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No, I’m not confused. This light is. Is it a microphone or a lamp? Well, quite clearly, it’s a lamp. But it does look like an SM58, kind of. I can see why you might have been confused. Or why you might have thought I was. But yeah, it’s a light. Of course I’m sure! Available, like everything else worth having, at Supermarket . [via 7gadgets ]
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No, I’m not confused. This light is. Is it a microphone or a lamp? Well, quite clearly, it’s a lamp. But it does look like an SM58, kind of. I can see why you might have been confused. Or why you might have thought I was. But yeah, it’s a light. Of course I’m sure! Available, like everything else worth having, at Supermarket . [via 7gadgets ]
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When you’ve been making iPod and iPhone docks since the beginning, what is there to do but tweak the design every once in a while? That’s JBL’s situation, and these “new” docks are pretty much what you had before, but no one would choose the old ones over the new ones. “Greater versatility and compatibility” is their way of saying “it ain’t broke.” Let’s take a look. The On Time 200P is the new version of this thing , which looks almost identical. The 200P has a nicer screen, though, and seems to have a significantly smaller footprint. I doubt the sound has changed a whit, though, otherwise they would have mentioned it. 24 total watts, 75-20,000Hz, iPod dock, mini jack, and radio. Alarm too, of course. $250. The On Time Micro is what it says, a smaller alarm clock dock like the 200P. Same number of buttons, however, and we all know that’s what really matters. Kind of looks like a really bad controller attachment for the iPhone. Smaller size, smaller sound. Also $250. The On Stage Micro II is, predictably, the sequel to the On Stage Micro . You can probably count on about six total watts here. $130, which works out to about $20 per watt. I do the math so you don’t have to! All these (and more!) can be found on JBL’s “personal audio” page. Also, I love the old school “made for iPod” icon: Is that the one everybody uses? It’s so cute!
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Doesn’t this look like something you’d see in an alien’s house? It is in fact real, and is a lamp design by Patrick Jouin for MGX , a group that does lighting via 3D printing techniques. We’ve posted a few times about Shapeways , which does fabrication of submitted 3D models, but these are designer . I think it really does open up like that, but I can’t imagine the tiny mechanisms involved. I’d love to have one of these as a variable light source in my living room. [via Mocoloco ]
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Every generation thinks that they are the first. The first to feel this way or that, the first to make this or that revelation, the first to do and make things that we find later have been done and made since before we could record their doing and making. But while these illusory and fleeting firsts are common to every generation, there are true firsts being achieved constantly, though they are often subtle enough that they are not noticed even by those in their midst. My generation has been lucky enough to be part of a very important first. The personal computer (in all its forms) has grown to be, I would say, the single greatest potential source of prosperity in history. It has enabled the internet and a consequent democratization of all sorts of arts and information, as well as the ongoing destabilization of financial institutions via distributed money transfers. The revolution, and it really is one, is ongoing. How unlike the world of 2000, of 1990, is the present day? And 2020 will be doubly, triply removed. As technology further enables itself, the positive feedback creates a greater rate of advance, and thus our acceleration; if this interests you, you should probably go talk to Mr. Kurzweil , since he’s done a bit more work on the idea. I’m not concerned with the singularity, however: my object is the generation to which I belong. I propose that this generation, which I am going to call Generation I for a number of reasons, is the only one to which the rate of advancement of technology was exactly fitted. At no other time in history, and perhaps never in the future, will there be a group of people whose own growth and maturation is so perfectly reflected in the principal technological and cultural advancement of the age. It’s a serious claim, but I hope to show that it’s founded in observation and not egomania. And let me remark further before I begin, that I am not claiming any special merit for this generation, only a special situation . Lastly: I will speak of “advancement” or “progress” as if they were objectively measurable, when clearly there is much to be said on what those concepts actually consist of. But for the purposes of this article, let us consider them to be, say, the progressively sophisticated bending of the natural world to our needs and wants. As even a casual student of history (read: a grade-schooler) can see, the rate of technological and cultural advancement has ever accelerated, of course with some interruptions due to warfare and subjugation. This is first observable in the length of “ages” — the stone age, 40,000 years. The bronze age, 2000 years. The iron age, 1000 years. There are too many books written on this topic for me to spend many words on this, and at any rate this acceleration is palpable to those of us living in the modern