http://driveactivated.com/blog/default.aspxThe name&#39;s Sam, and this is my shameless self-promoting (sometimes deprecating) attention-seeking (time-wasting) machine.enCommunityServer 2007.1 (Build: 21119.1142)http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43794899Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:58:09 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/123243916841">Alcopops tax opponents can go jump: Swan - Yahoo!7 News</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/08/7d42/3386c49b/206aeb318768061fb5_5.jpg"/><p>“The distilled liquor industry has been told to “go jump” by federal Treasurer Wayne Swan after it suggested the government’s controversial alcopops tax was not tackling binge drinking.”</p> <p>The dirty…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43794899Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:58:09 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/123243916841">Alcopops tax opponents can go jump: Swan - Yahoo!7 News</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/08/7d42/3386c49b/206aeb318768061fb5_5.jpg"/><p>“The distilled liquor industry has been told to “go jump” by federal Treasurer Wayne Swan after it suggested the government’s controversial alcopops tax was not tackling binge drinking.”</p> <p>The dirty…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43489377Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:41:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/122978693873">Neowin.net - Lightsaber Battles Make Full Use of The Wii</a>: “The game Star Wars fans have been waiting for has finally being announced for the Wii. Making full use of the Wiimote technology, ‘Lightsaber Duels’ will feature destructible environments with…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43489376Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:41:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/122979028076">Neowin.net - Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User Histories to Viacom</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/09/47cd/0388ea4b/4eabf07e26c17ad84b_5.jpg"/><p>“Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43489377Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:41:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/122978693873">Neowin.net - Lightsaber Battles Make Full Use of The Wii</a>: “The game Star Wars fans have been waiting for has finally being announced for the Wii. Making full use of the Wiimote technology, ‘Lightsaber Duels’ will feature destructible environments with…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43489376Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:41:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/122979028076">Neowin.net - Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User Histories to Viacom</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/09/47cd/0388ea4b/4eabf07e26c17ad84b_5.jpg"/><p>“Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43393840Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:36:13 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/122907958420">ABC unveils new Web TV platform: News - Communications - ZDNet Australia</a>: “After a year in the making, the ABC tonight unveiled iView in Sydney. The internet site has six channels which allow people to watch a variety of ABC TV programs on demand. Among the channels are a…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/43393840Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:36:13 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/122907958420">ABC unveils new Web TV platform: News - Communications - ZDNet Australia</a>: “After a year in the making, the ABC tonight unveiled iView in Sydney. The internet site has six channels which allow people to watch a variety of ABC TV programs on demand. Among the channels are a…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/41757576Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:42:31 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121698576058">MSOZACADEMIC : Attention: Team SOAK has just won the Imagine Cup Finals!</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/b7/4043/25debcce/4992a03188bd8f4d39_5.jpg"/><p>“Team SOAK (Smart Operational Agriculture Kit) from Australia have been announced as the winners of the 2008 Imagine Cup!!! This is simply an amazing achievement, SOAK members Long Zheng, David…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/41757576Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:42:31 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121698576058">MSOZACADEMIC : Attention: Team SOAK has just won the Imagine Cup Finals!</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/b7/4043/25debcce/4992a03188bd8f4d39_5.jpg"/><p>“Team SOAK (Smart Operational Agriculture Kit) from Australia have been announced as the winners of the 2008 Imagine Cup!!! This is simply an amazing achievement, SOAK members Long Zheng, David…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/41299599Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:28:14 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121429803215">Gates is gone but the fight goes on: Stallman: News - Software - ZDNet Australia</a>: “They are systematic symptoms of a deeper wrong which most people don’t recognise: proprietary software. Microsoft’s software is distributed under licenses that keep users divided and helpless. The…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/41299598Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:28:14 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121429974512">Aussie students close in on Microsoft prize: News - Software - ZDNet Australia</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/5a/ffa1/12c65b9e/9c9d3e5eeae79c25b9_5.jpg"/><p>“A group of Australian University students, including one of Australia’s most well-known technology bloggers, has progressed to the finals of the Microsoft-sponsored Imagine Cup software…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/41299599Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:28:14 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121429803215">Gates is gone but the fight goes on: Stallman: News - Software - ZDNet Australia</a>: “They are systematic symptoms of a deeper wrong which most people don’t recognise: proprietary software. Microsoft’s software is distributed under licenses that keep users divided and helpless. The…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/41299598Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:28:14 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121429974512">Aussie students close in on Microsoft prize: News - Software - ZDNet Australia</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/5a/ffa1/12c65b9e/9c9d3e5eeae79c25b9_5.jpg"/><p>“A group of Australian University students, including one of Australia’s most well-known technology bloggers, has progressed to the finals of the Microsoft-sponsored Imagine Cup software…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/07/06/metlink-is-going-mobile.aspxSun, 06 Jul 2008 07:19:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:930Sam0http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=930http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=930http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/07/06/metlink-is-going-mobile.aspx#comments<p>I never thought this day would come, and it still isn&#39;t really here yet, but it&#39;s a promising start. I stumbled on to it while trying out their <a href="http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/news/media_releases/metropolitan_general/help_us_develop_a_new_online_timetable_system_try_the_beta_version">new &#39;beta&#39; timetables</a> (which are horribly broken in Firefox 3), so I assume it will be improved and officially announced soon. </p><p>It works a lot better than trying to use their main &#39;for desktops&#39; website on a phone, even on the iPhone. Rather than giving you the full timetable, it gives you the next 8 or so departures from that stop. That&#39;s generally all you want to know when you&#39;re out and about (although it means you can&#39;t plan ahead, e.g. work out when the last train is until it is too late). You can even choose to get the departure time, or in &#39;countdown&#39; form, i.e. departing in 5 minutes. </p><p>It is basically similar to the SMS services available from <a href="http://www.yarratrams.com.au/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-80/121_read-766/">Yarra Trams</a> and <a href="http://www.connexmelbourne.com.au/index.php?id=50">Connex Melbourne</a>. Those existing services are in fact much more powerful than Metlink mobile. However, there is no such service on any of the bus lines, so it is new for them. <br /></p><h3>Accessing Metlink timetable information on your mobile<br /></h3><ol><li>Open up your mobile&#39;s web browser. Of course, make sure you are connected to the internet blah blah. </li><li>Navigate to - <a href="http://tt.metlinkmelbourne.com.au"><b>http://tt.metlinkmelbourne.com.au</b></a></li><li>Here&#39;s where it gets tricky. It obviously is a prototype at the moment, so it asks you for the &#39;Stop ID&#39;. See below for instructions on how to find out the Stop ID of your stop. For now, let&#39;s try a bus stop (9663 - Chadstone/Warrigal Rd/Holmesglen TAFE), a tram stop (18194 - Southern Cross/Spencer St), and a train station (19854 - Flinders St Station). Enter one of those Stop IDs into the Stop ID box.<br /><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/931/original.aspx" border="0" alt="" /><br /></li><li>Select whether you want &#39;Monitor&#39; or &#39;Countdown&#39;. &#39;Monitor&#39; means that it returns the time of the next few services departing from that stop. &#39;Countdown&#39; means it returns the number of minutes until the service departs from that stop. The examples below will explain the difference.</li><li>Click Submit.</li></ol><p>And that&#39;s it! There&#39;s not much more information available yet (e.g. no platform numbers for trains); although I presume they&#39;re working on it. Here are some sample results from the service (the tram example is using the countdown mode; all others are in monitor mode):</p><p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/932/original.aspx" border="0" alt="" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/933/original.aspx" border="0" alt="" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/934/original.aspx" border="0" alt="" /><br /></p><h3>Discovering the Stop ID of your stop</h3><p><b>Direct method</b> - use this method if you know the name of your stop (generally its location)</p><ol><li>On your computer, open your browser and navigate to <a href="http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/maps_stations_stops/station_stop_information">http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/maps_stations_stops/station_stop_information</a></li><li>Select which mode of transport you want to get on at that stop. Note - if that stop services more than one mode of transport (e.g. Flinders St Station has both trams and trains), it will have multiple Stop IDs, one for each mode of transport. </li><li>Using the dropdown boxes in the &#39;Stop Search&#39; section, find your stop.</li><li>Now under the new &#39;Stop Profiles&#39; section, you should see your stop. Click on the link.<br /><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/935/original.aspx" border="0" alt="" /><br /></li><li>Now either,</li><ul><li>look at the URL of the current page - the Stop ID is the number at the end of the URL, e.g.<br /><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/937/original.aspx" border="0" alt="" /><br /> </li><li>or, look at the new &#39;Services from this Station&#39; section (this is part of the new Beta timetable project) - the Stop ID is displayed at the top-right of that box, e.g.<br /><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/936/original.aspx" border="0" alt="" /><br /> </li></ul></ol><p><b>Via the route method</b> - use this method if you don&#39;t know the name of your stop, but know the route that services it.</p><ol><li>Find the timetable page for the route that services the desired stop, e.g. <a href="http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/index.php/route/view/956">http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/index.php/route/view/956</a>. The beta timetable pages work fine as well.</li><li>Click on the desired stop to go to the Stop Profile.</li><li>Follow step 5 in the direct method above.