The Problem With RFID


RFID is like cold fusion. It will revolutionise everything - and it's only five years away! Terence Eden And, much like cold fusion, NFC will permantently be just around the corner. It's been "The Year of NFC" since 2008. Just like it was in 2009 and in 2010. Today the news came that Google may be abandoning QR codes in favour of NFC for its business places service. I think this is a mistake and that NFC is too far away to be of any real use. Indeed, I think NFC will permanently be too…

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Review: Verso Arc Light for Kindle - from LightWedge


As you may have guessed from previous posts, I love my Kindle. I often read late into the night, which either means keeping a light on and annoying my wife - or using a book light. Normally, I'd be happy just annoying her - but I can't resist the allure of buying new technology! I tried a few generic book lights but they were either too dim, didn't fit correctly, used obscure batteries or - as with the official booklight case - ensconced in vegetarian unfriendly leather. Then, I discovered…

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The Death Of The BlackBerry


For years I was a BlackBerry fanboy. I remember snatching a departing colleague's 6710 and lying to the IT department that I was authorised to have my email on my phone. I never looked back. Despite a brief flirtation with the Nokia N95 - I was a BlackBerry Boy through and through. Until this happened. In early March 2010, my beloved BlackBerry Bold took a tumble out of a cab and died. I've been an Android man ever since. Magic, Hero, Nexus, Galaxy - all great phones, but none could…

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Dabr, Dabr, Everywhere...


I contribute code to Dabr - a mobile twitter client. It's a great project to keep my hand in the world of PHP, APIs, SVN, and all the other tools that are essential to the modern online world. Dabr's strength for developers is two-fold Dead easy to install. Unzip the files, fill in your API key(s), upload, done. It's under an incredibly permissive Open Source MIT License. Essentially anyone can do anything with the code and they don't need to ask permission, nor contribute anything …

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London Web Standards - State of the Browser


Photo of me holding a microphone. I'm wearing a T-Shirt with the HTML5 logo on it.

Here's the introduction I gave to London Web Standards for their State of the Browser conference. Slideshare seem to have screwed up some of the formatting, but here are the slides. State of the Browser - London Web Standards from Terence Eden Full details of the day on Lanyrd. Thanks to Nick and the rest of the team for inviting me. It was an excellent day full of demos, discussions, and debates. …

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Back to BlackBerry


Photo of me taking a photo of my BlackBerry. My face is reflected in the screen.

This is a Necropost - rescued from AudioBoo and transcribed by AI because I'm lazy. 🔊 Back to BlackBerry boo🎤 edent 💾 Download this audio file. Hello there, AudioBoo. I'm just in the middle of another grand phone experiment. I'm moving back to BlackBerry. Yes, after about a year, year and a half of being an Android Boy, it's time to go back to BlackBerry. So I've picked up the Torch, which is the slider and I'm having mixed feelings. It's hard to go back. I wanted to go back to a …

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Getting Images from a Foursquare Checkin


Photo of a MacBook. The decal sticker is of Iron Man. His hand blaster is replaced with the Apple logo.

"Oi!" shouted Whatleydude, "Get Dabr to show images from foursquare checkins!" "Righty-ho sir!" I said. I started coding furiously. Of course, things are never quite as simple as I first thought.... So, how do we go from http://4sq.com/fgIWov to 1 Expand the URL Get your Bit.ly API Key. http://api.bitly.com/v3/expand ?shortUrl=http://4sq.com/fgIWov &login=YOUR_BIT_LY_USERNAME &apiKey=YOUR_BIT_LY_API_KEY &format=txt You can, if you prefer, get the info back in JSON or XML.…

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Stop Smoking With A QR Code?


It looks like the Government is to force cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging. QR codes on packets of coffin nails have appeared before as concept advertising. I thought it would be interesting to see if QR codes could be used for good. Here's my attempt (I'm not a graphics designer!) Original image via WeMadeThis. The first QR code goes to Direct.gov.uk's mobile friendly Smoking Calculator. The second goes to a site which lets your enter your postcode to find help near you. The…

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How Do You Upgrade An eBook?


As I've mentioned before, Jasper Fforde is one of my favourite authors. His latest book "One of Our Thursdays is Missing" is a brilliant work of fiction - but contains a rather worrying flaw. Well, I say a "worrying flaw" - I mean an error. All books contain errata - I think that's a given - but outside of academia, Jasper Fforde is the only author I know who offers upgrades to his books. Here's a sample from the original Thursday Next "patch" 5: Using a fine black pen make the following…

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Remote Storage: Ubuntu One vs Dropbox


Logo for Ubuntu One.

I've been looking for a way to manage my backups. Burning DVDs and then leaving them around the house doesn't strike me as a sensible way to preserve my data any more. I just want a simple way to thrust my files onto the cloud with the minimum of fuss. The two big contenders I could find are Ubuntu One and Dropbox. Both allow me to map a drive and seamlessly sync my files just by copying them in there. I don't need to worry about regularly running a "sync" command. Just drag, drop, done. …

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#O2Fail - What You Need To Know About Mobile Phone Content Control


WARNING This article and pages it links to, contain information about pornography and sex education which may be offensive to Daily Mail readers. These are the hurried lunchtime writings of a chap with too much on his plate. So, O2 has apparently angered the Internet Gods by switching on its Adult Content Filter. This means anyone who wants to look at adult material on the web will have to pay a fee to prove they are over 18. Of course, their filter is broken - so it's caught sites like…

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Review: S16 Mobile Phone Watch


Like many people, I no longer wear a watch. I've got a phone which tells me the time and data - why do I need something cluttering my wrist? The Evolution of the Watch I wasn't always this way, I used to love high-tech watches. Throughout my teenaged years I had one of those calculator watches - enabling me to add up my pocket money and write "5318008" for instant humour. In 1999, I graduated to the seriously awesome Timex 78401. This was an immensely cool bit of kit. It could store…

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