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Kinect’s Gesture Interface is Dictation All Over Again

After months of mind-bending Kinect hacks, Microsoft made good on their promise last month and released the Kinect for Windows SDK Beta, opening the floodgates for gesture-enabled everything. Which raises the question - do we want this?

Not long ago Microsoft added a Kinect interface for Netflix, Last.fm, and other multimedia apps to the Xbox 360 (after much popular demand). Users can browse recommended videos, skip tracks, and control playback by voice or by wacky arm waving.

Let’s get this out of the way: I’ve always been awed by the Kinect. The implications of hardware that can accurately provide skeletal tracking and intelligent gesture interpretation are astounding. It is, at the very least, groundbreaking. The first time I waved my hand, clutching a pizza slice, to start a Netflix movie, I had a real “I’m in the future” moment.

But then I remembered back on the early days of voice commands on the PC (and now in mobile), a technology that has been with us for years. In 1997, Dragon NaturallySpeaking struck many as a portent of the future in a way eerily similar to the Kinect fad now - it allowed us to interface with computers effortlessly, in the most natural way imaginable. With our voice.

Fast-forward 15 years and voice recognition - though exponentially more powerful and capable than ever - is a niche technology at best. Quite unlike Ray Kurzweil’s famous prediction that by 2009 most text would be transcribed via voice recognition, the average consumer is only exposed to this interface when making a Bluetooth call or frustratedly stumbling through a tech support tree on the phone. Authors, journalists, and students by and large wouldn’t touch commercial dictation technologies with a 10-foot pole.

The key to the comparison between voice recognition and gesture recognition is to understand that technology is not the issue. For the average speaker, modern voice recognition software provides stunning accuracy and speed. The issue is fidelity. Simply put, human speech is low-fidelity even when interpreted by other humans: nuances of emotion (and hence punctuation and emphasis) are frequently misunderstood. A computer cannot be asked to interpret punctuation as a user dictates because the user’s speech simply does not contain that data. So the dictating user is required to revisit his or her document and arduously edit it for style, punctuation, and mechanics. The technology is no less stunning becuase of this, but it is simply not convenient enough to be competitive with a manual keyboard.

I believe the same is true of the Kinect. While for certain very narrow applications (bowling games, browsing highly-graphical menus, dance/workout games) it is absolutely ideal and demonstrably superior to an analog controller, the same cannot be said of the broader range of typical computing applications. A shooter requires a level of control fidelity that the human body cannot perform discernibly in a vacuum. A racing game requires not just steering, but braking and acceleration and view manipulation. All this detail must be delivered to the game in near-zero latency, and must be performable by the user as an instinctive reaction.

None of this is to say that Kinect is a bad product or anything less than a stunning piece of technology. However, given the above I look at the Kinect’s Guinness record and wonder - could the Kinect 2 possibly achieve the same? How many Kinect users never bought another game after they played the bundled copies?

If there’s a future for the technologies behind Kinect, I expect we’ll see it crop up in gesture-enabled televisions that - like voice dial in cell phones - enables users to interact with the system (volume, changing channels, pausing, etc) with high accuracy but a relatively low set of commands. A TV with gesture recognition built-in would let me change the channels with greasy hands or raise the volume without looking for the remote. But you can take this one to the bank: Kinect’s future is absolutely in relatively narrow applications to specific markets and niche needs, not as a universal gaming peripheral or even consumer device.

Google debuts their all-new social offering, Google+

After rumors filtering in for months, starting MG Siegler’s scoop at TechCrunch, Google has finally taken the wraps off their all-new social offering, dubbed “Google+”. So what’s in the box?

Google+ is a unifying service that will over time combine the social elements of Gmail, Google Talk, Buzz, and Google Profiles into one wrapper. The centerpiece of Google+ is a black bar that sits across the top of Google properties - part of an ongoing visual refresh of core Google tools. This bar provides shortcuts to Gmail, Calendars, Reader, and other Google properties as well as a new link to “+You” and a Notifications drop-down a la Facebook.

The +You link takes you to the Google+ stream, which is not surprisingly similar in concept and appearance to the Facebook News Feed. And much of the service echoes this overall homage to Google+’s predecessor - each + user has a profile page which is broken down into a Stream, and About Me page, Photos, Videos, and links to +1s and Buzz posts. However, apart from the overall interface, Google has set out to make some clear distinctions between the Google way and the Facebook way.

