I must be getting old.  I find twitter enables a curious social behavior, seemingly aimed at extroverted people, and some would say at its extreme, narcissistic.  

While I don’t use twitter myself, or even Facebook, I do blog, ergo, I must be one of them too.  Myself, I am simply interested in the technology as the human factor seems to be hurtling towards Singularity at a rate I no longer can understand.

I spend a lot of time in front of computers, I mean at least 8 hours a day for the last 18 years or so, mostly as a professional Software Engineer.  As a Software Designer, I find twitter interesting, but why don’t we design the equivalent of twitter on video (with sound) instead of text?  YouTwitter would allow you to record a video for 5 - 7 seconds (or whatever). We certainly have the computing horsepower, the bandwidth, and what seems to be a critical mass of cell phones with video/audio record functions and wifi capabilities.  Not to mention any computer/laptop/netbook/media center/(Xbox?) with a microphone, web cam, and internet connection.  Which essentially means the same size market as “regular” twitter is today, but rather than serving up text, now serving 5 second video (with audio).

As a Software Engineer, it is interesting to think of the design and implementation of such a system.  Who knows, maybe it is already happening, and this shows how out of touch I am with social networking

If YouTwitter existed, I probably would use it – not only would it be fun, but change the way we communicate via computers.  Take me for example, at 50 years old, and really been on one form of computer or another since 1980, I am (really) tired of writing text.  It would be way cool not to have to type any more text.  I write too much already and that’s why I would like to see YouTwitter.  If I had the time and capital investment, I would design and build it myself.

YouTwitter is more than that.  What about the capability to see people’s interaction without the text?  Did I mention how our overall communication style would change if I could see you speak instead of just reading your text?  Is this the next evolution in social networking?

I don’t know, but I would use it, even as an introvert.

I am working on a new user interface for my web-based IDE, called Global System Builder.  It will use a 3D map-based user interface.  So how does a 3D map-based user interface work with an Integrated Development Environment?  You will see in the following posts.  First step is the evaluation.

I lived in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for quite a few years and know the downtown area quite well.  One of its famous landmarks is the Calgary Tower. So I wanted to see how the two major (free) players compared to the real thing (above).

Check this out, on the left and Virtual Earth 3D on the right.  Hmmm… interesting.  Google Earth’s picture is a drawing.  Now I have played with SketchUp and it is incredibly powerful to model 3D – including the interior of a building.  However, not the case with the Calgary Tower here.  You may want to look at the as they have a nice inventory of 3D objects.

Now Virtual Earth’s image on the right is interesting as the software used by MS to gather and make the 3D images got messed up a bit on the Calgary Tower.  However, if you look past that and compare the background buildings in the images, Microsoft’s sure looks more realistic.

Microsoft has also acquired a 3D modeling tool like Google’s SketchUp called 3DVIA.  It appears to have most of the same capabilities as SketchUp, but I need to spend more time with it.  And similarly to Google’s warehouse, Microsoft has a way to place your models on Virtual Earth.

So how do the technologies compare?  Well, Microsoft has opted for a web-based approach using a JavaScript control that you can play with live and see the source.  Google Earth is a thick-client exe and its SDK is actually a with a C# .NET wrapper that you can get, which you will need a Subversion client like TortoiseSVN in order to get the source.

Having developed both, I must say that the Google thick client is much smoother and quicker than the Windows web-based client.  Meaning that when you zoom in, rotate, pan, etc., and play around with the 3D features, Google Earth’s movements are much smoother and seem to download and render much quicker than Virtual Earth.  Now this could be my internet connection speed to the data centers, the number of hops or … a whole bunch of things, but, it still leaves me with this impression.

Other than that, there a very specific feature in one product that is not in the other which will make the decision for me.  Wonder what it is?

Finally, a company called 3Dconnexion has developed a 3D mouse called SpaceNavigator that can fly around and through these 3D worlds and models.  I have one on order and can’t wait to try it out!  If you want to see what it can do, have a look at this interesting “fly by:”  

I did  look at NASA’s World Wind and it is really impressive, but I have not had enough time to evaluate whether it meets my needs or not.  One immediate short coming is the inability to draw and import a 3D model, or so it seems…

Still trying to figure out how a 3D map-based user interface will work with a programmers IDE?  Stay tuned.