Last year I had the opportunity to give a speech at the User Experience Conference in Lugano.

The User Conference Conference is an event produced by Luca Mascaro and the great guys at Sketchin. It is definitely a fantastic event if you are into User Experience.

If you are not into User Experience that conference will then be even more valuable to you, and I will tell you why.

If you know me you know that I have a very technical background even if in the last five years I have been running the product development team in H3G, an Italian mobile network operator. I can tell you that in the early stage of my profession, back in 1991, I was pretty much sure that everything was sitting in bit and bytes of products and services.

I always thought at industrial design and user experience as fancy stuff.

I have changed my mind.

Technology is there to work. It's only a matter of availability, time and resources.

User Experience it's not. It's a mix of art and science and I think it is where the real core of the product or service is. It is the most crtitical element for success and not taking it in deep consideration will lead you to failure.

User Experience Conference will take place also in 2010. October 9th is the date. Save it!

I have been lucky enough to be invited to give another speech.

The title of my speech will be "Corporate User Experience. Mind the gap!".

I have been working for large companies during all of my professional life and in the presentation I will show which are the pitfalls in which a large company may fall during the release of a new product or service. You may put a lot of attention to build a perfect User Experience but in large corporate environments that is not enough.

Processes, procedures, systems are so many and with so many different rules that you are forced to take in account all the service delivery chain in order to deliver to your customers a compelling product or service. User Experience is tough, but corporate environment is tougher.

This is the reason why I think you will need to educate your company and your senior managers. You will have to make them understand what User Experience is and why it is so important to be successfull.

I think that in this are the iPhone has been of great help. Tipically in any large company each senior manager will have an iPhone and using it they will have learnt what a great user experience is. Well, at least if they will hold their phone in the proper way.

That may be a great starting point to promote the culture of User Experience in your company.

Hey, you don't really want to have all of the speech in here…

Grab your seat at the User Experience Conference here and listen to all of the other great speakers that will be there. 

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The recent article “Amazon invites developers to come up with Apps for Kindle” led me to some more considerations on the rumored Apple tablet.

Let’s start with a quick recap of what Amazon announced last Thursday:

The Kindle Development Kit enables developers to build active content that leverages Kindle’s unique combination of seamless and invisible 3G wireless delivery over Amazon Whispernet, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, and long battery life of seven days with wireless activated. For example, Handmark is building an active Zagat guide featuring their trusted ratings, reviews and more for restaurants in cities around the world, and Sonic Boom is building word games and puzzles.

…

Starting next month, participants in the limited beta will be able to download the Kindle Development Kit, access developer support, test content on Kindle, and submit finished content. Those wait-listed will be invited to participate as space becomes available. The Kindle Development Kit includes sample code, documentation, and the Kindle Simulator, which helps developers build and test their content by simulating the 6-inch Kindle and 9.7-inch Kindle DX on Mac, PC, and Linux desktops.

[via Amazon press release]

This is what almost every single Kindle owner was expecting and it really opens up a world of possibilities for the Kindle.

Going through the press release I think that a few questions arise naturally:

• Who is going to pay for all of the data traffic generated by applications over the 3G network? As of today the traffic generated by the kindle itself may be considered quite low, but when you start playing with great applications the game changes dramatically. From what I have read on the web it seems that an application may not consume more that 100 Kbytes of data per month and that any additional Mbyte will be charged to the developer at 15 cent USD (?!?). More details on that here.
• There will be an application store? We may assume it will be the Amazon Store.
• Will third party application be allowed to charge the customers for additional services as it happen with the Apple in app purchase?
• If the developer will be allowed to sell it’s application which will be the revenue share model?

If you look at these questions you can easily understand that the answer to these question will define the success of the initiative for Amazon and have already made the success of Apple.

It is quite clear that with these questions on the table the Amazon Kindle SDK is no threat at all to Apple iPhone or whatever Apple will come up with in the next few weeks.

