Two clever bits of technology that aren't Mac

I don't usually get worked up about non-Mac related technologies, but the two that have been announced this week are pretty cool.

The first is the Firefox plugin called Ubiquity. Its basically a command line interface for doing all sorts of cool things. I like this a lot and wish that it was available for Safari... :)

Here's the link to the announcement and a cool video showing how it can work.

Ubiquity

And the second thing, shock of all shocks, comes out of Microsoft...

Its called Photosynth. It is a technology that builds 3d models from 2D pictures by tracking points. We use the same technology at our company for video processing, but the UI for this on the microsoft site is tremendous.
You'll need to download a plug in player to view the results, but its pretty cool. Again, this won't work on a Mac, but at least Microsoft admits that they aren't cool enough with their message

The link is
Photosynth

They talked about it at TED a couple of years ago, so here's the talk so that you can enjoy it without downloading. It is based on a technology called Seadragon.. That name rules.... The newspaper piece is wonderful

The new iPhone 3G

Yes, I got one... I got the last one in the store on Sunday and was very happy with it until today. It's not all sunshine and roses, and as a bit of an Apple fanboy, that is a little disappointing.

The new software is great. The app store has some fantastic stuff on it, including Things, my favorite GTD app which I can't live without at this point. I did download some dorky stuff too, like iBeer... Just to pass the time.

But today, I activated my Exchange account in work and it wiped out all my personal contacts and calendar as I set them to Push mode. So it seems that you CANNOT have a personal calendar and personal contacts on one computer, and then activate Exchange for work. This is annoying as I have a personal address book and a non-work calendar in addition to my work stuff.

Not only that, but the sync also got the time zones messed up so it screwed up my master home calendar and dropped a couple of appointments, so I don't know what the hell is going on with that. I'll have to spend more time working on that tomorrow. I'm going to have to come up with some kind of a workaround. I really just wanted the exchange calendar to be an additional calendar on the device in the same way that the Entourage calendar is in iCal.

In addition, the battery life is REALLY bad when compared to the old one. I know the 3G kills the battery, but it should last longer than a half a day. I'm going to charge the hell out of it tonight and see how it does tomorrow.

Plus, the phone is wider and therefore, doesn't fit into the docking cradle of the old phone so you have to spend more money on a new one. Nickel and dimed....

So, for me, the upgrade to the new device is a bit of a frustrating experience. The exchange integration is VERY slick, but kills your personal stuff, which is NOT what I expected, but the app store is a wonderful source of great creativity and cool things to add to the phone.

I'll gripe more I'm sure as I try and get this calendar and contacts mess sorted out.

European Car Design

Another non-mobile related post, but with the lines so long outside the Apple Store, I can't really write about my new iPhone as I don't have one yet, so lets try something a little different

I was in the UK last week for the first time in nearly 3 years and I noticed a number of significant changes while I was there. Firstly, there were tall white elegant windmills dotted around the countryside and I thought they looked great. Wondering how long before they get across here.

Secondly, the weather. It rained the whole time I was there, but I won't bore you with that, but as my dad put it "How miserable is this?"

The third thing I noticed was the proliferation of small city cars. I'm a bit of car nut myself, but I was shocked at the numbers of these things running around (and having seen the price of petrol over there, it makes a lot of sense). The thing that struck me the most was how wonderfully designed they were. We now have the Smart car over here in the US, and there are a few of them running around, but I particularly liked the Citroen and Peugeot small cars. The C1 and C2 from Citroen are wonderful little things. The C1, the Peugeot 107 and a Toyota were all designed jointly, but its a great looking little car. Big wide mouth, cat looking headlights and very vertical rear on the car. It just looked great, and for the price, looks like a good deal. It makes the new Mini Cooper look very over priced.

Then there was the Renault Modus, the Peugeot 1007 with the sliding doors and my favorite of the lot, the new Fiat 500. What a little gem that is. The interior is a thing of beauty. I would love to see one of those on the road over here.

Its about time the US population realized that big cars are not required all the time and that these small city cars are the answer to the short to medium commute to work, where most people spend their time.

iPhone Video Conferencing

One of the things rumored to be in the new 3G iPhone was a forward facing camera to allow video conferencing.

Alas, it was not to be, and we are left with the sub par camera that is already on the device.

