Haruki Maeda from Meiji University shows his presentation software that can sense where you stand and orders the text into the visible space around you. Transitions are handled with gestures and you can even pinch-to-zoom live on stage. The modest Mr. Maeda says all it took was some C#, the Kinect SDK and an Excel spreadsheet to get this beauty working.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oGapt-cqvk]
I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I'd met my father, I tried to believe he'd changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.
Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.
By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me - me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance - and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild.
This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I'd fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother's name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James - someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.
When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab - or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.
We took a long walk - something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don't remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I'd pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.
I didn't know much about computers. I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.
I told Steve I'd recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.
Steve told me it was a good thing I'd waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.
I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They're not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.
Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.
That's incredibly simple, but true.
He was the opposite of absent-minded.
He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn't ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn't have to be.
When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn't been invited.
He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.
Novelty was not Steve's highest value. Beauty was.
For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he'd order 10 or 100 of them.
In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.
He didn't favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.
His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: "Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later."
Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.
He was willing to be misunderstood.
Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.
Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him.
Whenever he saw a man he thought a woman might find dashing, he called out, "Hey are you single? Do you wanna come to dinner with my sister?"
I remember when he phoned the day he met Laurene. "There's this beautiful woman and she's really smart and she has this dog and I'm going to marry her."
When Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa's boyfriends and Erin's travel and skirt lengths and
Eve's safety around the horses she adored.
None of us who attended Reed's graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing.
His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic. I try to learn from that, still.
Steve had been successful at a young age, and he felt that had isolated him. Most of the choices he made from the time I knew him were designed to dissolve the walls around him. A middle-class boy from Los Altos, he fell in love with a middle-class girl from New Jersey. It was important to both of them to raise Lisa, Reed, Erin and Eve as grounded, normal children.
Their house didn't intimidate with art or polish; in fact, for many of the first years I knew Steve and Lo together, dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.
Even as a young millionaire, Steve always picked me up at the airport. He'd be standing there in his jeans.
When a family member called him at work, his secretary Linetta answered, "Your dad's in a meeting. Would you like me to interrupt him?"
When Reed insisted on dressing up as a witch every Halloween, Steve, Laurene, Erin and Eve all went wiccan.
They once embarked on a kitchen remodel; it took years. They cooked on a hotplate in the garage. The Pixar building, under construction during the same period, finished in half the time. And that was it for the Palo Alto house. The bathrooms stayed old. But - and this was a crucial distinction - it had been a great house to start with; Steve saw to that.
This is not to say that he didn't enjoy his success: he enjoyed his success a lot, just minus a few zeros. He told me how much he loved going to the Palo Alto bike store and gleefully realizing he could afford to buy the best bike there.
And he did.
Steve was humble. Steve liked to keep learning.
Once, he told me if he'd grown up differently, he might have become a mathematician. He spoke reverently about colleges and loved walking around the Stanford campus. In the last year of his life, he studied a book of paintings by Mark Rothko, an artist he hadn't known about before, thinking of what could inspire people on the walls of a future Apple campus.
Steve cultivated whimsy. What other C.E.O. knows the history of English and Chinese tea roses and has a favorite David Austin rose?
He had surprises tucked in all his pockets. I'll venture that Laurene will discover treats - songs he loved, a poem he cut out and put in a drawer - even after 20 years of an exceptionally close marriage. I spoke to him every other day or so, but when I opened The New York Times and saw a feature on the company's patents, I was still surprised and delighted to see a sketch for a perfect staircase.
With his four children, with his wife, with all of us, Steve had a lot of fun.
He treasured happiness.
Then, Steve became ill and we watched his life compress into a smaller circle. Once, he'd loved walking through Paris. He'd discovered a small handmade soba shop in Kyoto. He downhill skied gracefully. He cross-country skied clumsily. No more.
Eventually, even ordinary pleasures, like a good peach, no longer appealed to him.
Yet, what amazed me, and what I learned from his illness, was how much was still left after so much had been taken away.
I remember my brother learning to walk again, with a chair. After his liver transplant, once a day he would get up on legs that seemed too thin to bear him, arms pitched to the chair back.
