A common task that I have had to help people with lately is when they use an instant messaging service or the messaging function in a social-network service to send a message that is to be handled further. This is more so with people who rely heavily on Facebook as their online communications medium and start to forget their email address.

For example, it may be a message that is to be sent to somebody by email or to be printed out in order to be signed then sent by postal mail or fax. This includes messages that contain “boilerplate text” that is to be modified with further information before being sent or printed out.

Most instant-messaging or social-network messaging user interfaces don’t have a way of allowing you to print out or select the text of a particular message. This is typically frustrated by the “conversation” view that these user interfaces show the messages in, and this problem can be made worse by hard-to-manipulate user interfaces like laptop trackpads or touchscreens.

What do you do?

Here, it would be preferable that if you are talking with a correspondent via a service like Facebook, make sure that each of you know each other’s email address, not just the “handle” or member-name for these messaging services.

Then, send the message that is to be “taken further” to the correspondent using email rather than the message system. Infact you compose the message to be taken further using your email software or Webmail user interface. The correspondent can then print out that message or copy it to their word-processing software for modification and printing out.

All along, Facebook have provided a “lists” feature which allows you to group your friends in to categories like “close family”, your “current circle of social friends” or “workmates”. It can even be feasible that one Facebook Friend can be a member of two or more “lists”.

This has been improved so that you can control the visibility of material you post on Facebook so that only certain people can see the material. This is including the ability to make a post “Public” for all to see or “Friends only” just for your Facebook Friends to see.It will remember what setting you used for the last item that you posted.

You can use the custom lists option on the Web user interface as well as the mobile Facebook clients for iOS and Android. At the moment, I don’t know of this being able to  work for other Facebook clients like the TV-based clients or the Pure Sensia Internet radio. This may change when new versions of the firmware for these devices is released.

When you send a friend-request to a potential Facebook Friend, you have the option of classing the friend in one or more of your Custom Lists. Similarly, you can go through your Friends collection and add them to your Custom Lists. Then, when you post a Status Update, Photo, Link or other top-level item on your Wall, you have the option of determining the visibility of this post. Here, you can have it appear “Public” for all to see whether they are Friends or not, “Friends Only” where just your Facebook Friends see the post and “Custom List” where people who are in the Custom List you define see the post.

A question that can be raised with this ability, especially in relation to teenagers, is that you as a parent may want to “Friend” them on Facebook so you can know what is going on and if there is any bullying taking place for example. But this idea may be circumvented by your teenage child setting up a Custom List which encompasses just their mates or the “in” crowd. The teenager’s friends would set up similar Custom Lists for their mates, encompassing your teenager. Then if they want to post stuff that Mum and Dad aren’t to see, they use the Custom List that they have defined. How can you know what’s going on when these Custom Lists are being used.

But it still requires users to be careful about what they post on Facebook and whom to. For example, you should avoid engaging in a confidential conversation on FB using the Wall, rather you send the direct messages to the person involved or use the Chat facility. Infact it is worth paying attention to the reference page that I wrote concerning where to post what in Facebook, and this has become a valuable asset to Facebook newbies.

Article

BBC News – Health care by TV and remote control

My Comments

The home network and the Internet is now becoming an essential part of personal health care in may ways thanks to a variety of technologies.

Facilitation technologies

Level playing field for health-care sensor devices

Certain technologies are making this feasible through the use of device classes for health-specific devices such as blood-pressure / pulse cuffs, blood sugar monitors and heart-rate monitors. They are also being enabled with low-voltage wireless technologies like Bluetooth Smart and up-and-coming low-voltage Wi-Fi designs.

These devices are being made able to work from two AA batteries or a 3V watch battery for a long time, yet use an industry-common data link and device class. The actual benefit from these design factors is the ability to supply health-care sensor devices that are cost-effective to buy and maintain; yet are able to integrate with common computing devices.

Ubiquity of open computing platforms for this application

It is being extended with the availability of regular, mobile and TV-based computing platforms like Windows, MacOS X, iOS and Android as foundations for software that records and / or reports medical-status information.

The software can be designed to keep a local or cloud-based record and signal to health-carers and/or close relatives and friends if there are abnormal events. In some cases, details can be passed through immediately to the health-care professional who is supervising the patient.

Where do I see this being applicable

I see this technology being applicable for the management of chronic illnesses where the patient can manage the illness themselves with little outside intervention. This may extend to the care of pregnant women who have a low risk of birth complications. Even when the patient must travel to the health-care professional for an appointment, both the professional and the patient are in a better position to know “what’s going on” through the treatment process.