</li></ol><p>For the lazy people, here are the Stop IDs for City Loop train stations:</p><ul><li>Southern Cross (Spencer St was a much better name) - <b>22180</b><br /></li><li>Flagstaff - <b>19841</b><br /></li><li>Melbourne Central - <b>19842</b><br /></li><li>Parliament - <b>19843</b><br /></li><li>Flinders St&nbsp; - <b>19854</b><br /></li></ul><h3>Where to from here?<br /></h3><p>At least Metlink is finally listening to their frequent customers and fixing their website and mobile access. The Metlink website is great for occasional use, but absolutely sucks for frequent travellers (I think I can subconsciously type in my stops into Journey Planner now that I&#39;ve done it so many times). So among other things, can we have RSS feeds soon, please? Timetables and service updates are perfect candidates for feeds.Your view engine seems to be based on XML and XSLT anyway, so it won&#39;t be that hard to apply an XSLT to produce RSS. <br /></p><p>Oh, and the URLs for the new beta timetables are ridiculous. There has to be a better way of doing things. And My Way seems to be dead, not that it was ever very useful anyway. And please fix journey planner too - it sometimes produces incorrect times. </p><p>And I hope you intend to have platform numbers, stop information, journey planner and service updates on the mobile as well.</p><p>I could go on, but I think that&#39;s enough for now <img src="http://driveactivated.com/emoticons/emotion-1.gif" alt="Smile" /> <br /></p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=930" width="1" height="1">Australiavictoriametlinkmobile webpublic transporthttp://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960467Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:07 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121176760849">First Dash Express Update Issued, Available via WiFi : Boy Genius Report</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/30/f739/9bb82a7f/b3d9809c4e4034d742_5.jpg"/><p>“Dash Express users are about to receive a software update and it’s a doozy… one of the key features included in this update is called MyRoute. Dash recognizes that users often know shortcuts…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960467Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:07 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121176760849">First Dash Express Update Issued, Available via WiFi : Boy Genius Report</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/30/f739/9bb82a7f/b3d9809c4e4034d742_5.jpg"/><p>“Dash Express users are about to receive a software update and it’s a doozy… one of the key features included in this update is called MyRoute. Dash recognizes that users often know shortcuts…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960466Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:06 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121177245708">ICANN’s custom TLD will be a ‘nightmare’: News - Software - ZDNet Australia</a>: “On Thursday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted to allow — in addition to more traditional top-level domains (TLDs), such as .com and .org — theoretically any TLD…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960465Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:06 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121177943364">Telstra readies Next G mobiles for barcode invasion: News - Communications - ZDNet Australia</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/4c/e919/74d51b0b/7336d073cd66825ab3_5.jpg"/><p>“Tomorrow Telstra will start pushing out a software update to half a million customers that will allow users to point their phones at a barcode and be directed to a relevant Web page… Barcodes…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960464Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:06 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121178337333">Australia’s Digital Education Revolution? « Parallel Divergence</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/33/b361/693ef92a/c900f2f231dc6a34d3_5.jpg"/><p>“It’s obvious that Australia’s Digital Education Revolution(s) has massive potential for changing the face of education as we’ve known it for the past 50 or so years. But it also has the potential…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960466Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:06 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121177245708">ICANN’s custom TLD will be a ‘nightmare’: News - Software - ZDNet Australia</a>: “On Thursday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted to allow — in addition to more traditional top-level domains (TLDs), such as .com and .org — theoretically any TLD…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960465Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:06 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121177943364">Telstra readies Next G mobiles for barcode invasion: News - Communications - ZDNet Australia</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/4c/e919/74d51b0b/7336d073cd66825ab3_5.jpg"/><p>“Tomorrow Telstra will start pushing out a software update to half a million customers that will allow users to point their phones at a barcode and be directed to a relevant Web page… Barcodes…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/40960464Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:06 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/121178337333">Australia’s Digital Education Revolution? « Parallel Divergence</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/33/b361/693ef92a/c900f2f231dc6a34d3_5.jpg"/><p>“It’s obvious that Australia’s Digital Education Revolution(s) has massive potential for changing the face of education as we’ve known it for the past 50 or so years. But it also has the potential…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/06/14/10-feet-is-not-1-foot-x-10.aspxSat, 14 Jun 2008 13:17:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:914Sam0http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=914http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=914http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/06/14/10-feet-is-not-1-foot-x-10.aspx#comments<p>TV just isn&#39;t what it used to be. It isn&#39;t just an idiot box where we can flick it on, channel surf mindlessly, change the volume, and turn it off when we&#39;re done.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2110/2504092067_f2e62547c6_m_d.jpg" alt="" border="" width="180" height="240" hspace="" /></div><div style="text-align:center;" align="left"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronesterling/2504092067/"><i>Photo by aesterling on flickr</i></a></div><div style="text-align:center;" align="left">&nbsp;</div><p>It&#39;s not just about tuning in to some pre-programmed channel anymore - its about gaming (PS3, 360, Wii), movies (DVDs, divx), videos (YouTube), photos, and plain old TV (FTA, Foxtel). Manufacturers have been working to make these increasingly complex devices easy to use; most significantly is what has been coined the 10-foot interface.</p><p>The 10-foot interface refers to the user interface that&#39;s built into devices to allow users to access the variety of functions it has without having a button for every one of them on the remote (even though it feels like it does). 10-foot refers to the general distance the user will be from the screen. Most new TVs have menu systems, as do DVD and HD recorders, DVD players, and set top boxes to name a few. </p><p>The most complex of all however, are the media center interfaces, e.g. <a href="http://www.mythtv.org">MythTV</a>, <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/mediacenter.mspx">Windows Media Center (MCE)</a>, <a href="http://www.tivo.com">Tivo</a>, <a href="http://www.netgear.com/Products/Entertainment/DigitalMediaPlayers/EVA8000.aspx">Netgear&#39;s Digital Entertainer HD</a> and <a href="http://www.apple.com/appletv/">Apple TV</a>. These devices have enormous capabilities, able to watch/timeshift/record TV, watch DVDs, surf the net, watch YouTube videos, play music, control lighting, launch nuclear weapons at your neighbour for being too noisy... you name it, it can probably do it. To let you access all these features, these devices present layers upon layers of menus, all with a smattering of big-sized buttons (and more hidden by a keypress), all accessed via a remote from the 90s except with the number of buttons multiplied by a billion. Effectively, they&#39;ve taken computer user interfaces, blown them up so we can see it from 10-feet away, added a splash of paint, polish and shine, and thought &quot;that&#39;ll do&quot;. <br /></p><p>These devices are supposed to make our lives easier. Try finding a particular song on them and playing it. You&#39;ll either spend ages scrolling through your massive list of music, or you&#39;ll throw the remote at it in rage trying to key in the song title using the on-screen keyboard. My favourite exercise in frustration is trying to enter your wireless security key into them using a remote <img src="http://driveactivated.com/emoticons/emotion-1.gif" alt="Smile" />. </p><p>The humble remote is the weakest link in the whole experience. It started failing when VCRs became programmable, and just went downhill from there. Using it with a 10-foot interface makes me feel like a puppeteer - helpless and frustrated. While manufacturers upgraded almost everything else, the remote has conceptually stayed the same, and given minimal attention. Does anyone still use the number pad on it? Does any one actually remember channel numbers anymore? <br /></p><p>There have been third-party attempts to revitalize the remote, like the<a href="http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/devices/373&amp;cl=us,en"> Logitech Harmony 1000 Universal Remote</a>. But without proper manufacturer support, it&#39;s an uphill battle.</p><p>However, the remote I believe, also holds the key to resolving the problem of operating these devices.</p><p>Instead of jamming the whole user interface on to the screen, it should be separated - the presentation side (i.e. playing videos, music visualizations etc.) should be on the TV, while the operation side should be on the remote.</p><p>Let&#39;s start with the remote. It should have minimal physical buttons, with the majority of the functions accessible via a touchscreen... with multi-touch, why the hell not <img src="http://driveactivated.com/emoticons/emotion-1.gif" alt="Smile" />. The display should not show the content on TV, but rather the details of it, and the possible operations. It doesn&#39;t necessarily have to be in sync with the TV (i.e. linked so it shows the information related to what&#39;s on the TV) - what&#39;s important is that it controls it.</p><p>In the music only world, there&#39;s already a few early examples of this:</p><div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/915/640x427.aspx" border="0" alt="" /><br /><i><a href="http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/speakers_audio/wireless_music_systems/devices/3817&amp;cl=us,en">Logitech Squeezebox Duet</a></i><br /></div><p>&nbsp;</p><div style="text-align:center;" align="left"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/916/575x328.aspx" border="0" alt="" /><br /><i><a href="http://www.sonos.com/products/?tref=ghome">Sonos Music System</a></i> <br /></div><p>So in effect, the user interface, except the content, is moved on to something a lot more usable, practical and accessible.</p><p>But that doesn&#39;t mean the TV should be devoid of any user interface. The problem with a setup as described above is that there is no longer a social component to consuming content (damn I hate that phrase). I&#39;m not talking social over the net, but rather with the people in the same room. At max you could have about 2 other people squinting at the remote, and that&#39;s boring.&nbsp;</p><p>The TV should instead be both a presenter of content, <i>and </i>a secondary screen for the remote. So if I&#39;m scrolling through YouTube videos on the remote, everyone else in the room should be able to see what I&#39;m scrolling through on the TV. No buttons, options or anything superfluous - just the content I&#39;m going through on the remote.