Secondly, I’m using the term “webage” (emphasis on the g not the a) to describe content you find on the web – which is everything, maybe it will stick or maybe people will just use “content.” Maybe it sounds to Web 2.0 – which is getting long in the tooth these days. Either way, I’m running that app on my iPad now.

BY FC EXPERT BLOGGER HENRIK WERDELIN Tue Jul 13, 2010

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert’s views alone.
Why P&G’s slogan “Experience Matters” is relevant for tech companies, how tools can be funny, and why no one ever really needs a screwdriver.

Every designer needs to read this, not just because I’m a fan boy of apple, but because of how they go about designing their products and the philosophy behind it. Just watch the two videos. Even just the first minute, and you can tell where their focus is.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

Full article here

This would allow you to do your computing with your stuff, your desktop, your files where ever you wanted, on the go and always with you. Apps will become even more proficient and proactive and prolific giving users the ability to do more with less, and respond on an almost “as needed” basis.

The implications of this arrangement actually begins to take the thin client into whole new realms where we couldn’t before. Students could actually afford software/hardware. For instance, with my iPhone, I have a video (and still camera), a media management app (photos app built in that handles albums of stills and video clips) and for $7.99 I have an editing app that gives me almost the same capabilities as iMovie, plus with the 3Gs speed, I can upload my video to youtube in a few seconds. So for $199 for the phone, 7.99 for the editing app, and my monthly bill (that I already am stuck with anyway) that comes to, let’s say $960 for a year of service, and lets throw in the OWLE Bubo for another $130 bucks for a wide angle lens, mic, tripod mounts and awesome ergogrip- brings us to a grand total of $1296.99. If you take out the fact that everyone has a cell phone and already pays for service, subtract that $960 back out for a total of $336.99. That’s less than a meal plan, or a few text books, and certainly less than a new laptop. Not to mention you can call your child while at school, keep track of what they are doing via twitter/facebook, and even GPS track them (with permission of course).

Lets take the student thing one step further, download an e-book app like Stanza, including the classics for english class, subscribe to the courses through podcasts, and manage their registration through another app (all for free), share notes through BUMP, research topics through their built-in camera, manage their health with medication reminders and trackers, and you start to see the relevance of the mobile device – if you haven’t already.

The iPad is NOT a big iPod Touch -it’s so much more than that. A student brought in his iPad, and showed how he could demo his wedding videography and photography examples, draw upp an estimate in another app, and then have the client sign the contract right there on the spot proves the importance of this device. Think about the medical implications-Doctors reviewing the X-Rays with you minutes after you get zapped, reviewing medical history, updating your patient info, and then writing and signing the prescription all on the spot on his iPad – thats more than a big iPod Touch. It is the beginning of the end of computing as we think and live about it now. Try not to google for a day.

So that’s my prediction – we’ll be walking around with our mobile office, capable of working anywhere – downloading .99 to $10 apps for the work we need to do now, and not worried about the longevity of it – it did the job we needed at the time we needed. I could even see where the platform wars move from the desktop/laptop world to the mobile device world altogether. All this data would be backed up in the cloud of course – that damn bubble of an idea that won’t go away, or at least won’t get renamed. (tangent alert) The Cloud. It just sounds bad, like all my data is going to rain down upon the masses for all to steal. Or it’s going to rain on me at any minute. Or strike me with data lightning. Lets not call it the cloud anymore, how about the haven, or kingdom, or the man, something other than the nebulous mess of a cloud.

Maybe that’s why we’re all not walking around with netbooks and tablets that weighed more than a freshman-in-chess-club’s backpack. They didn’t allow us fun and enjoyment at doing what we needed to do, only disappointment and frustration at the simple reason that the device just didn’t mesh with the rest of the world. They didn’t give us the flexibility that Apple has provided with the app store, iTunes store and now iAd frameworks -contrary to the belief that its a closed system. That closed system works 99.9% of the time I need it to day in and day out. A student told me he downloaded the latest album from his favorite band on the way to school (at a stop light of course) and listened to it for the rest of the ride.

