Three months in, the iPhone is great, but I don't deny that there isn't appeal in an Android phone. Though young and unpolished, Google's mobile OS has, unsurprisingly, tight integration with Google services. Much like my own brain, tightly integrated with Google's mail, calendar, reader, maps, photos, and, oh yeah, search. Synchronization between Google services and Blackberries or iPhones had been weak in the past, but some official and unofficial solutions have emerged.
Gmail access on any smartphone has been easy and supported ever since they implemented IMAP. Their help provides setup information for major devices.
Today Google announced that Google Sync for Blackberry can now synchronize your Gmail contacts, in addition to Google Calendar events and alerts. Any changes made on the Blackberry will sync back to Gmail/Calendar. This also makes moving to a new device easy.
For iPhone users, its slightly harder because Google can't have it's own app running in the background synchronizing changes. NuevaSync is a solution that I've been running without issue for a couple months now. The iPhone supports Microsoft Exchange for mail, calendar, and contacts. NuevaSync acts like a Microsoft Exchange server and serves as a middleman between your phone and Google for bidirectional syncing of calendar and contacts. The service is currently in beta, and also supports syncing contacts from Plaxo.
I recently came across a cool iPhone app from Urbanspoon - it's the magic 8-ball for meals. Whether you have a group that can't make a decision or your stomach is growling louder than you can think, the app spits out a restaurant suggestion when you give it a shake. Are you one of those people who can never accept the first suggestion? Shake it again, and then suck it up because your friends are hungry.
The iPhone's accelerometers pick up when you're giving your phone a hopeful shake, it figures out where you're located via GPS, and then it picks its suggestions based on the top-rated restaurants in your location on Urbanspoon (because their site also features restaurant reviews in cities across the US and Canada, and is breaking into the UK and Australia as well).
Urbanspoon is the world's leading provider of time-critical dining data, a major division of a very important multi-national corporation, and an... [more]
Google has released a major update to their Google Mobile App for iPhone with a nifty new feature that you'll see geeks demoing at parties for weeks to come. That feature is voice recognition. Launch the app, hold the phone up to your head, speak your search query, and in about six seconds you'll have a list of results. If your query is location-relevant, like, per se, "sushi", you'll be given a list of results that are closest to you. Beyond the voice features, the location-awareness is also unique to the app, as a Google search in Safari has no way of knowing your location. Also, the results page that it returns is better formatted for the mobile screen than searching in the browser.
Is it gimmicky? Somewhat. Is it faster than typing? Generally yes. How well does it work? Acceptably well. Andy Baio of Waxy.org attempts to deconstruct how the voice recognition works. The recognition happens server-side, with the app seemingly sending only 100-300 _bytes_ of pre-processed data.
In my testing, the app worked well with common terms, place names, and names of notable people. Being Google, you can also use it for unit conversions like "100 Canadian dollars in US dollars" or "50 miles in kilometres". Fans of the Simpsons will be amused that it took two tries to get "beat up Martin".
Previously, we covered the Canadian wireless spectrum auction, which promised to increase wireless competition with seven new companies awarded licenses. One of these new entrants was Shaw Communications, acquiring $190M worth of spectrum in BC, Alberta, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, and Northern Ontario. Unfortunately, the Globe and Mail reports that everyone's favorite elephant-in-the-room, Global Economic Uncertainty, has led Shaw to put off plans to launch a wireless service for "at least a year".
During the time Mr. Shaw and his team weighed options, economic conditions deteriorated, giving the executives even more confidence in their ultimate decision. In a bad economy, families stay home and watch more television, so the company has decided to invest in its cable offerings for now, such as adding more high-definition programming.
"We felt it more prudent to develop our core business right now, and not divert any of our attention away from our mainstream products. It's like you don't want to buy the neighbour's house when your house isn't fixed up," Mr. Shaw says. "It's really about where do you put your money and at what time. And we think this is the best spot to put it in right now, and that the time will come for cellular."
People prefer TV in a recession? Bothersome, but valid. I'd say people will also prefer the Internet, but I suppose that still falls under Shaw's core business. A new wireless service would have to compete aggressively on price and service, and the ROI on building out wireless infrastructure is likely not strong enough at this time.
This move in contrast to other spectrum buyers Quebecor and Globalive. Quebecor recently announced plans to go ahead and make use of their spectrum space with an $800M 3G network in Quebec. Ontario and Western Canada should still see some wireless competition courtesy of Globalive, which has pledged to launch wireless service in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa, starting in the 2nd half of 2009.
Shaw has experienced rapid and successful growth within the cable, satellite and telecommunications industries over the last several decades. With... [more]
November 18, 2008 - Seattle
November Urban Leadership Series - Where Technology, Business, and City Meet
7:30am - 9:00am: World Trade Center, Suite 410
November 20, 2008 - Seattle
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Start-Up Tour
2:00pm - 7:00pm: Bell Harbor Conference Center
November 21, 2008 - Tacoma
South Sound Technology Conference 2008
1:00pm - 4:00pm: University of Washington, Tacoma
November 22, 2008 - November 23, 2008 - Seattle
Seattle Mindcamp 5.0
11:00am - 10:00am: Synapse
December 4, 2008 - Bellevue
TiE Funding Forum 2008
6:00pm - 9:00pm: Bellevue Downtown Courtyard by Marriott
December 5, 2008 - Bellevue
Angel Financing Seminar
9:00am - 5:00pm: Bellevue Courtyard by Marriott
December 10, 2008 - Seattle
WTIA Cocktails & Contributions - Holiday Networking
5:00pm - 8:00pm: ACT Theater - Bullitt Cabaret
Mobile Monday Seattle is a community of mobile professionals in the Seattle area and they're getting together on Monday, November 17th. The goal of Mobile Monday is to foster communications and networking between mobile professionals and to provide a forum to meet others working in the mobile industry.
