2011 has ended, so where will the Technology go in 2012

127 days, 19 hours, 16 mins and 02 seconds
till my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth 

2011 has been the launch of many different tablets. Apple has the iPad 2 and I would suspect that iPad 3 is close around the corner. There are roamers that something will be announced at iWorld. Samsung has let a cat out of the bag with the announcement of a new System-On-Chip (SOC) Exynos 5250. They have indicated the capabilities and specs and some believe it is the strongest indication of where iPad 3 may be heading.

Apple has been in the courts battling with Samsung over the Galaxy Tab 10.1 over IP, but all they have done is highlighted that this may be something to checkout. And boy have you seen the ads, and when they come on everyone is aware of Samsung and the Galaxy Tab. Well done Apple great advertising campaign for Samsung. Are Apple afraid that it is too good and could take market share from the iPad, why don't they just let the market decide. Apple user will stick with Apple but the undecided will now wait because Apple has made such a point maybe there is more to the Samsung offering to consider. This may or may not be true but you would have to ask why a company with such innovate products would try so hard to stop someone from getting their product to market, there has to be more than just being a look alike.

I believe that tablets will now start to come out with more power, features and function and the price will also drop. We are seeing it happen already with Sony just in the last couple of days reduced the cost of theirs table S by $100.

The Operating Systems are all starting to level out, take a look at iOS, Android 4 (ICS) and Windows 8. These OS's are all now taking into consideration the touch experience on large format tablets. I still say there is an issue with data input and that the devices that will win in the end will have a pen device which recognise hand writing, and utilise Wacom technology. The important part is that you can search your hand writing. There is no point in having the hand writing capabilities and not being able to search that writing. You are then reduced to searching visually, with a couple of documents that is fine but if you are serious this is totally impractical.

The other areas which is starting to really pick-up is the Ultra-books. These are starting to become serious desktop replacement material. Currently I am researching more into finding the ultra that has the power and capabilities of a desktop. Connecting to a screen and keyboard for when you are working from a fixed position then detaching easily to become totally mobile.

Over 2011 the table market has hit the Desktop PC market the greatest. I believe that end of the market will start to change in a big way to end up with very small foot print devices. So as I indicated last year the old desktop as we know it will become smaller and smaller mobility with the growth area. Especially with the tablets and Ultrabooks, what will add to the Ultrabooks and which is starting to show with the tablets is having an imbeded phone sim capability. A big area for improvement is the screen technology. Its fine having all the mobility but if you can not read the screen while you are mobile then where is the value of the mobility. We started to see the Pixel Chi screen coming out with their liquid paper technology making the screen readable in full sun light. I suspect this screen technology as seen in the Kindle will get even better and full colour. 

Another screen technology is the transparent screens, if you saw the move Avatar you will understand the concept. Recently some people at MIT have developed transparent battery technology so this will add more to the possibilities.


The next area we will see some big steps I believe with be in the bluetooth arena. Providing the connection to your mobile device and having all the functions of your phone. The audio area with better bluetooth ear pieces, bluetooth storage devices and you are already seeing digital camera's with wireless capability to transmit their photos to you computer or onto the net directly. 

The place to see what we will be getting is at the International Consumers Electronics Show (CES) Jan 10-13th in Las Vegas. Follow it online unless you are lucky enough to get there in person.

So where do I see it going this year: 

1. Tablets will keep dominating the market. ICS, Win8 and iOS are all out there these devices will really take off

2. I hope Apple gets back to it game of innovation and leaps ahead of the game and gets out of the courts. Its harder to copy if you are leagues in front. But once the competition gets in front then the challenge becomes harder. Has Apple lost its way? have they reached their pinical of innovation? We will see this year hopefully

3. There will not be any major updates to the range of Netbooks and they will disappear if not this year by 2013.

4. Ultrabooks will become even more powerful with better battery technology they will start to have a major impact on the desktop and they will become cheaper.

5. There will become more technology integration with the phone and other technology, storage, internet, cameras the lines will start to blur.

