This time we're upstairs in the computer room with our new microphones and a lightly longer podcast for your listening pleasure. We talk about what we did on Friday night, TV generations, RFID misconceptions, Calendaring update and TV.com vs Tape it off the internet.com. We also have a update on the mouse and some music perceptions which puzzles me. Enjoy… and leave us a comment.
Free your phone a few words from OpenMoko
Dave forwarded a very clever email from the guys behind the OpenMoko project. I have quoted a lot from the email but left out the part in the middle about the specs of the hardware and software.
“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”
Mark Weiser wrote those words almost 15 years ago in a Scientific American article titled, “The Computer for the 21st Century.” In it, he coined the term “ubiquitous computing”, and proposed a set of ground rules for devices of the 21st century. Temporally, we're here. Technologically, we're close. But everyone still seems to be talking about ubiquitous computing like a mirage on desert road: it's always the same distance away. Sometimes looking at common every day objects with a fresh perspective yields interesting
new ideas. Today we're going to propose that the foundation for ubiquitous computing is already here. All that is stopping us from going forward is change of context.Almost everyone we know has a mobile phone. Mobile phones have become part of the fabric of everyday life. Does this mean that the mobile phone is the ubiquitous computing device we've all waited for? Currently, no. But with a subtle change we would argue, yes.
Mobile phones are closed environments created with a mobile context in mind. But this concept is limiting; a mobile phone has the potential to be a platform that can do anything that a small computer with broadband access can do. If mobile phones were based on open platforms, they would have the potential to bring computing to people in a ways traditional computers cannot. Mobile phones can become ubiquitous computers.
Ubiquitous computing, however, does not simply mean computers that can be carried to work, to the home, to the beach, and to the movies. Ubiquitous computers must know where they are, and then must be able to merge into the environment.
We put GPS functionality into the Neo1973, because when your phone simply knows its location, it can adapt its behavior in significant ways without even a hint of artificial intelligence. How can devices disappear into the background? To be honest, we have far more questions than answers here. But do we know what is needed for exploring this idea. Developers must have unrestricted access to hardware at all times. Being able to control the microphone, for example, will allow phones to sense ambient noise. A simple
program could prevent your phone from ringing while you're in a conversation.We will always try our absolute best to give you devices that are as open as possible. Our goal is freeing end-users and businesses alike from proprietary constraints. We're about encouraging people to modify and personalize their software to support their individual needs. Building products as we do, we strive to enable people to connect and communicate in new and relevant ways, using their own languages and their own symbols.
We want your involvement in OpenMoko. Now is a great time for us to work together. You'll have our full support. We're dedicated to helping you “Free Your Phone.” And we're always looking, listening, and hungry for new things. It is our goal to be totally market driven.
To be market-driven requires a willingness to experiment. OpenMoko will provide discounted phones to people in “improbable” markets. We're interested in what people in these markets can do with our products, whether they can use them at all, or what it would have to be like for them to become customers.
We will start out with the assumption that our product may find customers in previously ignored markets; that uses no one imagined when the product was designed will be found; and that Neo1973 will be bought by customers outside our field of vision and even unknown to our sales force.
We need you to talk to us. Tell us what you want. We promise we will listen. Your feedback will help evolve our roadmap. The real power of an open phone comes not from any one of these devices; it emerges from the interaction of all the users of “freed phones.” We can create true ubiquitous computing in Weiser's terms. This will be the computer of the 21st century.
At this point, we should tell you why we chose the name “Neo1973.” “Neo” means new. Dr. Marty Cooper (the inventor of the mobile phone) made the first call ever in 1973.
We believe that an open source mobile phone can revolutionize, once again, the world of communication. This will be the New 1973.
Join us. “Free Your Phone.”
Sincerely,
The OpenMoko Team
- http://openmoko.org/ — for the actual development community
- http://wiki.openmoko.org/ — for an official wiki of the project
- http://bugzilla.openmoko.org/ — for bug tracking
- http://lists.openmoko.org/ — for public mailing lists
- http://planet.openmoko.org/ — for an aggregated feed
- http://projects.openmoko.org/ — for user-contributed projects
The TV watching generations finally catergorised
I've been thinking about this for quite some time but never really put it down anywhere till I wrote this email on the backstage mailing list. Yes I also hate catergorisations like this because they group people in too tight a category but this is only a thought.
