Find: Apple iPhone 4S: Thoroughly Reviewed

Quite good, even for 4 owners. 

Apple iPhone 4S: Thoroughly Reviewed


History loves to repeat itself, and even Apple isn’t immune to the yearly cycle of rumor and release. Leading to each year’s iPhone refresh, excitement, rumors, and hype build to a fever pitch, features and designs are added into an increasingly unrealistic combination, and finally everyone is silenced at the device’s eventual unveiling.



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Today we’re looking at Apple’s latest iPhone refresh, the iPhone 4S (henceforth just 4S). Read on for our full review!

Tool: Test Your Mobile Web Apps with WebDriver - A Tutorial


Test Your Mobile Web Apps with WebDriver - A Tutorial

Mobile testing has come a long way since the days when testing mobile web applications was mostly manual and took days to complete. Selenium WebDriver is a browser automation tool that provides an elegant way of testing web applications. WebDriver makes it easy to write automated tests that ensure your site works correctly when viewed from an Android or iOS browser.

For those of you new to WebDriver, here are a few basics about how it helps you test your web application. WebDriver tests are end-to-end tests that exercise a web application just like a real user would. There is a comprehensive user guide on the Selenium site that covers the core APIs.

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Now let’s talk about mobile! WebDriver provides a touch API that allows the test to interact with the web page through finger taps, flicks, finger scrolls, and long presses. It can rotate the display and provides a friendly API to interact with HTML5 features such as local storage, session storage and application cache. Mobile WebDrivers use the remote WebDriver server, following a client/server architecture. The client piece consists of the test code, while the server piece is the application that is installed on the device.

Get Started

WebDriver for Android and iPhone can be installed following these instructions. Once you’ve done that, you will be ready to write tests. Let’s start with a basic example using www.google.com to give you a taste of what’s possible.

The test below opens www.google.com on Android and issues a query for “weather in san francisco”. The test will verify that Google returns search results and that the first result returned is giving the weather in San Francisco.

public void testGoogleCanGiveWeatherResults() {  // Create a WebDriver instance with the activity in which we want the test to run.  WebDriver driver = new AndroidDriver(getActivity());  // Let’s open a web page  driver.get("http://www.google.com");

Find: Steve Jobs reportedly tapped iTunes creator to help "crack" the smart TV

Not sure iTunes "cracks" tv. !! Search would be good though.

Steve Jobs reportedly tapped iTunes creator to help "crack" the smart TV






Find: Hands-on: Nokia's Lumia 800 is exactly what Microsoft, Windows Phone 7 need

Not in us for months, but still promising for Nokia and wp7. 

Hands-on: Nokia's Lumia 800 is exactly what Microsoft, Windows Phone 7 need




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 In London today, Nokia revealed the first fruits of its partnership with Microsoft: a pair of Windows Phone handsets, the Lumia 800, codenamed Sea Ray; and the Lumia 710, codenamed Sabre. The 710 has a 3.7" LCD screen, 8GB flash memory, and a 5MP camera with an f/2.8 aperture. The 800 has a 3.7" AMOLED screen, 16GB flash memory, and an 8MP camera with an f/2.2 aperture. Both are powered by 1.4GHz processors with 512MB RAM, and both run Windows Phone "Mango". Both handsets also use tiny micro-SIMs instead of the normal mini-SIM.


Read the rest of this article...


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Find: Samsung to introduce flexible displays in devices next year

I wonder how these will integrate with touch?

Samsung to introduce flexible displays in devices next year




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Samsung’s 2012 lineup of gadgets will include ones with flexible screens, the company announced during an investor call today. The company’s smartphones will likely get them first, possibly in the first half of the year.

Samsung isn’t the first company to pursue flexible gadget parts, as Sony showed a flexible display in 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show. But Samsung may be the first major device manufacturer to get them to market, and with its new dominant market position, flexible displays stand to get a wide release.

The company’s pursuit of flexing screens stems from its purchase of Liquivista, a company that uses electrowetting technology to make screens that flex, but are still bright and low power. During the call, Robert Yi, vice president of investor relations, said that the company plans to introduce the displays “sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application will probably start from the handset side.” Tablets and other devices will get the technology later.

On the one hand, flexible displays mean that dropping your phone or tablet directly onto their screens may no longer be the disaster it currently is. However, Samsung has said little about how the quality of the displays will compare to the AMOLED screens the company usually favors in its higher-end devices, or even the oft-denigrated PenTile displays.The company also didn’t indicate whether the displays will only appear in all its devices, or only a subset.


Read the comments on this post


Find: Nokia Lumia 800 & 710, Windows Phones Announced

Find: Sony Acquires Sony Ericsson

Probably smart on ericsson's part. But can Sony really do something with it?

Sony Acquires Sony Ericsson

Find: Computing power: A deeper law than Moore's?

Nice chart on the "moores law" of power efficiency. 

Computing power: A deeper law than Moore's? | The Economist

Find: Mary Meeker's Internet Trends

Very interesting thoughts on mobile. Lots of cool charts. 

