Literature, Technology

Book e-worm

May 7th 2012, 08:05pm

I’m a bit surprised that in the 6 weeks I’ve had my Kindle I’ve read more books than in the previous 6 months. I thought I’d like it, but I didn’t expect it would change my reading habits so much.

Prior to buying the Kindle, I’d read a few novels using the Kindle App on my iPad and iPhone. These have some of the advantages of the Kindle – in particular the clever bookmark syncing, where if you read the same book on both devices, when you finish reading on one and pick it up on the other, it remembers where you got to. However, there are some drawbacks. The iPad (version 1 at least) is a little too heavy to read comfortably. The iPhone is better, and mine with a retina screen, so the text is much sharper, but the screen was too small and I had to turn the page too often. A backlit screen is still much more like reading a computer than reading a book. Read the rest of this entry »

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Film, TV & Radio, Technology

iPlayer for iPad Is Three Features Away From Useful

February 17th 2011, 07:02pm

A week ago, the BBC launched iPlayer for iPad onto the App Store. I’ve played with it a little bit, and the interface is superb, so lightweight you almost don’t notice it. It improves, slightly, on the website in that there’s a schedule page where you can select past or live programmes to view. So it’s a good start. But there are three things I want the iPlayer App for iPad to do that it doesn’t yet:

  1. Output video. You can plug the iPad into a TV with a component or composite video cable.  When you view iPlayer in Safari you can already do this, so it really ought to be in the App.
  2. Send video via Airplay.  If you have a new Apple TV you can send video wirelessly from the iPad to the screen hooked up to the Apple TV.  It would be great to do this from iPlayer.
  3. Save stuff for offline viewing.  Surely this is the whole point of having the app?  There is a favourites function, but you can only watch your favourites while you have an internet connection. I want to watch previously selected TV shows while I’m on the train for example.

Go on, BBC, make it happen!

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The Internet

The Retweet Correction

December 18th 2010, 10:12am

I’ve got an idea for how Twitter should fix the reweet.  Currently there are two ways to reweet (ie repeat a twitter message to share it with your followers) and both are widely used.  This post is not about my personal preference (though for the record I agree with this) but about how to fix the problem that using two different systems amplifies the disadvantages of both.

Briefly, the advantages of the old style reweet is that you can edit to add your own comments.  The advantages of the new style reweet is that you can see the provenance (seeing exactly what was originally said, and when).  You can see who has retweeted you either way (through @replies for the former, through a less obvious dedicated “your tweets, retweeted” page for the latter).

The old style reweet is low-tech: stick RT @originatorsname in front of their tweet, or have your favourite client do that for you.  The new-style was developed by Twitter supported by dedicated API methods.  There’s no way of stopping people using the low-tech old way (and quite right too, since I prefer it) but equally Twitter are unlikely to remove their new version and it’s when both are used that you get the kind of compound disadvantage that is greater than the sum of its parts – for example, a tweet new retweet of an old retweet cannot be traced by the original tweet’s author.

Twitter should evolve their new retweet “feature” into a successor to the old manual retweet which delivers the benefits of the new – essential combining them.  They should do this in much the same way they’ve evolved the user-generated @reply functionality, where building on the convention that replies begin with @usernames they also allow the reply to include a reference to the tweet it is a response to.

Allow us to do an old-style retweet in the sense of quoting the text (allowing us to edit and augment) but include a reference to the original tweet.

Developers would be able to build on the API to allow users to see both the edited and the original tweet, allowing the conversation to develop whilst revealing its provenance. Rather than just seeing a list of who retweeted, originators would be able to see a timeline could showing how the conversation had developed.  And by combining this with the conversation threads the extant reply links allow, developers could present visualisations that map an original tweet with both all the retweets, and the conversations they developed.  This would unlock the value in the connections that retweeting creates.

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Technology

Why would I want an iPad with no USB port…?

December 16th 2010, 05:12pm

I’m will get round to doing giving my thoughts on the iPad one of thee days (such as they are).  This is a bit of a tangential rant.

I get the iPad out, and people want to chat about it (this is great, I love this).  But often there’s a question, or a comment “but it doesn’t have a USB port” or “I’ll wait for one with a USB port”.  This drives me nuts.

It’s often those who (quite rightly) talk about focussing on the practice and the outcomes we hope to achieve with technology over and above the tool itself. “It’s not about the technology, it’s about how you use it”.  So WHY DO YOU WANT A USB PORT? What magic do you expect an iPad to accomplish with a USB port that it couldn’t without?