</p><p>Apple TV + a nicer looking interface + iPod Touch + a few more buttons would be a good start. But of course, Apple TV is only a &#39;side project&#39;. <br /></p><p>It really isn&#39;t such a hard concept to bring to fruition, and would make these things a lot easier to use, but there isn&#39;t really anything out there like this that I know of (Pocket PC interfaces don&#39;t count - they&#39;re an ugly hack). Maybe the problem is that designing and manufacturing electronic components is costly compared to software development. Or maybe the skill sets required for it is so different to the skill sets these companies have that significant investment is needed. Or maybe no one else seems to think 10-foot interfaces in their current incarnation are a bad idea. </p><p>I wish I had a few million dollars, a team of software engineers, a team of designers, a team of electrical engineers and a manufacturing plant handy sometimes... <br /></p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=914" width="1" height="1">user interfaceTVuser experiencetechCollectivehttp://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/38246010Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:13:04 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/119348817009">Mozilla Issues Concept Video for Firefox Mobile : Boy Genius Report</a>: “Mozilla’s Head of User Experience Aza Raskin has just posted a video preview and extensive post covering the concept behind of one of Mozilla’s latest endeavors, Firefox Mobile… The GUI looks…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/38246010Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:13:04 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/119348817009">Mozilla Issues Concept Video for Firefox Mobile : Boy Genius Report</a>: “Mozilla’s Head of User Experience Aza Raskin has just posted a video preview and extensive post covering the concept behind of one of Mozilla’s latest endeavors, Firefox Mobile… The GUI looks…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/38110686Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:32:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/119256275528">French Government decides to censor the Internet - News - SC Magazine Australia</a>: “Not content with simply limiting itself to blocking despicable child sex abuse, a move three major ISPs in the US also agreed to today, the French government instead has decided for its citizens…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/38110684Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:32:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/119256383456">Apple Store - Sydney - Grand Opening</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/a8/119c/200aefc8/89190ce2adf979e8d8_5.jpg"/><p>“Catch the opening of the first Apple Retail Store in Australia on 19 June, at 5:00 p.m. Be among the first to experience three bustling, glass-enclosed floors of everything Apple. We’ll be giving…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/38110686Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:32:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/119256275528">French Government decides to censor the Internet - News - SC Magazine Australia</a>: “Not content with simply limiting itself to blocking despicable child sex abuse, a move three major ISPs in the US also agreed to today, the French government instead has decided for its citizens…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/38110684Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:32:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/119256383456">Apple Store - Sydney - Grand Opening</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/a8/119c/200aefc8/89190ce2adf979e8d8_5.jpg"/><p>“Catch the opening of the first Apple Retail Store in Australia on 19 June, at 5:00 p.m. Be among the first to experience three bustling, glass-enclosed floors of everything Apple. We’ll be giving…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37110574Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:07:07 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118565496281">Dash: The Only Internet Connected Automotive GPS - Drive Smart!</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/1e/30a6/2354247e/768e571721aba9a210_5.jpg"/><p>“Introducing Dash Express, the first two-way, Internet-connected GPS navigation system. Dash delivers traffic and destination information in exciting new ways, and offers a wide range of new…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37110574Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:07:07 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118565496281">Dash: The Only Internet Connected Automotive GPS - Drive Smart!</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/1e/30a6/2354247e/768e571721aba9a210_5.jpg"/><p>“Introducing Dash Express, the first two-way, Internet-connected GPS navigation system. Dash delivers traffic and destination information in exciting new ways, and offers a wide range of new…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37099834Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:59:08 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118555719428">OpenOffice 3.0 Beta - Now Easy on a Mac - ReadWriteWeb</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/87/9c42/d72f3e0f/67f385ebaed64a2b0d_5.jpg"/><p>“The free office suite OpenOffice is now offering a beta of version 3.0 for testing and it’s easier than ever for Mac owners to start using it right away. “</p> <p>And still just as ugly, particularly on…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37099834Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:59:08 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118555719428">OpenOffice 3.0 Beta - Now Easy on a Mac - ReadWriteWeb</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/87/9c42/d72f3e0f/67f385ebaed64a2b0d_5.jpg"/><p>“The free office suite OpenOffice is now offering a beta of version 3.0 for testing and it’s easier than ever for Mac owners to start using it right away. “</p> <p>And still just as ugly, particularly on…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37009677Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:57:41 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118495888064">Apple uncovers Sydney store for the first time: News - Hardware - ZDNet Australia</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/3e/c822/011bc217/6c2a51f4686f764d13_5.jpg"/><p>“Apple’s first official store in the southern hemisphere is coming to Sydney, with a giant banner announcing the store uncovered on George Street today. Apple said that the store, located on the…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37009676Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:57:41 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118497042892">OOXML backwards compatibility led Microsoft to ODF | Tech News on ZDNet</a>: “Microsoft announced on Wednesday it will support ODF version 1.1 in the release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2), scheduled for the first half of 2009. The company will also support PDF and XPS…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37009677Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:57:41 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118495888064">Apple uncovers Sydney store for the first time: News - Hardware - ZDNet Australia</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/3e/c822/011bc217/6c2a51f4686f764d13_5.jpg"/><p>“Apple’s first official store in the southern hemisphere is coming to Sydney, with a giant banner announcing the store uncovered on George Street today. Apple said that the store, located on the…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/37009676Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:57:41 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/118497042892">OOXML backwards compatibility led Microsoft to ODF | Tech News on ZDNet</a>: “Microsoft announced on Wednesday it will support ODF version 1.1 in the release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2), scheduled for the first half of 2009. The company will also support PDF and XPS…<img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/06/03/it-s-chumby-time.aspxTue, 03 Jun 2008 07:57:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:897Sam3http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=897http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=897http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/06/03/it-s-chumby-time.aspx#comments<p align="left">For the last year or so, my HTPC has been laying dormant, only occasionally waking up. As cool as it was, it wasn&#39;t really practical - the screen was too small watch anything, and I had no room to put a bigger screen in my room. Plus it was just too fiddly and slow to navigate through my content with a remote. So for the last year, it has been working as a ridiculously overpowered alarm clock.</p> <p>It just became silly, and wasted a large amount of power doing nothing (yeh, I&#39;m being green), so I looked around for something to replace it. Unfortunately, for some silly reason, cool, practical and alarm clocks just don&#39;t seem to mix, unless you went for an iPod alarm clock dock (e.g. <a class="" href="http://www.jbl.com/home/products/product_detail.aspx?prod=JBL%20ON%20TIME">JBL&#39;s OnTime</a>) or a mini stereo system (e.g. <a class="" href="http://www.bose.com.au/site/index.aspx?path=products&amp;CTRL=PG&amp;pfid=1&amp;pgid=3">Bose Wave II</a>). The nicest one I could find was the <a class="" href="http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/en/us/consumer/cc/_language_us/_productid_AJL308_37_US_CONSUMER">Philips AJL308</a>, which was good in concept, but had buggy and very basic software, plus the screen looked washed out and colours were uneven.</p> <p>Then I remembered the <a class="" href="http://www.chumby.com/">Chumby</a>. It&#39;s hard to describe what it is, because it can do a lot of things. Essentially, it&#39;s a wifi-enabled alarm clock with a touchscreen. But rather than just syncing the time up with internet clocks, you can setup widgets and it will scroll through the information on your screen, including news, weather, engadget, digg etc. It is available in black, pearl or latte - I got the pearl one.</p> <p>At the point in time, it is US only so their store won&#39;t ship internationally. However you can use the various forwarding services out there to get one. I used <a class="" href="http://www.priceusa.com.au/">PriceUSA</a> who were awesome - great service, prompt delivery, and kept you in the loop through whole way. It ended up costing me around 250 AUD, which is a bit more than the 180 USD retail cost when converted even including shipping, but the options are few unless you know people in the US. None of the functionality is affected by the US limitation, although obviously most of the content available on it is US content.</p> <p>The out of box experience is great. It comes in a bag, not a box (although it was probably shipped in one for protection):</p> <p> <div style="TEXT-ALIGN:center;"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/899/640x480.aspx" border="0" alt="" /></div> <p>Plug it in (you&#39;ll need to bend the pins or get an adapter to get the US plug working - adapter supports 240V fine though), turn it on, and you&#39;ll be prompt with the intro tour:</p> <p> <div style="TEXT-ALIGN:center;"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/900/640x480.aspx" border="0" alt="" /></div> <p>The characters are funny, and the tour is actually useful. Alright, so the Chumby doesn&#39;t have the Apple &#39;brushed metal&#39; cool factor to it, but has its own cute kind of cool feel to it. And it permeates through the whole device - it is designed to be like a soft beanbag, with soft leather sides and beans inside the bottom. You get a pack of 3 charms to add some bling to your Chumby, plus you have to give your Chumby a name, reinforcing the notion that it is yours.</p> <p>Next you have to setup network connectivity, otherwise the Chumby will be fairly useless. It supports everything up to WPA-PSK (plus <a class="" href="http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index.php/Chumby_tricks#Use_wifi_protected_by_a_capture_page">hacks to make it support networks with landing pages</a>). It only has wireless connectivity, so connecting a cable is out of the option (<a class="" href="http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index.php/Chumby_tricks#Use_wired_Ethernet">without other devices anyway</a>). </p> <p>A few more settings have to be done, including timezone, and then its time to activate it with the Chumby Network. Activation isn&#39;t compulsory, but without it the Chumby would be fairly useless because all the widgets come from the Chumby Network. Again, its pretty painless, and at times very slick - the Chumby Network knew exactly when I had authenticated my Chumby and proceeded automatically.