first world. Moore’s Law was once a simple prediction; now it’s practically a force of nature. Let us look at recent history, to prime our minds for the idea of what I would call a “generational technology.” The car is a perfect example. Prototyped in the late 19th century, manufactured widely in 1915, increasingly affordable and common over the next 30 years, then producing a “car culture” in the 50s and 60s, followed by an increasingly consumerized nature as the automobile was integrated completely into civilization, and cities and lives began to be designed around it. Today the integration is complete, and perhaps we are on the verge of another change, to a post-car world. I don’t know. But the divisions in the car’s history, you see, are a lot like generational periods. The specific dates and years aren’t important, as generations are a sort of rolling concept, and the lines are wherever the historian finds them convenient to be. So let us look at the stages of the car, which I have also given names (I’m a coining machine today): Hammer stage: During this time, the concept and platform of the automobile were being determined by the founders and inventors. Things like setting down how many wheels a car will have, which method of propulsion it will use, the materials it will be built from, and so on. There was surely some bickering here, as there was between AC and DC when prototyping electrical devices, but one fundamental form is almost always selected, and for the car it was four wheels, front engine, and internal combustion. This stage is performed entirely by an older generation of inventors, investors, and engineers. Paper stage: This is the period where the creators turned the design over to the marketers, who made it into a product. Extra features were created within the confines of the pre-established framework, manufacturing methods were improved, the whole process made faster, and other steps taken to make the technology affordable and attractive. For the car this was of course improvement in reliability, luxury, and speed, among other things. It is a stage of intense competition among marketers, who must both inform and sell to the public, to whom the idea of the car (in, say, 1925-1940) is still new and barely affordable. They are largely ignorant on the subject and are likely skeptical. Tinker stage: Once the car was adopted by consumers at large, as cars were by the close of World War II, the next (very numerous) generation grew up with the “new” technology taken — I don’t want to say for granted but perhaps as granted. The car culture of the 50s and 60s was a result of a generation of people in tune with an important and exciting technology, a generation as familiar with the car as they were with the clock. There was an expansion of the purposes of the car during this time, as well as a great improvement in their quality, since this generation, having grown up with cars, would work to provide the advancements that were not possible under the auspices of either their parents or the inventors, whose ideas were likely no longer applicable. This positive feedback loop, as in other technologies, leads to a second push and prepares the way for the fourth stage. Mirror stage: Once the car had been proposed, adopted, and grown up alongside of, in the three previous ages respectively, it was ready to become fully integrated. Not just because it had gotten to a certain level of affordability or reliability, but because it was an integral part of the modern person’s life already, and now the task was to shape civilization around it. While the highway creation act in 1956 obviously wasn’t driven by 10-year-old baby boomers, the obligation of government and industry to acknowledge the growing importance of the automobile was clear enough once it was recognized at large as foundational. In this stage nearly everyone is part of the process; the automobile has impressed itself on civilization, and civilization must now reflect it more fundamentally. The term Mirror Stage is actually an existing psychological one (as well as an excellent game ), and refers to the period at which a child becomes captivated with its own image. I thought it loosely appropriate. Essentially: invention, introduction, internalization, integration. But is there another stage? I don’t think so. The cycle is complete: the changing world births a new technology, the technology is popularized, refined, and eventually fuels the next change. I chose the car as a representative because it is familiar and its effects clear, but with a little work I think that the model I’ve just suggested can be applied to pretty much any technology, from aqueducts to longbows. But this isn’t a longbow blog — so let’s move on. Note that, in the example of the car, each stage is relegated roughly to a generation. The inventing generation sells to the adopting generation, which brings up the integrative generation. Furthermore, the inventing generation cannot be the adopting generation, and the rate of progression in this case prohibited the adopting generation from being the integrative generation; for the car it took around 50 or 60 years, arguably more, for it to reach its Mirror stage. My belief is that Generation I (born roughly between 1975 and 1985) is the first generation, and possibly the last, to see and be a part of every stage: to be a part of the genesis, popularization, refinement, and counter-refinement of their age’s defining technology. Now, I don’t claim we invented the personal computer; nor, I’m sure, would those who are cited as inventing