https://www.calmtech.institute/calm-tech-certification
https://www.calmtech.institute/blog/tags/calm-tech-certified
https://www.thelightphone.com/blog/light-iii-design-manifest...
Calm Technology - >>29115653 - Nov 2021 (68 comments)
Calm Technology - >>21799736 - Dec 2019 (155 comments)
Principles of Calm Technology - >>12389344 - Aug 2016 (66 comments)
Calm Technology - >>9107526 - Feb 2015 (1 comment)
Calm Tech, Then and Now - >>8475764 - Oct 2014 (1 comment)
Designing Calm Technology (1995) - >>7976258 - July 2014 (2 comments)
- AirThing View Plus: "This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content." Supposedly this has seven sensors, but only displays two values. How does that work? The values are displayed as numbers, too. A bar chart with green, yellow, and red sections would "calmer"
- Daylight Computer - Placeholder text again. No specs. What does it actually do? Writing only? Web browsing? Dark grey on off-white text, which looks like low-end E-Ink.
- Time Timer - looks fine, although everybody else's timers count down counterclockwise. How much does it cost? If it's $10, great If it's $100, come on.
- Unplug - if you need that, you have other problems.
This is disappointing. It's like the junk that used to be advertised in the magazines that were provided in airline seat backs. These are all non-problems or easy hits. They need something more useful, such as a more usable TV remote or home control unit or car infotainment system. Those all run from bad to worse.
I've run into "simple interface" people a few times. One was a guy who was plugging his book about how clever their design for a seat-back entertainment system was. He had a model of four typical users and how they'd use it to pick from a rather short list of alternatives. I'd already read the book. I said, why not just have a channel selector knob? Then it comes out that the thing had a payment interface for pay per view. That wasn't mentioned when they were explaining how simple it was.
A few years ago, there was someone who wanted to build a GUI for some common Linux tool to promote their design shop. I suggested tackling Git, which really needs a GUI. That was too hard.
This goes way back. In the 1930s, there was a thing for radios with One Knob. Here's a 1950s TV ad for that.[1] There was a long period during which radios and TVs had a large number of knobs to be adjusted to get decent results. That was finally overcome.
My favorite simple interface is General Railway Signal's NX system.[1] This is the first "intelligent user interface", from 1936. What makes it "intelligent" is that, when a train is entering the interlocking, the dispatcher selects the incoming track, and then all the possible exit points light up. They pick the desired exit and push its button. The system then sets up the route, setting the signals and switches. Conflicts with other routes are detected, so this is safe. If there are alternate routes, NX can route around other trains. The previous technology was that the dispatcher had to figure out which switches and signals to set themselves. There was interlocking to prevent hazardous setups, but the lever machines couldn't plan a route.
This kind of UX design is really important and usually botched.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weiser
https://donhopkins.medium.com/an-empirical-comparison-of-pie...
The Computer for the 21st Century:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkHALBOqn7s
DonHopkins on Aug 29, 2021 | parent | context | favorite | on: Computers should expose their internal workings as...
Natalie Jeremijenko: LiveWire, Dangling String; Mark Weiser: Calm Technology, Ubiquitous Computing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_technology
>Calm Technology
>History
>The phrase "calm technology" was first published in the article "Designing Calm Technology", written by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown in 1995.[1] The concept had developed amongst researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in addition to the concept of ubiquitous computing.[3]
>Weiser introduced the concept of calm technology by using the example of LiveWire or "Dangling String". It is an eight-foot (2.4 m) string connected to the mounted small electric motor in the ceiling. The motor is connected to a nearby Ethernet cable. When a bit of information flows through that Ethernet cable, it causes a twitch of the motor. The more the information flows, the motor runs faster, thus creating the string to dangle or whirl depending on how much network traffic is. It has aesthetic appeal; it provides a visualization of network traffic but without being obtrusive.[4]
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190508225438/https://www.karls...
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20131214054651/http://ieeexplore...
PDF: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~./jasonh/courses/ubicomp-sp2007/paper...
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20110706212255/https://uwspace.u...
PDF: https://web.archive.org/web/20170810073340/https://uwspace.u...