</p> <p>Once activated, a default selection of widgets are available on the device, including New York Times, engadget and chumball. You can pick and choose widgets from the Chumby Network website. Chumball is interesting because it is one of the few widgets that make use of the accelerometer built into the Chumby. Yep - it has an accelerometer built in. The Chumby device is full of unused bits, including the microphone on the front, and the battery connector at the bottom.</p> <p> <div style="TEXT-ALIGN:center;"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/902/640x480.aspx" border="0" alt="" /></div> <p>It is worth noting that given certain conditions, the Chumby Network will inject ads into your widget stream, called a channel. At the moment, if you have less than 6 widgets in a channel, <a class="" href="http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=2389">ads are avoided</a>. This injection of ads isn&#39;t made very clear on the website which has disappointed some people. The argument is that it pays for the Chumby Network, and the ad model is similar to what you get on TV; after all, the Chumby is kind of like an internet TV. Most of the ads are videos (currently, there are CBS ads running), although the sound is disabled unless you tap the screen. Because it is a US device, the ads are naturally US oriented. I personally don&#39;t mind them, but others might and it isn&#39;t very clear in their product material.</p> <p>The Chumby can also be used as a fairly flexible music player. Music can be provided via USB, iPod (except the&nbsp;iPod Touch and iPhone as they lack the &#39;act as a disk&#39; functionality), <a class="" href="http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html">SlimServer/SqueezeCenter</a>, or a variety of internet radio streams. The downside is that it can only play OGG and MP3 files/streams. That rules out a lot of internet radio streams out there, particularly the commercial ones, which broadcast using WMA. Reason is that WMA has a licence that is too restrictive. RealPlayer streams are also out, probably for a similar reason. Luckily, the Chumby team are working on a USB radio dongle addon to all you to tune into FM radio - the code is already mostly there, so it should be released soon.</p> <p> <div style="TEXT-ALIGN:center;"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/901/640x480.aspx" border="0" alt="" /></div> <p>Sound quality is surprisingly good for a device this size. Bass is fairly non-existent, and the sound does get tinny at times, but it doesn&#39;t distort, even at high volumes. It is also loud enough to fill a decent sized bedroom - should definitely be loud enough to wake you up if it is sitting on your bedside table.</p> <p>Speaking of sitting on your bedside table, the device has a night mode as well, which dims the screen ahd only shows the time,&nbsp;so it isn&#39;t shining in your face at night and rotating through widgets for no reason.</p> <p>So back to the main use case - the alarm clock. You can set a particular volume, so it isn&#39;t blaring at you in the morning, and isn&#39;t so soft you can&#39;t hear it. You have the option of setting multiple alarms (not sure of the limit). For each alarm, you can set a particular day, weekdays, weekends, or a certain day of the week. The time can be set to the minute. You can choose what it should play from any music source, and for how long (so it won&#39;t keep playing continuously if you&#39;re not bed that night). There is a snooze function as well, and you can preset the interval (in 5 minute increments). Finally, you can make it do something when it activates, including turning night mode on/off, or changing to a certain channel. </p> <p> <div style="TEXT-ALIGN:center;"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/898/640x480.aspx" border="0" alt="" /></div> <p>It is definitely usable as an alarm clock, and even has a switch on the top for you to whack. But there are some deficiencies. Firstly, it has no battery backup feature, so if the power goes out, it won&#39;t wake you up (although the battery connector on the bottom is supposed to provide this functionality in the future). Also you cannot choose the snooze interval when the alarm is ringing - it will always snooze to the preset interval.&nbsp;It doesn&#39;t have a sleep function (although you can emulate one). And&nbsp;there is no increasing volume feature - the music just starts. Ok, maybe I am nitpicking a bit.</p> <p>From a typical person&#39;s perspective, it is a very usable and viable alternative to your boring alarm clock. As a bonus, it only consumes around 4 watts of power, which is probably on par with most alarm clocks even though it does a lot more.</p> <p>But that&#39;s only half the fun of getting a Chumby. The Chumby is designed to be hackable. It is based on an ARM processor, and runs a stripped-down version of Linux. You can SSH into it by activating the SSH daemon via an <a class="" href="http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index.php/Chumby_tricks#Hidden_screen_in_Control_Panel">easter egg</a>. The Chumby will also execute scripts on startup from an attached USB stick (give it a name of debugchumby and place it in the root folder of the USB stick), and you can override all sorts of things by having certain files on your USB stick. The <a class="" href="http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index.php">Chumby wiki</a> is a great source of information.</p> <p>The most painful thing when hacking the Chumby is probably cross-compilation. Because the Chumby uses an ARM processor, programs compiled for desktops (typically x86 or IA64) won&#39;t work on it. You&#39;ll have to set up a cross compilation environment on your Linux machine - the toolchain is available <a class="" href="http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index.php/GNU_Toolchain">here</a>. Even with the toolchain precompiled, it is still painful, as GCC support for ARM is still iffy in parts, plus the ARM processor has no floating point match coprocessor (only a software implementation) so many things (e.g. video and SETI@Home) are out of the question, unless an optimized&nbsp;fixed point version is available.</p> <p>I tried compiling ffmpeg and mplayer for WMA support (the inbuilt BlueTune player source code doesn&#39;t include WMA code, but does support it), but gave up after numerous tries (I&#39;m not the most knowledgeable cross-compilation expert obviously).</p> <p>If only the Chumby used the new <a class="" href="http://www.intel.com/technology/atom/index.htm">Intel Atom</a> chip instead... then it might get a bit expensive :)</p> <p>Luckily, the Chumby devs have <a class="" href="http://forum.chumby.com/viewforum.php?id=7">made various runtimes available on the Chumby</a>, including Python, Ruby and Java. Stick them on your USB stick, and you&#39;re off - no more cross-compilation stuff, at the cost of performance, resources, and possibly functionality. I used it to load the python-based lastfmproxy so I can have last.fm playing on my Chumby - see <a class="" href="http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=2492">here</a> for details.</p> <p>Might have been more expensive than a typical alarm clock, but I definitely thought it was worthwhile (appeals to the geek in me, and is practical as well!). The major downside for me&nbsp;is the lack of ability to turn into commercial radio, via the internet or FM, but hopefully that will be remedied in the near future. </p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=897" width="1" height="1">consumer electronicstechCollectivegadgetshttp://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/35089837Sat, 17 May 2008 04:18:34 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/116997969269">Nikko Home Electronics R2D2 Projector</a>: <p>Click through and watch the video - yeh, sure, it probably gets boring after a while, but regardless, it’s cool, and everyone will be impressed.</p> <p>And it isn’t ridiculously priced either, which is…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/35089836Sat, 17 May 2008 04:18:34 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/116999567800">electro^plankton: Most Beautiful Foosball Table</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/21/5e6d/9cc185d3/9dd08414aa3bcd2068_5.jpg"/><p>“Schedule to be shown at this year’s Milan Furniture Design show, the “11” is the world’s most beautiful foosball table. No, seriously! A joint collaborative effort between GRO design and Tim…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/35089837Sat, 17 May 2008 04:18:34 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/116997969269">Nikko Home Electronics R2D2 Projector</a>: <p>Click through and watch the video - yeh, sure, it probably gets boring after a while, but regardless, it’s cool, and everyone will be impressed.</p> <p>And it isn’t ridiculously priced either, which is…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.tumblr.com/post/35089836Sat, 17 May 2008 04:18:34 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:0Anonymous0<a href="http://faves.com/users/samuel337/dot/116999567800">electro^plankton: Most Beautiful Foosball Table</a>: <img src="http://i.faves.com/01/21/5e6d/9cc185d3/9dd08414aa3bcd2068_5.jpg"/><p>“Schedule to be shown at this year’s Milan Furniture Design show, the “11” is the world’s most beautiful foosball table. No, seriously! A joint collaborative effort between GRO design and Tim…</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=0" width="1" height="1">http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/04/30/do-we-really-want-a-saas-world.aspxWed, 30 Apr 2008 01:02:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:870Sam2http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=870http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=870http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/04/30/do-we-really-want-a-saas-world.aspx#comments<p>One of the big IT buzzwords has been <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaaS"><font color="#669966">software as a service</font></a> (SaaS). Combined with cloud computing, it has been positioned as a paradigm shift in the way the world interacts with IT. It has changed much of the business world, and is already making inroads into the consumer world. In fact, many companies out there have staked their existence on it, and are doing ridiculously well, including <a href="http://www.salesforce.com/"><font color="#669966">Salesforce</font></a> and <a href="http://www.37signals.com/"><font color="#669966">37signals</font></a>, and there are others who aren&#39;t, e.g. <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool/"><font color="#669966">many of those web 2.0 startups that have since&nbsp;disappeared</font></a>.</p> <p>It&#39;s appealing to software companies because it gives them a consistent cashflow. In the &#39;old&#39; model of selling software, software companies had to continually keep releasing new versions with enough enticing features (or fixes) for users to upgrade in order to maintain and increase&nbsp;cashflow. The new SaaS model keeps the money rolling in on a regular basis in the form of client service fees, without the need to continually refresh their product&nbsp;(although those that do generally fare better). They also benefit from better control over their software (as it resides on their servers), so they can patch, update and upgrade as they want, and only support one version - the latest. On top of that, the piracy issue, the one Microsoft spent and still spends millions tackling (what is probably a futile uphill battle), disappears.</p> <p>Customers win too, because they don&#39;t have to worry about any installation, maintenance, or data security steps, plus they often get the added bonus of having their software accessible from any net-connected computer in the world. For once, users can just concentrate on their doing what they got the software for. Lastly, the pricing structure is psychologically better. Let&#39;s face it - many of us are short-term thinkers in need of immediate satisfaction. A smaller price upfront with a long commitment is easier to swallow than a larger upfront cost with no strings attached.</p> <p>But, like most things, every upside that seems to benefit all parties has a downside, which is often not in the customer&#39;s favour.