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Chirp.io uses sound to transmit & receive links between nearby Android/iOS devices. IMO, interesting tech[1], thats more useful & less secure than bluetooth, for such use cases.

[1] http://chirp.io/tech/


Chirp is doing some really interesting work in this space, trying to improve the user experience of fast-forming short range communication.

My understanding is that Chirp uses audio to basically detect WHO you are standing near, but the actual data transfer happens over more typical links.

"An inherent limitation of the audio protocol is its highly limited transmission rate.

To send larger amounts of data, we have built a RESTful network infrastructure which allows arbitrary pieces of data to be associated with Chirp shortcodes. A sending device can thus upload a photo to the cloud, and obtain a shortcode representing it to be send over the air. A receiving device hears the shortcode over its microphone, and resolves it with a GET request."


Best Buy has announced that Nexus S will be available on Dec16th for $529 (unlocked) and $199 (with T-mobile contract). More info at - http://www.bby.com/2010/12/06/best-buy-mobile-partners-with-...


The exact model is available with free shipping throughout Europe at play.com - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/11521117/Veho-VMS-004D-Deluxe-...


It seems that they only deliver electronics in the UK...


Anssi Vanjoki (EVP Nokia), pretty much offered a mea culpa on N97 not meeting consumer expectations - "it has been a tremendous disappointment in terms of the experience quality for the consumers". Have a look at the video http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/11183_Video_Anssi_V...


Admitting your mistakes is a good start. The question now is whether Nokia have actually learned their lesson and if that lesson is the right one.

Statements like these, though:

"It happens every now and then in a big company, like Nokia, even if you have the most stringent quality control mechanisms."

and

"We have taken the learnings and when Symbian^3 comes out you can rest assured it will be perfect."

and

re:early adopters not getting answers from Nokia about the issues they have encountered - "Like I said, that was a surprise to us. It was not expected."

make me suspicious that they have learned anything.

First these are not QA issues. The problems with N97 are not a result of obscure bugs that could have slipped through. The problems are result of bad design and development decisions. Unless Nokia is staffed entirely by blind and mentally retarded people, they cannot play the surprised-that-our-product-sucks card. And it is very discouraging that Nokia - the biggest mobile phone maker in the world and a company with decades of experience in the telco and mobile phone business - is just learning that user experience is the most important concern they should have when developing a new product.


:) Great comment


Laughable advertising strategy. I hope they purge some of the dinosaurs who still believe you can lie about the experience you provide in your propaganda.

The statement for AllAboutSymbian however.. Nice to see such levels of sincerity in corporate ethics for a change, a huge contrast to the ad in question.


pretty sincere. That, and the fact that he would probably take over my city unless McClane stopped him gives them a free pass from me.


something about that guy reminds me of Don Mattingly.


Seems like the Symbian version of Spotify is not far away, either http://twitter.com/s_constantine/status/2868529762.

IF they keep their pace of innovation, music industry in europe is bound for a shakeup.


IF they keep their pace of innovation, music industry in europe is bound for a shakeup.

I'm not sure about this. I think spotify might become europe's YouTube merely because the benefits of the paid for model aren't that large compared to the free model. (though the iphone client will help)

Also there's already an open source spotify client for the iphone: http://github.com/nevyn/spot


Jan Chipchase (resident anthropologist @Nokia) calls them Informal repair culture. Neither Nokia nor it's competitors publish an official hacking manual. This has evolved from a need to have a cellphone 24x7 & where the market is highly sensitive to price. Read, Informal repair culture: http://www.janchipchase.com/repaircultures.

Quoting verbatim: "The informal repair services that are offered are quite simply driven by necessity - highly price sensitive customers cannot afford to go through more expensive official customer care centers and even if they could their phones are unlikely to be covered by warrantee - having been bought through grey market channels, been sent as gifts from friends and relatives abroad, or were locally bought used, second or third+ ownership. In many cases these users cannot afford to be without their mobile phone, not in the social sense of being out of touch (which is valid enough), but in many instances because their livelihoods depend on it. On the supply side there is a ready pool of sufficiently skilled labour, ready access to tools, comp"

The chance that a small business can take advantage of scale is next to nil, as the supply chain would have peaked before small business can source at the same price levels.


Arctic startup has a go at success of Spotify and what it could mean to the future of iTunes.

http://www.arcticstartup.com/2009/05/12/the-future-of-spotif...

IMO, Spotify's popularity means that they're already a prime acquisition target.


The question is not if Twitter or press needs a 104 yr old member. The right question - does she believe she needs it?


Surely the question is "Why does anyone care who uses Twitter?".


Adsweep (almost similar functionality as Adblock) is a greasemonkey script that works well for chrome. They have also released a extension for chrome. http://www.adsweep.org


Thanks. I took a look and the Chrome extension is basically the same as the greasemonkey script. Does anyone know if this is less efficient than the way Adblock Plus does it? If so, is it possible to do it more efficiently with a Chrome extension?


Yes, AdBlock is more efficient because it doesn't load the ads at all while Chrome/greasemonkey load and hide them. No, I don't think it can be more efficient because chrome extensions like greasemonkey scripts cannot modify the page before it is loaded.

I may be wrong, I had only a cursory look at the technology.



You're right, I don't know if this is enough (do you get hooks upon loading each resource, etc) but they are definitely working to implement this properly.


"No, I don't think it can be more efficient because chrome extensions like greasemonkey scripts cannot modify the page before it is loaded."

Thus guaranteeing I will never use Chrome.


Plain Chrome feels faster than FF with AdBlock even on relatively ad-heavy sites.


I agree. Chrome is just incredibly fast, and Firefox, on the three major OS's in my life, feels slow after a couple hours of use.

In practice, I always have at least 2 different browsers open, one of them usually Firefox, but Chrome is the fastest one, used for surfing, while FF for web-dev/management-y stuff.


Damn, that's what I was afraid of. Thanks.


April fools day arrives early. Enjoy the article and have fun but get back to the reality of having to support IE6.


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