-
1st generation – Mainstream
Tend to be stuck to the Broadcast Schedule, will get home to watch a certain thing, will see lots of adverts etc. Will tend to have Cable, Sky (satellite) or Freeview (over the air broadcast). Uses a video recorder to catch up on stuff missed but prefer to watch stuff live -
2nd generation – Tape it for later
They tend to watch live events, browse TV and tape/vivo/record everything they watch a lot (such as shows). They skip adverts but still see them. Still aware of the Broadcast Schedule and subscribes to Sky or Cable. Uses the internet a bit for web 1.0 type applications (email, browsing). May buy shows legally from the itunes store. -
3rd generation – On Demand
Completely off the schedule, no idea which channel things come from or what time there on. Rely on friends recommendations or social networks to tell what's on. Owns a laptop or has a computer device (such as xbox) setup with there TV. Tends not to browse TV and does not subscribe to Sky or Cable but watches a lot of TV content, sometimes more that previous generations. Keeps up with a lot of American shows. Watches shorter TV clips and amateur and pro-amateur media online. -
4th generation – There is no spoon
Same as 3rd generation but sees all content as remixable and shareable. Can't understand why mixing content is a bad thing. Uploads content to online sites and shares a lot for social capital. May not even own a TV but has access to a large connection (broadband). Uses Torrent sites including private trackers. May watch a equal amount of pro-amateur/amateur content with pro TV content and may have a podcast/videocast of their own. Owns at least 2 computers, a mobile device which can play video, maybe a console
and has a home network of somekind. May still buy content legally but is frustrated by
drm
and the lack of content.
These are my own views and should not be taken as the views of the BBC or factually correct.
Notes
Obviously there's stages between the generations (nothing is black and white like that), like someone who watches everything on demand but also tunes in for Torchwood every week (what day was it on again?).
I expect people will slowly climb through the generations and this will take some time. For example their are a lot people who can be categorised in the 1st Generation but there are also a growing 2nd generation which at some point will make up the mainstream. I also suspect the changes will happen faster as time moves on. So you won't get the 100 years of 1st generation TV watching with 2nd generation tivoing. Also 3rd and 4th generation watching are much closely aligned. Someone once asked me what happens after
the 4th, I usually laugh and say We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there…
– Alan Turing.
The comments/feedback section is open, let me know what you think of it all.
Good night at Turnmills and those Lasers
Recorded at Turnmills in the Gallery during Ferry Corsten's 4 hour set, Laser
action like I've not seen in a long time.
I had a great time at Turnmills yesterday. The venue is a maze and I wish I'd been to it before. Its not the crazy and some what shabby venue of the Camden Place but its certainly not Fabric. I would compare it to Heaven in style and maze like structure. The Dj booth sits in the middle of the biggest room but only looks out one way. This works well because one end gets very crowded and other side becomes a over-spill. I did briefly look at the other 2 rooms but didn't get a chance to really check them out.
Ferry was on good form playing a good selection of trance from across the board. About 4:30 Ferry dropped into a his tech dance stuff which went down really well. But I got to say the most impressive thing all night was the Laser's.
2 high powered electric cooled multi-spectrum lasers in one room. I mean what more can you ask for? So impressed, I shot a few videos (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) in high def so I could display the power and intense nature of the lasers.
So generally yes I had a good time and I'll be back next month for another 5+ hours work out on the dance floor.
A few hours before going clubbing for the first time this year
I'm so excited and I just can't hide it. The plan was to go to sleep for a couple of hours after eating dinner then wake up and get ready to go. However I'm sitting here writing this blog post, playing loud dance music, talking to Sheila on IM and trying to get a hold of Ryan Alexander. Ryan expressed a
interest in coming along tonight but I didn't have him on my twitter list so I missed it all. Anyway, I'm buzzing and I haven't even touched the Redbull yet.
I got a feeling that I might end up doing a quick mix while I'm waiting. There are some banging tunes which I've been listening to a lot recently and their just crying out to be mixed together. I've also been playing with the idea of doing a music dj podcast but I know I'd get sued silly. Anyway, I might provide a voice overlay track to my next mix if I find the time.
Final logos for BarCampLondon2
I have finally finished the logos for BarCampLondon2. It took a combination of Inkscape and Gimpshop (which crashed a lot – reminder to actually install it).