He'd push that chair down the Memphis hospital corridor towards the nursing station and then he'd sit down on the chair, rest, turn around and walk back again. He counted his steps and, each day, pressed a little farther.
Laurene got down on her knees and looked into his eyes.
"You can do this, Steve," she said. His eyes widened. His lips pressed into each other.
He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man.
I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself. He set destinations: his son Reed's graduation from high school, his daughter Erin's trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.
Even ill, his taste, his discrimination and his judgment held. He went through 67 nurses before finding kindred spirits and then he completely trusted the three who stayed with him to the end. Tracy. Arturo. Elham.
One time when Steve had contracted a tenacious pneumonia his doctor forbid everything - even ice. We were in a standard I.C.U. unit. Steve, who generally disliked cutting in line or dropping his own name, confessed that this once, he'd like to be treated a little specially.
I told him: Steve, this is special treatment.
He leaned over to me, and said: "I want it to be a little more special."
Intubated, when he couldn't talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed. He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face.
For the really big, big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on his sketchpad. He looked up. You have to.
By that, he meant that we should disobey the doctors and give him a piece of ice.
None of us knows for certain how long we'll be here. On Steve's better days, even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them. Some boat builders in the Netherlands have a gorgeous stainless steel hull ready to be covered with the finishing wood. His three daughters remain unmarried, his two youngest still girls, and he'd wanted to walk them down the aisle as he'd walked me the day of my wedding.
We all - in the end - die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.
I suppose it's not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve's death was unexpected for us.
What I learned from my brother's death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died.
Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us.
He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, "Wait. I'm coming. I'm in a taxi to the airport. I'll be there."
"I'm telling you now because I'm afraid you won't make it on time, honey."
When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who'd lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children's eyes as if he couldn't unlock his gaze.
Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple.
Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us.
His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.
This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn't happen to Steve, he achieved it.
He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn't be able to be old together as we'd always planned, that he was going to a better place.
Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night.
He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again.
This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.
He seemed to be climbing.
But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve's capacity for wonderment, the artist's belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.
Steve's final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.
Before embarking, he'd looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life's partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.
Steve's final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.
I have always had this post at the back of my mind and often check myself against the qualities I have listed here. Of course I fail in some of them, but if you can aim to succeed with just a few of these qualities, your design work will get there too. At the moment I am working on a particularly tough project. The type that consumes your – energy levels, time, and concentration on any other task is difficult. Without being surrounded by good people it would be unbearable. So if you hire people, or are looking to join a team, try and find out these qualities exist in the people you are working with.
Some personal qualities to try and gain or maintain within a team and elements to consider when working as a unit;
Persistence
Commitment to a project needs to go beyond just time allocated to it. It needs to be exhibited as a character trait. To not give up, maintain momentum and motivation and keep on moving towards the overall goal is a core trait for a UX person to show. Inevitably this may result in annoying a few colleagues as you will not leave them alone until specific tasks are finished or you get an answer to a particularly important problem. Using a bit of charm will go a long way to ensure you can get progress.
Passion
There needs to be an underlying desire to ensure that the project succeeds and a genuine care about seeing it fulfill it’s initial promise. Having passion means going the extra mile, but also enjoying the elements of the work once it has started. Being interested beyond the bounds of a project but also spending the time to go beyond the normal delivery will affect other team members and soon create a positive working environment. Having passionate people on a team makes an enormous difference to the success of delivering a product or service.
Positivity
It is very easy to become dejected due to research findings or user studies that have shown results that were either not expected or detrimental to a project. Having the ability to look for the good, from a bad situation will pay off. A positive attitude to the work, difficult colleagues, stakeholders or customers, inevitably results in a better atmosphere, working environment and an increased potential for more work in the future.
Patience
UX work typically has the ability to impact on everybody inside an organization and certainly the customers or users who will interact with what is produced. The repercussions on some of the decisions made, affects different decision makers at all levels in a company hierarchy. Be aware that some changes will take years to see come to fruition and the plans that are laid out are likely to be the foundations – that you may never witness being executed. Therefore being particularly patient with people is a necessary part regarding change management. With UX work, your users will test you as you are testing them! Learn to control anything you may say in response to seemingly stupid comments or actions. Again it will serve you well in terms of collating valuable design research.
