Hmmmm Chocolate

I love this advert!

Category:

• Advert
• Chocolate

Yessssssss!

Feck me, I'm knackered after "watching" 90 minutes of sheer terror on the BBC's text commentary of Red Star Belgrade v Rangers. A glorious 0:0 draw takes us through to the Champions (ahem) League proper.

Tomorrow night we have the possibility of the deviants getting humped by Spartak Moscow and knocked out. Such an outcome, while temporarily very funny, would probably give them a chance of retaining the SPL crown... mixed emotions ahoy.

Update 31/08/07: What can I say, I watched the deviants match and I can't remember a game I've enjoyed more, recently. Fantastic match, Spartak Moscow are a pretty good side, the crowd were amazing, really amazing, what an atmosphere. Not giving a toss who won helped a lot but in the end the deviants won it with their keeper's performance to thank. It's good for the SPL that they've two clubs in the Champions League and ensures the SPL race is still wide open.

The draw for the group stages.... sheesh. Rangers will do well not to be humiliated by any of those teams. Fingers crossed we can put on a good show.

Category:

• Sport
• Football
• Rangers

The Desk Project, Named!

I've finally selected a name for the Desk Project... Dolphin. This will be the name used for the research, development and design phase of the project but not the final product name if it was ever to go to market :)

Why Dolphin? Well, Dolphins are beautiful creatures, sleek, gorgeous, extremely intelligent, human friendly... need I go on? I like the sound of it, The Dolphin Project, nice! (and I am unanimous on that)

I'll go back and add a "Dolphin" tag to all related posts here and in Flickr where all related project images will be stored.

Category:

• Technology
• Smartspace
• Dolphin

My Desk at Work

The Desk Project continues at pace. I've uploaded a few images of my work desk, before a major tidy up I might add, showing the general state of mayhem that currently exists. You can see the set on Flickr here. I'll post further photos of the desk once I've tidied up.

What's the purpose of all this you might ask. Well, as I've written before, I've been researching people's computer desks. What do they look like, what equipment to they place on the desk, how it's laid out etc. Fascinating to see and I'll use some of the info to help define a "Design Brief" to aid the project.

I've got a vague idea of the main requirements I personally want to see in a desk and you can add your own thoughts to the comments. Next up I'll describe what I dislike in my current desks at both work and home.

Update 24/8/07: I've added more images of my desk at work after a big tidy up and a little bit of rejigging. I've moved the second monitor to the right and moved the drawers to the left. Still to add photos of my home office desk (kept much tidier).

Category:

• Technology
• Smartspace
• Dolphin

The Desk Project

This is a follow-up to the post reminiscing about an old research project I was involved in.

Firstly, I need a project name... something quite brilliant that encapsulates the very essence of cutting edge desk design. It'll take the web by storm and become the de facto computer furniture lust object... I need to think about that (also open to suggestions).

Secondly, I've dug up a couple of slightly better images of the old BT Smartspace project. As you can see it's mainly a big, comfy chair with curved projection screen, including web-cam, for the display and a touch screen tablet device for input. A trackball is also present and in some photos I remember a 3D SpaceMouse was included. I presume the majority of the electronics were contained in the large base. Not the sort of thing you'd want in your house but as I said in the previous post the concept felt really good.



Thirdly, I've been doing a little bit of research into what other people's computer desks/workstations look like, what gear they have, how it's laid out etc. A great resource for gawping at other computer desks is this site dedicated to showing off multi screen set-ups. A real eye opener to some of the crap desks users deposit their expensive computer rigs and gadgets upon. Desks really are the weak link in most of the photos. I think I've stumbled upon a huge, untapped market :)

Category:

• Technology
• Smartspace
• Dolphin

Why Does a Desk Look Like a Desk?

Many years ago (well, 10 actually) I worked for a Design Consultancy in Scotland. One of the projects we had on the go was the potential market realisation of a R&D project from British Telecom's Research Labs. The project was called "Smartspace" and was a sort of workstation come desk come installation which was, initially, to be aimed at specific users such as Stock Exchange Traders, Police and Power Station Control Room Operators etc. The sort of users who required large, multiple screens and powerful computers.