The core differentiation (and arguably the core of the entire network) is “Circles,” Google’s hybrid of Facebook Groups and Twitter’s follower model. Users can add any publicly listed user to any combination of their Circles (friends, acquaintances, or - as the tutorial suggests - “Epic Bros.” Adding a user will pull all of their public posts into the Stream. In turn, users can restrict which of their Circles (public, all circles, “extended” circles, or specific circles) a post goes to. Your parents never have to see your college party pictures again.

Besides Circles, Google+ includes a bevy of group-oriented features targeted at multimedia and mobile. “Hangouts” are ad-hoc group video chats that take place in-browser. “Huddle” is a mobile-targeted group chat within circles. Pictures taken in Google+ apps on Android (and eventually other platforms) will be instantly updated directly to the stream.

The service is available by invitation only during the beta rollout. More information is available directly from Google via the Google Blog and accompanying videos.

Amazon Can Beat the iPad

At the risk of giving away the ending, the Xoom is not going to beat the iPad. It’s not that the Xoom isn’t a compelling device (though I would argue it’s barely a competitive one) - it’s simply that it’s attacking Apple where Apple is strongest.

You don’t beat the iPad by playing to its strengths. The Xoom attempts to copy the iPad but falls short on user experience, polish, price, and even functionality (once apps are taken into consideration). These are the places where the iPad is strongest.

So who can beat the iPad, and how? The “who,” at least for now, is Amazon. The “how” is the Kindle. Or, rather, the Kindle as it could be.

Amazon is positioned to compete with Apple in the tablet space more than Motorola, more than HP, more than even Google or Microsoft. 

Amazon already has the pieces in place: they have a killer distribution network (Amazon.com) in place to counter the App Store. They have a wide range of retail partners in place for customers to try their device in person. They have experience pushing price-aggressive hardware with the Kindle. They have an extensive digital content library spanning both audio, video, and now apps, and legions of customers with credit cards enabled for one-click purchasing. They also - and this counts - are not Apple.

Apple was once upon a time a relatively countercultural company. Macs were a sign of computing defiance. “Think Different” meant something basic and literal. Now, iPads are on every flight and iPhones are more common than drinks in most restaurants. Apple has built up a large and vocal opposition, most of whom are foaming at the mouth searching for a viable iPad killer. The problem is that to date, most iPad killers are really just iPad wannabes.

Here is how you differentiate a tablet from the iPad and appeal to these geeks at the same time:

1. Don’t try to be “thinner than the iPad 2”. Apple will probably win.
2. Don’t try to outperform the iPad 2 - Apple will probably win. Especially in 3D graphics.
3. Do make it lighter than the iPad 2. Preferably a lot.
4. Do give it a switchable-backlight LCD or equivalent technology (like the Pixel Qi). Remember, this is a Kindle.
5. Don’t pre-load Flash.
6. Package a Kindle app (with in-app shopping), a killer web browser, and basic PIM and media apps.
7. Sell it for as little as possible, even if it’s barely profitable. $299 would be a hell of a price point.
8. That’s all.

The moral of the story is that if you have to undercut the iPad 2 on price (which you do), you are also going to have to undercut the iPad 2 on features. This is okay. In fact, it’s a good thing. 

Remember when Nintendo sold a trillion Wiis even though the PS3 was better at everything? Then could do that because the Wii lacked features that drove cost up, but not features that drove consumers away.

The proof that Amazon can do this is that they already are - people are buying Kindles in addition to iPads. Hell, even John Gruber has a Kindle. This is because - deep breath - it’s more satisfying to read on a Kindle. 

But the Kindle does not offer a feature set that makes it a viable replacement for an iPad, so people buy both. What if they didn’t have to? If a Kindle could do enough - not everything, but enough - of what an iPad does, and still retain the essence of a Kindle, it would sell a lot. As long as it was cheap.

The essence of a Kindle is long battery life, an e-ink display, and wireless syncing.

The essence of an iPad is a vibrant color display, a thriving multimedia ecosystem, and robust web and PIM software.

You don’t need aluminum unibody design, Flash, dual cameras or even a particularly fast processor to do that. Just make a Kindle with a switchable screen, a Webkit browser, and access to Amazon apps, music, and movies. You’re done.