It also adds a sense of dignity to the care and treatment process by allowing one to integrate the management procedures in to their lifestyle without feeling awkward about it. This would benefit younger and middle aged people more so especially when they are encumbered with these illnesses like diabetes.

I see it also benefiting people living in rural areas in many ways. The telehealth technology can allow a specialist based at a small or larger town to manage multiple patients and only have to travel out to attend those at risk. As well, the patient wouldn’t need to travel out to the doctor unless necessary.

It can also assist with the ageing process for seniors who want to live in their own home, live in an “own space” near their relatives such as a granny flat or live in low-needs supported retirement accommodation. Here, the technology can help with supervising medical and other therapies or simply make sure they are OK without intruding on their lifestyle and dignity. In this case, it could augment other technology projects that are in progress or being completed that assist older people with their daily lives.

Similarly, the technology would help with sports medicine in allowing athletes and fitness enthusiasts, along with their trainers, know their limits and how they are performing through their workouts so they can exercise in an optimum way.

Conclusion

I would still like to see the telehealth technologies work as a complement to the personal touch in personal health care rather than distance the patient from the professional. The technologies can be seen as a tool for helping us stay well and independent; as well as conquer distance.

Previous coverage

Feature Article – Videoconferencing on the home network

My Comments

Some of you may have relatives who are far away or are ill and unable to come out for the Christmas festivities. So you may find that Skype would work as a valuable too for this season.

Skype-enabled video devices

You may have recently purchased a Skype-enabled TV or, if you are in America, had Comcast install one of those new cable-TV set-top boxes. Increasingly, some of the “smart-TV” devices like TV sets, Blu-Ray players or network media adaptors may have Skype functionality on-board, able to work with an optional camera module.

If you are buying a device that you know has Skype integrated, make sure that you buy the Skype camera for this device. You could use this as a deal-maker when you are buying any of these devices. For the abovementioned Comcast subscribers, if you are running with the newer cable-TV boxes, contact your Comcast customer-service line and ask how you can get that Skype camera and whether the Skype facility is running.

Here, you could enable this device to an account primarily used by your household and make sure you have the camera accessory for the video equipment.

Your laptop computer

If you are using your laptop or other computer, you would need to connect it to the main TV screen. Nearly all plasma or LCD flatscreen TVs have a VGA or HDMI connection which can allow you to use it as your computer’s display. If you use a DisplayPort-equipped computer like a MacBook Air, you may need to use a DisplayPort-HDMI adaptor in order to use these connectors.

As well, you may have best results with this setup when you use a USB webcam or a regular video camera or camcorder connected to a USB-based AV capture card. Here, you can have the Webcam fixed at the top of the TV.

Configuring Skype appropriately

AV Peripherals

You may have to make sure that if you are using an HDMI connection or an external camera or microphone, you have the video and audio devices setup appropriately. Some HDMI setups may enumerate the audio feed to the HDMI device as a discrete sound device and you may have to select this as your sound output in Skype if you want the correspondent’s voice through the TV or home-theatre.

For the USB Webcam or the USB AV capture device, you would need to set Skype’s video source and microphone to the Webcam or AV capture device.

Quality of service

Skype does perform properly with quality of service for most Internet connections but I would make sure that you use a wired connection to the router or have a strong Wi-Fi connection between the wireless router and the device if you are using a Wi-Fi link.

You may want to do a “dry-run” call with the intended household before the big event so you are sure that it is going to work properly. This may be a limitation if you intend to have the Skype-enabled TV or video peripheral as a Christmas gift.

Contact Lists

Another good hint is to make sure that the households are registered on Skype and that each one is part of each other’s Contact List. This could be established by sending each other their Skype name through an email. It could be followed up by arranging a contact time to make this videocall through subsequent emails, taking into account the time differences between the locations.

Conclusion

With Christmas being the time to catch up with family and friends overseas, why not make it the time to do it with pictures the Skype way.

Any of you who have used Facebook’s regular desktop interface lately will have noticed key changes to this user interface.This interface revamp has been the subject of a lot of negative and positive press about this user interface change in the blogosphere and the consumer IT press. Of course, you won’t notice this if you are using Facebook from a client program like a mobile app.

