Chris Pirillo
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Accessibility Spotlight: One Switch. One Head. The World.
Over the years, Apple has consistently followed through on its strong commitment to accessibility in the development of new technologies and products. We at TUAW have a diverse community of both writers and readers, and we use many assistive technology features in our day-to-day lives. We appreciate the opportunity to highlight these important enhancements -- both OS X and iOS -- in our continuing coverage of accessibility and assistive technology developments. If you have a great AT story, we would love to hear from you. Speaking of great accessibility stories: we were thrilled to see this self-made video (via Chris Pirillo) showcasing exactly what the title says: One Switch, One Head, The World.
Even cerebral palsy can't stop this dedicated video creator
Christopher Hill isn't your typical video producer. The youngster whipped up the clip after the break controlling his array of Macs almost entirely with a single switch. Chris has cerebral palsy, a severe motor function impairment that makes it all but impossible for him to interact with a computer through a traditional keyboard and mouse. Instead, a button is mounted behind his head on his wheel chair, which connects to a Discover Switch. That blue and green USB peripheral, which looks quite a bit like the Staple's Easy Button, allows him to manipulate anything on the screen with nothing more than the back of his head. The one thing Chris left to someone else in the clip below is the subtitles. While he could actually type them himself, it would have taken a very long time, so he graciously accepted some help from his father. Click on through for a nice heart-warming tale about the power of modern technology.
Growing Up Geek: Chris Pirillo
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have a special guest: internet entrepreneur, tech support blogger, media personality and geek, Chris Pirillo Before I begin, let me just say: I'm not a slave to your mental delusions of who you think I am. I have to get that out of the way largely because I've been "doing things" publicly for so long that some people have already formed opinions about me and what they believe I stand for. That's their problem, not mine. I don't know if there was ever a specific moment I found myself attracted to electronic objects? I certainly recall playing with my cousin's Merlin and watching with wonder as my brother fiddled with his Alphie. I was certainly mesmerized by calculators, but that didn't lead me to develop advanced math skills.
KinectNUI enables Minority Report style interaction in Windows sans gloves (video)
When Microsoft released its Kinect SDK we marveled at the impact it could have on desktop interaction; sure enough, Kevin Connolly's Kinect Natural User Interface has made our geeky pipe-dreams a reality. His inspiration for project? Not surprisingly, the Minority Report UI (aka g-speak). Similar projects like MIT's hack do exist, but it's brilliant knowing that another emulation has been made rather quickly with Redmond's tools. In a brief video using the Kinect on Windows 7, he demos various ways of manipulating on-screen content with hand gestures and body tracking -- neglecting his mouse in the process. It's still a work in progress, but the results are already quite striking, so take that ancient input device and click past the break for the full demo.
Chris Pirillo's 50 reasons to switch
It's a quiet day at TUAW headquarters (located in scenic Ann Arbor, MI) -- Monday is a holiday here in the USA, in honor of Presidents Washington and Lincoln, two leaders in times of dramatic change. Speaking of change, how many signs and wonders do you need to know that there's a major Mac migration afoot? TechTV veteran and vidcaster Chris Pirillo, a Windows expert and advocate of long standing (but a friend to the Mac community nonetheless) recently bought himself a Mac Pro and has let his freak flag fly as an official Mac Switcher. Our fondest congratulations go out to CP on this momentous occasion... combined with legendary gadfly John C. Dvorak's recommendation to buy Macs in the newspaper of record, it's an indication of how far we've come.Chris has posted a well-considered and ample "50 Reasons to Switch" piece over at his blog, where he notes that he's still an Outlook user and still runs Windows (in VMware Fusion or Boot Camp) for some tasks; as far as he's concerned, the OS choice isn't a "religious issue" but rather a recognition of what works, and what works for him is Mac OS X. He ends the post with a gentle dig at the Windows community: "I'd like to challenge any Windows enthusiast to publish 50 Reasons to switch from Mac OS X to Microsoft Windows. ;)" No doubt a few will take him up on that.
Chris Pirillo on why Vista will only help increase Apple's market share
Chris Pirillo is the quintessential Windows fanboy. Why then does he make such a strong case that Apple will only be aided by Microsoft's Vista? In the current issue of Computer Power User, Chris nails Microsoft on all the reasons Microsoft's current and upcoming offerings are simply too little, too late. From Firefox making inroads on Internet Explorer's turf and Google toppling MSN Search to Vista's exorbitant pricing scheme and release candidates failing to impress, Chris says he's finally almost ready to leave Microsoft behind and make the switch with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. On Leopard, he says "it looks clean and elegant. It comes with all the software and services the average user could ever want. It runs on the same hardware. A system will be able to dual-boot between OS X and Windows, and pricing is no longer astronomical. But most importantly? With its UI inconsistencies, Vista feels completely schizophrenic, and that's enough of a reason for anybody to leave Windows in the dust-just like they left MSN Search and IE." Welcome to the table, Chris. We've been saving a seat for you.
