Prometheus, thoughts…

Prometheus

I finally saw Prometheus at the Odeon IMAX in 3D with my friend Dave and his girlfriend, a few weeks ago and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. No Spoilers!

I never thought I’d enjoy it because I’m not a fan of horror (I never jump or find them scary) but it worked because they removed all the long periods of tension with small amounts of action.

I did feel slightly uneasy about the amount of religious points within the film but the concept of our technology leading us to make our makers is certainly interesting but I’ve said no spoilers. If you really want to get down and dirty into spoiler zone… Have a good old read of this blog.

New Mix: Summer is brewing a storm

Been a long time but I have decided not to upload every complete mix I do, just the good ones.

So here’s the Summer is brewing a storm mix, which is very true up here in Manchester right now

  1. Lotus – Shogun
  2. Constellation (John O’Callengham remix) – Thomas Bronzwaer
  3. Gouryella (extended mix) – Gouryella
  4. Never say never (Myon & Shane 54 remix) – Armin Van Buuren feat Jacqueline Govaert
  5. Nothing but you (Super8 & Tab remix) – Paul Van Dyk
  6. Shadow World – Thomas Bronzwaer
  7. Out of the Blue (2010 remix) – System F
  8. Turn it around – Alena
  9. Hold that Sucker down – Jerome Isma AE
  10. Shnorkel (dousk exclusive gems remix) – Miki Litvak & Ido Ophir
  11. First time (Funabashi remix) – Markus Schulz
  12. Wonders of Life (F&W remix) -Tukan Light
  13. Above the Cloud – Airwave

Seeing the Dark Knight rises at 5am

Dark Knight rises

After the pledge for the dark knight rises failing.

The tickets went on general sale almost the following week. Of course some of my friends were lucky to get tickets for the 8:30pm showing of the dark knight rises in the Manchester Odeon IMAX (1 of 4 real IMAX’s in the UK…) and they disappeared within a few hours. I missed it and only got options for 4:20pm and 11:30pm also in the IMAX.

However I later discovered when watching Prometheus (more on this very soon) that there will be a 5am (yes 5am not 5pm) showing to match the midnight showing on the east coast of America.

I had planned to take the day off to see it, but with the 5am showing, I can get up early watch this amazing film (which I think will blow Prometheus and the Avengers away) then go to work afterwards. Of course I will be rubbing it in my friends faces 🙂

So 5am on 20th July if I look a little tired you now know why…

Manchester Werewolf Chapter – June

manchester werewolf

Its werewolf time again! This Wednesday June 20th at Barcelona Bar

…we are very excited to be back at Barcelona Bar on Wednesday 20th June for another meeting of the Manchester Werewolf Chapter, for an evening of deception and accusation in classic social game Werewolf from 7pm onwards. It’s a free event, but it’s thirsty work so bring money for the bar. If you’ve never played before, it’s easy peasy and the rules will be explained as we go along, so please come and have a go.

Is online dating passing its prime?

Hand painted online dating ad on my block

One of the most under used parts of OkCupid.com is the journal part.

The journal is like a mini blog for each user on Okcupid, very few people use them but the ones which do generally receive more attention. So its handy to reveal more about yourself, if your not like me linking to there own blog etc.

I tend to use the journal to write about online dating, which is a kind of meta (writing on a dating site about dating sites) but its great for getting opinions from others OKC users. Of course you also great journals from other users too.

One such user published a journal post titled, is online dating passing its prime?

When it was new but past the stigma of being for losers I recall a lot of people going out on online dates and not hating them. I could be projecting but it seems most of my friends seemed to have a bit of fun from online. Now all the blogs and stories and journals are filled with either banality or dating misery. Bad dates, inflated expectations, laundry lists, a consumer mentality, the numbers game, cut and paste messages, perpetual disappointment, deception, no substance. All of these things seems to be the experience of many who online date. I’ve known people, good decent people, who try a couple of dates and remove their profile because it is a lot of work for little payoff.

OKC made a huge mistake by phasing out the journals because that was actually a really decent way to interact with other people. You got to know people, good and bad, over time and sometimes indirectly. It seems much more sophisticated than the typical online dating ritual.

The post goes on but I sent a message to the user sympathising with the thoughts about the online dating and Match.com’s plan to remove journals and other non core stuff from the site. I proposed the idea that social dating (which you could argue Okcupid is a part of) is growing and that kind of fly’s in the face of the old idea of online dating. That user then suggested it might be a generational thing.

