Natural disasters are difficult to comprehend, despite hollywood’s best efforts. There is a scale of destruction so complete, a deconstructing of our lives and routines and the order of our environment so vast, that historically only first-hand witnesses could truly understand what happened.
Yet video and photography today is so ubiquitous, and of such high-quality, that this is changing.
In the wake of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami’s which have impacted Japan, their hi-tech shutterbug culture has provided the world, through the internet, with unprecedented access to images and video from the scene. It doesn’t hurt that in a general way, the internet loves Japan as much as Japan loves the internet. Minutes after the first incident – boom – it was getting picked up on Twitter and Facebook.
In the age of YouTube, high powered mobile handsets are now completely valid all-in-one ENG and EFP tools. An iPhone 4 with the latest version of Apple’s iMovie can record adequate 720p video, add titles, record voiceover, and export to a YouTube or CNN iReport channel in the space of an hour. I certainly plan to use these tools this way in the future.
Not so very long ago I described the introduction of the iPad as an important marker on the trail to fully-automatic computing. Early computers were totally manual, describing an abacus for example. There was only hardware – the software, the mathematics, the ‘computing’ was still running in our heads. That was long ago of course, and today user interfaces have evolved to allow for ‘high-concept’ functions to be described and performed over many layers of translation and automation.
Still, it’s a bit odd just how much control we have over our computers. Why, for example, does the average user need to have access to the ‘Program Files’ folder when running Windows? Why, as an end user, do I need to see, and when will I ever need to access, the ‘System’ folder on my Mac? What’s more, if I do decide, when suffering from some bout of digital flu, to go disarranging said files, think of the impairment my system would suffer!
We still suffer from so many design kludges which were at some point deemed necessary during the last two decades of personal computing. Cluttered desktops, web browsers with half-a-dozen spurious toolbars, complicated installs and uninstalls, missing ‘driver’ support, task bars rendered leaden by accidental spam-ware. Isn’t it high time someone figured out how to banish all these holdovers from the PC middle-ages?
Well, as it turns out, we have solved it. We solved it in the mobile space. The vital and immediate core-function of a cellphone, that being the ability to send and receive calls, meant users wouldn’t tolerate a handset taking minutes to turn on, or a constant barrage of error messages. The limitations in processing power and memory (now just being overcome) meant that software designers couldn’t get away with vast and complex programs. Things had to be lean and mean, and it gave us a chance to reinvent the way we write software in general. These were the same limitations, remember, which we faced in the earliest days of the PC, utilizing 64K of memory.
Since the introduction of powerful Android handsets, the iPhone, and iPad, people are finally beginning to ask “Why do I need to install a 16GB operating system (as Windows Vista was), to run a web browser and a word processor?” Why do I need a heavy desktop system that occupies a square meter of desk space and eight million cables?
An excellent question! Why indeed? For the everyday tasks that the average user requires of their system, checking emails, doing a bit of Office work, watching a YouTube clip, why all the miscellany? After all, my phone can do these things in an instant. It’s not at all uncommon to hear people remarking that they have begun to accomplish the majority of their tasks and communications on their phone, while the PC is left for heavy lifting.
At last year’s “D8” (All-Things-Digital Conference), Steve Jobs described PC’s as becoming more like trucks. People still use them for heavy-lifting, they still have a purpose, but there are fewer of them and most prefer cars. Cars are more nimble, more efficient, and often, more fun. This satisfies as an answer to my old question “What will professionals use in the age of iOS?” It’s now clear that there will continue to be a long transition period, perhaps another 10-15 years, where big tower PC’s with many processing cores and high-power graphics will be desired for video editors, heavy gamers, and other large scale number-crunching tasks. But for the web, for email and messaging, for the casual gamer, and for media consumption, these new bird-weight mobile operating systems will fly over the heavy dinosaurs.
The best from the rest:
In separating the crop of upcoming platforms, hardware begins to fall to one side. It’s the software, stupid. The advantage of Apple’s iOS is its vast library of applications and its ease of content delivery. Even perceived limitations in content creation have been ixnayed by the new versions of iMovie and Garageband, demoed with the introduction of iPad 2. They demonstrated the power of these platforms and the creativity which they can facilitate. Until Android’s Honeycomb has an app which allows you to carry around an 8 track portable music studio and a surprisingly competent and quick video editor wherever you go, it simply is no contest which platform to choose. Google may get there, but Apple’s vertical integration and in-house talent will always have an edge where fit and polish is concerned. I can tell you that current trends being what they are, I would much rather have been editing my little YouTube travel ditty’s in the new iMovie than processing it all through Final Cut. In fact, rumor has it that an entirely new, overhauled Final Cut Suite may follow the new iMovie this spring, which may move us one step closer to a professional level touch and gesture based user interface.
