Google Android (will attempt) Translation

Posted February 8th, 2010 by Luke in Applications Mobile Phones and Society Gphone (Google Phone)

Brace yourself for shoals of Babel fish references and a galaxy of Universal Translator callouts, as Google announce that they’re only years away from equipping Android phones with voice-translation software.  Unfortunately the incredible optimism with which most services are reporting on this is unfounded, but it’ll still be a useful tool.

Google Translate is already online, a service converting phrases and websites between languages - and whose results range from “missing the point” to “absolutely hilarious.”  It’s simply not possible for a machine to include all the nuances and slang in any translation, and won’t be until computers are so sophisticated we have to persuade them to work for us.  To say that (almost) real-time voice translation by 2015 is a little fanciful, is to say that saving the environment by taking the Unicorn to work is a little unlikely.

But it’ll still be a fantastic service.  While we won’t be discussing international philosophies on the phone, a crude but universal translation service will become essential for travellers.  As long as your target is patient or willing to work a little to understand (and most cashiers/ticket agents/police officers are paid to do those things) a handy pocket “MAKE WORDS LANGUAGE CLEAR HELP” will be useful.  But be warned it’ll sound almost exactly like that quote to the person listening.

Mobile Phones Become Mobile Wallets

Posted February 5th, 2010 by Luke in Mobile Phones and Society

For many, the mobile phone is the core of communication - why not add the bank and shops to your contacts?  New technology can convert your phone into a credit card for cashless payment, at least if you live in Singapore.  The Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS) has just launched iNets - the third phone-cash service in the city after DBS’s AXS and Singpost’s SAMs.

The critical aspect for any cashless service launch is convincing companies to accept it right from the start - if people find they can’t spend with your system, they won’t.  Ever. iNets has secured an intelligent line-up of starting services, including Singapore Power utilities, Cathay Cineplex’s for entertainment, the United Overseas Bank, cable TV Starhub, and of course a phone service - SingTel.  The service courts new users by following the internet account model, with users able to personalise their logins instead of memorizing cryptic bank-issued codes - which might sound like a security risk, which it is, but no worse than with a credit card.

Meanwhile the West is slowly maybe thinking about perhaps doing it while missing the point entirely.  Services like San Diego’s “Fandango” are offering limited rollouts of a couple of cinemas, and you can only buy tickets or gift cards, and there’s a $1 “convenience fee” for daring to actually use a new system which saves the company from doing any work.  Or would, if they weren’t charging people extra for it.  Silicon Valley analysts agree that there are immense obstacles to cashless payments, apparently unaware that other parts of the world have already gotten on with it.

For mobile phone fans it’s the same old story: things we’re maybe hoping to get someday, Asia already has in three different colours.

Why Read Maps When You Can Race Them?

Posted February 2nd, 2010 by Luke in Applications Nokia GPS Mobile Phone Gaming

Modern mapping technology has turned any trip from A to B into an exercise in “Obey the computer voice,” lessons we’ll deeply regret when the robot revolution comes.  Can’t we make navigating fun again?  Nokia can, with Ovi Maps Racing - a Micro Machines style game which builds high-velocity racetracks out of any GPS location.It’s an excellent idea - adapt real street information into an impromptu course, allowing infinite replay-ability (or work-based wish-fulfilment as you turn your daily commute into a high-speed time trial.)  It’s also a cunning way to train for a trip, turning your destination into the finish line for a game - play a few times and you’ll know the route (though the urge to accelerate might be a little strong.)

Virgin Target Parents

Posted February 1st, 2010 by Luke in Mobile Phones and Society

Virgin Media’s upcoming bundle will traumatise teenagers: they’re offering unlimited landline calls to mobile phones.  Of course both phones have to be Virgin, making this an “all-or-nothing” deal designed to take over your entire array of phones.While it’s advertised with all kinds of advantages, it’s obvious that this is meant to make money off worried mothers.  The most common combination of “has a landline” and “wants to call mobile phones really frequently” is worried parents, constantly checking up on their precious snowflake (while said snowflake has a phone of their own and is out late at an unknown location.)  But the first few conversations on the new connection could be strained by how the parent forced the kid to replace their phone with a Virgin model.

The deal will definitely attract concerned customers, and also lead to a surge in voice messages throughout the UK.  But, it doesn’t matter how cheaply or often a parent phones a child - they have caller ID, and it’s still up to them if they want to answer.

DaP Dumbass Devices

Posted January 29th, 2010 by Luke in Wacky News

Technology is responsible for everything good that ever happened.  Never mind the iPhone in your pocket, Michelangelo would never have had time to paint the Sistine Chapel if he’d had to hunt-and-gather his food every day, and without the advance of tools Mozart would have composed his concertos arranged for Grunt and Banging Rocks.

Unfortunately not every use of human ingenuity is really useful, ingenious, or - if you apply a lower intelligence limit to the species - even “human.”