Progress
Be aware that on a project UX work has very different tasks that have outcomes with different time requirements. The pace of a project cannot dictate the pace of research and so compromises need to be met, either on budgetary expenditure or time spent. The important thing to be aware of is that incremental progress is a desired outcome for large scale ux projects – particularly on live products. Changes made need to be done in an orderly, considered manner so as not to disenfranchise or confuse customers. On new products, change can be made quickly, but be aware that the grand plan will be phased and broken down into critical elements first, the ‘nice-to-haves’ coming later.
Stamina
Some projects will last months and at times will require focus to ensure that the quality is not affected as issues occur and problems arise. The importance of giving the team a break in high-intensity work is very important but not quitting is really important. The ability to finish the work started is important to UX work, why research something if it is not followed through? To exhibit stamina, means that the necessary long hours and unusual times to conduct field research will be needed to offer a product that is well designed.
Humour
This is something you must have to get you through elements of UX work that are difficult. User testing in odd locations, the ability to convince a board member using charm and an outlook that can deflect hostility by using humour, is essential to a career in this field. UX people tend to be socially competent because they primarily deal with people to get products designed effectively. Having a sense of humour will allow events that may derail a project to not have a detrimental effect on the outcome. Sometimes you may simply have to laugh to keep sane and the ability to show this, effects team morale and positivity.
Embodiment
UX work is all about empathy for the user and designing for their needs whilst also aligning the business requirements in combination. To design with empathy requires somebody to have that as an attribute in their personality. To be concerned about user’s experiences means you cannot just pay it lip service. If a comment by a user is ignored and not represented in the final design, your attitude to their plight will be revealed.
As a UX person it is your responsibility to be the voice of the user and make sure it is heard as a product develops. Evangelize the needs and wants to those that are building the solution. But also consider the realities of what must work for the business and the inevitability of compromise. Diplomacy and politics are a necessity here but with all the factors being present above – you will be well equipped to tackle the hardest UX challenges.
To some, just the thought of that there scenario would induce nausea. To others -- primarily those who spend their days Googling various rose gardens around the globe -- it just might be the extra dimension to surfing that they've been waiting for.
If you happen to find yourself tucked into that second camp, we'd like to introduce you to Olly, the web-connected robot that's capable of emitting smells based on inputs from the 'net. The critter was dreamed up by Tim Pryde and the folks surrounding the Don-8r (Foundry, if you're curious), and while there's currently no way to purchase one, instructions are forthcoming to produce your own with a 3D printer.
In fact, it's recommended that users build a few, stack 'em up and connect different inputs (Twitter, Instagram, your mum's vegetarian cooking blog) to each one. It's the perfect cacophony... or the perfect disaster, depending on your browsing habits.
Visit Olly's official website for more details.
UX shouldn't be the purview solely of UX specialists; a well-rounded developer can become a UX professional, too. The "T-shaped" professional, who has both the breadth of skills (the horizontal stroke in the "T") and the depth of a particular discipline (the vertical stroke), is a much more valuable team member than one who has but one skill and focus.
But how can a developer start learning about UX without formal education in UX concepts? I am an engineer by training but have transitioned into UX and product design, so I hope other developers can benefit from what I have learned.
"Read, read, read." - William Faulkner
There are so many great UX books out there nowadays. Here are a few that I would recommend for the developer who's serious about UX:
A good place to start is with sites like UX Magazine—but if you're reading this, you've already figured that out. As well, Jakob Nielsen's website, useit.com has results of some very helpful research and studies.
"Good artists copy, great artists steal." - Pablo Picasso
It's impossible to talk about great UX without someone bringing up Apple, but even Apple doesn't come up with their brilliant ideas in an ivory tower. If anything, they have a history of freely borrowing great ideas, wherever they may come from. Both the mouse and the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menu, Pointing) device came from the Xerox Star workstation at Xerox PARC.
Good ideas and examples come from everywhere, and it's up to us to know where to look.
I keep my eye on a few types of websites:
"Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results" - General George Patton
Don't settle for the specs. If you are just handed a list of features to implement, don't take them at face value. Get to the why. What problem are they trying to solve? It may be that the features and requirements listed aren't the best way to go about solving the problem. How do these features help accomplish the user's goals easier or faster?
