For any photographer out there planning on taking wedding photos using sub standard equipment….word of advice…DON’T!
You might just end up having to defend yourself in front of a judge who evidently knows all about photography lingo – zoom, speed, f/stops & tripods.
readers….”where is your 28-70?” and “what happened to your 1 series?”
Judge Joe Brown knows Canon!
After much speculation and months of tit for tat verbal jostling between Google and the Chinese government it seems Google has finally pulled the plug and pulled out of China….well in a fuzzy way…
Google.cn no longer behaves as a search portal, rather the system directs you to Google.co.hk where interest results are uncensored. Sneaky!
About time I say. The INTERNET. A vessel for FREE SPEECH.
“Google’s page reads (translated) “Welcome to Google Search in China’s new home.” It seems pretty clear that Google is happy with shutting down its China-based domain in favor of Hong Kong. It’s also highly likely that Chinese officials will scramble to block uncensored results from Google.com.hk via its Great Firewall. Google says that it’s currently monitoring “access issues,” and that it has set up an App Status Dashboard to show what’s currently accessible in mainland China and what’s not.”
So far though triggering a search for “Tiananmen Square” yields unfiltered results.
So Google is finally walking the walk after talking the it’s tough talk….pulling out of the worlds fastest growing internet market is by no means an easy descion. I have a renewed and reenforced respect for this mighty company.
Go Google.
OK so it’s been a while since the announcement, but as I pointed out late last year in my previous post Firefox mobile has been released. Simply called Firefox mobile (not advertised as Fennec as previously thought) it’s an exciting announcement which include some great featured such as:
Weave Sync: allowing users to synchronize their browsing between their mobile and desktop browsers.
Awesome Bar: a very Australian name! a bar allowing users to trigger search and quick access to sites.
Location Aware Browsing: users get location based results
Pop Up Blocker: as the name implies
Add-ons: now this is real awesome! allowing for the same great add on feature as we have become used to with desktop variant.
Currently it’s only available on the Nokia Maemo platform…below is the official release video:
Head over to the official site for more info.
Well done Mozilla…now bring this baby over to the Android.
This is a short post to share an interesting visit to a Lomography store located in Soho, London during the weekend.
Lomography in short is all about quirky, over saturated, over developed, mono, underexposed, cinematic, blurry, happy, co-incidental and natural photos.
WHAT!
Yep…it’s all of those things and more – most people will be familiar with the style of photography but may not connect it to the actual name. Here are some examples….
Now if your really serious you can get a film camera from the lomography website. My suggestion, ditch that and get some software to help you breath some life into some of your old boring photos. Check out CameraBag from NeverCenter.com. These guys produce some fairly cheap software which allow you to select from a number of different filters and apply them to your photo. I ran some of mine and the results IMO were fairly impressive….I’d like to stack these into a great big wall!
The Ford Motor Company has announced an increase in-car mobile internet services during CES 2010. With partnerships already in place with map supplier Mapquest, Internet radio provider Pandora, micro-blogging service Twitter and audio news service Stitcher this comes are no surprise. However whats really interesting is the announcement by Chief Executive Alan Mulally about a potential deal with Google.
Whilst’s details of any potential partnership were sketchy it has been reported to involve the use of Googles Android operating system and Fords ‘Sync’ service -already rolled out in it’s vehicle lineup. According to the LA Times, the lineup of Sync services cars are selling at twice the rate of those without.
It’s highly likely that Ford will introduce an Apple App Store type model where by developers could create car specific applications for use on it’s Sync platform. The opportunities are extreamly high. Imagine receiving driving instructions based on real time mashups of road demand, accidents & weather info…nice.
Now all said and done, the added services could actual pose a distraction to drivers in some circumstances, but Ford have introduced and progressively introducing safe guards such as voice commands rather then physical input and the disabling of WiFi whilst the car is out of ‘Park’ to stop drivers surfing the net.
Mobile internet services are not completely new to the Auto Industry. For instance, Fiat uses a systems called Blue&Me whilst, General Motors have a system called OnStar. Fords foray into this area means this behemoth of a player brings significant weight into the ever expanding mobile internet services space. With increases consumer awareness, larger developer interest, falling access costs and increasing speeds…they look likely to pull off a successful venture.
Mobile Internet. Only Up
A recent IDC study projects the number of mobile devices connected to the Internet will exceed 1 billion by 2013. That’s more then a doubling of users when you consider this year approximately 450 million users were connected to the Internet using their devices.