I wrote a brief piece when HP announced its upcoming tablet offering, where I said that to compete they would have to design a product so mind-bogglingly good that people would have to be crazy to choose anything else. I believe WebOS has the potential to be that good, but HP will need to make major investments in its own app store and woo developers with everything short of hard drugs and prostitutes (and even then… well…) to get consumers the content creation and absorption apps that they want. All that and for reasonable prices too, and have developers make money off of it. Also, the software has to work. They need to park their car right next to Apple’s on the corner of Technology Street and Liberal Arts Way.
Many tech blogs are just releasing their reviews of Motorola’s Xoom, and once again, it’s all about the software. Motorola can only do so much on the hardware end. At the end of the day, when your device is one big screen, it’s on Google to provide a stable platform. It’s clear that Honeycomb wasn’t quite ready for primetime, and bugs abound. Still, they didn’t want to let Apple ship the iPad 2 without some semblance of competition, so they released a product that was missing key features at launch, and are hoping that by summer it will all get sorted out.
I honestly feel that there is enough room for innovation in this space such that three platforms will be able to co-exist successfully. At the moment it’s looking like iOS, Android, and WebOS.
What about Microsoft? Word on the street is they don’t plan to ship a competitive tablet OS until late 2012, and I’m ok with that. Oddly enough, as Apple and Google have risen in stature, roles have switched, and now the company that everyone loved to hate is being seen as a bit of an underdog. They have the opportunity to step off the radar, and re-focus. Who know’s what they’re working on, but as fast as the tech industry moves, they will still have a chance to step back into the game in 2 years time.
In any case, I suppose all this is to say that if you’re in the market for a new computer, you should think about the kinds of tasks you really want to accomplish on it. If it’s no more than checking email and the Wall Street Journal Online, you may do well with the new iPad.
Where things really start to get interesting, and where I dare not take this post yet, is what computing will look like in 100 years time. What will happen when we tap the optical nerve to display information? When A.I. becomes eerily indistinguishable from human thought? It seems the stuff of science fiction, but as the saying goes, it’s not “if”, but “when?”.
I was going to write some elaborate post about the rise of human-machine interactions and how the whole paradigm will soon change, but I think I’ll shorten it to a few key points.
So HP has just announced three new products. Two smartphones, and a tablet computer. Here’s the video of the announcement – skip to 21 minutes in for the good stuff.
People used to have to choose between Microsoft and Apple, and the vast majority chose Microsoft Windows and became accustomed to that way of working.
Apple, through the trojan horses of iPod and iPhone, introduced millions to their brand, and are now training a new generation to use iOS, which is poised to become the standard consumer OS which will ultimately replace the old “desktop” style of computing.
Google is coming on strong with Android, and will continue to make improvements and claim more marketshare, and probably merge the OS with their Chrome OS to challenge Apple. However they don’t make their own hardware. HTC, Motorola, Samsung and others do it for them.
Microsoft will continue to evolve the Windows experience, but will become increasingly marginalized as people become accustomed to working on other companies handsets and tablets. Without some revolutionary adaptations and innovations, they will falter.
When HP bought Palm, it became just about the only company of its size outside of Apple to have a vertically integrated computing experience. They now have the power to make their own hardware and write their own software under WebOS, and push it to millions of customers across their vast product lines. If they can get developers behind them, and if quality control holds up, they could ultimately replace Windows with WebOS on their consumer products.
WebOS’ strength, as their demonstration yesterday noted, is that multitasking was integrated from day one. I’ve never been satisfied with Apple’s own implementation, and always suspected that when Palm first released the Pre, a few designers over in Cupertino exclaimed “Crap. Why didn’t we think of that?”
It’s a beautiful way to work – natural for a touch tablet interface. Now all HP has to do, as I’ve noted in the past, is design a completely uncompromising product. I’m not sure they’ve done that with the current TouchPad (to be released “this summer”), but they do have the capital to hold on long enough to get a second revision out the door.
Apple always claims to be making the best product they know how – but they don’t ever really. They always build in some headroom. That’s why the first iPad didn’t have any cameras.
But again, as I’ve said in the past, HP needs to build a device that would make consumers absolutely crazy to consider anything else. They need to pull out all the stops, even if they sell it at a loss at first to get traction.
So these are the new OS wars. Apple, Google, Microsoft and Hp competing to provide the best consumer computing experience. I can’t wait to see where this rich competition takes us in 5 years.