I think there is a generational thing going on that is creating a gap for the 30-50 crowd. Those in their early 20s seem to be using Facebook for everything (dating included). But I don’t see too many in their 30s for contacting people who they don’t know well for dates. The other thing is that Facebook isn’t really geared for singles as its purpose isn’t meeting other singles.

Could be right… hopefully this is the kind of discussion we’ll have on Thursday 12th July at the next Relationship 2.0 event.

Everytime I hear or think about the state of online dating, I think about my lifestreaming dating idea, further expressed when reading this post about the mainstream acceptance of lifestreaming

Could you be Mr #52, help C_T_S find her perfect match

@C_T_S

This lady seeks a man not scared of an modern independent woman who knows what she wants and has a quirky sense of humor. Someone who uses the right words at the right times but can open her eyes to new words such as, antidisestablishmentarianism. Not too tall, but not a pint pot either. Someone who can talk about new interesting things and is never stuck for words. Someone to renew her faith in human kind.

Would you date this lady? If so you should read her blog post now

When Kate first showed me C_T_S’s 52 first dates, I had wished I had done something similar when I was really going for it on the dating front. Man some of those stories and the details!

Here’s the deal. I’ve been single since time immemorial. So, in an attempt to remedy my eternal singledom, and to get over my nauseatingly pathological fear of dates, I’ve decided to challenge myself. The challenge? To go on one first date a week for a year! So in 52 weeks time, I will have either found my Mr Right, or I’ll stay forever Miss Write. This is what happens…

She is now almost at the end of her year of first dates, just mr number 52 to go… But this time shes changing it up…

So, dearly beloved readers of 52 First Dates, this is where you come in. I put it to you that since you probably all know me better than myself by now, having endured every buttock-clenchingly cringe-worthy moment of the last 51 weeks of my life, that you help to find Mr #52 for me. You may know the perfect person to tick this elusive box, or even fancy yourself for this coveted slash much-afeared position. Well now’s the time to play Cupid and get that little bow and arrow of yours out (but perhaps leave the nappy at home). You’ve been on these dates with me (virtually), you know the sorts of things and people I like and don’t like, I’m obviously making a total balls-up of finding a boyfriend myself so perhaps you can do a better job.
Perhaps.
All you need to do is get your proposed Mr #52 (or in fact yourself if you fancy being the boy to break 52 First Dates) to email me with some information about themselves / yourself and a photograph, and hopefully some light-hearted correspondence will ensue (although I must add by means of a casual disclaimer that this isn’t guaranteed, not because I’m rude or anything like that, I’m always happy to email, but I’m just a bit shit at times, especially when I’m in the middle of moving house).

Now I know some of you are saying, Ian why don’t you put yourself forward?

I thought about it but to be honest I don’t think we would hit it off, which would be a shame for number 52… Although I’m really fascinated in meeting her one day, as its taken a lot of guts to put herself out there like that. Shes also supplied me with plenty of great information for future thinking digital talk or a standup routine (if she allows me to use her stories of course).
@C_T_S guessing its Claire something… was kind enough to finally put up part of a dating profile. Interestingly you can learn a hell of a lot more about C_T_S from her witty writings across the 52 first dates blog (which is also something I need to blog in regards to my dating idea). Just going off her profile and Tom Morris should listen up as her profile could certainly do with someone like him looking at it.
Age: 31
31 is good age and fits into what I’m looking for.
Profession: Edit producer formerly in television, now for a charity.

Ok TV 🙁 however its good to see the change, and says to me shes not all about money or fame.

