Interesting little quote on feedback and user error

From an article on the Metro crash a few days ago in Washington DC:

Parasuraman has even found that the manner in which machines provide feedback is important. When they are “polite” — waiting until a human operator has responded to one issue before interrupting with another, for example — improved human-machine relationships produce measurable safety improvements that rival technological leaps.

Interaction as conversation isn’t just a metaphor.

A link to a really fun video on capacitors

The gang at NYCResistors knows how to make capacitors fun:
http://www.nycresistor.com/2009/03/11/unravelling-capacitors/

Super-i Googles

This is a neat Augmented Reality concept from a Alexei Shulgin, his Super-i googles have a small outward facing camera and small viewer facing screen that are mounted into a visor that is then worn by the user as they walk around. The real feat of engineering is the size of the unit, which requires [...]

Interface concepts on Konigi

Worth taking a look at here. Nothing particularly revolutionary, but most of the classic web UI themes are represented.

Sweet Touchpad+MIDI

Built using a Cirque Glidepoint resistive touchpad and an Arduino. Check it out here
On another note, OF has gone parallel, sort of. Parallel processing means that all the processors get used equally and any task gets spread out across them. If you’re just on a single processor machine it’s not a big deal, but if [...]

Is Jason Rohrer really the future of video gaming?

Maybe, maybe not. He’s certainly a step in a more interesting direction. I’ve heard people say innumerable times that they’ve never had an interactive installation make them cry. In place of interactive installation you could put a few different technologically driven means of creating art: new media art pieces, video games, vj pieces. That’s all [...]

Handmade Electronic Music by Nic Collins on Google Books

This absolutely phenomenal text is available in a limited preview on Google Books here. To steal one of the Amazon 5 star reviews of this book:

The book starts with some brief information on the tools you’ll need plus the author’s seven rules for experimentation. Part two is dedicated to listening. He shows you how to [...]

Sanguino

“a board that is more powerful, yet still compatible with the Arduino software.”
Let’s see those specs:

atmega644P core
32 total general purpose I/O pins (some are multipurpose)
8 analog pins
6 PWM pins
64K flash memory
4K RAM
2K EEPROM
completely through-hole construction
breadboard compatible
100% open source
compatible with Arduino 0012 with minimal hacking

Open Source Hardware on New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Word of Mouth”

They give everything away. On their Website you can download all the design plans, send them off to a Chinese factory, mass-produce the boards, and sell them yourself. There are no patents. You can pocket the change without paying Arduino a dime. Sounds crazy? It’s part of a new movement called open source hardware.
Here

Excellent Maywa Deniki video

If you don’t know anything about Maywa Denki, check out this video:

Then check out their website.