Henry's Blog

Worms and dirt

2011-01-29T16:39:00.001-08:00

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Henry Chen | Design Researcher | RIM
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Posted via email from hntchen's posterous

DSC_0234

2010-08-11T11:16:00.003-07:00

Caleb is doing a bridge in gymanstics

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Nathan's Drawings

2010-08-11T11:16:00.001-07:00

Nathan doing some finger painting

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closed networks

2009-10-06T22:12:00.001-07:00

back in the day, push to talk phones were popular. the idea was that people were picking nextel networks to be part of this PTT network. on the blackberry platform, we have something called BlackBerry Messenger that allows BlackBerry owners to hold instant conversations with other BlackBerry owners. Its a closed network. To get in on the fun, you have to have a BlackBerry too. But is this another story like PTT? I don't know. Interestingly enough, in Indonesia, people are being BlackBerry devices in droves and Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger usage is surplanting voice calls as the primary functions of those phones. Of course, this might have something to do with pricing plans in that region, but then again...

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Gui vs nui

2009-10-02T00:56:00.001-07:00

Dennis wixon's talk at uxweek 08 and august's recent toronto talk at rotman and ocad returns me to thoughts around graphical UI vs natural UI. For platforms that have to work on both touch and non-touc devices, this is a struggle. Blackberry has non-touch roots and is menu-driven. Its foray into touch is constrained by the legacy of menus. Natural user interfaces of touch devices is characterized by transparency. The interface affords all possible actions; nothing is hidden. Gestures are natural. Affordances are natural. But menus are fundamentally hidden UI. Nokia has the same challenge. Windows mobile has early roots in touch with the pocket pc that was still gui in that the touch aspect was more of a mouse direct manipulation metaphor. So Ppc was menu driven. Iphone and palm are largely NUI. Android interestingly is a mix; most interactions are on the screen but they make use of very light weight menus (5 memu items vs the 50 you might find on BlackBerry). With nokia revamping their OS in a few years, I wonder how they will bridge touch and non-touch into one experience.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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Picture tagging

2009-09-11T19:35:00.001-07:00

I like to post things via my blackberry to posterous, but noticed by using posterous to propogate photos to other social networks, I lost out on the ability to tag people in facebook photos. I wonder if there is a way around that or if that's on the roadmap for posterous.

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Augmented Reality

2009-09-11T15:52:00.001-07:00

http://layar.com/

Is AR the next buzz word or will it change everything?
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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Our ride back home from a hard day's work

2009-09-11T15:26:00.001-07:00

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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Ryan at work; we're back in TO

2009-09-11T15:03:00.001-07:00

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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Ryan on route to ottawa

2009-09-10T03:46:00.001-07:00

My colleague ryan and I are on route to ottawa for field research and brainstorming.
Travel courtesy of west jet.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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Trying out autopopulate

2009-09-07T21:40:00.001-07:00

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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