Page 138 - DCAP404 _Object Oriented Programming

Unit 6: Constructors and Destructors

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Caselet Clearly Making a Point

EROX-PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre, where the world’s first graphic user
interface and the SmallTalk-80 object-oriented programming was developed) has
Xan unusual project on in India. This technology company has been researching
methods of making technology more human-friendly. The brief was simple: “Why should
humans always adapt to tech? Why not make tech easy and natural for human beings to
use?”
Feeling at Home

The group came up with a variety of interface devices that were a lot more instinctive than
the ordinary keyboard-mouse devices.
Devices with names such as e-Shiva egg, the e-rickshaw and the 360 degree Tilty screen, have
been developed which can be used by just anyone. “No one needs to know anything about
technology. You can get information instinctively,” says Mustafa Siddiqui, a team member.
The research group’s demo chose to base its projects on subjects that were very Indian,
such as Benaras (“which is a microcosm of India”) and Shiva. “We wanted to produce
technology in India in an Indian way,” explains Siddiqui.
The “Interactive Physical Icons”, are real physical objects such as a wooden trishul, ring
and so on which can be placed on the cursor. The system understands this as a command
for more information on the trishul.
The e-rickshaw (a real rickshaw with a screen fitted on the seat) demonstrates best the kind
of instinctive interaction built into the products. Someone who has never seen a keyboard
and a mouse would be bewildered by a PC as we know it, but anyone looking at the
e-rickshaw would instinctively turn the handle bars, the key to steering through a video
on Benaras in the demo project. Ringing the rickshaw bell would bring more pictures and
information on the screen.

The e-Shiva egg, an egg-shaped device that can be cradled in a palm with buttons on the
side, works like any palmtop. The demo device has information on Shiva and so was
shaped to feel like Shiva.
The 360-degree swivel display can be turned around a full circle and the screen shows
various Benaras skylines as if through a handycam.
The Crossing Project, as it was called, was the brainchild of Ranjit Makkuni, a multimedia
researcher at Xerox-PARC, who is also a designer and musician. Makkuni continues to
explore the “non-button pushing, gesture-based interfaces” and tries to bridge the
traditional and the contemporary.
It was begun purely as a research project and the team has exhibited 21 products in Mumbai
at the National Gallery of Modern Art, says Siddiqui.
Three exhibitions later, the team has some commercial projects on hand. Some of the
requests have come in from the tourism sector, a large media group, a GSM operator and
even a large public sector unit.

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