Sometimes there isn’t even an answer to this.  People have become so obsessed with the number of USB ports on a new laptop that they’ve forgotten why they wanted them (and I’m not doubting that they do – by the time you’ve plugged in the printer, a camera, your memory stick and a mouse you’ve probably already unplugged one or two of those again). But a USB port is just a means to an end, so tell me: what do you want to do?

Sometimes, people have a clearer idea.  They want to plug a camera, a keyboard or a headset in, and they don’t know that for the price of an Apple Camera Connector Kit (CCK) they can, in fact, add a USB port and have all of this.  Or they want to plug something else in, which of course they could also do using the CCK although it would be pointless because you also need software on the device to support these things, and it’s not there so they’re not supported.  (That is, of course, true on any other piece of hardware with a USB port.)

I don’t believe Apple are unaware of what people want to do with their iPads. They know people want to connect to their printers.  They just don’t see a USB cable as being the best way to do this on a wireless portable device – hence AirPrint.  It’s not there yet, but they’re thinking about how we should do printing tomorrow, not how we did it yesterday.

No one gets excited about USB ports. It’s what you can do with the things you plug into them that’s exciting, and if you can do those things without plugging anything in, that’s certainly no less exciting.

It’s always valuable to take a step back, or sometimes two, and think about what you want to achieve with your technology.  The technology we use now gives us our point of reference, but it’s important to think about what it teaches us as we use it. The affordances that are offered to us quickly develop our habits, routines and perceptions. It’s worth taking the time to consider which lessons are worth keeping and which we would like to leave behind.

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Macintosh

Letting the iPhone and iPad Off the Leash

November 15th 2010, 06:11pm

It’s the cable to the computer that’s holding Apple’s mobile devices back.  You still need to plug them into a computer for two (or three) reasons: to backup and to sync your music (and to sync your photos).

The iPad, in particular, is has huge potential (I’ll blog soon on my experiences with it) and for some people it could replace their computer altogether.  But the fact that you cannot add music without doing a lengthy sync, nor delete tunes to free up disk space when you are away from your computer is a major limiting factor.  I think Apple could resolve this with with two developments: one is the long rumoured iTunes cloud and the other is Time Machine for iOS.

The iTunes cloud would allow the various (now rather fragmented) iTunes apps concerned with the playback of music and videos, whether on PCs, Macs or iOS devices, do what Spotify already can and sync your music collection over the air.  The Spotify iPhone app lets you see all of your playlists, and you can stream them so long as you have n internet connection – but, crucially, you can also check a box next to each one that you want to be available when you do not have a connection.  When you do this, the music is synced over the air to your device – and if you’re on your home wifi network this can include music in your own collection that Spotify don’t offer.  There’s no reason why Apple shouldn’t offer something like this even if its only to access the music you already own (and a similar solution could be used for viewing your iPhoto collection, with thumbnails viewable over the air and high resolution images for those albums you have checked and synced).

The Apple Time Capsule is the other element that could free their iOS devices from subservience to a PC.  Building Time Machine into iOS would allow devices to do incremental backups – ideally to any AirDisk – and the Time Capsule/AirDisk could also host the storage of the music and photos synced over the air.

If tomorrow’s iTunes announcement (there’s a teaser right now at apple.com) really is The Cloud, then iPhone and iPad world domination won’t be far behind…

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Technology

The Man Who Didn’t Tweet Twice

November 11th 2010, 06:11pm

When I joined Twitter around 9 months ago, I joined twice.

My rationale for this was that I wanted to use it for creating a network of work contacts and colleagues, and at the same time I saw its potential as a way of conversing with friends, but I was worried that those who followed my “social” tweets (@MrSimonWood) would be turned off by a stream of ed-tech tweets, and that those who were interested in my work (@s_n_wood) would not want to know what I thought of last night’s Doctor Who or who should be leader of the Labour Party.

In retrospect this wasn’t a very good decision, and I don’t think I’d have made it if I’d had a better understanding of how Twitter works.

The problem is that my interests and my work have a huge overlap (not to mention the confusion I cause myself by socialising with friends I’ve met through work!) Increasingly I find I’m having to decide whether to tweet to one account or the other.  I could tweet to both, but then I’d need to change client or cut and paste, and also the people who are following both of me will get it twice.  I’m starting to over-think, and over-complicate communication through Twitter, and that defeats the whole purpose of something that is supposed to be short, easy and instant.