A couple of days ago, I came across a posting on one of the many Mac rumor sites that I read ago that someone had found an entry in the QuickTIme files for an iSight HD camera. I bought the original iSight a long time ago (a beautifully designed slim aluminum tube that sat on top of your monitor) and was a little disappointed that they stopped selling it, but it got me to thinking about a potential solution for the iPhone web conference

If Apple release the new iSight HD with a compatible iPhone dock, you could have a portable iChat compliant web conferencing tool with significantly better video quality without the need to have a camera in the phone, especially if the dock had A/V output capability.

A portable video conferencing solution...

Probably never happen, but it makes you wonder how many crazy things are going to show up on the iPhone 3G when it eventually launches on July 11th

Ahhh..iPhone with 3G

Finally....

This has been enormous news everywhere in this country, and I am sure its been mentioned a few times elsewhere too, but the new iPhone is coming in July. The 11th to be precise.

As a user of iPhone v1 (which I paid almost $600 for a year ago.... now worth about $100 on eBay if I'm lucky), I have to say that the new updated software looks fantastic, and MobileMe will help me out a lot as I have 3 computers that I am constantly trying to keep in sync. I can finally hand back my Windows Mobile brick to IT as I won't need it anymore.

The interesting thing for me on the phone is the GPS functionality. I was in the market for a GPS for the car, and now I don't need one. I can just use the phone. I'm wondering how long it will take for a car manufacturer to incorporate the iPhone into the screen of the car to replace having an in car system. People of Volkswagen..... I mean you. I can have GPS, iPhone and iPod all on the same screen, using a screen layout I am familiar with... Utopia, plus it would be cheaper for the car manufacturer as they wouldn't need the GPS stuff. Just a thought.

In addition to that, I've already seen some interesting news about location aware applications, such as Omnifocus for location aware To Do lists (at the grocery store, list all grocery items), and some of the games that were demo'd looked great. I think I was more impressed by the graphics than the actual games though... I think even though the screen and graphics are streets ahead of other mobile devices, what types of games are going to be the best sellers?

Location aware, community type games have a very interesting platform to come forward and fulfill the promise for the casual gamer. Poker with people in the same city. Meet fellow iPhone Facebook friends who are in the same city.... Interesting applications. I would like to see the phone itself make use of the GPS for things like Weather, Address Book. I land in a new City, weather defaults to new City, address book has a smart list of local contacts, things like that.

Needless to say, I don't really need one, but July 11th, I'll be in line with the rest of the mock turtle neck crew. 16Gb in White is the way to go. Anyone need a v1 phone 8Gb ??

Another Italian Masterpiece

Another entrant in the world's most beautiful car contest.  Announced today, the Ferrari California.

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ferrari-california/802546/

My Daughter's Dance Recital

I know this is supposed to be a download of my thoughts, but my daughter had her first dance recital this weekend, and it was tremendous. She is the total ham with the blond hair. If you click through to YouTube, there is a higher quality version if you are interested.

Enjoy

Social Networks and Mobile

I've been interested in how social networks will impact mobile and vice versa for a while, and in the last few weeks, I've had a little more time to spend playing the LinkedIns, Facebooks and Twitters of the world. We have had a mobile game community product for a while at some of our carrier customers and have done a lot of research into how we take that to the next level.

So the question becomes how will mobile take communities to the next level?

The device is in your pocket.... Twitter and Facebook have lovely iPhone interfaces for the Safari browser, and I assume that there will be applications for this distributed through the Application store in June, but I think a consolidated application that brings together all YOUR communities is the way to go. That way I can look at all the things that matter to me, like Twitter, Facebook, Playstation Game community and, as Jeremy Clarkson so wonderfully called it, MyFace.

I think Twitter is the most interesting of the communities at the moment, and I think when devices get GPS, having your location when you "twit" associated with the post will have great benefits.  For example, I post a "twit" when I arrive in Seattle, and any followers on Twitter in the area know I'm there without me having send out 1206 emails telling people I'm there.  Tomi Ahonen talks more about this on his blog "Communities Dominate Brands" (always a good read, plus he's a big F1 fan too)

As the devices get more advanced (a combination of the new N95 from Nokia and the iPhone would be mahvellous...), you could have photos uploaded, GPS integration, even put your travels into Google Maps... upload those to your blog etc...  

