Here are 10 inspiring TED talks to get your day started:
the next stage for smart phones
Posted in Technology, VoIP, inspiration, iphone, user experience, whatever on 07/15/2010 01:52 pm by Nir
no doubt apple revolutionized the smart phones industry. apple gave the market a real shuffle when it introduced it 3 years ago. it was the user experience that made the difference – just like any apple product – from their software to their stores: it’s all about the user experience.
what helped the iphone take off was the community of developers. believe it or not, it is the early hackers who put their time and wits into action, to jailbreak it. jailbreaking means you free the phone from the exclusivity of the appStore, and are able to install apps from other developers (for free or for $$). there are several alternative appStores out there, like cydia and ‘rock your phone’.
why would anyone be interested in installing apps that are not on the appStore? mostly because they extend the capabilities of the device beyond what apple allows or is planning for the time being. for example: tethering. how long did we hear from ATT that tethering is arriving? why can’t we share our internet connection with our laptop and have the iphone serve as a hub? ATT is planning to do so (they claim they are making way for the bandwidth load they are experiencing altogether) for an extra (yes, u heard it right) extra $30 a month. so you pay $30 on your iphone to be constantly online with an unlimited bandwidth (it actually is capped if u check your account page online), and you will pay $30 more to tether.
if you jailbreak your iphone you can install an app called myWi which allows you to tether for a small one time fee of $20. sounds like a good deal right? it is.
another good example is using your data plan as you wish. the internet neutrality act proposes that each and every one of us can use his/hers connection as they please without the internet provider throttling and/or blocking the connections (which happens in spades, though most providers do not admit this). in fact, chile is the first country in the world to anchor network neutrality within it’s constitutional right.
currently ATT does not allow skype calls to be made over the data plan. only wifi. the same goes for ‘face time’ with iphone 4. you can see the other side only if both are over wifi. that pretty much sucks doesn’t it? well, ATT has been putting billions of dollars into infrastructure and i can attest that their signal has gotten better (not much but better) here in NYC. however, i cannot understand what reasons they had (besides greed) to up the data plan cost from $20 on iphone g1 to $30 for the exact same package.
back to business. if you install my3g you can fool the phone into reporting it is over wifi while you are actually over the data network.
want more examples? they are a plenty: sbsettings (allows you to control the phone via a swipe jesture, turn on the phone, the data connection, blue tooth, kill processes and more) proswitcher: allows you to multitaks, meaning putting an app in the background (now partly available in os4) ultrasnow: allows you to unlock the phone, so you can use it with other GSM carriers in the US or over seas (something ATT must provide you by law when traveling abroad – which they don’t). and many many more.
so now back to the title – the next stage of smart phones. well, the title is misleading. it should really read the next stage of smart devices. and that is exactly what they should be: smart devices.
the revolution had already started with the micro sim cards for the ipads. take a device and connect it to the internet – you are golden. forget about minutes, rollovers – all we really have is our data connection. do you want to make a call? launch skype. you can make unlimited calls in the US for $3 a month. face it – a phone is just an application, just like your painting tool or recording device. whatever you want to do will be %100 over the network without extra fees or hidden charges.
and they are all afraid of it because they will loose tons of money right? all the fees on our bill, state charged nickel and dimes for F charge and G cost. the interent scares that scavengers because what will you charge on top of the data plan?
and that is all i really want and the next phone i will get: a device that has the ability to connect to the internet without a phone attached to you. an ipod touch with a micro sim card will do fantastic for me and i will gladly give up my iphone for it.
the future is all about our freedom and ability to connect. it is all about us spending much less (think annually) and getting much much more bang for our buck.
the future of user experience
Posted in Technology, user experience on 05/27/2010 07:24 pm by Nir
the world of design and user experience (UX) is shifting along with the world of mobile applications and TV.