Random factoid: Used to be a falconer
Difficult one because it says use to be, but still says to me she quite likes nature, while I’m not a big fan
Likes: knitting, baking, chutney-making, playing the piano, cake, teaching her parrots pointless things, writing in the third person, Tim Minchin, weird films, dark comedy, gigs, blowing raspberries, a wide range of cheeses, cats, Elf, sarcasm, writing, secret London pubs, feathers, loud guitars and louder drums, regional accents, festivals, crispy smoked bacon, Hackney, taxidermy, Eddie Izzard, my nephew, a good book, riding around on the top deck of the bus, cricket, the correct use of grammar, the Overground, lie ins, Charlie Brooker, overripe bananas, being independent, the ukulele, long words, antidisestablishmentarianism.
Dislikes: lateness, bad grammar, stubbing my toe, cucumber, the word ‘moist’, arrogance, spiders, Keane, being disappointed in the human race, the Daily Express, laziness, low-fat spreads, money-lovers, seafood sticks, noisy eaters, unripe bananas, football hooligans, Marley and Me, people who chew gum with their mouths open, the tube.
So I’ll be honest and say this is what I think… Shes very much about doing stuff which is crafty and nature like. Tim Minchin kind of humour is cool but I’m not a fan of his musical style. This is further confounded by the mention of Elf and blowing raspberries (hummm… slapstick humour, certainly not for me). Although Eddie Izzard and Charlie brooker certainly swing it back round again. I think ultimately our sense of humour will work but also clash in someways.
Secret London pubs, Loud Guitars, Festivals and the ukulele certainly strike me as a recipe for trouble. I’m all about finding lovely cocktails bars, house music and the art of djing and making electronic music.
She also makes a couple of references to being very choosy with language, can’t imagine shes tolerant of someone who dyslexic and to be honest I can’t be bothered with someone who clings to the rules of language like a stone tablet 🙂 However her dislike of being disappointed in the human race is interesting and I somewhat share.
Would like to meet: Someone fun, funny, possible funny-looking but ideally not funny-smelling. Own teeth and hair essential (or at least acceptable substitutes toupees notwithstanding). Someone who likes to ponder the pointless as well as the poignant. Someone who can make me laugh. Someone who will hopefully not make me cry (unless it’s through laughter, see previous point). Artists, musicians, creative types especially welcome
Most of this is most guys I know, so its easy to say yes I tick all the boxes. I would say she needs to be a little more direct about what she wants like no mention of age range, no shame in saying I prefer guys who look generally smart. Interesting shes happy with a creative person but is such a grammar geek, specially when dyslexia is very common in the creative sectors.
I know most of you are saying geez, your really picking at the smallest things but if I had time and wanted to really get into it, I could quote parts of C_T_S own blog posts which match my points.
End of the day, I’m not the guy for C_T_S and shes not the woman for me. No problem, theres plenty more fish in the sea…
Good luck C_T_S and really hope someone sees this and thinks maybe she could be a real good match for them. I’m kind of hoping for a romantic ending to this which is wrong, but it would be amazing if it just happened that way… Faith in human kind and all that!

Boxee & Plex go for the cloud

In the old days it was kind of clear

  • XBMC was the original and was a lovely but a little rough around the edges, maybe the kind of person you have to explain before taking him home to meet the parents.
  • Boxee was XBMC’s social and flirty younger sister who wanted to settle down and become famous.
  • Plex was the good younger brother who acted older than he was and went to oxford to hang around talking to hipsters.

Ok thats the way I think about it at least…

But its interesting that Boxee has started to slice of ties with the original XBMC community (too famous too fast?) and also started to making in-roads on Plex with there new cloud system called cloudee.

I stick with XBMC because I like the rough around the edges style. But I will be the first to say, I’ve got nothing against the cloud for home entertainment, just doesn’t really feature in my life right now.

Who pays on the first date – LSx video

Who Pays On The First Date (Ian Forrester) from LSx on Vimeo.

Imran just uploaded the video from LSx’s ignite talks back in February.

In my memory it felt like years when I accidentally removed the VGA connection while demonstrating the dodge, but in reality it wasn’t so bad on camera. But it certainly did mean I went over my allocated 5mins.

Thanks to Imran for inviting me to do my slightly edgy who pays on the first date talk, which may be the starting point to a much bigger talk about digital relationships (or relationships 2.0) in the future.

Thinking Digital 2012 my highlights

Another year and another Thinking Digital. This year the programme looked very strong, and thankfully I can say one of my highlights was from the BBC.

5 Years now and thinking digital is winning more even more new fans, Martin Bryant from the next web wrote his thoughts about the conference comparing it with TED. It seems crazy than over 5 years ago I heard Herb Kim talk about a TED like conference in the North East and I pulled him aside and said “are you for real?” So determined Herb was, I couldn’t help but offer support where ever possible. In actual case I’ve wrote about Thinking Digital every single year except 2010 when I had my bleed on the brain, and thanks to Herb I was there in spirit as such. Theres no doubt in my mind Thinking Digital is the english TED and it will go on to be something even better.

Magnus Lindkvist

On the first day, it was the thinking digital university and there was some great courses to be involved in. In the end I went with the one which best fits my work. A Practical Guide to Predicting the Future by Magnus Lindkvist.

