From the Computer History Museum comes 101 minutes with some of the pioneers of computer graphics: Brad Bird, Writer/Director, The Incredibles, Pixar Animation Studios, Ed Catmull, Co-Founder and President, Pixar Animation Studios, Alvy Ray Smith, Co-Founder of four centers of computer graphics excellence (Altamira, Pixar, Lucasfilm, New York Tech) and a Microsoft Fellow, Andrew Stanton, Writer/ Director, Finding Nemo, Pixar Animation Studios , and Michael Rubin, Moderator, Author of Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution.

Catmull and Smith were two of the pioneers of computer graphics algorithms and hardware, inventing many of the fundamental techniques that are at the root of everything done today. Lots of discussion about computer animation as a medium, not an end in itself, and the importance of story over technology.

Tags: CGI, Graphics, History, Pixar, Movies, Interesting Stuff, Animation, Anti-Aliasing

There is a Wikipedia for cameras: Camerapedia. One of the things they list is my first SLR: the Olympus OM-30. The on-off switch is on the right in this image: protruding part on the ring around the film rewind knob. This meant that it was really easy to turn the camera on as you were putting it back into its case, and so completely run down the five very expensive button cells that it needed to operate.

Tags: Photography, Canon, Nikon, DSLR, History, Museum, Interesting Stuff, Olympus

The Register talks to Bill Buxton (who has built several multitouch systems) about Microsoft's Surface:

In fact, according to Bill Buxton - ironically a Principal Researcher at Microsoft's own research centre - these kinds of multi-touch interfaces have been around for over twenty years. Perhaps the Surface Computing marketing guys at Microsoft should check out Bill's web site. Moreover, perhaps Microsoft and developers like Jeff Han at NYU, who are building these 'old-school' multi-touch interfaces out of cameras and projectors, should consider the fatal flaw in their 'innovations'. This being that all back-projection interfaces are enormous. Think about it - you've essentially got a small cinema in a box behind a screen. Forget mobility and portability. Is it even moveable?

I remember using The Wasp, a portable and very yellow synthesizer in the early 80s. The keyboard was touch-sensitive, not in the sensitive-to-velocity kind of way, but in the touch-a-picture-of-a-key-to-press-it kind of way. As the site says:

Its most distinguishing feature is the keyboard and its awful non-moving touch keys. That's right, the flat plastic keys are only sensitive to your touch and so they are difficult and unreliable to play.

Anything that uses a touch interface has this tactile/audio feedback problem. A touch-input display also has the problem of planarity: the display and the input are co-planar. There are very few interactive systems designed this way -- none that I can think of that are designed for more than infrequent, dedicated use. The bigger the device (and so at least on paper the more impressive the display) the worse the situation becomes. Go smaller and the interface becomes usable because the hands can be positioned independently of the surface. Go too small and the area becomes too small to be useful.

I am wondering if Apple actually designed the iPhone like this: starting by finding the most functional form factor, then getting the feel and weight right, then moving on to the display, functionality, and finally electronics.

Tags: Microsoft, Multitouch, History, iPhone, Interesting Stuff