Hi
A hefty crop this week…
Stuff I picked up on the web this past week:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/12/trouble-at-twitter-u-s-visitors-down-8-percent-in-october/
Finally – the Twitter bubble is starting to burst. I was asking myself how long this foolishness will last. I mean, really – only 140 chars? come on…
http://gizmodo.com/5404086/10-human-functions-weve-already-handed-over-to-the-machines/gallery
Robots – you like them and fear them at the same time…
http://gizmodo.com/5403457/10-iphone-apps-to-augment-your-sad-reality/gallery
AR recap on the iPhone.
My 2 cents: this is getting old… and everyone are doing the same thing. Innovation is needed.
http://gizmodo.com/5403646/what-is-this
10 bucks if you guess what this is
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/16/foursquare-api/
We GOTTA do something with this. This is a hot (and interesting) buzz out there: social-location.
http://lifehacker.com/5405684/apostropheme-explains-when-you-really-need-apostrophes
And let that be a lesson for you.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/16/youtube-direct-gives-news-orgs-a-way-to-accept-user-submitted-videos/
Another cool new thing to integrate with
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/11/16/samsung-announces-new-android-powered-galaxy-spica-i5700/
More android love from Samsung!
http://gizmodo.com/5407454/microsofts-bag+based-computer-interface-for-poking
Microsoft – not so soft… finger-press based interface
http://gizmodo.com/5407319/nokias-n+series-will-ditch-symbian-for-maemo-by-2012
Let’s do something with Maemo!
http://lifehacker.com/5407010/refine-your-image-search-with-google-image-swirl
Try it – it’s cute.
http://gizmodo.com/5407245/the-true-google-phone-may-be-coming-soon
Google on the move into mobile phones, that was anticipated. But looks like the schedule is being pulled back
See ya’ll next week!
Roy.
Category: Website
Hi
Stuff I picked up on the web the last week:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/05/on-the-go-mobile-coupons-almost-as-cool-as-minority-report-not-quite-as-creepy/
AT&T bust out a new mobile-ads concept, watch the video. It’s an idea we already had, but here it is – in the flesh.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20091106/microsoft-college-tour-09/
Microsoft taking natural UI forward.
http://gizmodo.com/5400305/even-god-runs-windows-xp
Very thick fog as advertising space – nice!
http://gizmodo.com/5400932/the-history-of-computing-video-shows-why-we-are-doomed
A video trying to explain the amount of data we are going to be exposed to in the near future
http://gizmodo.com/5400618/magic-volumes-have-three-different-magic-shadows
Shadow art can be cool!
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/10/google-go-language/
Google tightens the knot on programmers.
http://gizmodo.com/5402027/video-nokias-vision-of-mobile-devices-in-2015
See what Nokia thinks of the mobile experience in 2015: Social-Augmented-Reality (2:35), Social-Location (1:00), All-Screens (1:55), and more stuff.
Have a great weekend!
Roy.
Categories
Weeks of the link [Links of the week]
Hi
Stuff I picked up on the web the last week:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/30/dont-be-a-featured-loser-facebook-helps-out-the-unpopular/
I’m liking this! Applications helping people reach out.
What happened to: “You didn’t call your mother in a while! Why don’t you give her a call now… [Click to dial]”
http://gizmodo.com/5395911/disturbingly-cool-big-head-papercraft-halloween-costume
I Love papercraft! and this is amazing.
http://gizmodo.com/5395865/watch-the-xperia-x10s-rachael-interface-in-action
The new Sony-Erricson Android phone showing off.
I think we should take stock on Kick-Ass UI in our projects. This is becoming more and more obvious that it is the future.
Can you see the guy standing in this picture? (tip: you can see his shoes very good)
http://gizmodo.com/5397102/liu-bolin-creates-slowest-least-practical-invisibility-cloak-ever
http://gizmodo.com/5381011/microsoft-couriers-swipes-snips-and-scribbles-the-leaked-interface
Microsoft’s e-book reader – much more than just a reader, but nothing over a tablet PC…
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/04/say-goodbye-to-voicemail-hello-to-ribbit-mobile-500-invites/
You thought Google Voice is the competition? This is the competition’s competition.
http://gizmodo.com/5396860/video-concept-symbian-interface-blends-augmented-reality-maps-and-social-networking
Symbian’s next-gen concept UI – shabby, seen it, done before, too late.
See ya’ll next week!
Enjoy the weekend,
Roy.
Categories
Links of the (last) week
Hi
Stuff I picked up on the web the past week:
http://gizmodo.com/5388708/1000-cellphones-and-2000-text-messages-playing-tchaikovsky
Cellphone orchestra
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/27/mobile-web-usage-keeps-on-growing-and-growing-and-growing/
Big mobile web numbers curtsy of Opera Mini. 224% YOY growth… (9/08 – 9/09)
http://gizmodo.com/5390090/interactive-multitouch-sphere-will-make-you-feel-like-gandalf
Cool visuals
http://gizmodo.com/5390894/build-your-own-life-hud-with-a-smartphone-and-some-cardboard
This is virtual reality just like this is a car.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/27/facebook-launches-a-new-hub-for-world-peace/
Nice concept! Go Peace!