</p> <p>With SaaS, the problem is control. By going with a SaaS solution, users&nbsp;relinquish control over their data and how they use the software to the solution provider. For many SaaS solutions, data ownership is a major question that is often ignored by users, who are still getting to grips with the concept. At worst, the SaaS provider owns your data (probably through some wordy legalese stuck in a Terms and Conditions page only linked to from one page in a hidden link), and at best, you own it. But often, this is left ambiguous or not mentioned at all, and no one really cares either way. Do you really know what your provider can do with your data legally, regardless of whether or not you think you own it? I mean, pretty web 2.0 sites complete with slick effects, glassy&nbsp;graphics and glowing buttons can&#39;t be evil, right?</p> <p>And even if you do apparently have ownership rights, do you really have the time or money to fight for it if they decide otherwise (often against large corporations with their super lawyers)? Let&#39;s not forget that many of these SaaS providers operate in different countries, and therefore our data is subjected to different laws, and not protected by ours. <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wrgoogle24/BNStory/Technology/home"><font color="#669966">Do we really know the implications of sending that email using Gmail?</font></a> </p> <p>Ok, let&#39;s assume you retain ownership of your data. So what can you do with it? Data ownership is really a small part of data freedom. What kind of access do I have to my data? Who is responsible if my data is lost or corrupted? Email is probably the oldest form of modern SaaS. Anyone ever tried moving all their emails from Yahoo! Mail to say, Thunderbird on your desktop? It is a painful task, and one that can&#39;t be completely done (what about my sent emails?) This is actually an issue of both the old and the SaaS models though. Many apps on both sides of the fence offer open APIs and specifications which help alleviate this issue, while the more difficult ones are usually fixed using reverse-engineering and/or web parsing.&nbsp;The <a class="" href="http://www.dataportability.org/">Data Portability project</a> is trying to help, but it&#39;s a pretty big battle, not helped by&nbsp;so many new things coming out, all with working with different sets of data.</p> <p>The old model however, has an advantage here - the user&#39;s access to their data via&nbsp;the software&nbsp;is not affected by outside factors. As long as the software runs, even if it means running on legacy hardware, the user can still access their data, unlike SaaS solutions, where if the solution is discontinued, or the company folds, then your access to the data will be governed on the access provided by the provider, and the&nbsp;acceptance of their data format by others. It&#39;s worth noting here that the openness of the data format really means nothing to your typical non-geeky customer - so what if it is in XML, YAML, or whatever the popular general data representation format is? Some maybe able to plead their case and win over developers to help them out, but most customers won&#39;t do that or get that chance. To them, their data is as good as gone.</p> <p>That raises one of the primary conceptual differences in buying a SaaS subscription, compared to actual software - you do not own a copy of the actual software, or even a licence to it. You want to use that bit of software, you have to keep paying for it (and there is generally no way around, illegal or otherwise). If you can&#39;t pay for it, you can&#39;t use the software. As simple as that (ok, you may get leniency from the provider for whatever reason, but that&#39;s not the point). In effect, you are renting our software, but unlike traditional appliance rentals where you can choose to pay off and own the appliance, there is no such option here. If for whatever reason you are unable to pay the fee, you&#39;ll have nothing to show for all the money we have paid in the past, and your data is stuck in limbo. And if you dislike&nbsp;the new version of the software and prefer the older one, chances are, its bad luck, you gotta change. </p> <p>Do the advantages of SaaS outweigh the disadvantages? I can&#39;t help but feel short-changed. There is a certain sense of security and pride from owning something that you don&#39;t get from renting something. The fact that we have grown up with the notion of being able to own software (or at least a licence to it) doesn&#39;t help either - this is a somewhat subtle, but giant shift in the way we acquire and use software, and the awareness of the new set of issues just doesn&#39;t exist for most people. From what I&#39;ve seen, many SaaS companies seem content with capitalizing on this lack of awareness too.</p> <p>Purchasing power has also partly&nbsp;shifted from the consumer to the provider; consumer sovereignty has taken a hit.&nbsp;The incentive for continuous innovation and improvement as a result of the consumer&#39;s purchasing power has been reduced, in some cases, quite significantly, depending on the service&#39;s data portability rules and the availability of competitors. While consumers lose their power, the software companies gains a system which yields consistent cashflow with a weaker link between their product and what the consumer wants. </p> <p>It also becomes harder for consumers to vote with their money, as the barrier to change grows due to the SaaS&#39;s increased control. Assuming we don&#39;t want to pay for two similar services at once, a change over to another SaaS service could quite possibly mean the loss of access to the old&nbsp;software, and possibly the data as well - a cost that is too high for most people.</p> <p>Are we, as consumers, really better off under this model, or is this just a ploy by software companies to shore up their financial position? </p> <p><strong>UPDATE (1/5/2008):</strong> Added a link to the data portability project, and a quick addition to what providers can do with your data.</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=870" width="1" height="1">web 2.0web appstechCollectiveSaaShttp://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/03/23/idea-end-to-end-project-development-platform.aspxSun, 23 Mar 2008 05:47:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:841Sam2http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=841http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=841http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/03/23/idea-end-to-end-project-development-platform.aspx#comments<p>A while back I was brainstorming ideas for a project to keep me occupied during the break. I&#39;m a big fan of brainstorming and mindmaps, so I opened up <a class="" href="http://www.mindjet.com/">MindManager</a> (great program by the way) and started stormin&#39; away. Things were going well, and soon I had a few solid leads that I wanted to follow. Being the indecisive person that I am, I asked a mate for some opinions on the leads I had and to add any thoughts he had. </p> <p>He didn&#39;t have MindManager, and I didn&#39;t want to do it via clunky email, so I thought, hey, let&#39;s use one of those collaborative web 2.0 mindmapping sites! (It was a real lightbulb moment, I tell ya.) I uploaded the MindManager file on to <a class="" href="http://www.mindmeister.com/">MindMeister</a>, set collaboration rights, and away we went. Or so we thought - the collaboration feature was still a bit half-baked back then, so it wasn&#39;t much better than emailing. </p> <p>I downloaded the mindmap back into MindManager (so I can use it when I don&#39;t have net access), and started&nbsp;planning the lead I had chosen. Now, as good as MindManager is, it really doesn&#39;t cut it for me when it comes to project management (unless integrated with Project or Outlook, which I didn&#39;t want to do). </p> <p>Without any other project management tool on my computer (and&nbsp;I didn&#39;t want to resort to Excel), I looked online. There&nbsp;were the usual ones, including <a class="" href="http://www.basecamphq.com/">Basecamp</a>, <a class="" href="http://goplan.info/">goplan</a>, <a class="" href="http://www.huddle.net/">huddle</a> etc.</p> <p>Thinking that this was a real hassle, and&nbsp;a bit of forward thinking told me it was only going to be harder, &nbsp;I realised I had discovered a real issue when it comes to executing projects. There is no service available out there that provides a complete feedback loop for a project, from the brainstorming and development stages, to the delivery and customer feedback stages, and all the way back to the starting stages for version 2.</p> <p>The only solutions out there only solve parts of the loop - e.g. MindMeister for brainstorming, Basecamp for project management, kluster for crowdsourcing and feedback, maybe ning for a social network/forums, wordpress for a blog, the list goes on - but none that integrate the entire loop together. But that&#39;s the way it should be - integrated. Ideas that were brainstormed and accepted should appear on the project todo list, feedback from a prototype should flow back to the brainstorm and management stages for improvement, and frequent problems reported in forums should be added to the planning stages for resolution in the next version. We shouldn&#39;t have to jump through hoops to be organised - it should be done for us. And users should feel like they&#39;re part of the process, not a victim of the numerous systems in play to solicit feedback which probably gets lost anyway.</p> <p>In other words, its crowdsourcing meets project management. And for those who have been reading, yes, I called this project, loopboard.</p> <p>Features could include:</p> <ul> <li> <div>Brainstorming</div></li> <ul> <li> <div>Mindmapping</div></li> <li> <div>Whiteboards</div></li> <li> <div>Lists</div></li></ul></ul> <p>You could make it so you can insert &#39;dynamic&#39; sections into your mindmap/whiteboard, so say, the top 10 bugs are visible and become part of your planning process automatically. Or maybe a dynamic section with the top 10 news items from your competitors.</p> <ul> <li> <div>Project management</div></li> <ul> <li> <div>Milestones</div></li> <li> <div>Goals</div></li> <li> <div>To-do</div></li> <li> <div>File-sharing</div></li></ul></ul> <p>Maybe even integrate with basecamp via their APIs for this. Be able to selectively make things public so not all your plans are revealed if necessary.</p> <ul> <li> <div>Crowdsourcing</div></li> <ul> <li> <div>user profiles</div></li> <ul> <li> <div>friends</div></li> <li> <div>roles in projects</div></li> <li> <div>fans of projects</div></li> <li> <div>skills</div></li> <li> <div>personal details</div></li> <li> <div>blog</div></li></ul> <li> <div>discussions - will be tightly task-driven, e.g. anything pertaining to a particular milestone will be associated with that milestone, anything about a particular to-do list item, will be linked with that.&nbsp;Will have discussions page that draws out all the discussions going on, but it will be obvious when viewing a particular thread what that thread is linked to. Will have quick interface to translate a discussion point into an action task.</div></li> <li> <div>project profiles</div></li> <ul> <li> <div>description</div></li> <li> <div>team members</div></li> <li> <div>goals</div></li> <li> <div>announcements (facebook wall-like)</div></li> <li> <div>blogs (project plus relevant team member entries aggregated)</div></li> <li> <div>needs (e.g. investment, manpower)</div></li></ul> <li> <div>wiki/knowledge base</div></li> <li> <div>ideas - complete with a voting system</div></li></ul></ul> <p>Take a look at <a class="" href="http://www.kluster.com/">kluster</a> - seriously, that&#39;s probably the best crowdsourcing platform I&#39;ve seen by far. I love the cute jargon, the interface, and the investment models and algorithms.</p> <p>You should be able to choose whether to make your project public, invite-only, or private. Users can have different roles, with different rights. Although to really harness the power of crowdsourcing, the project should by public, and accept input from everyone.</p> <ul> <li> <div>jobs and services directory - companies can pay to advertise and gain exposure to the projects; members can advertise their skills as well.</div></li> <li> <div>specialised application modules&nbsp;or APIs to allow for that to happen</div></li> <ul> <li> <div>software bug tracking systems</div></li> <li> <div>donation tracking systems</div></li> <li> <div>review systems</div></li> <li> <div>voting systems</div></li> <li> <div>specialised feedback systems&nbsp;</div></li></ul></ul> <p>The platform&nbsp;should be as general as possible, so that it can be used for software projects, fundraising projects, or even projects like opening a new restaurant. Although it&#39;s probably worth concentrating on particular uses at the beginning.