http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/05/mcdonalds-interactive-pong-billboard-brings-big-screen-elation/

• chumby
• Pogoplug
• Karotz

I understand why they are grouped together, but the interactive nature of chumby and Karotz bring them closer into the realm that I’m thinking of.

What is fun about the Karotz is that its “display” is not a screen. The “display” is ears that move, a speaker, and lights inside the body of the rabbit. Unfortunately, I believe the users ability to physically interact with the device is limited to passive interactions only, such as watching or listening.

As for the chumby, a user can interact with it both passively and actively, but both the passive and active interactions are limited to the screen any maybe a few buttons, or what we are already familiar with for our devices (such as computers, phones, and pads).

I don’t think that interactive connected reality™ needs to preclude the use of a screen or buttons, as they may be the best or only way to achieve certain kinds of interactions, but I want to think about growing our set of interactions back into ones that are truly more natural.

I’ll end this post with a quote from Craig Yoho (one of my staff). “Physics games and engines are very popular right now. With this project, we can take advantage of the best physics engine ever invented… physics.”

I am certainly not inventing the concept. People have been connecting things to the internet for a long time. I believe MIT or CMU had a soda machine on the internet in the early 1990s (maybe 80s?). Here are two lists maintained by an engineer at google of internet connected soda machines other internet connected machines:
* http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/coke.html
* http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/iam.html

With the recent proliferation of Arduino and other inexpensive microcontrollers, I feel that we will see more and more people connecting things to the internet.

Pachube is a great example of a service that has allowed people to easily share and use vast amounts of shared data (which is being automatically entered by devices created by every day people around the world). A very interesting and timely example is the realtime crowd-sourced radiation monitoring in Japan.
I chose Interactive as the first word of the phrase for emphasis. I really want to spend time thinking about and playing with what exactly that means. There are many permutations. Here are some:

• Real life interaction with a real thing
• Real life interaction with a real thing (that can influence an online/virtual thing)
• Real life interaction with a real thing (that can influence another connected real thing)
• Online interaction with a real thing
• Online interaction with an online/virtual thing (that can influence a real thing)
• Online observation of a real thing
• A real life thing maintaining/representing the state of an online thing or interaction
• An online/virtual thing maintaining/representing the state of an online/virtual thing or interaction
• …

This list can probably be better abstracted. I guess I have a “to do” there. Then again, perhaps someone has already done this. It sounds very user interface, and countless hours of research have already gone into that field. Maybe I can get some help or thoughts from someone who has studied UI.

Again, this entire subject is already very obvious to some, or has been explored thoroughly by others in the past, perhaps there are new variables, or a new environment. I see an inevitable and clear path to ubiquitous Interactive Connected Reality™, and I want to help make it happen.

My current task is to focus on all three words and to make fun stuff/prototypes that make it become a reality. See my following posts for more thoughts as I flush this out more.

I remember trying mintty when it was first released. I don’t remember my issues with it, but I stuck with rxvt. I was recently pointed to it again, and wow! It’s now my primary.

The default color themes are a bit harsh on the eyes though, so I just ported a scheme called zenburn.

Here’s my zenburn .minttyrc

# INFO: http://mintty.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/docs/mintty.1.html#HEAD
Transparency=2
OpaqueWhenFocused=1
FontHeight=11
BoldAsColour=1
Columns=100
Rows=40
# Note: you need xterm-256color
Term=xterm-256color
CursorType=1

# Zenburn scheme - Source: http://slinky.imukuppi.org/zenburnpage/
CursorColour=191,191,191
ForegroundColour=220,220,204
BackgroundColour=63,63,63
Black=63,63,63
Red=112,80,80
Green=96,180,138
Yellow=223,175,143
Blue=80,96,112
Magenta=220,140,195
Cyan=140,208,211
White=220,220,204
BoldBlack=112,144,128
BoldRed=220,163,163
BoldGreen=195,191,159
BoldYellow=240,223,175
BoldBlue=148,191,243
BoldMagenta=236,147,211
BoldCyan=147,224,227
BoldWhite=255,255,255

You can also set this as your vim syntax highlighter with help from the zenburn page.

Read more here: http://code.google.com/p/modpagespeed/

I’m looking forward to playing with it.

http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/08/virtualization-and-over-subscription.html

Their whitepaper is interesting: http://xeround.com/pdf/Xeround_Technical_White_Paper.pdf

Their mention of “patented technology” is kind of a turn off for me. Also, they mention the concept of ACID. That strikes me as an important concept for more than just for databases. I need to read more about SaaS (Software as a Service), as I’m assuming there is something similar.

Now that Facebook has released their tool for updating schemas on the fly, I wonder if it will work with this service, or if it will have to.

Then again, if the DBaaS doesn’t work out, there’s always these potentially handy tools: http://www.maatkit.org/doc/synopsis