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas A. Edison
You may think that once you've found a good design pattern, that task is done. However, I find that if I come up with a few different ways to solve a problem, I often find a better solution or I find justification of why the first approach was better. It's also important to prototype. It's hard to imagine if an experience is going to be great or compelling without having actually using it. Don't be afraid to develop different approaches and throw away the ones that don't work.
"Get outside the building" - Steve Blank
When was the last time you actually interacted with a customer face-to-face or on the phone? Sometimes at large organizations there are positions that deal exclusively with that. They are supposed to interact with the customers and "translate" what they want into functional specifications or user requirements. But sometimes you just need to cut the middleman and talk directly to the source. That way, you feel their pain and nothing gets lost in the translation. If you never talk to the customer or the user, then everything is just an assumption or a guess. You are essentially developing and designing in the dark.
"Usability testing is the killing field of cherished notions." - David Orr
Once I have a working iteration, it is time to test it in the wild. I often have someone who's not tech savvy try out things. I frequently find that what I thought was crystal clear is in fact not at all. Watching someone trying to use your application is a quick and easy way to get feedback.
There are also applications and services for usability testing.
I believe that great UX is important and if your career is creating software, then UX is a part of that. Familiarity with the discipline can make you more customer-focused and improve your product. Deliberate thought and focus on UX can lead to some great products and is not hard.
It is a matter of educating oneself, getting inspired, validating ideas, talking to users, and doing usability testing. There's no one thing you can do, but a whole host of things that add to the overall experience and ultimately produces a great user experience.
I'd like to end with a favorite quote that applies when thinking about designing interfaces.
"A well designed and humane interface does not need to be split into beginner and expert subsystems." - Jef Raskin
Now, this isn't the first organic transistor, but cotton's plentiful, cheap, lightweight and sustainable nature make it a great choice for use as a substrate in carbon-based transistors. To get the fluffy white stuff ready to amplify and switch electric signals, it was conformally coated (to cover all the fiber's irregularities) with gold nanoparticles, semiconductive and conductive polymers in a super thin layer to preserve its wearability flexibility. The result was an active transistor that can be used in integrated circuits sewn into your shirt, socks, or even pantaloons, if you like.
The future of fashion is right around the corner, folks, and in that future your pants are the PC.
Read the full study, co-authored by Cornell fiber scientist Juan Hinestroza, at Cornell's Website.
Another batch of Microsoft patent applications have trickled into public view, and these ones may be even cooler than the last bunch. They describe “flinging gestures,” interaction with 3D virtual objects, and even throw it back a bit to describe a new email view format.
There are about 4 different varieties of patents that have been filed by Microsoft :
Grasp Simulation of a Virtual Object
In the video, users were able to input gestures without ever touching the device, as shown when the traveling businesswoman draws a heart into thin air, which is then translated onto the screen and relayed back to her kitchen wall. Perhaps this patent is a bridge between what we have now and Microsoft’s envisioned future, but either way I hope this one makes it to reality.
Changing Power Mode Based On Sensors In A Device
The patent discusses certain specifications that must be met in order for the function to work, like the degree at which the device must be held, or the amount of time the device must be held that way before it powers on. We’re glad to see it, too, as it would be totally annoying for a tablet to turn on each time it was in portrait orientation. The patent also covers a device that can perform this magical portrait boot action, along with the method by which one would do so. Way to cover your bases, Microsoft.
Email Views
The patent describes a way of formatting your email view into different categories, rather than a list of names and subjects. The system would interpret the content of emails, and filter them into certain categories, like from friends, from family, videos and images, documents, invitations, and missed IMs. From there, the user has multiple interface options through which they can view their inbox in varying layouts.
The technology described is in no way revolutionary — Google’s been combing your email content to target ads for years, and their Priority Inbox is pretty similar, too — but it may add a little “delight” to the email experience, which is something Microsoft seems to aim for.
Throwing Gestures For Mobile Devices
Don’t let the title of this patent application fool you — there will be no phone throwing over at Microsoft, or anywhere else hopefully. Applied for in July, the “Throwing Gestures” patent describes a way of jerking your phone around to perform certain actions, including switching from one image to the next and closing applications. Like the “Changing Power Modes Based On Sensors In A Device” patent, Microsoft has also included a device which would use this technology.
Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t include any images of the actual flinging motion in its patent application, so that’ll have to be one for our imaginations to figure out. I imagine people walking down the street waving their phones around like they’re throwing frisbies, but I guess that’s no stranger than the masses of people now having conversations with their brand new iPhones.
[via Microsoft-News]
Facebook is releasing a new method for accessing your account when you lose your password: a little help from “trusted friends.”
The social network says it is testing a new tool in the coming weeks that will let you designate three to five friends you trust. If you forget your password or can’t access your email, Facebook will send your friends a code that they can pass along to you.
We’ve probably all been there: You forget your password and have to go through the “Forget your password?” process of waiting for a new one to arrive by email. Or, if we use Facebook’s comparison, you lock yourself out of your house — and now can go to a friend who has a spare key. Your spare key for Facebook is the code.
The new system doesn’t actually seem more efficient than the usual route if you’ve simply forgotten your password, but if for instance your account has been hacked and you’ve been locked out of your email, this is a new solution. It adds a new layer of security (the feature was announced for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month), too, since your friends can verify your identity more easily than any automated email.
Security firm Sophos points out, though, that a hacker could also remove or change your trusted friends settings and render the feature useless.
To set up Trusted Friends, go to your Security Settings Page (Account > Account Settings > Security), and click on the Trusted Friends section. From there, you can scroll through your friends and choose up to five. (You may not have access to this just yet — this section doesn’t appear in my settings.)
Although created about 1 year ago, it still remains an insightful resources to start learning about some of the most commonly used terms in the internet (or rather technology) space - The Web.
For geeks its all HTML5 & CSS3 and for a common man, who doesnt really care about the underlying technology on which this website is running or responding, its A MUST READ !
A team from Google has come up with some awesome graphics and super easy text to help understand the basics of 20 most popular things about the web & browsers.
Click here to see it in action.
It was just yesterday when I posted a video on Microsoft's Vision of 2020 and today, they have (officially) come up with a new vision of future. Taking forward the 'Metro UI' to a whole new set of possibilities and hardware integration, I am totally impressed and really excited to see this happening to me. Starting from the cab's glass door - acting as an augmented reality device to guide you through the tour and foldable displays and an interactive table (with a display) and what not.
Enjoy the video below to see it all in action.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZanf5FkkkA]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuL4uaXvDsQ]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BLzMCiR0G4]
VoiceOver is not the only child in Apple’s accessibility family. New features for low-vision, hearing impaired and now also for motor disabilities.
Low Vision
Continuing with the family metaphor, low vision is probably not the favorite child of Apple. But some new features is added.
Zoom From Start
It is now possible to set-up the device without a computer or sighted assistance. Just do the regular 3 finger tap twice and a little dialog asks if you want to use Zoom or not.
Read Selected
You can now enable a preference to allow read selected text.
This works pretty much like on the Mac. When you have selected the text you want read for you a pop-up with the option ”Read” will appear. When you press it the a voice will read it with a pace of 30%.
Reader
This feature has been on the mac for a while and is great for elderly and low vision also for mentally challenged people.
What it does is, in Safari you now see a little button next to the reload button that says ”Reader”. Now when you tap it Safari strips out all other content except for the article. Which means no navigation, no ads, just the good part.
Camera
Besides making it a very fast and easy way to open the Camera app, with pressing home button 2 times on lock screen and tap the now appearing camera icon.
Pinching in and out on the screen will now zoom in/out very fast and easy. And to help you even further you can activate a grid to help you align the camera for the money shot.
You don’t even need to find the on-screen button to take a picture, you can now use the volume up button on your device or with a headset with that button.
If you still cant find the person you are trying to capture, just turn on VoiceOver and it speaks where and how many faces in the shot.
Mirror Screen
If you have a device with the ”A5” chip in it (iPad 2, iPhone 4S) you can mirror the screen wirelessly to an Apple TV in 1080P Full HD.
But don’t worry too much if you don’t have one of those fancy devices, be cause you can still use Apple’s 30-pin-connector to HDMI cable and do the same thing, and supposedly you can also use any 3rd party cable since Apple has opened up that to developers (NOTE: this has not been tested).
