Unready Player One

My very first post on this blog was a joke about Facebook games. I mostly stayed away from them, as they felt more like psychology experiments than recreation.

Since then, I've been playing a lot of mobile games. They have some of the same qualities, since free games need to make money somehow. But fortunately, they lack that hard sell you have to keep playing and paying to cheat. But they still have a structure that is built around at least the possibility of selling things. For instance, they’ll have some sort of power-up concept, because it will be easy to sell a power-up to the gamer when they get frustrated. And that’s becoming the accepted style for free mobile games.

It's weird how games can develop their own cultures. I first noticed this in university when some of us found out there was a 3d Tetris. Thing is, it was put out by Nintendo, and they had, well, Nintendified it. In contrast to the original Tetris, which was simple and minimal. When we tried playing it, it prompted the player to choose a character. That just seemed kind of childish. Sure, for a lot of folks this was natural, because they were Nintendo fans who were introduced to the original Tetris that way. But those of us who had loved the game as a work time-waster just felt stupid.

Now I sometimes find myself experiencing a similar clash of gaming cultures. For instance, I’ve wasted many an hour playing the Cell Connect game app. It's a simple abstract puzzle game. After playing it for a while, it was updated, and they've clearly decided to make it more in the style of app and social media games. The changes aren't too intrusive, but they are confusing.

Power up cards? Um, okay. Getting 5% bonus is nice, but it's not as exciting as invulnerability or something. The second card is a raccoon, what the hell does that mean? And now I've leveled up. This isn't an RPG, so I’m not even sure what that could mean.

In short, all these changes have made gaming rather complicated. Ironically, I just came across this article from Wired in which they examine the huge popularity of Fortnite, and argue that it is surprising since it is a fairly complex game,in contrast to lowest-common-denominator games like Angry Birds or Candy Crush. But it seems to me that even games aimed at the mass market have their own complexity, but it is within a culture of its own.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #42

There will come a day when you no longer hear the traditional phone ring, as all phones — whether cell or cordless — are fully electronic. At first, they just use artificial beeps; then later they can use a recording of whatever sound the user wants to notify them of an incoming call.

And then there will come another day, about twenty years later, when you’ll hear that traditional phone ring all the time in all sorts of places, because lots of people thought it would be ironic to use a recording of the phone ring as their ringtone on their cell phones.

Through Rose-Coloured Camera Phones

I'm getting tired of the demonizing of phones and mobile devices in public places. I mean, like any technology, it deserves skepticism and analysis rather than naive acceptance. But a lot of the critiques of phones' effect on society is just scattershot complaining from the memory-challenged.

I'm guessing that young people are dismissing these attacks as just a bit more ageism. But in case any of them are falling for it and believing that the mobiles are the downfall of civilization, I'd like to offer some reassurance. As someone who was there for the pre-mobile era let me clear some things up.

People weren't very social before mobiles.

Listening to Boomers, X-er's and older Millennials, you'd think that the old world was a marvelously social place where public places were full of conversation, and where complete strangers regularly reached out to one another.

Actually, it was an awkward bore, where entertainment was limited to old magazines. Yeah, that's right: the pile of old magazines in every waiting room? You probably thought the reason they're so old is that no one bothers replacing them now that we have phones to entertain us. Nope! They've always been years out of date, but it used to be that people would actually read them, because there was nothing better to do. That's why most people resorted to starting off into space instead. They would have killed for a convenient portable entertainment device. And you would have killed for the person across the room starting at you to have his own entertainment device to divert his gaze.

People weren't more caring

It's not like they were completely cold-hearted, but they weren't any nicer. Perhaps you've heard some of the old shocking stories about bystanders not helping victims? Well those all happened without phones.

People have always been reluctant to get involved with strangers around them. Now, at least they may be using their phones to connect with strangers on the net. Even I'm writing this while sitting in a waiting room. That may be odd, but it's still better than the old way of living in a shell.

Kids weren't very active

Looking at memes on facebook, you'd think that kids once spent all their time doing healthy and wholesome activities outside, then someone gave them phones and it all ended.

I don't know, maybe there was once a golden age of kids' activities, but it would have been decades ago. Keep in mind that TV - and vacuous programming on it - has been widespread since the 60's. Video games were commonplace by the 80's.