I’m in my favorite place – the State Library, and am happy to announce that I’ve decided to stick with Melbourne. I had a rather crippling downswing in my mood at the start of the week, but after some generous conversations and exchanges with friends and locals, I’ve pulled myself up and decided to make the most of it. I’ve got a few job applications out, with some leads to follow up on. The sun has finally come out in “Victoria – the place to be”, and familiar summery sights and smells of the city are boosting my days.
I feared that I had jumped the gun a bit on the Victoria Week announcement. After waiting a few days for a phone call, I followed up with an email to the skipper, and it turned out they had filled the boat and didn’t need crew anymore. Thankfully, I was referred to another boat, Addiciton, an Inglis 37. After a phone call and some beyond-the-call arrangements by some club members at last evening’s race, I will be able to crew Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, with a boat ride back and forth to Geelong Saturday and Wednesday. I had a bit of a trial run on Addiction last night, and it’s a pretty fast boat with a core crew that takes their racing seriously. I should be able to learn a great deal from them.
In other news, Melbourne has begun its annual “Midsumma” festival, an LGBTQ event culminating in a Pride march in early February. The Australian Open is also in full swing, and if I knew a damn thing about Tennis apart from which players are the most attractive, I’d be going. Then again, maybe that’s enough. Isn’t it why most of the crowd turns up?
Concerning the job search – naturally I would love to work “in my field”, whatever that is. I joined an Australian media industry website to search for opportunities, and replied to a few ads for various filmmaking related positions. However, work is work, and whether it’s catering, serving, barista-ing, sweeping, shelving, what-have-you-ing, by the first week in February I hope to have a steady source of income. I will not submit to the traditional Backpacker job of fruit-picking though. There must be something more interesting in this city.
One of my roomie’s from last summer referred me to a fishing charter company which she described as “Still the most fun job I’ve ever had.” With that ebullient exclamation, I inquired about available positions, and so on Friday I will have a “try-out day” with them to see if I can hack it. I start the day at 5:30AM sharp. I’ve also got an application in to a camera shop, I know of an Apple re-seller that needs sales people, and so something should work out somewhere. As a dear friend said, I no longer have the luxury of picking and choosing work based on my whims and mood. By February 1st I need to be clocking serious hours.
Speaking of Apple products, I can’t help but notice the lovely progress in tablet computing that’s been sparked. Tech blogs are crackling with new details about iPad 2, Motorola’s Xoom with Android’s “Honeycomb” OS, and HP is finally making good on its purchase of PALM with two upcoming tablets, a beautiful 7 and 9 incher running webOS.
Because it excites me, I’ll speculate here about what to make of all this:
Do you remember 2007? It’s difficult to recall that odd numbered year, but I was graduating college, and the iPhone was just released. Before then, smart phones were oddly molded plastic bricks with tiny keyboards and a clunky Windows Mobile OS. Palm was still in business and their Treo was still worth considering. The Motorola Q and its successors were considered noteworthy because they were so thin.
Say what you will about Apple, but when the iPhone went on sale they dragged the whole industry from status quo into the future. The current full-touchscreen devices which can email and browse and take such lovely photos so effortlessly exist out of a real competitor in the iPhone.
Remember 2010? I hope you do, it was just last year. Before then, tablet computing was a pipe dream. Bill Gates couldn’t figure out how to make it work. The OS’s just weren’t built for it. No one knew how to make the user interface work. For years people were waiting for Apple to do it. It was the internet’s favorite piece of vaporware. With every new keynote, rumors swirled about that “One more thing…” that would take the form of the future.
Then it actually happened. The iPad was released and people went “Huh…?” It was impossible for the device to live up to expectations. It didn’t have Flash, it didn’t have a camera, or a real keyboard, etc. It wasn’t really a computer, but it wasn’t really a phone. It was sort of a big iPod Touch, but that size made a difference. A year later, people are beginning to understand the iPad, and love what it can do for them. Once again, Apple is dragging the status-quo-villians into the future, and look how quickly they’ve taken up the mantle! Apple knows that the competition is coming fast and fierce and so the next iPad may have a ludicrously dense and sharp display, clocking in at 2048 x 1536 in the space of 9 inches. That’s a feature that is almost guaranteed to silence the naysayers from the e-ink community, and one which even big tech companies like HP will hesitate to top.
