I’d like another software license

I’d like another software license so I can do my work.

(Inspired by Microsoft’s generous offer to allow me to extend a trial)

no no no, thank you, really…

(Fife and drum melody playing lightly in the background, voice in somber tone)

I recall a day when PC interactive was down stateless.  Users were confused “did I click?”.   Will the event fire when I click or when I release?  This UI is out to get me…

(strengthening tone)

This leads us to ask ourselves, are Television UI users not deserving of such interaction feedback?

Are they discounting our interaction experience with something that is “good enough”?

Are pixels and memory footprint so important that we just simply remove such an informative button state!?

Do our remotes and IR input hardware even support such a thing?

(perplexed yelling)

What is next?  No difference between “press” state and “release state”?!!!!

(bold yet inviting)

Well there is hope.  I decree that starting from this day forward, that everyone from the hardware engineers to the UX and design teams to the interactive developers can now consider the down state in every way.   Production folks get your selection tools warmed up,  flex that pointer finger with glee and create that PSD layer with confidence that your work will no longer go ignored.

From this day forward let it be known that TV UI has a downstate and that all are free to use it for all that it is worth.  Let me be so bold to state that we dare go so far to not only switch out a visual state but also trigger an audio cue as well.   Don’t just stop with a simple image swap, use an animation for press AND release states.   Release the down state for once and for all!!!  (cheers heard echoing and fading)

But seriously folks, TV UI and its legacy should not bridle its future, please make sure you understand the technology and its capabilities before ruling out interactive fundamentals.    Put the “fun” back in fundamentals and build beautiful HD cinematic UI and break away from legacy hardware and DVD interaction constraints.  The users deserve it…

I asked just this question to Don Woodward, a Principal Scientist and leader of the Adobe Digital Home initiative.

Don explained it in this manner.

Adobe had taken great steps in making the Flash Lite player available to be licensed by mobile device and CE manufacturers.   The 3.1 verison of this player supported AS2, MP4, and a host of other standard flash components which would allow the existing base of Flash developers to be leveraged by companies looking to develop content for this platform.  If a company licensed the Flash Lite player for their device, Adobe would send over a package of code libraries and documentation, and it was up to the device manufacturer to “port” the player onto the device.   As you might imagine, there was an impact on content portability given that it was up to the device manufacturers to make sure their ports were to spec.   Needless to say, not all device ports worked the same and one of Flash’s greatest strengths “app portability” was compromised.

Stagecraft looked to address this issue and add some global device type specific enhancements that would improve performance.

As I understand it Stagecraft goes one step farther by wrapping the Flash Lite player in a layer that mitigates the risks associated with porting just the Flash Lite player itself.   It insures that SWFs created for one Stagecraft based device will work on all Stagecraft based devices.   The one exception here is the use of EDK extensions.  If a SWF requires any special capabilities that AS2 cannot offer or perform well, a native “extension” can be created that is accessible via a “intrinsic” class facade that can offload this functionality to the host environment.     Portability is preserved across Stagecraft and insured via a device certification process marshaled by Adobe and its partners.

Stagecraft not only insures consistency across devices, it leverages HW graphics acceleration for bitmap compositing and MP4 video.   These two things allow developers to create full motion HD user interfaces as well as pull IP video into a connected device.

Do you want to start your own television network today?   With Stagecraft you can…

Now for the plug… I have been deeply involved with Stagecraft projects for Comcast, Vizio, Rhapsody, Netflix, Samsung, RCDb, and a few others.    I offer services on this as well as browser based connected device UI frameworks.   Please contact me for services ranging from globlal strategic approach in this area to content development.

UPDATE:   This post goes on to compare some versions of the Flash player and calls out Stagecraft itself.

http://whatsyourideaoftomorrow.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-flash-and-latest-innovations.html

Recently while working on a Stagecraft based project for RCDb I ran into a little snag that had I not quickly RTFM’ed I might have been stuck on for a long time.   Now when I say quickly I mean about after an hour of trying every trick in the book including praying, posting to Samsung Dev forum (waited 3 days with no response), and every combination of using the .focus() method I could think of…

The manual states that HTMLObjectElement in fact does *not* have  a .focus() method.    Well, this does not jive with the fact that whatever browser they are using in the “Emulator” does in fact support the .focus() method.  Hence why maybe I did not go to the manual right away.    “It works in the emulator”  (It works on my machine echoing as scene slowly fades to black then a vision of Eddie Vedder glows like the Jesus thing you stare at).

