Adobe Flash - Android 1 - iPhone 0

It appears that after a recent more draconian clause in the Apple iPhone developer program license which stated :

'3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).'

The clause basically informs iPhone and iPad developers that they cannot use a code creator such as Adobe Creative Suite 5. Which at the very time that Adobe were working on shipping Flash CS5 for which would work on iPhones allowing them at last to play back flash.

This appears to have finally driven Adobe away from Apple as Mike Chambers stated on his blog on 20th April

'Personally, I am going to shift all of my mobile focus from iPhone to Android based devices (I am particularly interested in the Android based tablets coming out this year) and not focus on the iPhone stuff as much anymore. This includes both Flash based, and Objective-C based iPhone development.'

'We are at the beginning of a significant change in the industry, and I believe that ultimately open platforms will win out over the type of closed, locked down platform that Apple is trying to create. I am excited about Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0 and all of the opportunities that they will make available to Flash developers across multiple platforms (desktop, Android, Palm, Windows Phone 7, RIM, etc…).'

Why oh why do Apple continue with their attitude of wanting to control the world and everything that runs on their devices.... Apples are the best in the world how much better could they be with some OpenSourcing???

Read Mike's blog and the BBC technology report

Location Based Social Networking

There is a growth at present lead by smart phones and the growth in the ability to geotag, images and places. A few people that I know are trialling FourSquare a mobile app which has a web presence also - FourSquare allows you to tag places that you visit be these casual visits, workplaces and make comments about them. This is great as when you visit a new location you can pick up what people have said about it - you can also gauge the number and type of people who have visited. Another similar app is Loopt which also allows this geotagging of places.
Also in here is Gowalla which has tied up with some US based promoters to offer deals to those who 'check in' at a venue.

Now there is photo networking with Mopho (mopho.to)an app which uses geotagging

What is mopho?

mopho is the fun new way to share your location by posting a photo

Other apps let you check in to a location and add a photo. With mopho, the photo is the checkin.

This isn't just location-based social networking - it's "social photography": geotagged photos enriched with metadata, comments, and likes. It's all about the photos - the real proof that you were somewhere.

Here's how it works:

1. You're celebrating your friend's birthday, and the pics you take become your checkin at that event. Your friends are notified that you're there, and your photos are automatically posted to your Facebook wall and saved on your iPhone.
2. During the event, you can see who else is around.
3. Later, you can see who else took photos at the event, and view their pictures.

Here’s how it works. The app is essentially built around the camera, requiring you to first take a photo at an event or place (bar, restaurant, business, work etc). Once you take a photo, you can add a caption and you must pin the photo to a geographic place or event. Once you publish your photo, the image, along with your location according to place or event, will be pushed to your friends who are also using the app, to Mophoto’s site and your Facebook friends, via Facebook Connect. Mophoto will soon add the ability to push to Twitter as well. On the app and site, you’re notified when your friend posts a photo and can easily see photos your friends are posting from places and events around you, giving you an opportunity to follow them in pictures. You can also comment on and “favorite” their photos.

While Gowalla allows you to publish photos with your location, Mophoto aims to differentiate itself by emphasizing the photo first, with the check-in as an afterthought.

( TechCrunch 23/04/2010)

iPad, WePad, HP Slate and Archos 9 ( keep taking the Tablets!)

The iPad has emerged I would say with a great deal of trumpeting and flag waving but not much to back it up as yet. Typical of many Apple initial products it appears again to have come out of the oven 'half baked' for example with no camera or USB connectivity - the kind of connectivity that has become standard even on the simplest netbook.

It appears that 'Apple Air syndrome' has struck again.

There are of course many other tablets in the market many of which pre-dated the iPad and most of which quite frankly also lack any 'game changing' functionality.

However following an article from Engadget April 12th on the emergence finally of the (1) WePad from Neofonie in Germany. A quiet entry into the world of tablets, I did not hear many trumpets or see flags - but there surely should have been for this product!