in the beginning we had a punch card 
yes, one of those old funky and full of holes punch card. that was the way information was conveyed to the computer. the design drastically evolved to the terminal and what a revolution that was. finally was can SEE what the computer can and we can layer it up with tools. like the command line. quickly the operating system that quickly evolved allowed applications like the terminal to browse files (ls -l anyone?) and much more.
it was apple that came up with the next best thing (they tend to do that…) when they came up with a graphical user interface (GUI) and the windows system, which bill gates and microsoft copied shamelessly (or at least that what is written). that part of history probably most of you can remember. widows 3.11 rocked big time and with the shift of personal computer and IBM we all got to experience the bliss for the low cost required to allow massive growth. apple came out with yet another cool idea – the mouse: a way for us to interact with the screen and the content presented on it. no more keyboard commands that were reserved for the dorky nerdy geeky ones. now we can all interact with the computer in a fashionable way – an extension of our arm that seeps into the computer.
this was huge – and with the availability of an SDK to program applications, every tom, dick and harry were hard at work decoding the win32 API and developing lots and lots of apps for the masses. from music applications to games and file editors. the rest is history my friends.
until the iphone came along and introduced the multi touch to the world. granted – they were not the first to do so, but they were the ones to implement it in a natural way (and i am using the word natural for a reason here…) that we can all interact with. no more mouse ladies and gents. no more a device that will click on the data and we circle it around the screen to get where we want to and interact with it via one/two or 3 buttons.
this new user experience is called “natural user interface” which basically means the content which we see IS the interface. think about it for a second: on your iphone/ipad/android – the photo application you use… you touch the photo, swipe it around, left or right, up or down. double tap it, pinch and rotate and more. the content IS the interface and the experience becomes a better personal experience.
which brings us to the title of this post – the future the future is already here and it is called “first person interface”. in a first person interface the INPUT is based on WHERE you are and WHAT and WHO is NEAR you. this is so important to understand – it begs repetition: i “first person interface” the input is based on where you are and what and who is near you.
let’s take an example: take layer. when you launch the app on your mobile device it knows where you, and by capturing the environment with the camera it layers information to your choice onto the screen. pretty sweet and there are other great players in that evolving market so check out this list for the iphone.
the new mobile devices (slate and phones) allows access to the following information:
1. location (GPS/WiFi/Cell tower)
2. orientation (compass)
3. position and motion (accelerometer)
4. audio (microphone/speakers)
5. device to device (bluetooth)
6. multitouch (up to 10 simultaneous ones for the iphone OS)
7. push notification (for apple devices)
so to sum it up – the new user experience is the “first person interface” where we navigate the space around us by using our mobile devices, the application augments the reality by layering the real world with data, and we interact with nearby objects (museums, coffee shops etc) and people (twitter friends, family, etc)
more exciting ways to experience the world and interact with it are coming our way, so i’ll wrap it up with a video.
– plug your guitar into your iPhone and rock out!
Posted in Technology, ipad, iphone, music on 05/11/2010 03:37 pm by Nir
AmpliTube iRig is just one of those ideas that can make people buy an iPhone. not often do i get to see apps for mobile that can serve as game changers and this is – in my humble opinion – is. as a life long big fan of music, i both play and compose music, and let me tell you: owning equipment is not something i enjoy. in fact, i do not have an amp for my guitar because i can’t be bothered to carry it around… let alone have multiple effects, pedals and what have you.
AmpliTube iRig may have solved this problem by creating a digital instrument encapsulated in an app, that holds various effects and amps, and it runs on your iphone. to make things sweet, you purchase what they labeled the iRig: a small device that allows you to plug in your guitar to the iphone, and then have the wet sound routed out to your headset or home stereo system (wet means sound with the effect and/or amplification applied to it).
how fantastic is that? for a fraction of the cost you now have minimized your setup to the iphone and the iRig. i love it!
some questions before the video:
1. what about latency? it is fair to assume it is not an issue, otherwise the app would fail and there is no room to create it from the get go.
