finances are tight as I start a software company. By comparison, T-Mobile's Monthly4G plan was just $30 per month with no contract (and a 100 minute limit, which I could live with -- extra minutes only cost a dime, and I seldom go over by a lot). That's just $720 over two years for a smartphone experience that's comparable to an iPhone. The Samsung Exhibit II cost $200, which is the same as a new iPhone.

Now that I've owned the Exhibit II for 3 months, what's my verdict on the service?

• Exhibit II voice quality is excellent. It sounds as good as a land line, and the only time I have experienced dropped calls is when talking with an iPhone user (AT&T is notorious for dropped calls)
• Android is close to iOS in terms of the user experience, but there are some hiccups -- in particular settings and the dual environments for "applications" and "home" screens (iOS combines them)
• While many apps are available on both platforms, I miss some really great iOS apps like Instagram (photo retouching and sharing)
• Certain apps -- Google and Dropbox spring to mind -- are really well-integrated with Android. I've also gotten a lot of value out of Path on Android.
• Voice transcription is superior to iOS on an iPod touch. I use it quite a bit for texting, short emails, and Path.
• Syncing has been a problem. It just doesn't work with my iMac, which forces me to use workarounds like Dropbox to transfer photos from my phone to other devices.
• I've never come close to using the monthly 5 gigabyte limit on 4G data transfers. Wifi is the reason -- when I am at home or work, the phone automatically switches to wifi, which doesn't use up any limits.
• On the other hand, I seldom use bandwidth heavy apps, like Pandora or YouTube.
• I never listen to music on the device, owing to the sync issue. It's not a big deal, though ... I just carry around my iTouch.

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UI, UX, and MVP ... oh my!

"User experience" (UX) and "user interface" (UI) are terms from the world of software and hardware design. But these terms should be intimately familiar to anyone who uses gadgets, software or the Web.

Ever been frustrated by your television remote control's assortment of buttons and symbols? How about a confusing website that has dozens of links on the front page, but it's difficult to find what you're looking for, even though you know it's there? Blame bad UI. It's endemic to the television and camera industries, but individual companies such as Research in Motion (maker of the BlackBerry) and GoDaddy (a large Web host/domain registry) are notorious for terrible user interface design.

At the other end of the spectrum are technologies that not only look good, they make your life easier by minimizing unnecessary clicks, buttons, or engineer-centric features. The experience is often so good that you want to recommend it to your friends. The simplicity of Google's search engine and most Apple gadgets (such as the iPod touch and click-wheel iPod nano, pictured above) fit into the "good UX" category.

But design and technology clash for early-stage technology companies, which are often trying to get an MVP ("minimum viable product") out the door and into the hands of users as quickly as possible. It's easy for design to fall by the wayside. But maybe it shouldn't be. I've written in the past about MDP, or Minimum Delightful Product. The idea comes from Adam Berrey, who had this criticism of MVP:

"In the consumer world 'viable' isn't really compelling. It's like someone in the ICU. They are alive, but not really fun to hang out with."

He's right. Further, MVPs are targeted at early adopters rather than mainstream users, meaning that the feedback loops will be based on a different set of users than the people you want to attract. That's not to say an MVP can't evolve into something delightful, but for a product aimed at mainstream users, why not start with great design?

Image: iPods, circa 2010 and 2007. I am licensing this picture under a Creative Commons Generic 2.0 license. Please credit Ian Lamont and link to ilamont.com if you use this picture.

Roomba vs. vacuum cleaners: The robot wins!

Every once in a while an invention comes along that changes the way people live their lives. Computers, mobile phones, television, washing machines and cars are but a few examples. I'd like to add to the list robot vacuum cleaners ... specifically, the iRobot Roomba Model 530 that we got last month. It has changed the way we do housework, and has really freed up a lot of time for us to do other things.

Why buy a robot vacuum cleaner?

A lack of time was the reason we got the robot. I have been cranking away on starting a new company producing a classifieds app and simply don't have the bandwidth to vacuum the house every week, and neither do other family members. I had heard about the Roomba for years but never considered buying one, owing to the expense and the fact that one of us usually had enough time to vacuum every week using a 15-year-old Sharp upright model. But when we both began new careers, the problem suddenly presented itself. Around the same time, I saw a brief side-by-side review of three robotic vacuum cleaners by America's Test Kitchen, and noted that the prices were coming down. I did some additional online research, and decided on the Roomba.