You can see the WePad in action at the WePad channel on Youtube

Check out the WePad v iPad specs at their site it shows webcam, usb, sim card, multicard reader and audio out... yay at last, a game changer!

Apple you have I believe met your match, I for one can't wait to get my hands on a WePad and look forward very much to demonstrating one when they become available in the UK.

(2) Next is the HP Slate

(3) The Archos 9

Great news for a friend

Excellent news today for Allanah King a great friend from Appleby Primary School in New Zealand ( seen above on a visit to Cardiff in 2009). Allanah made the following Facebook announcement today:

Happy to announce that I have just won the position of ICT facilitator of Link Learning Cluster of 31+ schools starting next week (one day a week) but I am going to keep my day job- for this term at least- thereafter four days a week so I can still do exciting innovative stuff with my class. 2010-2012

Allanah is a 'world class' exponent on the use of Web 2.0 technologies seamlessly into education for kids, which bring excellent results.

Well Done AK :-)

Social Media Explained Visually

From 'Say It Visually' this link came from Andrew Churches at Educational Origami.

Pixels by Patrick Jean

Pixels by Patrick Jean.... enjoy


( Thanks for heads up @willfinch)

iPad......... lookout the WePad is coming

The iPad has emerged I would say with a great deal of trumpeting and flag waving but not much to back it up as yet. Typical of many Apple initial products it appears again to have come out of the oven 'half baked' for example with no camera or USB connectivity - the kind of connectivity that has become standard even on the simplest netbook. It appears that 'Apple Air syndrome' has struck again.

There are of course many other tablets in the market many of which pre-dated the iPad and most of which quite frankly also lack any 'game changing' functionality.

However following an article from Engadget April 12th on the emergence finally of the WePad from Neofonie in Germany. A quiet entry into the world of tablets, I did not hear many trumpets or see flags - but there surely should have been for this product!

You can see the WePad in action at the WePad channel on Youtube

Check out the WePad v iPad specs at their site it shows webcam, usb, sim card, multicard reader and audio out... yay at last, a game changer!
Apple you have I believe met your match, I for one can't wait to get my hands on a WePad and look forward very much to demonstrating one when they become available in the UK

Amazon Kindle2 E-Reader

At last yesterday my mystery object arrived and of course it is an....... Amazon Kindle2 e-reader!!!!! Sorry for those who believed it to be something akin to an iPad ( I would have to win one rather than buy one!!!
Below is the unboxing of the Kindle2 received from Simply Electronics and delivered rather fantastically by DPD who lived up marvellously to their next day delivery - tracking the order was very easy on their website where I could see that it had arrived at Newbury the night before , at 9am the following morning I could track its journey to Cardiff at 3.30am and onto a delivery van for delivery between 13.48 and 14.48..... it arrived at 13.46 Well done DPD impressive. I would certainly recommend them on the evidence of this service.

Now to unboxing the device... firstly remove outer packaging:

This reveals the inner box:

Including the rather marvellous opening strip:

Inside is the simple but classy machine itself:

Mmmm sleek and stylish:

Hidden below is the instruction manual and power cable:

The Kindle2 started quite quickly:

Revealing the start up instructions inside:

It was simple to join the Kindle Store at Amazon and then purchase my first two books:

The No.1 Ladies' detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith and Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett...... now to some reading.

Thank You

A big thank you to all readers of this blog as today at 21.58 the hit counter registered 20,000 hits since I started. Interestingly looking at the blog stats the most popular post by a very long way was a post on the Asus Eeepc mini netbook from April 8 2008, which is quite apt as I still have a soft spot for the Linux based net-book, and indeed I still own two of the devices (700 and 901) and the 4GB version bought then indeed saw Laura through her A Levels and has just become the property of my 4 year old granddaughter it is currently undergoing an Ubuntu overhaul and having some pre-school programmes installed by a colleague .
When I began the blog I had no real plan or idea where it would go, it began as those who have a long memory will attest as the outlet for tech and Web 2.0 discoveries that one excited if slightly aged primary school teacher was finding and sharing with his growing group of global friends.