We may also want to consider this SDK announcement from a different perspective. When we hear about a new mobile SDK release we all think to the Apple announcement. We will all be able to create cool applications on a neat device. Maybe what Amazon is trying to do here is to open up the Kindle to a very specific set of applications that will be able to leverage the Kindle peculiarities: e-ink display, battery life, fantastic readability, etc. If you question me about what kind of applications these would be, well, I have no answers right now.

What Amazon has done has also much deeper implications.

While I was visiting CES in Las Vegas I have seen dozens of eBook readers. From the very last Chinese manufacturer to the most important hardware manufacture. I may have be missing something but from none of them I heard the word SDK.

This basically means that the battlefield for eBook readers has rapidly changed. The eBook need to be able to read books but it MUST be open to applications. We are shifting the product to a different use bringing it closer to a tablet device.

Once again Apple has pushed a shift in the industry and Amazon has acknowledged the fact that in order to survive to the upcoming “whatever tablet from Apple” they need to create a complete ecosystem around their product.

With this recent announcements Amazon has started to create an ecosystem and that’s fine. If we compare that ecosystem with Apple we can notice that there are at least two critical elements missing: retail stores and the customer experience in the retail store.

Let’s try another approach and look at Google. They already had a great ecosystem in the cloud but they were missing the hardware. Now they lined up the Nexus 1 mobile phone and they are going to play a very similar game Apple and Amazon will play, or are playing now.

Same is doing Microsoft, even if not directly but with partnerships.

The technology is now there, and it’s going to be cheaper and cheaper (apart from Apple, but that’s a different story). The ecosystems have to be built and not each ecosystem may prove to be stable enough in the long run, but it is now clear that the war is no more on how cool your product is but on how you will be able to attract developers, providing customers with great product and services and making them feel home when they use your device.

The battlefield in now in the User Experience and in the Developers Community.

User Experience. I am convinced that this is the most important thing you should look at while designing your product. As I said, technology is there, but Eser Experience is not there for most vendors out there.

Developers Community. Everybody in the industry will be trying to attract developers on their side. The are lot of one man band out there that develop great and cool products and you want those guys to be on your side in this battle. How do you attract them?

In the first place you may want to make your SDKs as cool and simple as possible. Provide them with all the tools they need: IDEs, emulators, whatever will make the developer life easy. Then try to offer a decent way to market their product in your Application Store, and, finally, show them the money.

A good question to answer would be: what role will have mobile telecommunications operators?

I have my opinion on this, but this will come in another post.

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Sometimes I happen to miss something relevant.

This is a fantastic concept and application. Something I would like to investigate for the future of mobile applications.

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This is one of the most interesting things I have seen recently. The video says it all.

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Yesterday Toshiba announced their TG01 product, a WindowsMobile 6.1 smartphone.

Toshiba TG01

Let’s have a look at the basic specs:

• 4.1 inches WVGA touchscreen color display
• GSM, HSDPA, WiFi, GPS
• MicroSDHC slot up to 32Gb
• 720p HD Video Playback

Fine, you will say, why are you so excited about this?

Well, the answer is: I definitely think that something is going to change in the mobile market after the release of this device.

The first thing, and the most important thing, is that this device is based on the new Snapdragon QSD2850 chipset from Qualcomm.

I have been working very closely with Qualcomm in the past years, they provide us with the chipsets for most of our local projects, and I have always been impressed by these guys. They have a vision and they can definitely execute on promise.

I first heard about Snapdragon about 15 months ago and I was impressed by the vision that Qualcomm had on the subject and by the power of the chipset itself. The basic idea behing Snapdragon is to build a new and efficient processor core with best of class 3G connectivity.

