tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post4812796265720215849..comments2024-03-11T07:06:28.190-07:00Comments on Mobile Opportunity: The Coming Age of the Context EngineMichael Macehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-21223874236898403002012-11-01T12:37:48.814-07:002012-11-01T12:37:48.814-07:00Thanks for the questions, Anonymous. They're ...Thanks for the questions, Anonymous. They're good ones. Here are my thoughts.<br /><br />On the facial recognition thing, you're right, the technology today can't handle it. But I think just finding context around a name would be helpful in many situations, especially if you can look that up on a mobile device.<br /><br />Regarding us getting dependent on our tools, that's a criticism of almost any personal technology. Not to be flippant, but if you want to go back to writing longhand with a quill pen, be my guest. (The more serious answer is that I think a context engine would free us up to remember more important information and insights.)<br /><br />Yes, we'll index the tags from anything we can read.<br /><br />We index all of the document, looking at every word. We also scan things like the author field (in Word), and who wrote an e-mail message that the document was enclosed in. Obviously this can't find every document perfectly, but catching most of them is still an improvement over what you can do today with a traditional search product.<br /><br />We're not trying to index video today, other than by file name and date. In the future I think there are some interesting possibilities, but the technology (and memory capacity, and network capacity) is not there yet.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-33186812389634996472012-11-01T09:40:32.995-07:002012-11-01T09:40:32.995-07:00I can see some issues with this:
1. What if I hav...I can see some issues with this:<br /><br />1. What if I have the situation identified where I recognise the person in the room but don't know where from? I can't search based on photos even if the person is in them unless there's going to be some sort of face recognition built into smartphone apps, and I can't look them up by name because I don't know it. So, even with this app I'm no better off.<br /><br />2. Think of how calculators made us lazy. I don't really need to do mental arithmetic since a calculator can do it for me. If I don't have to think about stuff because this app will do it for me, it's simply going to make me even worse at remembering than before.<br /><br />3. Facebook will let you tag photos - will this app index the tags. Indeed will it index any tags on anything that will allow indexing?<br /><br />4. Unless I missed something, this works only if I have something with the keyword in it. So, unless I named a document, for instance, as "Dave_Smith_Financial_report.doc" then it will hve no comprehension who it was authored by and thus it slips through the context crack. If it actually inspected content to look for words then I don't see how thisn can work.<br /><br />5. What of media files, like video and audio. If I have a video of the last company kick-off day and the CEO - Fred Bloggs - and others took turns in presenting, how will this app know this and return this video in my context results when I search for Fred Bloggs?<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, I definitely think this is a step in the right direction but it needs to be extensible and seriously intelligent.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-54377590028043596192012-07-11T15:25:10.046-07:002012-07-11T15:25:10.046-07:00I forgot you had already done an update in 2011: ...I forgot you had already done an update in 2011: http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2011/02/info-pad-creeps-closer.html<br /><br />Any thoughts since then?Michael Graffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01273079016443875241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-51759304954519770042012-07-11T15:14:11.141-07:002012-07-11T15:14:11.141-07:00I'd be interested in an update to your Info Pa...I'd be interested in an update to your Info Pad article. A lot has changed since then: Kindle, Android, iPad.<br /><br />Could a Zekira app on current (or imminent) tablet hardware get you close to your original vision?Michael Graffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01273079016443875241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-53455040626611787982012-07-07T21:17:26.309-07:002012-07-07T21:17:26.309-07:00Ooo, I get that, I suppose I hadn't considered...Ooo, I get that, I suppose I hadn't considered just how cluttered things could get. I suppose it matters more if you are looking for tangential information.<br /><br />How about a sort of zoom in/out functionality? You've got your center blob/swirl thing that all of your search terms go into, and then other items outside of it in their own swirl blob - in fact, maybe something like a molecule diagram, with the vertecies representing the information 9and you hover over them to see all the detail, with thinner and thicker lines connecting them to represent greater or lessor contextual links/probability. Heck, why settle for one interface? You can have lists and things in the zoom view, and a swirl/molecular diagram for the search/link view.mallwitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03131977984972191208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-11118847672290144732012-07-05T22:23:27.241-07:002012-07-05T22:23:27.241-07:00Hi, Mallwitt.