Google corner
This week Google decided they take over (what’s left of) the world:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/google-voice-can-now-take-control-of-your-mobile-voicemail/
First – they’ll take your voice mail
http://lifehacker.com/5390307/google-launches-social-search-experiment-to-search-what-your-friends-are-posting
Then they’ll take your social graph
http://gizmodo.com/5391043/android-20-official-its-the-android-weve-been-waiting-for
They will update your Android mobile OS
http://lifehacker.com/5390864/google-voice-air-app-keeps-voicemail-and-sms-on-your-desktop
Desktop Widgets – Behind you!!
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/28/google-redefines-car-gps-navigation-google-maps-navigation-android/
Google takes over the navigation business. TomTom and Garmin stocks plummet by 20-40%.
This proves the saying: “You’re only safe untill google does it.”
‘Till next week
Roy.
Categories
Weekly Links
Hi guys
Weekly links is something of a tradition at work I have been keeping up for a couple of months now. Its time to share them with the world.
Stuff I picked up on the web the last week:
http://gizmodo.com/5382585/10gui-fascinating-multitouch-user-interface-design
Very nice multi-touch desktop experience
http://gizmodo.com/5384680/sonys-360-degree-3d-display-prototype-no-glasses-needed
Sony with a 3D “screen” that looks like a bomb
http://gizmodo.com/5384893/gps-puzzle-box-only-opens-in-one-specific-location
Very nice concept in Location-Based-Something. The box will only open when you actually get to the point
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/19/android-galore-a-complete-list-of-the-android-phones-and-their-specs-droid-best/
Look at that – 24 Android phones already! Definitely going to explode…
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/new-google-music-service-launch-imminent/
Google bulldozing into the music biz. Amazon & Apple – behind you!
http://gizmodo.com/5386532/when-robots-attack-theyll-also-come-by-ski
It skis better than me!
Big Numbers Corner
Note: “corners” are topics that seem to be a trend that week.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/how-the-iphone-is-blowing-everyone-else-away-in-charts/
Some interesting big numbers from Morgan-Stanley about the iPhone booming
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/web-2-0-summit-facebooks-vp-of-engineering-on-scaling-facebook/
Huge numbers for Facebook
And a comic for finish: (made with: http://superherosquad.marvel.com/create_your_own_comic)
Enjoy the weekend!
Roy.
Today I came across a very nice free service called Ring-2-Skype. It lets you register a personal international number from about 40 countries, and whoever calls this number and dials your extension is directed to your Skype account.
The coolest thing is that you can register a number on several countries for the same Skype account. For instance on for USA, one for Peru etc.
And… it’s FREE!
The downside is that the number you get is not direct, but requires you to dial an extension number, so you can’t use it with Google Voice-like services.
UPDATE #1: I discovered a bug with the service – it is incompatible with Skype’s voicemail: meaning the call gets disconnected when the greeting is played. I contacted them and they said it’s a known issue and they are taking care of it. I’ll update the post again once I know this issue is resolved
There’s nothing like a good visualization to deliver your ideas over a presentation. Concise points and breakdowns can only go a certain distance before they become weary, and finally confuse your audience. It’s better to keep them on their toes by spicing up the boring slides every 5 or so page turns.
I found that Word Clouds, a kind-of new visualization concept, have a good trait of focusing the attention over a single word’s associative space. You bold your main word, center it, and scatter the associative words around it. This creates a powerful effect.
I found a nice tool to create these word coulds on-the-fly: Wordle.
The way I did was, get the Wikipedia value of my word, for example “Friendship“, and go to the Edit tab. Copy all the textarea’s contents, and paste it into Wordle’s word cloud creator. Press “GO” and the results are immediate.
You can eliminate the “outliers” – those unrelated words that appear too many times, and layout the cloud as you like to fit your slide.
The down-side with Wordle is that it has no export ability, so I had to take an Alt-PrintScreen screenshot to get my cloud as a picture.
Enjoy!
Roy.
Hi
If you haven’t yet tapped into the (well by now it’s a) phenomena that is Kutiman’s “Thru You” project – don’t walk, run and do it now.
I’m a long time fan of Kutiman’s work, his last CD (“Kutiman”) is playing repeatedly in my company-leased car. And I have been watching closely to hear some of his new beats.
I must say he totally surprised me. The music is awesome, but this was to be expected. He surprised me beacuse he single handedly create a new concept – Social Music. What he did was a natural development of music in the Web 2.0 spirit – use the enourmous amount of “data” laying around freely on the internet, and bring it together to create something new.
Anyway, enjoy his work, it’s truly aspiring.
R.
Categories
PokeTalk – Call your friends for free
I recently came across this website www.poketalk.com.
This website allows you to place international phone calls for free!
What’s the catch? Well… a single phonecall is limited to 10 minutes, and you have 50 phonecalls per month (Tip- you can re-register with a different e-mail address to get extra 50 calls).
Once you place a call, the phone will ring at your house, and when you pick up, the phone will ring at the destination. That way both of you are having incoming calls and won’t be charged.
The main difference between this service and www.Jajah.com (another phone-to-phone service), is that you don’t have to register a specific number on either side to get the call for free.
So, this is definitely a website I recommend adding to your favorites.