At one time or another, if not everyday, we are all called upon to try and spot trends and/or predict the future. It’s pretty tough to do well. Magnus Lindkvist is considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on trendspotting and is the author of Everything You Know is Wrong, The Attack of the Unexpected and When the Future Begins. In addition he is a wonderful speaker and workshop facilitator. As one person commented, “Listening to Magnus Lindkvist is like rejuvenating your brain.”

In this session, Magnus will share some of his insights on the pitfalls and practice of trendspotting and trying to predict what will happen next. It will be a fascinating and fun workshop that could change the arc of your organisation and maybe even your life.

In the area of trendspotting, theres a lot of different approaches and some are as good as throwing a ball into a pit. But Magnus did a good job breaking the task down. His spectrum of predictability gave some scale to the levels of predications and with Tennis Balls, Fingerprints and the Human Brain in mind off he went.

Pearls of wisdom? Well there was a lot of common sense including news is blinding and slow moving things no one notices because the human brain is crap at recognizing tiny changes. The human mind is crap at thinking about cultural changes, example? Why does the Jetsons still have woman as the housewifes? The best people who predict the future are generally loud and good at convincing people even when wrong.

His talk was equally good and different examples helped… Lets just say I’m now a follower on twitter.

So what was my highlights?

Pam Warhurst

Pam Warhurst

Pam was like a lightening bolt, her no nonsense style and talk totally blew away the audience, she almost received a standing applause for everything she had done in Todmorden. Really got me thinking about the community I live in and should I be pushing much harder to achieve the community spirit she’s achieved. Incredible and also one of the great treasures Thinking Digital uncovers.

Peter Gregson

Peter Gregson

You got to hand it to Peter, lovely guy and after the failed attempt to demonstrate his computer assisted music sequencing system working on the first day, he came back on the 2nd day to a massive round of applause. Excellent music and great idea. Look forward to hearing and seeing more on the Space soon.

Mikko Hypponen

Mikko Hypponen

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Mikko during the speakers and VIP dinner. It was great talking to him and I didn’t know he was going to take the more personal security and privacy approach. We had a good chat about world security and social engineering. Mikkos talk was really good and I felt like he had much more to say but there was plenty to make people think. It wasn’t as scary as Paul Rogers talk at TedXBradford who I recommended to Mikko at dinner but plenty to take away. Another great talk and great to see Thinking Digital trying different types of talks.

Ken Segall

Ken Segall

Didn’t really want to like Ken but I found his talk fascinating, maybe in the same way I would find Steve Jobs if I was to heard him live. Ken had some choice words including… Being simplicity isn’t simple, Why add complexity, think common sense. Simplicity isn’t a trend its forever, its burned into our wiring. However when Ken made the comment about Apple’s rivials creating 16+ types of machines to face up against Apple’s 4 types. I disagree with about choice being bad. The business models they are using is wrong in my view. Very good talk and great opener to the whole conference.

Adrian Hon

Adrian Hon

Adrian is a great guy and friend, always been loved what him and his brother have done from a early time. Great to hear what each of them are doing but Adrian really got me thinking about Kickstarter. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard so many stories about kickstarter but to hear about Zombies Run, well it got me really thinking about the possibility of using a store of ideas to see if any of them were worth pursuing or not. More details about that hopefully soon. But excellent talk and great to have Adrian’s deeper thoughs along side his current work. Credit to Adrian if things go the way of crowd funding.

Sugata Mitra

Sugata Mitra

I had no idea who he was till he started talking about his great hole in the wall project. Then I was transported back to 2000 in the doors of perception 6 conference in Amsterdam. I remember hearing about the project and thinking wow, how amazing one person can make such a difference. I was a budding interaction design student with no real idea of how much these things would shape my life in the future.

I remember there was some discourse about how much the children had learned years later but its great to hear Sugata is still trying out different methods to educate some of the poorest people in the world. Granny Cloud sounds crazy but who knows in 12 years time, I might be saying how much of a impact that had. Seriously Amazing talk… Ended the first and long day on a total high.

Ralph Rivera

Ralph Rivera

Now Ralph is my managers manager but since he joined the BBC replacing Erik Huggers I’ve had nothing but praise for him and his style of business. Seeing Ralph at Thinking Digital adlib with about 3 slides was captivating. He got the tone perfect and made it into one of the best talks of the second day. It was so good hearing what I thought of Ralph being said by others in the conference. There was even talk about Ralph for BBC Director General. I was so proud to be at the BBC after hearing ralph talk about his own background and why the BBC must pivot for the sake of the country and the industry.