</p> <p>Yes it is a project with a very wide scope, and is maybe trying to do too many things at once, but from a user perspective, it&#39;s a big step up from what we have right now, which are generally disparate systems only connected by us spending time and effort. </p> <p>Like the idea I posted&nbsp;a few posts back, this one&#39;s free to a good home as well - I&#39;d definitely be interested in something like this though.</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=841" width="1" height="1">web 2.0web appsideascrowdsourcingtechCollectivehttp://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/03/23/yes-i-m-still-alive-and-well.aspxSun, 23 Mar 2008 04:06:21 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:840Sam0http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=840http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=840http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/03/23/yes-i-m-still-alive-and-well.aspx#comments<p>Wow, it&#39;s nearly been a month since I last posted here. As you have probably guessed if you&#39;ve read my recent entries, uni started this month, and has kept me fairly busy. Not so much the work (it&#39;s been pretty easy so far), but more the transport, socialising, and my resolution not to skip any lectures, tutes or labs (which I&#39;ve manage to keep so far, but its becoming harder and harder to). It&#39;s hard getting back in the swing of uni life, particularly now that I have assignments to do (boring).</p> <p>I&#39;m still working too, although only a day a week because of how crappy my timetable turned out. </p> <p>So&nbsp;a combination of all that, plus some projects that I&#39;m not quite ready to let out of the bag just yet, are keeping me pretty occupied. Things are also more interesting when I have something to &#39;show and tell&#39;, so rather than write half-baked stuff just to fit to a schedule (which has been once a week for the past few months), posting here will become a bit more sporadic. I&#39;ll be adding stuff to my tumblelog more often than blogging though.</p> <p>Keep me on your RSS reader, or subscribe to me if you haven&#39;t, and you&#39;ll be the first to know when something happens here.</p> <p>While I have you here, if you&#39;re bored, go check out a book called<a class="" href="http://www.amazon.com/Eight-Lives-Down-Chris-Hunter/dp/0593058607"> Eight Lives Down by Chris Hunter</a>. It&#39;s about a British bomb disposal officer&#39;s story in Iraq - gives a really good insight into the conditions and environment over there, its effects on the soldiers stationed, and as a bonus, it&#39;s very well written and entertaining at the same time.</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=840" width="1" height="1">unipersonaldriveactivatedhttp://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/02/25/why-can-t-hardware-makers-do-software.aspxMon, 25 Feb 2008 12:35:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:797Sam0http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=797http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=797http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/02/25/why-can-t-hardware-makers-do-software.aspx#comments<p>I just had to fix a problem on a computer with Windows Live Messenger unexpectedly closing due to DEP violation, and guess what the problem was - Acer&#39;s eDataSecurity Management tool was doing something screwy with it. I gotta give them credit for providing a fix to the problem (problem and solution <a class="" href="http://www.fanatic.net.nz/2007/03/14/how-to-stop-dep-crashing-messenger-on-vista/">here</a>), but why do problems like these happen time and time again? And even when the software works, it nearly always seems to be some clunky&nbsp;prototype someone was paid peanuts to do.</p> <p>It annoys any IT guy to no end the amount of crap desktop/laptop manufacturers preload on their systems. The first thing I do for the machines we do at work is unload all that crap, or do a complete OS restore without those bits. I&#39;d be interested to see how many people actually use the crap that&#39;s generally on them. Do they really think they&#39;re adding value? Who the hell buys desktops/laptops based on the additional crap it has on it? </p> <p>That crap is generally unsupported too, written by the new guy in the office with the shit tasks list, and as long as it worked the day he wrote it, it&#39;s assumed to be rock-solid and will work anywhere for eternity. Great.</p> <p>If they want to add value by preloading software, do it well, do it unobtrusively,&nbsp;give us the option if whether or not to use it, and respect the fact that I don&#39;t want it scattered everywhere on my system (and also good Windows programming guidelines, i.e. don&#39;t write stuff to the Program Files folder!).</p> <p>Motherboard manufacturers are repeat offenders too. Here&#39;s a screen dump of my MSI mobo&#39;s temperature monitoring app:</p> <p> <div style="TEXT-ALIGN:center;"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/799/354x318.aspx" border="0" alt="" /></div> <p>Why do they always look so ridiculous? This isn&#39;t the first motherboard I&#39;ve seen with&nbsp;a monitoring app like this - Gigabyte, Asus, Soltek all have apps that look like this or worse. Is there some kind of competition between mobo manufacturers to try and make the ridiculous-looking monitoring app ever?</p> <p>Looks aside, I thank my lucky stars every time this thing loads up and doesn&#39;t make my computer spontaneously restart after a few minutes. You have no idea how nervous I get when I have to use their utility to&nbsp;do a BIOS update...</p> <p>Many peripheral makers aren&#39;t much better either. Here&#39;s one from my Dvico FusionHDTV card.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://driveactivated.com/photos/blog/images/798/640x407.aspx" border="0" alt="" /></p> <p>Don&#39;t get me started on how unintuitive it is (reservation? automatic date maker? where&#39;s the bloody close button?)&nbsp;- I&#39;m just thankful it works. It took them years to get the software to this working state - the software I got with it originally was unworkable to say the least. In the mean time, I got all sorts of weird &#39;UI enhancements&#39; from the following versions, but the software still did all sorts of weird things until they picked up their game a bit recently. Yet I still have no confidence in pressing the &#39;record TV&#39; button, and dread the day I have to reinstall it on another computer.</p> <p>A friend&#39;s&nbsp;Linksys CIT200 Skype phone is the same - when that app is loading, everything in XP freezes until it&#39;s done.</p> <p>The pain isn&#39;t on and off though. It&#39;s full on. There seems to be some implicit rule that they all have to have as much crap as they can get away with running on your computer on startup. That MSI program above automatically loads on startup after install. Others like&nbsp;Logitech, add innocent things like an update checker (I&#39;ve lost count of the number of update checkers I&#39;ve had to disable - I wish Windows had the Linux package system sometimes, even with its annoying quirks) to the startup list. Others add more annoying things like services that&nbsp;are useless unless the desktop app is running, while the more evil ones add apps that sit in the task bar quietly chewing up CPU and RAM until your computer slows to a crawl. </p> <p>Toshiba&#39;s Bluetooth stack is a serious offender here - unlike the Microsoft stack, it requires an app for each BT protocol to be loaded on startup, each of them taking up valuable resources that could be shared, even if my BT is switched off. In fact, while I haven&#39;t looked on other laptops lately, Toshiba is a serial offender to startup apps - my laptop had over 10 apps attributable to Toshiba loading on startup when I first got it, some useful, others not so. Regardless - there must be a better way to manage all these functions without all this useless overload.</p> <p>Why is the software component nearly always an afterthought when it comes to the overall product? Is it because its not physical therefore it doesn&#39;t matter? Or are the hardware guys somewhat superior, and the software guys are just minimum-paid dropkicks hired to build software because the company had to? In most cases, the software is as important as the hardware is, so it doesn&#39;t matter if you have awesome hardware but your software sucks - bad user experience overall (and unfortunately Windows cops most of the blame due to the nature of the bugs, and hence the hardware manufacturers have no incentive to fix it).</p> <p>Whatever it is, if I&#39;m ever in the hardware device industry, I pledge to give software the attention it deserves <img src="http://driveactivated.com/emoticons/emotion-2.gif" alt="Big Smile" /></p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=797" width="1" height="1">windowscomputeruser experiencehardwaretechCollectivehttp://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/02/19/idea-online-personal-trainer-marketplace.aspxTue, 19 Feb 2008 10:47:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:795Sam1http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=795http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=795http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/02/19/idea-online-personal-trainer-marketplace.aspx#comments<p>A while ago, a mate and I were brainstorming ideas to link in his work out/fitness/health/sport fetish with the web, with the view to form something financially viable out of it. We saw lots of fitness community websites out there like <a class="" href="http://www.traineo.com/">traineo</a>, <a class="" href="http://www.gimme20.com/">gimme20</a>, <a class="" href="http://www.peertrainer.com/">peertrainer</a> and <a class="" href="http://www.sparkpeople.com/">sparkpeople</a>, but they&#39;re all focused on bringing ordinary people together. Problem is, there is no real authority like a personal trainer, available on these websites to provide personal attention and reinforcement that what they&#39;re doing is right for them and their goals.</p> <p>The personal training, or health and fitness market in Australia is booming at the moment as the media continuously tell us 24/7 we&#39;re in the middle of an obesity crisis (which, as a uni student, seems like complete crap if uni students are any representation of the wider community). So in response, personal training is being spruiked as some kind of wonder job, where you can be in complete control of when you want to do what where, yet still get &#39;great pay&#39; (the only ad worse than those radio ads are the sex help ones). Heaps of people are doing these courses, and if my bets are anywhere close, not all the graduates are experiencing the good life promised.</p> <p>This led us to the idea of an online personal trainer marketplace. After all, personal trainers who choose to go it alone can place an ad in the paper, or on <a class="" href="http://www.ebay.com.au/">ebay</a>, or some other classifieds website/newspaper, but honestly, how many people look there, and if they do, will they have confidence in the transaction?</p> <p>Kind of like <a class="" href="http://www.onforce.com/">onforce.com</a> for IT technicians, the personal trainer marketplace, codenamed reboundNOW (domain not available anymore), hooks potential clients up with trainers. But it doesn&#39;t stop there - it provides a full set of tools to faciliate clients to carry out their routines and to keep track of them, and for trainers to be able to keep an eye on their clients to make sure they&#39;re doing the right thing. And of course, it&#39;ll have some nicely integrated community, social networking magic sprinkled on top to pull people together.</p> <p>So as a trainer, you&#39;d add a profile on reboundNOW, providing information on yourself, qualifications, specialities etc. You may even choose to start a blog or&nbsp;podcast&nbsp;with tips or journal entries to help assert your skills. Your qualifications will be checked by reboundNOW, and marked as such when passed. Trainers will be charged to list their profile for x months, and then a small fee for each client they enlist. They are free to set their fees as they wish on top of that.</p> <p>As a potential client, you can then look through all the profiles, filtered by location, skills, sex, specialities etc. - kind of like a dating site, but with more class :) You would have the ability to talk to them before committing, or maybe even talk to their existing clients. Once you&#39;ve decided, you can then work out pricing and other details, confirm the relationship and organise a fitness survey.