It is interesting to quote what Qualcomm writes on their website about Snapdragon:

Combine a 1GHz processor core, our sixth generation DSP and 3G connectivity with ultra-low power consumption to create new mobile devices with the performance to revolutionize the world of mobile computing. The Qualcomm Snapdragon platform empowers a new generation of Pocketable Computing Devices (PCDs) and Mobile Computing Devices (MCDs) that deliver real-time ubiquitous communication, high performance multimedia, location-aware content, full Internet browsing and productivity applications, all with the lowest levels of power consumption for all-day battery life.

When you deal with Qualcomm you know that this is not only marketing stuff. They are talking about real products.

Let’s have a look at the Snapdragon specs:

• 1GHz CPU
• 600MHz DSP
• Support for Linux® and Windows Mobile®
• WWAN, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Seventh-generation gpsOne® engine for Standalone-GPS and Assisted-GPS modes, as well as gpsOneXTRA™ Assistance
• High definition video decode (720P)
• 3D graphics with up to 22M triangles/sec and 133M 3D pixels/sec
• High resolution XGA display support
• 12-megapixel camera
• Support for multiple video codecs
• Audio codecs: (AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711 , AAC stereo encode)
• Support for Broadcast TV (MediaFLO™, DVB-H and ISDB-T)
• Fully tested, highly-integrated solution including baseband, software, RF, PMIC, Bluetooth, Broadcast & Wi-Fi

They are definitely impressive.

You will probably say that this specs are not much different from any Intel Atom processor on the market.

That is true but there are a few things that make Snapdragon absolutely stunning:

• Snapdragon has 3G, HSDPA and WiFi connectivity on board.
• A-GPS is part of the core.
• Broadcast TV Support.
• A high efficiency DSP processor in the core.
• Support for up to XGA display
• An extremely low power consumption

This kind of approach paves the way for smaller devices since device manufacturer will not have the need to put on the board additional chips for advanced functionality. Almost everything you can dream as a customer is already in there.

As a direct consequence, price will be lower since the BOM will have less components.

The low power consumption will, finally, make these kind of devices really usable for more than a day. I had the opportunity to see a demo of the chipset and, even if I cannot disclose the real data, I can say that it really consumes a lot less compared to its nearest competitors.

Less power also means less heat to dissipate. This will lead to better electronic design and, finally, more usable devices.

During the demo I saw we had this reference design playing a high definition 720p video. I was asked to put my finger on the Snapdragon chipset. Well, if you ever tried to do that on a standard microprocessor you can rest sure that you will have left your fingerprint on the chip due to heat. Snapdragon was only warm and not hot at all.

Kudos to both Toshiba and Qualcomm.

In the recent past I had some concerns about Mobile Internet Devices or Pocketable Computing Devices as Qualcomm calls them. I was thinking that they were too close to a mobile phone and too far from a netbook to be successfull.
I have changed my mind. With this new kind of architecture you may really bring the power of a netbook in the form factor of a mobile phone.

As of today the Snapdragon chipset will support Windows Mobile and Linux even if Qualcomm already announced that will have also Android on the list of supported Operating Systems.

Sure, if the Toshiba TG01 was an Android smartphone that would have been perfect. We will wait and see.

One last word on the TG01. As you have read it is a Windows Mobile 6.1 device. On top of the standard Windows Mobile UI Toshiba has developed their own UI just like we have seen on HTC devices. This is a great choice but, gain, I think it is time for Microsoft to provide its OEMs with something more appealing.

Finally I would say that this is the first real competitor to the Apple iPhone.. if it only was Android…

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A few months ago I was intrigued by the concept of spime.

What is a spime?

In simple words a spime is an object that is aware of his position, is able to collect data from the physical world (e.g. CO2 level, noise, etc), has some sort of memory to store read data, and communication capabilities to send the data stored.

On the other side there should be an infrastructure capable of retrieving all the data collected by spimes, store it and make it available to anyone who is concerned.

