dichotic noise

I updated the code of the previous experiment (Sharing Ubiquity Commands) such that when you open an URL that contains a shared Ubiquity action, it won’t open Ubiquity in preview mode, but display a small icon.

This also allows to display multiple commands on one page, and by using Ubiquity annotation database I could create this command history; such that when you revisit a page where you had already applied some ubiquity commands you will see the icons for each, awaiting re-​applying.

(If the video is clipped, try it here)

Note: The icon and the icon insertion code is repurposed from Aza’s Mouse Based Ubiquity experiments.

My experimental (read ugly) code is available at http://​gist​.github​.com/​2​0​1​053

I’ve just read Cory Doctorow’s “I, Robot.” I’m stunned. There is no way I can analyse it objectively; as it renders back to life vivid bits of memories from my childhood. Let me explain.

I was born behind the so-​called “Iron Curtain,” been raised in a communist society where we were taught that we were the chosen ones, that our ideology was the purest and our technology was the best. And supposedly — in our glorious history — we invented everything and the perverted capitalists had again and again stole from us, but in the end we will prevail.

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“Ubik helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Your friends will say, Christ, I used to think that you weren’t fun. But now, wow! — Safe when your privacy settings match your level of comfort, do not forget to review them often. Avoid prolonged use.”

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I recently spoke with Aza Raskin at FOWA on Ubiquity commands/​annotations sharing. I promised I’ll prototype something, here it is…

(If the video is clipped, try it here)

When someone applies an Ubiquity command to a piece of content that tells us what’s the type of that content. The user is making an annotation which is not made for the annotation sake, but made for solving a real need. That annotation if shared could be useful in various ways.

But first let’s look at all the data involved, consider that Alice is selecting some text on a web page, invokes Ubiquity and types ‘translate to japanese’. We have the folowing elements:

1. user: anonymous or with an identity (URI)
2. web page address (URI)
3. selected content
4. Ubiquity command (URI) with arguments

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