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07/17/2001 Archived Entry: "17-July-2001"

The Glassdog Barks (WebWord) -- "The Web is black. Its a huge void waiting to be filled up. In between every page on every site is endless space waiting for more and more and more. It's a vacuum. It's neither warm nor cold and has no depth to speak of. It smells like cardboard and plastic. It's the smell of a new car. It's the smell of the polyform when you take it off your new Mac. It smells like the future. When you reach out to touch the Web, it's surprisingly hard. You expect your hand to go right through it like spider's web or liquid, but your fingers press against a glossy surface you can't even see. You press harder and it begins to yield, though not easily."

Sleeping policemen (Economist) -- "One form of driver assistance which is sure to create a fuss is intelligent speed adaptation (ISA)—a technology for forcing the motorist to observe the speed limit. This works by building into the car a digital map marked with local speed restrictions. The addition of GPS (global positioning system) navigation tells the car what the maximum speed on any given stretch of the road should be."

'Meeting browser' to offer instant transcription, archiving -- ""Imagine walking into a specially equipped meeting room and having it recognize your face and voice. As you open the discussion, the room records what you say, the emotion in your voice and the direction of your gaze."

Top 10 Usability Guidelines for WAP Applications -- "Openwave is dedicated to understanding and enhancing the adoption of WAP applications. Over the past two years, Openwave has run monthly usability studies at its Usability and Interoperability test facilities. These studies have shown that subscribers are less likely to adopt a WAP application if its usability, or customer experience, is not optimal. The following guidelines, compiled by Openwave's Usability team, have been designed to help application developers avoid the most common usability pitfalls encountered with newly deployed WAP applications."

Americans want more online rules (ZDNet) -- "Americans want more rules to tame behavior on the Internet but are conflicted about handing over too much control to the government, according to a major study released on Tuesday."

Where Webvan went wrong (David Strom) -- "In fact, the moral may be that creating a new distribution network and stocking warehouses simply costs too much when much of the infrastructure is already available from existing supermarket chains. That may be bad news for Terry Drayton in any attempts to revitalize HomeGrocer, but I think the communities that can take advantage of Internet grocery shopping will appreciate the services no matter who provides them." (Comments: Do people really, truly want their groceries delivered? Would it make more sense to order most of your groceries online and then pick them up at the store, along with the meat, fruits, and vegetables that always require inspection?)

Ten Steps to Project Usability: A Roadmap for Project Management

What version of Internet Explorer 5 are you running?

KDE User Interface Guidelines

Replies: 1 comment

The article on the "meeting browser" reminds me of a plot device that appears in the second act of a 1990 play by Anthony Clarvoe, "PICK UP AX". In that play, which is set in Silicon Valley around 1980, a mobster named Mick is upset that a computer that can read emotions will hamper his ability to manipulate people.

The title of the play is a reference to the old text-only computer games. See: Review of PICK UP AX

Posted by Dennis G. Jerz @ 07/21/2001 12:36 AM EST

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