All is well in hackintosh land. Back to work for me.

A7

So far, most of my posts have been technology based. I will be writing some art articles (ARTicles?) soon, and I already have some ideas, but I would love to know what you are interested in reading about. This is, after all, an interactive forum, so your input is appreciated. Some of the general topics I have in mind include IxD (Interaction Design), using Apple for home audio, and bridging technology and art.

Here are some future topics I will be writing about:

• Hackintosh – Part 2
• Whole home audio setups – Part 1 (current state and offerings)
• Whole home audio setups – Part 2 (Apple’s role, my setup, how-to)
• How technology has influenced art
• Interaction Design – Designing a home
• Video art – public memory and recollection (work proposal)
• Video and the technological disconnect (how technology creates anonymity and behavioral changes)

So that’s the short list for now. That should keep me busy for almost 4 months, and I’m sure more ideas will come out of this. Do you have a suggestion? Have a topic you think I should write about? Have a technology you think I should investigate? Let me know by leaving a comment on this post.

A7

As many of you know, I make a very clear separation when it comes to art and design. I strongly believe art is created by the artist, based on the artist’s concept with no outside influences or pressure, and fully developed with no financial gain as motivation. Design on the other hand, as artistic as it may be, is always created with another person’s motivation and objective in mind, often, but not exclusively for, financial gain. So why is this post Art News?

It seems upon further reflection that OCAD has provided me with the perfect set of skills to become an Interaction Designer. I hadn’t thought about it until my new manager at Artez, Peter, had asked me if I wanted to be the new Interaction Designer for Artez. Yes, as of last Friday it is official… my job title now lists me as Interaction Designer. Since I now have “design” in my job title, I feel I have reached the goal I set out to achieve several years ago.

First, in case some of you are wondering, what is interaction design? According to Wikipedia:

As new technologies are often overly complex for their intended target audience, interaction design aims to minimize the learning curve and to increase accuracy and efficiency of a task without diminishing usefulness. The objective is to reduce frustration and increase user productivity and satisfaction.

Interaction design attempts to improve the usability and experience of the product, by first researching and understanding certain users’ needs and then designing to meet and exceed them. (Figuring out who needs to use it, and how those people would like to use it.)

Interaction design is about creating design that allows for a simple and effective use of the application or product. If a product is ugly and clumsy, but functions really well, then it is not a good product. Likewise, if a product is really pretty, but doesn’t function well, it is not a good product either. The goal of interaction design is to bridge the gap between aesthetics and usability, function and form, to make a product that is pleasing to use and look at.

Back to my original topic… why is this art news? Quite simply, OCAD turned me into an interaction designer. Well, not quite… actually, my combination of technology education and experience from my “past life”, combined with my recent interactive “new media” art education, as well as my knowledge of design, makes me an ideal interaction designer. Furthermore, it’s something I really enjoy doing! It allows me to explore technology with a design and art view; I can be creative and technological.

I think this is quite an interesting and promising field of work to get into. Not only is it very cutting edge (interaction design, as an area of study and work, has only become prominent in the past 5 years or so), but it is also extremely difficult to find a good interaction designers. I’m sure you’ve all heard of “right-brain” vs “left-brain”, and the different schools of thought surrounding creativity and technology. Simply put, they don’t usually mesh very well. People who are naturally artistic are not generally analytical, and vice versa. Somehow, I have managed to escape this “rule” and I am equally blessed with equal parts creativity and analytical skills (a fact that has cursed me and torn me in two very different directions all my life… until now).

While I would never call my interaction design work “art”, it is comforting to know that my art education was able to be applied to a real world skillset. Let’s just hope I have enough free time to actually create some works of art somewhere in between all this design and technology.

A7

I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve been spoiled. My iPhone has been such an enlightening experience that it has spoiled me and changed my perception of how technology should be instead of how it is. It has opened my eyes to the wonderful world of digital convergence. Unfortunately, this “digital convergence” is completely flawed on so many levels. And Apple is no exception.

Here’s the problem: Everyone wants to make money, and no one wants to play with others. That’s why digital convergence will only remain a fantasy. Apple creates the most amazing technology in existence, but it only plays nice with other Apple hardware and software. My iPhone is amazing; It automatically syncs all my contacts, music and calendars through iTunes, which is synced with my Address Book and iCal, which are all synced through dotMac which syncs my Address Book, Calendars, Bookmarks, and preferences between my home computer, my work computer and my laptop. I have my entire life organized so there is no thinking involved on my part. If I add an important event to the calendar on my laptop, it gets sent around to my other machines and iPhone automatically, so I never miss anything no matter where I am. Same with all my contacts… I never have to remember an email address or phone number, because everywhere I am I have it all with me; and if I make a change in one place, all the others pick up the change as well. Pretty amazing huh? So what’s the catch? This entire scenario only works within the Apple eco-system. As soon as I introduce a non-Apple element in the mix, the whole thing falls apart. Let say I didn’t have an iPhone; If I still had my Sony Ericsson phone, I would not have all my contacts automatically imported like that. If I was over at a friend’s house and they gave me their new phone number, I would put it into my Sony Ericsson phone, but all my computers would still have the old number. I’d have to change it there too.

Apple isn’t the only company doing this. Almost every company is doing this… the only consolation is that at least Apple is doing it right. You may be wondering where I’m going with this? It’s all about the digital convergence, baby.

What is digital convergence? Well simply put, digital convergence is about interoperability between all your digital devices, such as telephone, mobile phone, computer network, digital camera, laptop, Playstation, HDTV, cable, and so on. It’s about making all these things talk to each other in a way that allows us to spend less time thinking about how to make it all work together and more time enjoying the technology. Here’s a scenario in a perfect world:

I go on vacation to Hawaii. I take a bunch of pictures of the beach. When I get back to the hotel room, my laptop sees that I have new pictures and imports them. Now I can see the pictures on my mobile phone, and show them to other vacationers. When I get home, all my pictures are on my main computer, so I can make a video slideshow. Then when my friends come over, I can show the slideshow on my HDTV. Everyone loves one picture, so I take out my mobile phone and send them all the picture. Someone suggests we call another friend to come over, so I take the cordless phone, scroll down to their name and hit call.

Sound like something out of a science fiction movie? It’s not. I can do all that right now if I wanted to. I have all the technology to do it, but digital convergence is about doing it effortlessly. Right now, I have to plug in my camera to upload the pictures. Then I have to plug in my iPhone to sync the photos. When I get home, I have to sync my iPhoto library. When I’m done making the slideshow, I have to export in a specific format for the Playsation3 to view the video on my HDTV. And I have to use Skype to select a contact by name on my phone instead of dialing the number. It should be easier than that!

If all these companies would come together and agree on a standard protocol, then we wouldn’t need all these extra steps to make it all work. Everything should interconnect with everything else. That’s digital convergence.

So where am I going with this? Isn’t this supposed to be an article about the future of telephony? The reason I started with that long introduction is because the telecommunications sector is perhaps the worst of the bunch when it comes to ignoring or avoiding standards, and even worse, it’s modeled on ancient technology that desperately needs to be updated.