Seattle Mobile Monday meetings are held every month on the second Monday, to provide an opportunity to meet others in the Seattle area working in the mobile industry, as well as learn what local companies are doing. Each month Seattle Mobile Monday has a different mobile related topic, and a small group of presenters (usually 2-3) that gives short presentations related to the meeting topic.
November's event on on November 17th at 6:30pm at Harborsteps. Members of the T-Mobile devPartner Community Program team will be there to talk about how T-Mobile is making it easy for application developers to get their applications on deck with T-Mobile. T-Mobile's Product Development group will also be in attendance to talk about what they are doing in the area of disruptive devices.
Today a TransLink iPhone app was launched on the iTunes App Store, which was created by Vancouver's Handi Mobility. The app is near identical to the m.translink.ca web app launched last month, providing schedule information for any route or stop in the system, but it uses PhoneGap (a made in Vancouver, open source solution) to run locally on the device. This allows it to load faster than the web version, and also use phone hardware features like geolocation. Whereas the user previously had to enter a stop or route number, the app now suggests a list of stops closest to your current location.
On Translink's Buzzer Blog Handi's Igor Faletski talks about how reasonably priced data plans have enabled applications like this, and shares some stats.
Our company is focused on mobile internet and its applications. We were just waiting for the day that Vancouver could get affordable data rates so more people could access our services. Then the iPhone launched, had affordable rates, and provided a rich visual experience. Put together, we needed to make sure TransLink could get to that audience.
...
In terms of actual statistics, NextBus SMS serves up to 16,000 text messages a day. When we launched the iPhone portal, traffic to that application grew 300 percent in one month. There are more than 1000 users on it every day and the number keeps growing.
Translink is the first transit system in Canada to have produced it's own iPhone app, but other systems do have third party options. Over east in Toronto, riders of the TTC have the very attractive and functional Red Rocket. At only $1.99, it's the #2 paid app in the "navigation" category. For Montreal, there is the $0.99 STM Mobile with full schedule features but no geolocation.
McKesson, a Vancouver-based medical imaging company, took time at IMPACT, a BCTIA event held Thursday evening at the Vancouver Hyatt, to explain how they used innovation to redefine how medical professionals interact with imagery.
McKesson Engineering VP Warren Edwards explained how MRIs and other vital medical images can be compared to a shoebox full of snapshots, and to further the analogy, he said that what McKesson does with medical images is akin to what Google’s Picasa does to organize and manipulate the theoretical shoebox full of snapshots.
Medical imaging used to be dominated by large companies, but changes in technology have put new demands on the industry, For one, Edwards said, there’s an information overload produced by increasingly detailed images created by much more precise instruments, along with a dearth in specialists able to parse this information. It’s also a challenge for the health care sector to keep up with the pace of innovation in the workplace. Edwards compared today’s always-on teenagers to doctors and other medical professionals who have a very difficult time keeping in contact with their colleagues. The solution, Edwards said, is an IT approach, and McKesson is more of an IT company than just an imaging firm. Content management is the best way to approach the ever-increasing information flow of today’s health care sector, Edwards said.
But perhaps the biggest innovation McKesson has introduced is a multi-touch interface Edwards referred to as a “giant iPhone” called the Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS). In fact, PACS, which is a giant high-resolution touch sensitive screen, is also integrated into the iPhone itself, giving doctors and others the ability to share and access data anywhere. The large screen enables zooming, panning and scrolling through stacks of medical images, and lets medical workers add annotations. Intiuitvie hand motions allow the images and other data to be passed to mobile devices and promises more efficient case reviews, medical meetings and physician consultations.
Edwards pointed to 3D imaging as a technology that took time to gain traction in medicine, but is now expected. CAD imaging isn’t there yet, he said, but he expects institutional adoption to improve given time.
McKesson Corporation is the leading provider of supply, information and care management products and services designed to reduce costs and improve... [more]
As the largest and most influential association representing BC's technology industry, BC TIA is dedicated to fostering growth and development in... [more]
Professors might scoff at the herds of students wandering campus with those signature white iPod earbuds, but starting this semester at the University of British Columbia, those students may have been learning. This fall, UBC joined Apple's iTunes U program , wherein school content is made available for free download through their own section of the iTunes Store . Files can be restricted to enrolled students-only, but the majority is available free to all.
"If you are a student, you probably don't know how to find UBC web content because it's spread across university websites... We know students use iTunes, so this collects what UBC has and takes it to their environment," says Alfred Hermida, who helped to pioneer the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) news website as a journalist before joining UBC in 2006.
Other Canadian institutions doing the same include the University of Western Ontario, the Banff Centre, Queen's University, and Université de Montréal. UWO also started this semester and doesn't have any lecture content up, but has used it for other content like convocation addresses, school news, and recordings of student council meetings. Pacific Northwest schools on iTunes U include the University of Portland, Pacific University, and Seattle Pacific University. In total, over 75,000 audio and video files are hosted on iTunes U from 150+ institutions in the US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the UK.
It's great to see schools embracing new technologies, and that they can be presented in a way that's accessible to both instructor and student. Students get learning materials through the media player that they probably already have installed. Instructors are given an easy platform on which to host their content; UBC's page provides basic audio recording and editing instructions using free software. And everyone gets the benefit of all the free educational content available through iTunes U.