Here is the source files if you want to play with them. I've released them under a creative commons licence, which even Dave will agree with.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
Finally installed Outlook 2007 first thoughts
So I installed it and had to remove remote calendars and the syncML plugin I was using for Outlook 2003. One of those were causing Outlook 2007 to use up over 40% of my resources without doing anything. At first I thought it might have been Outlook its self but nope it pretty much idles in on my new Dell now the plugins are removed.
My main reason for the upgrade is the iCal support. And I don't mean just the ability to download iCal files, nope I mean publishing my calendars to a webdav or even caldav server and finally being able to share with Sarah my calendar. This works both ways of course, once Sarah also installs Outlook 2007 (think shes waiting for me to install it for her). This also means we can finally stop sending each other meeting requests which sounds really dorky but actually is efficient enough for generally telling the
person what your up to on a certain date. The only other solutions was use a exchange server (not cheap), not use Outlook and switch to Sunbird or another iCal client (we both use pocketpc devices so that would be a real pain) or simply dump online calendaring. The last one is simply not a option because I use my a lot otherwise I'd forget all this stuff and Sarah is very good at arranging her calendar and time, so it would be a nasty lost.
I did check out Calimanjaro but couldn't find the sync to pocketpc option so dropped it quickly.
My only problem with Outlook 2007 besides the new style (which I can live with for now) is that it won't sync with my Cocoon built WebDav server. So I really need something else which is easily deployed in a Java servlet engine like Resin and Tomcat. I can try again with Apache Webdav, but I have worries about how secure that really is and I'd prefer to keep Apache as simply a static file server and low balancer for Resin. Any thoughts? And please don't mention Apache Slide. I just can't get that thing to
work, talk about complex configuration.
Geek and Geekhag Podcast number 2 for 2007
This time we're armed with decent microphones and an extended podcast for your listening pleasure. The main part includes me trying to explain why I don't think the iPhone is not revolutionary, how Matthew lost a bet and what I'll be doing for kicks next Friday night. While the extended
podcast (part 2.5) includes me and Sarah shouting about mice and discussing alterative content management systems.
Please do drop us a comment if you think the quality is better and what else we should be doing.
Friday 19th Jan, One night with Ferry Corsten. You up for it?
January 14, 2007 10
—
6am
— Ferry Corsten 4 hour set— at The Gallery at Turnmills, Clerkenwell, London
Four hour set from Mr Corsten, supported by Abel Ramos and Gavyn Mytchell
One of the top Dj's in the industry hits London next Friday. In my attempt to get back into clubbing before I get really too old physically to do it all, I'm going.
My only regret is that I'll have no one to share the night with. Most of my friends are into weird music (only learned who the police were a while ago) and won't be interested in going out till 6am. Unless I might be wrong? If your reading this and thinking yeah sounds like a good night then leave a comment or drop me a email. As mentioned on the podcast we just did, I only drink lots of Redbull so I'm legally allowed to drive my scooter home afterwards, which means theres a chance I could drop you home if your
on the way to Woolwich. I also found a nice discount on the ticket price.
Because so many people of the Ferry Corsten forum are going to see Ferry in Turnmills we wanted to do something special! So we can offer a special entrance for just £10. To get your ticked you have to go to THIS special link.
Please put : FINGERS in the Promo code box. Go through the rest of the options and then on the next page it will offer you the £10 ticket.
The last time I went seriously clubbing was in 2005 over in Berlin. My friend Carl was going to come out too, but his girlfriend was ill. So I decided to go alone. Now to be fair I had a flipping wicked night but there were some odd things to get use to in Berlin like getting money back for your glasses at the bar (actually makes a lot of sense). I must have shed like a ton of sweat that night because there were so many good tunes played by the likes of Paul Van Dyk and Tiesto.
The way I currently stay in touch with what's going on in the Trance and Progressive scene is via the member only Bit Torrent site Trance Traffic. Armin Van Buuren's A state of trance show is simply awesome and is a must if your into your trance and progressive music. Without it I wouldn't be currently listening to the classic Intuition
(Martin Roth Classic Style Mix)
More thoughts about the iPhone ongoing drama
So the truth is starting to trickle out. First a note on openness via Kid666.
In The New York Times, Steve Jobs confirms every developer’s worst fears about the iPhone:
‘These [iPhones] are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.’
If Microsoft said that, everyone would jump and down (like they are about Vista) but Apple says it and the follows shake there heads like zombies. As Kidd666 says, nooooooo!
