For quite a while I've been interested in being able to convey small bits of information from my computer to me in a passive, 'pull' fashion. That is, the data would be there, plain to see, but presented so subtly that I would only notice it when I looked, or when the data passed some soft threshold.

For example, I thought of having a little LED light that would sit somewhere in my apartment, and blip quickly whenever I got a web page hit. If it wasn't in the middle of the room, or was fairly dim, I might only notice it when activity became abnormally high.

Researchers at Xerox PARC (I think it was PARC. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm misattributing this) recently created a rubber band on a small electric motor, hanging from the ceiling. The motor was tied to network activity, so anyone in the office could tell at a glance how busy the network was.

I'd been looking at a few less distracting, more harmoneous possibilities, including making a zen water fountain, where the flow of water was determined by traffic to a web site, available RAM, waiting unread emails, or some other piece of quantitative data that matters to the user. Unfortuantely, I'm not an EECS major, and don't have the facility to go making my own circuit boards to vary the power to a small water pump, and I haven't yet found an X-10 module that will do the same. (hmmm. I wonder if a dimmer switch would work...)

Anyhow, today I came across MindChimes, a background app (Mac only right now, but a windows version is promised) that simulates a windchime using random data, with wind speed and volume determined via sliders by the user. Unfortunately, the current version has no applescript or other real-time way to adjust these variables programmatically instead of by hand, but I've written to the author, and just maybe he'll add Applescript support in a forhtcoming version. He also has a version of the software that imitates ocean surf.

Either of these, running in the background, could be an excellent way to let you keep tabs on your computer (or phone, life, kids, whatever) without having to devote any of your own brainpower to it. Like the Zen Alarm Clock I've gone on about before in these pages, such a tool would help you to be in command of your data, without giving it the ability to jar your mental process like a flashing icon or dialog box would, or force you to constantly check the status, like a server activity page or an email program.

Like the incoming email sounds project I did a couple weeks ago (oh, didn't I blog that yet? Oops! Well, I'll write it up tomorrow) I'm hoping that this project would help create a computer-human interface that wraps itself more around what the human brain is already good at, instead of making us learn new trick and new modes of interaction.

I know I'm ranting now, but someday soon computers will be less about interfacing with people directly, and more about subtly changing our environments in relevant, meaningful ways.