I don't mind you nitpicking the...Hi, Mallwitt.<br /><br />I don't mind you nitpicking the UI at all. This is the time to do it, and I really appreciate the help.<br /><br />We've experimented with a huge number of different UI approaches, and there are problems with every one of them. We played with fans, spinning disks, webs, flying cityscapes, and linked blobs (like Google Image Swirl, if you've seen it). The problem is that the good-looking designs break down when you have more than about eight connections to something. You run out of screen space.<br /><br />Although the lists we use are not aesthetically pleasing, they are extremely functional, because they maximize the number of connections you can see, and we think that's the key to productivity.<br /><br />But I still want to find something that works well and looks good, so I'll think more about your suggestion, and please keep it up.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-50987673655578881862012-07-02T01:35:45.975-07:002012-07-02T01:35:45.975-07:00Fantastic Concept, but (and I know this is nitpick...Fantastic Concept, but (and I know this is nitpicking for beta/alpha), your UI needs work.<br /><br />Might I suggest a construct more akin to a spiderweb with dew drops? Put your search terms in the middle, with linked context items outside in a circle? Represent higher context items by putting them closer in to the center. have simple icons to represent classes of information. Click/drag to add context items to the search.<br /><br />As an example I start with my client's name because I want to know how why another client brought them up, I get that in the center with a 'web' of items representing other items contextual proximity, one of those is labeled 'meetings' I click on that, and suddenly that zooms to the center and now what I'm seeing is the client's meetings and on the outer edge, any meetings related to the client - bingo, I found a cross-over lunch meeting with both clients, and the common project they were working on, now I can look at that project and what other clients are connected.<br /><br />Let me know if that isn't the way that you've been envisioning using a context engine, but to me, it's sort of like wikipedia in reverse (instead of ending up at invasive species, you start there and wind up at which clients caught the biggest fish at the conference).<br /><br />I'm looking forward to something that will help people understand why I associate things with them! Cheers!mallwitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03131977984972191208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-2197168992743923802012-06-14T06:55:14.251-07:002012-06-14T06:55:14.251-07:00How hard would it be to integrate voice commands, ...How hard would it be to integrate voice commands, like with SIRI, S Voice, Vlingo etc. ? that would make this awesome!TDC_123http://www.google.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-69030629193083800882012-06-13T22:30:11.373-07:002012-06-13T22:30:11.373-07:00Thanks for the suggestions, everybody! Please kee...Thanks for the suggestions, everybody! Please keep it up.<br /><br />Brian, I think Evernote Hello is really intriguing. It looks beautiful. I might nitpick bits of their approach, but actually because context management is a new space, I think there's a lot of room for a variety of approaches, and customers will get to pick the ones that work best for them. Evernote, Xobni, X1, Gist, and a ton of other companies are all working on different pieces of the problem. <br /><br />I think one of our goals should be to try to make those products work well together. So what I really want to do is integrate our stuff with Evernote. We'll be exposing APIs in our product over time, I know Evernote already does, and I hope other folks will do so as well.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-70634185779339547692012-06-13T21:41:55.878-07:002012-06-13T21:41:55.878-07:00Michael -- given the domain space, what do you thi...Michael -- given the domain space, what do you think of the approach Evernote Hello has taken to the problem?Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03459585419129918119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-935271051226382762012-06-13T19:42:07.895-07:002012-06-13T19:42:07.895-07:00include zip files for sure. They are nightmare to ...include zip files for sure. They are nightmare to keep trackunohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07640881378630972575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-73124827894958276322012-06-13T05:16:10.536-07:002012-06-13T05:16:10.536-07:00I assume you're familiar with Gelernter's ...I assume you're familiar with Gelernter's old LifeStreams/ScopeWare product...<br /><br />http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/ScopeWareBillSeitzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14450647519294848397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-74892036989740209612012-06-13T04:39:05.187-07:002012-06-13T04:39:05.187-07:00Bravo Mace! Someone is really sweating on this, th...Bravo Mace! Someone is really sweating on this, the nightmare I engulf with!<br /><br />I remember Google Desktop tried to be this without much of a go, mainly it wasn't the time. I suspect Google can do it with Android at any given moment. But searching context is a daunting task if you really don't get the security aspect resolved.<br /><br />iPhones and latest gen mobiles do solved this issue somewhat. At least for emails and photos.<br /><br />But when I think of me, myself and stuff about me scattered all across the board.<br /><br />1. In some physical files, albums<br />2. Flopp,Omega Zip files (Now lost, unreadable)<br />3. CD and DVDs<br />4. Old Hard-disks<br />5. Redundant/ forgotten old email accounts<br />6. OutlookExpress Folders<br />7. Propriety formats some I can't even open now (texnotes, , DAT, PDF, Pagemaker)<br />8. Among friends and colleagues<br />9. Completely forgotten where there were<br /><br />It's truly a nightmare but yours like tools will emerge the next generation at least will be better off<br /><br />keep it up!Chanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01987423721037603110noreply@blogger.com