The question for the carriers is how can they take all that user generated content and make additional revenues from it around advertising and cross selling content.  An interesting problem to solve...

Talk about an opposite weekend

A few weekends ago, I was on a high after Wales won the Grand Slam, but this weekend brought me firmly down to earth.  My Carolina Hurricanes lost to Florida in the hockey, and we knocked out of the playoffs, and the North Carolina Tarheel basketball team got soundly thumped by Kansas in the Final Four to mean they got eliminated too..

So, to make me feel better, I decided that some retail therapy was in order and I went to the local mall and bought myself a Dualit Chrome 2 slice toaster.  It looks pretty good in the kitchen.

I'll get pictures up on the house blog as soon as I do some cleaning up...

On the plus side, Apple has provided an update to the Apple TV and it is now downloading at about 10 times the speed.  Its a much better experience.  HD trailers are coming in very nicely.

"In Bruges" looks hilarious.  If anyone has seen it, let me know

Life with Apple TV

As an Apple geek, I usually (ok always) get the latest and greatest from the Cupertino company. I waited for the Apple TV though, and now that they have updated the software, I have taken the plunge.

I have got it plugged in to the HD TV (52", 1080P, LCD) and the surround sound and I must admit I like it more than I expected.

I listen to my podcasts, and watch my video podcasts on there.  I've started directly renting movies (especially the $0.99 movie of the week.. Last week, The Dead Zone... a classic)

The HD movie rentals take WAAAAY too long to download, but I think that's a problem more with my network than anything else.  I rented Michael Clayton, and it was HD quality and surround sound.  Can't beat that.  It won't beat Netflix, but it's a lot better than the cable box.

I am also a big fan of the movie trailers for theater movies, except the length of time it takes to stream them.

I love the fact that my music now easily plays through my stereo.  I have tried Airtunes through the Airport Express and the iPod dock through the receiver, but the Apple TV is by far the best way for playing your iTunes music, plus its then integrated into all your photo displays.  Very nicely done.

The TV show organization is great.  Best thing about it is that I can rip DVDs from the UK using Handbrake and then fill out the tags using MetaX, push them out of there and there they are in iTunes, on Apple TV and the iPhone...  Sweet.

Renting content directly through the box is a big difference.  For those premium channels that I don't get in my cable package, such as Showtime, I can now buy the shows when I want to watch them. (Californication is hilarious by the way, if you haven't caught it yet)

You Tube integration is nice, but typing the search criteria is cumbersome, and the resolution of the video on there is too grainy to work on the big tv screen, so I don't use that very often

But the thing I like the best is the photo viewing, especially the Flickr and .Mac integration.  I love it.  The integration with iPhoto and iTunes is very well done, and the cloud based photo galleries are fantastic.  In fact, I just publish my photos to .Mac now, without the need to copy them to the Apple TV, and slideshows use your music.  Its very slick.

Ok, the faults are...  I prefer the old Main Menu, but from my experience in the software industry, everyone thinks they are a UI expert, so I'll live with it. 

The other thing is the download speed, but again, I think that's my wireless network as Time Machine is brutally slow on my MacBook as well

So, if you have a lot of music, have lots of friends on Flickr or .Mac, and love movies, its a winner.  I recommend the bigger hard drive one.  I bought the smaller one and its full already....

Looks like I need to spend some more money...  Damn you Steve Jobs.

Grand Slam

We don't see one for 27 years and then they go and win 2 in 4 years.

Great game, sat in a pub in full St. Patrick's Day party preparation.  The Guinness was good, and score was better.  Wales beat France pretty comfortably to win the Grand Slam and the Championship.  A change in the team management has made all the difference as it is the same players.  Well done boys. 

I felt a bit homesick to be honest.  It would have been nice to be in the middle of it all.

The Most Beautiful things on 4 wheels...

Triple Crown, Canes and Heels..

A good day sports wise for me:  Carolina Hurricanes win in OT against the Buffalo Sabres; UNC beats Duke at Duke on Senior night, but MUCH more importantly...  in rugby, Wales beat Ireland in Ireland to win the Triple Crown and have one game left to win their second Grand Slam in 4 years.  That's a very big deal..  Best news is that my parents will be over from Wales for the game, so me and Dad get to watch the game together.  Can't beat that !!

iPhone SDK and Enterprise Roadmap

Yesterday's announcement of the iPhone SDK has been long anticipated, but, as with just about everything Apple does, they didn't promise and over delivered.

