Michael Voong HCI Researcher @ Birmingham University

RSMG 4 Report

My 4th Ph.D. progress report is up - check it out in the documents/papers section. The report itself shouldn’t be that interesting to most of you, but please look at the interface mockups and get back to me with any comments (shown below). I’ll be implementing these soon so wouldn’t mind some feedback.

Three interface designs, to be implemented and compared in the first experiments. Absolute, spatial, map-based, allows deception and disclosure ’blurriness’ radius (top); distance-based, doesn’t allow deception but privacy alleviation through ambiguity (middle); spatial, distorted distances, allows deception and disclosure ’blurriness’ radius (bottom).

Visa Micro Tag

Just stumbled upon this new way to pay. Why haven’t I seen such a life-changing product yet? When is it coming to the UK?

Visa payWave allows your Visa Micro Tag to be read only when in close proximity (1-2 inches) to a secure reader that accepts Visa payWave payments. After waving your Visa Micro Tag in front of it, the reader will indicate that your information has been received and is being processed through the secure Visa network.

W910i J2ME Bluetooth Stack Problems

I’ve been programming with the W910i recently. Theoretically, it should be a great phone to work with. Plenty of optional APIs included, has a J2ME accessible accelerometer, BUT, Bluetooth keeps failing randomly with the following error message (in console output, testing in Java Developer mode using Sony Ericsson Device Explorer/Connection Proxy):

[Java/OJEX] bt.core[Util.raiseBluetoothConnectionException] FAILED_NOINFO

I’m using a separate thread that keeps making a serial profile connection (BTSPP://) to a GPS device that outputs in NMEA-0183 format. During random times (sometimes 20 secs, sometimes 5 mins) the thread locks up and any attempt to access it locks up that thread too. It must be to do with some of the bugs listed here - even after updating my firmware using the auto update within the device it’s not fixed. There seems to be no fix available anywhere!

I’m going to do a more simpler test later to see if it’s my code, but I doubt it will make any difference.

This is just a warning for those fellow developers out there tearing their hair out. For now, I’m sticking with Nokia phones and my Sparkfun accelerometer… Just need to re-solder that power connection!