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Maybe I'm late to the party — nods to John Blyberg and Rob Styles — but damn(!), does Microsoft have some exciting visualization projects or what?

John and Rob wrote about Microsoft Surface, a hardware/software combination that allows for tactile manipulation of data. In Microsoft's own words:

Microsoft Surface represents a fundamental change in the way we interact with digital content.

With Surface, we can actually grab data with our hands, and move information between objects with natural gestures and touch.

Surface features a 30-inch tabletop display whose unique abilities allow for several people to work independently or simultaneously. All with out using a mouse or a keyboard.

Don't take my word for it; go watch a demonstration video and be amazed.

But wait, open the video in another window, and keep reading before you lose interest in my uninteresting prose.

I noticed among the recently released TED talks a brilliant short presentation by Microsoft's Blaise Aguera y Arcas on their Photosynth project. My first impression was just the visual joy of the photo browse / pan / zoom interface. It's impressive in its own right. But what really tickles me about Photosynth is that it "takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space."

For example, throw it at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/seattlepubliclibrary/ and it will construct a collage-like view of the Seattle Public Library. Zoom in and you'll see images at that level of zoom. Pan in three dimensions and (assuming there are enough photos to support the various views) you can virtually be in front of SPL. See for yourself:

Imagine browsing the stacks with this thing. Imagine finding a book on the stacks and being able to hook directly into its full-text. Super cool!

Microsoft Surface is tentatively planned for a November release, which will be targeted for "retail and entertainment settings". It could be available to the public in a few years' time though it will likely cost a few times more than an average PC. [Gleaned from a Seattle PI article.] Photosynth is also not available yet, but you can track its progress on the Photosynth team blog. (Yes, there's a feed.)

[Disclosure: I lived in the shadow of Redmond not long ago, though I was not employed by Microsoft. I probably invest in Microsoft indirectly, but I haven't scoured my portfolio distributions in a while.]

I usually travel by ground-based transportation — train when I can, bus when I must — because I hate flying. There is something about this sort of travel that makes folks more sociable in my experience. Frequently a question that I have come to dread is asked: "So, what do you do?"
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I just noticed Ed Summers posted a link to DemoCampDC1, a local BarCamp being organized in the Washington D.C. area, "to build an active community for people in the DC area to show up and informally share geeky stuff." I've heard of these BarCamps before, but I never really took the time to look into it. Incidentally, I've been looking for good models for hosting and organizing such a group for a while now, inspired by the work Brian Hancock has done over the years with the Technology Awareness Group (TAG). The way the D.C. group is going about it looks like a promising one: start out building a community with very informal meetings outside of work hours, to test the waters, so to speak, and build a rapport with interested parties. And if there's sufficient interest, hold a full BarCamp event (perhaps a one-day hands-on symposium / workshop).

I like this model quite a bit, and I'd be interested in trying to get something similar started up in New Jersey. We have tons of talented library geeks in our many academic, public, and special libraries, not to mention general geeks whose interests and skill sets intersect with ours.

Why BarCamp? Don't we have enough meetings and symposiums? Sure, we're all spread thin. Our niche would be to bring together the TAG-style dog & pony shows with code sprints and other collaborative development a la the Access Hackfest. We're looking for a group that will be innovative, collegial, social, practical, and – not to be corny, but – fun-loving.

Here's what I envision:

• A number of very informal get-togethers spread throughout the state in order to foster inclusivity, with a "point person" in each area to report back about the level of interest
• Rotating event venues, possibly one per "point person" above who would ideally receive institutional support in one form or another
• Partnerships with other in-state groups to take advantage of cross-pollination without crossing purposes, such as TAG, NJLA's IT section, NJ-ASIS&T, and some student groups from Rutgers SCILS

Any of you New Jerseyans interested? Think it's a waste of time? Drop a comment or trackback here, or send me e-mail. I'm very interested in your feedback.

I noticed this response to the Fedora users survey on Peter Murray's blog, and figured I'd post a response. Since my previous employer did not use Fedora, and I haven't begun my new job yet, I'll be posting about our use of Fedora at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

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What is unAPI? Why should you care about it?

Read Introducing unAPI, in Ariadne issue 48, for answers to those questions… and more! Here's the obligatory snippet:

Common Web tools and techniques cannot easily manipulate library resources. While photo sharing, link logging, and Web logging sites make it easy to use and reuse content, barriers still exist that limit the reuse of library resources within new Web services. To support the reuse of library information in Web 2.0-style services, we need to allow many types of applications to connect with our information resources more easily. One such connection is a universal method to copy any resource of interest. Because the copy-and-paste paradigm resonates with both users and Web developers, it makes sense that users should be able to copy items they see online and paste them into desktop applications or other Web applications. Recent developments proposed in weblogs and discussed at technical conferences suggest exactly this: extending the 'clipboard' copy-and-paste paradigm onto the Web. To fit this new, extended paradigm, we need to provide a uniform, simple method for copying rich digital objects out of any Web application.

(Full disclosure: I helped a bit with this article. Thanks to Dan et al. for giving me the chance to sully their otherwise well-thought out article.)