As the map above shows there still remains a strong global audience and I hope that what is posted here has relevance even though the teacher has left the classroom possibly for good and the nature of the posts has somewhat changed.

It proves if nothing else that this new technology revolution is certainly a 'grass-roots' one as I would hardly call myself tech mainstream, I hope though to remain relevant.

It is possible that the blog may move to a new Wordpress home soon, I hope that you will come with me on the rest of this great adventure.

Thank You

Dropbox.com

Have you recently had the need to save a large file ( up to 2GB free!) in order to share it with others or to have it somewhere where you can access it on multiple machines including your smart phone?

If so why not give Dropbox a try, it even has an iPhone and Android app making you truly mobile. Other storage spaces such as Box.net offer 1GB but with crucially a 25MB file size limitation, whereas Dropbox offers unlimited upload up to your 2GB limit - check out the features here

Many thanks to @willfinch for the heads up on Dropbox.com

Parting is such tweet sorrow!!!

The Royal Shakespeare Company ( RSC) is using social networking ( Twitter) as the medium for delivering a 21st Century Romeo and Juliet. They have a cast of six who will tweet and supply links for those who want to follow the story over the coming five weeks. I heard Juliet ( Charlotte Wakefield ) Twitter @julietcap16 and Romeo on Richard Bacon's Radio Five Live programme this afternoon discussing the premise of the project:

Romeo James Barrett will make his appearance shortly. Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, said: "Our ambition is always to connect people with Shakespeare and bring actors and audiences closer together.
"Mobile phones don't need to be the Antichrist for theatre. This digital experiment... allows our actors to use mobiles to tell their stories in real time and reach people wherever they are in a global theatre."

Interest must be high as their website http://suchtweetsorrow.com/ was recently down, but appears now to have come back on stream

Malcolm McLaren

Following the untimely death of the arch agent provocateur of the punk scene Malcolm McLaren at the age of 64 from Mesothelioma, Graham Brown-Martin of Handheld Learning 2009 where Malcolm spoke in October of last year has paid this tribute followed by Malcolm's presentation ( hopefully uncut!). It was great to hear Malcolm speak on this occasions to hear a speaker who sees PC speak and just blasts straight through - Love him or loathe him, we sometimes right off people who don't just follow the party line - thank you Malcolm for straight talking.

We first noticed that he was unwell when arriving to give his speech at Handheld Learning 2009 when he arrived later than planned complaining of fatigue. Diagnosed with the flu he continued but soon after the conference was admitted to hospital for investigation and removal of fluid from his lungs. It was only at this point was it was understood that his condition might be symptomatic of Mesothelioma. Even when we spoke over Christmas when Malcolm was working as hard as I have ever seen him we did not know how quickly this cancer would steal him from us.

For me Malcolm was not only a friend but a mentor & confidante. His passing leaves a gap in my life but also some happy memories.

This talk from Malcolm at the Handheld Learning Conference 2009 will, I believe, stand the test of time. The speech doesn't elaborate about the period of the Sex Pistols, New York Dolls, Vivienne Westwood, his impact on design, fashion and music culture and the many other important achievements of Malcolm's life that will be reported in obituaries over the coming days. Instead and in keeping with the theme of the conference Malcolm discusses in his inimitable style - his life, learning, authenticy vs karaoke culture and what we gain from the experience of failure. Ironically, failure was something Malcolm never achieved. The talk was anything but ordinary, it polarised our audience and instantly trended globally on Twitter but what else would you expect?

Bravo and rest in peace, Malcolm!


"Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Txt Pistols" Malcolm's McLaren's "Reflections on Learning" keynote presented at the Handheld Learning Conference 2009, London. Contains mild references to adult themes and occasional use of adult language.