Chris Miller » PDA

iPhone – Masturabatory pleasure for Mac enthusiasts

Chris — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:31:43 +0000

Well it had to happen some time, and eventually it has. Apple have released initial details at their Keynote of the new iPhone which will be a combination of the video/photo iPod and a mobile phone.

The overview given on the Apple site looks very nice. The device itself, if it works as detailed, will allow all control to take place with the use of your fingers – there’s no stylus in sight. Other fine looking features are the text message displays which look like an iChat conversation showing previous text messages you’ve recieved from the same contact; and self-reorientation of the screen – switching between either portrait or landscape based upon how the device is held.

It’s obvious to me that someone has dropped a large weight onto a PDA, Mac Book, mobile phone and an iPod and that this device is the result. It looks nice and it seems to be brimming with features. Let’s hope they make it and soon. Where can I preorder one?
- Chris

XDA Exec

Chris — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 00:57:22 +0000

I’ve not long since ordered a new phone/PDA. I’ve been looking to get a PDA since starting my project which will make use of PDAs extensivley as a platform for testing. Since then I’ve been on the lookout for a good PDA to grab.

Also on the agenda has been getting a new mobile phone, after looking around for a while I found the perfect (or so it seems) fusion of the two: the XDA Exec.

The Exec is the O2 version of the i-mate JasJar and boasts the same list of impresive features. I managed to pick mine up with a contract for less than a quarter of the £600+ that would be required to buy a JasJar alone.

It should hopefully arrive on Tuesday morning and I can have a play around with it then. I’ll post more about the workings of the device then. For now look at the purty pictures above.
- Chris

3D Sonification with Gestures

Chris — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 17:16:24 +0000

The time has come again at University to start thinking about projects for the year. My project takes a different spin this time round, it has to be researched based (with a big stint of readings to do before producing a proposal) and will be conducted over the Summer for 14 weeks.

The project I’m undertaking is entitled 3D Sonification with Gestures. It is a self proposed project which myself and Steve Brewster came up with, and thus Steve will be supervising the project.

I wrote a small blurb (below) which presents the main idea of the project, which was then submitted to the projects coordinator (who this year happens to be David Watt) and it was accepted.

There has been a lot of work over recent years into the use of gestures with computers, work in this area continues and is constantly being integrated with different technologies and other types of interactions to create new and more sophisticated interactions between humans and computers.

The project proposed here is to combine gestures with sonification on a handheld device such as a PDA for an application such as the browsing and selection of music through the use of 3D spacial audio.

The research would study the effectiveness of use of 3D spacial audio for the selection of items which are placed around a user at different angles and distances, the study would specifically look into the way in which users would use such a system and any possible implications in the area of handheld/mobile devices.

My project proposal has to be finished and in for the 2nd May and the whole project and dissertation finished for the 11th September. Hopefully I’ll get a fair bit of reading done over Christmas (but is that really likely?).
- Chris