6. Finally I believe and hope there will be the appearance of more surface technology. Microsoft is one of the leaders in this space. They demonstrated their version 2 surface last year at CES 2011 what will come this year? This is becoming more cost effective and there will be some of this technology demonstrated at CES this year. The Minority Report, have a look at the real thing and Avatar were great examples of the real direction this technology is starting to move. To see some great examples take a look at 'A Day Made of Glass'

i.e. an example of some of the types of integration can be seen with ASUS Padphone.

ASUS Padphone

I am really looking forward to what comes next.

Form over Function

167 days, 23 hours, 6 minutes and 3 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth 

The debate at the moment I believe is over form rather than function when it comes to tablet technology. People are getting caught up in the hype of the marketing and not considering function and fit for purpose. 


Over the last year there has been many different tablet and net-book and now the ultra-books hitting the market. All with their many offerings, but when it gets down to it what are we looking for? What I see is many people are just adding another device to their stack. Another way to consume their own and others content. In fact I have an Android table which got a lot of praise and damnation, that being the "Notion Ink Adam".

As I said on the Notion Ink forum at the time when I purchased the tablet, it was innovative and was leading in a direction that many tablets did not. It was different and it took the mobility aspect to a new hight utilising the Pixel Qi display technology. Many of the tablets in the market place all claim to be capable in the mobile space but take them into the bright light as see what you can see. The adam goes from a back light device to liquid paper screen. In bright light I can continue to use the device where ever I am. 


Camera, big thing with a lot of devices, one on the front and one on the back, the adam came up with a rotating camera so you only needed one. There are many little components of this device which I believe that were thinking outside of the box. Yes, there are issues and these were outside of the companies control, but the open source community came to the assistance and many different ROM's have now be developed which address a majority of issues the users paid.


It was very exciting when purchasing as it was done online and at a set hour in the day. There were hundreds online at 2am in the morning in Australia and around the world waiting to buy. I have not seen anything like it other than with Apple, but this company was not Apple it was a small company in India. There are still things to be sorted out with the device but I am still a very proud owner of a new innovative product. But this is not the issue of this posting.


The issue is Form over Function, many of the organisations I seen are jumping on the Apple bandwagon to get their iPad. Don't get me wrong I am not an Apple basher, I like the product. I have been a proud iPod user for years, my daughter and wife use MAC laptops and my daughter is about to get an iPad. For what they are used for they are fantastic, easy to use and able to consume a lot of different media. But what I am looking for in a portable tablet device is something that will provide me mobility but when I as sitting at my desk provide the necessary capabilities to replace my desktop. If the tablet has 3G capabilities then replace my phone. If I am going to be totally mobile then give me the tool to do the work.


I have to laugh when I see people showing off there mobile device and then the phone goes off. The next the next thing they need to get at their desktop to carry out further work. Then when they head off they pack the laptop as well. The portable and mobile concept just looks like it is adding something else to carry. 


But there is another slate coming out which I believe is starting to head in the right direction. Not only is it a capable device but I believe it is heading in the right direction to become a desktop replacement as well. That is the Samsung PC Series 7 Slate. I has the power of an i5 CPU, 4Gb of RAM and 64 Gb of solid state drive and is only 13 mm think, front and rear cameras and with the docking station provides the ability to connect to a large screen when sitting at a desk and also comes with a nice blue tooth keyboard. With this device you have mobility and a real desktop replacement which can connect to the network via the Gigabit Ethernet connection in the docking station. 


But one of the best parts and the part that really gets me excited about this technology is that it has a WACOM pen device. Using the pen which works exactly as like a real pen and you can lean on the device while writing. The other part that many people don't realise is that in Windows when you use the pen device, in an application like One Notes or any of the window product you can actually search your writing. Try that on any other device and you wont have such success or the ability to lean on the device while writing. The WACOM technology is something worth having.


This is the technology which will be worth watching. 