We put it to work right away. The results were impressive -- it cleaned up our bedroom, even getting underneath dressers and night tables, in less than 30 minutes. It got into corners and redid each spot multiple times, resulting in lots of debris in the dirt and dust traps. Next was the bathroom and hallway, and then the kids' rooms, and finally the downstairs area, including the kitchen. We have mostly hardwood floors throughout the house, which really suits the Roomba, although we've noticed it takes care of medium-sized rugs as well.

The greatest thing about the Roomba is it's pretty much fire-and-forget. You spend a minute or two prepping the rooms to be cleaned (moving toys out of the way, putting up loose electrical cords, shutting doors where you don't want the robot to go) press the button on the top, and let the robot do its thing. It seems to be moving randomly, but there is a method to its cleaning path, driven by trigonometry and some sophisticated algorithms. It's actually a great feeling being able to work in one part of the house while hearing the Roomba whirring away. Yesterday we even went out shopping and left the Roomba to clean the whole downstairs. When we came back the floor was clean and the robot had automatically returned to its charging station.

Roomba vs. vacuum cleaners: What are the drawbacks?

Are there drawbacks? Sure. One thing that some people will hate is having to clean the robot. Unlike a standard vacuum, which only requires changing bags or shaking out a dirt trap every now and then, the Roomba requires regular maintenance that contains about a half-dozen distinct tasks. You have to manually empty the dirt and dust traps (typically after a large room or the entire floor) and periodically unscrew the brush and rollers to remove tangled hair and dust. It doesn't take long, but it's dirty (with pets it would be even worse). It is also absolutely necessary to keep all of the parts moving.

There are some other minor irritants as well. It can get stuck on high barriers or under furniture that has hanging springs or rods, like our sofa bed. Cords and strings can mess it up. One time it brought down a heavy plug that I had placed on a table. It landed on top of the robot and shut it down, but there was no permanent damage (the robot is actually pretty sturdy). Another time I had to shut it down just before the end of a long string of yarn got swiped into its brushes. You can buy electronic barriers to keep it out of certain areas, but I've found the range on those are only about 10 feet, which means it can get around them if you're trying to block off part of a big room. As an alternative, I sometimes lay chairs on their sides to stop the robot from passing certain areas.

But overall, the Roomba is a remarkable invention. It's a huge timesaver. I estimate it saves us about 5-10 hours of labor per month. The cost is comparable with many upright models -- less than $300 when we bought ours. And while the maintenance is a minor pain, it's worth it.

A robot for healthcare

Demonstrated today in our Media Ventures class: Autom. The speaker is Cory Kidd, formerly of the Media Lab, now an entrepreneur based in Hong Kong, where software talent is cheaper and local government incentives are available (including free rent) to set up his business.




Other posts about my MIT Sloan Fellows experience:

• My MIT center of gravity shifts to digital media
• MIT Sloan Fellows program: Soft vs Hard
• Goodbye, Vietnam
• First day of the spring semester ...
  
• Linked Data revisited: What I learned, what we created, and what's next
  
• MIT Sloan Fellows: One semester down, two to go

MIT Media Lab: Robots, and the best Lego set ever

One thing I've wanted to do since arriving at MIT at the beginning of the summer is to see the MIT Media Lab. I mean, I'm a media guy interested in geeky technologies, so it should be one of the first stops, right?

Well, I never got around to going into the Media Lab building, until today. I heard from two non-Sloan friends of mine -- a current PhD candidate studying new ways to do gaming AIs, and a staff member who helped make the world's first robot opera -- that there was a Media Lab open house, in which most of the current projects (and a few past ones, too) would be on display with researchers on hand to explain them.

Firehose time. I spent a few hours visiting the offices and labs, drinking in projects that ranged from anthropomorphic robots (such as Lexi, inset) to a kids-oriented programming language to "tangible media.

