Don't forget about industrial robots. While not garnering as much media attention as the robots in the link, today's industrial robots can pull off some amazing work.
It's Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Every year there is a large ACM conference on this called CHI. There are also hundreds of HCI researchers all around the world at some of the top institutions working on problems like this.
Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon have two of the bigger masters programs available. Each program pumps out between one to two dozen people a year who should be well equipped to perform usability testing, among other things.
And you don't need a whole lab. You don't need to videotape often, and you don't need to buy some special software/hardware (you can, and they help, but you can get a lot of mileage from much less). Jakob Nielson and his cohort Don Norman have published a few good books that should be accessible to the uninitiated. Often times, some scribbles on paper are a better choice than prototyping the interface (scribbles usually give you higher levels of feedback, as opposed to "The font is ugly.").
There really are much better sources than articles like this one where people are just discovering HCI methods (not to rag on the article). Do a little google searching (you now have the right keywords: usability, hci), read some books (amazon is bound to have something up your alley), and maybe even ask some people in the field. There's a lot of really cheap, really quick things you can do to help yourself out (lookup Nielson's Discount usability, or you can hire an HCI person onto your team, we're very worth the cost).
BTW: There are many more excellent sources than Nielson, he's just the easiest to cite for applied HCI in a short period of time.
And if you're around Orlando Florida, check out the IBM monitor at Epcot center. It's on display at Innoventions!
It's really easy to walk by the display without realizing exactly what the big deal is, I almost did myself. Stop and look for a second and you notice really fine print text, and super-sharp MRI scans from an LCD.
If you want up to date info about displays, check out SID. There's a good article about SID 2004 with lots of juicy info for display buffs here.
The gist of SID 2004 is more flat, more size, more resolution. For people that caught that article when it came out, it verified the rumors of Apple's new 30" display.
In fact, I've built my own router (running Linux of course) in a 1/10th scale Celica using the VIA. 10mm more in either dimension and it wouldn't have fit. In fact, it looks just like the two projects I just now linked.
The via comes in 500 and 866 mhz flavors, and pulls VERY little power resulting in a low heat motherboard/processor solution. There's so little heat, they don't even put a fan on the processor, which is great when you have your 1/10th scale Celica routing your dsl in your living room where you want to hear other people and/or the tv instead of the computer.
So for those needing those extra mhz, the lex looks like a good solution. But for a Linux gateway/router and a couple other applications, the slower C3's do just fine, but pull less power and have the possibility of going completely fan free (if you can find a fan-free powersupply).
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Don't forget about industrial robots. While not garnering as much media attention as the robots in the link, today's industrial robots can pull off some amazing work.
4 robot coordinated system with 2 robots exchanging holding fixtures and coordinating with 2 more welding robots http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EK1ad4-gWM
1 robot system taking human-readable commands from a linux based touchscreen and generating offsets and moves dynamically http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFSCm24O7lA
(full disclosure - I work at the company, Automation IG, that designed and built these robot cells)
It's Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Every year there is a large ACM conference on this called CHI. There are also hundreds of HCI researchers all around the world at some of the top institutions working on problems like this.
Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon have two of the bigger masters programs available. Each program pumps out between one to two dozen people a year who should be well equipped to perform usability testing, among other things.
And you don't need a whole lab. You don't need to videotape often, and you don't need to buy some special software/hardware (you can, and they help, but you can get a lot of mileage from much less). Jakob Nielson and his cohort Don Norman have published a few good books that should be accessible to the uninitiated. Often times, some scribbles on paper are a better choice than prototyping the interface (scribbles usually give you higher levels of feedback, as opposed to "The font is ugly.").
There really are much better sources than articles like this one where people are just discovering HCI methods (not to rag on the article). Do a little google searching (you now have the right keywords: usability, hci), read some books (amazon is bound to have something up your alley), and maybe even ask some people in the field. There's a lot of really cheap, really quick things you can do to help yourself out (lookup Nielson's Discount usability, or you can hire an HCI person onto your team, we're very worth the cost).
BTW: There are many more excellent sources than Nielson, he's just the easiest to cite for applied HCI in a short period of time.
And if you're around Orlando Florida, check out the IBM monitor at Epcot center. It's on display at Innoventions!
It's really easy to walk by the display without realizing exactly what the big deal is, I almost did myself. Stop and look for a second and you notice really fine print text, and super-sharp MRI scans from an LCD.
If you want up to date info about displays, check out SID. There's a good article about SID 2004 with lots of juicy info for display buffs here.
The gist of SID 2004 is more flat, more size, more resolution. For people that caught that article when it came out, it verified the rumors of Apple's new 30" display.
You said arguably the smallest, and I'm gonna argue.
First things first, the Lex system *is* neat because of the socket 370, but it edges out the Via Eden platform in one dimension by 10mm. Doesn't sound like a lot, unless you're making some really cool custom pc's.
In fact, I've built my own router (running Linux of course) in a 1/10th scale Celica using the VIA. 10mm more in either dimension and it wouldn't have fit. In fact, it looks just like the two projects I just now linked.
The via comes in 500 and 866 mhz flavors, and pulls VERY little power resulting in a low heat motherboard/processor solution. There's so little heat, they don't even put a fan on the processor, which is great when you have your 1/10th scale Celica routing your dsl in your living room where you want to hear other people and/or the tv instead of the computer.
So for those needing those extra mhz, the lex looks like a good solution. But for a Linux gateway/router and a couple other applications, the slower C3's do just fine, but pull less power and have the possibility of going completely fan free (if you can find a fan-free powersupply).