This is really a follow on from the post I put up earlier this month. Apple is again controlling the eco-system for application and game distribution for the phone. Carriers just get data traffic revenue. Now the community of Mac developers can turn their attention to the iPhone, and I am sure there will be a plethora of wonderful things to behold, especially with the iFund money is a good incentive. Kind of makes Google's Android $10m look like a drop in the ocean...

Developers now have the opportunity to create applications (or interesting NEW games to enjoy the new interaction) and get them distributed on the fastest growing smartphone in the world. RIM has got to be concerned (although they have almost become the Microsoft of the smartphone market at this point), and Palm may as well shut up shop and go home. (They have just been rendered obsolete. Palm is at least 4 years behind...).

I must admit I haven't looked at Google's Android in great detail, but it would seem that Android and iPhone are going to be two major platforms on which to create applications moving forward. J2ME doesn't have enough access to the phone functionality, and mobile linux is struggling to get off the ground. Others such as N-Gage and Symbian will continue, but they are going to get less penetration it would appear as time goes on.

The widespread networks are still too slow and the high speed spots are limited to the bigger cities, and pervasive wi-fi is going to take a LONG time to appear. Therefore, on device applications are going to be the way forward, and with Apple opening up the best device with access to all the features is going to create some interesting new things.

Speaking of things, THINGS would be the FIRST application for the iPhone that I would pay whatever they are asking. If you are a Mac owner and are a bit of a GTD geek, I have been using this app for a while and it is great. Check it out here...http://culturedcode.com/things/

Roll on June. Its going to be a very interesting year...

An Inspiring story for a Not-so-Good week

Been a rather bad week at the office with layoff announcements, but I saw this video and it made me hopeful.  If this doesn't put a lump in your throat, please go and see your doctor immediately....

Wonderful presentation on Education

I am always fascinated by good presenters and presentations.  This one from TED in 2006 by Sir Ken Robinson is really wonderful.  Its conversational, and so well delivered with a mix of humor and message that it really sticks with you.  If you have time, dig around some more on the TED site.  There are some fascinating talks on there.

Enjoy

The wonders of You Tube

I enjoy a glass of wine every now and again, and I enjoy the BBC show "Top Gear".

Combining Oz Clarke and James May seems like an ideal show as far as I'm concerned.

Enjoy

iPhone, Carriers and Media Convergence

Ok, the iPhone.  We get it.  It's the greatest mobile device ever made...

I actually didn't need converting.  I've been drinking the Cupertino-Aid since the early 90s.  I'm an Apple geek, but my day job also makes me look at this stuff slightly differently, and I am fascinated by the approach.

Apple has control of the infrastructure.  From the device hardware(iPhone and Macs) and software (the wonderful OS X), distribution platform (iTunes) and set top box (Apple TV), they control it all.  Compare that to even a single mobile device for a carrier: Manufacturer builds device, someone else builds OS, someone else builds the browser and someone else again writes apps.  In addition to that, the carrier then gets to impose what features and functions are available on their network: bluetooth on/off, sync features etc...  A VERY different proposition fraught with handoff issues and multiple dependencies...

The content for these devices is distributed through a number of different sources too.  Don't get me wrong, all this non-standard, each carrier different spec soup means I get to go to work each day, but how do the carriers get to where they want to be...?

Apple and AT&T in the US has accelerated the "dumb pipe" decision where the operator is merely providing voice and data services.  One of the MOST telling stats on the iPhone is the amount of web activity on the devices (not controlled by the carrier...)  Fifty times more traffic than any other device.  

It won't be long before Apple customers can buy content on their iPhone, and when they get home, there it is on the Apple TV, probably all synced through .Mac. The carriers now have broadband and cable services, land lines and wireless services, but I think they are a long way off from being able to provide that type of seamless user experience.

Sites, such as hulu.com, show that the networks want to get their content to as many channels as possible, but I just really like the way that Apple is making it seamless to buy content from ANY channel and PLAY the content on any channel as well.  It makes for a much better user experience, and one that the carrier cannot really match without some VERY good partnerships, some agreement across a number of different vendors (which is NOT an easy thing to manage) and a LOT of development time and headaches to get there.

Can they compete? and if not, who steps up as a competitor?