Aging photos
We never dreamed there would be a practical use for photographic red-eye, but Kodak is patenting technology that measures the number of red pixels in a digital snapshot and uses this to determine the subject’s age based on natural changes in pupil reaction over lifespan. If this could be transferred from photos to real-time, it might have some interesting biometric applications. And what if a public computer could divine your age and adjust on-screen contrast and text size accordingly?
“Poor user experience” is why we hate mobile TV
Bad video quality, bad program guides, bad menus. Is mobile TV the perfect storm of awfulness where unusability and inaccessibility combine to drown a thousand business plans, and the marketeers who dreamed them up?
Apple virtual keyboard
OK, it’s now officially Virtual Keyboard Week; first the virtual Bluetooth keyboard, now one from Apple. The latter supposedly will have the additional advantage of being able to self-adjust touch sensitivity for each key based on frequency of use and “the person’s distance of touch from the closest key.” Wish we could get our plain ol’ desktop keyboard (PODK?) to do that.
Man oh manual
If you’ve already looked under the sofa, the highboy, and the Golden Retriever trying to find that product manual, UsersManualGuide.com provides an alternative option. On your behalf, someone has spent hours and hours converting product manuals from nine vendors into electronic format. The site claims the files are PDF, but the first one I tried to open (the Norwegian version of the manual for a Samsung VCR) was actually in DjVu, a format that sorta works with screen readers (see DjVu Plugin Offers Section 508 Compliance). The Portuguese manual for a Casio calculator was in PDF, but running the Adobe PDF-to-text converter resulted in a blank screen, suggesting that the document is merely bitmapped. Ah well, it was a nice thought.
New 3D computing barriers?
The Croquet software platform promises a “post-browser” operating system of rich collaborations and visualizations. The screen shots are amazing, as is the list of participating luminaries. But as with all 3D interface concepts, blind and low vision users, as well as others, may be left behind. A search for the usual terms in the project’s archives got no hits.
Mobile camera phones take remote control snaps
Software for Nokia’s popular Series 60 phones allows someone to send a text message to the phone, which takes a picture and sends it back to the initiator. Some serious privacy concerns, obviously, if used in “stealth mode”. But also useful for locating wanderers and assisting people with orientation.
PC camera does facial tricks
Not just another USB camera, the Logitech QuickCam Orbit MP is motorized and knows how to follow your face. It’s loaded with a bunch of special effects, shown in a video at the URL below. If it can recognize your eyes, eyebrows, and mouth, what else can it be taught to do? This seems like an amazing alternate input device at a tiny price. It also has a noise-cancelling microphone.