Tinder et al have destroyed dating

Look up the "personals ad" concept. People used to look for love using twenty words at the back of a newspaper, right above the ads for escort services. Does that sound better than modern dating apps? And don't even ask about 90's singles phone lines.

Let's Get It On

Today I had quite the misadventure with my new phone.  That's unfortunate, since it was in fact, my first day with my new phone.  In trying to transfer my service from one phone to the other, I was left with neither phone working.

That's extra unfortunate, because it had seemed like such a modern process up until that point.  I ordered the phone and the plan online, it was delivered quickly, and I went back online to activate it.  Having to go to the store and ask questions seemed quite archaic.

The illusion of efficiency was further punctured when I got to the store and had to go through a series of have-you-tried-this and what-happened-when-you-did-this. To quote Dark Helmet, "Even in the future nothing works!"

And then the final revelation that we still live in backwards times: the phone started working as soon as it rebooted, with nothing else having changed.  Yes, that remains the number-one way of fixing things.  That, and take it apart and put it back together again.  And occasionally, just hit it.

I'm not sure what paradigm I'd expect would be the universal way of repairing things in the future. In Star Trek, it's to wave a tricorder at it while saying something incomprehensible. But who knows, maybe the only thing the tricorder does is turn things off and on again.

So I'm wondering how many other things can be fixed by turning them off and on.  Could the economy work that way?  Maybe that's why they promote Buy Nothing Day. Or we could fix the U.S. by turning it off.  Maybe that's what Trump has intended all along. But the big test is people who survive being clinically dead.  They've actually been turned off and on, so I'm assuming that all their problems disappear.

Using My Religion

Last week I saw a woman in a grocery store who was talking on the phone while shopping. That's not unusual these days, of course. And she was wearing a hijab. That's also not unusual these days. But here's what's notable: She had her phone tucked into her hijab so she could talk hands-free, while pushing the cart with both hands.

Of course this is a time when public displays of Islam are controversial, what with Europe having a hissy-fit over the "burkini." Yes, in Canada it was a joke on Little Mosque on the Prairie, but in Europe it's apparently the last straw. So I'm wondering if the phone-hijab will lead to more or less acceptance.

Sure, people who are just looking for something to get angry about will combine their hate of cell phones with their Islamaphobia. But for other people, I think they'll see this as something that humanizes muslims. Yes, they have silly little practical problems just like everyone else, and occasionally come up with clever little ideas.

And this isn't unusual, apparently. I've found that there are a number of practical secrets of hijab wearers, other than the phone trick. They can be used to cover both items and fashion faux pas. For instance, you can cover both earbuds and their wire, and no one will know you're listening to music. And here's the kicker: they'll be the only people on earth who won't be losing Apple's new bluetooth earbuds.

I'd always wondered if hijabs had more practical applications. I've seen women wearing ball caps under them, and wondered if they couldn't combine them into one item. A hijab with a built-in bill, presumably with logos of your favourite team on them, that would probably sell. I can't find any evidence of such things, despite the existence of sports yarmulkes. So there's a revenue source for you, sports teams. Now, my idea of a combined hijab/bike helmet may not be physically possible, so I won't hold my breath. Though I am pleased that there are some oh-so-Canadian knitted toque hijabs.

Let's Pretend I Looked Up A Pokémon Reference And Made It Into A Headline Pun

While I was in Kitchener's Victoria park today, I decided to count people playing Pokemon Go. No, I wasn't spying on people, I just looked for people walking along holding out their phone, glancing between it and their surroundings, looking slightly confused. I counted forty in less than an hour, and that's not counting everyone gathered around the Gazebo which must be the local PokeStop (didn't even have to look that word up - I'm actually learning the game by osmosis.)

I've never been into Pokemon, personally. I was a little too adult when it came out in the late nineties, so now I can't really be one of the adults who are currently playing it. It's unfortunate, because I'm intrigued about a new style of gameplay. But having said that, I signed up for Ingress, the previous agumented-reality game from the same company. I never really got into it, because it seemed like a lot of work to get into. Okay, I have to join a faction, mod my resonator, collect more items, and then maybe, just maybe, I can claim the local portal, that is the statue in the park down the street. So maybe it's not for me. I guess I like my reality either virtual or straight-up.