the computer. Like the automobile, the computer was a long time coming and was enabled by advances in many other technologies and disciplines. Early computing was as an exercise in logic, mathematics, and electrical engineering, and its early advances academic. What defined the automobile, and what has defined both the computer and the age in which it has proliferated, was not in fact the creators (brilliant though they were), who were the implements of history, but the people who used them and guided their use. For the car, that definition was stretched out over long decades, and people grew old while automobile technology remained young. For the personal computer and the internet, the infancy of the technology coincided with the infancy of my generation, its adolescence with our adolescence, its growth with our growth, in such a pas-de-deux as has no precedent in history and, for all we know, may have no equal in futurity. Generation I is the middle child of the information age. To be born a few years earlier would mean to see the personal computer and the internet as an new and exciting gadget, like the VCR or Walkman. A few years later would be to arrive late to the show: to grow up in the presence of computers, smartphones, and the internet, but not to grow up with them. Taken for granted, these things become black boxes; on the other hand, seen as just another set of devices and applications, they lose their transformational potential. I think the timing is very important, but of course as part of the generation, I am prone to that error. Our readers will probably remember that computers around 1980 were ugly, limited, and expensive machines. They performed a few of the functions will still value today (word processing, calculating, games) but had no GUI and little connectivity. I don’t want to overstate the parallels, but just for clarity in what I am driving at, consider that an apt comparison might be to a young child, able to see and crawl, or walk totteringly — fundamentally intact, you see, but encumbered with limitations that can only be changed with time and effort. I remember learning just enough of my dad’s old work computer to find tic-tac-toe and play it on the flickering amber screen. A few years later, primitive UIs are emerging, so primitive that the command line is still unarguably the more powerful tool. Just as Generation I begins to learn to read and to speak, the PC can be communicated to in what we understood as plain language. The first truly popular computers proliferate, running DOS, and a few of us were lucky enough to play with one of the later Apple II models. In 1990 the GUI and the more complex tools it enables begin to flourish and become fundamental to the PC experience, as Windows 3.0 and the Mac Classic hit the market. Shortly after that, the first affordable modems. BBSes, AOL and its chatrooms and fake internet, and then the revelation of the true web with Mosaic, Internet Explorer, and so on. I won’t waste your time with further details you’re almost certainly familiar with (having lived through them), but you must see the way things are not moving at the rate of a stage per generation like the car. No – they moved more quickly, but not so quick that we lost track. This particular speed of maturation (from “infancy” to “adulthood,” which we may define as, say, Windows XP or OS X; after that I believe the core functionality of the PC OS has not been substantially altered), which is roughly the same as the speed of maturation for a human being, and Generation I has the privilege of being the computer’s twin sibling, if you will. Though the virtue of being born at the right time is not ours to claim, nor is it simply a novelty that Generation I has grown up in tandem with a world-defining technology. As we grew up with it, we have seen and participated in all the stages of generational technology. We witnessed as children the squabbling between Atari, Microsoft, Amiga, and all the others as the beat the raw metal of computing technology into a shape the world could use. We knew it when it was young, and then we helped it become a household technology by simply being in the household, the way baby boomer kids grew up around cars and ended up knowing cars better than any generation before them. However, cars as a technology practically stood still for the car kids’ formative stages. Not so for us: every year the computer was changing its case, its OS, its capabilities, its interface — everything changed about it, but we still recognized it, the way we’d recognize an old playmate year after year who, though changing in size, aspect, and ability, we still know . That is how Generation I knows the computer, the internet, the smartphone, and whatever comes next. Not as a series of devices, but as the natural progression of a friend whom we know by sight in spite of the changes wrought by time and culture. Perhaps it is best expressed that we know the ghost in the machine, that which has informed and guided the progression of the technology from household appliance to a tool as fundamental as the wheel. Captain Nemo took pride in the Nautilus “moving through a medium of movement.” He meant the ocean, of course, a place that is never the same one instant to the next, but which he nonetheless knew and navigated freely because… well, because he had a submarine. The metaphor doesn’t extend that far. But the idea of moving in a moving medium is a powerful one. To truly understand the way that the world changes around you, and to not only be able to survive in it but to thrive, to