Unfortunately, there was no way to see it all. But I was able to shoot a few highlights and conduct some interviews using my iPod touch. There are three videos:

MIT Media Lab Open House Video #1: Scratch + Legos = Cool (interview with researcher Sayamindu Dasgupta from 00:00 to 08:00, for the final two minutes I spend a few minutes looking at other Media Lab projects)



MIT Media Lab Open House Video #2: Social robots! (interview with Personal Robots Group researchers, including Kenton Williams, discussing Nexi and human-social interaction) (note: audio is slightly off-sync)



MIT Media Lab Open House Video #3: An army of robots? (I was unable to find the identity of the PhD student on the Media Lab/Personal Robotics Group website, but I am wondering if that's because of the military sponsor?)



Other MIT classroom encounters:

• An encounter with Tim Berners-Lee and the Semantic Web
• The missing constituency in climate change negotiations
• In case you're wondering what at MIT Sloan accounting exam looks like ...

My Sharp scientific calculator

I suppose if you post a photo of a calculator to your blog, that officially makes you a geek. This Sharp EL-W535 WriteView scientific calculator was the one that I used for the second half of my precalculus class. It blew away the iPod touch's built-in scientific calculator which I used for the first half. The Sharp can display three or four lines, which means complex fractions fit onto the screen. There are a bunch of memory functions, the ability to scroll through a log of recent equations and answers, and instant conversion between decimal and fractional values for real numbers. Best of all, the price: Less than $15 on Amazon.

Why user interface matters

I just read a great quote by David Pogue in his New York Times review of a D-Link home router/backup storage device:

Isn’t it amazing that, after all these years, it still hasn’t dawned on companies like D-Link that simplicity sells? They still don’t get it: spending a little money up front —on hardware design, streamlined software, better manuals -- would save a fortune in tech-support calls and store returns. ...

... In short, D-Link has gone to the considerable expense of inventing, designing and marketing a smart machine that could save a lot of people a lot of cost and complexity — and then hobbled it by making it much too cryptic and technical for 90 percent of its potential audience.

This reminded me of an incident earlier in the week when a relative came to me with his nearly brand-new BlackBerry Curve 8900 and complained that he couldn't get back to the old home menu. When I looked at the home screen, sure enough it had changed to about 40 minuscule icons on a pure white background, instead of the carrier home page, which has a blue graphic and five icons showing the most-used features. He had accidentally changed the home screen some days before and had tried every conceivable way to switch it back. Tech support at work wasn't helpful -- while they support email on the device, they don't handle anything else, because he bought it on his own. He called his employer's CIO, who was sympathetic, but could only advise him to call the carrier tech support. They told him to change the setting in the options screen, but he couldn't find that.

So I gave it a shot. The interface designed by Research in Motion is maddeningly complicated -- many options are only available from specific applications, or are buried in submenus. Changing options often requires multiple clicks to select the menu item, change to another setting, and then saving that setting. I hunted around in various places, including the most obvious place -- the home page icon for display/keyboard -- but could not find what I was looking for. I told him his best option was to go to AT&T store where he had bought the device and have them find the option, but he was afraid they would shrug or be unable to help him.

So I gave it one more try. And lo and behold, one of the last icons on the home menu was labeled "options" (separate from display/keyboard). I found the setting and changed it. He was overjoyed.

But it made me wonder. The BlackBerry UI is so unintuitive that it took five people -- including the CIO of a large organization -- to diagnose what was wrong. We collectively spent an hour or two on the issue.

And he's not the only one. I remember when I got my first BlackBerry several years ago. It was simply placed on my desk by someone in IT without any tutorial or manual. I'm a pretty tech-savvy individual, but I couldn't figure out how to turn it off -- I had to ask another user how to do it. Ditto for changing the phone volume or the position of icons on the screen -- I had to Google the solutions.

If even 10% of BlackBerry owners have similar problems, that represents a lot of frustration and millions of wasted hours every year. Research in Motion surely knows about these problems (the first BlackBerry came out eight or nine years ago) yet it is still shipping products that confound users with their complexity.

Besides D-Link and RIM, what other technology companies (or specific products) can't get a handle on the user experience?

What technologies will play a major role in electronic publishing over the next five years?