Well, in the end, you need to actually do two things to make it work in both places.

Emulator:
Does in fact support .focus() for the HTMLObjectElement, so just call it at some point after your onLoad method.

TV:
You have to set the tabIndex of the HTMLObjectElement to 0, and then call focus on the window.

tabIndex = 0;
window.focus()

At least that is what works for me…

Now, if you want to set leading on a dynamic text field, post a comment and send your email,  that one is going to cost you…

Cheers!

I have been in “Interactive TV” in some form or another since 1995. I have been deeply immersed in it since 2000. We all thought it was 2 years away for the last 15 years. Now that it is truly emerging as an available technology, we might only have 10 more years before someone creates the experience that fosters adoption.

First off, the first thing I realized was it is not a “this vs that” sort of issue as PV extends what you can do with Flash (AS3 really) and FP10.  I have prepared this matrix to show what is possible in CS4/FP10 versus the older CS3/FP9 and what PV could always do.  Remember PV is a library that runs on top of the base Flash player, therefore inheriting all of its capabilities.  PV is a comprehensive 3D framework capable of just about anything you see in runtime 3D engines like XBox or Unity3D.

The best thing is that FP10 can do a few more things than FP9,  most notably  3D transformations (move and rotate in XYZ).   The UI has tools that allow you to change these values in the Flash IDE, or you can use AS3.    Another good thing here is that now FP10 can now perform 3D operations much faster and “better” than FP9.   At a high level, 3D transformations in FP9 had been calculated via a 3×3 matrix of parameters, this has been extended to a 4×4 matrix in FP10 allowing for the use of more advanced mathematics in 3D calculations.   At least that is what I got from (http://tinyurl.com/7qasdk).

This new performance and the additions will only provide the PV developers with a great opportunity to do some refactoring of the areas of the framework that will benefit most.   Another cool demo I saw was combining Flash filters with PV objects (http://blog.zupko.info/?p=76 and http://papervision2.com/playing-with-filters/) .  Who will combine these things in the next Killer Kludgey way that will amaze all of us and say WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT!!! ?

FP 10′s native 3D capabilities have been referred to as “Postcards in Space” by many (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6731027747102186445) .   This really seems like a good explanation.  A movieclip can be scaled (X,Y), rotated,  and moved in 3D space just like it was moved in 2D space before.  All of the movieclip’s nested children MCs will be affected by these same transformations.  Add these transformations with a simple Z ordering manager (not there by default) and combine the Z depth values with some filters and you have can do some pretty cool stuff.

REFERENCES:
A very interesting blog post that gets even more interesting as you read through the comments:
http://www.robertpenner.com/flashblog/2008/11/misconceptions-about-how-flash-cs4.html

A class in a local classpath will override a class in the SWC’s class path of the same name.

One might conclude:

• you can override a single class within a SWC with a local class with the same name and change the features of its subclasses
• you could “fix a bug” in a SWC package with the same approac

Tests to come:

• Proofs of this in action with examples
• Proofs of collisions in separate swcs that use the same class paths
  • What happens when I use one version of GTween in SWC one and another in SWC two?
    • Do I really need to strip all of the code out of my SWCs so I can share from more than one SWC?

1.8T is capable of 350 foot pounds of torque on the stock rods, that is the first limitation of the hardware.

Drivetrain is good to 450HP (as said by some pros)

The GTRS is capable of 22PSI all the way to 7K RPM.

Methanol Injection at 50/50 water to alcohol is 100% equivalent to 116 octane fuel, allowing for significant HP gains due to more advance under boost.

Nitrous is a power adder that adds fixed HP and torque at any RPM, low or high. Nitrous is a full stroke power adder as the burn is not a quick flame wave, but is distributed across the entire power stroke (told this by my supplier).  He used an analogy to “exploding foam”.  Mikey likey exploding foam analogy…

Stand Alone ECU allows for precise control of fuel, timing, and boost pressures so you can dial in your RPM curves for all of these attributes.