</p> <p>You will then have access to the extensive exercise library in-built into reboundNOW, complete with video demonstrations, as well as a useful exercise tracker that lets you keep track of your routine and your performance and changes over time. You can print out the work out to take to the gym, then report the results back into the system, along with any comments.</p> <p>Your new trainer will have access also, allowing them to update your routines to match your performance and needs, as well as communicating with you to see how you think you&#39;re going. They can also prescribe exercises not in the library by adding their own.</p> <p>If you choose, you can also make your exercise tracker public, or available to certain friends so they can keep track of you and motivate you when you need that extra boost.</p> <p>There will also be a shared calendar between you and your trainer, allowing you to block out times that you&#39;re busy, so you can work out when you can meet in person for a session. </p> <p>Other functionality may include:</p> <ul> <li> <div>groups - can be groups between people with similar interests across reboundNOW, or groups for group sessions with the trainer.</div></li> <li> <div>events - allows people or groups to easily organise and hold events, complete with mapping and suggested routes.</div></li> <li> <div>forums - again, can be sitewide, or trainer specific; allows users to talk, share stories, tips, ideas and provide motivation.</div></li> <li> <div>payments - makes it easy for clients to pay for their trainer&#39;s services and/or products, allowing trainers to accept payments from credit cards without further hassle.</div></li> <li> <div>business analysis - for trainers to see how their numbers stack up easily, and helps with any business requirements they may have.</div></li> <li> <div>store - a one-stop shop for fitness-related products.</div></li> <li> <div>diet - a recommendation and tracking module for the client&#39;s diet.</div></li> <li> <div>goal setter - allow trainers and clients to set goals and track achievements together.</div></li> <li> <div>measurement tracker - track measurements like weight and fat index over time, and visualize improvements.</div></li> <li> <div>body image tracker - post images and see changes to your body over time.</div></li> <li> <div>competitions - challenge clients (sitewide, or trainer specific) to a particular goal, and be rewarded for achieving it.</div></li></ul> <p>There are heaps of other things that are possible, but the goal is to keep clients and trainers using the website even after they have met. They won&#39;t be prevented from sidestepping the website, but hopefully the features will provide enough benefits to both trainers and clients such that the minor extra cost will be worth it.</p> <p>The monetizing strategy is fairly different to most other fitness community websites, which generally focus on either a direct cost to the client for the website features, or advertising. reboundNOW instead offers something that can&#39;t be replaced by another website&nbsp;- a trainer. And as the site offers benefits to both the trainer and the client, the relationship is stickier.</p> <p>The closest website we found that did this (mind you, this brainstorming was done a while ago), was <a class="" href="http://www.itrainharder.com/">iTrainHarder.com</a>. However, iTrainHarder&nbsp;does not have the concept of a marketplace - trainers can bring their clients on to the platform and get similar features, but it doesn&#39;t seem as community oriented, and rather than try to encompass the entire relationship to make it a one-stop-shop, it only focuses on certain aspects.</p> <p>I think there&#39;s potential in this, if it&#39;s executed well, in consultation with people in the industry. My mate and I never really got round to getting this off the ground, and we&#39;re now both engaged in other endeavours, so the idea, which I&#39;m sure isn&#39;t exactly new, is free to a good home :)</p><img src="http://driveactivated.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=795" width="1" height="1">web 2.0web appsideasfitnesstechCollectivehttp://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/02/10/looking-into-the-near-future.aspxSun, 10 Feb 2008 06:58:00 GMTa6ad56f3-672a-4869-8ea2-4a03165d64f8:787Sam0http://driveactivated.com/blog/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=787http://driveactivated.com/blog/commentapi.aspx?PostID=787http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2008/02/10/looking-into-the-near-future.aspx#comments<p><em>I&#39;ve been sitting on this for a while, but never managed to get it polished enough, so I thought screw it, here it is.</em>&nbsp;</p> <p>While pondering what I&#39;m gonna do for the rest of my life (well at least the next few years anyway), I created a list of things I saw the world of tech focusing on for some direction. It is not a long-sighted prediction, rather a list of what is either happening now or will be very soon. They should all be reality by 2011 I reckon.</p> <p>So being the nice person that I am, I&#39;m sharing it. Without further ado, here they are, 13 points in no particular order:</p> <h4>Design and user experience will become one of the main purchasing factors, and it doesn&#39;t start or end with the product - it&#39;s how it makes the consumer feel before, during and after.</h4> <p>Products will no longer be just products, but they will contain the brand&#39;s DNA, their philosophy. And consumers will judge a product not on the product&#39;s purported benefits, but also what it gives them, how it makes them feel, how it fits in and connects with their lives. It won&#39;t end with the product either, with consumers expecting a continual relationship with the manufacturer, either for technical support, offers, new features etc. </p> <p>Manufacturers will crave to connect to the customer on an intimate level, creating an ecosystem and while they may or may not include some kind of real lock-in mechanism in their products, they will definitely develop a &#39;psychological lock-in&#39;, making consumers buy their brand again. The tactics of high-end brands are finally filtering down to lower-end ones. </p> <h4>Performance will not be important anymore, no more gigahertz speak. It&#39;ll be all about the features and quality, not quantity</h4> <p>The consumerisation of computers has spurred a change in consumer thinking. No longer will it be about performance figures or tech specs that sell these products, but rather how they translate into what the product can do for them and how it will benefit them.</p> <p>I think the way Microsoft marketed Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) in Australia is a worthy example. It arrived at a time when practically no one here had heard of PVRs and features like time-shifting (we don&#39;t have Tivos here remember). Their partners came out with machines that looked like computers, retailers put those machines in the computer section, and all the advertising material conveyed the tech specs of a computer -&nbsp;its CPU speed, memory size, number of USB ports etc.</p> <p>Sales flopped. No one understood why they needed a computer in their TV room, or what the benefits were. Along comes a range of consumer electronic manufacturers, Sony, Panasonic, LG, Philips etc., who created their own PVR units, promoted the concept of PVRs and what you could do with them, all without a mention of the tech specs. It still took them a few years, but they experienced far greater success at educating the consumer, and getting sales.&nbsp; </p> <h4>Integration and context-aware will be the new buzzwords</h4> <p>Electronic devices have evolved to a stage where they have gained so much traction that it&#39;s starting to lose it due to the multitude available.&nbsp;The next stage is to integrate them with each other. We have started with the basic sharing of files, but that&#39;s only the tip of the iceberg - devices should be sharing data (storage and runtime), functionality and resources, so what I can do in one device, I should be able to do on or from another (if appropriate of course). They should also be aware of the context they&#39;re being used in, so rather than having us tell them what they should be doing when, they should be smart enough to realise themselves. </p> <p>Bluetooth-enabled mobiles and GPSes are a good example here. Jump into a car and your mobile will automatically connect to your GPS, rerouting all audio there, as well as your phone book and messages. You can then control your mobile from your GPS. This is only the start for this relationship - what if all you need to do is select an address from an SMS, your GPS will pick it up, guide you to the nearest carpark, then sends the walking directions to get to your location to your mobile.</p> <p>GPSes can also be contextually aware too. One example is mode-awareness - it should be able to sense when it is removed from the car, and when it is, it reroutes your directions into ones suitable for walking. Another example is already available in some parts of the world - GPSes can now sense which area is congested and redirect you to a less congested route.</p> <p>Devices can also be location-aware, e.g. your mobile detecting that you&#39;re at home and automatically rerouting all phone calls to the home phone system. Or they can be time-aware, e.g. it knows from live traffic data that you need x minutes to get to your next appointment, so it alerts you earlier. Or they can be device-aware, e.g. if I&#39;m on my laptop, all my email, reminders and IM notifications will be routed there, and when I&#39;m out and about, they get re-routed to my mobile. Or they can be situation-aware, e.g. if you&#39;re in a meeting scheduled in your calendar, your status will be communicated to those necessary, and any notifications will be suspended unless urgent. There are many, many more examples. Cisco&#39;s <a href="http://www.cisco.com/web/thehumannetwork/"><font color="#669966">&#39;human network&#39;</font></a> vision is worth reading.&nbsp; </p> <h4>The web will become more and more connected and integrated to the physical world</h4> <p>The web started off as&nbsp;one of the&nbsp;communication methods&nbsp;available to us. Now, it underpins our technological and virtual identity - it is an intricate part of every second of our lives. Yet whenever we want to do something on the web, we almost always invariably have to do it in front of our computers - we have to go to the web instead of it coming to us.</p> <p>Our mobile phones are leading the charge here - the mobile web revolution is gaining ground at a phenomenal pace. And because we almost always have our mobiles with us, it is ideal as our connector to the web. Need a map and directions to the nearest Maccas? Need to look up a mate&#39;s phone number on Facebook? Want to see if restaurant X is worth visiting? Want to buy and download that song you just heard at a bar?</p> <p>Some other cool examples that exist on our mobiles already include <a href="http://www.loopt.com/"><font color="#669966">loopt</font></a>, which tracks your location using your phone&#39;s GPS signal and makes that available to selected friends so they know where you are and can organise a catch up (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/"><font color="#669966">twitter</font></a> and others offer a similar one, but requires you to text your location). Another one is <a href="http://www.ispott.com/"><font color="#669966">i-spott</font></a>, which is a mobile scavenger hunt game - some targets are set for each day, and you have to snap a photo of them on your mobile and send it through for points.</p> <p>But our mobiles aren&#39;t the only thing we can access the web on. Imagine if you had a communal shopping list at your shared house, then when you visit the supermarket, it automatically pops up on the trolley, along with item locations, special offers, recipe suggestions and more. Items are sorted out by who requested them, and the bill is organised and charged as such. </p> <p>Or what if you could walk in to Harvey Norman, scan the items you&#39;re interested in and you can get the model numbers, brochures and reviews retrieved and ready for comparison later, or get price comparisons immediately.</p> <p>Maybe your local pub will project images from some flickr stream on to a wall, allowing customers to tag their flickr shots they took on their mobile and get them shown.