navigate, to direct that change, that is the privilege of a generation born into movement. I see in my flight of fancy I’ve really built up Generation I into quite a ridiculously grand thing, and in doing so made the same mistake that I described in the first sentence of this article. I did not mean to do so, but the simple boon of being born alongside a world-changing technology is not minor: it matured with us and has shaped us as much as we have shaped it, and that means that we are on the front line for the Mirror Stage of the information age. Can you forgive me for being excited to be a part of a sea change in civilization, a change in infrastructure perhaps more fundamental than the integration of the automobile? Few events in history are the equal of this impending shift, if I’m not mistaken. I of course don’t claim it for myself or my generation; it is a glory we will share in, but which we may be able to uniquely enjoy. Imagine being the childhood friend of the first man to set foot on Mars. It’s no credit on yourself exactly, but you just may understand him more fundamentally than anybody else. What’s that I hear you saying? That we haven’t actually contributed much to the progress of the personal computer and the internet? Very true! If I’ve claimed otherwise I’m very sorry, because Generation I, like the baby boomer generation in the 60s, isn’t quite ready to make our mark. The fact is we’re just starting out. What was the work of the baby boomers? Was it driving cars around fast and knowing how to clean a carburetor? Hell no. Their task wasn’t just to know the technology that would shape their world, but to shape their world . And that’s our job as well. What changes the world will know in the next 20 years are impossible to predict, but you better believe that Generation I are going to set their shoulders to it. The Mirror Stage awaits. And why Generation I? Before us is Generation X, or so we are told. I’ve heard people my age, or my brother’s, as Generation Y. It’s no use naming a generation before their purpose is clear; otherwise the Greatest Generation would be called the Kaiser Kids or something horribly inappropriate. Generation I occurred to me as I was writing this piece, and as far as I can tell it’s the most evocative of that which truly defines us. Generation I reflects the burst of technology which in the last decade (as we ourselves have made our real-world debut), has become commonplace, and the prefix “i-” has become a universal indicator of tech. Yes, it’s a bit of a capitulation to Apple, but let’s not fool ourselves: the iPod and iMac immediately became so synonymous with personal technology that i- became generic almost overnight. So we’ve got Generation i . To be honest, I’m not sure if I prefer i or I. I think that, like other instances of the letter, capitalization may vary. Generation I is also Generation Me : the increasing independence and compartmentalization of the social order that is the result of the personal computer and the internet, our totem technologies. It’s the paradox of instant connection and constant isolation. And Generation I is Generation One . This is the most important of all. The coincidence of timing that resulted in us being born with silicon in our mouths also charges us with a serious responsibility — though what it may be is yet unknown. No generation is warned of the tribulations ahead, though with luck our task will be suited to our unique position. But why the One? If, as I suspect, we are in fact the first wave of a new, tech-integrative sort of people, then surely the kids born after us, into a world already possessing high-speed internet, Wikipedia, and GPS smartphones, are Generation II. What better than to start giving version numbers to our offspring? Seems like something Generation I would do. I’d like to conclude with an apology. If you’ve read this far, there’s a good chance you’re seething with anger at having been excluded from what I seem to think is the most awesome generation of all time, who invented everything worthwhile and will do everything important in the future. I want to correct that potential misconception, though I understand where it’s coming from. Obviously the pioneers of the information age are largely baby boomers, and of course Generation X is one of the great utilizers of technology. And for that matter, kids today fulfill many of the conditions that I think make Generation I so special. I can only say that I tend to get carried away, and that our special situation is really the main thing we have going for us. Am I reaching? Very likely. Am I romanticizing? Most certainly. Let’s chalk it up to youthful vigor. It is probably true that every distinct generation is born into a confluence of circumstances that is consequential in its own way. Too often, though, I have felt that people my age have been maligned as a passive generation, one of consumption and luxury. That’s actually true as far as it goes, but there is much beneath the surface; who would have thought that the boomers, flower children and hot-rodders in the 60s, would be galvanized by the civil rights movement and Vietnam, emerging to become the most powerful demographic in the country, and perhaps the world, for decades running? It is toward such heights that Generation I must drive itself. We must show ourselves equal to the special favor we have been granted, and do our part to carry the world into the next age, whatever it asks of us. Note: if you comment about how this article was too long for you to read, your comment will be deleted. Who cares?
