March 2012
Simultaneous multi-person user interfaces (SMUIs)
Tablets are prompting a new behaviour, whereby two or more users interact with the same device at the same time. It is happening in a variety of environments, from couples browsing photos together on the sofa to business people interacting over a…
Tablet review
In preparation for chairing MobileMonday London’s event entitled ‘Tablets come of age‘ I’ve been watching some hands-on videos of tablets I haven’t had a chance to own personally, with a particular focus on those other than the iPad. Here’s a sel…
Augmented storytelling
I’m delighted to introduce a guest article by James Whatley, exploring how mobile technology enables new forms of storytelling and creative expression. The article was prompted by Marvel’s SxSW presentation, showing how it might augment comic boo…
Hockney, iPad and creative expression
The Royal Academy in London has an exhibition of works by David Hockney, including a collection of pictures created with an iPad. The iPad works are at the physical heart of the galleries, occupying the largest room in the Royal Academy, and seem…
Notes from Mobile World Congress 2012
Measures of technical prowess dominated Mobile World Congress. The event’s vocabulary was characterised by quad core 1.5 Ghz processors, 41 megapixel cameras, 720p displays and LTE network speeds, all resulting from intense competitive pres…
Gestures in a mobile context
The amount of transposition required to convert users’ physical actions into digital form has ebbed and flowed over the years.
Command line interfaces were direct: pressing a single key produced the corresponding character on-screen.
The i…
Searching for new UI metaphors
There were few visual interface developments which stood out at Mobile World Congress, not least because the small application developers at the forefront of UI experimentation were noticeably absent. This may be due in part to the increased cost…
Mobile creativity unleashed
Nokia’s PureView 808 in red polycarbonate is a stunningly bold visual statement. The intensity of the colour combines with a bulging, muscular form that is the antithesis of today’s generic slim slates. I cannot stress this enough: it is red…