Author: Ben Wood

Hivelogic has a great post about workspaces, and “getting in the zone” to do creative work. I’ve been thinking about this more as I recently started working from home, contracting as part of a virtual team for a remote client. Although my home office is quiet and comfy, I do miss the energy of having others around, at least when I want them. Even with email, IM, and twitter, I still feel like a hermit. I like the idea of “coworking” but from the examples I’ve seen, it’s a bunch of folks dumped into a big room with shared tables – not much private space, and perhaps too much potential distraction. One of the commenters make what I see as the best suggestion – have an office which opens onto a common area where you can interact with others, and even leave your door open at times, but be able to close the door when you really need to concentrate.

Here is a great bunch of screenshots and analysis of a certain “Web 2.0” style, where sites are designed with horizontal groups of content. Contains a two dozen or so example screenshots.

Wonder what it would be like if you could use the iPhone’s gesture-based interface on a really large screen? In one of the coolest video’s I’ve seen in a long time as a UI geek, inventor Jeff Han shows off a futuristic user interface much like the sci-fi screen Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report.

(you might see a commercial first)

Here is the accompanying Fast Company article.

My unnecessary commentary: We’re going to see all kinds of very cool apps using this technology in the next 5 – 10 years. (Artists? You thought the Wacom Cintiq was cool?)
I don’t understand the technology they’re using for the touch tracking and sensitivity, but this is quite a leap beyond a mouse-based GUI.

A friend from work passed this one along to me.

Don’t know much about the author but I’m linking to his site from the graphic.