Inside View

Sunday News With Apps Inside

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IT'S BECOMING EASIER to find business justifications for iPad clones (and the iPad itself if your expense line is happy to oblige) because the easy form factor makes simple work of mobile data management. In today's Sunday broadsheets, several app-related stories arise with suggestions that paid content will be easier to push onto the mainstream if that content is folded into paid applications. If this is true, the Irish Sunday broadsheets will start appearing as interactive iPad applications before the end of 2010 and within two years, revenue from those paid applications will outstrip traditional online subscription revenues. I'm following this trend as part of a Technology and Trends module taught at LIT-Clonmel.

 

SundayNews 26 Sep 10

It's My Data

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I SHARE A LOT of thoughts by talking about things and Audioboo helps me do that. Moreoever, Audioboo also makes it very easy to respect two absolutes of Web 2.0.

 

1. I control my own data. I can move it around, and also mix and match data services. In Audioboo's case, I can grab all the recordings I make, embed them, or download them. That's respectful.
2. My data sits in open data formats and works with open protocols. This is not always the case with Facebook, so I'm taking liberties and cross-storing my Facebook stuff. I want my data to be to be web-friendly, easily downloadable, and highly interoperable. If it's not, many of my students, stuck without broadband and holding low-end phones, won't be able to use it.

It's My Data

It's All About Local

WHILE STANDING ON THE town plaza, looking at Kearney's Castle (at right), I felt my phone vibrate with a Bluetooth download. The file was coming from the old Town Hall and it was an audio tour of the town. I accepted the file and listened to it on a walkabout of Cashel, remembering how I used to record my impressions of Cashel and Kilkenny for backpackers to download from iTunes. Those audio clips worked because they attracted people to the places I talked about in the podcasts. They worked because I was a local guy but with an American accent. We need to create more of those audio files today because the future lies in making local work. Traffic to directories with user generated content (UGC) continues to grow at a faster rate than yellow pages directories. LeeAnn Prescott explained why several years ago and nothing has arrested that trend. Today, apps like Foursquare, Google Latitude, Wikitude, and augmented reality applications make compelling adventures out of casual walkabouts.

Creative Workspaces

TWO OF MY creative multimedia modules seek student thoughts about about the workplace of the future. It's  an important topic my Technology and Trends module and I made it a discussion item in my Multimedia Project Management module. I use a link list to the blogs of others, a photostream of updates from contacts, and a tag cluster that points into items that suggest innovation in collaboration. I want third level students to be curious about where ideas gestate and where eureka moments occur. Dave Winer often talks about toggling over to his blog and using it as a note-taker. From the acerbic tone of some of the writing (and the comments they elicit), one could learn to moderate their blogging output.

Rewind with me to 2003, when I wrote about Chris Gulker, who continues to run a open window all the way to his last breath. I stumbled onto Gulker in 1997, which meant he had a presence more than a year before I regularly read blogs. I wish there was more respect for the senior citizens of blogging because those digital pensioners can teach us about alternative work techniques. Their polite commentary is often more insightful than many of the well-hyped digerati.

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Image taken by Chris Gulker's webcam seven years ago.

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App Space is Mindshare

ALTHOUGH I BUY mobile phones for their durability and tactile functionality, the mobile landscape today revolves around mindshare. People want to think they're getting the latest, coolest thing and that's often something in their mind. Based on the foot traffic I've watched walk in and out of local phone shops, people think apps are the ultimate measure of sophistication. Lust for apps started in the States around two years ago when people started realising they could carry really potent computing power in their pockets. Today, 42.7 million smartphones are running in the US. Apple created this market segment on my birthday in 2007. And consumers want smartphones nowadays, more than they want a device that last three years. I'm trying to guide new students into their first leap towards the smartphone ecosystem, pointing out my recommendations in a vast selection of mobile applications now running on smartphones. I lead with "make sure you get wifi" because of the trend I'm noticing by mobile phone operators to extract more than the contracted levels of data usage from their customers. Apps can be data carnivores and in my life, whenever I permit my smartphones to update things on their own throughout a month, I'm assured of exceeding my data limits and I end up paying an extra 100 euro to my mobile operator for easy access to smart apps. It's no wonder that Irish mobile phone operators hype the App Store and Android Market. When more people use those facilities, operators enjoy an easy boost in revenue-based services traveling over the air.