I find it amusing that people aren't really sure how to react to the game's success. It's a video game, and it's popular with Millennials, so everyone's gut reaction is to hate it. And yet there's a surprising amount of positivity coming out of it. From encouraging people to exercise, to helping them to meet people, It's forcing people to look at gaming in a new way. And anything that pushes Candy Crush off the top of the charts must be a good thing.

And I also I have to congratulate Nintendo. Yes, I usually resent them for overwriting my childhood gaming experience out of the pop-cultural collective memory. But I also have to respect how many times they can get up off the mat by embracing something new. We'll have to remember this ten years from now when their latest console has been a failure and we're still waiting for the latest Zelda game: Don't worry, they'll find a way out of it again, probably with MarioVR.

But Pokemon Go has got me thinking about what other classic games could be turned into an augmented-reality game. How about:

• Pac-man

  Streets make up the maze, and you - as Pac-man - go down the street, eating the dots, and avoiding ghosts. You have to get up early in the morning to get to the dots on your street before anyone else, then wander the back streets looking for power pellets. And just imagine the confusion for non-players when dozens of people suddenly turn and run away down a city street when they see a ghost coming.

• Mario Kart

  Your daily commute will be so much more entertaining when you can fire virtual turtle shells at people.

• Tetris

  Blocks fall from the sky, and you have to slot them between your city's buildings. The great thing about this game is that it will encourage people to go downtown because play will be pretty boring in the suburbs.

• Any MMORPG

  They involve a lot of wandering around exploring, so why not do it in the real world?

• Civilization

  You try to build a little civilization around your home or workplace, and try to conquer your neighbour.

• SimCity

  Instead of zoning a hypothetical city, why not fix the city you actually live in. You don't have to walk through your crappy neighbourhood anymore, just look in your phone and it will show you what the place would look like if you were in charge.

• Grand Theft Auto

  This would have to work with an Uber-style service. Getting a ride will be so much more exciting when you have to stage a virtual carjacking to get it.

• The Sims

  Create a Sim and then escort it through its virtual day. Take it to an actual workplace to do a job, then go to a restaurant to get it virtual food. Now, you hate your life? You can create a better one and actually live it.

A Tiny Window On My World

Everybody agrees that mobile computing is big and important. Everyone and their sibling is using a tablet or a phone. Wait, a tablet? That's so yesterday: I browse the web on a phone now. Ooh, no, not a phone. Google glass...no, I mean a Microsoft Hololens that hasn't been released yet.

By the way, my tablet seems to agree with me on Hololens, since it tried to suggest "hollowness".

So why do so many web sites work so badly on mobile devices? There are so many ways they screw up:

• Tiny little links, particularly lists of words so that you can hardly squeeze your fingertip on one without hitting its neighbours.
• Menus that only appear if you hover your mouse over them, so you don't even know they're there.
• Loading dozens of animations and gratuitous special effects, so your phone is so overloaded you can feel it starting to melt.

But the worst is the pop-up. A window appears in the centre of the page, asking you to subscribe to something or other. But they've positioned the pop-up based on the assumption that you have a desktop screen. So a window that's supposed to be a little message in the middle ends up covering your entire phone. The true frustration sets in if they've programmed the window to stay in the same place even if you try scrolling down the page. Then you end up as a modern Sisyphus, forever scrolling down to get to a "close" button you'll never reach.

I don't understand why this is such a problem. Aside from everyone agreeing that the mobile Net is important, there is plenty of software to help you create web pages that react to the size of the screen. So there's no excuse. In the early days of the Web there was a rule not to bother with a page that needed a minute to load. Well now there should be a rule not to bother with a page that doesn't fit your device.

Teddy Bear Market

By now it's become a popular joke that with Bluetooth headsets for phones, you can no longer tell who is talking on the phone and who is talking to themselves, or some imaginary person. And since our inner cities are dominated by young professionals and those who fall through the cracks in the mental health system, it could believably be either.

Well I've now seen something that looks stranger: a parent talking on the phone, while with a small child. Yesterday I saw a woman pushing a child in a stroller through the grocery store, chatting away. As she got closer, I realized that she was discussing the effect of unemployment numbers on investor confidence.  There was a brief moment when I wondered why she would be discussing that with her kid. He didn't look old enough to understand "going to work," never mind, "consumer confidence impact on rates of return." True, the baby talk that adults use to talk to kids is often as unintelligible as economic jargon, but I quickly realized that she must be in the middle of a call.

