Ever heard of “Silent Mode” for your phone?

Ever embarrassed yourself at a big meeting, or church, or any where else that you really should have turned your phone off, or at least to silent or vibrate? What about at a White House press conference?

I have [not at a White House press conference] on more than one occasion, and it brings a point to mind. “Are we so dependant on our mobile devices [phones] that we disregard some basic etiquette concerning their use, or is it just absent mindedness?”.

Of course many of us go through our daily routine with an always on mobile, face facts, we need to be connected, but consider the  ramifications in some situations.

Think about this, if you were a press secretary for the president of the US, your reaction to the first interruption was reasonable, the second really deserved a secret service takedown!

Consider how, where and why you use your mobile in relation to the situation you are in, I implore you!

 

White House confiscates hack’s handset " Register Hardware

Della, Dells Female Initiative ???

Dell, in it’s all encompassing wisdom has decided to market NetBooks in a new fashion, directly at women. Apparently the female of the species is only now becoming aware of devices such as the NetBook, and Dell wants to  take advantage of that new found fact! Hence their new website, Della…

My first impression, was Dell are marketing fashion devices, accessories, that are visually pleasing, and compliment personal style. Most of us personalise our devices, in many ways, cases, covers screen protectors, software etc; and I have to say delving into the site I did like a lot of the graphical customisation for devices.  Fashion is  important to all, effective mobile computing is also as important. Is it though, demeaning to market the same devices, differently to women, than you do to men?

Palm Foleo, Resurfaces? Rumour Mill

While I wait for most of you to pick your jaws up off the floor, we’ll get into the Foleo from Palm. Does anyone remember it? A mobile companion that was set for great things, along the lines of the Celio Redfly, that never eventuated!

The original Foleo concept was meant to be a mobile companion that supported Windows Mobile and Palm devices. Announced on May 30, 2007, and renounced on September 4, 2007, the ill fated Foleo never eventuated. What did Palm have to say about it?

Foleo is based on second platform and a separate development environment, and we need to focus our efforts on one platform. Our own evaluation and early market feedback were telling us that we still have a number of improvements to make Foleo a world-class product, and we can not afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not central to our core focus. That would not be right for our customers or for our developer community.

Via Palms Blog

What was a bit screwy at the time, was the mention of a second platform, meaning the Foleo was based on a Linux derivative. As we have seen of late, WebOS is Palm’s major focus. It looks like the Palm Pre will be available in early release at Best Buy, on June 7, but stock and location are limited, and a NetBook built on the new WebOS could be the next Foleo!

Kindle On Steroids?

With the current downturn of the traditional newspaper,  as this short Blog post over at E-Commerce News highlights, “Will the Internet Kill Newspapers?” as more and more people turn to online solutions for their daily news needs. The burgeoning need for sales not at print level to maintain the growth of all major news providers, is becoming more dependent on online subscriptions via devices like the Kindle. It appears though that a lot of the major newspapers are happy with the way the Kindle, and many other e-readers in the same category, handle their content.

A few publishers are forging alliances with consumer-electronics firms to support e-readers that meet their needs. Chief among their complaints about the Amazon portable reading gadget is the way Amazon acts as a middleman with subscribers and controls pricing. In addition, the layout isn’t conducive to advertising

So not only is this about the Kindle, other players are stepping into the e-news arena, with digi-books!

Are you an app addict?

If you’re not an iPhone/iPod user, you would pretty much think meh, about apps and iTunes and the whole appstore thing. With the news this week that Apple’s App Store has eclipsed the 1Billion download mark, you would think everyone is downloading apps at an incredible rate. Incredibly though, mobile users on other platforms are less inclined to download, or just prefer a pristine device. Something I can’t imagine actually, but apparently lot’s of peeps out there are application virgins!

As surprising as it may seem, a huge percentage of mobile users, do not value add to their devices, with downloaded applications, I can’t imagine…

T-Mobile Faves enable parental support!

This may seem a bit off topic, but advertising is the spice of life at the moment for me.  I find myself keeping track of lot’s of clever video that advertise everything from blenders to mobile phone plans, and they are getting better and better.

Luckily enough I’ve not been burdened with the legacy of children, but I know that if I had, I’d be as protective as all get out, to the point of psycho as the dad in this T – Mobile ad!

An old concept but still funny, and I’m sure a lot of Dads out there will relate!

