Don Draper is in the Microwave?

I don’t know why this comes as any surprise.  The Wall Street Journal reported today that Google has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it anticipates delivering advertisements to a whole new class of smart devices, which could include the newly acquired Nest thermostat and other future household appliances. 

So, you feel a little chilly and go to turn up the heat, how about an ad for Eddie Bauer sweaters?  Or better yet, your craving something sweet and your smart refrigerator knows you’re out of ice cream, how about an ad for Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?

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Now to be fair (and I’m not sure why I’m being fair at the prospect of Don Draper invading my living room any other time than Sunday night when I invite him), Nest Labs issued a statement that its privacy policy “limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services.” 

But, what exactly is the definition of “improving services.”  What if “improving services” is letting you know Eddie Bauer has sweaters on sale?  After all, if you wore a sweater, you might not be turning the heat up all the time.

Is the Surface 3 a MacBook Air Killer?

Today, Microsoft unveiled the Surface Pro 3, with the clear message that this new device would replace both your iPad and your MacBook Air.  The irony of ironies, though, is this image that’s been circulating on Twitter, of the journalists covering the event in New York, the majority of whom use MacBook Airs.

In assuming that a tablet device, like the Surface Pro 3, can replace a laptop, Microsoft seems to ignore at least two factors. 

One, the kickstand and cool keyboard covers really only work on a hard surface like a desk, because of their flexible nature.  How often do you see people using their laptops, well, on their laps?  A lot.  Or on the couch?  Or in bed?  The model of removable keyboard or keyboard covers really only works in the even more isolated world of desktop computing.

And, two, how often would one use the touch features of the tablet when the device is in “laptop mode?”  I tend to still agree with the late, Steve Jobs, that prolonged use of touch on a desktop or a laptop only leads to “gorilla arm.”  And, as for holding the device in “tablet mode” for long periods of time, I definitely want a weight that’s competing with iPad Air, not MacBook Air.

I get the impulse to resolve all the different form factors we all seem to be lugging around these days: smart phones, tablets, and laptops, and I think the Surface Pro 3 may be a step in the right direction, but I don’t see this device replacing all these journalists’ (and others who use the keyboard extensively on the go) MacBook Airs any time soon, soon being a relative term in technology.

Webmasters! Remember us Blind Folks.

Almost all website text is too small, and often too thin, for me to read easily, or at all.  Ctrl++ is my friend on the desktop, scaling that text up to size, and sometimes adding on a little Easy Read, (whichI’ve written about before).  I’ve yet to find a website that these easy Windows commands or simple plugins won’t work on.

But this isn’t always the case with my mobile web experience.  It seems a fair number of websites do not take into account accessibility for their mobile users, a segment of internet users that is only certain to increase going forward.

On the iPad, the equivalent of Ctrl++ in the browser is simply to pinch and zoom.  Unlike the desktop experience, however, the page can be made larger than the screen, necessitating the user swipe sideways to read each line of text. 

Likewise, plugins like Easy Read are replaced universally in the iOS accessibility features with an option to reverse all the colors, rendering most pages black with white text.  I set this function to be accessed with a triple tap of the home button.

But Apple has gone one step further with the reader in Safari, which works the same on OSX and iOS.  The reader extracts the text from the main article on a webpage, eliminating the ads and other text, and provides a larger, cleaner, reading experience for the user.  I still usually triple tap the home button to reverse colors for the easiest reading experience possible.

But, here’s the catch.  A lot of websites still don’t optimize their pages for the Safari reader.  I’m not sure why.  Is it a technical issue or just an oversight on the part of the webmaster?

Two very ironic examples who until the last week or so didn’t enable the reader in Safari were Cult of Mac and 9 to 5 Mac, sites devoted to every nuanced rumor about everything Apple.  (I couldn’t remember which site was still the holdout, so I went to see on my iPad and discovered the functionality was there since, like, yesterday).

Whether it’s a coding issue, or simply an oversight, I would implore webmasters to start thinking more about the mobile experience (and no that doesn’t always mean an app in place of the regular site) and to test the site with those of use with accessibility issues.

Window-Eyes Wide Shut

Microsoft’s Accessibility Blog reported that Ai Squared and GW Micro have merged, and that with the merger the new company will continue to develop and support the Window-Eyes for Office offer.  In which anyone who had purchased a copy of Office, from 2000 to the present 2013 version, could download a copy of Window-Eyes for free.  This being the first time I’d heard of the program, I decided to test it out.

The installation is a bit clunky, and it seems ironic that a company that is targeting the visually impaired makes little effort to make the fonts within the dialogue boxes larger than they typically appear with any other software.  But, I suppose they figured, hey, the program is going to read the information and options to the user anyway, so why bother.  The problem I encountered is that the computerized female voice is very difficult to understand and has that 1996, “shall we play a game” choppiness that doesn’t respect punctuation.  Other companies, such as Apple with Siri and Google with Google Now, have done a much better job approaching natural speech patterns.

Once installed, which of course requires a re-boot, there is a set up process for the user to check preferences, like whether you want each individual key read out when typing or just the word in its entirety.  Thankfully, there is also a setting to slow down the speech, but there’s nothing to test it on, other than adjusting the speed again and listening to the number being read, “thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty.”

After finishing the set up process, I launched Word to see how it worked.  I have to say, my desktop computer is a little over three years old, has either a first or second gen i5 processor, 8 gigs of RAM, and is running Windows 7.  It’s not going to set benchmarks, but it’s no slouch either.  Window-Eyes is so slow, it was reading dialogue boxes I had closed ten or fifteen seconds before, and never caught up.

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There was no way I had the patience for this.  I felt a little like Dave disconnecting Hal when Window-Eyes had only gotten to telling me “67 percent” on the uninstall before I cut her off abruptly by clicking the force shutdown button and re-booting the computer, silencing her for good.

Obviously this program is better than nothing and is perhaps suited for someone who is closer to totally blind.  I tend to think about the world visually, so my default is to struggle to see something, not sit back and have it read to me.  At the very least, a more interactive experience where I control when and where the reader reads, would be preferable. 

There has to be a way in which visual sensors, audio sensors, and artificial intelligence can be combined to provide a better user experience for the visually impaired (or any sensory deficit for that matter)).  Could a Kinect-like device, and a Nest-like device, and Google Now type of AI, work together, so the computer knows it’s me by seeing me, loads my preferences to enhance my visual experience, but also allows me to ask questions, like could you launch that program and read me the document?  With all of these possibilities coming soon to your television and thermostat, with maps, location, and social already enhancing our daily lives via cell phones and tablets, Window-Eyes seems almost archaic.  I mean, dictation software is better than this.

I guess I should be encouraged that there are companies devoted to accessibility, but the ones devoted to doing no evil or just raking in the cash seem a bit farther along in actually making my life easier.