So with those assumptions in mind, there is a lot to tweak here…

• Fuel (11:1 under boost, 14:1 cruising, XX:1 to make it idle)
• Timing (as much as possible without pinging at any RPM / boost)
• Boost (how much at any RPM – maybe even a spike at medium RPM and then taper off as you rev out)
• Methanol (what boost level to activate, what boost level to be at 100%)
• Nitrous (how much HP jetting, what PSI to switch off)

One known fact from my limited 4X experience with Dyno Tuning as well as many years of software engineering (which might only have this one similarity) is that it is very easy to get 90% there, and the last 10% cost and spans about 90% of the money, time, and effort.

Now for the tuning: Start with the basics: Boost, Fuel, Timing.

Boost – You want to run as much boost as your turbo and internals will safely allow. On the 1.8T, that means a lot of boost , so much so that if you do not want to see boost drop off as you pull into the higher RPMs the turbo gets so large that low end boost is just plain gone.  I am talking like 22PSI on 91 octane CA gas.  The GTRS, which can provide this boost, spools nothing like the K03, you have to WAAAAAIIIIIIITTTTTTT for the spool.  It takes FOREVER, and almost anyone in any car can pull anything on you until you hit big boost.  Let’s face it, you are not going to drive around at 5K all the time just so some JA in a neon can’t cut you off in traffic.  FWIW – the GT2X does not spool much faster than the GTRS, but does run out of steam after about 5500.  It is not until you buy one and install it that you find this out.  Yes it can do 20PSI, but only to 5500, then you pull boost down to about 15PSI to 7K.  That is a real bummer feeling.    Skip the GT2X.  I wish I would have.  Any more boost than this and you probably need to change rods, so I did not consider larger turbos.

Verdict – GTRS (and slow spool) is your only choice

Fuel – There are many options here and I chose 034 standalone.  Since then, 034 has began selling the Unichip line.  I am pretty sure they can make a map that works very well with the rest of the hardware I have and I might have just been a bit early on my purchase  there, but alas, I am not really complaining.  Another development and a certain swap for me is the Genesis dual cone injectors.  The folks at 034 swear by them and I figure I can sell my green top and trade up.  They are supposed to have much better drivability.    034 standalone is a nice unit with a very granular control of fuel, spark, and boost maps.  I am sure there are many others out there, both chips, piggybacks, and standalone ECUs.  The point of this section is just to say that you should dial in your fuel so that you are around 11:1 under boost, this is a nice safety margin.  Some folks might say go lower like 10:1, and they are probably right, but it seems a bit rich to me.  Some dyno testing would be nice here to see what power is lost for the safety. You are going to need a wideband O2 sensor here, I like the PLX devices and the Innovate O2 controllers.

Timing - Once you have a safe 11:1 (under boost) fuel map, you can start to add timing.  A good ECU will allow you to have correction factors for air temp, water temp, altitude, etc, so whatever your map is, it can be adjusted for these real life conditions.  If you get on a nice load simulated dyno, like those 4 wheel dynapack jobbies, you can create conditions that allow you to dial timing under various load conditions as boost conditions.   The general rule that running as much timing as possible under load without pinging is going to give you the most power, but I have been told by the dyno folks that this isn’t quite true.  A nice knock sensor with an acoustic adapter, a voltage or graph readout will do the trick here.  Learn how to read your sensors readings and you will see signs of knock before an actual event occurs.  Any high boost knock is bad, even the ones on the dyno, so be careful.  The dyno I mentioned above will actually show you your torque output and if you have a lot of time and money, you can fidget with timing and see where max power is made.

Verdict – Pick the best you can afford… My advice, keep it simple, if you can flash your ECU and run 21PSI, that sounds nice…  There is a lot to take for granted that your remapped stock ECU will provide.

Once I had  21 PSI, 11:1 fuel, and decent timing, I was sad and disappointed in my serious turbo lag.  I needed to do something about the spool.  I started with adding Methanol injection with the thought that if I could add more timing from low boost to high boost, my spool wouldn’t crawl from 2 PSI to 15 PSI as it does before it really “kicks in” and shoots to 21 PSI.  That is a lot of wait time… 6PSI, 7 PSI, 8PSI, 10PSI, 12PSI… come on!!!