>According to Weiser, LiveWire is primarily an aesthetic object, a work of art, which secondarily allows the user to know network traffic, while expending minimal effort. It assists the user by augmenting an office with information about network traffic. Essentially, it moves traffic information from a computer screen to the ‘real world’, where the user can acquire information from it without looking directly at it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Jeremijenko#Live_Wire_...
>Natalie Jeremijenko
>Live Wire (Dangling String), 1995
>In 1995,[9] as an artist-in-residence at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California under the guidance of Mark Weiser, she created an art installation made up of LED cables that lit up relative to the amount of internet traffic. The work is now seen as one of the first examples of ambient or "calm" technology.[10][11]
[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20110526023949/http://mediaartis...
[10] https://web.archive.org/web/20100701035651/http://iu.berkele...
>Weiser comments on Dangling String: "Created by artist Natalie Jeremijenko, the "Dangling String" is an 8 foot piece of plastic spaghetti that hangs from a small electric motor mounted in the ceiling. The motor is electrically connected to a nearby Ethernet cable, so that each bit of information that goes past causes a tiny twitch of the motor. A very busy network causes a madly whirling string with a characteristic noise; a quiet network causes only a small twitch every few seconds. Placed in an unused corner of a hallway, the long string is visible and audible from many offices without being obtrusive."
[11] https://web.archive.org/web/20120313074738/http://ipv6.com/a...
>Mark Weiser suggested the idea of enormous number of ubiquitous computers embedding into everything in our everyday life so that we use them anytime, anywhere without the knowledge of them. Today, ubiquitous computing is still at an early phase as it requires revolutionary software and hardware technologies.
DonHopkins on June 20, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on: Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans (...
Mark Weiser once told me that Ubik was one of his inspirations for Ubiquitous Computing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060220211305/http://www.ubiq.c...
>Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives. Alan Kay of Apple calls this "Third Paradigm" computing.
https://blog.canary.is/from-tesla-to-touchscreens-the-journe...
>One year earlier, in 1998, Mark Weiser described it a little differently, stating that, “Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world,” Weiser asserted,“ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people.” This wasn’t the first time someone broached the idea of IoT. In the early 1980s, students at Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Science department created the first IoT Coke machine. Author Philip K. Dick wrote about the smart home in the 1969 sci-fi novel Ubik, and four decades before, inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla addressed the concept in Colliers Magazine. In an amazingly prescient 1926 interview, Tesla said,
>"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain…We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance…and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik
“Five cents, please,” his front door said when he tried to open it. One thing, anyhow, hadn’t changed. The toll door had an innate stubbornness to it; probably it would hold out after everything else. After everything except it had long since reverted, perhaps in the whole city … if not the whole world.
He paid the door a nickel, hurried down the hall to the moving ramp which he had used only minutes ago.
[…]
“I don’t have any more nickels,” G. G. said. “I can’t get out.”
Glancing at Joe, then at G. G., Pat said, “Have one of mine.” She tossed G. G. a coin, which he caught, an expression of bewilderment on his face. The bewilderment then, by degrees, changed to aggrieved sullenness.
“You sure shot me down,” he said as he deposited the nickel in the door’s slot. “Both of you,” he muttered as the door closed after him. “I discovered her. This is really a cutthroat business, when —“ His voice faded out as the door clamped shut. There was, then, silence.
[…]
“I’ll go get my test equipment from the car,” Joe said, starting towards the door.
“Five cents, please,”
“Pay the door,” Hoe said to G. G. Ashwood.
[...]
“Can I borrow a couple of poscreds from you?” Joe said. “So I can eat breakfast?”
“Mr. Hammond warned me that you would try to borrow money from me. He informed me that he already provided you with sufficient funds to pay for your hotel room, plus a round of drinks, as well as —“
“Al based his estimate on the assumption that I would rent a more modest room than this."
RMS -vs- Doctor, on the evils of Natalism:
http://www.art.net/studios/hackers/hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...
I see reMarkable says[1] you can use it without a subscription, but I'm not confident they won't pull the rug under my feet.
[1] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Using-reMarkable-wi...
Edit Reference:
> If not sold within a year, the law would make it illegal for web-hosting services to support TikTok, and it would force Google and Apple to remove TikTok from app stores — rendering the app unusable with time.