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I’m not an electrician, nor do I play one on TV, but this I like. It’s a re-designed UK electrical plug , one that’s much thinner and far more friendly to today’s portable, hi-tech toys than the standard plug. Apparently the actual UK plug is a cumbersome jerk, and tends to be a drag on people’s laptops, phones, and other gadgetry. Who wants that? As that photo shows, it folds , making it easier to store than that three pronged monster. On the surface it may not seem like much, but only to our laymen eyes: it won some sort of fancy UK design award.
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Spring Design this morning announced that its dual screen Alex eReader will be available online today ( the rumors were true! ) for $399. Customers can thus start pre-ordering the Android-based multimedia e-reader, which supports eBooks in EPUB, PDF, HTML and TXT formats. Spring Design says due to localization of international versions with partners, pre-orderded units placed on the Web in the U.S., will be shipped no later than mid-April. The Alex eReader features a 6″ EPD screen and a full color 3.5″ Android-based touchscreen LCD. The device supports full Web browsing over WiFi, allowing users to surf the Web, watch videos and communicate with online contacts while simultaneously reading and downloading books. Users can also use a number Google Android applications. Alex connects to Google’s bookstore with over one million titles, and other book stores that support Adobe DRM. The Alex eReader weighs 11 ounces and measures 4.7″ by 8.9″ and less than a half inch deep. Users may add their own content or download content to the microSD card offering expansion of user libraries up to 32GB. The Alex may be updated over WiFi and USB 2.0 and comes with headphones, AC/USB power connector and a padded cover. Check out the video below to see the device in action:
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Watch out! Rumored launch dates are falling from the sky today. Next up is the dual-screen, Android-powered Spring Design Alex and a rumor that states the ebook reader is headed towards a March 16th launch. That’s next Tuesday, kids! The only thing official so far is a note on the Spring Design website that reads, Thanks for your patience. We’re almost ready with our Alex store. Keep checking in and by the first week of March you’ll be able to order your Alex online. –The Spring Design Team We took a look at the Alex at CES 2010 and it’s definitely one step above the Nook in terms of taking advantage of the dual screen setup. Hopefully we’ll get a chance next week to see if it stands up to the Nook or Kindle in real world use, though.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I am not a loquacious orator. I’ve never written an impassioned speech. I’m just a part-time tech blogger. But today I must do my best to motivate — nay, to inspire — you, the tech-savvy population of the Internet, to bring all of your design and engineering and user experience skills to bear on the problem of the modern era. Set aside your silly USB gadgets, and forget the Linux-vs-Windows debate. We need to concentrate on an issue that affects us all. Yes, I’m talking about the public restroom. The Situation I wrote in the summer of 1999 about my dislike for public toilets . It’s been a decade since I wrote that. In that time, my Palm III has been replaced by a Treo 650, then a Treo 700, then a Palm Centro, and finally an iPhone. In that time, hybrid cars have become commonplace on the streets of America. Wikipedia launched and collected more than 14 million articles. People of all technical ability now regularly pay their bills online. You can do video conferencing for free from your desktop computer! Advances have been made in every conceivable industry, and yet the public toilet is largely unchanged from what it was before the turn of the millennium. This cannot stand. Please bear in mind that I don’t spend much time in women’s restrooms, so my rage may be myopic. Ladies, if your toilet experience is superior to men’s, I beg your patience. I suspect, however, that everyone could benefit from a few simple modifications to the status quo of public toilets. As I observed in my 1999 complaint, public toilets are one of the most dehumanizing experiences of modern life, and yet we continue to make and use public toilets in the same way. Little privacy, poor sanitation, and a complete stripping away of personal dignity. In no other aspect of our lives do we put up with such a deprivation of basic civility. The building in which I spend most of my working day is only four years old, but already the bathrooms are filthy, and they only get worse as time progresses. I was depressed to see, during my trip to the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, that the gorgeous new multi-million dollar buildings were equipped with entirely ordinary public toilets. The school wasn’t even fully opened yet and already the restrooms were unpleasant to look at, let alone use. I have identified a few common problems with public toilets, and I beg your indulgence as I list what are probably your own top complaints. Faucets There are two kinds of sink faucets in use in public restrooms: manual and automatic. The manual faucets