Methanol - Truthfully, with a tuning session on a dyno and spark handled by the 034 ECU, the 034 folks themselves could not tune much more than I already had in the timing maps.  There was no sign that my 50/50 methanol water mixture was providing me 116 octane fuel.  I would love to explore this more on a better dyno with a better knock sensor than we had at the time.  We were reading the VAG logs of the factory knock sensor voltages, good enough for Bosch and Audi though .  This was a real let down.  On the other hand, I do feel as though I have a safety margin and a potentially tunable system that is lying dormant here.  It was just that the first tuning session after installing it correctly, jetting it correctly, and having some of the best dyno operators in the area (034) do their thang, I did not leave with 40 more horses, more like 5, and this might have been from adjusting the timing outside of the methanol kit.

I beg anyone good at dyno tuning with methanol to join me for a session, and I challenge any of these companies to increase my HP by just 20 or pay for my dyno time…

The saga held tight with that setup as I had a long commute many miles of which were freeway, therefore I had longer stretches to smoke fools and I was closer to the 4K+ RPMs needed to get into the power band.   Then my job changed, and I was driving mostly short distance surface roads.

This is when it all started to bug me, I had like $10K in this setup (parts / labor / tuning) and it sort of sucked for my situation.  I seriously considered going back to a K03, you cant beat that low end torque on that little 1.8T with a chipped K03… Well, nut unless you have something like nitrous…

So I thought quick, salvaged a rarely used nitrous kit off of my 1970 Camaro (braggart!) and purchased the pieces needed to adapt the kit to the A4.

Nitrous – The idea of nitrous on a turbo will sound crazy to you until you do it, just as methanol might sound to a young tuner, and even chipping could be to the newbies… Many N2O companies sell “quick spool” kits with advanced controls for sensing boost, fuel pressure, and other vitals, but as I see it, with my experience with basic nitrous kits, and no blown motors to date, I could get by with a simple Hobbs switch setup.  A Hobbs switch is a pressure switch that can be adjusted over a range of PSI to either open or close a circuit at a given PSI.  Quick spool kits would have NC (normally closed) switch that operates in the 8-12PSI range.   In my case, with my calculations, and my experience doing this on one other turbo car in the recent past, I figured I would add 50HP up to 8PSI, that should get the turbo spooled and then boost will quickly soar to max!  Sort of…  This solution does solve the lag problem, no question there, it is basically instant boost.  It is nice….  This configuration was decent in low gears at lower RPM ranges, but not enough in higher gears at lower RPM (less than 4K).  In other words, it was pretty good in many cases, but not the best configuration for my driving habits.  So I have recently adjusted to to 40HP and 12PSI cutout.  I did this after a long conversation with one of the nitrous professionals at my supplier.  The folks at 034 want me to pull timing under N2O, but the folks at the nitrous supplier say 50HP is really small and pulling timing at lower boost levels is not necessarily required with small amounts of giggle gas..  So I went 40HP just in case .   This setup is very nice.  You get strong acceleration and a real quick spool up to 12PSI where there is enough boost to help carry you right on up to max.   It is almost seamless with a very small drop in pull at the transition point in 3rd gear and higher.   Maybe someday I will try 30HP to 15PSI, but I would need to buy another Hobb switch that is adjustable in that range, so it will probably never happen.

Verdict – Squeeze is a nice way to get instant spool on a small displacement big turbo motor.

Should have bought an S4… I am sure I would have dropped the $10K still, but I would have at least another 100 ponies.  Live, burn, learn…

References:

http://www.034motorsport.com

http://www.atpturbo.com

http://www.coldfusionnitrous.com/

http://www.nitrousdirect.com/

http://www.plxdevices.com/

http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/

http://www.snowperformance.net/

http://www.alliedelec.com

Wait, mid post I read the fact that its embed does not work in WordPress and I have to use a simple image… Boo!!!

The emotional let down was akin to this.  I say they could make up for it if they added Publish to UML.

FWIW, the diagram here is a DFD for View/Controller classes and how their controllers affect the models which in tern dispatch events that their views listen to.  I am torn between implementing public methods on the models that the controllers call and using events that the controllers send and the models listen to.  I am pretty sure that a many to one call and a one to many event is the best pattern.  Open for debate starting now…