When you notice the interface changes, you will see a column on the right which highlights who of your friends are online at the moment as well as a constantly-updated ticker of friends’ activity. The list of who is online is segmented by whom you have interacted with lately as well as those of your Friends who are currently online. Both these windows are separately scrollable but you have to look for a black vertical bar on the right.

This has been augmented by an “improved” news feed with groups for “top stories” and delineated “Recent Events” and “From Earlier Today” clusters. This delineates what you saw in your last view of Facebook and your current view on the same computer.

At the moment, the ticker only shows your Friends’ activity, with the ability to link to the posts, Pages, other Friends or other items referenced in the activity. This is different from the News Feed which covers all Page and Group activity as well as your Friends’ activity. Some Pages may appear in your Ticker but this may not be consistent across all Pages.

You will have the item “detailed on” with a larger view if you hover over it with your mouse. This will give you the contextual options of what you can do with this item such as to add the person to your Friend list or comment on the post.

This ticker well be dimmed if you are “paging through” a Photo Album or viewing a Photo in detail. It will only be visible if you are using Facebook and won’t appear if you head off to a link outside Facebook.

I would improve on this by allowing the user to determine the view of the ticker, such as through classes of events and use of filtering or formatting of events important to the user. As well, the Ticker, along with the presence window could be made available as a desktop utility in a similar vein to ICQ or MSN Messenger so you can keep tabs on this whenever you visit different sites.

Of course, it would take some time to get used to any new interface change for an online service and social networking is no exception.

ScoreMobile scoreboard app

If you look in your mobile platform’s app store, there are quite a few sports apps which turn your smartphone or tablet in to a scoreboard or leaderboard for your favourite sporting events. Some of the scoreboard apps allow you to monitor a particular team’s games, view league ladders or see on-demand video of game highlights. Examples of these include the ScoreMobile apps; and the “Footy Now” / “League Now” apps for the AFL and NRL football leagues respectively; all of which are available on most of the main mobile platforms like iOS and Android.

Most of these apps are free or advertiser-funded and are written in conjunction with companies and other interests associated with the particular leagues or codes that these apps work with  As well, they work via whatever Internet connection your device is using at the moment, whether it’s the Wi-Fi home network, the Wi-Fi hotspot at your favourite bar or the wireless broadband service that you device is associated with. But are they a useful download for your phone or tablet?

I would say that they provide a useful role for any sports followers, whether they watch the game on TV at home or their favourite bar or cafe; or go to the stadium to watch the game.

Footy Now AFL scoreboard app

One key use for people who watch the game in a public place such as the stadium, a large outdoor screen in a square or a packed-out bar, is to have a “handheld scoreboard” that they can glance at  Here, they may not see the scoreboard easily due to them being in the wrong seating position or being further back from the venue’s TV screen.

At home, you could be outside listening to the radio commentary yet be able to check the scores at a glance. This may then be useful for knowing whether to head inside to see the action on TV. For Australian readers, this could extend to you having a tablet computer showing the scores for the AFL or NRL Grand Final near the barbecue while you are cooking the meat for the Grand Final lunch.

These apps would also appeal to travellers and expats who like to follow their favourite matches while they are travelling. An example of this was a friend I know who had used one of these apps on his iPhone to follow a baseball game that was taking place in the US while he was over here in Australia. Similarly a Manchester United fan could follow that soccer team’s performance anywhere around the world even if there isn’t a TV broadcast of the games where they are.

League Now NRL scoreboard app

For these apps to work properly, they need to have proper support for push notification but without placing too much strain on the device’s battery runtime. As well, these apps need to be able to work in a manner that doesn’t take over the processor power of these devices when they are just showing scores. As well, the data backend has to be synchronous to the scoreboard at the actual game in the same manner as what is expected for the TV scoreboard – a football goal appears on the mobile scoreboard app as soon as the pitch umpire declares that goal.

So whether you are an avid sports follower or just casually watch some sporting events like football finals or Grand-Prix car races, the mobile scoreboard apps do have a place on the smartphone and tablet devices.

What are QR Codes

QR code used in a newspaper to link to its mobile site

A QR Codes is a two-dimensional monochrome barcode that is designed to house a long text string. This may represent contact details or Wi-Fi network parameters but is commonly used to provide a link to a Web-hosted resource. These barcodes may be printed on a newspaper, business card or flyer; or even shown on a Website; the latter method being used to show links to software for the Android platform.

