Friday, October 08. 2010
Via SlashGear
Adobe’s cross-platform AIR application system has shown up for download for Android devices, giving developers using the framework a fifth platform on which their code can run. The new release – which can be found in the Android Market – means that AIR apps that run on Mac, Windows, Linux and iOS systems will now also be functional on Android devices.
Apps themselves will be distributed via the Android Market as usual, and as long as the user has the AIR runtime installed they’ll load just like regular apps do. An Android 2.2 Froyo device is required, and the apps themselves need to be formatted to suit a mobile device.
Wednesday, September 29. 2010
Via slashgear
Amazon is tipped to be preparing its own Android marketplace, challenging the official Android Market with their own developer offering and hoping to lure in coders with the possibility of being features on the retailer’s well-trafficked site. Meanwhile there’s also talk of an Amazon tablet, produced alongside rather than replacing the Kindle, and itself running Android.
Developers will be charged $99 to take part, and receive either 70-percent of the purchase price or 20-percent of the list price (intended, apparently, to stop coders selling their apps cheaper elsewhere). In return they’ll be expected to update the Amazon app store versions of software at the same time as they do for the Android Market and other stores, and they’ll have to accept the retailer’s DRM.
The store will be US only, at least to begin with, and Amazon keeps executive control over how apps are priced; if they don’t like your numbers, they can change them or even pull the app altogether. Details on the tablet, meanwhile, are pretty much a mystery, though TechCrunch’s source has apparently got a reasonable history of accurate tips.
Thursday, August 26. 2010
Image via ArchDaily
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Floating porous pavilion from Croatia at the Venice Biennale ...
Full article about it HERE.
Tuesday, August 03. 2010
In some countries, people have been able to pay for stuff using their smartphones for a while now. When they go to vending machines or store counters in some countries all the buyer has to do is swipe their phone to pay. Here in the US credit card payment systems using smartphones are not available.
AT&T and Verizon are looking to change that though. The wireless carriers are planning to work together to bring smartphones to market that can work as a credit card. The two rival carriers are working together on a plan Bloomberg reports the carriers hope will rival MasterCard and Visa.
T-Mobile is also part of the scheme to replace credit cards with smartphones. The payment system would reportedly run charges through the Discover network. If the plan works Discover could move up from fourth place in the ranks of credit card company size.
Tuesday, July 13. 2010
Via Gartner
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by Nick Jones
I’ll be in South Africa at the end of August at the Gartner Symposium in Cape Town, which means I am just finishing some updates to the presentations I’ll be delivering. If any of my South African colleagues are reading this, there’s no need to remind me that my presentations are late; I’m painfully aware of that fact. My only excuse is that I worked for many years as a software developer, and everyone knows that software people never deliver on time. However, I digress.
I just updated a slide on future smartphone market share which makes depressing reading for Symbian fans. The rate at which Symbian is losing share is accelerating. Our new forecasts will be published at the end of July, but I doubt anyone will be surprised. That’s not to say that Symbian won’t remain the dominant platform for a few years more, but it does mean that the competition – especially Android – is catching up very fast.
Market share is an existential threat to Symbian, it imperils the very existence of the platform. And the main reason Symbian is losing share is the user experience which isn’t competitive with Apple or Android. Based on the early previews I’ve seen Symbian 3 looks to have polished a few of the rough edges, but doesn’t fix the problem. So if the weak UI is threatening Symbian’s very survival the Foundation ought to be seriously worried, right? Wrong. I just looked on the Foundation web site and blogs at the roadmap and features for future releases. What I see is too much effort on stuff that really doesn’t matter. For example: Audio policy packages for Symbian, WIFi direct, support for an “open cloud manifesto”, an accredited Symbian developer program for China, better multitasking, multiple personalised home screens, HDMI connection to external TVs, better web runtime support, better internal architecture and so on.
Forget elegant architecture, forget better multitasking, forget Chinese developers, forget release schedules that don’t deliver S4 devices with a new user experience until 2011. None of these matter. People will never use the features if they don’t buy the phone. The situation is now serious enough that any developer who isn’t working on something directly related to a new UI is wasting their time. The S4 UI is a “bet the platform” project. For any organisation to be in a situation where its survival depends on one project is very dangerous, especially when their track record in the area isn’t outstanding. I think the Foundation needs a contingency plan in case the planned S4 interface isn’t radical enough or good enough. Maybe redirect some developers and start a couple of skunkworks projects to create new competing UIs for S4, or perhaps announce a competition with a $1M prize for a new Symbian UI to encourage some radical ideas.
I think the Symbian foundation is just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and ignoring the Android iceberg ahead.
Tuesday, June 22. 2010
Via Mashable
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Apple’s new privacy policy contains a small new paragraph of big importance: it gives the company license to store “the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device” and share it with “partners and licensees.” As if we haven’t had enough privacy kerfuffles of late.
Apple goes on to assure customers in the remainder of the new clause that location data is “collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you.” Still, there seems to be no effective method of opting out of the data storage and sharing, as you’ll need to agree to the new terms and conditions before downloading new apps or any media from the iTunes store.
The company gives a nod to MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” feature as one of the services that requires personal location information to work, but it’s not saying much about other details, including who the data will be shared with and for how long it will be stored. Apple says the information it collects will be used to “provide and improve location-based products and services”; check out the full text of the new paragraph in the privacy policy below:
“To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.
Some location-based services offered by Apple, such as the MobileMe “Find My iPhone” feature, require your personal information for the feature to work.”
What do you think: should iPhone, iPad and Mac users be wary of this change in the privacy policy? Will this be business as usual now that geographic data is easy to come by on most of our devices?
[via LA Times]
Personal comment:
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Tuesday, May 25. 2010
The Museum of London has launched an iPhone app which cleverly brings its extensive art and photographic collections to the streets of the capital...
The free app, called StreetMuseum, has been developed with creative agency Brothers and Sisters and makes use of geo tagging and Google Maps to guide users to various sites in London where, via the iPhone screen, various historical images of the city appear - just like in the image above.
[...]
Here are some more examples of the kind of augmented reality views of London the app offers:
More info on the app can be found at museumoflondon.org.uk/
StreetMuseum credits:
Executive creative director: Andy Fowler
Creative director: Steve Shannon
Creatives: Kirsten Rutherford, Lisa Jelliffe
Account manager: Emma Simmons
Developers: Gavin Buttimore, Robin Charlton
New business director: Helen Kimber
Head of digital: Kevin Brown
Digital project manager: Tanya Holland
Digital designer: Mateus Wanderley
Image geotagger: Jack Kerruish
Personal comment:
Patrick Keller:
Further than the functional aspect of this AR application, I'm quite interested in the potential mixing of times that it allows to experience. Always a funny game to compare old pictures with current situation, but the fact that you can experience it in place, try to find out the photographer's point of view, etc. creates a connection (channeling ?) to distant times, experiences and persons. It also brings the museum in town and uses the urban fabric, pathways, views, etc. as the base for a narrative scenography.
Christophe Guignard:
It reminds me an old project we designed but never developed in 2001 or 2002: to combine digital environments with views of existing urban areas. The idea was neither to add info about shops or monuments around nor to confront past and present, but rather to create a new "artificial" reality, a mixed architecture.
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