Teknovis

I read during the week that Skype has become the world’s largest international call provider! That is amazing, and it certainly must be concerning the traditional telcos! For more information see CES 2011: Skype Steals International Scene.

I am aware that Skype had a serious outage before Christmas, but luckily it did not affect me. The $1 credit was a nice apology!

During Christmas I had the opportunity to use Skype for video calls on the latest version of the iPod Touch, and I was extremely impressed with both the quality and the ease of use. It was a much better experience than I imagined, and I could easily get used to doing all my calls like that!

Tags: Apple, Skype

A belated merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! I had a great one, and hence I have not been posting here recently!

Anyway, I have previously written here about my irrational cravings for a tablet device. However, I really am not an Apple fan, so I do not see myself ever owning an iPad!

Today I think that I might have found the perfect table for me! It is the Motorola Xoom!

Motorola Xoom

For more mouthwatering details see the marketing material or the technical details.

I am really looking forward to seeing one of these!

Tags: Apple, Motorola

Actually, it is probably over now (and I am too tired to actually check), but I hope that Cauwill Technologies got on well today!

To understand what I am writing about see Cauwill Technologies represents Ireland in global start-up competition.

Tags: Cauwill Technologies

I have been having strange cravings for an iPad recently. I cannot understand why, because I do not think that I would have a lot of use for it! I would consider the lack of Flash to be a major disadvantage because it is used to watch a lot of online television.

I considered some of the Android powered tablets, but I think that the 7 inch display is just too small.

Today I came across the JooJoo. It appears very interesting, and I found that the pictures in iPad vs. JooJoo… fight! give a very good indication of its size compared to the iPad. However, there does seem to be some legal issues surrounding it, so it might not be a good long-term investment :o

Tags: JooJoo

I am just after reading Battle of the apps fuels smartphone war, and I am amazed by the following statement:

Global online trader Amazon.com is reportedly looking at creating its own online store for Android. This would bring the unity, stamp of quality and prestige that Android apps needed from the beginning.

This certainly would be an interesting development by Amazon. Perhaps it would be a good fit, given that Amazon certainly is an innovator, and it is also very well established with consumers.

I really wonder if the iPad, or indeed the entire emerging tablet market, is damaging Kindle sales.

Tags: Amazon

I just read that paid Android applications are finally available in the Irish Android Marketplace. Great! It will be very interesting to see which ones succeed. For more information see Paid Android apps have arrived in Ireland.

Actually, it is a bit embarrassing to see some of the countries that have had paid applications before Ireland :o

Tags: Ireland

Google Street View launched in Ireland yesterday, and it received plenty of media attention. For example, see Google Street View goes live or Street View to go live at maps.google.ie Friday evening.

I saw one of the cars taking photos last year, as I described in Google Street View in Dublin. Now I can happily reveal that I am indeed visible! Yippee!!!

I am not going to say where I am, but I will say that I was not on Ballinteer Drive :D (You might need to read Barefaced cheek on Google Street View to get the joke!)

Tags: Google, Ireland

I saw some cool examples of iPad art during the week:

• Apple iPad art: portraits created by David Kassan using the Brushes app on the touchscreen device
• Apple iPad art: paintings created using Brushes, ArtStudio and Sketchbook Pro apps
• Kyle Lambert’s Apple iPad portraits of celebrities: step by step

The first is my favourite!

Tags: Apple

A very humorous article about iPhone users and their sexual partners: Yo, here’s a vulnerable snap of my iPhone.

I particularly like the last paragraph :D

Tags: Sex

Today is a public holiday in Ireland, so I have a bit more time to write about something that has been on my mind for the last weeks.

I often have to work with companies that already have a well designed website, but they have no content designed specifically for mobile devices. These companies normally have a very strong desire to target mobile users, but they are unsure of the best approach.

In an ideal world, if a website is well written in XHTML then it should be possible to create a separate CSS stylesheet to render the pages well on mobile devices. This solution is usually easy to do, but it only provides a very basic user experience.

Therefore, there is normally a requirement to create new content specifically for mobile users. There are normally three different options, and each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Mobile Application

This is probably the most popular option, and it is the option with which most users are familiar. The advantages of this option are:

• It is possible to create really attractive applications that make maximum use of the underlying hardware (GPS, digital camera, …).
• It is possible to create a really rich user experience.
• It gives a presence in in the application store.

This main disadvantages of this option are:

• It can be expensive to develop a mobile application because it requires specialist skills.
• It can be difficult to develop for all mobile hardware platforms.
• The approval process required to get the mobile application into the application store can be very slow and subjective.

There are many examples of such mobile applications :)

Mobile Website

This is probably the second most popular options. It involves creating a second website that is specifically designed for mobile devices. This new website can be hosted on a new domain (.mobi for example), and mobile clients can automatically be redirected there based on the HTTP user agent header.

The advantages of this option are:

• It can be very quick to develop.
• It uses existing web development skills.
• It does not require any third party approval.

The main disadvantage of this option is that it does not give a presence in the application store.

Hybrid Application

The advent of HTML 5 enables another option that consists of developing a skeleton application that is basically a dumbed-down web browser. This application is configured with an application specific title, icon, and start page.

The main advantages of this option are:

• It is possible to create a really rich user experience.
• It gives a presence in the application store.
• It can be very quick to develop.
• It mostly uses existing web development skills.

The disadvantages of this option are:

• It is not possible to use the underlying hardware.
• It still requires third party approval.

Hopefully I have not forgotten anything!

Tags: CSS, XHTML