THE INVISIBLE OS – Every massive consumer technology business is selling the same thing: the removal of thought. In the end, convenience always wins. Dishwashers automated hours of domestic chores. GPS externalized our spatial memory. Calculators offloaded routine arithmetic. The pattern acceler...
The Invisible OS
THE INVISIBLE OS – Every massive consumer technology business is selling the same thing: the removal of thought. In the end, convenience always wins. Dishwashers automated hours of domestic chores. GPS externalized our spatial memory. Calculators offloaded routine arithmetic. The pattern acceler...
The Interfaces With Which We Think
The concepts in modern operating systems — apps, windows, desktops, notifications, and so on — have so permeated our understanding of personal computing, it’s hard to imagine anything else, let alone believe there could be anything better.
Hello, Operator!
Part of the WonderOS project, this is presented as the operating manual that would come with the reader’s first machine running WonderOS. It is an exercise in exploring how people familiar with mainstream personal computing devices and systems would become computer literate in an itemized environment. It is written as though the reader is familiar with today’s mainstream operating systems, and is exploring their first itemized OS.
Substrates via Accessibility
The social model of disability holds that disability is produced by environments, not by bodies — that when software fails to accommodate a person’s needs, the environment is disabling them. We argue that the dominant organization of computing produces such interaction mismatches structurally: the commodity form of software requires a standardized consumer, and everyone whose needs diverge from this imagined subject is disabled by the software environment. The substrates research community has identified properties — disclosure, composability, malleability — that would address this, but the commodity form actively selects against these properties because they dissolve the boundaries on which exchange value depends. This raises a question: how can infrastructure organized against the grain of commodity logic be made durable? We find a precedent in accessibility infrastructure — sustained not by patronage but by the organized counter-power of disability rights movements. Through Allio, a system for cross-application augmentation built on accessibility APIs, we illustrate both what this foundation makes possible and where its limits lie. We argue that the accessibility case reframes the substrates programme’s central challenge as political-economic: the question of who sustains substrate infrastructure, and through what social mechanisms, is as important as the question of what properties it should have.
Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
The original promise of personal computing was a new kind of clay. Instead, we got appliances: built far away, sealed, unchangeable. In this essay, we envision malleable software: tools that users can reshape with minimal friction to suit their unique needs.
About Us
Around the world, building the internet’s operating system—and a better way to work. In a world of tech companies fighting for growth at any cost, imagine one that gives away its most successful pr…
Ubiquitous Accessibility for People with Visual Impairments: Are We There Yet?
Ubiquitous access is an increasingly common vision of computing, wherein users can interact with any computing device or service from anywhere, at any time. In the era of personal computing, users with visual impairments required special-purpose, assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to interact with computers. This paper investigates whether technologies like screen readers have kept pace with, or have created a barrier to, the trend toward ubiquitous access, with a specific focus on desktop computing as this is still the primary way computers are used in education and employment. Towards that, the paper presents a user study with 21 visually-impaired participants, specifically involving the switching of screen readers within and across different computing platforms, and the use of screen readers in remote access scenarios. Among the findings, the study shows that, even for remote desktop access—an early forerunner of true ubiquitous access—screen readers are too limited, if not unusable. The study also identifies several accessibility needs, such as uniformity of navigational experience across devices, and recommends potential solutions. In summary, assistive technologies have not made the jump into the era of ubiquitous access, and multiple, inconsistent screen readers create new practical problems for users with visual impairments.
Agents vs Operating Systems : The War That Could Kill Apps
The Computer for the 21st Century
Specialized elements of hardware and software, connected by wires, radio waves and infrared, will be so ubiquitous that no one will notice their presence
under the hood
This week I’ve been thinking about what it’s like for a new generation to make things with computers. When we were talking in Berlin, Luce made a point that...
Silicon Valley über alles
Every day, computers are making people easier to use
No Fork Required - Scott's Thoughts
What if another operating system isn't the solution to anything at all? What if device-level identity could tie into existing systems to help pull users out of walled gardens, rather than creating new gardens?
Arguing on Interfaces: From Obligation to Omnipotence - Finest Day
Two days ago, during “The Android Show,” Google unveiled what it calls a new category of laptop: the Googlebook. The basic idea is to explore what a laptop and its...
Feeling of Computing — Conversations