(Addendum the First: If all of this sounds an awful lot like a Nook Color, that’s because Barnes and Noble gets it. But I think you need a matte, e-ink screen.)

(Addendum the Second: I do understand that there is a very real contingent out there who prefer reading on the iPad to a Kindle. I count myself part of this group. I don’t mind the weight, like having a backlight, and don’t mind the experience of reading on the screen. I do wish the text was sharper, but that’s a minor complaint. Here’s the thing: The “cheap” version of the iPad exists already: It’s the Nook Color, and it’s $249. I think what it lacks is a differentiator to make it more than an iPad, which is what an e-ink screen could provide.)

Two Things the PC Should Borrow from iOS

Ever since Apple unveiled Lion last year, there has been a fairly predictable range of reactions to the basic concept. Apple’s tagline for the OS is “Back To The Mac,” symbolic of a general philosophy that the best ideas from iOS should come full-circle to the Mac.

Some of these ideas are pretty universally regarded as great. For example, instant-on computing and always-saved documents should have been added to modern operating systems years ago.

Others have been ridiculed, perhaps rightly. The LaunchPad adds further confusion to the processing of installing and running Mac apps. (Where do my apps live? On the Dock? In the Applications folder? On the LaunchPad?) The Mission Control idea is solid, but it confounds the desktop metaphor and adds to a suite of features that reek of being developed for a whiz-bang keynote. Remember seeing Scott Forstall tripping over the gestures on the Magic Mouse at the keynote?

To be fair, I do think that LaunchPad and Mission Control are targeted at the problems stated (the confusion about where apps live and the lack of utility of the current Spaces, Dashboard, and Expose implementations). Time will tell whether these are a step in the right direction or whether they merely compound the problem.

As someone who works primarily on an iMac but uses an iPad for almost all non-work computing, a few other ideas have occurred to me that the desktop could bear to borrow from the Mac. Some of these are implemented to some extent or another in OSX or Windows, but none of them (as far as I know) work as reliably and consistently on the desktop as they do on iOS.

1. Notifications

iOS’s notifications are famously bad. They are modal, essentially non-interactive, they don’t persist when interrupted, and they leave very little flexibility to the developer. But nevertheless, iOS has a consistent, reliable way to deliver both local and remote (push) notifications, regardless of whether the app is active.

The desktop OS needs this. While PCs have system-tray notifications (bubble pop ups) and, in Windows 7, jump lists, these depend on helper apps, systray icons, and/or leaving the app running. They are also minimally interactive, are not logged, and are typically transient (such as systray popups which fade before you notice them).

On the Mac, Growl is a popular third-party solution which is aesthetically appealing and widely supported by other apps. However, it is not very interactive, unintuitive and laborious to configure, and is not supported at the OS level.

Android and webOS devices provide a good model here. Typically these devices have some kind of pull-down (or up) notification tray which logs missed notifications and provides sensible interaction options (reply to a text, snooze an alarm, kill a background process, etc.).

These are devices which are chronically starved of CPU resources, memory, screen real-estate, and battery. It makes all the sense in the world that they would evolve to handle interacting with common tasks with minimal actual application interaction to preserve all of these resources. However, the desktop could do much more with the same sort of notification system.

Imagine, if you will: when you hit the Expose button on a Lion Mac (which I can only assume will be remapped to Mission Control), a pane at the top or bottom of the screen shows active notifications. Stylistically,this could resemble the iOS multitasking menu. Here, you would see all notifications, even for apps not running (via a system-level push/local notifications API): missed iChat messages, FaceTime calls, red-banged emails, failed backups, active filesystem actions (downloads, copies), etc. A subtle desktop popover or menubar alert would tell the user when there are unviewed notifications; Mission Control would track the log and provide interaction options (type your iChat response directly, run the backup,tell the filesystem to “replace all”).

This is a relatively low-cost way to provide important information to the user without interrupting workflows, popping up modals, leaving the current app, or relying on cryptic and annoying Dock icons (bouncing up and down like a jack-russel-fucking-terrier).

2. Audio APIs

Something happened to me today when I tried to join a conference call in Skype. After five solid minutes of fiddling, I couldn’t get Skype for Mac or Windows to recognize the device. I eventually gave up and used my integrated speakers and mic.