If we think at the definition of spime it is quite easy to think at our mobile phones as potential spimes candidates. Most of them are able to gather location data through their GPS sensor, they have memory to store data and they can communicate with the internet through their packet switch connection.
As you can see there is only one element missing in the picture:sensors. What kind of data is a standard mobile phone able to collect from the environment?

Well, there is one obvious answer: noise! All of our mobile phone have a microphone and they are able to capture sounds from the environment and sample them to convert from analog to digital. Some mobile phones, like the iPhone, allow the developer to have a little bit more information. On the iPhone you can measure the level of the sound coming from the microphone. May applications use this kind of technology: Ocarina, just to say one.

It seems that an iPhone may become a perfect spime.

There comes the idea of Widenoise. Widenoise is an iPhone applications that samples the noise around you, gather your location and let you send the collected sample to the cloud. At the very same time it is able to show you a map of your area and display other collected data, if there is one.

So your iPhone has become actually a spime and, at the very same time, it is a consumer of data collected by other spimes. In some way you are making noise a social thing.

I definitely think this is one of the most innovative applications I have see on the iPhone and I had no problem at all giving the guys at www.widetag.com the 1.99 USD they charge for the application. The application has also a fantastic look and feel for the price.

Again, the mobile phone may be the perfect spime, but with limitations. Its capablity of collecting informations from the physical world is very limited. Noise, as we have seen is a great examples, speed may be another one in particular situation. Unfortunately you are not able to measure the levels of CO2, or temperature, or level of rain. It is quite possible that in the future may emerge from the market devices with these capabilities.

I would like to make some additional considerations.

I think that the concept of spime is definitely social and based on collaboration from entities the are not coupled. You sample the physical world and send the data back to the cloud using your own device and resources. Well, this is, at least, what happens with Widenoise.

We have seen that the mobile phone may be the perfect spime but it is missing the hardware to gather data from the physical world.

I can imagine sensors deployed in the physical world with some sort of short range communications capability (e.g. bluetooth). When a mobile phone comes in range the sensor may ask the phone to couple with him to be a temporary spime, offering the sensor GPS location data, storage and communication. As a user I would be happy to offer my device and a few cents of my phone bill to allow the data to be collect and sent.

You may find some more informations on the subject here:

• Widenoise. The official web site.
• Widetag, Inc.. The first company that makes of the Internet of things their core business. I had the opportunity to meet with some of the founders in the past and they are all brilliant guys.
• The post from Leandro Agro’, one of the founders of Widetag, on the release of Widenoise.
• OpenSpime.com and OpenSpime.org

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NFC, Near Field Communication is not new technology since it has been around since early 2000.

Tikitag

Since today it has never been used in the consumer space apart from some niche applications.

Yesterday Alcatel-Lucent announced Tikitag. The main idea is to create a link between the on-line world with the off-line world with a simple and pragmatic approach.

Tikitag will provide you with a small NFC reader that can be connected to a Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X personal computer and a set on NFC tags that can be placed in the real word and interact with the NFC reader itself or NFC enabled mobile phones.

Alcatel-Lucent will also provide an open application platform with a set of API around which you will be able to build you own NFC enabled application.

I definitely think this is a fantastic idea and a perfect example of innovation. The technology was already there from ages but Alcatel-Lucent repackaged and rethinked the use and the approach to the market in a more simple and innovative way. The main idea is to set things open. They will provide you with hardware, software and a platform and customer will use those enabling technologies to build application from their own.

Fantastic!

Tikitag is now in private alpha but they plan to enter a beta phase starting October 1st. I definitely think I will give it a try.

I stronlgy suggest that you visit the Tikitag web site. You will be able to register to the site and have a look around the main idea coming from other people and you will be able to find great ideas and contribute if you will.

I remember that Nabaztag has an NFC reader but as of today Violet has never enabled that feature on their rabbits.

I love this kind of approach. Spending as little as 50 US dollar you will get an NFC reader and 10 tags and Tikitag will also offer packaged of 25 NFC tags for purchase. With a very small investment you will be able to play with an amazing technology.