are no fun to use, because the handles get covered in soapy water from the previous user, who may or may not have been thorough in washing their hands. Even if there are no germs, it’s just not comfortable to grip a soapy faucet handle. Automatic faucets are a great idea, but almost always fail in execution. The sensors are usually not sensitive enough, so users end up waving their hands around for some time under the faucet waiting for water to start flowing. Sometimes the neck of the faucet is too close to the basin, causing the user to touch the grimy basin itself. Or the neck is too high, causing water to splash unnecessarily out of the basin and onto the user’s pants. Surely there’s some elegant solution to the problem of hand washing in a public bathroom? There has to be some cost effective way to make an automatic faucet that allows one to clean their hands without making more of a mess. Soap The dispensation of soap in public bathrooms is another area just waiting for a great solution. Current dispensing technology, like faucets, is either manual or automatic. Manual dispensers suffer from many of the problems of manual faucets: they get covered in sticky, soapy water that no one wants to touch, and therefore fewer people wash their hands. Clearly this is not an acceptable solution. Automatic soap dispensers aren’t much better, though. They either don’t work, dispense too little product, or dispense too much product. Another problem with soap dispensers is their placement within the bathroom. Sometimes they’re over the sink, sometimes they’re off to the side. I can’t begin to count the number of automatic soap dispensers placed to the side of a sink that simply dispense their product all over the counter top, creating a huge goopy mess. As a clear cost-savings mechanism, there’s usually one soap dispenser placed between two sinks, causing users to wait their turn when the bathroom is busy. Hand Drying Just like soap dispensers, the mechanism for drying one’s hand is almost always poorly situated. Most often there’s a paper towel dispenser on a wall next to or opposite the sink. This causes the user to turn from the sink, dripping water all over the floor, and then make the dispensing lever all wet and yucky as they press it to get some towels. Assuming, of course, that the dispenser actually has product in it! Automatic hand dryers that blow air are no better in this situation, as the water is simply blown off the user’s hands and onto the floor. While I was in Japan, I marveled at the automatic hand dryers there. Each one had either a small shelf under it to collect waste water, or was a vertical clamshell design in which the user placed their whole hand, making the surrounding area much cleaner and drier. Of course, moving from the sink to the dryer still caused water to drip from one’s hands, so while the Japanese are on the right track, they still have considerable room for improvement. Personally, I prefer using a paper towel to dry my hands. I’m very conscious of the amount of towel I use, and try to maximize my drying with the minimum amount of towel. It pains me to see other people in the bathroom use huge reams of paper towels to dry their hands. They don’t even try to dry first, and then use more if they need it: they simply pull out fifteen paper towels and wad them up into a giant ball. But human behavior is not the point of this call to arms, so let’s side aside sloth and selfishness for a later discussion. Automatic paper towel dispensers hardly ever work. They’re too slow to respond when a user waves their hand past the sensor, assuming of course that the sensor can be found. With no clear standard design, and poor instructional markings, users are left to wave their hands over, under, and in front of dispensers until something happens. Obviously this results in water droplets splashing all around. The worst design I’ve seen — and I’ve seen it entirely too many times — is an automatic paper towel dispenser placed above or immediately adjacent to a sink. This seems at first blush like the right idea: minimize the amount of water that can be splashed around, make it easy for the user to wash and then dry their hands, and minimize the number of surfaces the user needs to touch. Unfortunately, this configuration almost always results in a never-ending stream of paper towels being dispensed directly into the sink, creating an even worse mess. Of course, the issue of paper waste also needs to be dealt with. Most trashcans in public restrooms are either too small for the volume of paper waste generated, or they’re not emptied often enough (or both!), resulting in lots of crumpled paper towels scattered on the floor around the trashcan. Flushing Urinal flushing technology seems mostly adequate, though urinal design itself could use some work. I suspect this largely my own problem, as a taller-than-average guy. For most men, I suspect the urinals work well enough for them. The flushing mechanism in stalls, though, needs a lot of work. Again, we have manual and automatic flushing. Manual flushing relies on the good behavior of the user, which is an unfortunate mistake. Automatic flushing, though, suffers from a number of design problems. The intent is well-meaning: a sensor behind the user detects when they move away and the flushing occurs