Blog Stuff we're discovering, learning, reading, watching, enjoying...

Not a blog title I ever expected to write but I love the look of this Augmented Reality app this AR iPhone app and can see it being a big hit in Japan with it’s quirky but cute mass-user game approach. I think AR is still being mainly used just because it’s cool, but I guess increasingly both games and useful applications will come forth. And I’m not discounting the excellent where’s my nearest tube station app, but you’re never more than 50m from a tube sign in London anyway so I don’t find myself reaching for the app in practice.

I’m not exactly the first to notice, nor (obviously) am I involved in any way, but it’s hard not to be inspired by the Wired article about how Pixar built Toy Story 3. From the story itself through to the presentation of the article on the Wired site, it just feels like an exciting, creative project and indeed company that any creative mind would want to be involved in.

Very interesting US start-up Square seems to be developing a service to let anyone accept payment by card using a mobile phone. I love the visible verification system for checking the card holder is really who they claim to be (identical twin fraud anyone?).

Those folks at Google continue to be pretty busy, although if you look closely it’s not hard to see much of their activity [Docs, Apps, Wave, OS, etc] coming together behind the common thread that is their web browser, Chrome. Chrome is a very fine browser already, despite it’s present shortcomings such as not being available [properly] for the Mac. However, one issue that Google face in their drive to offer everything the mass-market computer user needs through a humble browser is to educate people as to what exactly a browser is. Of course, we in web development [and to some extent our clients who run web and mobile sites] use multiple browsers and often understand the pros and cons of each, but to the average computer user a browser is at best a means of saving bookmarks and at worst is “The Internet”.

Google’s answer? Create a website that explains exactly what a browser is, how it’s role will increase in our day-to-day activity and, without too much disguise, why therefore you should choose Chrome for your browser.

Nice to see Thumbprint, one of our newer projects, getting a reference on Tech Guardian and that it’s rightly referred to as “embryonic”. In his article on hyperlocal information, Victor Keegan looks at how smartphones have created micro-level location awareness, ranging from discovering photos taken nearby to retracing Shakespeares footsteps!

We’re looking forward to attending the Yorkshire Digital Awards 2009 event this evening, not least because Five Trees Forest - our RFID story/game developed in association with Blink - is nominated in the Best Application of Mobile Technology category.

OK, OK. So I’m 29 days late in noticing the Guardian’s announcement that it is switching it’s format from broadsheet to Twitter but it’s amusing nonetheless and, even though as soon as I click ‘Publish’ this post will be syndicated to Twitter, it’s a reminder that in comparison to 188 years of print some of the current “can’t do without” web services really are just little toddlers.

What might happen if we were really connected all the time? Newspapers would actually have video in them, book reviews would appear on book covers as you pick them up and you could check the time just by tapping your fingers on your wrist. Or at least that’s the vision in this MIT demo.

Two things strike me about this excellent video from MIT. First, you can’t knock someone who’s prepared to walk around looking as ridiculous as the guy covered in all the gear. I’d do it in a flash if it were me. Second, I love seeing the incredible approach at MIT where so much stuff actually gets prototyped. Don’t bother pontificating about how it might work. Build a prototype and see how it might work.

At tonights Sandpit #10 event, a game is being run using a system that we’ve developed with our partners and friends at Blink. You can play from afar or even better turn up at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. When London was built there were many monsters trapped underneath the buildings and foundations. It’s your task to  free them by solving the riddles, texting the answers and then drawing the monsters themselves.

Find out more and follow the progress and results from here.

This is a cute idea. FutureMe.org lets you enter the details of an email and have it delivered to yourself anytime up to 30 years from now. Tell yourself how you were feeling, remind yourself of [potentially unfulfilled] dreams or have a go at yourself for being an oldie! Shame it doesn’t work the other way round of course else I could have done that Back To The Future sports almanac trick.

Ahead of next week’s 3GSM Conference in Barcelona - the major mobile event of the year - the BBC reports that Samsung has delayed the launch of it’s Android-based phone. With competition in the touch-screen space becoming increasingly fierce it will be interesting to see what devices are announced at 3GSM on the high-end platforms.

Er yeah… in that it’s likely to give you Mr Spock ears. What the BBC are covering as a glimpse at ‘top-secret’ phone is raising cynical comment in some of the mobile forums, ranging from “a pat on the back for their PR company” to “a fairly basic way to generate interest just before floating”.

Thinking ahead is a beautiful thing, says Palm of it’s new ‘Pre’ handset. That’s all well and good but in today’s hyper-competitive touch screen smartphone market, thinking ahead would have been more effective had it resulted in Palm producing the iPhone.

Update: Effective marketing or not, looks like I’ll be eating my words as there are a number of reviews just out saying that the Pre is a damn fine device, measuring up well against the iPhone and G1.

There’s some interesting mobile and wireless predictions for 2009 on the mTrends site, ranging from how virtual goods and mPayments will rocket to the possibility of Apple bringing it’s iPhone success to the Nano end of their range.

No, that’s not the latest Wii accessory but a reference to the apparent requirement for every man and his dog to predict the big technology issues for 2009. I don’t think anyone ever comes back to these things and says, “Hey, you were miles off!”, but if you miraculously haven’t come across such articles earlier then have a read about robotics and business in Silicon Valley, the big steps in gaming, more robotics and music players.

Instead of predicting what might be big in ‘09, Wired magazine looks back at ‘08 and offers an excellent summary of the top 6 technologies to get into if you haven’t already.

Apple have implemented one of the best known gesture based interaction models on their laptops and iPhone/iPod Touch, but Oblong industries, inc. have gone way beyond this as they try to bring to reality a Minority Report style interface.

An often cited future role for mobile continues to near reality as Nokia have been demonstrating their plans to position the mobile at the centre of home automation, controlling heating, security and other appliances.

Who needs medical training or volumes of journals when you can receive instructions by text message? That’s all a volunteer surgeon had to go on as he amputated a boy’s shoulder via text message instructions from a colleague in London.

Discussion is underway regarding how the future of the NHS will utilise new technologies not only in treatments but also in how the service is accessed. Consultation by email, SMS and video might all play a role, as well as virtual hospital environments instead of physical buildings.