Typically, a person who has a mobile phone equipped with a QR-code reader app can then just point the phone’s camera to the barcode and “take a picture” of that barcode. This then leads to the contact details being put in their contact list or the user being taken to the Web site or Web-hosted resource. This function has even been extended to supplying GPS coordinates to a device for navigation (think of geocaching) or, in the case of Android phones, supplying Wi-Fi service parameters to these phones as part of provisioning hotspot service.

A QR code as used on a poster to advertise this site

They are popular in Europe especially with cafes and restaurants but are slowing increasing in popularity in other countries. As well, some commentators have described the QR code as a way of providing a machine-readable hyperlink in the field. It is also worth having a look at various QR-code blogs like this one so you can know what the trend is about.

Infact, when I promote HomeNetworking01.info using posters or business cards, I make sure there is a QR code pointing to the site so that people can use their phones to head to the site.

Why QR codes for your organisation

One major benefit that QR codes have for your print-based campaigns is that you can insert a direct link to your Webpage or a resource on that Webpage. Your audience then can visit that resource without having to memorise a URL or transcribe the URL in to the phone using a small touchscreen keyboard or SMS-style with the phone keypad.

The QR code is better than using Bluetooth transmitters to provide content. This is because the user isn’t likely to be annoyed with “accept this” Bluetooth responses from these transmitters when they come in to range of the transmitters. As well, the user doesn’t have to remember how to enable or disable Bluetooth discovery mode on their device. As well you don’t need to make sure there is a transmitter at the advertisement and make sure there is power to the transmitter, which can make the QR code acceptable even for posters on that noticeboard or shop door.

It is also better than using any of the proposed “near-field communication” technology for linking to Web resources because you don’t need to buy and integrate near-field transmitters in your promotional materials for the technology to work.

Direct Link to deep Web resources

You may want to provide a sound clip, video or PDF file to your mobile users. As well, you may want to link the user to a particular Web page about a product or promotion. But mobile users may find these resources difficult to gain access to on your site because of being required to enter a long URL into that numeric or small alphabetic keypad.

The QR code can provide the direct link to your campaign page, PDF file or audiovisual resource in a manner that is ready to download “there and then”. If the resource is a YouTube video, you can provide the link to the video clip as it appears on YouTube and the site or local YouTube client can open when the QR code is scanned.

Appropriate for the Social Web

Here, the QR code can augment your Social Web campaign because most active Social-Web users tend to work their Facebook or Twitter presence more from their smartphones. This is especially as I have noticed a lot of small businesses promote their Facebook presence online through posters and flyers that have the “Like us on Facebook” slogan.

What a simplified way of doing this by pointing the latest ultra-cool iPhone to the QR code on the poster attached to the trendy cafe’s espresso machine or refrigerated display cabinet in order to “like” that cafe on Facebook. It certainly makes it certain that you are seen with that iPhone.

Reading QR Codes

Some mobile-phone carriers and manufacturers will supply a QR-code reader with their Internet-enabled camera phones. But iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 users can come across many free QR-code readers at their platform’s app store. One example that comes to mind is the free i-Nigma which started becoming available for the iOS platform but lately became available for the Android and Blackberry platform. There are others like Barcode Scanner for the Android platform, BeeTag for the Blackberry platform and ScanLife for most of the platforms.

A main difference that may sort the “sheep from the goats” as far as QR-code reader programs go is whether they can read a light-coloured QR code that is printed on a dark surface. Similarly, there may be differences in how well a difficult-to-read code like a double-sided sign that is backlit can be understood.

At the moment, most QR-code readers are pitched at handheld mobile phones for immediate viewing of the resources on these devices. But it could be feasible to provide “capture-store-sync” transfer of Web URLs or downloaded resources to desktop operating systems or tablet computers as a feature of a QR-code reader. This could then allow a person to view the Web site on their laptop computer using their favourite Web browser at a later time.  It would also be of importance with QR codes being used for presenting Wi-Fi network parameters to Android phones, where the same parameters can be passed up to a laptop and integrated in to the Wi-Fi networks list for that computer.

Preparing QR codes

There are many QR-code generator sites and programs, most of which are free to use. Typically these sites may allow you to provide a URL to a resource as the input text or prepare contact details. A good resource to start from is this blog’s list of the top 10 free QR-code generating sites. As well, i-Nigma also offer a free QR-code generating page as well as their QR-code reader. Yet another resource is the QReateBUZZ Webpage which I have used for the QR codes for promoting this site.

These codes can be yielded as a small, medium or large size. Here, you could use a small size code for business cards and flyers here you don’t have much room or just want a discreet code on the corner of the poster. You could then use the larger sizes if you want people to notice that there is a QR code in the signage’s artwork or need to be far from the artwork to scan it.

