Nonfig

The Big Idea

In a perfect world anyone could walk up to any computer and use it seamlessly. Most people apply customizations to their computing environment that make it uninviting to others and can create workflow habits that don't work well in other environments.

Nonfig is a step towards the goal of adaptive computing, where the environment adapts to the preferences of the person currently using it.

Applications

Collaboration

Collaboration methods such as pair programming could greatly improve with such a solution. Many programmers are power users who use their own custom key bindings and have strong opinions about various configuration settings. Co-workers programming on the same machine could take turns without debating things like which editor to use and switching between keyboard layouts.

Computer Sales

Imagine if a company such as Apple would implement an adaptive computing environment. Customers often walk into Apple stores and try out new device models. Instead of experiencing a bare-bones environment in the store they would get a better feel for the product by experiencing how it feels with their own environment.

Our Prototype

We developed an application that adapts the keyboard layout, desktop wallpaper and text editor configuration (.vimrc) to the registered preferences of the person sitting in front of the computer. We use face recognition to identify registered users and pull their preferences from the cloud.