Question #5 from an interview I gave to an Emerson graduate student:

Question: What upcoming or anticipated technologies do you predict will play a major role in electronic publishing over the next five years?

My answer:

Integration between Facebook and major news sites that let members track what their friends are reading and recommending.

The continued shakeout of news and trade pubs. In many markets, it's going to be a "last man standing" situation, or even complete failure of established brands, which will lead to new opportunities for smaller ad-supported online publishers and niche subscription services.

Low-cost mobile data networks. The ridiculous data fees charged by carriers can't hold up, and when they come down, the adoption of smart mobile devices will soar, along with content optimized for mobile devices.

Limited "AI" technologies – perhaps developed in concert with crowd-sourcing apps -- that allow people to effectively filter the information overload.

I actually meant to say "narrow AI," not "limited AI". I first heard the term when I read Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near, and interviewed him for Computerworld. He was referring to limited applications of artificial intelligence -- a program that uses AI technologies to do a very specific task. This is opposed to "strong AI," which Kurzweil described to me as "human-level AI, artificial intelligence that could pass the Turing Test."

Some of my other answers from the interview:

• What value does Web 2.0 brings to the news industry?
• What comes after Twitter?
• What impact will mobile devices have on the future of publishing?
• What is the future of print publications?

What impact will mobile devices have on the future of publishing?

Another question from an interview I gave to an Emerson graduate student:

Question: What impact do you think mobile devices, such as cell phones, BlackBerries, and the Kindle, will have on the future of publishing?

My answer:

Mobile devices are clearly the future, and add fuel to the bonfire of long-form news content. People are already leaning to short-form content thanks to Digg and information overload, and the mobile trend fits right into this. No one wants to read a 2000-word feature on their iPhone, and will even click off an 800-word article if it takes too long to scroll through or breaks to a second page.

I have already started instructing my writers to write short-form content that is under 400 words and concentrates on one or two specific issues, as opposed to attempting to summarize the whole story. Background can be linked off. It's perfect for readers' shorter attention spans and [the formats on] mobile devices.

I have to admit that I didn't fully answer his question -- I was thinking more of news and magazine content as opposed to books. While there is a trend toward shorter news/features/commentary on the Web and on mobile devices, I am not sure how things will pan out in the book world. And despite the attraction of short-form content, people still love stories, and it will be interesting to see where the Kindle/e-book experimentation leads.

Apple's iMac hits the 10 year mark, but its days may be numbered

I posted an essay on the Industry Standard this morning about the iMac. It's a great product that turned 10 this year, but I am not confident it will last another year. Check out my reasoning and the related prediction:

• The beginning of the end for the Apple iMac?
• Apple announces iMac retirement by September 30 2009?

Despite the gloomy prediction, I am not a Mac hater: I've owned an iMac since 2003 (the lampshade model, see photo) and have transitioned every member of my family to Macs (eMac, Mac mini, and a G4 iBook). But the iMac can't outrun the realities of the marketplace.

Bad UI: The Apple mouse

Apple is known for products that not only have beautiful designs, but also have innovative and easy-to-use UIs.

So why do Apple mice suck so bad?

My mom and dad have a Mac Mini with an early generation "Mighty Mouse" that looks like the one in the inset photo. My mom has been complaining about emails and news articles mysteriously opening up in dozens of individual tabs without warning. On my last visit to their house, I discovered why: She was inadvertently pressing the little scroll button on the top of the mouse. It's not hard to do, considering downward pressure is required to click the entire mouse and activate a link. But by doing this and simultaneously hitting the little button, she also caused all unread emails to open up in tabs (when using Yahoo Mail) or news articles in an RSS feed in Firefox to open up in tabs.

It's not the only poorly designed mouse. The mouse I got with my 2003-era iMac didn't have any right-click functionality, unless you simultaneously hit ctrl. And then there were the dumb "hockey puck" mice from the late 1990s that were hard to hold and click.

It's gotten so bad, that I actually use a Microsoft mouse for my iMac. Heresy? No, just practicality.

Sorry, Apple. Pretty design /= good UI.

