mhealth mobile mobilemonday NaBloPoMo video · 50 words
Here's the captured video from MobileMonday's Trends in mHealth panel. Presented in glorious HTML5 and hosted on Archive.org Part 1 (more…) …
Continue reading →design NaBloPoMo paris POETS usability · 1 comment · 600 words
One of the most influential books I have ever read is Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things". In the book, Norman rails against the usability flaws which seek to undermine our comfort and sanity. Everything from lightswitches which never seem to have a consistent state, to to alarm clocks with impossible to figure out controls. It really is a must read for anyone who cares about usability - on computers or in the real world. I travel a lot for business - and occasionally for…
Continue reading →advertising badvertising british gas click to call mobile NaBloPoMo · 600 words · read ~882 times.
British Gas has announced its latest price rise to near universal dismay. So it seams a little odd that they're running a campaign based around how much you could save if you switch to them. Still, what concerns me in this Mobile Badvertising series is not the content, but the execution and usability. Let's see what happens when we click on it. Clicking the advert takes you to your phone's dial screen with British Gas's phone number ready to dial. (This goes via an ad network so they can…
Continue reading →audio barcamp digital NaBloPoMo preservation video · 6 comments · 1,150 words
Oh! Woe is me! I can't make BarCampLondon 8. This will be the first BarCamp I've not been able to get to in ages. Following hashtags is fun, if a little disjointed. What I really need is some way I could attend virtually..... .social-embed {all: unset;display: block;}.social-embed * {all: unset;display: revert;}.social-embed::after {all: unset;}.social-embed::before {all: unset;}blockquote:not(*) {all: unset;}.social-embed a {cursor: pointer;}blockquote.social-embed {box-sizing:…
Continue reading →camera gadgets NaBloPoMo review sunglasses tech video · 300 words
A few updates on the Video Recording Sunglasses I blogged about earlier in the week. I stuck in an 8GB microSD card and let the glasses record indefinitely. I was curious what would happen when the size of the video went over the 4GB limit imposed by FAT32 - and what happened when the memory card ran out of space. (more…) …
Continue reading →BBC graphics hacks NaBloPoMo QR Codes space invaders · 7 comments · 450 words · read ~1,881 times.
One of the lovely aspects of QR codes is the variable levels of error correction built in. On even the most basic code you can obscure or deform up to 7% of the code and most readers will still decode it. This leads us in to the amusing territory of "hiding" human readable data in the code. I say "hiding" because we are hiding it from the scanner - not from the human. One of the more famous examples of this is Duncan Robertson's BBC logo. What works particularly well is the fact that the B…
Continue reading →android NaBloPoMo sound widget · 6 comments · 550 words · read ~4,790 times.
I've recently released a couple of audio widgets. Inspired by the Instant Rimshot and Sad Trombone sites, these are "single serving" widget. For the "Family Fortunes" buzzer widget, you click the icon and you'll hear the famous "EURGH-ERRRR" noise. I'm also selling a "Dramatic Sound Effect" Widget - download it by scanning this code. Go on, it's a mere 50p! This is a quick tutorial showing how to build a sound playing widget in Android. It assumes you've already set up Eclipse and know…
Continue reading →hardware hdmi mobile n8 NaBloPoMo · 7 comments · 450 words · read ~911 times.
So much has already been written about the N8's atrocious software. It's a popular (and fair) stick to beat Nokia and Symbian with. One thing that is always mentioned is how amazing the hardware is. I disagree. The hardware is as poor as the software. I think this picture symbolises that problem. N8 and HDMI lead The N8 has an HDMI port. A mini HDMI port. The image is of a full sized HDMI plug trying to fit into the mini port. It won't fit, of course. But what you can see is that…
Continue reading →camera gadgets NaBloPoMo review sunglasses tech · 18 comments · 700 words · read ~3,738 times.
For a little while, I've been lusting after the Immortal Video Glasses. Sunglasses with a built in video camera - perfect for recording all my action/adventure exploits! But, at £300, I thought they were a bit out of my price range. Undoubtedly fun, yes, but not 100-pints-of-beer fun (or however you choose to measure your fun). I wondered if anyone was selling them second-hand on eBay. They weren't. But there were a whole load of clones. "Spy Sunglasses DVR" and the like. Some were …
Continue reading →arg games iphone mobile mozzies NaBloPoMo nokia symbian · 500 words · read ~1,802 times.
There's a delightful video doing the rounds of an Augmented Reality game for the iPhone. What better use of technology than to simulate the destruction of TIE Fighters? While undoubtedly cool, what amuses me about this game is why it has taken the gaming world so long to catch up with Symbian! Way back in 2003, I got my hands on the Siemens SX1. It was the first non-Nokia handset to be running Symbian. As well as "modern" features like GPS, web browsing, and apps - it also came with a…
Continue reading →geo cacheing NaBloPoMo paris photos space invaders · 250 words
I love nothing more that a tramp round a city. Taking the Metro in Paris is very simple - and fairly cheap - but the riches you discover wandering around make up for the extra time needed. A few years ago, Miss Geeky introduced me to Space Invader spotting. Dotted around the cities of the world are mosaics of Space Invaders. Placed there by a mysterious artist - seemingly at random. Before I went to Paris, I had no idea that there were any Space Invaders lurking on street corners. I've…
Continue reading →comedy mitch benn music NaBloPoMo POTBBC · 200 words
Last NaBloPoMo, I wrote up my review of a Mitch Benn gig I'd seen. I know I’m not going to leave it ten years before I next see him. Indeed, I didn't even leave it a full calendar year. Mitch is back and better than ever - he even has a new single out. Buy the single for 79p at Amazon It's rare for Brits to get passionate without being cynical. Watching Mitch Benn sing "Proud of the BBC" is a joyous experience - especially with a packed theatre screaming the hideously complicated lyrics at …
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