Tablet Computers, Surface and the future

192 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes and 28 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

Well the tablets are coming think and thin. Its hard to imagine that the iPad was only launched back on the 27th Jan 2010 and since then we had the iPad 2 March this year. The iPad brought a lot of innovation since the tablets of old, but where is it going now? At the moment people would have to be wondering if the innovation has stopped and all we are going to see is the law suites over who had what first and owns the rights. :(

Well some companies are not just sitting around and to see some of the work that has come out in the area of Ultra-Notebooks, ie ASUS Ultra-notebook and Dell's Ultra with Optical Drive and Samsung Launches a Series 7 Chronos Notebook. These are quite exciting and quite powerfull devices. But the question is how much longer will these types of devices be around?

Samsung Series 7 CHRONOS Notebook

ASUS Ultrabook UX21

Mac Air

Dell XPS 14z Notebook

The other day I came across some more interesting video's produced by Microsoft in the area of surface technology. In many ways all these new tablet and smart phone devices are becoming thinner and more intergrated into our everyday lives. The video from Microsoft shows some of the direction where this is going and that the phone will be come more and more an everyday device with respect to communications, ticket, wallet and media communications device.

What is shows is that the technology will become more transparent. Yes physically as well as the product itself with respect to what it is to what does it do. More and more we are seeing people and their interactions with the technology become more intuitive. The technology is starting to fad and the functionality is all that is important. For our generation we will talk about the bits and bytes and what the underpinning technolgy is. But for our children and their children it will be a topic of the past.

My best example is with my own daughter. She has Down Syndrome but that does not stop her from engaging in the use of technology. Her school issued all the kids in her class for the last three years with MAC notebooks. Being a longtime PC user it has been foreign to me. But I see my daughter doing thing with that laptop that I have know idea how she has done it. She obiously learnt things at school, but she customises the user interface and how she works with it from her own knowledge to the extent that her school IT department are struggling to manage the device. :) (Smart Girl)

Our Smart Kids

More and more our exposure and experience with technology will be form an experiece perspective and the underlying technology will be a minor concern. People are more interested in what experience they can have with the technology. It either performs and is purchase or not, bring on the future

The Future is Here!

Time moves on

196 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes and 11 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

Time keeps moving

Its always intresting to see how time seems to be slow when you are waiting, and then you get going and time seems to spead up. I started blogging about my trip at the 294 days point as so I am about to trip over the first 100 days. In that time I have secured my locations of where I am going and a number of good contacts to visit and talk with. That exercise is still progressing and become more interesting each day as I discover other opportunities.

My next milestone comes from my army days when we counted down from 100 days. That was during my time at the Army Apprentice School of Music. That point was referred to as "Crab Night" and we would go all around town painting pictures of a crab with a number in it which would represent our years intake. Mine at that time was 29th, the goal was to get the image in the most unusal spot. We I won't be doing that but maybe put one up on this blog at the 100 day point, which will be  the 1st Feb 2012.

As time moves on I am becoming more focused on what it is I hope to achieve. I have now brought it down to looking at the issue of interface design and usability from four angles. They are:

1. The user perspective: How they learn? What is good and bad in usability? What indicates to a user good usability?
2. The Developer: How does a developer consider usability? What are they trying to achieve? Is usability a consideration within the process of usability? Are they able to separate their passion to develop and take a user perspective in their work?
3. Manufacturers: How do they address this issue in their design? Is this a marketing issue or and engineering issue? Who defines the direction with usability? How is this defined?
4. Business: How do we re-engage business to be involved with the conversation of usability at the start of a project? Does business see a need or value? Why has business advocated this responsibility? Have they or is it a matter of an inability to communicate their needs? What can we do to engage and show the value to a business in being involved at the start and not complaining at the end?

These are my focus and I dare say I will not find all the answers but at lease I will be able to start the conversation towards a better user centric approach to the use of technology in general and specifically to mobile technology.

The other question which is highlighted with a recent patent awarded to Apple is should functional design beable to be patented? will this become an inhibitor to innovation? Many of the things we use today are built on the past.

A simple example is the mouse. Invented Dr Douglas Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute.

Dr Douglas Engelbart and the first mouse

Future Design Mouse

Imagine if that was patented to the extent that it stopped anyone from building and improving on it. These two mouse are basically the same. They plot on a flat screen the X ,Y coordinates of a cursor to a person to engage programs on a screen.