1.  The Hermit Nap Station

The Hermit Nap Station allegedly allows you to nap anywhere you want: The maker’s under the misapprehension that the difficult part of sleeping in public is bothering to move a small amount of cloth over yourself.  As opposed to the literally millions of people you wouldn’t trust with unopposed access to your possessions and unconscious, unresisting body.  Add to this is the most useless alert lights since SUVs came with an “I don’t care about fuel-efficiency” LED indicator: red and green lights telling passers-by whether it’s okay to interrupt your sleep or not.  Assuming that they’re polite enough to listen, and that any light less powerful than a flesh-melting laser can be trusted as night-watchman.  And that you’re the sort of insane individual who’d curl up in a constructed cocoon in public but still be prepared to entertain visitors.

Tip:  When the project’s own camera is better focused on the young inventor than the actual equipment, it’s because even they know it’s garbage.  And I’m not sure if we’re meant to have noticed but the “shell” is a 50/50 mix of felt and gap.  It could only be a worse wrapping if it was made of hungry weevils. … continue reading "DaP Dumbass Devices"

Nokia Gesture Control?

Posted January 29th, 2010 by Luke in Nokia Concept Phones Mobile Technology

Mobile Phones Jammed For Kashmir Holiday

Posted January 26th, 2010 by Luke in Mobile Phones and Society

Indian officials continue to telephonically torment the residents of Jammu and Kashmir, because we all know the best way to settle a disputed territory is to treat every single person in it like terrorists.  We previously reported on the ban of mobile phones across the state, cutting ten million people off for “security purposes.”  Five days ago the ban was lifted, albeit under new sales regulations which treat phones like firearms, but officials yanked communications away again this morning by jamming all mobile phones networks across the state.  On India’s Republic Day. Imagine cutting off communications in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day, with triple the number of people, to get some sense of scale.

The Indo-Asian News Service was told “This has been done for security reasons.”  There were claims of terrorist plans targeting the celebrations, and authorities decided that the chance of maybe disrupting a professional cell’s communications for a minute was worth the certainty of disrupting everyone else who dared to come celebrate their country’s national holiday.  When two other nations (Pakistan and China) are permanently battling to take a state away from you, perhaps announcing that you consider everyone in it a criminal might not be the best PR tactic.

Amazing MacGuyvered Mobile Music

Posted January 26th, 2010 by Luke in Wacky News

1.  The Mobile Orchestra

Being trapped in a room with hundreds of ringing phones is a movie-goer’s idea of hell. Not a major hell, which would compete with the likes of the Scary Movies on infinite loop, but a minor hell - the sort you go to for owning “Epic Movie” or complaining how a film isn’t like the comic.  Despite this the Estonian “Mobile Symphony” makes haunting music with hundreds of old phones donated from around the country just by ringing them.  Special software allows a conductor’s MIDI keyboard to call the phones for short periods, triggering a range of ringtones and creating sounds which are simultaneously spooky and standard.

2.  The Mobile Mobile

Winning the award for “most awesomely embodied turn of phrase” is James Theophane’s “mobile mobile”, a musical hanging garden of obsolete phones.  When his company upgraded their handsets, James gave the old equipment new value - ‘upcycling’ instead of ‘recycling’ - by constructing an illuminated electronic acoustic contraption.  The hanging mobile mobile can be controlled in person or online via Twitter, setting off screens and sounds in a cellphone symphony.

3.  iPhone Guitar

It’s impossible to write anything without an iPhone infecting the article, but don’t worry, this isn’t one of those awful “you’ve gotta see this” apps your most boring friend breaks out at parties.  This is real hardware, integrating the iPhone’s touchscreen into an actual instrument.

At £180 a pop (and only fifty in production) it’s expensive, especially as it’s more ukulelian than acoustic, but you’ll beat the hell out of everyone in any silly “look what mine can do” smartphone competitions.

School Burns Banned Phones

Posted January 26th, 2010 by Luke in Wacky News Mobile Phones and Society

Mobile phones in schools are becoming a serious problem, with students accessing everything except education. This is why a Ghana school has come up with an effective solution: destroy them by fire.  The Kwanyako secondary school is planning to take 24 confiscated phones outside and immolate them in full public view.  For those expecting uproar, they have the full backing of the local parent teacher association.

Ghana Education Services forbid the use of cellphones on school grounds, but the punishment isn’t quite as clear cut as it appears.  Because it’s a boarding school many students use the phones in the evening, and while the headmaster complains that they do this at the expense of studying it’s not the same as interrupting class. Especially when you consider that there isn’t any other way for students to contact their families yet (with plans to install payphones having only just begun.)

Casting the communications devices to the flames still sends an extremely clear message - all we have to do is convince cinemas to use the same strategy.  Because, just as in Sun Tzu, one of the most effective strategies is fire.

Use Your Phone, It’s Doctor’s Orders

Posted January 22nd, 2010 by Luke in Health Mobile Phones and Society

Fife’s Queen Margaret Hospital is seeking a mobile phone solution to stop the spread of an infectious norovirus, and since the norovirus is also known as “the winter vomiting disease” you’ll agree that anything which slows it down is a good idea. Especially when the symptom list includes the word “projectile.”  The NHS has agreed to a temporary suspension of its usual “no mobile phones” rule in medical environments, allowing patients to call friends and family during visiting hours instead of having them come in person.

The upshot?  Mobile phones leaking into another aspect of life, and (like most modern technology) helping make things better.