When you’re looking at your computer all day, you need something framing your windows that looks good.
Everyone needs cool desktop images. After awhile the ones that come with your computer just don’t cut it. One of my favorite sites go hit when looking for something fresh is Mandolux. He’s an awesome photographer and has a way of making really nice images work for the desktop. Usually he has them cut up for dual or even triple(!) displays, but has quite a few for us single-display people too.
My second place I hit is David Lanham’s. He’s a stunning artist, and creates some of the most creative things I’ve seen. While not all of his work is available in wallpaper form, a lot is. He also sells prints. (which I keep meaning to pick a couple up…)
Two sites you should seriously check out, their work is not only beautiful, it serves a purpose. Removes boringness.
I recently saw one of the coolest things ever. Watch.
Let’s deconstruct this video, which, by the way, was created in the 1980s. Before basically any of this was invented. Apple’s team that made this video was brilliant.
1) Computers that talk. This is here now, both in Mac OS X and the latest versions of Windows. Not quite as nicely spoken as this, but the Mac one is quite good. (Not sure about the Windows one)
2) Animation to make the guy’s face talk. This is basically here too. I’m not 100% that it can be done automatically, but I’m pretty sure it’s possible. (VS. manually created)
3) Time aware calendars: Yep.
4) “Let me see the lecture notes from last semester”: Well, in a roundabout way really. Searching (on mac anyway) is pretty much amazing.
5) “Pull up all the articles I haven’t read recently”: Not really. Unless you count RSS readers, or Queues like on Hulu.
6) John Fleming article: Again, searching. With keywords, this is fairly possible.
7) Multi-Touch functionality: That is, touching to do things rather than a mouse. It’s in millions of people’s pockets now.
8) Video Chatting: Completely here.
9) Video Chatting with screen sharing. It’s possible in iChat.
In the end, we’re extremely close to this reality. There’s a pretty new system called Siri out now. I watched a video of one of the guys who is making it discussing the way it works and how they built it the other day. The hardest part of these things is the context-aware system. Humans are so smart they’re dumb, they leave things out expecting the other person to figure it out. “I booked a ticket to London for tomorrow”…”Wonder what the weather is like”, etc. Well, a human realizes that they mean the weather in London. However, a computer has no clue. Enter context-aware. Siri has the ability to “remember” previous queries. So, ask it about movie times in Evansville, and then ask it the weather for tonight. It’ll assume you mean in Evansville.
We’re getting really close to this reality. And I can’t wait for it to happen.
