This weekend I had the pleasure of staying with Ira Machefsky of NumbersGuru fame. While discussing Flyscreen he just had to show me Chumby. Chumby kind of reminds me of a little always on streaming portable Internet pet. Or, essentially, its Widgets in a box.
The parallels between Flyscreen and Chumby are obvious, with Flyscreen essentially being Chumby on your phone, in your pocket.
Here is a quick Qik video of my first encounter with the product. It does a lot more then the video shows. I am just trying to figure out a use case.
MOpocket is starting up again and to kick it off I thought I would post this funny clip about what has been keeping busy all this time, manly To Much Information or as they say in Text Speech. “TMI Dude.”
So much of who we are can be found on our phones… Who we talk to, which people we ignore, are we faithful to our spouse, what we are doing this weekend, etc.It is almost as if our phones are mini individual time capsules.
The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC is putting out a play next month titled Dead Man’s Cell Phone.Playwright Sarah Ruhl had the same idea: How much could someone learn about you if they found your cell phone – and started answering your calls?
Want 25% off your ticket?Share a slightly outrageous, funny, or completely inappropriate conversation you overheard someone saying on their cell phone.Text “get woolly†to 24421 for instructions. All stories can be heard on DeadMansCellPhone.com or at the theater just before the show.
There was one 10-digit number I knew by heart in college, Wings Over Albany (pdf), 518.862.9464.Let’s just say, they kept me from staving for four years.Of course, three years AFTER I graduate, they start accepting orders via SMS.I so COULD have been ordering my dinner while still IN class, but no.Because I could not text to order, I had to wait.
Campusfood.com, the nation’s leading online network of restaurants (one of which is Wings Over… ), bought a shortcode after much demand from the students.Â
Give it a try.Oh, and I recommend DC-10, all honey mustard with an extra large side of honey mustard (the small is just too small).
Caught this fun little article in Time Out magazine this past weekend. Its about how guys are using some interesting tactics to con girls into their cell phone numbers before even “picking them up.”
It goes something like this:
Sleazy Guy: Your phone’s cool. Can I see it?
Girl: Sure.
[Sleazy Guy, pretending to explore the phones “applications” the calls himself. Boom, he has your number. ]
Apparently, the trick has some mixed results.
“I was just annoyed,” says Sherry (a 24 year old administrative assistant). “When he called the next day, I told him ‘ I don’t appreciate what you did; its pathetic and intrusive.”
But their is always the guy or girl that likes this kind of alpha-male behavior.
“I appreciated his spunk,” says Andrew, a 33 year old guy in finance.”
The article points out that one of the reasons why more and more guys may be trying this technique is because it creates a “rejection-free scenario - even if it ultimately limits my chance of ending up with the person.”
Apparently there is a celebrity that also uses this “Oh, I lost my cell can I use yours to call it,” song and dance.
So, a warning to the ladies if you do not want him to have your digits, leave you cell phone at home… just kidding
Once in a while I get a text message that just makes me smile.If you go through my phone right now, you will probably find a few saved on there.It seems I am not the only one hanging on to every word… A recent study by T-Mobile in the UK reveals that 40% of Brits cherish mobile love messages by keeping them on their handsets.Other findings include:
Under 24s are the most sentimental - 49% keep more than 20 romantic texts on their phone, while only 16% of people over 45 years keep that many.
Women (40%) and under 24s (62%) find it easiest to communicate feelings via text rather than face-to-face.
One in five men (19%) find poetry the most romantic form of communication.
People dating less than six months also send the most flirty texts (82%) and romantic emails (61%). After five years together this drops dramatically to 58% for texts and 45% for emails.
I come from an interesting family… they are big on written notes and underlining text in Hallmark cards.There is just something about the written word that makes them feel like they are displaying their love.It is not too uncommon that under the Christmas tree I will find a daily affirmations calendar or card box.I am not too big on these sorts of things.I often forget about them and while the rest of the world is in April, my desk calendar will still be back in January.
The main idea behind daily affirmations is that if you start your day off with something positive the rest of the day will follow the trend; positive thinking leads to a positive life.Whether this is true or not, I’m not sure… but, with Moka, my family can now save a tree and instead send me electronic affirmations. Moka is working with 76 best-selling authors, delivering everything from Plato on your PDA to The Bible on your Blackberry. Check it out.
Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone (Important: you have to call their cell phone. Landlines do not work). Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. This saves someone from having to drive your keys to you (of course, somebody has to be home with the spares). Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other “remote” for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Someone who I trust in my office said he I tried this with both my Nextel and my Sprint phone, and it worked both times.
This is may or may NOT be the same rumor that ANY car equipped with a remote keyless entry system can be unlocked VIA cell phone which can be read about here. Apparently in that case keyless entry systems are not based on sound. They use RF. Something which is not effectively transmitted by phone.
TIM and Polymer Vision’s new Cellular-Book (mighty creative name) is a very interesting device: 5 inch foldout “newspaper†display, 4 GBs of storage, cellular connectivity, 10 day “usage time†and access to e-mail, RSS feeds, LBS, music downloads, audio books and more. Besides all that, upgrades are also on the way including a color screen and video capabilities. Faster connectivity and a better UI are probably also coming soon. If interested, I would read the full press release and check out this cool demo.
One of the interesting points to note about this product, however, is that it, along with the rest of the “e-paper†movement, is being largely shunned by the industry right now, yet there is a lot happening on form factor and screen utilization. As we all know, along with the iPhone came many questions, among them being How are we going to interact with our phones in the future and what sort of displays will they have? Apple’s take on this was a 3.5 inch multi-touch display, but there is no consensus in the industry that that is for sure the right approach. This TIM/Polymer Vision device can be taken as not only a reason to finally take your girlfriend to Venice but more so a reminder that there is still a lot of definition that must be done over what and how we interact with our mobile devices. That includes new and possibly even currently unconventional technologies such as a laser keyboard and camera movement detection for input. As for display, who knows. This sort of OLED and e-paper in general still has a long way to go by all means but it definitely has its chances. It works well in the sun, allows for long battery life and should not be discounted.
MobiTV, a well known player in TV content on the go, boasts over 2 million subscribers and has recently extended its deal with NBC Universal to sell programs of its primetime shows as on-demand downloads, as well as launching some new channels.
There are a few things that make me hesitant with mobile TV:
1.While on the go, who has time to watch an entire episode? As Bruce Renny, marketing director of ROK, points out:
“The mobile viewer watches TV for three to four minutes at a time, and that is due largely to the lack of opportunity to watch for any more time than that,†he said.“They get distracted because they have to get on or off the bus or something, so it is massive hubris by the telcos to think that people will pay a subscription fee for full-length TV,†Mr. Renny added.
However, I do want to point out, I can see a use for this if you are traveling one day and have some time to kill in an airport… but the success of this concept cannot be contingent on bored travelers.
Do people have enough patience for the upload? We all know mobile downloads are painful in the US.
Are mobile users willing to pay for TV when it’s free through other mediums? And to follow that up, why use this over iTunes?
Finally, do we have the phones who can handle this? I know on my Q, watching a 30 minute episode would leave me with about 5 minutes of battery charge.
Paying $1.99, waiting 10 minutes for it to download, and running the risk of using up all of my battery life and having a dead phone for the rest of the day does not seem so appealing to me. Maybe when those thee things are adjusted I will drink the kool-aid.
This weekend I had the pleasure of staying with Ira Machefsky of NumbersGuru fame. While discussing Flyscreen he just had to show me Chumby. Chumby kind of reminds me of a little always on streaming portable Internet pet. Or, essentially, its Widgets in a box.