Well, to be honest, Riccardo and myself built something similar when we were both working in the Innovation team here in H3G a couple of years ago. Unfortunately at that time the price tag was much higher but we were there!

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On September 1st Google annouced the forthcoming release of Google Chrome, an open source web browser that is going to compete in an already overpopulated market.

Google Chrome Comic Book

Apart from the considerations about this move from Google that has been already deeply discussed on the web, I was amused by a collateral initiative launched by Google to promote their product.

They had the idea to release a comic book describing the main features of their browser where they describe how a common browser works and how their browser is going to be different, faster and more efficient and secure.

I cannot remind any other company doing that before, and I think this is definitely an innovative way to promote a product.

I had a look at the comic and I have to say that you do not need to be a software geek to understand it.

This is another demonstations that innovation is led by education and communication. One caveat: we will have to check out his browser before saying that it is something really innovative.

You can find the original announcement from Google by clicking on this link and the comic book at this link.

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In the past I had the opportunity to meet both Leandro and David and I was impressed by their new inititative, OpenSpime.

Have a look at their video!

Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to meet Roberto Ostinelli who is part of the team. Hope I will be able to meet him in the future.

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In the past we have written about what we think should be the perfect GPS device to be placed in your car.

The usual GPS that you find in your car today has pre loaded maps on it, possibly sitting on a memory card, a big screen, crystal clear voice that helps you during your navigation. When you jump in your car you will have to tell your device where you want to go, which preferences it has to take in account while determining the perfect path to reach your destination and then you are ready to go. From that point on the device simply execute the task it has been assigned. Only if you interact with it you have the option to change options or modify the route the device has calculated.

The main issue is that the device that is in your car is not connected to anything apart from the power supply and your eyes and ears.

GPS is becoming a commodity also on mobile phones. Unfortunately most of them do not have best of class navigation application, they typically have small screens, they do not have any touch interface, the volume of the loudspeaker is sometimes not enogh. When you jump in your car you simply perform the very same tasks you do with dedicated GPS navigation systems. To be honest a few exceptions exists, just like WayFinder.

The good thing is that your mobile phone is connected to the world via its data connection.

The idea to merge the best of these two worlds is a great idea.

GPS Dash is one of the first devices that approach this new concept.

From an hardware standpoint this device is pretty amazing:

• 480×272 WQVGA TFT Touchscreen LCD
• Sirf StarIII GPS Receiver
• GPRS data connection
• WiFi

I read somewhere that the platform is built using the OpenMoko platform and this is really interesting.

From the software side we start to see very nice stuff:

• The device implements what is called “TruTraffic”. Basically the idea is that while operating your device it will send anonymous data to a server to track real time information about the route and that data is used to signal other devices in your area about changes in traffic status. This will create a sort of collaborative network of devices that will increase the accuracy of the predicted time to reach your destination but, at the very same time, will make the device able to reroute you if there is heavy traffic ahead. This is definitely the best feature I have seen in this device.
• You have pre loaded maps on the device but they will automatically update over GPRS or WiFi when available.
• Since the device is connected to the internet you will find Yahoo! Search. This will be a great source of never out of data POI data for your navigation.
• Send2Car. This is another great feature. You can plan your trip from your PC and then send it directly to your device while it is sitting in our car. Fantastic. I can also see some business use of this device.
• Theft Deterrent. Great! Your device will be remotely disabled if stolen.

As you can see this is something that is going to change the approach to GPS navigation in the future.

Obviously there are some things that need to happen before the device will be really useful.

First of all you will need to have a big enough number of devices around you before you will get valuable data for your navigation. I think this is the reason why they guys at Dash Navigation Inc. are using traffic data coming from the internet.

You may also experience data communication interruption as you drive even if the presence of both GPRS and WiFi should mitigate this a little bit.