Most sites will yield high-resolution PNG or JPEG bitmaps but some may yield EPS Postscript files or PDFs that are vector-images of the QR codes. You typically will then copy-and-paste or import the mage in to your artwork. As well, a lot of the sites will generate a JPEG image that you copy from the site using Ctrl-C / Command-C and paste to your artwork using Ctrl-V / Command-V.

Of course, there are some desktop QR-code generator programs which will run on a regular computer but most of these are Windows-only and a lot of them are offered at “large-business” prices.

It is still good practice to work with dark-graphics-against-light codes because most QR-code readers cannot work effectively with light-graphics-against-dark at the moment. If you are setting a QR code on a dark background, you could use the dark graphic on a light background and have a distinct light-background margin around that barcode.

Conclusion

Once you explore the creation and use of QR codes as part of your online and offline marketing strategy especially where you have online resources

Article

DLNA and why it matters | Consumer Reports

My Comments

There are those of you who use magazines like “Which”, “Consumer Reports” or “Choice” to assess the calibre of consumer products that you buy. This is because the organisations behind these magazines assess the products on the basis of how a consumer would experience these products and want to stay at arm’s length from the suppliers’ public-relations efforts. Similarly these same organisations work in their own territory as general consumer advocacy organisations on topics like junk-food consumption and the like.

Now Consumers Union, the American-based consumer information and advocacy organisation, have used their “Conusmers Reports” platform to identify consumer electronics devices that work with the DLNA Home Media Network by using this feature as a distinct attribute in their products’ attribute lists. The main reason I support this is that they support the level of interoperability that this standard provides for media distribution over the home network.

Here, it could be a good idea for other organisations of the same calibre as Consumers Union, like Australian Consumers Association (“Choice”) to use their reviewing platforms to support this standard. One of the reasons is that this standard isn’t controlled by one product vendor but set up for cross-vendor compatibility; and is infact the reason HomeNetworking01.info stands for this technology as a preferred platform for media management via the home or small-business network.

Another increasingly-popular social network service is Twitter. This was intended as a “microblogging” service but some people have been implementing it as another social network.

Like the similar Facebook article that I have written for Facebook novices, this will list who will see which information you post when you use Twitter. Here, I would recommend this as a bookmark or favourite or as something to print out and keep near the computer or have available on the business intranet.

Twitter lexicon

Who sees what

What to do where on Twitter

If someone follows you on your Twitter account, it may be a good idea to check that person out when you receive the notification by email. Here, you could then consider following that person and being able to use direct messaging as appropriately.

It is also worth noting that a lot of social Twitter users use “textspeak” (abbreviations and acronyms for common expressions used when sending SMS messages) when they send out Tweets. So you may have to use resources like the Urban Dictionary to help you understand some of this lingo.

There is an increasing trend to interlink services like photo-sharing and social-networking services with network-enabled devices other than PCs or “lightweight computers” like smartphones or tablet computers. This includes set-top boxes, network printers and digital picture frames and example applications include showing photo albums from Picasa or Facebook on the large TV, printing out pictures from Picasa or Facebook without the need for a computer or showing one’s Facebook Feed on an advanced Internet terminal like the Pure Sensia. One reason that is leading the concept on is the use of device platforms like HP ePrint, Panasonic VieraCast and Google TV, where an operating-system developer or a device manufacture use the platform to build up an “app” library for the device or operating system.

It will also become more common with VoIP telephony encouraging the development of “personal landline telephone” services as well as “personalised home environments” being brought about by home automation and security functions being part of the connected home.

The current situation

The main problem with these services is that they require the user to log in to the service using an alphanumeric user name and an alphanumeric password. This would be best done using the regular QWERTY keyboard of a computer.

