A quick round up of QRpedia in the news: The New Media Consortium has produced a report entitled Technology Outlook: UK Tertiary Education. The full report (PDF) specifically mentions QRpedia Codes as "smart objects" and predicts a time-to-Adoption of four to five years. I think we can do it sooner than that, though! The report is CC-BY and well worth reading. One of our friend in…
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QRpedia is designed to offer a single QR code which points to the same article in multiple languages. The most common question about QRpedia is "What does it do if the article doesn't exist in my language?" Consider the following example... A French user is in a German museum. They scan a code - which points to de.qrwp/Nelahozeves Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't have the…
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I've accidentally caused a little Twitter storm over my remarks at Update Conference yesterday. During my talk, I mentioned the following statistic: In Africa, there is better access to mobile phones than there is access to clean drinking water. However, on Twitter, that's got mangled into: There are more people with access to mobile Internet in South Africa than have access to clean water. …
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This was going to be a Sponsored Post from ebuzzing - but they rejected it. Can't think why... I think I'm turning into a Luddite. I see all these shiny tablets and... I just don't want one! Don't get me wrong, I drove myself crazy trying to get an HP TouchPad because a) Massive discount and b) under a hundred quid. You see, everyone I know with a tablet has one of two accessories. A …
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Update: A version of this article appears on Sophos's NakedSecurity blog Last year I blogged about how easy it would be to pay for parking via QR code. Now it looks like Islington Council have partnered with Verrus to make this a reality. But is it any good? Well.... nearly. Let's take a look. The Initial Impression The QR code is fairly clear and I was able to scan it without issue…
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While my recent trip to South Africa was primarily for work, I couldn't spend a week there and not do some touristy things! The absolute highlight of the trip was being eaten by a lion! If you're in Joburg, visit Lion Park - an amazing place. Other highlights included.... I went up Table Mountain. I saw Robbin Island from Signal Hill. I visited the Apartheid Museum. I used Untappd to…
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It's been a while since I did a screenshot based review of a mobile app. I was gratified when QR Pal asked me to review their new app. First thing's first, this is a great idea for a QR Scanner. It saves all your scans - so you can retrieve them by category, it checks to see if links are safe to click on, it allows you to share scans with friends, and it also has a gameification element. But…
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I love Ribbit Mobile's voicemail service. It's the perfect replacement for the now-defunct SpinVox. My voicemail gets transcribed (by a human or machine) - then the text is emailed and texted to me. I even get an MP3 recording for later blackmail purposes. But today comes the news that Ribbit is shutting down. Or is it? The email specifically says: "this notice only refers to Ribbit…
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We're getting a few more museums lined up with QRpedia - and busy working on new features. I just wanted to update you on some interesting developments. QRpedia was presented by Roger at Wikimania - it seemed to go down a storm! The Children's Museum of Indianapolis are adding more QR codes. A lovely blog from Lori about seeing people scan the codes. A bug in Wikipedia has been…
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As I've mentioned, I'm off to Africa. I was wondering what the rates are going to be for roaming. I could get a local SIM - but as I'm only there for a few days, it seems a bit pointless - no one will have the number & I'll lose any credit at the end of the trip. So, how do the various roaming SIMs stack up against my Vodafone SIM? TruPhone's list of prices is very simple Country Make a…
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I spend yesterday wandering around London and, as is my wont, spotted some QR codes which I think may interest readers of this blog. Tracey Emin The Hayward Gallery are having a Tracey Emin retrospective. At the start of the exhibition is this rather odd QR code. Why odd? Three main reasons. It leads directly to a 14MB MP3 file. The code is really quite small considering it's a…
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An online acquaintance of mine, Becky Hogge, has released a book! Barefoot Into Cyberspace tells the story of the "hacker scene" over the tumultuous last few years. Yesterday, Becky released a transcript of her interview with Julian Assange - in it he discusses the News of the World hacking, amongst other things. A fascinating interview which helps set the scene for Becky's book. I've only…
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