I have a Creative USB headset which I used extensively in a former life for VOIP. However, since I got my iPhone and iPad, I haven’t plugged an audio device of any kind (besides my desktop speakers) into a computer in years.

On an iPad, if you have headphones plugged in, it will play through those. If you have Bluetooth headphones paired, it will play through those. Have you ever tried using Bluetooth audio on a Mac or PC? It involves endless control panels with dozens of sliders, incoherent binary toggles, and endless menus. On iOS, there is always a simple button next to the volume slider that lists all connected (and remote via Bluetooth or AirPlay) audio devices. It is nearly zero-configuration, it is easy, and it works well.

I understand that fundamentally the audio interface on an iPad is simpler, and USB audio will always be a trickier beast than a single 3.5mm input/output jack. but desktop computers are not just “more complicated” when it comes to audio - they are obtuse, frustrating and effectively impossible.

Another example: when you are listening to music on iOS, hitting pause will pause it. It doesn’t matter if it is the iPod app, a YouTube video, Pandora, GarageBand or djay (I was pleasantly surprised the first time I accidentally backgrounded djay, and I was delighted when I found that pausing or changing tracks used the app’s vinyl transition effects).

On the Mac, play/pause is mapped to iTunes and often has a 2-3 second delay even on my quad-core i7. If you are watching a full-screen Netflix video and hit pause, iTunes will launch and start playing. If you are listening to Pandora or Last.fm and hit pause, iTunes will launch and start playing.

This is stupid. Why doesn’t my quad-core desktop with 12GB of RAM understand what app is playing music as well as my smartphone? (It’s not any better on Windows, but Microsoft doesn’t mandate that Windows keyboards include media buttons.)

These are just a couple of examples. I’m quite sure there are many, many more. My point, though, is that “Back To The Mac” shouldn’t and doesn’t have to mean we give OSX icon-grid app launching and mouse-heavy hunt and click navigation. It shouldn’t even mean we obsessively copy iOS sliders and toolbar icons and inverted scrolling behavior. It should mean we observe what evolved on devices with severely limited resources, and think seriously about what that can do for devices with tremendous amounts of screen real estate and brute processing power to spare.

Apple clearly gets this, and has made/is making strides in the right direction with auto-save, file versioning, and the app-store. But: How long do we have to wait for a computer to delight us the way our first iPhone did?

The iPad 2

The iPad 2 is a curious device to review. Pure performance numbers are almost meaningless without a context against which to measure them. Ecosystem metrics (600,000 apps? 20,000 good apps? Upset booksellers? Infuriated developers?) provide an indicator, but in a nascent market - and, let there be no mistake, the tablet/slate market is a nascent market - they are subject to rapid change.

The iPad was a monolithic device. It hit the market with a singular design and simple execution, and for a full year has been essentially given free reign to lure in consumers. Unlike the competition (Such as the Xoom) who are trying desperately to steal the iPad’s mindshare, the iPad 2 only has to live up to the original. Other tablets have to excel to beat the iPad: the iPad 2 only needs to not disappoint.

Spoiler: the iPad 2 does not disappoint.

I intend to write another post for this, but suffice it to say I’m not new to tablets. I bought a Toshiba Portege 3505 convertible Tablet PC in 2001. Back then it wasn’t tablet computing or slate computing - it was “pen-based (or “penabled”) computing. I remember enthusiastically agreeing with Bill Gates’ prognostication that by 2005, the majority of portable computers would be convertible-style.

Looking back, this feels an awful lot like Microsoft’s recent attempt to push touch-sensitive displays and Windows slates, as if “touch” is a feature of traditional computers. It’s not, and shouldn’t be. Microsoft won’t be allowed into this market until they get that.

The iPad was the first real entry of tablets into the consumer conscious, just like the iPod in its day. The iPad 2 is slimmer, faster, lighter, more solidly built. It’s better in every way and worse in none. But for the first time it’s not truly alone in the market place - is “better” enough?

1. The Hardware

At the risk of giving away the ending, the hardware is the real story here - at least for now. The iPad 2 feels like a whole different product: this is what Apple means when they say it’s “completely redesigned.” Yes, it’s an iterative technical improvement, but the changes are dramatic and feel that way. 