But most of these devices would require one of these methods to enter the credentials:

• “Pick-n-choose”, where the user uses a D-pad on the device’s control surface to pick letters from a letter grid shown on the device’s display. This is a method used primarily with set-top-box applications like “Pixel Eyes” (a Picasa / Filckr front-end) for TiVo; or used on most Internet radios to determine the network password for a Wi-Fi network.
• Small on-screen QWERTY keyboard for a touchscreen device. This is a practice used on smartphones and tablet computers that have this interface but is becoming common with network printers and other devices that use a touchscreen. This interface can be awkward and prone to errors if the device uses a small screen.
• “SMS-style” with a 12-key keyboard. This is where the device is equipped with a 12-key numeric keyboard not dissimilar to a telephone and the user enters the credentials as if they are tapping out a text message on a mobile phone. This practice may be used on communications devices (dialling phone numbers), security devices (entering access codes) or consumer electronics (direct-entry channel / track selection).
• 26-key alphabetic keyboard. This is where each letter of the alphabet is allocated a key usually in a 5×5 matrix in alphabetical order. You still may have to press a button to change case or switch to numeric or punctuation mode. This has been used with some of Sony’s MiniDisc decks for track labelling and is still used with some Brother labellers for entering label text, but is not commonly being used as a text-entry method for consumer electronics devices due to size, design or cost limitations.

As well, most of the implementations don’t allow for proper “hot-seat” operation by remembering just the user name; and therefore require the user to provide both the user-name and password when they want to use the service. This can then be made more awkward with the interfaces listed above.

Facebook’s login method

Facebook have improved on this with their HP ePrint app which is part of the HP Envy 100 printer which I have on loan for review. Here, the printer displayed an “authentication code” which I had to enter in to the Facebook Devices page (http://www.facebook.com/devices). Here, you would have to log in with your Facebook credentials if you haven’t done so already. Then the printer is associated with your Facebook account.

The only limitation with this method is that the device is bound to only one FB account and multiple users can’t switch between their Facebook accounts. This can also make a Facebook user more vulnerable to undesirable control-panel modification to their account if the app allows it.

The reality with most devices

Most devices like network printers or set-top boxes are typically operated by multiple users. What needs to happen is a simplified multi-user login and authentication experience that suits this class of device.

This is also more so as the authentication parameters used by Google (Picasa, YouTube), Facebook and others are becoming central to the “single sign-on” environments offered by these service providers and these “single sign-on” providers could appeal as credentials bases for home network applications like NAS management or even building security.

What could be done

A situation using a combination of the “Facebook limited-device login” method and the login experience that one encounters when using an automatic teller machine or EFTPOS terminal would be appropriate here. This is where a device can keep multiple “device account codes” for multiple accounts as well as securing these accounts with a numeric PIN.

Main points

A credentials service like Facebook, Windows Live or Google could add a simplified “numeric PIN” field for limited user-interface devices as well as the text-based password.

Devices that support “limited interface” operation create an “device account passcode” for each account that is to use the device. This allows the device to create a reference between the account on the service and the account on the device. When a user is added to the device, this would be shown on the device’s user interface and the user enters this in to a “Devices Login” page at the credentials service’s Website.

Add user

1. A user selects the option to “add user” to the device using the device’s control surface.
2. The device’s user interface creates a “device account passcode” and shows it on the device’s user-interface (LCD display, TV screen, etc). In the case of a network printer, it could also print out this “account passcode”.
3. The user transcribes this “device account passcode” to the credentials service Website (Google, Facebook, Windows Live, etc) using a regular computer or other Web-browser-equipped device.
4. If the user hasn’t previously defined a numeric PIN for “limited-interface access”, the service Invitess user to enter and confirm a numeric PIN of own choosing if they agree to “protected device access”. This could be done either through the Web browser or continued at the device’s control surface.
   If they have previously defined the numeric PIN, the device will challenge them to enter the numeric PIN using its control surface.
5. The user’s account is bound to the device and the user would be logged in.

Switching between users on a device;

1 A user would go to the “Users” menu on the device and selects their user name represented as how they are known on the credentials service (Facebook name, etc) from the user list.

2 The user then keys in the numeric PIN.

3 If successful, the device is “given” to user and the user then interacts with service

Other points of note

All users have opportunity to “remove themselves” from device by going to the “user settings” UI and selecting “Remove User” option. Some devices may allow privileged users to remove other users from the device and there could be the option for users to change their numeric PIN from the device’s control surface.

It could be feasible for a device to provide varying levels of access to a user’s account. For example, a device shared by a household could allow “view-only” access to certain data while a user who is directly logged in can add or modify the data.

There could be the option to integrate local user-authentication information on devices that support this by relating the “device passcode” with the local user-authentication data record. This could allow a device like a security system to allow the user to gain access to functionalities associated with the credentials service but the user still uses their regular passcode associated with the device.

Conclusion

Once companies like social-networking or photo-sharing sites work on ways to support multi-user one-device scenarios with limited user-interface devices, this could open up paths of innovation for the devices and the services.