2. how quality is the quality of the sound? yet to be seen (or heard). as far as the audio samples on their website – it sounds freaking awesome and top notch.
3. where is the competition? seriously, hats off for the vision and innovation of this company.
4. what’s missing? battery power that will have the iphone last longer than several hours of playing around. maybe it will run better on the iPad
video time:
The future of our living room
Posted in Micro$oft, Technology, fashion, home tech, inspiration, ipad, iphone, music, photography, whatever on 04/30/2010 02:39 pm by Nir
worlds are shifting. seriously…
all around me i see the matrix moving all around – where ever i look…
examples? aplenty.
digital media consumption: slate devices are here to rule the world. the more i play around with my ipad the more i realize how wonderful a 12h battery can serve humanity on the go. and that is key here – on the go. consider it a platform and not a gadget. mobile devices are here to stay. desktop computers? time to turn them into art. they are out the door in terms of dominating the market. face it – we consume, and we consume a lot. in 2010 who is not HDD? seriously… having all media streamed and centralized in a long hour operating device with a crisp device and intuitive interaction will break all barriers. from kids to astronauts. it is just a matter of time.
learning: kids will benefit much from slate devices (BTW, there are over 8 competitors about to launch their products and compete head to head with apple’s ipad). i see kids carrying a huge school bag on their small backs, all these massive books – i say no more! soon enough all the material will be available as a digital book, that will fit within the pound a a half a salte device weighs. with many hours of operation it is a no brainer for schools. moreover, the content can be layered with videos AND become interactive. how about that for creating interesting course material, tests, quizzes and home work?
the kitchen: yes my friends, the kitchen. one of the most important and fun rooms in any house hold – the room where we feed our body, the room where mostly women spend time (excluding metrosexual guys who care for their bodies like myself) to prepare meals for their families. how come there is no digital help there in 2010? sure, we have DVD players etc, but that is used to consume media. how about enhancing the experience in the kitchen? from social media, videos of recipes, timers, integration and interaction with consumer products, baby monitoring and much more. times are shifting my friends, didn’t i mention that?
the living room: yes – last and definitely not least, the title of this post. the real cash cow of media and hardware companies. the area where we will notice aggressive and fierce competition. let’s start with what we have today: we have a one direction big screen and a cable company that decides what we can watch, when and at what cost. they shove commercial right where we don’t want them and make billions. all of that my friends will rapidly change. to date, youtube video uploaded in 2 months accumulate to more footage ever released by all major networks aggregated within the last 20 years. incredible isn’t it? the future is prime content mixed with user created content that will become more and more high end as we go along. check out gary vaynerchuk and winelibrary.tv for prime content centered around wine. and more people are doing their own home production while building brand equity.
so we have great content in our finger tips. what will shift is the hardware. more and more TVs will be released in the near future that will run an operating system. like android, windows and mac/iphone OS. what that means is that the TV will become interactive and essentially a new product. TV 2.0. not widgets a la samsung. but a real computer that has a huge and beautiful display, input and outputs that can allow decoding of HD video and audio signal etc. all we got to expect from a TV, but the control moves back to us – the consumer. and this will happen not a moment too soon.
how long will it take apple to create a beautiful 50″ backlit LCD that runs the iphone OS, which allows multi touch and can be turn into a table when u want a flat user interaction? there are a couple of android based TVs coming out very soon from japan. face it. the TV can and should do much more than it is doing today. screw the big networks – power to the people. consume media when u want it and how u want it. let me buy the episodes i like directly to my set top box, sync it with all my devices seamlessly and make sure i can collaborate around it with my close ones.
if so far we had seen a great and exciting new ecosystem rising – the appStores. from apple to android, blackberry and samsung. we will see apps made for the TV as well. and here is where i ask you – what kind of apps can u envision being used in the living room? how will the TV enhance the usage and integration with other devices around our living space? our phones, our slates, and in the future maybe our cloths and appliances.
worlds are shifting my friends – they are shifting…