Microsoft Surface gets a PDC boost

Microsoft Surface, which was announced to great fanfare last year, is getting another strong boost today at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. They're passing out the software development kit to a wider group of programmers, and they also have a special package deal which includes hardware, according to an Edelman PR rep I emailed with today.

I am not attending PDC, but I tried out the Surface when I was in San Francisco this summer. It was impressive, albeit limited to tourism-focused apps for the hotel it was installed in. However, it certainly has some other neat niche applications, such as the electoral map that's used on "Meet the Press" and other NBC and MSNBC shows. The high price of the hardware and the lack of applications is limiting its market penetration, but the PDC announcement may change that. I'd be curious to see if the software that comes out of this will be focused on verticals (for instance, a hospital waiting room program) or mainstream use, maybe even for people's homes.

You can see my brief tryout at the SF Airport Sheraton below:

Hands on: Microsoft Surface from Chris Tompkins on Vimeo.

A Mac in Africa

On this blog, I explore many advanced technologies, and take for granted that my readers have a solid understanding of PCs and basic software concepts. It can therefore be quite sobering when you read about relatively limited impact of computers in parts of the developing world. A fellow Harvard Extension School student and author of the "Once More Unto The Breach" blog (and a former mainframe programmer) has shared a few observations about African computer use:

Half the reason I was asked to come though was because the students and staff really wanted to see an actual Macintosh. They had all heard of them and wanted to learn about them, but they have never seen one and have no way to acquire one. I spent the last hour of class doing tricks on my Macbook Pro. It was amazing. This computer impresses people back home, so you can imagine the reactions I got here. Every time I clicked on something, ten people would go "oooooh!"

After class, they were so enthusiastic that they were following me out the door asking me questions. One really smart man who asked a lot of questions even got my e-mail address as I was walking out. He doesn't have internet. He's getting my address so he can pay to be at an internet cafe just to ask me questions through e-mail.

Stories like this make me think that the One Laptop Per Child project can potentially have an enormous impact in rural Africa and other parts of the world where electricity, Internet communications, and access to computers is limited.

nVidia GeForce 6800 tweak

Modders, take note: Someone's figured out how to unlock all 16 pixel pipelines in nVidia's GeForce 6800 (the default is 12). Check out the story and reax at Slashdot.

What Cell means for 3D

You may have heard the buzz about Cell, the processor that will form the heart of the Playstation 3 console, but there's more to the story than just better gameplay.

Cell, which is being developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM, has eight processing cores around a 64-bit Power PC processor. The technology can support multiple operating systems, can process instructions in parallel, and is fast, with projected speeds of 4.5 GHz. It is made for 3D and video apps, but potentially has video-intensive industrial applications, which explains IBM's participation in the development process. The advanced capabilities of Cell and its strong backing in the consumer electronics, gaming, and corporate fields will lead to a new generation of hardwarem, applications, and software development tools. IBM has plans to release the full specs for Cell to stimulate Open Source development efforts for the chip, according to Slashdot.

An extensive report on Cell is available from Nicholas Blachford's website.

Game studios get ready for mobile 3D

Wired's Lore Sjöberg reports marketing droids are frothing at the mouth at the possibility of next-generation mobile phones with 3D capabilities. In a year, they say, 3D phone penetration will hit critical mass, and developers will be ready with titles, according to the article.

Sjöberg also notes multiplayer, real-time 3D games like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon might be in the works on mobile phones. Gameloft is a company supposedly exploring this avenue. Stay tuned ...

Microsoft cracks down on Xbox modders

The Seattle Times has reported that Microsoft has cracked down on gamers who make "unauthorized" changes to their Xbox consoles. While the company is not suing individual users, it is kicking them off Xbox Live, a subscription-based service which lets users play other gamers online. A spike in the number of XBox Live ejections occured in the days leading up to the release of Halo 2 in early November, reports the newspaper.

The article says modifications enable players to cheat or play pirated copies of XBox games, although a few have also used the consoles to run on Linux or play music. While Microsoft has no way of monitoring users who fiddle with their consoles offline, once the XBox is connected to the XBox Live servers, the company can determine if mods have been made to the hardware or software (the XBox user license stipulates the right of Microsoft to do this).