The device is going to cost 399,00 USD to which you should add from 9.99 USD to 12.99 USD for the service.

This is definitely something I woud be willing to pay for.

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I have been a great fan of Second Life for a very long time. A few months ago I almost quitted since it was starting to become boring and quite repetitive.

Vollee Inc., a company with offices in the United States and Israel has anounced a Second Life viewer for Symbian enabled mobile phones. This is not really new to the industry, since I remember Comverse doing the very same announcement last year, showing me a demo but never relasing the product to the general public.

For those of you who do not know how the Second Life Viewer works I can tell you that it quite a huge piece of software. By no mean at all it can be ported as is to a mobile phone, no matter how good you are. Simply there is not enough processing power, memory and graphics capabilities on current generation of handsets.

The approach that Vollee used is quite different.

Apparently the real viewer is running somewhere in the Vollee servers cloud and they basically stream the viewer window to your mobile phone. A little bit more complicated that that, actually. The mobile client will also take care of you interaction with the virtual world and will transmit your commands to the remote viewer. At the very same time the mobile client will take of Second Life messaging for both Live Chat and Instant Messaging.

The Vollee client will also let you search as you would in the real Second Life viewer and teleport to whatever location you want.

I have been playing with that for quite a long time and I have to say that the User Experience is really good. Honestly I was not thinking that this was possible.

On the downside you may find that a mobile phone display is a little too small and that messaging through the mobile phone keyboard is a little bit tricky.

You may also want to notice that this is really a data intensive application and I strongly suggest to stay away from it if you do not have a flat data plan.

I think we all aknwoledge that the hype around Second Life is no more as big as a few months ago but this can be an interesting concept that should be further investigated for different use cases.

Vollee is actually going to sell PC video games experience on mobile phones using the very same technology the have usend for this mobile Second Life viewer. This will bring a real PC gaming experience to mobile phones. Sure, you will need to have a high speed data connection (UMTS or, better, HSPA), a low latency on your network and good enough phone to support the even light clients but I think it is an interesting approach.

It seems that the idea of virtualizing the mobile phone is starting to rise in the industry. Well, I know, virtualization is not really the right term to use here but it is something really similar.

If we consider this from an economic standpoint we may notice that hardware costs is going down quickly on the server side while on mobile phone it tends to be higher when you increase processing power, memory and ghapics processing. Prices in mobile phone will not go down as fast as they go on the server industry.

This is why it may a good idea to let the server to do the dirty processing job and let mobiles enjoy the full application via a simple, lightweight client.

The biggest limitation I see in that is that you will have your applications available only when you will be under high speed coverage.

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Wine making is one of the finest art in the world. Even if technological revolution has reached also this segment of the market the principles of wine making have been the same for centuries.

Italy has always played a huge role in this market and it seems that the Caporali family in Tuscany has found a great way to innovate and promote their products.

The “Tenuta Valdipiatta” estate is sitting in the municipality of Montepulciano, a very well known area for the quality of the vineyards it holds. I think that everyone of us has always dreamed about quitting his day job and start producing good wine in Tuscany.

Anyway, producing a great wine is not an easy job.

The Caporali family will allow you to produce your own wine by adopting a wine barrel or, better, a barrique.

Using this approach everybody could produce his own wine without having to go through all of the hurdles. You will not have to get an estate and vineyard (expensive), you will not need a license from the Italian government (frustrating), but you will have all of the options to influence the final product.

The process that the Caporali’s family has designed will lead the customer along all of the steps need to build a great wine. You will select your wine barrel through barrel tasting. After you will have selected your own barrel the team will guide you to the creation of your own blend for your wine by mixing the fruits coming from the vineyards. When you will have found your perfect combination, the selection will be put in your barrel and left there for a period varying from 12 to 18 months.

When the bottling time will come you will choose the bottle, the label and the final packaging.

Unfortunately there is no indication about pricing but you can rest sure that they will answer all of your questions.

