CASCON 2009 Wrap-Up

The CASCON conference wrapped up last week so here’s a bit of a summary of a few more interesting talks and workshops I attended.

Technology of Google Wave

Alex Nicolaou, Mobile Engineering Manager at Google, presented an interesting keynote about Google Wave. He introduced the concept and the idea behind Wave for those who were not familiar with it. He talked about some cool product features I didn’t know about such as grammar-based spell check that can be implemented for various other languages (and perhaps even for programming languages?), uploading photos to create a shared album and access control to different parts of the Wave and private annotations. In terms of platform, robots and gadgets can be added to and embedded in Waves  for added interactivity and extended functionality.

As someone who has previewed Google Wave and had been initially confused with the entire application, I posed the question: The current  email platform is very simple and easy to use, but using this new paradigm of combining chat, email and Google docs all into one, there seems to be mixed reactions so far. How does Google envision the widespread adoption of the application when the user experience is complex and confusing?

Alex explained that Google didn’t predefine specifics on how one can or should use Wave. Since it does so many things, there are many possibilities in the patterns of usage and behaviours that will emerge. The most interesting uses would be the unexpected activities that were not initially designed for that can arise. I later found a site that lists a wide variety of possible use cases in different contexts, so it will be exciting to see what can come out of Google Wave.

Sensor-Based Support of Clinical Contexts in Hospitals

This engaging workshop was conducted by Mark Chignell, director of the Interactive Media Lab at the University of Toronto. He introducted the use of sensors as a tool in facilitating smart interactions to understand context and situations of our environment so that humans can work smarter, not harder. Smart interactions for health care is significant because of the criticality, complexity and richness of data within the sector. For example, using sensors to identify problematic clinical contexts can provide decision support, simplify tasks, and improve doctor/patient interactions. We had a guest scientist/physician, Dr. Jacques Lee, from Sunnybrook Hospital participate in the discussion, which was quite valuable in understanding the current processes and problems and gaining feedback about idealized scenarios and user study evalutions presented by IML researchers.

Dr. Lee presented an interesting topic that he specializes in: sensing and preventing delirium in the emergency department (ED). Delirium is an acute brain failure that is preventable, common, and is yet easy to miss and lethal. Approximately 30-35% of patients develop delirium as they remain immobile in the ED, but many of these patients are sent home because the condition was never detected by the doctor. Delirium can usually be detected by sensing abnormal extremes (hyperactivity or inactivity) and by testing direct cognitive tasks. Accelerometers attatched to the thigh or behind the ears to sense hyperactive motion are possible solutions for indicators. Questions of practicality and acceptance then must be considered including the visual appearance and obtrusiveness.

Overall the workshop delved into some interesting discussions between designers, researchers, healthcare specialists and technologists regarding the future of sensor-based technologies that can be used to improve current healthcare processes and human-computer/human-human interactions.

{ Tags: collaboration, communication, embedded, google, health, interaction, technology, ubiquitous, web }
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L’introduction de Google Wave

La semaine passé, j’ai reçu une invitation pour essayer  Google Wave que Google a récemment introduit. On dirait que c’est le nouveau mode de communication et collaboration en ligne, avec l’objectif de révolutionner la façon dont on envoie des courriels. À présent, les courriels restent simples et utiles dans nos vies quotidiennes, mais il y a quelques problèmes : il y a beaucoup de copies et versions du même courriel qui sont créés et envoyés pour chaque destinataire, on ne peut pas intégrer des contenus de richesses comme des vidéos, des diaporamas, ou des cartes, on doit faire des citations manuelles pour répondre à une partie d’un message et finalement, il n’est pas facile à envoyer une réponse privée à seulement quelques personnes dans un groupe message. Par suite, Google Wave traite une conversation comme un document en direct où toutes les participants partagent une seule copie de ce document. Ce concept permet tous les participants de se collaborer dans le courriel en temps réel.

Après avoir essayé Google Wave, j’étais tellement confus avec l’interface utilisateur. À mon avis, je trouve ce nouveau paradigme de combiner Gmail, Google Docs et Google Talk ensemble un peu déroutant parce qu’au départ, on dirait qu’il est comme une messagerie instantanée glorifiée et les chaînes de conversations sont désordonnées et ne sont pas linéaires. Cet outil est encore en avant-première et n’est pas très pratique, mais afin qu’il soit adopté si répandu comme les courriels on doit chercher des situations intéressantes dans laquelle on peut l’employer.

{ Tags: collaboration, communication, google, interaction, technology, web }
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A New Way to Twitter

Poke has designed BakerTweet, an ingenious little system that allows bakeries to send Twitter updates about their fresh baked goods that have popped right out of the oven. What better use of  Twitter than to immediately inform customers of warm fresh scones or cookies?

{ Tags: communication, ideas, twitter }
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