June 2007 Archives

"What publishing can learn from the iPhone" points in a direction I've been thinking about for a while: we need to lessen our tie to notebooks and desktops when interacting with data.

Part of this equation is Google Gears which allows offline interaction with web applications. When I'm in the store and want to know if I have a particular book in my library, or what that wine was that I enjoyed the previous week but can't quite remember exactly which one it was, I want to have access to the information I need so I can make a well-informed decision. I want to be able to update my catalog at the point of purchase instead of trying to remember to do so later after I get home. Maybe I'm in another city, or traveling. The closer in time I can make all the tasks that go together, the more likely I am to do all of them. Managing data syncing and allowing client-side storage of data enables this.

Something that web developers have been looking for, but haven't been able to do, is now possible with Google Gears. Namely, accessing a file from JavaScript. It still isn't possible to access an arbitrary file, but with Gears, you can access the contents of a file that the user has selected in a file input element.

SF.OokOok, a science fiction and fantasy characterization project, is based on many of the ideas from the Genre Evolution Project (GEP) but with a different purpose. While the GEP is designed to collect data with a particular question in mind, SF.OokOok is designed to collect data that allows a researcher to prioritize the stories and other resources they may need to study in order to collect the data that they need in order to answer their question. SF.OokOok seeks to build a better card catalog of science fiction and fantasy.