The other area is tablet computers and boy have they come a longway.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine

Star Trek the Original

Star Trek Next Generation

There is Kirk way back in about 1966-67 using a tablet computer with a pen device. Then Picard on Next Generation using quite a thin tablet. All well before the release of some of todays computer companies offering in this space. Admitidly they are only props but I dare say they were the seeds to some of the ideas that are presented today.

Where will it go, well you only need to look at movies like the Minority Report and Avitar. Then look at what Corning are doing. A good example can be seen on youtube, a video called the Day Made in Glass. Another good video is Microsoft's Surface 2 technology this is the future and it is on the door step of tomorrow. Only last year at CES Samsung display their Amoled transparent display technology.

To take it to the n'th degree check out the Mozilla Seabird Concept Phone. This is a concept but all of the technology is available today. So it is just a mater of time.

Transparent displays and devices that are aware of other devices to then transfer content. Recently a number of companies have released the bump technology to transfer between devices and MIT presented their research on transparent batteries so lots are on their way. Let hope this line of patent wars will not slow down innovation to see the world from one perspective. Its interesting to see the history of companies and where they have come from. The battles againt big corporates while they were small and the things they did to get where they are now, and to see that they are now the big corporates defending themselves and battling the small startup of the future. As they always say what comes around goes around.

Clarification of how I will approach the topic

211 days, 17 hours, 50 minutes and 44 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

The more I think of my topic the more I spend considering how I should approach the topic and get the most of the trip. In my previous blog I considered the questions I am looking to address, but as I read more I am starting to realise the approach and thought process will have a bearing on the outcomes.

The thinker

I have been reading an article which was written by Tim Brown of IDEO. The article itself can be found at Design Thinking . 


One of the key pieces of information I got from this article was the definition of design think that was put simply, 


"It is a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity."


But the main idea behind design thinking is that it is a "methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centred design ethos."  I really believe that we have to focus on the human-centred aspect but to do that there is an engagement process that has to be addressed. 


Technology has to accept that whatever is designed it needs to be human-centred, but the other side of the debate is how do we engage the human side to own and get involved. Life was to become easier with all the new technology but it has not. It has become more complex and to many people frustrating. As Steve Jobs once quoted: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."


I believe many forget that and that is one of the main points I am hoping to better understand. How do we go about better design with the respect to the use of this technology. How can we design to empower rather than dis-empower the end user. 


Business and users know what works for them, they have been trailing and testing it for years. So how do we design those proven and tested processes so that we can get the efficiencies of the technology without reinventing proven processes which only need to be more efficiently expressed in the technology so that the technology becomes transparent.


The best example of transparent technology is watching owners of iPad's and a lot of apple products. If you engage them in a conversation about what they are doing you will hear about all the creative products that they produce and the enjoyment they get at producing it. Very rarely if ever with they talk about the technology.

Understanding Your Research Goal, Before Doing Your Research.

226 days, 13 hours, 26 minutes and 31 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

I have been listening to several HBR (Harvard Business Review) Idea Cast and it has raised many ideas. One of the main themes that have been coming out of several the Podcasts was that knowing the objective you are looking to achieve in what you do. As you may have guested this is the areas I am recording my journey in my research overseas for my Churchill Research Project.

The information I placed in my application for the 2011 Churchill Fellowship was:

"New Frontiers in Technology for Child Protection

This project will explore how breakthroughs in mobile technology can help social workers in the field, and providing an improved child protection service. It will examine how to remove usability barriers imposed by the complexity of unwieldy applications and devices. It will try to remove, or moderate, the impersonal use of technology in meetings, with clients, where a high degree of empathy and emotional intelligence are needed. Working with experts in child protection this project will seek ways to record and process information captured in the field using a new generation of smart devices and innovative software applications. Key goals will be in a drop in staff workload, improved access to information for colleagues, and a rich interaction with clients strengthened by the removal of technology barriers. A decreased in computer training can be achieved due to better understanding of usability and human interfaces into these devices. This will allow staff more time to focus on relationships with clients."

