Who benefits from recessions?

I saw an interesting interview with Pastor Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life, on Fox Business Channel today.  He stated a few interesting things.  During a recessionary time, people lose faith in materialism.  Three industries benefit directly:

1. Church attendance goes up
2. Bars gain more traffic
3. Movie Theater attendance goes up

Well, what is it that people are searching for when they begin to increase their attendance to the following places?

1. Church – people search for meaning
2. Bars – people search for connections
3. Theaters – people look for relief

There is a lot of sadness, madness and blame going around during recessionary times, what is the best way to combat this?

1. We must learn to work together, blaming does no good
2. Everyone has to take responsibility for their part in the disaster, we have been living beyond our means as a society
3. Look at what is left, not what is lost

Interesting analysis and thoughts.  As I thought more about this, I realized that there is a lot of truth to what he is saying.  I have never seen him interviewed before, and though I disagree with his stance on certain issues, I respect his opinions.

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Skype comes to iPhone, finally…

Skype finally announced that they have created an official app for their services. It took them a while, but this may be the beginning of a solid platform for VoIP on mobile phones.  It is able to place and receive calls through your existing Skype account, however it still requires WiFi capabilities (will work on the iPod Touch as well). Here’s some more info:

Skype’s screens are well organized and use the iPhone’s ability to add filters, for instance, to sort your contacts alphabetically, or by who’s online. There’s chatting as well, though Skype’s flagship feature is its VoIP calling that’s free to other Skype users and an inexpensive per-minute fee to landlines. Calls on Skype for iPhone work only if you’re in range of a Wi-Fi network, so your call quality will in part be at the mercy and strength of wireless networks nearby–calls will not work over the cell phone network on the iPhone (but chatting will.) Assuming your connection is solid, you can dial a number or quickly call a contacts stored in your address book. iPod Touch users will need earphones with an embedded mic to talk. During a call, you can mute the line, go on hold, or put the call on speakerphone. In the My Info window, you can follow a link to buy more SkypeOut credit online.

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Sources:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10206786-233.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=iPhoneAtlas

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The Singularity is getting closer…

I have been fascinated by Ray Kurzweil’s hypotheses on Artificial Intelligence since they year 2000 when i read The Age of Spiritual Machines.  We are seeing unprecedented change in our daily lives due to the rapid growth of computational capacity that our computers and electronic devices contain.  It won’t be long until a netbook can be bought for every child for less than $100, and cell phones will house the capacity of computers that we use today.  Barring any major distruptive disaster, I see the process of technological advancement as an inevitable process.

In astrophysics, “singularity” refers to conditions on the far side of a black hole. But it was Kurzweil who gave the term new resonance in his 2005 best seller, The Singularity Is Near. Here, it designates a point in the not-so-distant future when artificial intelligence will outstrip human brainpower and ingenuity. (Think IBM’s Deep Blue vs. Kasparov, on a planet-wide scale.) In Kurzweil’s best-case scenario, man will merge with machines via tiny robotic devices implanted in our bodies and brains, extending our lifespans and vastly enhancing our mental prowess. Bionic brains, Kurzweil says, will make short work of the world’s intractable problems, from climate change to drug-resistant diseases.

Borrowing from microelectronics, Kurzweil uses the paradigm called Moore’s Law to show that the singularity isn’t just plausible but inevitable. Simply put, it states that the power of semiconductors doubles every two years. Engineers have repeatedly declared the end of this cycle, only to see computers grow more and more powerful. Turning to biology, Kurzweil notes that it took 15 years to sequence the HIV virus. In 2003 scientists took less than a month to sequence the newly emerged SARS virus.

See my previous blog post here for a video that exemplifies some of the changes we are currently seeing in our daily lives.  Before watching the video in the previous post, imagine someone showing you this video 10 years ago and telling you that technology would reshape the world the way it has in only 10 years!  Now try to imagine our world 10 years from now!

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Sources:
http://www.businessweek.com//magazine/content/09_12/b4124044178284.htm?chan=magazine+channel_new+ideas+for+growth

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Google Gmail adds a task list…finally!

I came across this post this morning and remembered you asking me if Google Calendar had a task list.  Apparently Google has integrated the task list into Gmail and it is easily accessible via the iPhone.  The article below explains how to enable it in gMail and how to access it via an iPhone/iPod Touch.

