Living in the digital world - from a personal point of view

General Mobile G777

Yes, it’s no longer science fiction.
You can now finally stop complaining about the nonsense in watching movies at the small screens of mobile phones. The idea is not new, but the device is. And it seems to be the first that can really reach the market: the new cinema phone G777 from General Mobile.

It comes along with video glasses and some other nice features and accessories, e.g. noise reduction during phone calls. They showed it at CeBIT 2008 in Hannover, Germany, but I wasn’t there to see it. I could only read about it, e.g. in this article from Softpedia.

It seems it is already available for purchase. Does anyone have it and can tell me something about? Or better, just send me the money or the phone

I just wonder how this is gonna be when everyone uses video glasses while walking on the street…

Tram Augsburg

The digitization is everywhere.
Recently I was going with the tram which was not really a new one and more looked like 20 years ago. But one should notice that in the old days of course there were no electronic displays showing the next stop or outside the tram to show the final destination. Also many controls at the drivers seat are now done via a small touch screen.

But I also noticed some other thing that made me laugh a little bit: The tram still rings a bell where cars usually honk, but I could hear that this time it wasn’t a real bell like in the old days. Instead they are using a digital sample of the original bell that is just played through a speaker. That’s something I don’t really understand. Why this? Were there problems with the old method using a real bell?

There are many other examples of how the digitilization changes our public transportation environment, especially when it’s about advertising. At nearly every station there are already some video projections or displays showing news and advertising. But there are even more innovative ideas like moving pictures outside a running underground train.

The traditional way to put information into a cellular was to use the numeric keypad. I never got friend of this method to write text messages (and I really understand why it took so long until the States started text messaging…). So then came some devices with small keyboards with real letters on. Parallel to that there were first touch sensitive screens that were to use with a small pen called Stylus.

This was also the method to be mostly used on my Nokia N800. It was ok but in some situations you were not able to use the Stylus and want just use your fingers, e.g. when I used the N800 as GPS and I was driving. But also trying to write when sitting in a train didn’t always succeed.

This last issue about occasional having problems using a pen is also the reason why I started to realize that there could be advantages in using an electronic device compared to a pen and some paper.

And so now what do I have to say more: it’s not only the iPod Touch and the iPhone but many many more devices that now just use fingers on a screen as input method.

A very popular group of devices that would not exist without this input method are the GPS/navigation systems.
As I mentioned earlier I once used the Nokia N800 to do this job for me, but then I switched to the iPod Touch and then the iPhone, both versions without GPS. So I had to get a separate GPS system which I really preferred (because some things are better when they’re not all integrated into one device). For this I compared many GPS systems and finally decided to get a TomTom GO 720 (I mostly like the way the maps are drawn and the easy touch screen menus).

I recently found a note from some time ago but it’s something that I still want to put here.

As mentioned earlier I once had one of the first Palm PDAs and I wasn’t that happy with that.
Last year I bought a Nokia N800 (now there’s the new and better version 810 with a small sliding keyboard and built-in GPS).

I was very happy with that because it was especially of good use during my vacations: I had a WIFI device with a powerful browser and a better display compared to most mobile phones at that time, and I also bought an external GPS mouse to use my N800 as navigation system. I even did VoIP calls with my headset plugged in with the help of the Gizmo software.

But after my vacation, I didn’t really use the N800 at home or at work. I heard of others using it parallel to watching TV or for any other purpose where you could need a mobile browser. Some even write blog entries at night lying in the bed. This is something I don’t do.
And there was another thing, I didn’t really like about the N800. First I loved the idea that it is running on Linux and you can install so many applications built for the Maemo OS. Later I hated the problems with finding and installing the right apps all the time, and sometimes they crash the whole system, etc.

I found out that I really prefer something out of the box that is working and does just everything I need and nothing more or less. That of course is also the reason why I use so many Apple products these days. And so I also had an iPod Nano (of course the old version), so it’s very comprehensible that I looked forward to get a 2nd generation iPod Touch.

So the iPod Touch replaced the N800. I decided for the iPod Touch instead of an iPhone because I wanted to keep my phone separate. I thought of many disadvantages to have everything in one device (esp. the battery capacity!), but then I really start to hate to always take both with me: the iPod Touch and my old cellular.

So when the new iPhone (3G) was released, I took the initiative and bought an unlocked and jailbroken 2G version (so that I can use it with my existing contract in germany).

Of course because of that, I can’t use any of the new features like Apple’s iPhone App Store, but on the other hand with the old 2G iPhone I have a much longer battery time, and I’m really happy with it like it is.