During my time since being awarded the scholarship I have been thinking more about my topic in this research. Working to better understand what it is I hope to communicate in my final paper.  Trying to better understand how my trip better arm me with the necessary information to address my topic. But to understand what I will need, I need to better explain exactly what I am trying to achieve. In other words my objectives and why I am going where I am going as well as why am I meeting the companies and people that I have identified so far.

I am looking to address my topic from four aspects. They are:

1.    Technology - The actual device be it a tablet, laptop, ultra- laptop and desktop computer

2.    Software – The design of the software and the usability aspects of that software

3.    Business – How do we re-engage business to usability? To be involved in the discussion before the product or services is developed

4.    Usability – In general how do we go about addressing usability both in design of specific technology and then the interfaces into the systems that are used on this technology?

To address these questions I am working to meet with several different people, companies and organisations involved in technologies. In meeting with these organisations I am hoping to better understand the questions that need to be asked and considered where building, developing and using technology. Other organisations I hope to meet and talk with are organisations which use technology and understanding how they have addressed these questions and do they have some of the answers.

My first stop will be San Francisco (SF) where I have made contact with Stanford University where I will be meeting Professor Terry Winograd. He is a professor of computer science and is involved with the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Department. He has invited me to visit and to be involved in any of the workshops that might be running at that time. Here I hope to find out about the study of human computer interaction and what is studied.

While in SF I am also arranging to meet representations at Cisco, Facebook, Google and Apple. But as it still is sometime before I head off I am waiting to make contact early in the New Year. I am fortunate to have a close friend, Jack & Lucy who now lives in SF and works for Cisco.

Following SF I then head to Seattle to meet with Microsoft. I am hoping to see their futures laboratories but this is to be confirmed. I have made contact with the Child Protection Agency in Seattle but still waiting on a response. I will follow this up in the New Year. From Seattle I then head to Austin Texas where I will be visiting Motion Computing a manufacturer of tablet computers. Looking at their work with tablets and how they go about design their product. While in Austin I am hoping to catch up with the Department for Child Protection who did a case study on their use of tablet computers in the field. And finally I have received confirmation from Craig Tomlin to meet and discuss his work in Usability. I came across Craig on a blog discussing his views about usability and it was a re-buttle to a response to his article from Charles Mauro of Mauro New Media. I then head to New York to actually me up with Charles.

In New York I have confirmed meetings with Charles Mauro, Adam Greenfield of urbanscale LLC | Design. Adam I came across in a book he wrote called "Everyware" - The dawning age of ubiquitous computing. After reading this book I then started to research Adam and found him in New York and approached him to see if he would meet to discuss some of his idea. He has agreed and is another of my interviews. I have also arrange meetings with the Chief Software Architect of Epicenter Consulting. As well as a number of other contact if I get the time. One of the other locations I am hoping to visit is the IBM futures laboratories just outside of NY but this is still being worked on.

I then head off to Boston to visit MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This has been one of the locations I have dreamt about and the opportunity presented itself. I have made contact with a professor involved in HCI and Usability and will be meeting. I am still trying to find a contact at Harvard to see if I could discuss the business angle with this research project. From Boston I then head to London, UK.

In London I am still working on my contacts. Child Protection in the UK comes under Health but is managed in the shires and Burroughs. I am fortunate in that I have a contact in the Department here in WA who has worked in the UK in the area and working on a contact there. From London I then head to Heidelberg to visit SAP.

SAP recently purchased a company called Sybase and they have a technology which is used in the production and deployment of mobile solutions. At this point in time I don't have much more information. I will be flying into Frankfurt and then taking a train to Heidelberg. From Heidelberg I then catch a train to Salzburg.

In Salzburg I will be visiting  the university of Salzburg and their HCI department. Again I have made contact with one of the professors their and this discussion is to be further developed. I am there as with most places for a week so I am leaving this opportunity open to see what I can achieve. From Salzburg I then catch a train to Vienna.

In Vienna I will be visiting C.U.R.E. the Centre for Usability Research and Engineering. I have has some initial discussions with one of the staff at this centre and this will get further developed early next year. Finally after eights weeks I then head to Singapore via London.

