Blog of Much Holding

I’ve been very right in some of my predictions about LOST (Locke being in the coffin) and very wrong (too embarrassed to link) but I’ve got an interesting theory that, if I’m right, will mean LOST end the same way that another one of my favorite shows did, over 40 years ago.

One of the shows that JJ Abrams and producer/writer Damon Lindleoff has cited as an influence to LOST was The Prisoner, the groundbreaking 1960s spy show from the late great Patrick McGoohan that confounded viewers as much as entertained them. That series ended with the Village being destroyed (or at least abandoned) and The Prisoner (also known as Number 6) “free.” Until…

You saw the last scene. The last scene of The Prisoner saw the lead character driving his car towards the camera – the exact same scene that began the series. What did this mean? That it was all going to happen again, with the same result? Was he in a loop?

Yes. And No. It was all in the eye of the beholder.

“The Prisoner is ultimately what the show aspires to be,” Damon Lindelof said in 2006. Was this an off-the-cuff comment, or a very big clue? I think the later.

We have seen flash-backs, flash-forwards, and now, with this last season a concept called “flash-sideways” which is supposed to show what happens if they don’t get on the island.

Except they get to the island. They ALWAYS get to the island. They are meant to be. Or, to quote another recently-ended favorite program: “All this has happened before, and will happen again.”

They are in a moebius strip, and we will see both timelines merge by the end of the year, in a stalemate, and almost all will be explained. How does that end? No idea. And only a few people know the final shot we will see of LOST, and one of them is actor Matthew Fox (who plays Jack) – he said on Jimmy Kimmel he knows what it is.

Of course he does, cause he’s the only actor in the shot.

The last shot of the series – Jack’s opening his eyes as he lies in the jungle after the crash – will be the same as the first shot of the first episode. The perfect bookend. The end is the beginning is the end. Just like on The Prisoner.

The symbolism of the show has been clear – the record, the donkey-wheel – all are circular, not linear… Heck, they even had the “Oceanic (Number) Six” – They ALL are The Prisoner. And I’m not the only one to see similarities in both shows.

“They have to go back!”

Of course. They have no choice. That is the wheel, and that is their fate – to be forever LOST.

Hi all, just a quick note letting you folks in Atlanta know that one month from today is Joelanta 2010, the fantastic toy and action figure collectible show from my pals Buddy and Marten. It’s focused on my favorite of toys G.I.Joe but it also has a lot of variety as well. It’ll be held at the Marriott Century Center and for more details check out joelanta.com. See ya there!

If you are a tech geek, you were probably glued to your computer screens and clicking refresh every 30 seconds Wednesday afternoon, as Steve Jobs and Apple unveiled their new tablet, called the iPad. I know I was, and am very impressed with the features and industrial design of the device. But commentators on the Internet seems split right down the middle about it.

Shortly after the announcement, the criticisms started flying all around the Internet: “I don’t need it.” “It sounds like a feminine hygiene product.” ”It’s just a big iPod Touch.” “Where’s the camera?” And so on. I don’t disagree with many of these comments – especially the ones around the product name – but I think they are mostly trivialities. The iPad is a game changer, for many reasons, and one that I think will be very very successful.

Why? Because it is going to be a device that people will use instead of a full-fledged computer, just as netbooks have supplanted full laptops and desktops. Netbooks are limited devices, just as they stated in the keynote announcing the iPad. Is the iPad better than a notebook? No. It’s different, and services many of the same needs that netbooks do, only better – which is why I think it will be successful.

The best description I heard of the iPad came from Chief TWIT Leo Laporte, immediately after the announcement. The iPad is not as powerful as a full computer, it doesn’t do multitasking, but that’s fine. It’s an appliance, a utilitarian device that gets “out of the way” and lets people DO THINGS. That’s been Apple’s modus operandi for years, and this device appears to do that quite elegantly.

Another observation from the announcement: Steve Jobs said very directly at the end that they could not have released this two years ago, basically because the interaction model and UI would have been too high a learning curve for consumers. The iPhone and iPod Touch, as it shares the same model as the iPad, has reduced that learning curve tremendously.

This, I think, is one of the brilliant things about what Apple does. They can do some revolutionary things with their products – just look at some of their patent applications – but they know that if they put something out that is too “out there” then users will be confused and this “resistance to the new” prevents them from purchasing the device. Again, another reason I’m bullish on the iPad.

So, what does this mean when it comes to us Interaction design folks? It means a great opportunity to do things differently. Looking at the keynote and reviewing the updated SDK, it appears the interaction models and controls they have defined for the iPad are very consistent and quite “learnable” – I particularly like the way they have designed the standard “portrait” mode and differentiated if from “landscape”, hiding contextual navigation and other controls in portrait and displaying them in landscape (The e-mail client is a good example of this).

More than that though, the iPad presents us with both design opportunities and challenges. We have to adapt to the new interaction models that the iPad allows. The thing that the iPad reminds me most of is, ironically, a Microsoft product. Microsoft Surface featured some very interesting technology and design ideas that allowed you to “play” with information on a tabletop. Now, we have similar tech in a portable magazine-sized device, and the same possibility, which was much more limited when it comes to Surface, is available to all.

I know that I am already working on how I can design things in this medium, and if you want to “future proof” yourself, I’d recommend you start looking into doing the same. Knowing how to design apps on the iPad will, in my opinion, become a very desirable skill in the years to come.

NICE.

After a month of busting my hump on a Very Big Project I’m taking a few days off to go to Walt Disney World with two of my sons. Be back posting last next week (and follow me on twitter in the meantime -I’m @josephdickerson – quite original, I know).

In recent years one of the big concerns that some civil liberty groups have expressed about the US government has been around a program called Total Information Awareness. This system was intended to be a massive database of personal information about, well, us – a huge collection of content that can be filtered and sorted by CTU… err, I mean Homeland Security, to help fight terrorism.

I won’t debate the pros or cons about that idea (but, as a libertarian, you can probably guess my opinion) but instead I bring this up to note that similar concerns have been expressed about another huge data system that has an incredible amount of personal information about Americans… Google.

No, I’m not one of those “OMG Google is spying on us” types, I just think we are about to enter a new era very soon where Total Information Awareness is not something that we will need to be afraid of – it will be something that all of us are going to have access to, anywhere we are.

Two examples: First, there are the augmented reality apps that are being developed by many different companies allows you to use your mobile device’s camera and GPS to “see” additional details about your surroundings. The best example of this I have seen is in the Yelp app, which gives you contextual information about restaurants, shops, and more in this manner.

Second is Google Goggles, another piece of “beta” software that is kind of “augmented reality on steroids.” It allows you to access similar contextual knowledge, only n this case it is not limited to restaurant, entertainment or shop reviews – you can take a picture of a neighborhood and Google will give you information about where you are, all from that really big database they are managing of, well, EVERYTHING. They won’t do facial recognition, out of privacy concerns… but who’s to say someone else won’t push that technology out there, to get a jump on Google in this new metadata-filled space?

When you can install Google Goggles on Android phones and Yelp on that and other devices, for free, I think you are seeing a new and challenging area that we as users and designers need to be very very cautious about. The potential for information overload is greater than ever when you can access such contextual information anytime, anywhere… not to mention the potential for abuse (especially if the facial recognition stuff is eventually made public).

The world is changing, and as I said before, the future has arrived – it’s just not the one we were expecting. Let’s remember (quoting that great scientist Jeff Goldblum) that just because technology allows us to do something doesn’t mean we should.