This would be quite clever
Would sort out the main concerns. Front facing video camera, doc to hold it still and supply power.
Maybe..
Entries Tagged as 'Cool'
Holiday plans in June: Roaming Data
In June, the family are going on a cruise around the Mediterranean. The ship is the Royal Carribean “Independence of the Seas” which can hold nearly 6000 people. (3/4 of it are passengers).
We depart from Southampton on 19/6/2010 which means driving down from Belfast the day before.
Ports of Call:
Gibraltar (22/6/2010)
Villefranche, France (24/6/2010)
Florence, Italy (25/6/2010)
Rome, Italy (26/6/2010)
Sardinia, Italy (27/6/2010)
Cadiz, Spain (29/6/2010)
Lisbon, Portugal (30/6/2010)
Vigo, Spain (1/7/2010)
Arrive back in Southampton: 3/7/2010
So excited 
Of course, my concerns are going to be the ability to get adequate data connections while abroad. Last time we went on a cruise for the Honeymoon, I managed to send a lot of data (most of it at £4 a MB but some of it at £6 a MB) but this year I intend to be a little smarter about it. Maxroam is still around €3.40 a megabyte which is cheaper than O2 but still not the sort of price that I want to pay for mobile data.
In June 2008, T-Mobile decreased their data roaming costs to £1.50 a MB but as they’re merging with Orange, who knows what will happen.
The Register reported in February 2008 that:
Five operators across Europe have banded together and agreed to cut wholesale data rates to €.25 per megabyte. The agreement should reduce customer prices over the next 12 months
but I’ve yet to see a single reasonable decrease as a result.
So, I went and had a look;
| Carrier | Web Page | Costs |
| Three | EU Roaming | £1.25 per MB |
| Vodafone | Roaming | Around 20p a MB (£4.99 for the first 25MB per day) |
| O2 | International Roaming | £3 per MB |
| Orange | Phone Abroad | £2.55 per MB |
and at first look it would seem that Vodafone have it down. I’m going to have to go and talk to Vodafone now that my O2 contract is at an end.
Does anyone have anything to add here? Are you getting a great deal from your carrier for data roaming?
Creative Sandbox: Show and Tell for Techies
Creative Sandbox was designed to spark the imagination of agencies by showing the best uses of Google products and creative possibilities in a high energy environment.
The more I think about it, the more we need to have more ’show and tell’ of what we’re doing in Northern Ireland. There are risks – those of disclosure of unprotected IP – but there is a lot to be gained from showing and telling, not only the Venture Capitalists and Business Angels, but also the everyman, the tourist, the would-be entrepreneur (wantrepreneur).
Welcome to the Desert of the Unreal
A bit more about AR (pr LR: Layered Reality) to whet your appetite.
I previously speculated that things would get really interesting when Linden Labs released their AR platform or plugin.
The beauty will not, however, be in the presence of avatars in LayeredReality but in the presence of buildings. That said, being handed virtual flyers by virtual people in real streets has some interest – but only because it beats the real alternative. Handing out flyers is a shit job – something we should use software for.
This, and other examples are at GamesAlFresco’s top 10 augmented reality demos which will revolutionise video games. To a degree, I believe them.
The potential for AR is amazing and finally within our grasp.
T-JAM football? Tesco API?
He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me
Tesco’s new API reminded me of these lyrics from “Come Together” by the Beatles, mostly because of their future event, TJAM, where developers get their grubby mitts on Tesco’s new API.
Tesco is trialling an API which will allow third-party developers to hook into the supermarket’s databases to develop new ways of selling Tesco merchandise. Developers will be able to join an affiliate scheme and take a commision on sales for the lifetime of the applications they generate.
In an email to the 150 developers who have already registered to try out Tesco.com’s API, Nick Lansley, Tesco’s head of R&D, said “A great new Tesco.com Grocery API is coming which will offer extended facilities and faster performance, enable you to obtain an affiliate income from the customers who use your application, and find out what customers are asking for at our T-Jam event coming soon.”
T-Jam is an innovation day, to be held in London on 5 August, which will allow invited developers to work with other Tesco customers and creative thinkers to drive ideas and innovation, and then go on to play a part in developing those ideas and making them a success.
Anyone interested in attending T-Jam can find out more about how to get an invitation here.
I predict that there’ll be twenty apps allowing you to shop from your iPhone, five from your Android phone and two from your S60.
Would that be a bad thing? I found Tesco Online Shopping to be a curious, invasive process which involved me emptying boxes of groceries speedily so that the delivery guy could just take them and go. I wasn’t sure about the protocol really.
There’s no denying that Tesco Online Shopping seems to be a hit. This API, in including not only buying and checkout facilities but also nutritional information, product favourites and deals in a RESTful web service – not to mention commission.
Tie it into your ‘diet app’ and automatically order foods which are recommended while blocking those which are not. Provide a version of the Tesco store which only shows foods for the gluten-intolerant or observing cultural rituals. Even just being able to automate the delivery of staples from a good, easy to use interface might be enough; for example, a parent might want to make sure that her teenagers are well stocked while she’s off on holiday. There’s no reason why this couldn’t be built into a barcode scanner app so you can order the same pasta meal you just enjoyed and schedule it for delivery next week for Pasta Night!
The most important thing is start the conversation. It’s no longer who will be first to release an API for their consumer good service but rather why hasn’t Company X released an API for their service?