3G also looks like it won't happen says Engadget
It's not unheard of for a firmware upgrade to unlock new features or functionality in a device, but the sources we've spoken to have made it pretty clear that Apple hasn't wedged a UMTS or HSDPA radio into this thing.
A couple of other things. Did Apple steal Visual Voicemail? on top of stealing the maybe dropped trademarked name of iPhone by Cisco. I kinda of agree with Nokia no usable 3G and europe (which is a bigger market and us europeans are use to something small and powerful in our hands? DLTV) will have to wait comments. It is also worth checking out what DL.TV make of us Europeans.
And I'm also pretty much done talking about it now. Still very worried about the closed nature of the device but then again the iPod is also a closed type device and you can even run linux on it now. Its also worth pointing out that the Candy Bar touchscreen devices are very much the way forward now.
AppleTV and iPhone
I couldn't go to sleep without saying something about the Apple announcements today.
So first up the Apple TV. This for me was disappointing, I was hoping to have something which maybe I could upgrade to. But for now my XBox running XBMC will still have a spot under my TV. I had expected something a little cheaper and cleverer. Its a worthy device which I would recommend to others but the software on it is underwelming. For example no 1080p support, yes its a very high standard but with shows going out on the net in
1080p (macbreak for one) and with the xbox 360 and PS3 supporting it. You would have thought Apple would get on board too. Anyway hopefully its a software upgrade. I'm also hoping someone ports XBMC or something better to it. Frontrow doesn't seem to have been upgraded that much and looks simply boring compared to the open source efforts of XBMC. Final thought for now, great hardware underwhelming software.
And now the iPhone or Apple phone. I do like what Apple's done. It seems like they've taken a HTC Windows mobile device and built a much better interface for it (multitouch). Finger based instead of Stylus, ok cool but not revolutionary. The features of the phone are good, I'd expect they will have 3G for the European (Q4 2007) and Asia models (2008), and it has most of the stuff you see in current phones – EDGE, Wifi, Bluetooth, etc. These
may sound amazing to the usual phone buying people but nothing special to a Windows Mobile owner. For example the fact the music pauses when a call comes in is nothing new. My Ericsson T28 use to that with the MP3 attachment, most phones do that. Matt at work didn't believe me and Ii showed him and earned myself a pound in the process. People wondered how Googlemaps could pin point your location without GPS, well Wifi and GSM can be used to pin point location. Oh one more thing the Proximity sensor isn't a new
thing either. My old gold bar Ericsson had that feature, so you could answer the phone by waving your hands over it and it wouldn't do anything to the buttons while its next to your ear.Widgets on your phone, been done by Opera already. Multi-session text? Sounds like IM to me. High DPI screen is nice but the Nokia's also have high DPI screens. 8 or 4gig, well teh Nokia N91 had 4 gig over 12months ago and Samsung already have a 8gig phone. Suprised Apple didn't go with just Yahoo or Google instead of both. Also
very surprised Google didn't offer Push email. There was no mention of Java support, or its poor 2 mega pixal camera. Lessig talked about read/write ability a while ago, well this is certainly a read device, it certainly doesn't feel like an empowering device for writers.
Don't get me wrong, all the tweaks to software and hardware to add up to a great phone which I would buy if it came out sooner that Q4 of 2007. The price point is not too high, but I expect it to be at least 250 pounds on Orange with a 18 month contract. Would I say Apple will put some more spice back into the mobile market and force mobile and software makers (Microsoft pay attention) to spend more time looking at the functionality of simple things like text, email and voicemail. For example Microsoft don't
actually provide a MMS or voicetag client for Windows Mobile 5, so you get some 3rd party solution which usual suck and is totally inconsistent with the rest of the phone. Visual voicemail makes sense and is one of those tweaks which I can imagine not living without once you have it.
So overall, yes I wouldn't mind one but I'm not holding my breath or rather next upgrade decision for it. I'll get one in Q2 of 2008 when its been tried and tested and Apple have upgraded some of the lows like Battery life.
Geek and Geekhag Podcast number 1 for 2007
As my wife says,
Our podcasts are back for 2007, somewhat streamlined (only about a half hour instead of full hour). I have no idea what number we're on anymore. This time we talk about New Year's resolutions,Twitter, Xbox 360 being hacked, TV, and Christmas presents (new laptops for the both of us!).