Even FaceTime works great for this.
Hard of Hearing
A lot of great new features for deaf and people hard of hearing.
Hearing Aid Mode
On iPhones you can now activate something called hearing aid mode. This will help if you have problem with too much static noise from the phone. So what it does is putting less power to the antenna which will decrease some signal reception, especially 2G/Edge, but also reduce irritating electrical noise.
Stereo Balance
You have had the ability to use mono sound, but what if you still have some hearing on one ear?
Now you can adjust the amount of sound that goes to which ear to get the perfect balance for you.
Custom Ring Indications
This is a really cool feature that makes it easier to see when and who is calling or sending a message.
You can now set individual vibrations to each contact! Why stop there you can also enable the LED flashlight on the back to make signals on incoming calls.
Motor Skills
So this is Apple accessibility’s new born. They now enable people with certain motor disabilities to access the world of iOS.
New Assistive Technologies
Apple says they now made it possible for more assistive technology to connect with iOS devices. As of now I don’t know which new AT or what kind but as long as it there, I am happy.
You can also set the default way to output incoming calls, to regular, speaker or headset.
Assistive Touch
This new feature is extremely impressive. It lets you record a couple of gestures and with an easy menu, access them with with a single tap.
You can have a menu, with access to many shortcuts and other helpful commands, floating on top of the screen at all time. Or have Assistive Touch on or off by pressing Home button 3 times, if enabled in the settings.
iOS 5 introduces a wealth of new features that can be used to aid people with visual, aural, and mobility impairments. You’ll find these options on the Accessibility setting screen under Settings -> General -> Accessibility.
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a system that allows people with visual impairments to navigate the touchscreen of an iOS device. Switch it on and your iOS device speaks to you, telling you what’s under your fingers as you touch areas of the device. As before, VoiceOver requires that you use gestures in a different way than you would with the feature switched off. For example, to activate an item, you double-tap it. To scroll a page, you flick with three fingers.
The VoiceOver screen includes multiple functions. The first, Speak Hints, is an On/Off option. When on, VoiceOver will provide some additional detail on how to use a button or feature you’ve selected. The slider below the Speak Hints entry allows you to adjust the speaking rate of the VoiceOver voice.
The next area includes feedback options. The Typing Feedback screen, which you access by tapping the Typing Feedback button on the VoiceOver screen, is where you determine how the device indicates what you’ve typed. You can choose to have the typed characters, words, or words and characters spoken to you when you’re using either or both a software and hardware keyboard. Below this item are three On/Off options—Use Phonetics, Use Pitch Change, and Use Compact Voice (the last of which is new with iOS 5). Each determines the character of the spoken voice.
The Braille command includes a new option. In addition to support for Contracted Braille and the Status Cell option, there’s now support for eight-dot Braille devices.
The Rotor command (called Web Rotor in the previous version of iOS) includes a greater number of functions that you can control with the Rotor gesture. For example, you can now adjust speech rate, volume, hints, and vertical navigation. New spoken languages are now available from within the Language Rotor list—Irish English and South African English, for example. You can also now choose different feedback when navigating images with VoiceOver—Always, With Descriptions, and Never. Finally—also new with iOS 5—is the option to speak notifications as they’re received.
Zoom
The Zoom feature is unchanged from the previous version of iOS. Enable it and you can zoom the screen by double-tapping with three fingers. To zoom out, use this same gesture. To move around a zoomed screen, drag three fingers.
Large Text
This is another unchanged feature. From the Large Text screen, you can choose a larger text size for Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Messages, and Notes ranging from 20-point to 56-point text.
White on Black
Similar to OS X’s White On Black feature within the Universal Access system preference, you use the White On Black option to invert the iOS device’s screen colors, making it easier for someone with visual impairments to see.
Speak Selection
Within the Accessibility section you’ll find a new Speak Selection option, which you can switch on or off. When switched on, you can select on-screen text via the usual method and then tap a Speak button to hear the text spoken.
Speak Auto-Text
Another previously available feature, Speak Auto-Text speaks any autocorrected and autocapitalized text when it’s switched on. This is helpful not only to people who have visual impairments, but also to those who don’t pay strict enough attention to a device’s desire to substitute words when it detects alleged mistakes.