Search, news, weather, applications, email & chat are just come of the uses for the exploding consumer demand for mobile Internet and mobile Internet capable devices. These devices are far exceeded simple calling capabilities – now they are dynamic devices with virtually limitless options thanks mostly to the mobile broadband and it’s ever increasing speed & options.
In addition to driving e-commerce growth and increased business applications over mobile devices, the Internet and mobile technology is delivering life-enhancing advances worldwide. According to a World Bank report, the number of Internet users in developing countries increased tenfold between 2000 and 2007, and three billion mobile phone users live in these nations. This increased Internet accessibility is delivering significant economic opportunities and health benefits for millions of people.
The uptake of mobile Internet and mobile capable devices is largely fueled by developing nations where fixed line infrastructure is still lagging behind it’s wireless counterpart. Countries such as those in Africa, India and the Middle East already have larger mobile Internet users then desktop Internet users.
As the Internet expands it’s reach amongst more regions, channels, devices and standard more and more of the worlds populations will rely on it for everyday needs. Local and global economies will see this new catalyst emerge in the coming years. The doors are wide open…people around the world will embrace the world of mobile Internet devices.
Fennec Fox...release imminent?
Fennec the mobile internet browser from Mozilla has been announced for release before the end of the year. The beta versions of Fennec have been around on the Nokia N800 phones for a while so this announcement comes as no surprise….about time I say.
Whats really interesting is it’s possible impact to the world of Android. No doubt we will never see a iPhone version but the Android market place may just have a new hot download early in 2010.
The browser has been in development for over 18 months so we can expect some special features. Some things to look out for include:
Here is a link to a more comprehensive feature list.
If Fennec is to really success in the mobile space then it must overtake Opera which is the industry most popular browser….no it’s not Safari mobile. With the release of Opera Mini 5.0, 2010 may possibly shape up to be a year of the mobile browser wars.
twiddling thumbs in anticipation……
Mobile Internet > PC Web...growth predictions
More users will access the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within five years, according to recent report from Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker, she was one of the analysts who predicted the original Internet boom…OK so that wasn’t too hard to do. However, kudos where it’s deserved. She states that “The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did,”
Smartphones, e-book readers, connected in-car electronics and wireless home appliances like gaming consoles would sell more than 10 billion units by 2020. That’s ten times more devices than there are desktop PCs.
Meeker believes that the mobile Internet revolution will produce a new crop of winners, whose ranks won’t include today’s giants. Microsoft, Cisco and Intel who benefited from proliferation of PCs. Desktop Internet computing lead to the birth of Google, eBay, Yahoo and the likes. Mobile Internet computing winners however, are yet to be defined, she writes. “It’s notable that, after years in the backwaters of global mobile development, American companies (led by Apple, Facebook, Amazon.com and Google) are becoming mobile Internet innovation pacesetters,” according to the report.
Some very interesting takes:
“The mobile Internet cycle, the 5th cycle in 50 years, is just starting. Winners in each cycle often create more market capitalization than in the last. New winners emerge, some incumbents survive – or thrive – while many past winners falter.” Woot! Disruptive innovation by way of a new channel will always foster new and exciting developments.
Australia to Censor The Internet
Australia has just announced that it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the Internet after Government commissioned trials found that the filtering and blacklisting of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the Internet.
Why on earth would a western nation impose strict Internet filters? Possibly one of 2 reason…actually I’m sure it’s both.
Sure I get it, we need to protect minors from harmful material such as child pornography…that’s clearly obvious. But these things have already been implemented by the Internets biggest players. All major search engines exclude such content from their indexes. Further, home PC software and browsers have built in features to prevent such explicit material being accessed in the first place.
The Australian government by moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime has opened up the ability for them to go beyond such material and censor content which would otherwise be useful. This has to raise concerns to all Internet community members not just in Australia but from around the world.
What Australian politician have demonstrated here is their inability to think beyond the horizon and consider what such a move will mean in future. We will be restricting access to socially and politically controversial material on the Internet….so What? The Internet was designed for this. Take for example, information on how to overcome drug addition, euthanasia, access to gay and lesbian rights…controversial yes, should be restricted?..NO!
A pole run by the Sydney Morning Herald had over 20,000 respondents. 96% disapprove of the proposed changes. Hardly a surprise.
Tonight something bizaar happened!
I thought less of my personal iPhone. “The Phone” as I usually referring to it with it’s amazing styling, ease of use, consolidated iPod and cool factor – actually felt old, used and of “yesterdays phone”. I can only explain this feeling by 2 factors.
1./ the google phone was announced
2./ I used my first android phone