Its number 16 by my count and yes shamed by other partner podcasts, we've decided to pick up the pace and shorten it down. You listen to it directly on Blip.tv or if your using my feed with a podcasting client, you should already have it. Enjoy… and leave a comment if you enjoy the new style.
BarCampLondon2 is official
A new year and a new laptop
I was tempted to do some mac fanboy mac fanboy unboxing ceremany for my new Dell XPS 1210 but decided that would be just – too sad! So it came as I finally spec'ed out with
Dell, and actually ahead of the 7 business day delivery. Being delivered on a Friday means I'm obviously all night copying files from my old laptop to the new one. I'm almost pretty much done now except Firefox which doesn't seem to work correctly when I copy it over from the old machine. Thunderbird and even Sunbird worked but not Firefox, odd eh? (yes I did try Mozbackup)
The new Laptop is beautiful and seriously looks like my Toshiba from the front (promise to take pictures once I sort out Firefox). I have started putting things on it which I wouldnt dare on my older machine. Touchstone, Microsoft virtual desktops, VM Ware and even Second life. The Dell just seems to run everything smoothly without a hitch. On the downside I spent 2 hours removing all the Dell crap before doing anything constructive. The battery life seems to last 6 hours with wireless, bluetooth and with use.
It does stick out the back but honestly I couldn't careless. When I'm sitting on the train or airplane with my extended battery and your searching for power after 3 hours, I'll be sure to remind you about the battery sticking out. Other things I love about the Dell right out of the box. The shinny widescreen screen is stunning, I've enabled Cleartype which needs some tweaking. The built in Wireless finder is a great idea for wifi searching.The keyboard takes some getting use to mainly because of the Toshiba I've
been using since when-ever.
Next day
So I finally got Firefox across using another utility called BackupFox which also does Thunderbird. I'm pretty much done with setting up my laptop now. I even installed Ubuntu Linux via VMWare. I don't know about Microsoft's Virtual machine client but VMWare runs Linux bloody fast on this laptop. So fast I might not even bother installing it on the disc at all. I guess this is what some of those Mac users were talking about with parallels over bootcamp. I'm also using Microsoft's Virtual Desktops extension which acts like Linux workspaces, so I easily go between Linux and Windows with a quick 2 finger tap. Although I have to say that the virtual desktops is a little buggy with badly written applications. This does however beg the question about what I should do with the Toshiba? Now the Dell runs Linux as smoothly as it does.
I've put up a load of shots of the new laptop on Flickr using the tag dell. Including this one which puts my old toshiba next to the new dell. Weird how they look so a like from the back.
Linux and homebrew on Xbox 360 and PS3?
So while I was looking around the 23C3 conference notes I found some links to videos about a possible Xbox 360 hacking. The video which can only be viewed on Youtube now seems odd and underwelming. But if its true means you can now using some exploit in the game King Kong run unsigned code on a Xbox
360. Engadget also had a piece about the whole thing.
One of the best things about the original Microsoft Xbox console wasn't the fact that it ran games. Oh no, for many, the best part was the ease at which that low-cost / high-powered device could be hacked to run all kinds of Homebrew applications including a damn fine media center. Now, in a tantalizing bit of showmanship put on by a cloaked hacker at the 23C3 Hacker Congress in Germany, a modified Xbox 360 (note attached circuit board) is shown loading Ubisoft's King Kong game just before displaying a trio of
dancing 360, Tux, and (old) MacOS logos with the words “coming soon.” Could this be a true exploit of King Kong's unchecked and unsigned vector shaders? We don't know, but the ability to execute any kind of code is certainly progress.
This is all fitting because Sony have just released a Yellow Dog linux build for PS3. Engadget once again has the right idea.
We're still holding out until Ubuntu gives us the love we crave. Well, that or until the OSS community get started on making an XBMC-like PS3 interface, since Sony believes all of your home's media should live on the PS3, and not on a media server.
Hey and no better time, XBMC is long from dead. Its been partly ported over to x86 for skinners and developers and this new skin from PDM called clearly shows the pure maturity of the XBMC platform.
And in related news I read Microsoft are releasing another version of the Xbox 360 code named Zephyr (1st one was called Xenon), this time with cooler processor, 120gig HD, HDMI and 1080p support out of the box. Sounds interesting but not as important as the previous news.
If the hack is true, it looks like I'll have to decide between the PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime this year. Maybe it will be a race to see who gets XBMC on it first.