</p> <p>How about when you pay at the checkouts, your mobile authenticates you as who you say you are, and any membership cards and discounts are automatically applied - no more carrying around a wallet full of crappy cards. The checkout chick then asks if you want to pick up that&nbsp;internet order to be delivered next week now instead. You then realise that you&#39;re short on cash, so you ask the checkout chick to place some items on your wish list so you can buy it here or online when your pay cheque clears.</p> <p>The web doesn&#39;t replace reality - it complements it and will continue to. This is the next frontier of the web revolution.&nbsp; </p> <h4>The mobile will become an extension of the user, becoming our digital identifier, authenticator, communicator and researcher.</h4> <p>As the examples in the above point noted - the mobile is set to be our conduit to the digital world. No longer is it just a phone, but a universal communicator, enabling us to communicate with others via video, blogs, email, micro-blogs, facebook etc. But not only to other people, but to services and devices too - e.g. enabling us to remotely check to see if we turned the oven off, and whether or not we told our PVR to record the game tonight.</p> <p>It will also identify us, and reflect our personality and character traits through strong personalisation features. Not just through replaceable shells, or customisable ringtones and wallpaper - the interface (look and feel, and also the text) and tools available on it will be customised to the user&#39;s tastes. It will also learn and act as the user does, knowing what the user wants when and how.</p> <p>We will no longer have to carry an array of cards in our wallet - our mobile will double as our ID, acting as our driver&#39;s licence, credit card, transport ticket, loyalty card and security pass and whatever other card we have to carry now. Our mobile will authenticate itself with us through biometrics, and if we lose it, we can immediately request a remote removal and deregistration of our ID from that mobile, register our ID with a new mobile and continue with our lives.</p> <p>The mobile will also become our digital researcher, on hand 24/7. We can use it to get directions, reviews, request opinions, instructions... anything really.&nbsp; Effectively, it will become our second brain, one that is not bounded by our physical restrictions, one that has an infinite amount of knowledge available in seconds.&nbsp; </p> <h4>Device-to-device peer-to-peer and mesh-style networks will become more and more popular, but not necessarily replacing centrally-based systems.</h4> <p>Peer-to-peer (P2P) and mesh networks are ideal for discovering information from nearby sources. They can be perfect for personal devices because they act like humans do - connect with our surroundings, radiating out.&nbsp; They&#39;re also cheaper than server-dependent networks, potentially faster, and in some cases, can be more resilient.&nbsp; </p> <h4>There will be a backlash against everything going online, and the things that remain physical, like business cards, will be better and better designed.</h4> <p>As more and more things become virtual, we&#39;ll start looking at the things that remain physical in a different light. We&#39;ll start demanding things remain physical. We will value them more; they&#39;ll have more meaning and personality.</p> <p>Until every wall, table, floor, ceiling becomes a display, printers will be in greater demand, as users become more and more creative on their computers, desiring to print their designs out to personalise their surroundings or show friends. Some web companies like <a href="http://moo.com/"><font color="#669966">moo.com</font></a>, who allow users to easily design and order business cards, stickers and other stuff, have even built their business based on this fact. Others like <a href="http://www.springwise.com/media_publishing/customized_cookbooks_stir_in_o/"><font color="#669966">TasteBook</font></a> allow people to order their own recipe books, personalised with recipes chosen by themselves.&nbsp; </p> <h4>Desktops, as we know them, will not exist in homes anymore. Everyone will have a laptop, and simple, single-purpose computer devices will become ubiquitous, embedded in our surroundings, silently networked.</h4> <p>As the web becomes more and more embedded into our world, so will computers. We no longer have to live with the physical limitations of a desktop, namely that you must be in a particular location to use it. Instead, computers will accommodate to our location, wirelessly integrated into our surroundings so that they become part of our daily lives, rather than an intrusive and physically-limiting tool.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.openmoko.com/"><font color="#669966">openmoko</font></a> guys and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weiser"><font color="#669966">Mark Weiser</font></a> summarise this the best, respectively:<br />&quot;Ubiquitous computing means more than computing wherever you wander: It means knowing the locale, weaving seamlessly into the local fabric, and vanishing.&quot;<br />&quot;The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”</p> <p>Our homes will have screens everywhere, with a <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/surface/"><font color="#669966">Microsoft Surface</font></a>-like table to read the morning news, screens on the wall showing the status of family members and friends and their calendars, a flowing news feed of what&#39;s going on with the people we know. Jump on to the TV and the computer will show you the EPG, any unwatched recordings, and what&#39;s on now sorted by your preferences. There&#39;ll be ambient devices, like the <a href="http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html"><font color="#669966">Orb</font></a> that subtly tells us the state of certain things, like the weather. The possibilities are endless.</p> <p>There will be a rise in devices dedicated to particular tasks to power this (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_appliance"><font color="#669966">information appliances</font></a>), all seamlessly integrated with each other. Virtualisation will also play a part. </p> <h4>People will become more and more concerned about privacy and lack of control, and there will be solutions to bring things back home but still accessible online.</h4> <p>We are currently going through a social information trend, with people providing more information than ever to anyone who cares to look. As more and more information, including confidential documents like bank statements and tax returns, go online however, people will realise that not everything that can be online should be.</p> <p>This is not just about the dangers of making such information publically available, leading to identity theft or worse. It is also about handing control of your data over to a third-party, in some random country, with substantially different laws. Who will be liable if the data is leaked? More likely though, what avenues can you pursue when the service loses your data, or locks you out on a business day, costing you millions? These services do not make it easy to backup and restore data or run offline, because they are a service after all. So when they stuff up, can you contact them and what can you do?</p> <p>Or what if the service decides to cease offering the service, like when Yahoo! decided to <a href="http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/index.php/2007/05/03/when-your-assets-are-no-longer-monetizable-yahoo-photos-to-close/"><font color="#669966">axe Yahoo! Photos earlier this year</font></a>?</p> <p>There are solutions coming out designed to put the data back into your hands yet remain accessible online, including NASes on steroids, doing much more than simply storing data and Windows Home Server. Other solutions in development include dedicated data hosting services, which may be located locally for further peace-of-mind, like <a href="http://www.omnidrive.com/"><font color="#669966">Omnidrive&#39;s</font></a> <a href="http://webfs.omnidrive.com/HomePage"><font color="#669966">WebFS</font></a> strategy or Amazon&#39;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261"><font color="#669966">S3</font></a>, who can then authorise other services access to the data.&nbsp; </p> <h4>The personal touch will become more and more important, e.g. written (tablet) notes.</h4> <p>The personal touch used to be something only the rich and famous got, but the trick is filtering down the ladder. Companies are realising that it really only takes a tiny bit more effort, but the results are well worth it.</p> <p>When technology came along, people used it to mass-notify everyone using a generic message because it was so easy to. The personal touch went out the window as companies and staff became lazy. Perceptions are changing though, and there is now a drive to create more personal communications using technology. Examples include customising emails to customer preferences, responding to emails directly and not via auto-replies and printing personally addressed and/or handwritten (or at least styled) messages.&nbsp; </p> <h4>Society as a whole will be drawn together again through the power of the net and be more aware of externalities and the effect on the world.</h4> <p>Partly driven by the massive environmental/climate change push, and also the fact that we are richer than ever before, technology has enabled us to see what is actually going on and do something about it. The entrepreneurial trend has also helped, as they give consumers alternatives that appeal to their moral belief. This new view on the world has forced companies worldwide to re-evaluate their strategy, with those doing it first reaping the benefits.&nbsp; </p> <h4>Everything you want will be accessible anywhere, anytime, anyhow.</h4> <p>This one&#39;s pretty obvious. Once again, our mobiles will play a vital role here. The explosion in web-based services makes this pretty real already, with services available to manage and store nearly any data.</p> <p>One nice example I&#39;d like to see happen is something similar to Palm&#39;s Foleo vision. The idea is that we can get dumb laptop-like devices that connect to our mobile device and make all our email and documents available on them, making it easier to type longer documents on a bigger screen. It would be even better if we could store a simple computer setup (virtual machine) on our mobiles, configured with our own apps. Then when we go out to say, a coffee shop, we can loan one of these laptop-like devices, which will wirelessly connect up with our mobiles and load up our personalised setup. All the apps we need are there, as are our documents/music/videos which were downloaded from our mobiles (or from a web-based service access through our mobile&#39;s internet connection). And when we&#39;re done, we simply terminate the connection, all the data gets stored back on to our mobile (or web-based service) and we can return the laptop-like device back to the coffee shop. No more carrying around a heavy laptop.&nbsp; </p> <h4>Viral distribution will become more virulent, easier to start and more and more innovative.</h4> <p>We have only scratched the tip of the iceberg with the viral distribution techniques in use now. Viral marketing has been quite successful, especially those involving challenges like the recent <a href="http://vanishingpointwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page"><font color="#669966">Vanishing Point game</font></a> for <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/"><font color="#669966">Windows Vista</font></a>. Other brands like Red Bull have created games that sit within Facebook, which can virally spread from that person&#39;s friend&#39;s list outwards.</p> <p>But marketers will soon start tap into this method of distribution a lot more. For example, if Apple implemented Zune-style sharing (without the DRM fingers-crossed), complete with Facebook-style news feeds telling them of songs their friends have favourited/bought recently and integration with the iPod touch&#39;s wireless music store, it would encourage a lot of &#39;spur of the moment&#39; purchases. Maybe artists can even tap in to the platform and distribute free copies of their songs; or maybe require a person to send that song to 3 other people before receiving a free copy.</p> <p>This is the web embracing the trusted word-of-mouth transmission mechanism, and extrapolating it much further than any single user will bother spreading, maximising that user&#39;s value to the marketer.</p> <p>And for laughs, here are some bonus ones:</p> <ul> <li><strong>The Linux community will focus more on user interfaces and experiences.<br /></strong>Actually, I wish this would seriously happen soon. A personal exa