Run for the hills! Google is trying to own your entire existence, they want to give you free sat nav, free books, faster internet and kill your family!
Nicely visualised but come on, Google isn’t making anyone use their services…or aaare they?
I wonder if Microsoft commissioned this.
This is some pretty big news for mobile that hasn’t got the reaction I think it deserves (or do I just play too much Playstation 3?). It looks like huge efforts are being made to make mobile, console and PC gaming completely compatible.
First up is Microsoft who recently demoed their Windows 7 Mobile playing Indiana Jones, then switching the game to PC, then onto the Xbox 360. Next is BigPoint and Unity Technologies who have developed browser based software that will enable iPhone (and eventually Android, iPad) gamers to play against PC, PS3 and Wii players.
On a basic level this means that you’ll be able to play multi-player games with people sat at their PCs at home whilst on your mobile. Also things like the ability to carry on your game where you left on the PC using your phone would be a typical feature.
But think about the possibilities this has for the actual games themselves; experiences have the potential to be completely immersive. What you do and where you go with your phone in real life can affect what happens to your character in a game using mobile technologies like GPS.
Check out the new viral ad for the new BMW S1000RR, it’s the most powerful liter bike in the world apparently..
For a long time it’s been clear in my mind where mobile advertising is heading – firmly in the hands of handset manufacturers. Google and Apple now have their own ad networks meaning the two user experience juggernauts will own where the ads come from as well as where they appear.
I keep banging on about the opportunity they have to ‘redefine’ mobile advertising and ’start from scratch’. What I mean by this is that the limitations of many current methods such as SMS, MMS, Bluetooth and banner ads can be erased because the manufacturers can make up completely new ad channels that utilise features of the phone. And because this will be achieved by using data rather than messaging, it allows for better value for advertisers using CPC, CPA and CPM. All this has influenced the following concept..
The Concept
On device semantic SMS advertising would turn every SMS the user ever sends or receives into an advertising opportunity for the manufacturer. At first that might sound massively intrusive but it’s all about the execution.
The thought that spawned this concept was making advertising so useful that it could change its perception in the eyes of the user so they wouldn’t even question its placement on the phone. I wanted to blur the lines so the user would see it as a tool rather than a direct ad channel.
It works by recognising keywords or the meaning of the sentence/conversation within an SMS and adding dynamic functionality to those words. For example, your friend asks you if you want to go to the cinema, the word ‘cinema’ would be highlighted and clicking it would reveal cinemas in the area.
Within a few clicks you can find out film times and buy a ticket, all within the device interface. This purchase can be tracked and the manufacturer gets a cut of the profits.
Caught this in The Sydney Morning Herald today, no information on who makes it, I’ve tried Google without any joy.
Luckily the picture speaks a thousand words, the technology “allows visitors to look at a display, connected with a computer and a camera which detects their gender, age group and mood”
This is pretty amazing, I wonder if it will make it’s way onto mobile via Augmented Reality apps or picture recognition solutions?
Seems like the on-road extension of the Augmented Hyper-Reality video.
Loving all these ultra-AR concepts at the moment.
[Via @ChrisGrayson & Bhgoo]
The picture pretty much says it all.
If you’ve got a Google Android phone you’ll no doubt be familiar with the way you password lock/unlock the phone. It’s done by swiping a pattern rather than the tradional numerical pin code entry.
The article at Unpressable Buttons raises some intetresting points. As we progressively make experiences quicker and more usable are we forgetting some common sense stuff?
Just remember to wipe your phone down after eating a Big Mac.
Caught this on Techcrunch today and it’s simply badass. Quite a nice follow up from the NFC-enabled iPhone news and shows the sort of creativity you can have with this technology.
The following is a product of the famous Facebook ‘24hr Hackathons‘ where everyone does an all-nighter to come up with new and wonderful things like Facebook Chat, webcam uploads and now….Keg Presence.
Keg Presence is an application especially for the staff at Facebook HQ in Palo Alto, CA which is hooked up to the office beer tap .
It notifies employees when the keg is empty or what type of beer is currently available.
But the really cool part is that employees swipe their RFID badge when they get there, triggering the camera on the iMac, which takes a photo of them pouring beer and updates their Facebook status (below).
Mobile solutions company Incentivated power the new SMS flight info service for British Airways. Fantastic, SMS is easy peasy, so let’s hear more about it:
According to Mobile Marketing Watch:
The service, available for UK- and US-registered mobile phones, enables users to get up-to-the-minute flight information for yesterday, today and the next five days. Users text D for Departures or A for Arrivals followed by a space, the departure date of the flight (in the form DDMMYY or MMDDYY for the US) and the British Airways flight number (eg BAXXXX) to 60747 in the UK, 70615 in the US.
OOohh laawwd – how the hell is anyone meant to use this service again if they have to remember all that?
So I decided to give it a try and deliberately entered false details to see if I would get a error message back saying explaining how to do it correctly. I.e “Sorry that was wrong, please try again by entering D or A….”
Let’s face it, there is only one manufacturer that can create mass adoption of NFC services and devices, they are called Apple.
The NFC market today is in its infancy, a few shops are installing terminals BUT I guarantee you that if the following patents filed by Apple are due to appear in the next iPhone, then we’ll see the rapid uptake of contactless technology by retailers, appliance manufacturers and rivals. This is going to be BIG.
We are talking about handset manufacturers redefining mobile advertising here. What kind of things could happen?
I’m a little bit jealous of how nice and simple this app is.
Here’s the explanation:
It’s a Clock humanises the measurement of time to provide us with a scale more suited to the realities of life.
Basically if the time is 8.28 the display say’s “nearly eight thirty”. Lovely.
Download from app store or click here.
[Via @JeniRoger]
Imagine life online without clicking, how would you navigate? Would you miss it? Or would you love it?
Check out dontclick.it, the site that gives you a taste of a world where clicks are banished. It raises some interesting questions and is actually more related to mobile than you’d think.
How To Spread Fear About Google In Less Than 3 Minutes 