The bad news is that they have currently too many requests to cope with and it seems they are not accepting new ones.

Don’t forget that the vineyards in the municipality of Montepulciano are one of the best in the world.

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Mobile phones equipped with high quality cameras are getting very popular and affordable in the last few years. It is not uncommon to find 5 megapixels cameras able to produce high quality pictures and videos.

If in the past it was hard for journalist to produce content while on the move without the support of professional equipment and staff now they have the option to capture important events live using their mobile phone. And you can, too.

Last October, Reuters teamed up with Nokia and ComVu to produce a “Mobile Journalism Toolkit”. That was a combination of hardware and software both on the mobile phone and on the Reuters content ingestion infrastructure that allowed Reuters journalists to file new reports while on the move.

The packaged designed for Mobile Journalists was made of :

• Nokia N95 Mobile Handset.
• Nokia SU-8W bluetooth foldable keyboard.
• A basic tripod to hold the mobile phone.
• A Sony microphone.
• Power Monkeys with a solar charger.

The content of the package is quite interesting. First of all a Nokia N95 has been selected. Very good camera on board, plenty of memory, especially on the 8Gb version, and, most important of all, HSDPA data connection. The original press release does not talk about high speed data but I think this is critical for the success of these kind of application/services.

Reuters provided also a wireless foldable keyboard. Another good indication. Probably the text input system of the mobile phone is not fast enough for reporters on the move or, another option, reporters feels more comfortable with a computer like keyboard.

Power Monkeys with a solar charger. Nice handset, nice accessories and the need for a big amount of power to get the things running smoothly.

Another interesting point about the application sitting on the mobile phone was that it was collecting metadata while the journalist was doing his job. The Nokia N95 GPS was collecting informations about location while tagging the videos/pictures/text with the correct date and time in a transparent way to the user.

Here is an important quote from the Reuters Press Release:

Timo Koskinen, project manager with Nokia Research Center, said:”The term ‘citizen journalism’ has been in use for several years, but technological innovations – particularly the introduction of mobile multimedia computers – have transformed the concept. ‘Citizen journalism’ is beginning to embrace a wide range of public engagement with the media, from groups of contributors organized around subject or geographic areas to the casual participation of observers who are lucky – or unlucky – enough to be at the scene of a newsworthy event.”

Reuters built a dedicated web site for the reports coming from the journalist equipped with this.

You can have a look by looking here.

I still did not make my mind up on this last point. From one side it was a simple way to promote this trial giving it a dedicated area in the company portal but on the other side we may think that it was not enough to get into the mainstream flow on news.

Anyway, a brilliant idea.

References:

Reuters Press Release.

The Mobile Journalism Toolkit content. 

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I remember when in 2002 I bought a Palm IIIx device during a visit in the US.

One of the most fascinating thing at that time was the possibility to beam my contact details to other Palm user by simply aiming at the other device. That was the birth of the digital exchange of business cards.

Later the very same technology come to mobile phones using IrDA, Bluetooth or SMS.

Now it seems that this will be made possible by simply shaking hands when you first meet your party.

Hideaki Matsui, a New York and Tokyo-based designed, has released a smart concept, the Information Ring.

All you will is a ring. When you will meet your party and shake hands informations will be exchanged between the two rings. The more hands you shake the more informations will be collected.

At a later stage you will be able to look at the data that your ring has collected over time by simply putting the ring on a special credit card sized device that will display the data stored.

I am always more attracted by this kind of interaction between the digital and physical world. Common use objects, like rings, are brought to life and gain new functionality.

Just to add another bit to this great idea you should note that when the ring is placed in the card it functions like a controller to scroll the data inside the ring. This will change the function of the ring another time giving it another new life.

How cool is that?

Going through the comments in the Yanko Design post on the subject I noticed that a very similar project was developed by the Media Lab Europe under the name of iBrand.

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