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Ramon Nuez -- "Smartphone Application Market is a $2.2 Billion Business" in the Huffington Post, 22 Sep 10.

Photo of me using Seesmic on my Xperia X10 Android phone.

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Thinking about Chris Gulker

I GLANCE INTO Chris Gulker's online space once a day, hoping he's still there because now he's on borrowed time. I still marvel at Chris' photography, his writing and his world view. I'm one of many who wonder how he's doing. Chris writes, "A number of readers have have been encouraging me to “write something,” if only to reassure them that I’m still here. Short answer is yup, we’re still answering the phone, as it were, at least when we can get to it, mobility being what it is."

When I moved into a new home in Ireland, I noticed the mandatory features that make it accessible to wheel chairs. And I also noticed all the little things that get in the way of a wheelchair, even at the ground level. Our home would affect Chris, even though he's "still good from the neck up, thought the left side continues its slide." He explains, "I’m in a wheelchair more often, now, if only because it makes Linda feel better, and still very grateful for the hemi-walker that Heidi found for me. Either way, the wheelchair ramp is a very welcome help.

"The biggest difficulty I face now is the approximately 5-inch tall curb that surrounds my shower. A 3-year old can step over it effortlessly, but my increasingly paralyzed left leg can do so only with great difficulty – a situation which isn’t getting better. Linda has to help me get out of the shower all of the time now… we’re waiting for an assistive grab pole that may be a help."

Here's hoping the best for Chris Gulker in the challenging days ahead.

"Just making our way…"

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Photo from Chris Gulker, spotted yesterday "writing something".

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Opening the LIT-Clonmel Audio Channel

WE HAVE USED HANDHELD AUDIO to record extemporaneous thoughts during tutorial sessions in Tipperary Institute for several years. This year, we will set up an Audioboo stream to capture reflections from the largest group of students ever present on the Clonmel campus. It's an historic time and I hope the voices of dozens of creatives will serve to form an audio identity of enthusiastic students who have the ability to contribute to the smart economy. I've asked my first year students to reflect the milestones and goals immediately ahead. They may offer specific answers that show the kinds of pages they will create, the sort of files they will open and the kind of equipment they intend to use in the months ahead. I hope to hear them cite their Twitter nicknames as they describe how they first learned about the creative multimedia programme they have started. A perfect audio sample will reference visual cues, audible moments, tactile responses, and olfactory markers. I plan to compile a cross-section of work and append it to this blog post later.

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The emergent LIT-Clonmel posse.

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An Iraqi Narrative in C902 Low Res

THIS IS THE SECOND year I've used a narrative from Tom Murphy to guide creative multimedia students down the pathway of learning how things appear to a cameraman when out on assignment. Tom shot the video using a SonyEricsson C902 cameraphone. It makes compelling viewing for anyone who fancies a tour in a high-risk combat environment.

Inception with Time Lapse

Timelapse Montage from Mike Flores on Vimeo.

MIKE'S TIMELAPSE shots are compelling enough on their own and as a showreel with Hans Zimmer's "Dream is Collapsing" in the background, the two-minute clip is exceptionally compelling. The dolly moves were done using two custom track and dolly systems that Mike Flores engineered, utilizing some off the shelf components.

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Motion control dolly system: The Stage Zero Timelapse Dolly Kit.

Dream is Collapsing

Music is Hans Zimmer, "Dream is Collapsing" from the Inception soundtrack.

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Moving Millions

I HAVE READ Moving Millions twice already and now it's in the hands of seven very clever students who are slicing through its pages in search of documented evidence about the economic and technology trends sweeping Europe. In this Qik clip, recorded at LIT-Clonmel, Barry Doyle gives his short take on the part of the book covering southeast Ireland.

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Jeffrey Kaye -- Moving Millions ISBN 9780470423349

 

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