Google’s Gmail is one of the company’s most popular services, and the service has been enhanced with an add-on feature, a Task list, which is now ready and waiting for iPhone users.

However, to use this new feature you must first log into Gmail and enable Tasks. Once you log into your Gmail account, locate Settings, and then go to the Labs tab and enable Tasks. That’s it and you’re ready to use this feature on your iPhone. Gaining access to the task list is easy: just launch Safari, surf to http://www.gmail.com/tasks, and you will see the new iPhone compatible mobile web interface for tasks in Gmail.

Just like any other task manager, you can add new tasks, check off your completed tasks and delete tasks. You can also add notes to any task. You can also manage multiple tasks lists, and separate tasks onto one list for work tasks and one list for personal tasks. Task lists are immediately synced with the Tasks list in Gmail whenever you make changes.

Unfortunately, there is currently no offline access to Task list(s), so you must have an active cellular data or Wi-Fi connection to use Tasks. Tasks also does not allow you to prioritize your tasks as this can only be done in the desktop computer version of Gmail’s website.

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Sources:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10155864-233.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=iPhoneAtlas

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iPhone App Development

Came across this article that was pretty intersting.  App development in general is becoming a hot area, especially for the iPhone.  So what is the going rate to contract out a iPhone app developer.  $125-$250 per hour according to DigitalMedia.  Pretty crazy stuff.

we are at a phase in the growth of the iPhone ecosystem where there is a significant gap between individuals with the ideas and those who are actually capable of turning the ideas into iPhone applications.

This gap is almost entirely financial in nature. The demand for iPhone developers exceeds the supply and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The going rate for iPhone developers, at least the developers I know and trust, is $125/hour and up. I have some friends who are booked out at $200/hour for the next few months, although $125/hour seems to be the going rate in my network. At that rate, a full-time contract iPhone developer costs $5,000/week and it may take four to six weeks for an application to be developed. Sometimes it will take less and sometimes it will take more. Add to development the other costs – project management, design, QA, and marketing, to name a few. It’s not uncommon to spend $30,000 and up on an iPhone development project. iPhone applications are not cheap.

I have been wondering what the going rate was to contract out a programmer, it’s nice to see an estimated figure to give me an idea.

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Sources:
http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/11/turning-ideas-into-application.html

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iPhone 2.2 Update

Interestingly, Apple is taking a step towards simplifying podcasting on the iPhone.  With the newest update that was released yesterday (they generally release once ever couple months) they have included functionality to update podcasts directly from the iTunes App on the iPhone itself without having to sync it to your computer’s iTunes .  This is a step in the right direction for podcasting functionality on the iPhone.  The only thing better would be an app that allows for real time streaming of Podcasts (with or without iTunes integreation)…  Project Podcast-on-Demand becomes  a little more viable…

Apple has released iPhone OS 2.2. Among the listed improvements:

Enhancements to Maps:

• Google Street View
• public transit and walking directions
• display address of dropped pins
• share location via email

Enhancements to Mail

• resolve isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email
• improved formatting of wide HTML email

Other Enhancements

• Improved stability and performance of Safari
• Podcasts are now available for download in the iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular networks)
• Decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages
• Pressing the Home button from any Home screen takes you the first Home screen
• Preference to turn on/off keyboard auto-correction

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Sources:
http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/11/20/iphone-os-22-released-google-street-view-safari-more-stable-podcast-downloads-more/

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Holographic User Interface

What an amazing concept for a user interface.  This is essentially a portable holographic interface that is portable with the user.  it allows an interactive experience through hand motion and gestures.  It combines the capabilities of internet, GPS, mobile device applications, etc into an easy to use 3d environment.  Of course, this is merely a concept, but very cool idea and great example of thinking outside of the box.

Holographic Interface – round interface – Ringo from Ivan Tihienko on Vimeo.

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Sources:
http://vimeo.com/1416530?pg=embed&sec=1416530

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Skype now works on the iPhone

A little bit more competition in the VoIP iPhone market.  Fring has brought Skype to the iPhone, which means ultra cheap calling.  According to Skype’s website, it is only $2.95/mo for 10,000 minutes. Not a bad deal at all.  The downside, is there still is no solution to incoming calls.  But this is very positive. 

