Sunshine Powered Mobile

The World's First Solar Powered Cell Phone

I think this is quite an exciting development and clearly illustrates how light can be used to manipulate these devices.

Mobile Burgering

Seems Japan's leading the way by having customers pay for their food via mobile.

Mobile Doorbell

I thought this was worth posting here despite the unit being over for everyone else.

I found it on Lifehacker which is a site you should all check out anyway.

Apparently soon you'll be able to answer your doorbell with your mobile from anywhere in the world.

Why not just leave that person with the spare key? I mean otherwise, I don't see how it's a big enough of a deal to warrant the invention...

Mobile Shopping

I read this article in the Guardian (October 19th) about shopping with your mobile. It talks about a great deal of things, like electronic tickets for Manchester City games, and the ways they're looking at developing this idea - similar to the Oyster Card gone mobile. They say the system is secure - so there's plenty one could develop from that.

Memory-Stick Single

I did one day actually buy a paper, the Guardian actually, and in it was an article about Keane's latest single which they brought out on a memory stick... I think it's quite interesting to read - it talks about something Robbie Williams did on a memory card intended to be used on mobile phones and PDAs - but due to cost it didn't take off. I should imagine that is now becoming an avenue for the future.

It also talks about the history of music platforms a bit, apparently Jamiroquai released his greatest hits album to mobile users first.

There's definitely a little world evolving there.

Read the article here.

Stop Stealing Sheep... and invent a tiny font.

I remembered seeing something in Spiekermann's book on digital device typefaces, and have included it here. It's quite technical, but also quite interesting.

The Mini 7 series he talks about is available here, but unfortunately costs money. I found some other fonts on dafont.com - they have the Nokia font, and if you search for mini it comes up with some interesting fonts that may be of use.

>Click here to see the full page<

Spiekermann, E & Ginger, E.M. (2003). Stop Stealing Sheep (2nd Edition). California: Peachpit Press.

Hmm, something to combat my idea...

"Besides graphical assignation manufacturer decided to modify wallpaper depending on time of day: in the morning you see sun, and in the evening you see blinding lights of Kremlin wharf, cars will have their headlights turned on. An interesting addition to interface, but that’s not all, there are more interface improvements.

Time is not the only event that can be transferred into graphical approach. For example network reception level: good signal – sky is blue, no signal or weak one – sky is covered with clouds. At first you don’t pay much attention to this small feature, but after a month you will look on the sky instead of standard bar, information can be acquired instantly."

Read the rest. (Search within the page for "Living World")

I love their ideas and what they've done with it. Though it sort of covers what I was talking about with time and location in regards to my idea - which is a little annoying. But it still leaves room for me to develop on the other areas.

There's definitely some innovative thinking in there, worth a look. And I want the phone.

Video Banking - Immediacy

>Click to read the full article<

Another article from the Metro - I can't afford a real paper. November 13th Edition.

This reminds me of something the guys who wrote Remediation talk about - the need for immediacy. It talks about the fact that they are trialling it based on the way their customers want to bank. The technology available now I guess for them to be able to do this - and it's certainly a novel idea. But like the article says - the customers would need to have the technology, and the means to fund having a 3G enabled phone... I guess we'll see how it goes.

Additional articles can be found here and here. The official site for First Direct's mobile trials is here.

A link to an article about HSBC allowing customers to access their accounts via text messaging is here.

Nokia Exhibits - Distributed Media

Originally found here at the course blog.

Nokia - Connect to Art

"Connect to Art is a collection of modern art for your mobile Nokia phone. This new media of art is innovative and inspiring. It's always with you, you can create a collection of your own!"

I really like this idea, and I think it ties in nicely with my idea - sharing art, it seems like such a good idea. I'd download something if only I could remember my model number. Haha.

I'm guessing this will become a more popular way of getting things out there - people are already sharing all sorts of things virally, mobile to mobile etc. Nothing's limited to sending a forward email anymore and phones/devices are becoming more for entertainment and a talking point.

Title Image

Title page in sketchbook.