Now using Twitter since yesterday, I saw several people using some software (which is posted with the messages) instead of the web interface. So I gave these two a short look: twhirl - the social software client and TweetDeck.
I decided to use the latter one. And until now I can only say I kind of like it.

But both have one thing in common, they’re build on Adobe AIR. I didn’t come across of that until now, so I was very interested in about what this actually really is. But it’s not easy to understand from a first glance. I think the best way to understand what it’s about is this comparison between browser and desktop applications (developed with Adobe AIR). Well, I would say, it’s just another example of convergence using all advantages of desktop applications together with the power of browser based applications. From my opinion this really looks very promising…

As you can see, I know managed to do more posts, and probably I will now continue to post something more regularly. Let’s try it.
Because it’s also a lot of fun when I search on the topics that I want to tell you about. I always detect new interesting blogs and well, with this blog I can share them with you.
First of all, there is my favorite video podcast called GeekBrief.tv with Cali Lewis, a very sympathic but real geeky girl (who seems not to breathe when talking… ;))
I’m also listening to a lot of audio podcasts but they’re usually not about technology.

Another blog I recently discovered is Geekologie where everything is geeky but not all is about technology. Instead you can find a lot of extraordinary and funny things (and videos!) there.

Last but not least I want to tell you that I finally got a Twitter account because everyone is talking about and I have to test it. But I’m pretty sure that this is not the thing I really will be using…

China's Great Solar Led Wall (iTechNews)

Of course, they also have evolved. LED displays get bigger, brighter, clearer, and have any form possible. Just try a Google picture search on the term and you gonna be astonished. Even 3D displays can be found, e.g. like in this article about a Litefast 360-degree LED display on techdigest.tv.

LED technology is integrated everywhere in our daily life, today nearly every old (bulb) lamp has been replaced by LED, e.g. the torch light, the lights of your car or your bike, many small ambient lights, etc.

Just look around! See that shiny digital world on lights!
You can read about some more new inventions about LED also on this blog: iTech News Net which also reports about China’s Great Solar-powered LED Wall.

Hey, and isn’t christmas coming next? So why not put some lights on your house? Let’s say 42000 LED Christmas Lights. Or like the Wizards in Winter…

First, I have to say I’m very sorry for the long time making no entries.
I don’t know why, but I always have ideas what to post while I’m on the way, and I even do some notes then, but afterwards I don’t feel motivated to really put it down into this blog.

Ok, so now there are some things that wanted to be mentioned for a couple of months.

Epamedia in Donauzentrum

Did you notice that it’s even getting more and more? I’m talking about the LCD screens in our public environment. Initially this was the first motivation to start this blog. Because there are many things changing in our everyday life which we just adopt and soon accept to be normal. We even really don’t notice how this world is changing more and more into something some time ago we only knewed from science fiction movies.

Coming back to the issue of the LCD screens: They’re now everywhere. They got cheaper and cheaper and so not only all information screens like you can find at the central station or the airport have changed into LCD screens, but also the advertising industry now use it nearly everywhere. There are screens showing menus at fast food restaurants, small screens at the pharmacy or at the waiting queues at the supermarket, and at many many more places. They really decorate our environment.
Especially on the streets and in the big shopping malls it’s really fascinating.

During my time in vienna I was often at the shopping mall Donauzentrum which also has a lot of LCD screens. It’s a project of the company Epamedia where you can see a lot more examples like these.

Don’t get me wrong. I do have nothing against this development, the opposite is the case, I really enjoy it! And I just ask myself, how long will it take until it’s like in the movie Minority Report which I know is based on real studies.

Virtualization is becoming more and more popular even in the industrial world as I could see on the ITnT trade fair a few weeks ago. I for myself also decided recently to give it a try because I had to work on a word document and I didn’t want to switch between OpenOffice (running on Linux or on my Mac) or the Mac version of MSOffice and the Windows version. So I decided to install Windows on my Intel based iMac.

While I knew VMware from working with it on Linux and Windows before, I also knew that Parallels has been primarily developed for the Mac. Both provide a trial version for free download, so which of them should I give the try? Read more »

Recently I saw a news article on washingtonpost.com saying that Starbucks dumps T-Mobile in favor of AT&T. This reminded me of my experiences during my last travels in the United States where I had my Nokia N800 with me and always tried to find an open hotspot to check my emails and to look things up on the internet.

But no matter if it was for AT&T at McDonalds or T-Mobile at Starbucks, they all want you to pay and it’s not really cheap (although the new plans of AT&T are now slightly cheaper). Read more »