I really hope you people are ready for this – cause its going to rock!
Thanks for reading.

Jesse Schell: When games invade real life

FROM TED.COM:

About this talk

Games are invading the real world — and the runaway popularity of Farmville and Guitar Hero is just the beginning, says Jesse Schell. At the DICE Summit, he makes a startling prediction: a future where 1-ups and experience points break “out of the box” and into every part of our daily lives.

About Jesse Schell

Beyond Facebook, beyond consoles and even computer screens, games are becoming the medium for everyday life, says game designer Jesse Schell. Full bio and more links

And then, just cause I couldn’t stop watching videos on how Gecko’s Tails relate to robots, I found another VideoGame Topic…….
Will Wright – the creator of SimCity, talks about Spore

…and another TED Clip, from David Perry, Creator of Earthworm Jim and other popular games – which gives a real nice overview of games from the beginning and where it’s headed. A fairly startling fact of how its going to over take the Music Industry….hmmm, did that come true? Even more startling is the student film that addresses game developers responsibility to create games that do more for humanity in more impact-ful ways than utilizing the best audio and graphics.

Finally, Jane McGonigal….explains how we can hopefully make a better world.

There is so much exciting developments happening that no one single person can pin-point, but yet I sit here and I’m watching it unfold in front of me wondering why no one else is excited!? Maybe it is just me? Maybe I am that crazy technology guy that no one really pays attention to anymore because, “He’s out there.” Maybe you’ve already said that about me?

iPad, Gaming, Augmented Reality, thin/cloud computing, Wi-Fi/3G/4G/etc. everywhere, all these pieces coming together slowly and surely to bring us into the next age of awareness. It’s not an information age anymore, it’s an awareness age. We are connected to more and more sources of quality than ever before. We filter the loads of data coming in through our social networks so we don’t get overloaded (We may still feel overloaded, but our filtering keeps getting better), we converse about more topics that affect everyone than ever before, we respond to tragedy faster than ever before (Haiti), and we are more aware of our surroundings than ever before. We are in an Age of Awareness. Of each other (social networks), of technology, and of the connections that we have to this life.

The old guard of media has been disbanded and obliterated, we own it, as Clay Shirky states, “The participants are the producers.” Paraphrasing of course. He says it’s like when you buy a book, you get the printing press free. I’ll continue this thought…..When you buy a movie, you get the production studio for free. Stick with me now, when you buy a computer, (the thing you participate in the social media, the internet, the network of individuals and organizations with) you get the social media, the networks for free. Think about it, you buy an apple computer and you get a photo editing and management app, a music production app, a video editing app, a dvd creation app, and a web site creation tool included with the computer! Not to mention the apps that we take for granted, like a web browser, email app, and multimedia playback apps.

My phone is an iPhone 3Gs, I have a video camera, video editing app, and network capability. I can shoot edit and upload complete with graphics, music, transitions, and credits. Huh, say what? Yeah, there’s an app for that. What do I need my Sony HDR-FX1 for? It takes 3 times as long (if not longer!) to get the material off the camera and onto the web, than it takes to do it on my phone – if the web is the place I’m sending it to. And that last part is the clincher, the web is the delivery system of choice. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that traditional media has long to live. DC is the place to be, with apps, video, news, books, movies, games, data, etc, etc, etc. What’s DC? Other than being a great skateboarding shoe company, and our nation’s capital, it stands for Downloadable Content. And we’ve been using it for years, whenever you check your bank statement online, rent netflix, steal music, check the news, it is what the internet is made of.

So, yes, the way we use computers and technology is in store for a big change, and it’s not just softkeyboards, touch screens and motion sensors, it’s in how we use the technology itself – increase, enhance, and experience awareness.

This has been a stream of consciousness, if this had been an actual option piece, my grammar and citations would have been included. Thanks for reading, and I would love it if you found me on facebook and twitter, and sent me a message