I should note: I didn't actually see a Bluetooth headset on her, so it's possible that:

• She was hallucinating an economist who doesn't like children.
• Her child is (or is being groomed to be) an investment prodigy.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Boxsters

This week in poorly-targeted app ads:

What gave them the idea that people using the Weather Network app would be in the market for the most expensive of Porsches?  Do they really think that someone too cheap to pay a dollar for an ad-free weather app is going to buy a $100,000 car?

Let Your Keyboard Slide

okay,i'm trying the new 5 tiles keyboard. It's a new and radically different touch screen keyboard in which there are just 5 keys, and you have to slide between them to form letters. The advantage is that it takes up only a tiny portion of the screen.

supposedly, people have achieved high words per minute, but I'm finding the learning curve rather steep. I seem to remember that it took me a while to learn to touch type. For one thing, i'm learning just how much ive come to rely on some of the features of the sliding typing, such as inserting a space after each word.

Even before the growth of mobile phones, ive always thought that modern technology could do better than the typewriter keyboard as a way of entering text. Something different like chording keyboards could surely work better.

I think this keyboard could be superior to Blackberry style thumb typing. But i won't be quitting slide typing for it. The ultimate keyboard is yet to be created.

Somebody Call Dick Tracy

Apple released its latest iPhones, and they come with improvements in... who cares, they've finally got a watch!  It's still months away though, so we don't know all the details, and so far, it seems a little disappointing.  It looks like... a watch.  It's not as clunky as earlier smart watches, but it still does look like a digital watch, with a big rectangle on a much-thinner strap.

They even kept the little wheel at the side - not to wind it, but as an input device for when the tiny screen would be obscured by using on-screen controls.  Which makes me think: 1. haven't they noticed that those wheels aren't easy to use? Ask me in the middle of the daylight-saving shift if I wouldn't give up the wheel for setting the time with a touch screen.  And 2.  The original Blackberry (the one that looked like a pager) also had a wheel to navigate its functions: just one more reason for them to curse fate.

It sounds like they've got the right idea usability-wise by not just making it a mini-iPhone, and instead giving it a new paradigm.  But stylisticly it's not even as good as Samsung's smartwatches. I guess the disappointment is that the iPhone didn't look like previous phones, mobile or otherwise: it created its own, cleaner style.  That's kind of what the Pebble did with watches.  The iWatch barely even looks better than this fake Windows watch.

Two Tribes

It's amazing how many things in our world come down to dichotomies. Coke/Pepsi, Leno/Letterman, Capitalism/Communism, Edward/Jacob, Bloods/Crips, VI/EMACS, over-the-top/down-the-wall, VHS/Beta, tastes great/less filling, Nintendo/Sega. And now we can add the latest: iPhone/Android.

Except this one isn't really shaping up the same way. For one thing, in each of the other pairings, each side (or its fanbase) was keenly aware of the other side, and had a hate on for them. But not many people really hate Android. A fair number hate Apple and it's devices, but many Android users are only dimly aware of the options. As many have observed, a large number of Android users bought Android phones only because the don't make non-smartphones anymore. As I think I've shown in this blog, Android phones will do anything iPhones will do, though most seem oblivious to it. Everyone knows who Siri is, but how many are aware that pretty much all phones today can respond to voice commands.

And the enthusiasm only seems to go one way.  iPhone users tend to be proud of their products, but you don't see anyone boisterous about Android.  Arguably, the remnants of Blackberry nation have enough pride to give it a bigger impact on society even today.  Huge numbers of people are buying a product that they're not really using, and it's not having much of a cultural impact.

There have been many rivalries where one side is bigger than the other (like Coke vs. Pepsi) or even where one side ultimately wins out over the other (VHS vs. Beta) and there have been rivalries where one side isn't well known (say, Windows vs. Linux.) But I can't think of any other situation where the side that has pop-culture's attention is the one that is far less successful.  You could point to the PC vs. Mac rivalry as one where the users of the winner have no enthusiasm. But Mac users were seen more as an odd cult rather than typical computer users.  For instance, I note that people discussing technology often refer to "iPhones" as shorthand for all smartphones, since everyone knows what an iPhone is, but some people will be confused by smartphone/cell phone/mobile etc.  I couldn't imagine someone in the desktop computer era referring to computers as "Macs," on the assumption people don't know what a PC is.