Mary Meeker's Internet Trends

Mary Meeker's latest Internet trends report is available online.

Find: Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design

Dieter Rams is an industrial designer, but these principles are
universal: they apply to interfaces, visualization, and code.

http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/dieterrams/gooddesign

Find: Matias Duarte on the philosophy of Android, and an in-depth look at Ice Cream Sandwich

Nice interview on the ux in ice cream sandwich. Duarte says its a middle ground between the tritely human and the faceless digital. 

Exclusive: Matias Duarte on the philosophy of Android, and an in-depth look at Ice Cream Sandwich

I’m sitting in an anonymous, fluorescently-lit office on the Google campus where the Android team is situated, a surprisingly bare setting that seems to clash with the rest of the [...]

Find: Nokia Will Unveil Windows 7 Phones Next Week

Find: ARM's new Cortex A7 is tailor-made for Android superphones

Arm hits power walls as it increases speed, so goes back and designs a slow processor to couple w fast ones. Of course, it does better than before, so future feature phones will have speed of todays smartphones but todays battery life. 

Are feature phones w smartphone speeds still feature phones? 

ARM's new Cortex A7 is tailor-made for Android superphones




Find: A deep-dive tour of Ice Cream Sandwich with Android's chief engineer

Nice dive into latest android w goog's guidance. 

A deep-dive tour of Ice Cream Sandwich with Android's chief engineer




Find: Android 4.0 SDK opens up face recognition APIs

Face recog API, also calendar, data usage...

First look: Android 4.0 SDK opens up face recognition APIs




Find: Amazon e-books with HTML5 power

Html5 in ebooks so layout can handle childrens books, comics

Amazon infuses e-books with HTML5 power with new KF8 format





Find: Massive 15-year study finds no link between cell phones, cancer

Rock solid Danish study says phones bring no cancer risk. 

Massive 15-year study finds no link between cell phones, cancer




Course: our next mobiles class




CSC 495
Visual Interfaces for Mobile Devices

Mobiles are the future
  • Today's phones have as much processing power as the original Xbox 
  • There are over 5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, 3/4 of those are in developing nations 
  • Nearly two billion phones were sold worldwide in 2010, vs. only 350 million PCs 
  • Mobile sales are growing 10x faster than PC sales 

To succeed in that future, you need to know how to 
  • Build mobile apps 
  • Create graphics for mobiles 
  • Create effective mobile interfaces 
  • Work in teams 
Our course is designed to give you those skills

Instructor:
Ben Watson, Associate Professor, Computer Science


Content:
This course is an intensive introduction to the design and development of mobile interfaces and applications. By the course's end, student teams will design and build an interactive mobile app prototype for platforms such as iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android (Nexus, Galaxy Tab). Along the way, students will learn mobile design technique, including ideation, rapid prototyping, and evaluation; and mobile technology, including hardware, usage environment, graphics, interfaces and programming. Guest experts from the RTP interaction design community, such as Allscripts, IBM and Epic Games will provide real world context.

Prerequisites:
CSC students: CSC 316


Schedule:
Spring 2012, MW 350p-505p


Enroll now!

Find: iPhone 4S review

Mostly, it's ios5 that wins the day. Nice observations on where it's still weak. 

iPhone 4S review

Reviewing the iPhone 4S is in many ways a lot like reviewing the original iPhone 4, except that it’s not. The device, which was just announced at a special event [...]

Event: TimesOpen: Privacy and Personalization

Hard to attend, but usually online after. 

TimesOpen: Privacy and Personalization

For the next TimesOpen we're excited to host a timely, critical look at the tradeoffs between privacy and personalization in Web and mobile apps.

Find: ASUS Eee Pad Slider Review

A nice review, asus finding unique promising form factors focused on content generation.

ASUS Eee Pad Slider Review


I understand the appeal of tablets. Regardless of OS, they all provide a far more intimate experience when browsing the web and reading emails. I genuinely prefer doing both of those things on a tablet than on a notebook or desktop. Then there are the apps. Photos, maps, ebooks, videos and even IP cameras are comfortably accessible from tablets. Obviously you can do the same on a notebook or desktop, the tablet form factor combined with a responsive touch UI simply means you can do these things in a more relaxed position.



Find: Building on the Momentum of BUILD

Good source on metro, the design behind wp7 and win8

Building on the Momentum of BUILD


Another interesting session from the recent //BUILD conference exploring and explaining the the back story of Metro style. 

...(read more)

Find: BUILD: The touch language of Windows 8

Good info on touch

More BUILD reflections: The touch language of Windows 8



A deep dive in to the touch language of Windows 8.
...(read more)

Find: Nokia’s Elop promises first ‘Windows products’ this quarter

Nokia wp7 phones before years end. 

Nokia’s Elop promises first ‘Windows products’ this quarter

It’s pretty much a given that Nokia will introduce its first Windows Phone device at Nokia World later this month. But could there be more? CEO Stephen Elop is quoted [...]