Still, as a former Palm fan and user, I would love to see HP make the most out of webOS and nail an amazing tablet computer. Unfortunately, to gain any traction, they’d have to deliver an experience that would simply make the consumer absolutely crazy to consider buying anything else, including an iPad 2. If they really wanted to, they could behave like a company that was betting everything on that product and experience, because the UI has that much potential. But that, I’m afraid, they just won’t do.
Visit Engadget for all the latest hear-say, I’m just too lazy to hyperlink right now. I know I still owe you all a video of a cock-fight from Dumaguete, and I haven’t yet taken a single photo of Melbourne. Oh well.
Until next time, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
(silent update: for the record, I don’t believe that the next iPhone will be a “completely redesigned handset” as Engadget is claiming. Rather, it will be more like an evolution, as the 3Gs was to the iPhone 3G. Better specs, a redesigned antenna, new software tweaks, etc, but mostly the same as the iPhone 4. I’m prepared to be proven wrong.)
I’d like to tell you the story of my photo sorting journey, so that if you find yourself similarly overwhelmed by photo bedlam, you might avoid some of my mistakes.
THE PROBLEM:
Over the past 6 years, since I began rediscovering a love of photography and began living a life worth preserving in pictures (i.e. – not completely boring) I’ve apparently collected some 9,000 digital pictures. About average for many people, if not a somewhat low figure. Still – a lot to sort through.
During those 5 or 6 years, I switched from PC to Mac, from a folder based organizing structure to a software one, from iPhoto to Picasa, and jumped between 3 different hard drives and 3 different OS versions for my laptop. I’ve had to recover from backups, and more recently, I’ve made a mess of my system scanning film into haphazard folders and categories. I’ve experimented with Adobe Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture software, but never stuck to anything, continuing to push off the cleanup until later.
I even discovered an Automator program that would search a given directory for photos and copy them into folders by year-month-date. I ran that with some success, but it seemed to get stuck with a few folders and file types, and I wasn’t sure what I had successfully sorted and what I hadn’t. Essentially, I ended up with a duplicate version of 3/4 of my photos with no human means of discerning what was where – just a cold date.
Well no more! This is your moment Arthur Pewty!
So I read and I researched, and I finally committed to a new order.
THE SOLUTION: Part 1
I began by using the strengths of Google’s Picasa to help me get all the duplicates sorted out. The advantage of Picasa is that it doesn’t try to push your photos around like iPhoto. It uses Google’s search algorithms to find them on your system and display them – wherever they may be – through one window.
Under “Experimental” in the tools area of Picasa you can find a “Show Duplicates” feature. I decided to trust that Google’s definition of “beta” was significantly more advanced than my own (see Gmail) and it paid off. Picasa displayed all the duplicate photos on my system, and with frequent use of the info pane to guarantee that I wasn’t eliminating a more or less “master” version, I was able to more or less consistently eliminate one of the duplicate file structures and not lose anything. That took about 8 hours over the course of a week, deleting photos that sometimes had as many as six duplicate versions on my system. During this time, I was also able to do a very superficial culling of the fold, deleting completely any photos that obviously had no reason to be saved.
Then, through a Finder window, I appraised what I had left and eliminated many of the now empty duplicate folders and structure.
THE SOLUTION: Part 2
As it is my intention to become very much more serious about Photography, and take a whole lot more pictures (adding another 9,000 in the next year doesn’t seem out of the question), I wanted to take advantage of professional grade photo software. Something that allowed me to easily work in batches, to avoid going to Photoshop for intermediate editing, and that could perhaps handle the video that might come out of my future dSLR.
I was impressed with what I had been reading about Apple’s Aperture 3, so I went with that. Apple seems serious about improving the software at a regular pace, and so…
I started by diving off a waterfall without seeing the rocks below. “I know how to use computers! I can figure out any software without issue! It’ll be totally intuitive!”
Not quite. Here’s a tip – read the manual.
For my next trick, I attempted to import my entire Pictures folder, choosing Aperture’s “Import Folders as Projects” feature. This started out well enough. I started the process before I went to bed, and woke up in a groggy panic to discover that I had run out of hard disk space 3/4 of the way through, because I had assumed that Aperture would move the files into its library – but instead it copied them, thus doubling the space requirement. Of course, I had to verify that this was in fact the reason and assuage myself that I didn’t actually lose any files, because I didn’t actually know how Aperture worked even though I was using it.
Big no-no. With one eye winced shut in apprehension, I trashed that Aperture library and collected myself once again.
Finally resolved that there would be no shortcuts, I turned to the wisdom of the internet to see what others had done before. I found a few different blog posts on organizing an Aperture library, and I took a few hours to thoroughly familiarize myself with the software’s basic function before proceeding.