Advertising: Mac versus PC, gotta love it!

You have to love the way Mac and PC users are loyal, to their OS and hardware of choice. Although I’ve never actually seen a beat down between users, although I would liken it to jelly wrestling, it would have the same sort of morbid appeal.

Apple’s Mac v PC ads set a standard, and of late MS have been taking a marketing tack to counter, Apples efforts to humiliate their OS. There have been some likeable inclusions in the  PC Hunter series of ads from MS, but even more amusing are the independent responses to the campaign.

Considering that I work with people like this on a daily basis this struck a chord with me!

A beautifully satirical comeback to the campaign, although, it lacks the concentrated design efforts of Steve Jobs, it’s well done, and should really make us all think about how seriously we take ourselves!

Quick Look: Twikini, A Twitter Client for WinMo!

Twitter is slowly taking over the universe as we know it, in the last couple of months it usage has skyrocketed, and with that escalation, the need for better ways to incorporate it in your mobile life have been developed. Not long ago, after using a couple of Twitter apps, I came across another that eclipsed anything I had seen before, Pocket Twit. 

Of course I came across Twikini via a tweet, but don’t get me started, who comes up with these names anyway. Twitter is so hot at the moment that there have been multiple worm attacks over the last couple of days. I fortunately have avoided infection, but many haven’t, the best way to avoid it is with a good client, be that PC/Mac side or even more effective on your mobile/iPhone!

Twikini has popped up at just the right time to be taken advantage of, but of course you want to know how it performs…

Updates, the Cross WinMo Users find the heaviest this Easter!

One thing that is self evident of late in the Windows Mobile community is the excitement about forthcoming updates to the OS. Although there is a huge amount of insecurity about whether a lot of those users will even be able to access the upgrade. There’s a device specification lower/lowest limit already defined for Windows Mobile 6.5, and Microsoft have already handballed the responsibility to the device manufacturers. That’s right in a sly move, Microsoft actually left it up to the  OEM’s, mainly HTC, to alleviate the update drought!

So what is actually going to happen?

Who knows really, but recently over at FaceBook, as an off shoot of the Windows Mobile Fanpage, there’s been a stirring, that’s delivered plenty of questions, and few if any answers!
So what does all this mean, check out the thread on the FB page and see if you agree with the other WinMo users over there

Aaron Woodman, Director for Consumer Experiences for Windows Mobile, will be available the week of March 23rd to take questions on anything related to your consumer experiences with Windows phones. Post your questions below, and then check in a week and see the information we’ve accumulated.
Aaron may not be able to answer every question—and he won’t be giving away any deep trade secrets—but he has a wealth of fascinating knowledge to share on our favorite mobile phones.

Here’s the link to the thread!

Digital Discrimination! Deafened by an E-Reader!

Mobile tech is really a cross cultural, cross ability unifier. We able bodied users don’t often become aware of the hurdles that significantly differently abled tech users have to face, to use the same technology that us so called normal people use. {Caveat: using the term “normal”, to describe any member of the JAMM team, could be misconstrued as misleading, and does not refer to any of the former or current team members}.

Question: What good is an eBook reader to a blind person?

Answer: Really good if it has text to speech function enabled!

The Kindle can read your eBooks to you if you want. but there is a function that can be built into the actual eBook software that can disable the text to voice function. Why though would you even think of that. Hmmm, seems money comes into the equation. Apparently the eBook, and specifically the Kindle 2’s ability to vocalise a book, is a threat to the National Authors Guild.

Oh, Amazon, you don’t want this kind of publicity. Today in New York the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and its partners in the Reading Rights Coalition will protest outside the offices of the Authors Guild. Their goal is to reverse the Guild’s threat to disable text-to-speech from e-books for the Kindle 2.
It seems that when Amazon introduced the Kindle 2, it announced that it would be able to read e-books aloud, a boon for the vision-impaired. But the Authors Guild had a problem with that, and so Amazon announced that it would give authors or publishers the ability to disable text-to-speech.

I really can’t make sense of the story and all of the background, or the politics involved. It is all revolving around a fear of losing profits I suppose.

What doesn’t make sense though, is that authors don’t want more exposure, in any media they can be conveyed in! This is probably an example of hierarchy gone wrong, but I do believe the blind should hear! Crack the link below for more info!

 

Amazon Kindle Has the Blind Seeing Red – Gearlog