automatically. In my experience, the sensor triggers as soon as I stand up, resulting in an inefficient and wasteful premature flush: I haven’t even wiped yet! When I’m done, I need to manually flush again by pressing a tiny little button embedded on a plate above the toilet. Why is the button behind me? Why do I need to turn around multiple times in the tiny stall? Wouldn’t it be better to have the flush button in front of me? And for that matter, why doesn’t the automatic flush mechanism trigger when the stall door is opened? This would, in my opinion, minimize a lot of wasteful flushing. Comfort As I complained in my 1999 screed, public toilets provide almost no comfort. They’re almost an afterthought in the building design process. The most architecturally stunning, human-friendly buildings of the common era have drab, semi-functional public toilets. Why is this? Why can’t we spend even a little extra money to provide privacy and comfort? I admit I have a shy bladder. I have a hard time urinating if I’m standing next to someone else. This is my own cross to bear, and I’m not asking for the world to change to accommodate me. But with just a little effort, we could all enjoy more privacy and comfort while attending to nature. Think about it: if you go camping, do you stand right next to your buddies while you all relieve yourselves? No, you spread out a bit to enjoy some privacy. Why then do we bunch men up in a row to take care of nature within the city limits? Utility Let’s face it: we use bathrooms because we have to. Why, then, is every public bathroom built exactly the same way, regardless of the kind of traffic that goes through the building? I’m thinking particularly of airports, train stations, and the like: people have luggage with them, but there’s almost no accommodation for this fact in any airport public bathroom. Heaven forbid you’re traveling alone with a bag of any size and need to use the toilet. At the urinal, your bag will stick out into the narrow aisle behind you, causing navigation problems for everyone. Or, your roller case will stand next to you, likely blocking an adjacent urinal. If you’re in the stall, best of luck! There’s barely any room for a human being, let along a human being with a bag. The Future In today’s world, we all cringe in disgust when we hear about how human waste was dealt with in centuries past. It is my hope — indeed, my vision — that future generations will cringe in disgust when they hear about the public toilets of the twenty first century. With your help, friends, we can make this vision a reality. I need your help, though. I need you to set aside your USB gadgets and your fanciful past times, and to apply your skills to this very real problem. Engineers, industrial designers, architects, user experience experts, efficiency experts, and every day people all need to pitch in to work together to resolve the problem of the public toilet!
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The iPad is getting more than its fair share of press, I think — or to be precise, it’s getting its fair share, but a lot of it could have gone to any other quality tablet device, of which at the moment there are admittedly few (the Adam comes to mind). So these days, when I read an interesting article like this one, or write that someone is making an iPad tablet version of their magazine , I deliberately conflate the terms “iPad” and “tablet.”To their credit, Apple is making a very robust reader app that’s ripe for exploiting, as Craigmod says , as a canvas for rich media. I’d never pretend that the iPad is the be-all and end-all of tablet devices. For one thing, it’s deliberately incomplete, and Apple’s plan for the iPad v2 is spelled out in the hardware for anyone to see. But it’s still going to be first to market with an attractive and functional device, which is more than others can say. It seems to me, though, that content created for an iPad is created not just with Apple’s hardware in mind, but with the whole tablet form factor in mind, and come Chrome OS and all it brings, I guarantee we’ll see a huge amount of what used to be exclusive iPad functionality duplicated — and for a lot cheaper. But to return to the book discussion: I like the idea of content made just for tablets — the “infinite content plane” in particular, was something I hoped Apple would leverage as a “desktop” for the iPad. Not so much. But the ingenuity of designers can always be relied on when you have something like an entirely new form factor to play with — and you aren’t risking the future of a multi-billion dollar company on it. Distinguishing between formless and definite content, as they are termed in the post, is also important. Well-designed web pages are the best template for laying out a book for a tablet — they’re definite, but still flexible enough to accommodate things like size and orientation. The potential for improvement of a format we’ve taken for granted for centuries is not to be passed up. I mean, we get a new entire way of consuming media and then we make people turn virtual pages? But I’ll leave that to the designers. Read the post, it’s good. I particularly agree about the point that the elimination of crappy paperbacks is progress. [thanks for the tip, Aaron ]
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