Singapore is 4-5hrs from Perth and will be where I was going to take a break. But I just can't help myself and have already found a connection there. I have made contact with MicroUsability one of the largest usability organisations in the world which is based out of Mumbai. Again I have a confirmed contact and will be corresponding in the New Year to fix dates and times. 

When I arrive in Singapore I will be meeting up with my wife after the initial 8 week for a bit of a break. Before heading back to Perth and work on the 16th July after leaving on the 11th May I would have travelled over 29,000 miles and meet many different people and hopefully be in a better position of understanding to be able to offer some insights into better designs for usability aspect in the area of Child Protection.

Stay tuned for more information as it come to hand. 

Leg No 10: - Singapore - 7th - 13th July

238 days, 15 hours, 27 minutes, 38 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

The final leg of this trip is to Singapore. To date I don't have anyone lined up. This is still being worked on and is not part of my official trip. I have added 1 week of my own leave to relax and will be meeting up with my wife as I would have been away for 8 weeks. But, as they say while I am here I will take any opportunity that presents itself.

To that end I am looking to find information about any company or organisation in the field of UX (User Experience) or manufacturing mobile technology to see. I will also be looking to see if there is any alignment with any government body as well.


More details will follow as I make contacts in Singapore.

Leg No 9: - Vienna, Austria - 29th June - 6th July

244days, 17 hours, 17 Minutes, 17 Seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

The next part is a train trip to Vienna. In Vienna I am hoping to spend some time with a number of people at the Centre for Usability, Research and Engineering (C.U.R.E) During my time I am hoping to get some idea as to how such an organisation goes about looking in to the science of use ability from a physical aspect.

Vienna Pallas Athene Fountain Parliment Building

My initially contact they were unsure of what I was looking to do and felt there was nothing they did would be of interest or relevant. Upon discussing with one of the staff there Lars he had a better understanding of what I was doing. I look forward to my visit and spending some time with the team at C.U.R.E. Lars also pointed out the work that was being done at Salzburg that was one of my reasons for stopping there.

Natural History Museum

Leg No. 8 - Salzburg, Austria - 22-29 June 2012

254 days, 06 hours, 10 minutes, 03 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

The next part of my trip will be to Salzburg. I will be travelling via train which is expected to take an hour. My reason for visiting Salzburg is to meetup with some of the lecturers and professors at the university. In my research to date I had come across C.U.R.E (Center for Usability, Research and Engineering) and in discussion with one of their representatives they had indicated the strength of knowledge at the university. 

Salzburg

In light of that I then have been emailing the university and its HCI (Human Computer Interaction) department to meet up and discuss issue with respect to usability and how this study is carried out. I have outlined the areas of interest and issues face by our department but in general most users. I wanted to get a better understanding of how I would go about understanding this science and how it can be applied to my project. 
To date I have receive a couple of offers to catch up and explore these and other issue I discover in my travels.

Leg No. 7 - Heidelberg, Germany - 15-22 June 2012

261 days, 02 hours, 36 minutes 00 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

The next leg is to visit SAP in Heidelberg, Germany. I don't know much about this city but grew up in Germany. We lived in the North of Germany in a town called Fallingbostel. 

Heidelberg Castle

SAP has taken on a new product with a company they had purchased and are dealing with mobile solutions in the area of software and the delivery on multiple platforms.

Leg No. 6 - London - 8th - 15th June 2012

263 days, 01 hours, 40 minutes, 1 second

until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

The next leg will be to London from Boston. In London I hope to be visiting agencies that are using mobile technology in the field. I am looking to see what they have done and if and how they have addressed the usability aspects of taking on that technology.


what have been the considerations they needed to consider. What environments and situations will the end users find themselves and how have they found the value of the technology.

St Paul's Cathedral from the Banks of the Thames
©Marc Dimmick 2011

London Bridge from the banks of the Thames©Marc Dimmick 2011

These were photos, I took this year in London.


Travel arrangements have now been locked in so now I am finalising all the accommodation locations. Just about have all bar New York, and Salzburg. I am using airbnb.com for a lot of the locations and some really great locations and prices.

