You like music, right? I mean, who doesn't? Music is great in the car, at home, at a party, at a bbq, while shopping, while eating. It's great anytime! It is even great at work. The problem at work is that you have to play nice with your co-workers and not distract them, so you have to wear headphones of some sort so you don't interfere with their productivity. My main problem with headphones is that I don't want to know that I'm wearing them. I don't want to feel them over my ears, and I definintly don't want to remember they are on by a sudden jerk when I try to go past the cable's length. Of course you can use wireless headphones, but ideally I could just jam "out loud" so I didn't have to shell out money for a nice pair.
What I want is music piped throughout my work space. It would be awesome to have a daily playlist (and I don't mean like the radio) to work to. I want to share the musical experience with my cube neighbors and be energized or relaxed through my ears. I want to be able to stand up and take a dance break to a good beat without getting my head jerked back. Being open to all kinds of music, I'd also like to know what my co-workers like to listen to just to switch it up.
Taking it one step further into less realistic territory, an out-of-the-box corporate benefit would be to hire a private DJ for the company. I can't take credit for this idea, Ryan actually mentioned it first. It's a fun concept though, and it could be personalized by mixing employee favorites. Until then, or until I get wireless headphones, I'll be getting whiplash.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Poof! Bluetooth
Bluetooth: useful technology with a lot of potential.
Problem: the average non-techy Joe is easily caught up in some of the hazy workings of Bluetooth (see the RadioShack commercial).
Scenario: you run out to fight with the shopping crowds to grab the great deals. You snatch some $9.99 Bluetooth headset/$100 Bluetooth headphones/$40 Bluetooth keyboard. You bring it home, open the packaging and attempt to read through the directions. They say to charge the device for 2 hours (damn impatience!). You watch the blue/green/red light as the energy flows. It's done! Then the instructions say hold down the big button, flip the doohicky up and down three times, and sing row, row, row your boat until a light blinks morris code in various colors. You make a mistake and sing Mary had a little lamb instead and you get an f-you beep from the device. You end up feeling like you just lost a game of Technology Twister. So you go through the steps again and sing the correct song: it's visible now! So you grab your laptop/cellphone/PDA and try to search for your new toy only to find out that the blue light doesn't mean that your laptop has Bluetooth/your cellphone doesn't support some A2DP thing (wtf?), and you have to type some magical passcode on both your keyboard and PDA and then hope that they dig each other just one of the times that you run through the steps.
Holy crap, you just wanted to get rid of a wire! Your new toy to help simplify your life has just given you the gift of a migraine and doubt that technology is really on our side.
Never fear young grasshopper! Bluetooth is not perfect, but not much is. Look at history, most technologies had their bumps in the beginning and the ones that got it together moved past that. The Bluetooth SIG has been working hard at improving the user experience including icons (again, not a perfect solution in my opinion, but a step), and working on simple pairing techniques.
In my opinion, the simple pairing would make the experience worlds better. Imagine not having to know anything about Bluetooth, nothing about profiles, not having to push and hold and wait, and blink, but instead taking your new, exciting toy, turning it on, and with maybe a simple push or touch, Poof! Bluetooth. *Sigh* what a wonderful world it would be. Until then, practice your right hand on red button twister move.
Problem: the average non-techy Joe is easily caught up in some of the hazy workings of Bluetooth (see the RadioShack commercial).
Scenario: you run out to fight with the shopping crowds to grab the great deals. You snatch some $9.99 Bluetooth headset/$100 Bluetooth headphones/$40 Bluetooth keyboard. You bring it home, open the packaging and attempt to read through the directions. They say to charge the device for 2 hours (damn impatience!). You watch the blue/green/red light as the energy flows. It's done! Then the instructions say hold down the big button, flip the doohicky up and down three times, and sing row, row, row your boat until a light blinks morris code in various colors. You make a mistake and sing Mary had a little lamb instead and you get an f-you beep from the device. You end up feeling like you just lost a game of Technology Twister. So you go through the steps again and sing the correct song: it's visible now! So you grab your laptop/cellphone/PDA and try to search for your new toy only to find out that the blue light doesn't mean that your laptop has Bluetooth/your cellphone doesn't support some A2DP thing (wtf?), and you have to type some magical passcode on both your keyboard and PDA and then hope that they dig each other just one of the times that you run through the steps.
Holy crap, you just wanted to get rid of a wire! Your new toy to help simplify your life has just given you the gift of a migraine and doubt that technology is really on our side.
Never fear young grasshopper! Bluetooth is not perfect, but not much is. Look at history, most technologies had their bumps in the beginning and the ones that got it together moved past that. The Bluetooth SIG has been working hard at improving the user experience including icons (again, not a perfect solution in my opinion, but a step), and working on simple pairing techniques.
In my opinion, the simple pairing would make the experience worlds better. Imagine not having to know anything about Bluetooth, nothing about profiles, not having to push and hold and wait, and blink, but instead taking your new, exciting toy, turning it on, and with maybe a simple push or touch, Poof! Bluetooth. *Sigh* what a wonderful world it would be. Until then, practice your right hand on red button twister move.
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