Mobile Applications

Mobile Applications w/ Flash Lite

David Yang’s presentation on the new mobile applications coming out was pretty amazing. To think where technology will take us, especially in the mobile realm is crazy to think about. His initial comment about how more people in the world have cell phones as compared to computers was something that my brain chewed on for a substantial amount of the presentation. The only reason it did weigh my thought process down was because cell phones have become so normal in our everyday experience that its hard to remember a time when we did have access to them. Now, developers like David Yang are continuing to increase the experience of cell phones by developing applications to diversify its use.

Such a notion reminds me of an article I read a couple of years ago about the Helsinki Virtual Village. Business men, city planners, and people associated with this city in Finland have been planning the execution of the world’s first wireless community. Broadband browser, smart wallet, passport to wireless communities, control of your house like a remote were all discussed in this article. Now a few years later, we can see the steps that users and developers are taking to get our experience to this level. Though Flash Lite is in its early stages, it is good to know that the development tools for phones has taken an easier route to create applications.

David Yang discussed how we as North Americans are way behind in our technology, which is really a disappointment. It is even worse here in Canada where our main service providers use different technology; thus, our cell phones vary per company. They should all just band together to standardize technology so that developers can create more diverse applications and more importantly our pick of cell phone technology could greatly increase.

With regards to the cell phone applications, I think the development in this area of technology will enhance our daily experience. I and others have often searched for the one gadget that will be the centre of our lives and for the longest time I thought it would be the computer. Though the computer is technologically superior in it’s function it is not mobile like a cell phone to that I conclude will be the centre technology of the future. Going back to the Helsinki Virtual Village, if our cell phones could control the temperature of our own house even when we are miles away, or become our universal passport into different private vicinities, or be our virtual wallet, would we need anything else?

Links:
http://www.mobile-weblog.com/
-Archive of blogs relating to mobile technology.

http://www.mobilemag.com/
-A site dedicated to mobile technology, mobile games, industry news, etc.

http://www.sseyo.com/
-Mobile music making software

http://www.myphonegames.co.uk/
-Mobile games

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/devices/flashlite.html
-Flashlite developer center. Information and resources.

PodCasting and Web 2.0

PodCasting

This new notion of PodCasting is rather new to me; however, I feel rather connected to it in a sense. Having been a DJ for the last ten years, I have had a lot of experience in recording a mix and distributing it to large numbers of people. And I guess to an extent PodCasting is the new revolution of distributing audio. Prior to this evolvement of PodCasting, I had initially started making mixed- cassette tapes, CDs and more recently streaming audio sessions over internet radio feeds such as Shoutcast. I have also recorded those shows and posted them on to my site as an archive. So as you can see, PodCasting is not that far fetched from my own experience. Nonetheless, the notion that has boggled me about PodCasting is the ability for a listener to take your feed and archive it on their computer or MP3.

This notion has boggled my mind because in my early days of distributing my mixes and handing out CDs has always been about the exclusivity and monetary return. For instance, before the RIAA hammered down on the DJ mixtape circuit, I was always about making a mixed CD to sell and if a potential buyer did not buy it, they would be left out of the newest songs coming out. Additionally, the mixed-tape or CD had to be tagged with your own branding and samples so that whomever was listening to your mix knew it was yours and also no one else could pass it off as their own. However, with this new notion of distributing free audio over the internet for millions of users to download and store, such is very contradictory to my upbringing. Nonetheless, I have come to terms with the internet and how it has changed the DJ industry especially by giving a DJ the world to distribute to.

Lastly, I am really fascinated how PodCasting has appealed to many individuals. For instance, who knew how many people would love to have their say in their own radio show? It is really astonishing to see the number of feeds that are online.


Web 2.0

I can really start to see how Web 2.0 has been a overwhelming the web of late. For example, I constantly get invitations to join such sites as Hi5 and Friendster from many of my good friends. Additionally, I often catch my girlfriend spending a lot of time surfing through her friend’s web-pages or updating her own. Nevertheless, I asked myself, why are these sites becoming so popular?

I looked back to a time in the late 1990s early 2000s of my life when I and my closest group of friends became readily involved in posting our sites on AsianAvenue.com. At that time, I was already involved in creating websites so the notion of my own webpage online was not rather new. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the community and again looking at peoples pictures. But I realized to those not so HTML-savy, the GUI for making their own page without really knowing how to code intrigued them. I find that it is the same nowadays too. For example, posting your own pictures is really quick and simple for those not experienced with the web.

Lastly, people creating content is really cool to think about. For example, going back to my girlfriend spending hours just reading peoples pages is what this is about. Surfing one site with multiple blogs can occupy a user for hours. Also, blogs can help friends keep up to date with each other without really having contact with each other.

Just testing this out

First post... just testing it out