BT themselves envisioned Smartspace as "... a personal working environment for the on-line multimedia age." *Please remember this was 1997 and the Tech boom was just getting up a head of steam and 64K ISDN was the cutting edge*

Sadly, details of this long dead project are very hard to come by with little remaining online about Smartspace and a search through my personal archives turning up nothing much of use. Three images of BT's Smartspace can be seen below. Although details are hard to make out the main features of Smartspace were a large curved screen, surround sound, touch screen interface and a comfy chair all packaged together to immerse the user in the working environment


BT Labs based in Martlesham Heath, England developed the prototype and following favourable public reaction at a few showings decided to license the technology to interested companies willing to take the project to market.

The company I was working for were interested in the project and to this end we made a mock-up of how we thought the concept should look and operate. Using vast amounts of 2x4, foam core board, a car seat from a scrapyard, my old Pentium 150 computer ('cause it had an original 3DFX graphics card add-on for stunning visuals, a game called Forsaken was used to show it off), a borrowed projector (from Dundee Uni, valued at £8000 if memory serves) and a video recorder (running a TV copy of Star Wars or some-such)... it was actually pretty smart. No, seriously, sitting back in the comfy car seat, with a large curved screen (made from foam board) for the visual display and a tilted surface for the keyboard and mouse you really felt immersed in what was going on. Yes the projector was hot and noisy (located above and behind your head), the sound was crap through 2 small computer speakers but the gist of the concept was there, and I really liked it.

Eventually another Design Consultancy from Scotland (ITL, owned by a former lecturer of mine from Glasgow Uni) licensed the "technology" from BT and started to create their product. Here the story goes cold, ITL changed names a few times and I've lost track of whether they still exist, but obviously Smartspace never took off (or got to the runway even).

With today's powerful computers, cheap flat screens, fast broadband, DVD and surround sound a similar beast could be created for a fraction of the cost (ITL touted a figure around £42,500), stop laughing, anything was possible in the '90s... maybe the time is right for a comeback.

Anyhoo, what's the point of all this? Well, I've become increasingly frustrated with my work and home office desks. Their design hasn't really changed since the year dot and when you think about it they're totally unsuitable for modern day computer usage. As a result I want to focus my immense design genius and create the ultimate office desk. Stay tuned for more on this subject soon... er soonish (I hate the pressure of deadlines :)

Category:

• Technology
• Smartspace
• Dolphin

Pack Up Your Troubles

While I was in the US last week I noticed this story on the BBC's website about the last, operational, troops leaving my beloved Norn Iron as security responsibility was firmly in the hands of the Police. Not having lived in Norn Iron for 16 years this turn of events is all but bewildering to me. The changes in my country are immense (none more so than the fact I couldn't afford to live there now) and the economic boom the country is experiencing will only help cement the fledging peace (technically ongoing for nearly 13 years now, but I'd wait a few generations more before calling it a done deal, old habits die hard), I wonder what would happen if the economic situation was less rosy though?

Anyway, the troops are gone and it's up the people of Norn Iron to build on the good things and slowly forget the bad.

PS I thought my post title was quite clever, even for a genius like myself.

Category:

• Politics
• Northern+Ireland

Happy, Happy Days

Got back home yesterday evening after an uneventful return journey Reno-San Francisco-London-Edinburgh-Kirrie. Cold, dark and miserable weather... marvellous. Slept in my own bed, had a cooked breakfast, watched the Grand Prix followed by the Community Shield, had a bath, Still Game... life is great.

SPL kicked off yesterday ICT 0 : 3 Gers followed up today with the Deviants 0 : 0 Killie, Hello, Hello!

Category:

• Travel
• Health
• Football

I am melting!

Currently stuck in Reno, Nevada in the baking heat where the temperature has been over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime since we got here on Saturday from the much more cooler climate that is Silicon Valley in California. In real money we've seen temperatures up to 41 degrees centigrade. That's why the US doesn't give a damn about climate change, another 1 or 2 degrees here and there just doesn't matter. Strangely, because of the altitude and very low humidity, I don't seem to sweat much in Reno (or maybe it just evaporates instantly) still for a fat bastard from Norn Iron this sort of heat is just crazy.

Last week was spent in and around Silicon Valley tidying up some bits of business. Popped into the Apple store in Palo Alto and had a play with the iPhone - quite nice if you like that sort of thing - also saw some fanboys using it in the wild (surfing the Internet with the Minority Report style UI). Not for me though, as my age increases my love of gadgets decreases, just can't be annoyed with all the gimmicks.

Loving the exchange rate :-) I almost pity Americans travelling to the UK and seeing what their dollar can buy them (bugger all).

I fecking love air conditioning!

Category:

• Travel
• Health