Leg No. 5 - Boston - 1-7th June 2012

274 days, 0 hour, 41 minutes, 9 seconds

Boston, I will be traveling to there from New York via amtrak. I have used the trains before going to Washington from New York. This is a very enjoyable way to travel in the States, I am not sure if they have high speed rail as they do in Europe. 

Typical train in the states

I have never been here so this is quite exciting. Due to the number of world famous universities and institutions, the likes of MIT and Harvard. I have been trying to make contact with each of these universities to hopefully meet and talk with people in the HCI (Human Computer Interaction) Departments.

Skyline of Boston

I am still working on trying to make contact with the different universities and institutes. As more details come I will update this blog.

Harvard University

MIT Dome

Not exactly sure but looks cool

Leg No: 4 - New York - May 25th / June 1st 2012

277 days, 4 hours, 23 minutes

Well I get back to the big apple yet again. :) This will be my third time and I really love it. The architecture, the environment, the contrast. 

My Visit to New York is meet up with a number of specialist in the field of Usability. I looking to meet with a number of Usability Experts.

Usability Expert: Charlies Mauro of Mauro New Media,

Adam Greenfield of Urbanscale and author of a very interesting book called "Everyware" which is about "The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing".  The book is about the form that computing will take in the next few years. Its about the vision of distributed processing power that basically computers will disappear in the way we know of them today. That computers will be so integrated into our lives that we will not see or think of them as computers. We will just engage within our environments and over time will not even be aware of where the line between carrying out a task and our engagement with using a computer. 

Norman Vincent Peel

Someone who has had a big impact in my life on perspective. Wrote a very good book call the "Power of Positive Thinking". You should read it.

The Empire State Building

The first time I was here I got to 34th Street which is where the Empire State Building was situated. I looked around and I could not see the building. It was 10pm at night and the building across from me was only half light up. anyway I asked the Police Office where I could find the Empire State Building, he looked at me and said "you're not from around here are you?" no was my answer. He then proceeded to pointed over his left shoulder to the a building and said "that's it, there". I looked again "it's not that tall". He then advised me to check-it out in daylight. 

Second Hand Rose
(Owned by Friend of Mine's Father)

This place is where a lot of movies are filmed in when they are looking for a street scene in New York. My friends dad specialise in Antique Wall Paper. The shop is very interesting inside, wall to floor antiques.

The Wedge
First Skyscraper in New York

I have a picture of this building over my bed and always wanted to see it for real, well I got the photo and I dare say I will try again as the weather last time was not to good.

IBM Research: The other areas I am hoping to get to is IBM's Research Laboratories. This I am still working on and when I have firmed up details I will post to the site. IBM also has research locations in Cambridge, Boston and there is my next leg within this trip.

Again accommodation has been arranged via airbnb.com. 

Leg No: 3 - Austin Texas - 20th / 25th May 2012

282 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes

**UPDATE: Change of Dates from 20-25th May to 23-25th May

Night seen of the city

In Austin I am hoping to catch up with two organisations. They being the Department for Child Protection and Motion Computing. Austin and Texas I know very little about. As a child I remember seeing the movies about the Texas Rangers and there is the discussion about their cattle stations being big but that is all I know. I have a little research to do before gettting there.

Austin, Capital Building

Department for Child Protection - I read a case study which indicated that the deparment is using tablet computers. So I am interested in finding out how they are using them, have they addressed the usability aspects I feel that get missed. If so how have they worked with the end user to achieve their results.

Motion Computing - I have been a user of their tablets for a few years and have found them to be very good. I am taking the opportunity of visiting the company to get a perspective of how they go about the design and building of these devices. How does usability aspects effect what they produce.

Again I have arranged my accomodation using a great site called http://www.airbnb.com. This site and its services have recently had an increase in funding and as a user of this service through Europe recently I have found it to be great. You can get everything from and igloo through to a castle and it can cost as cheap as $9 a night through to $2000+ so everyones tastes are covered. We used this site for accomodation in France, Lyon and Nice as well as the UK. It is well worth a go. All of my accomodation has been arranged using this service for my entire trip.