But, now that I think about it, I do know one similar rivalry situation. And despite the lucky timelines of this example, I swear I hadn't thought of it when I started writing: Android is Tim Duncan to the iPhone's LeBron James.

Apocalypse (Google) Now

I've been continuing to use Google Now, the Android-based software that's supposed to act as a digital assistant.  I've already mentioned my experiences before.  There's been an upgrade, and it seems a little easier to use.  And then just today, I came across this article from the Economist on personal assistant software.

One of its features is that it senses (using GPS) which places you go to often, and then offers directions and travel times to them. So wherever I go, I always know how long it will take to get home. This feature is kind of hit-and-miss. The directions are fine, but it has a bizarre way of deciding which places it should keep track of. A couple of days ago, it offered to keep track of travel distances to Dawson Market, a cafe in Woodstock. I’ve been there a number of times, so I might be interested in directions there. But what odd is that I haven’t been there in months, because it’s been closed for renovations. What caused Google Now to just decide it was important to me?

It's also hit-and-miss when it gives me time updates.  For instance, it figured out that I often go to my hairstylist. (What?  I do have some hair, and it has to be cut.)  Of course, it might be useful to get traffic times to get there.  But it's not smart enough to figure out which places I go to at which times.  It would be useful if it noticed that I only go there at times I have marked in the calendar, and then only gave me updates when my appointment is coming up.  But it can't figure that out, it just gives me all the traffic updates it can, all the time.

Another of the places it keeps track of is my parents' house, and I was quite surprised when it suddenly told me that it would take ten-and-a-half hours to get there, rather than the 50 minutes it usually takes. So what caused that, a massive traffic jam on the back roads of Southern Ontario?

No, here's what happened: In looking through the configuration screens, it asked how I usually get around, with the options being walking, cycling, driving, and public transit. As a downtown resident, I answered it truthfully as walking. So now it thinks that every trip I take is by foot.

Cellevator

It just occurred to me that in the year since I've had this (mobile) phone, I don't think I've used it in the elevator yet. That may seem like an odd thing to point out, I realize.  But when I was non-mobile - on the tech outside looking in - the elevator was one of the prime places I saw people using their phones. Many people would whip the phone out before the doors had even closed, and be going through texts or tweets or something.

Elevators have always been awkward spaces for me; I'm unsure if I should start a conversation, or just watch the floors go by. Phones changed all that. I didn't have to worry about conversations when everyone else steps in and immediately buries their faces in their phones.  I assumed I'd eagerly take up this behaviour too, but it never did happen.  There never seems to be anything I can look up on the phone that can't wait the one minute until I get to my apartment.

The Electronic Slide

A new feature I've been using on my phone is trace typing. On the standard Android virtual keyboard, you don't have to hit each key individually, Blackberry-typing-style. Instead, you can just slide your finger/thumb over the keyboard to each of the letters in your word. It will infer from the path which word you meant. I don't know many devices this is available on; even if it has Android, a phone/tablet may have a proprietary keyboard, so it may not work for you. But you can still download Google's standard Android keyboard.

I've been critical of phone technology in the past, and recently of Google itself, but I have to admit, I'm amazed at how well this works. I've been using the slide technique to type this entire article so far, and although I've had to retype the odd word when my movements were a little careless, it's managed to recognize each word. In fact, it's very good at interpreting sloppy traces around the keyboard, even when my thumb careens wildly around resembling Tim Tebow's throwing motion. For instance, when I typed, "movements" I just sent my thumb back and forth across the board, only in the general direction of the needed keys, yet it somehow made sense my virtual scribble.

It's taken some getting used to. Twenty years of touch typing have left my brain with no conscious awareness of where the letters on a qwerty keyboard are. So I sometimes forget where I'm going half way through a word, and make a wrong turn. Yet it manages to figure out my intentions anyway a lot of the time. Okay, as I'm typing that, I had one of those lost moments, and turned "intentions" into "injunctions."

My point is, this is the opposite of so much artificially intelligent things that try to be helpful but misunderstands you even when you're trying to be clear. Finally here's A.I. tech that exceeds expectations.