Tom Scott

Tom Scott

You have got to hand it to Tom, he is one of the gems of Thinking Digital. He has spoken at every single one and each time his portfolio of work increases and gets better. To have Tom end the conference was a great honor and a great move by Herb bringing balance to Peter Fitzgerald‘s talk from Google. Don’t get me wrong Peter was good but even the Google in me was getting a little twitchy. Tom shattered the utopian dream but only by putting a few holes in the corners.

Great to see Tom has calmed down a little, he’s really carving out a niche besides the likes of ZeFrank. Great talk and great presentation, hopefully he won’t be too big for next years Thinking Digital…

Jennifer Gardy

Jennifer Gardy

Jennifer’s presentation was special for me because my ex (Sarah) was also into Epidemiology. Not only that Sarah was the person responsible for the TB register in London and we would regularly talk about how TB was a massive killer and unfortunately no was talking it very seriously. A lot of the terms and methods Jennifer described were strangely common to me and I can only guess it comes from Sarah.

Jennifer did also make reference to the fact that she started a A-Z book of diseases which Tom Scott and a few others put together in this great animation in a matter of days.

Sebastian Seung

Sebastian Seung

Every year theres one talk which gets me very excited about what were learning about ourselves. Last year it was eat to defeat, this year its the Connectome. Sebastian is uncovering how the brain is wired and with it how things like autism might be caused. The problem is the brain is just too dense and trying to track the connections is a very manual job. But if you can gamify and crowd source it, would it be a easier problem to crack? Well thats what Play.eyewire.org is all about. Sebastian is after better ways to make the game more fun and more interesting. I might be able to help.

Alan Moore

Alan Moore

Between Alan and Magnus I was really getting the feeling my thoughts around disruption and future thinking are maybe much more relevant than I had imagined. Letting the legacy die was a theme through out…

Where Alan got me was the “putting economic value on every aspects of human existence is a very bad idea, deconstructing the human is not a good idea.” This ties nicely with my thoughts about online dating and trying to understand what is chemistry? I think this is also when I wrote in my evernote notes, that I’m going to put forward to Herb a epic look at online dating and love as a presentation for maybe next years Thinking Digital.

My manager Adrian, says its clearly not BBC when I talk about love/sex/dating but if you dig a little deeper. What I’m actually doing is trying to deconstruct these notions. Maybe I am deconstructing what it means to be human in a clumsy way when I do events like Relationships 2.0 (Thur 7th at FYG Deli). I know for a fact I’ve had arrangements with people about the events and my dating experiences and actually what there getting at is the deconstruction of human emotions?

Plenty to think about but Alan did leave these points to think about…

  1. Change the pattern, the limits of our language is the limits of our world
  2. Adaptive go beyond the conventional
  3. The default setting is open, the world is open.
  4. Participatory culture, not social media.
  5. Craftsmanship. Is what we do good for us all?
  6. Seek epic wins, transformational wins

Other notable speakers…Tom Chatfield, Zach LiebermanRosanne BachmanSimona Francese, Peter Fitzgerald and Jessica Latshaw for some great music (love her deep smoky voice!)

Gateshead by night

Like the Future Everything conference, there is so much more I could write about and I have a lot of notes to follow up in my evernotes. It was an amazing conference and I’d say out of the 5 maybe one of the best by a little bit. Everything just gelled from the section tagslines to the application Gospalware created for the conference. Having the sponsors down in the tea and coffee area instead of the barber room.

My only gripe is not having the Dinner next door to each other like usual and not being able to ask questions. I also wished I could have gone to some more of the university events but had to choose one over the others.

If this event doesn’t put Thinking Digital on the map for conference goers in the UK, I don’t know what will!?!?

Here’s to Herb, Codeworks, the sponsors and everyone I met during the week… To the next 5 years!

Official photos and my own creative commons licenced photos

Pacemaker under glass…!

In my last blog post I wrote how I was given the opportunity to play with an early build of the Pacemaker app on the Blackberry playbook at Over the Air 2012…

I won’t comment on Over the Air 2012 which looked frankly amazing and how great it was to catch up with old London friends even for a few minutes. That was all great and I look forward to catching up with people in the week when I’m down in London.

This is about the playbook and the pacemaker application.

The top line is… almost unusable, shocking and sadly uninspiring!