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/24/1246663779/biden-ban-tiktok-u...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuned_radio_frequency_receiver
If you look at the research behind elemind, it is clear they designed a study to show a positive result. Somnee, less so, but it is only a single paper.
It's interesting to me you used "sound waves" to describe acoustic stimulation, which is exactly NOT what we are doing, or how auditory stimulation work (in our case).
A "slow wave" aka delta waves is the measure of the synchronous firing of neurons which is the hallmark of deep sleep and the foundation of health. It is the activity of the brain pumping the glymphatic system, which is clearing metabolic waste, and is linked to immune function, hormone response, parasympathetic response, and more.
Our EEG headband is detecting these slow-waves (the firing of neurons), and when we detect this brain activity, at a precise point in this synchronous firing, we interrupt the brain, with a brief pulse of sound. In response to this interruption, the brain goes "hey, this is vital to my health, don't mess with me right now", and increases the synchronous firing of neurons, both in that slow wave, as well as following up with another slow-wave after, sometimes 2, even 3, rarely 4 (but it is person dependent).
A slow-wave only lasts for 0.8-1.2 seconds, so this timing is very precise, and we can see the change in brain activity immediately. We stimulate in a 5 on/ 5 off protocol, so we can see the change in brain activity within seconds. We are not comparing different nights, as we know sleep is different across nights. The response is very consistent.
If you read the research from elemind and somnee, they sound very similar, with a huge red flag. They both say "we stimulate near the peak of an alpha wave, and then you fall asleep". There is no measure of a change in the brain activity. Just alpha wave, stimulation, sleep.
I can go on and on about all the red flags, but you can read about elemind here - https://neurotechnology.substack.com/p/avoiding-neurotechs-t...
I found the Somnee headband unbearably uncomfortable, and it didn't do anything for me.
You mention acoustic stimulation as "sound waves" and that's where I wanted to clarify the whole "listen to a 120hz sound and it will improve XYZ".
As far as I am aware, all of this sound waves stuff and interacting with brain waves at certain frequencies is nonsense. A brain wave is a human construct for how we visualize the electrical activity of the brain, just like an EKG is a visualization of electrical activity of the heart.
You'd never say "we're interacting with your heart wave at this frequency", right?
I have many bug-bears with the industry as a whole, and it is a bit terrifying to me that I'm working in this space surrounded by so much nonsense.
We don't fund studies. The scientific principles of what we are doing has been known for about 10 years now. But it is difficult to do, and Philips have a TON of patents around this space - they fund a lot of the research.
However, we support researchers who are already looking into this space because we have the best technology (well, waiting to be proven but we have advanced beyond the protocols of Philips and Dreem).
I hope that helps understand where we're at, and maybe how we differ. I'm happy to answer any more questions.
There are a bunch of research papers on our website, as well as some very basic descriptions of how it works. https://affectablesleep.com
David Rosenthal (one of the makers of NeWS) is married to Mark's widow Vicky, and he just emailed me that while cleaning out his office he ran across a couple of old VHS tapes labeled "Don's NeWS demos" that he's going to digitize for me! I hope they include a recording of Mark's SunView SDI game for which he implemented pie menus while snowed in at home with a Sun workstation during the January 22 1987 Blizzard of Discontent.
From: mark@markssun.cs.umd.edu (Mark Weiser)
Subject: pies in sunview
Date: January 24, 1987 at 02:12:37 GMT+1
To: don@mimsy.umd.edu
I used the snow to hack pies into sunview. It works now without walking menus.
Will have walking over th weekend.
-mark
https://donhopkins.com/home/archive/c/mark-weiser/sdi/
https://donhopkins.com/home/archive/c/mark-weiser/sdi/piemen...
I'd love to get this running again in a 68K Sun 3 emulator with SunOS 3.2!
Do we already know each other in real life, or should we begin? Say hi! Email is in my profile.
Here's another old email from Mark that I cherish, from just before he left UMD for PARC:
From: mark@markssun.cs.umd.edu (Mark Weiser)
Subject: paper
Date: February 25, 1987 at 06:24:52 GMT+1
To: don@gyre.umd.edu
Leave it (a) on my sun keyboard, (b) in my second floor mailbox,
(c) at the bottom of a pan of hash brownies. I'll be sure
to find it in any of those places.
-mark