As numerous other reviewers have noticed, the weight reduction feels a lot more substantial than it really is. This comes, in part, due to the dramatic change in shape. Where the iPad 1 was sharp edges and a chubby round back that felt awkward both on a table and in your hands, the iPad 2 is the opposite: rounded edges and a flat back. It feels designed to fit in your hands, and it’s genuinely a joy to hold.

The performance (graphics/memory/processor) improvements are dramatic. The true potential here won’t show until apps start to take advantage of the new muscle, but GarageBand, Real Racing 2, and Infinity Blade are already promising a wonderful future. And on the bundled apps, the iPad 2 is simply blazing fast. It never stops, never stutters, the user never has to wait. It simply does what you ask.

Unless, of course, you ask to read The Daily.

As for the other changes: The speaker is slightly, but not markedly improved. The cameras are pretty self-evident: suitable for FaceTime and basic video, but nothing else. It’s not going out on a limb to say that Apple expects these to be used for FaceTime and nothing else. Buyers expecting more will be severely disappointed. The new recessed conectors and controls along the outside edge generall work quite well. As Mossberg noted, the Dock connector can be hard to seat initially, but by and large the change does not feel substantial.

I can’t say much about the Smart Cover that the videos on Apple’s website don’t say more effectively. Seriously, watch this video, and imagine it working exactly that well in practice. They’re a joy. In practice, the effect is not unlike the leather flaps that slid into the side on the Palm V: covers the fragile front, lets the sturdier aluminum back fare on its own.

The best part? Because the iPad 2 is slightly narrower and much thinner than the original, the vast majority of sleeves and zip-in type cases will fit the iPad 2, even with the smart cover installed.

In fact, by and large the accessory story on the iPad 2 is great - it works well with every case and stand I own for the original. For an Apple product, this is needless to say a pleasant surprise.

2. The Software

Let’s get this out there: iOS needs an update, and needs it badly. iOS 4.3 is very, very good. But it’s not great - not with its utterly broken notification system. I fully expect more on this front in April, but until then the software story is what you probably don’t know. In short: It’s a fantastic unitasking OS. It’s intuitive, has a thriving app ecosystem, and performs its duties with polished smoothness.

As a multitasking OS, it’s good. The task switcher is fast and effective, but the shortcut (double-tap home) is awkward and there is no keyboard support. Out-of-app notifications are awkward and modal. There is minimal ability for apps to speak to each other. Importing and exporting data via iTunes is clumsy, though DropBox solutions for syncing and accessing user data are beginning to catch on well.

However, the real truth here is that there’s simply nothing better on the market. Palm (HP) looks to have a promising contender in the TouchPad - but it’s not out yet, and let’s not forget that Palm often looks to have a promising contender. It’s been a while since the delivery has been quite up to expectations. Honeycomb has finally materialized as Google’s entry to the tablet market, but feels like an awkward blend of a WinAmp skin and Tron - certainly not for the masses. Plus, it’s been described as buggy, clumsy and immature.

So iOS is still “good enough” when the competition isn’t. On a unit where the hardware has reached near-perfection, having disappointing software is a real let-down. 

3. The Package:

Let’s not forget that the hardware and the software do play together, though. The total package the user experiences is something exceptional. 

The iPad very much feels like a device, a gadget, a thing. The goal of the tablet has always been to peel away the layers of abstraction that lie between the user and the content - hence the incessant skeuomorphic interfaces and the quest for thinness.

The iPad 2 is still all of these things, and to the layperson there will still be a learning curve. However, after using my iPad for a year, the iPad 2 clearly sheds some of the thing-ness and becomes much less a piece of technology and much more a slab of content which you control. Yes, it’s a dual core, wireless, aluminum piece of engineering - but when you use it, it’s just a piece of glass that obeys your whim and whimsy.

This is a stupendous thing, and it is why I and legions of consumers will forgive iOS’s current shortcomings and the typical Apple-isms (lack of ports, hidden filesystem, arbitrary restrictions on developers and user customization) that fetter the device from its “true potential.” The iPad 2 gives the iPad just the boost it needs to achieve the tablet dream. Everything from the speed boosts to the thinness to the wonderfully versatile Smart Cover conspire to make the new iPad exactly enough for the things it purports to do.

“Enough”, it turns out, is sometimes much better than “too much.”

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iPad 2. Review coming soon.