At this blog, I found a system that made sense to me. It provided the right balance between hierarchical, cold, computer structure and human, intuitive ways of thinking about organizing.
Armed with this new information, I took another blog’s advice and started small. One folder, one date, one photo at a time and began carefully importing. I added keywords to each photo, location information, any and all Metadata I could reasonably manage that might help in a search for that content.
So my library now looks like this:
So as Fraser Speirs’ blog suggested, I made a folder for each year, and within that, a folder for each month I had pictures for. In each month I created a project, and if a project required more division, I made an album. I might actually revise this structure and instead of an album, which isn’t divisible further, just make another folder within the project.
I kept telling myself I wouldn’t make a “Miscellaneous” folder, but ultimately it couldn’t be avoided. I just had too many oddball photos of one or two subjects that didn’t make it worth a whole project unto itself. But you can bet I keyworded the hell out of those photos. Also, do include the month and year abbreviation in the “Misc” title, because otherwise when you look at all your projects as tiles in the main menu, you’ll see a few dozen miscellaneous projects without a clear sense of when they’re from.
Bit by bit, day by day, I’ve managed to import from 2005 to 2009.
Once I’m finished, I will be able to take this complete library, able to tackle any future photo job I throw at it, and back it all up using Aperture’s “Vault” system to an external drive.
So that’s that. Crisis once again averted through hard work. So my top tips for sorting your photo library.
1. There are no shortcuts – don’t act from desperation.
2. Read the manual – learn your software before using it.
3. Plan the move – come up with hypothetical roadblocks in your head or on paper before starting.
EXAMPLE: You’re photographing a New Years party. It starts on Dec. 31st and ends on Jan 1st. Which date do you put the photos in? Do you split them up? My answer: NO. Do the human thing. The structure won’t be completely perfect, but who cares. Use the event starting date as reference. Tag the photos well.
4. Work in small batches. One event, one project at a time. Remember rule 1!
5. Stay consistent. Use the same keywords for each concept. Use the same type of structure throughout.
Well, back to sorting. I leave you with this time-lapse video of Jamaica Station via the LIRR that I forgot I had made back in the day.
Bet you thought I was gonna riff on iPhone 4 didn’t you? Well I will in a minute, but first, is it really necessary that my supermarket carry apples from bloody New Zealand?!
Shame on me for not reading the label more closely when buying them. How does one justify shipping apples 9,000 miles when New York State is renown for producing great apples? Sure they’re not yet in season here, but there’s got to be someplace closer. In fact, double shame on me, why am I buying apples when so many other great fruits are in season? Peaches, berries, etc.
I think it would be a great thing if supermarkets limited their selections to local produce available in season, and provided instruction on how to prepare what was available. Why can’t a supermarket be more than a giant pantry? Why can’t they be schools or community centers as well, being involved in the community to foster a more sound food culture?
Anyhow – how’s that iPhone 4 holding up? It seems Consumer Reports and Engadget, among others, have verified the dreaded “Grip of Death” for eliminating your cell signal. Shame on Apple for choosing to bury the story rather than offer kind customer assistance.
If you read my previous article regarding the iPad and the future laid out by its operating system, here’s an update for you. Apple just provided a preview of its new iPhone OS, version 4, and it only serves to solidify my predictions.
Arriving in the Summer for iPhone and in the Fall for iPad, this new OS gives many more API’s to developers, and introduces some key new features. We all saw multitasking coming, that was a given, but it’s a little feature called Folders that shows their hole card with respect to the future of computing.
Folders is a method of grouping applications on your iPhone. Previously, you could have a certain number of home screens, and your apps would be spread between them. You could reposition apps, and “organize” them as much as was possible, but they were somewhat difficult to manage. Now, you can group a bunch of applications, and have them sit behind an icon which represents its contents. Kind of like, well, a folder? Apple is rebuilding navigation from the ground up, although somewhat curiously, it’s going to lead them back where they started.
In addition, Apple’s approach to multitasking is interesting because it doesn’t feature a way to “close” applications. Somehow, the OS is smart enough to manage your active applications and you never have to worry about opening and closing apps, or managing your RAM and system resources. You just switch around at will. I’m still not quite sure how that works.
How curious indeed, that the new OS won’t be arriving on the iPad until the Fall? Look for iPad specific additions to come, tying in with the holiday buying season. iPad and iPhone 4 will be the xmas gifts of 2010.
This is the computer I use at work. Dual 1ghz G4 PowerPC. The display is actually one of two. Sort of nostalgic, and runs pretty well for being almost a decade old.
