End of Course Reflection

It’s already the end of the semester where classes are ending and we’re preparing for the final examinations. Which is also the end of this course CSC318.

Overall the course was enjoyable. The most useful and interesting thing I’ve learned from the course is the project as a whole. From the very beginning working with a group of classmates, we first had to pick a problem space and explore it. Although the problem space we picked, which was augmented reality was one that was hard to approach, it was an interesting and enjoyable problem to tackle.

Then we created research instruments scripts to conduct research about our problem space to see what our target audience’s needs were and what we can improve on in that particular area. Doing the brainstorming afterwards, we came up with many creative and even funny ideas that could potentially solve some of the problems.

Finally we created a prototype, which was a pretty big challenge since it’s hard to make something that can show augmented reality well with our current resources, but in the end when we had access to Invision, we created a pretty satisfactory interface of how our application would look and work as.

This whole process was interesting and useful to learn and I think it will help me a lot in the future when I need to tackle similar projects.

Car screens

This isn’t the newest technology, but it is a really convenient addition to cars. Car screens, where you can connect with your phone to easily make calls, use the GPS, play music and more.

This came to me a few days ago when my friend picked me up in her new car she got recently. She connected her phone to the car and just easily accessed Google Maps on the screen and set the GPS to take me back to her place. What I felt was the convenience of this tool is immense due to a few recent experiences I’ve had recently. I’ve just come around to getting my license so I started learning to drive the car. The car I was learning in was a very traditional car without the add-on of a screen and system to connect with your mobile device, so the overall directions was given to me by my driving instructor, and if we weren’t sure where we were going, we’d have to stop on the side of the road, take out my cellphone and check Google Maps on that where we need to go.

Another example was when I went skiing with my dad, I set the GPS on the phone to navigate us to the skiing resort, but there was nowhere convenient to place the phone where it is easily seen and also stays in place. So it often fell when it was placed awkwardly and was just hard to use. My parents car in China has a GPS built into the car but it lacks the functions of music control, messaging and other non-calling phone functions. My friend’s car however had all the functions that previous cars had and more since it is newer and has newer technology.

Overall sitting in my friend’s car and using the car’s screen with the new functions that they are improving on feels very convenient and improves the quality of driving by a lot compared to the situations where I was driving in cars without the screen.

A brief glance at VR and AR

Currently one of the hottest trend and technology is VR, with the vast amount of different companies coming out with their own headset. One of the first companies to generate a lot of hype and attention is Oculus Rift, other companies that soon followed with their own version include and are not limited to: HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, etc.

Their great appeal is towards entertainment and the ability to immerse inside what is essentially a whole new world, or an existing world that we could not immerse in before. You can watch movies, play games, do extreme sports, or even draw in 3D with current VR technology.

However what is AR and why is not as popular as the booming VR? AR is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data[1]. Whereas VR is generally a headset along with controllers that you put on and surrounds you with a new setting altogether.

Currently the only AR technology to hit the masses and create impact is the game “Pokemon GO”, a game where you can go out anywhere in the real world and catch Pokemon on your smartphone. In the end it is still for entertainment purposes and built upon a very popular and large franchise that attracted everyone to try this app.

One of the original technology that introduced a lot of people to the concept of AR is the google glass. It generated a lot of interest but the limitations were too severe and in the end is seen as a failed project. The google glass was an optical head-mounted display designed in the shape of a pair of eyeglasses[2]. Generally it operated with smartphone capabilities, except it was on your face. The battery technology just isn’t there to support this kind of thing, and has a really short life before needing to recharge. There aren’t enough applications of the glass for people to invest such a large sum of money for. It just wasn’t needed.

This is a topic that I am very interested in and will revisit in the near future.

Bibliography:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass

Monitors

The other day when I was browsing amazon for electronic deals I came across this monitor.

A 34inch wide curved monitor.

Now at first I was wondering, what in the world you would ever use such a long monitor for. But it came to me rather quickly as this type of technology would apply to my needs. The use of multiple applications appearing at the same time on the monitor is what came to mind. I am currently using a laptop with an extra monitor hooked up as the main monitor while my laptop acts as the pc and secondary monitor. Which looks like this:

Before when I was using a single monitor, I would constantly alt-tab between many different programs. Now it’s much easier to drag something I would come back to often onto the second monitor so I can see it and access it at any time without tabbing away from the application on the main monitor.

However after thinking about it more in-depth, it’s questionable just how productive it is. A majority of the times I’ve used this dual monitor system is while playing a game on the main monitor while watching a video on the second one. Some more productive ways I’ve used it for is coding or filling out documents where it’s much more convenient to have documentation or other needed webpages on the secondary monitor so you don’t need to tab out of your main application to see.

I’ve also read on different personal opinions from the internet. Some people feel more productive using one monitor from being able to focus on one thing and/or not needing to turn your head (which I feel is really minimal), whilst others feel more productive from using multiple monitors having easier access to different applications at the same time. I think it’s just personal preference and multiple monitors may actually not be as productive for me as of the moment since most of the things I put on the second monitor affects my productivity.

Back to the super wide monitor that got me thinking about the use of dual monitors. It might be a good solution for reducing the clutter of dual monitors on your table. Also there are more customization options on how to split the applications on the monitor to cater to your needs, whether it be more applications showing at once or less.

I would consider getting a wide monitor such as this one when I build my own pc in the future. But for now I’ll just stick to my current setup and try to use it in more productive ways.

Introduction

I’m a second year computer science specialist student studying at UofT. This is my new public blog about certain designs and objects I’ve observed in daily life to write about.