Course: spring 2012 undergraduate mobile techs course

Ad477_S12.pdf Download this file

Course: Spring 2012 Mobile Technologies graduate seminar

Ad547_S12.pdf Download this file


From: Adriana de Souza e Silva <adriana@souzaesilva.com>

Hi David, Pat, Michael and Ben,

I'm teaching two courses in the spring on Mobile Technologies. One is a graduate seminar (flyer attached). The other one is a 400-level course. If you could please distribute this flyer to interested students, I'd appreciate it. I'm sending the undergraduate class flyer shortly.

Best,
Adriana

________________________
Adriana de Souza e Silva, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Communication
Interim Associate Director, Communication, Rhetoric, & Digital Media Ph.D program
North Carolina State University
http://www.souzaesilva.com

Event: CFP ICA Mobile Communication pre-conference 2012

via Adriana de Costa e Silva here on campus... a mobile event in AZ next year, and an opportunity to submit.

***
 
Mobile Communication, Community and Locative Media Practices: From the Everyday to the Revolutionary
 
2012 International Communication Association (ICA) Pre-conference Workshop
May 23 – 24, 2012, Phoenix AZ, USA
 
Conference website: http://sociomobile.org/mobile2012/
 
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Keynote Speaker: Mimi Sheller (Drexel University, USA)
 
Mobile and location-based networked interactions permeate our world. We no longer enter the Internet--we carry it with us. We experience it while moving through physical spaces. Smart phones, GPS receivers, and RFID tags are only a few examples of location-aware mobile technologies that mediate our interaction with networked spaces and the people in them. Increasingly, our physical location determines the types of information with which we interact, and the people and things we find around us. These new kinds of networked interactions manifest in everyday social practices that are supported by the use of mobile technologies, such as participation in location-based mobile games and social networks, engagement with location-based services, development of mobile annotation projects, and social mapping, just to name a few. The engagement with these practices has important implications for identity construction, our sense of privacy, our notions of place and space, civic and political participation, building community, policy making, as well as cultural production and consumption in everyday life.
 
This preconference will provide a venue for innovative scholars from around the world who are doing research in exploring how we experience our locally-rooted mobile networked interactions and mobile communication’s impact on community. It will give them a chance to gather and discuss the challenges that this shift in the use of both mobile phones and the Internet poses not only for the users but for those doing research on mobile communication. We welcome abstracts that will focus on the following areas:
§  Mobile communication and location awareness in everyday life practices;
§  New urban spatialities developed with mobile gaming and locative social media; definitions of “community” in a mobile mediated context
§  Privacy and surveillance issues as they relate to location-based social networks;
§  Identity and spatial construction through locative media art / performance design and its impact on communities;
§  Civic engagement and political participation through mobile social media, new mapping practices and location-aware technologies;
§  Learning and education potentials of mobile and location-based media;
 
The two-day preconference will be comprised of formal panel presentations, one keynote speaker, opportunities for informal discussions, and time for networking. Thirty – fifty attendees are expected. The preconference will be at the main ICA hotel. The pre-conference registration fee will be $100.
 
Abstracts of no more than 500 words are due by November 15, 2010. Please send them along with your name and contact information to Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva (adriana@souzaesilva.com).  Accepted abstracts will be notified by December 1, 2010.  Final papers will be due April 1, 2012. 

 
Lead Organizers:
§  Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva (Associate Professor of Communication, NC State University)
§  Dr. Jason Farman (Assistant Professor of American Studies, University of Maryland)
§  Dr. Kathleen M. Cumiskey, Associate Professor of Psychology, College of Staten Island/CUNY)
§  Dr. Lee Humphreys (Assistant Professor of Communication, Cornell University)
§  Dr. Richard Ling (Professor of Mobile Communication, IT University of Copenhagen)
§  Dr. Scott Campbell (Associate Professor of Communication, University of Michigan)
§  Dr. Yi-Fan Chen (Assistant Professor of Communication, Old Dominion University)
 
“Like” us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ICA-Mobile-Communication-Pre-Conference/211745668890424
Follow us on Twitter: ICA12MoblPreCon
 
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva
Associate Professor of Communication
Interim Associate Director, Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media PhD program
North Carolina State University
http://www.souzaesilva.com
souzaesilva@ncsu.edu


________________________
Adriana de Souza e Silva, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Communication
Interim Associate Director, Communication, Rhetoric, & Digital Media Ph.D program
North Carolina State University
http://www.souzaesilva.com

Find: Real competition from Redmond: Windows Phone 7 "Mango" reviewed

Bottom line: real potential. Could save nokia and Microsoft. 

Feature: Real competition from Redmond: Windows Phone 7 "Mango" reviewed





Find: PhoneGap to become an Apache project as Adobe acquires Nitobi

Let's c if adobe really keeps this an osrc project. 

Just like flash itself, phonegap is slowly losing relevance as open alts gain completeness c

PhoneGap to become an Apache project as Adobe acquires Nitobi