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by Tino Dobra
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Subject
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The Dilbert Objects are three items, that can still be found in recent offices even if there is a personal computer used. Labeled after the famous comic strip from Scott Adams, this work are ideas of three analog and networked objects, which should connect the real and the virtual desktop to benefit from the digital world.
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The 70th introduced nearly every idea of modern interfaces. Since then the basic principles changed little. But in the last couple years a trend could be realized: modern interfaces become less and less abstract by technical possibilities.
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Some software is not only designed based on real items but has the same appliance with all the advantages and disadvantages.
But why we try to make the virtual desktop looks and feels like physikal objects and not vice versa?
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The Networked Folder
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A folder is an obscure thing. Unsettled bills can be forgotten in it.
If the folder is featured with an optical scanner, battery and a bluetooth emitter, the real object is then networked with the digital desktop and bills could be payed automatically. The technology extends the folder but the real object can still be used ordinarily.
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Spotlight
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Spotlight is a networked desk lamp that adds automatically all objects on the table like notes, letters or books to the virtual desktop. Then, the physical items on the desk could be searched, reviewed, saved and used for collaboration over a network.
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Is the searched object still on the desk, Spotlight can show the position.
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A high-definition camera with a wide-abgle lens observes the whole table. Changes are analyzed and transmitted to the pc to be interpreted. A ring of bright ligth-emitting diodes can illuminate small parts of the desk.
Despite technical extension of the lamp, the original function is not lost.
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Window Display
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Like the metaphor of GUI windows, real windows can also display information about the space behind them. But only very limited. For example: rain drops on the pane show that its raining outside.
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The Window Display expands a common window with a transparent display and networked it to weather web-services. The time dimension is represented as the height of the window. The upper half of the window is morning, the lower is afternoon. Rainfall, wind and current temperature--which is animated from top of the window to its bottom by one day--can be displayed.
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So one can simply read off the weather for the afternoon when having breakfast and decide to pick up the umbrella without the hassle by using radio or the web. And as for all Dilbert Objects: the original function didn't get lost.
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