Monday Morning CEO

One big item of tech news this week - at least in this part of the world - was that RIM Blackberry is formally looking at its options for the future, including going private.  It's been hard to get news about Blackberry from the mainstream media lately, because they feel the need to begin every Blackberry story with a recap of its fall from grace, as if we didn't already know.  I realize not everyone follows the tech biz, but surely everyone knows the basics of this story by now.  They didn't begin every story on Pamela Wallin's expenses scandal with a recap of how she was once a journalist.

But since we are rehashing the company's history, it's as good a time as any to look at where RIM went wrong (not a mistake, it was called RIM then.)  Wired offered a recap of its mistakes, but I'm not sure it really explains things.  Each error they illustrate is bad, but not exactly Edselesque.  This brings up a couple of possibilities that we should consider when examining RIM/Blackberry's path:

1. Maybe they were just screwed from the start.

I know that seems defeatist, but is it possible that they had no more chance against Apple and Android than a mom-and-pop store against Walmart?  Really, I doubt RIM was completely without hope, but the assumption has always been that they had the advantage as the first mover in the industry.  I would suggest that even if you're the first in a market, you don't have the advantage when companies with deep pockets and strong reputations invade.

2. Management is not all about strategy.

We tend to think about good and bad corporate management in terms of the decisions they make.  Launch this product, sell this division, enter this market.  But the success is also due to the environment they produce within the company.  Have they organized the company to make best use of their employees?  To be clear, I don't know about the inner workings of Blackberry, and have not talked about them with the people I know who have worked there. But certainly the company's delayed products, as well as the infamous 2011 anonymous letter to management do hint that the company isn't working efficiently.

Serenity (Google) Now

I've had a bit more experience with Google Now, the feature of the Android operating system to give you unsolicited advice and updates.  A lot of people seem to be calling its personalization "creepy," but I just find its behaviour strange:

• It notices when you frequently visit the same place, and begins giving you updates on the driving time (given current traffic conditions) to that location.  I found that it was constantly giving me updates on the driving time to my doctor's office.  That's odd, since I only visit my doctor every few months at most.  I've heard the stories about how Google can figure out where there are flu outbreaks by detecting people searching for their symptoms, so I'm staring to wonder if Google knows something about my health that I don't.  But then I realized: my doctor's office is in a shopping plaza, along with a supermarket I frequent.  So it thinks I'm constantly going to my doctor when I go grocery shopping.
• During the Champions' League final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, I - like most of humanity - asked the question, "Where the hell is Dortmund?"  So I consulted Google, and discovered that it's the largest city in the Ruhr area, a densely-populated area near the Netherlands border.  The next time I looked at my phone, it asked if I wanted to add Borussia Dortmund to the list of teams I get updates on.
• Similarly, I recently saw a news update on Blue Jays' shortstop Jose Reyes, who is recuperating from an injury by playing in the minor leagues for the Buffalo Bisons.  And I said, "What's up with the Bisons' uniforms?"   They were orange and had some octagonal symbol on the back in place of a number.  I consulted Google, and found that this was their annual Star Wars Night.  And the next time I look at my phone, it's telling me the driving time to the Bison's home stadium.

Tech History (May) Repeat Itself

Facebook made a big announcement today about their new phone initiative.  They had long been rumoured to be working on a phone, and been denying they were working on one for just as long.  So some people thought it would just be a new app.  But they recently modified their Android app to remove all the suck.

It turned out both sides were sort-of right.  They announced a new "home screen" for Android, which will let people see their Facebook stuff without going into their Facebook app.  It will come standard on some new phones.  The reports I've read haven't been clear but I'm assuming you can also download it too.  But the fact that they seem to be stressing the fact that it comes on new phones makes it seem that they'd like to be a major part of your phone purchase decision.

Will it be successful?  My first thought is, no.  The whole thing makes me think of Microsoft Bob.  For you young'uns out there, Bob was a new, easier computer interface for people who found even the then-new Windows desktop too confusing.  Instead of the metaphor of a desktop with folders and files and a garbage can, it used the metaphor of a person walking around a house.  It sounds foolish to admit this now, but at the time I assumed Bob would become a standard part of computing, much the same way we became stuck with Windows whether we liked it or not.

Of course, it didn't happen that way.  Bob was soundly rejected, and came to be the tech industry's equivalent of the Edsel.  And that contributed to the widely-held notion that Microsoft can't create any new product on their own, and need someone else - usually Apple - to create the prototype.

