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Apple is apparently rushing to launch its new tablet PC in time for the holiday shopping season. While still unconfirmed, features may include a 10in OLED screen, integrated Wi-Fi, full multi-touch/gestural UI, and a new multimedia platform called “Cocktail“. It’s unclear how these tablets will run applications–could be standard Mac OS, maybe iPhone apps, or possibly a hybrid.

While the actual features and functions are still conjecture, it not hard to imagine the possible uses of this device in healthcare. The concept of the tablets replacing paper is gaining steam, especially with the advent of electronic medical records. Could the MacBook tablet become the core platform for digital healthcare?

Lackluster hardware and poor user experiences have been major factors in the lack of tablet adoption among medical professional. If Apple can reengineer the tablet PC like iPhone reinvented the PDA, it’s not hard to envision medical tablet use gaining traction. And if the hardware takes off, expect to see a rush of new specialized applications and tools…could be interesting!

Posted via web from bzipkin’s posterous

Posted via web from bzipkin’s posterous

While the Microsoft Surface Table has been slow to hit major markets since its launch in 2007, the product offers plenty of promise for medical and healthcare applications.

A couple of examples:

VitraView by InterKnowlogy
This application allows doctors and patients to review surgical procedures, document procedures, and personalized medical information pulled from Microsoft Healthvault. Developed by Interknowlogy.

Patient Consultations on MS Surface
Developed by Infusion, this tool provides a platform that facilitates patient and healthcare provider communications during medical consultations. The app was named as one of the 11 Killer Apps for Microsoft Surface by Fast Company.

Microsoft Office Labs releases “vision of the future” videos every six months or so. Vision 2019 was launched a few days ago.

While much of the technology is Microsoft-centric (someday everyone will have a Surface table), the concepts are insightful and cool. Enjoy.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&#038;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&#038;showPlaylist=true&#038;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

Also check out their Healthcare Vision demo.

Google’s popular new Tasks application is now available to iPhone users via the browser. Task synchronization – especially for Outlook users – has been one a major downside of the iPhone that can only be solved by cludgey work-arounds.

The brief video below shows how easy it to use Google as a task manager. More details are also available at TechCrunch. I hope they’ll create a Outlook Task Sync application like they’ve done with Google Calendar.

We’re working a couple new projects focused on gestural and touch UI at RDVO. Some of our work may be applied to future Microsoft Surface table applications. We’ve found that actually procuring a Surface isn’t easy, so in its absence we developed a cool simulator using projectors and sensors we had lying around. Works pretty good, too.

Click on the image below to see a larger version.

Remember the futuristic user interfaces used by Tom Cruise’s character in Minority Report? He was able to interact with the system and manipulate data through hand motions. This user interface technique is known as gesture recognition and is one of a number of emerging new computer-human interaction models.

Gestural recognition allows users to interact with a system without providing a direct input like a tap or click. The system recognizes hand movements and other signals and responds accordingly. Combinations of gestures (or a gestural system not unlike sign language) could be used to interact at much higher speeds than current interface techniques. It’s not a stretch to imagine gestural UI systems that adapt and personalize to a user’s specific gestural mannerisms. When combined with voice recognition, gestural UI will create new paradigms for computer/human interactions that could revolutionize how we interface with machines.

And we’re not that far away…

Gestural UIs are already out there in rudimentary form and are evolving at frighteningly fast rate:

• One of the best examples of gestural UI is the Nintendo Wii. The Wii’s success is based on its revolutionary new gaming interface—gestural game interactions.
• Healthcare is another industry that is beginning to experiment with gestural interfaces. A group of Israeli researchers has developed an application that allows doctors to manipulate medical images using gestures. This replaces the need to use a mouse or touch-screen device—eliminating possible contaminants that accumulate on physical hardware.
• Another cool application is in the kitchen. Bang & Olufsen is developing a hands-free remote control prototype. This control could have a number of interesting applications, although Bang & Olufsen is targeting it at kitchen devices (you won’t need to wash your hands before using the remote).
• In addition to Apple, several mobile phone and PDA manufacturers have recently filed patents for gestural control applications. The iPhone’s touch UI is likely a glimpse of what future handsets will support.

I expect we’ll see more and more applications and prototypes emerge in the next few years.

When Minority Report came out in 2002 the technologies it envisioned seemed far off. Gestural UIs were only one example—the film showed paper-thin LCDs, personalized ad displays, and 3-D imaging. With advances in materials and processors we may see these technologies a lot sooner than we think.

It’s surprising that the iPhone doesn’t have a native solution for MS Outlook task synchronization. Task management has become a core element of my work style and not having my task list (or the ability to create tasks) on the iPhone is an annoyance. Not even MobileMe has a task management feature.

I was able to find a nice workaround after some investigation. This approach is free and seems to work just fine.

You can create a free account at Toodledo.com and then use the free Toodledo synchronization tool to sync your data between Outlook and the Toodledo.com cloud. Once synchronized, Toodledo has a iPhone-optimized page for viewing, managing, and creating tasks.

Your task data is stored in the Cloud, and you can set the synchronization tool to auto-sync at a set time interval or you can sync manually. Total set up time was less than ten minutes.

Get a step-by-step set-up and install guide.

Chapura, the company that developed a number of Palm OS and Outlook sync tools, recently release KeyTasks. KeyTasks costs $9.99 at the app store doesn’t support categorization. KeyTasks also requires a yearly fee.

Chrome, Google’s new open source browser, hit the Internets yesterday with the kind of measured excitement we’ve come to expect from Google releases. After a day of experimenting, I’ve come to the realization that Chrome is the Mini Cooper of web browsers—small and speedy and well designed…but may ultimately probably lacking the “oomph” to get SUV drivers to switch. No one was surprised to see Google launch a web browser, and envisioning Chrome as the core of a web-based OS is by no means a stretch.

Don’t me get wrong, Chrome is pretty cool and they’ve integrated a handful of user experience elements that are surprising in their logic and brilliance. Here are four that struck me.

1. Dragging a tab to the desktop creates a new browser window

One of the new innovations in Chrome is that each tab is treated as its own browser. A nice byproduct of this functionality is the ability to create new browser windows by simply dragging a browser tab Chrome to the desktop. Browser tabs were a great innovation a few years ago, but can be somewhat limiting—viewing two pages side-by-side requires the spawning of a new browser window. Chrome makes a thorny process a lot easier.

2. Maximum Screen Optimization

Chrome barely seems like an application. Extreme care and attention was taken to minimize the profile of browser controls and navigation, opting to dedicate as much screen space to the main window. The top navigation and menu controls have approximately 33% less profile than IE or Firefox (and this at the default settings…no toolbars added). Anyone who works in UX understands how difficult it is to maximize controls without sacrificing usability. Chrome does a great job at this.

3. The Omnibox

The multi-purpose search and URL box might take some getting used to, but overall is a nice tactic for minimizing and optimizing input fields. Although Firefox’s awesome bar has a better experience and is more legible, they still support a separate URL and search input box. I like where Chrome is going with this.

4. Kill Screen

Chrome displays a “kill screen” when it detects an unresponsive page. While this may not be that useful with web pages in general, this could be an incredibly useful feature with application development.

Finally, Chrome is built for speed. While new features and functions are always welcome with web browsers, if they come at the sacrifice of speed they are problematic. At first look, the UX of Chrome seems to be a step back from Firefox and Explorer, but after some experimentation and use it becomes clear that Google is looking beyond features and envisioning browsing as a user’s core computing experience. This minimalist approach may make users uncomfortable at first, but it should not take long for Chrome to gain significant share of the browser market.