First of all it took ages to get the files on to the device, for some reason the playbook wouldn’t mount on my ubuntu thinkpad laptop, even though the machine which the guy was using was the exact laptop. Yes even he had a Thinkpad X220 but was running Windows 7 and had installed some magical playbook driver. So we had to copy most of my collection over to his laptop over USB sticks and my Android phone. That problem I blame RIM/Blackberry for… No mass storage mode, even MTP would have been a start. So I assume no Linux support is coming?

Once the files were loaded on to the Playbook, the guy started the Pacemaker application and I was a little underwhelmed to see they had gone with the two decks and a crossfader approach. I was expecting something a little more clever specially with the pacemaker under their belts. The guy whos playbook it was, didn’t know how to use the application and certainly didn’t know how to dj. However there were common interfaces elements with the pacemaker which made it understandable for me. But there were bits like the legendary P switch which was missing. So it wasn’t till half way through that I found out how to change the EQ and Gain. That problem was certainly Tonium’s.

I started with my pacemaker and tried to mix from the pacemaker to the app and it was the most painful mixing I’ve heard in a long while. The problem was the app not only kept skipping and pausing on beats but there was no monitor/headphone out. This for me make the whole thing pointless to use! Not only that, unlike on the pacemaker which showed every beat using an highly efficient system to show you the next 4 beats of both tracks, so you can almost dj without monitoring with some knowledge of the track structure. Tonium opted for the Virtual Dj/Tracktor/etc whole track waveform (forgot to add how long it took to render each wave form, although you can play it blind while it renders). Not very useful when your beats are galloping like some runaway horses. I even tried to use the sync feature but frankly that was rubbish too. The mix was all over the place. Once again Tonium’s fault, as I’m sure the playbook is capable of playing two tracks together at the same time. However RIM/Blackbery need to get 2 discreet outputs otherwise its always going to be a joke (stereo splitters deserve to die, and as I said to the guy. No club is ever going to let you plug in if your splitting the audio! Further rendering it as a bit of fun).

The latency of the touchscreen of the Playbook made the whole thing a total joke. The only time I’ve ever had such bad latency when djing is while trying to mix on a piece of glass during the Thinking Digital conference 3 years ago (by the way the blog about thinking digital is coming soon).

If you don’t understand what I mean by latency go have a look at this great Microsoft research demo where they got the latency of a touchscreen down to 1ms. But it wasn’t just that… As switched back and forth between the Pacemaker and the app, I could feel something was missing. Even with the touchpad of the pacemaker, I could do multiplate it in ways which were just ignored by the playbook. Honestly the interaction rant about pictures under glass was never more apt for this moment. Whos to blame for this? Well both and everyone. Although the trackpad of the pacemaker could be seen as the same as the multitouch screen, its certainly not.

I know a few of you are saying, yeah yeah give it a few weeks and you will also like it But honestly no I won’t. Of course if RIM/Blackberry want to give me one to fully try out over weeks or months then great I won’t say no but I think the end result will be the same. Even if Apple or even Google were to release a Dj app for iOS or Android, I would be saying pretty much the same. The problem isn’t RIM/Blackberry or even Tonium’s, its pictures under glass. You can’t get away from it…

The guy who’s playbook it was, said the later versions he had seen was more stable but frankly if it was bulletproof… Theres far too many other problems…

If I was Tonium, I would scrap the copying Virtual DJ, Tracktor, etc and take advantage of the beat chart system they enabled on the pacemaker. You need to be able to mix without hear the track, because I’m sorry to say the splitter option is a instant no for any self respecting DJ.

Tonium claim they used Blackberrys’s QNX platform because it was quicker and more responsive then others out there. If thats true, then make it so! Right now I’m not seeing anything advantages over the other platform. Even having dual outputs would have put Blackberry well ahead of the game and made the platform much more attractive to djs and artists but right now it looks no different to the rest except there are few apps, few developers and fewer buyers. If RIM/Blackberry really want to do something radical, getting Tonium to build the pacemaker software for them isn’t going to fly unless theres serious hardware changes too.

It hurts me to say it because I really wanted Tonium to go on to a winner and heck if the blackberry platform was the place to do that, then great. But instead what they have done is aped DJ software already out there, added a few bits from Pacemaker and done an very disappointing job.

The thing which is never meant to happen while djing happened! Yes the Pacemaker software crashed and left me scrambling for my pacemaker. Not only that, there was clear machine/software distortion through out when you feel the system was under-stress.

I believe nothing can save this pacemaker app unless its a new blackberry playbook (with low latacy  and 2 outputs)  its going to run on?