Anyway, that's why I'm a little afraid that the Facebook homepage or whatever it's called might be something we're all stuck with, but also why I'm reassured that we won't be.  Having said that though, there are a couple of reasons why it might yet work.

In a Wired writeup on it, they emphasize that the Facebook phone will be seen as the easy way to use the Internet, since that is essentially what Facebook itself is: a simpler, easier version of the Internet.  That in itself is not a very convincing argument.  You know who else had that "Internet, but easier" strategy?  AOL.  And it worked for them for a while, until people got comfortable with computers and the Internet and found other options.  What's more, Facebook users - while not as young and hip as stereotyped - are not exactly the elderly tech-newcomers that were AOL's bread-and-butter.

But Wired's "Facebook makes things easy" article dovetails nicely with another article of theirs that illustrates the shocking disparity between Android and iPhone users.  It turns out that although there are twice as many Android users, iPhone users do double the web surfing.  That seems to play into the perception that iPhone users are looking for a device that does lots of things, while Android users just buy a phone and don't really know or care what it does.

In that case an Android phone that does things easily and without that fuss of downloading apps and figuring out how they work, could be successful.  Add to that the phone makers need for differentiation:  they love Android because it's cheap but popular, but they hate the fact that if you make Android phones, you're competing with all the other makers of Android phones making the same product.  They wish they could mark up the price for a well known brand the way Apple can, but really they're making the equivalent of a no-name phone.  That's why Android phone and tablets have the so-called "crapware": apps and widgets supplied by the manufacturer to try to make their Android phone seem different from their competitor's Android phone.  The Facebook homepage would be a great way to make your product to stand out, so you know manufacturers are going to give it the promotion it needs to survive.

Slip-Sliding Away

For a long time, the "drag" concept has been abused by software developers.  If you don't like the tool bar at the top of the window, you can drag it to the bottom.  If you don't like the order the buttons are in, you can drag them into another order.  It's easier for the designers than having some super-complicated "preferences" dialog box that the user has to hunt through the menus to find.

The problem with dragging is that on modern software, everything is draggable, so there's a good chance of mistakenly using the feature.  You go to press a button on the toolbar, but your hand slips at the wrong time, and you end up dragging the button off the toolbar, and you have no idea how to get it back.  Sure, it's not often that you make that mistake, but it's probably more common than deciding you want to rearrange the buttons.

It seems that for mobile devices, "sliding" is going to be the technique that developers over-use.  The big user-experience challenge on phones and tablets is coping with the small screens, and an easy solution is allowing the user to switch between different displays by swiping the screen as if pushing the screen to the side.

But using the Toronto Star mobile web page today, I realized the problems with that.  They currently have it set up so that you can pan down the screen to scroll through the article (as with any web page) or you can swipe horizontally to get to the next article.  It sounds like a good arrangement, but it's not implemented very well, for the simple reason that it can't seem to figure out which way you're swiping.  If your finger isn't moving directly up or down right from the start of the swipe, it starts the screen moving to the side, and doesn't seem to notice that the rest of your movement is vertical.  So instead of reading the second paragraph of the article about new money designs, I'm reading about how the TTC is struggling to keep pigeons out of the subway.

So developers, please don't abuse this concept any further.  Restrict yourself to only one dimension of movement, say.

I Am Not Amused

I previously mentioned that I've been using Google Now on my phone.  That's Google's artificially-somewhat-intelligent personal assistant app.  For the most part, it just sits in wait and occasionally offers a helpful hint, such as the time it will take to drive home under current traffic and weather conditions.  But there have been some strange moments.  For instance, on February 1st, it told me I'd walked 16 miles during the month of January, up six miles from December.

But the real head-scratcher came with the traffic predictions.  Generally it's been pretty good at understanding which places I drive to on a regular basis.  But recently I got a warning that it was time to leave for an event listed in my calendar.  This was an hour and twenty minutes to go, which seemed odd since I had set the event's location as "Victoria Park", which I live within sight of.  I had been planning on leaving ten minutes early.  The warning came with a place on the screen to press for driving directions, so I tapped it just to see what kind of circuitous directions it would give me.

It turned out that it had ignored the Victoria Park I live next to.  Instead it had assumed I meant Victoria Park in London, Ontario - a city I don't often get to, and I don't think I've ever been to its Victoria Park.  All this in spite of the fact that I did a fair amount of those 16 miles of walking in this Victoria Park.