Hearing Aid Mode
Another new feature with iOS 5—at least if you have an iPhone 4 or 4S—Hearing Aid Mode makes iOS devices more compatible with hearing aids.
Custom Vibrations
If you can’t read your iPhone’s screen, it’s very difficult to use caller ID on a muted phone. The new Custom Vibration feature—which, like Hearing Aid Mode, is only available on the iPhone 4 and 4S—allows you to assign a unique vibration pattern to a contact. This way, when your iPhone vibrates in a pattern similar to the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (termed the Symphony pattern), you know it’s Ludwig calling.
In addition to the five included vibration patterns, you can create your own. Just choose to edit a contact within the Phone app and then tap the Vibration entry. In the Vibration screen that appears, select Create New Vibration. In the New Vibration screen, tap out the rhythm to “Shave and a Haircut” or “Jingle Bells” or “Louie Louie,” if you like. Tap Play to check your work, tap Save, and then name the pattern. Select it in the Custom area of the Vibration window, and tap Done in the top left corner to attach it to your contact. You can also change the device’s default vibration to a custom vibration.
LED Flash for Alerts
Switch this iPhone 4– and 4S–only option on, and your phone’s camera flash will blink when you receive an alert for an incoming text message, push notification, or call.
Mono Audio
Stereo is a problem for people who have difficulty hearing equally from both ears. This option alters a stereo signal through the headphone port so that both sides of the stereo stream are broadcast through each earpiece.
Balance Controls
Along these same lines, if the hearing in one of your ears is better than in the other, you can use the new Balance Control slider to make one channel of the stereo signal louder.
AssistiveTouch
If you have difficulty touching the device’s screen, AssistiveTouch is for you. Switch it on, and a target-like icon appears on screen. Tap it, and a gray overlay window appears from which you can select Gestures, Device, Home, and Favorites icons.
Tap Gestures and you can choose to control your device with two to five fingers—helpful when you have little finger dexterity. Tap Device, and such common button commands as Mute, Rotate Screen, Lock Screen, Volume Up, Volume Down, and Shake appear on screen. Tap the command you want to invoke. Tap the virtual Home button to be taken to the home screen. Tap the Favorites icon to access gestures you’ve created.
You create these gestures by enabling AssistiveTouch and then tapping the Create New Gesture entry at the bottom of the screen. In the screen that appears, use up to five fingers to swipe or tap out a gesture. You can then activate one of these gestures from AssistiveTouch’s Favorites menu.
Incoming Calls
This iPhone 4– and 4S–only option setting lets you choose how incoming calls will be routed—Default (via a headset, if one is connected, or the speaker), Headset, or Speaker.
Triple-Click Home
This setting, aimed at people who will use the device’s accessibility features, allows you to configure what a triple-click of the Home button does. The options include Off, Toggle VoiceOver, Toggle White On Black, Toggle Zoom, Toggle AssistiveTouch, and Ask.
This is probably one of the most generic term, rather phrase, I have heard lately. People often use these words to express umpteen varieties of emotions (read care, affection, advice, condolence etc.) to their nears & dears.
If we are sad, generally mom would say, "Don't worry son, it is just another phase of life.. This too shall pass."
If we are happy, our enemies would think, "Remember, this too shall pass!"
If we are disappointed, all our dear friends cheer us up by punching up with same postulation.
If we are super anxious, God himself smiles and tells us in a subtle way, "Stand up boy! Its just another test, this too shall pass."
And last but not least… If we eat something weird, "We agree to ourselves, in our minds, that this too shall pass..." ofcourse, followed by an uber relaxing fart !
The list is long but the idea is short & simple. No matter what kind of situation we are put into, no matter how good or bad it is, it is bound to change !!
Change is inevitable yet super awesome, I say ! It brings joy to a recovering patient, satisfaction to a student writing his last exam of semester, pain to a pregnant women, blessings to a newly married couple, expenses to a boy trying to please his girl-friend, frustration to a techie working hard to go beyond his manager's expectation, nostalgia to a rich old man while riding a bicycle on streets, contentment to a student after attending his favorite subject's class, sleep to a beggar having a delicious dinner and peace to a human serving selflessly to others.
As an American poet rightly says, "Patience & fortitude conquer all things".
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