Do you ever wish Twitter listened to what you say to it? Well, I do, although I’m not really sure what I want twitter to do with the info I share with him: the movies I see, the things I do, the things I like, dislike, what I’m looking for, etc, but well, perhaps it’d be cool if that data was a little bit less ephemeral, worthy of Twitter’s attention.

Twitter still lacks a business model(at least the last I checked it didn’t have one), not that I care, but it puzzles me as to why.

The first milligram:

This cool setup is a few months old, sorry for that, it was created by the UK Agency “The Alternative” and installed in an Orange store somewhere in London last years’s(2007) christmas.

It’s cool I guess, a bit clumsy though as it seems to not be prepared for that kind of input, notice the album scrolling, it detects the position of the hand and presses the left/right buttons, it should be a little more.. kinetic.

Second milligram: Read the rest of this entry »

This one’s an interesting read,

“The New Browser War: Mobile Firefox vs. Opera Mini” is the title.

Vaporware vs. Currrently available and pretty capable browser, capable and multi platform(java midlet), well, I could enumerate many of its features, but the thing is, one exists, the other doesn’t.

They’re also on different categories, Mini’s a lightweight browser, it doesn’t even render the pages itself, like SkyFire, rendering’s done by a remote server, it also doesn’t support javascript(processed by server) & plugins, unlike Opera’s other mobile browser for Symbian & Windows Mobile: Opera Mobile 8.65, which is in the same class as Mobile Firefox, Mobile Safari, others.

Well, but moving on:

Why Firefox Might Win
Athough Opera Mini is a great mobile browser with tons of features, back on the desktop, Firefox has more users. So, when it comes time to choose a mobile browser, the one that syncs with your desktop browser of choice is likely to win out. Plus, if add-ons are developed for Mobile Firefox, it has the possibility of becoming a killer mobile app.

In my case:

Yeah, when I started using Opera Mobile(pushed to me by Sony-Ericsson IIRC) on my P800 back in 2003, IE was my browser on the desktop(dear lord), and it had and still has much more users than Opera or FF, unfortunately.

After that, I was so pleased with Opera Mobile that I decided to give the Desktop version a try, it became my desktop browser, a few years later I switched(not completely) to FF but only because of my work( benefited a LOT from the extensions ), and a few compatibility issues( the browser’s not to blame, the web devs are - the ones at google(mail) for eg. ).

Now, I know not everyone would follow this path, usually nobody goes looking for a new browser, same way nobody goes looking for a new/different OS, actually, as I stated, I didn’t either, Sony-Ericsson did it for me, but what I mean is: regarding browsers, people follow the ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ rule.

“Mobile devices are a different ground”

They are, Opera’s already the standard on a couple of WinMo devices and lots and lots of other/different devices - sometimes the user isn’t even aware of it, like with the Wii, and other times, like with Opera Mini,

Above is the translated page(click to zoom) for a service provided by a Portuguese mobile operator: Optimus(owned by Orange & Sonaecom).

Optimus hasn’t got the largest market share in Portugal(20%), but Vodafone PT does, and they also reference Opera Mini in their mobile internet service FAQ, not sure of the other major Portuguese Mobile Operator, TMN, but I believe it follows the same behaviour.

Like these Portuguese mobile operators, many others are also promoting the use of Opera Mini to their customers, which is great for Opera since it generates lots of brand awareness, users.

This isn’t strictly related to the ‘mobile browser realm’, but if Opera ASA is smart, they’ll take advantage of their cool service, Opera Link, to bring mobile users to the desktop too. Perhaps by giving special emphasis to it in the first usage wizard of Opera Mini/Mobile/Embedded.

Addons Schmaddons

Addons are indeed a major advantage of the Desktop Firefox,  some(like me) may say that without them Firefox is useless, but the majority of people who know what Firefox is isn’t even aware of that functionality(really). Firefox attained its ~16% market share being user-marketed as a secure(lol) and fast browser, took advantage of the ‘windows and internet explorer is slow, unsafe, will eat your children’ and hip-because-i’m-different factor.

I don’t believe that will be an advantage on the mobile world, to start, the usage pattern is different, users won’t be using the browser for extended periods of time,

lazy me must update this thing.

For the coolness factor it’d provide you that is, since it appears to sport an 8×8 resolution, a non-working one.

They’re built using a technique called ’self-assembly’ by researchers at the University of Washington, and can be used up to 20 minutes without adverse effects …tested on ‘wabbits’.

They plan to power it up using tiny solar cells on the surface of the lens or radio-frequency, and add in/out wireless communication.

Interestingly enough they state that these lens do not obstruct a wearer’s vision at all.

ps: no, the lens don’t function.. yet.

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