After 6 months of not-quite-official availability for those of us with jailbroken iPhones, Fring, a free mobile Voice-over-IP service (VoIP), has made its way to the App Store. With that, a day that some said would never come has arrived: Skype calls can now be made on the iPhone, no hacks required.

Beyond the Skype functionality (which I imagine would be its most popular use), Fring also lets you chat (and call, where appropriate) friends over MSN, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo, Twitter, ICQ, and of course, Fring’s own service.

The App also brings all your contacts into one searchable list including all the instant messaging buddies mentioned above. You can then easily see who is online and the best way to reach them before making a call or talking to them in a live chat session. The list also includes the contacts on your iPhone. Fortunately you are not limited to paging through the list with your finger, which might take a while since there is a way to perform a search. This helps, but does not alleviate the need for an improved scroll bar.

With the release of the new iPod Touch, which accepts microphones, you should be able to make VoIP calls with the iPod Touch when connected to WiFi.

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Sources:
www.skype.com
http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/10/03/fring-brings-skype-skype-out-and-sip-calls-to-iphone/
http://www.fring.com/support/user_guide/fring_user_manual_iphone.pdf

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gPhone vs iPhone Preview

Here is a quick preview of the differences between the upcoming gPhone and the iPhone. One interesting note is that iPhone actually patented the dual finger pinch and pull motions to resize the screen size, so Android will have to use zoom-in and zoom-out buttons.

 

Take a look at a patent filing by Apple earlier this year for a dual touch screen on a phone.  They also patented a similar technology for a laptop…cool stuff.

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Sources:
http://lifehacker.com/5052054/what-to-expect-from-google-android-and-what-were-hoping-for
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/17/apple_exploring_dual_sided_translucent_touch_screen_panels.html

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9 other VOIP apps (article)

This is an article that evaluates 9 apps that implement VOIP for iphone.  Let me know what you think.  this just may be the thing that finally sways me.

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Chris’s Comments:

I didn’t realize there were arleady this many options for for VoIP on the iPhone.  That rocks!

According to iCall, “Apple has explicitly stated that VoIP is allowed, just not over Edge networks. Steve himself answered this question in the Q&A session after the last keynote speech.”

The two best products in my opinion are Truphone and iCall. The others rely on your contacts having Skype, GTalk or some other online IM service.  I don’t use any of these.

Truphone:

• Outgoing Calls: 1.5 cents/min or 500 min for $7.50, you only get charged as you use them though which is really nice
• Incoming Calls: “iPhone users can’t currently receive calls via Truphone, but we’re working on it. We promise that when inbound calling does become available on the iPhone we’ll never charge you a penny to receive calls”
• International Calling: Pretty good rates on this as well.
  
• Awesome technology.  You use your own phone number all the time unlike iCall.  When free Incoming Calls are available, this will kick ass.

iCall:

• Some of the other apps on the page require linking through GoogleTalk, Skype, MSN, etc IM contacts. This works with your existing phone book, which I like.
• Subscription fee based, but you get UNLIMITED minutes.
• Outgoing Calls: The downside is that it looks like it requires a call transfer, so a minute of call time will be used to answer the calls initially, then they can be transferred.
• Incoming Calls: Again the downside is that a minute will be used to receive the call initially, but also this: “Additionally the call must be received at the new iCall number that we have assigned you.”
• Overall, it seems like a great technology, if I am understanding correctly, it looks like it will require giving your friends/family you iCall assigned number instead of your regular cell, which I don’t really like.

Overall, it sounds like there are some downsides to each technology.  I haven’t personally experienced the call quality, although people say it is pretty decent.  The fact that Apple is approving VoIP is very positive though, we will likely see even more improvements on these apps in the future.

The other big event to watch out for is when Apple releases support for “background push” for 3rd party apps on the iPhone (It was supposed to be released with this months iPhone updated, but they pushed it back due to developmental issues).  This will allow 3rd party apps to run as a background process which right now only official Apple Apps can do.  This would allow a VoIP client to detect calls automatically.  There is quite a bit of potential in this space.

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