When I chatted to @egrommet some time ago, his advice was to let your followers sort this out (adding that they’ve all got Tweetdeck filters set anyway!)  But I’m not quite ready to deluge @MrSimonWood with conference tweets (I can get quite into live tweeting when I’m at events) so I’m going to use a “live” account (this is something I’ve seen @MikeNolan do very effectively as @MikeNolanLive) for conferences and the like.  However I’m finding it hard to see the benefits of having separate “work” and “social” accounts, whilst I feel I definitely want to avoid become a man who tweets twice.

A merger is in the offing.


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Technology

The Obligatory iPhone Test Movie

September 12th 2010, 10:09pm

I made a video with and about my phone.

Updated to add file sizes:

1 minute of HD from the back camera was approximately 72mb.  1 minute from the front camera was approximately 24mb.  Exported in HD, the full 5’13″ movie was 400mb.  The file uploaded to YouTube was 92mb.

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Education, Technology

A Pleasant, Open Face

September 8th 2010, 10:09pm

If we get iTunesU at work there will be many discussions about whether to have a closed and/or open site.  It would be great if the site had a pleasant, open face (apologies for the gratuitous Doctor Who quote there).  But which is most important, pleasant or open? Is it really possible to ensure that what appears openly is perfect, or nearly so?

There are (quite rightly) PR opportunities to having an outward facing presence on the iTunes store, but the real work is centrally hosting all of the material and there are other benefits to providing and encouraging making learning material available to all (engagement, feedback, and if licensed openly too then all the OER jazz).  In the conversations that take place in the many meetings that will now follow, I hope that this is borne alongside the inevitable focus on the PR angle. There’s a worry that if we have lacklustre or out-of-date material showing, we deter potential students.  I wonder if that’s the case, or whether perhaps having nothing at all will be more of a deterrent (obviously up-to-date, professionally produced, cutting edge podcasts and video would be ideal).  If students really are shopping around by trialing resources, or more likely using University resources whilst studying at A-level, will institutions they don’t have this connection with them get less interest from them when it comes to filling in their UCAS form?  Is the best the enemy of the good here?

Obviously we must pay attention to the terms of licences and consent for the material we use, and we don’t want to get sued, but I wonder if we have too strict an approval process (rather than a devolved and lightweight scheme) we will stifle the creativity and immediacy that makes the material appealing.  After all, real learning material can have rough edges, and should change and evolve in response to student feedback and the lessons of experience.  I wonder if not only is it better to have something than nothing, but also if potential applicants are more sophisticated than we give them credit for, and are ready to divine the true value of learning materials that lack that PR polish.

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Technology

ITV, iPlayer and Funding Television

September 6th 2010, 09:09pm

There’s just been something good on ITV.  This is an increasingly rare event, so this has been the first time I’ve used ITV Player since… well, ever, probably.

The failure of ITV has frequently been blamed on falling ad revenues in the face of competition with the web for advertising spend.  So how come ITV Player is so awful?  The BBC iPlayer has changed the way I and many others consume television, but it was commercial TV who stood to benefit from this technological development.  Internet delivery should offer individualised interactive targeted advertising which shows me only what I’m likely to be interested in and serves me further information if I am.  It offers the chance to gather instant feedback on the messages I view and when and how I view them.

ITV Player does none of this.  It has stuck rigidly to the “advertising breaks” formula and it jams 5 adverts in every time I pause and also at ridiculously frequent intervals (Five, for example, only sticks in a couple of ads in each of just two breaks an hour).  I had no interest in any of the ads just shown me and gave no feedback.  Only one included a link for more information.

Surely it would be of far more value to everyone to put a skip switch on ads?  Yes, I’d skip most of them, but when I didn’t they’d be getting positive confirmation of interest.  Some kind of new deal with viewers where we spend a much shorter time interacting more directly with sponsors’ information would surely be more successful?  Instead, ITV have tried to embed the broadcast format into a webpage, leaving it to the BBC to make all the running with customised software, support for an increasingly diverse range of platforms, and a range of innovative new features about to come out of beta.

The coalition partners who were backed by Murdoch would like us to believe that the market will deliver better television than the publicly funded BBC can.  Yet commercial television is trailing where it should be leading the field.

Another reason to be proud of the BBC.

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Technology

Distributed Social Networking

August 30th 2010, 08:08am

For all their utility, a draw back of the social media tools I use is that they are centralised. One monolithic, commercially operated platform acts as a repository for all of my (and my friends’ and contacts’) content, links and networks.  In a fun debate yesterday on the email question (during which I did my bit to help Seafarers UK) one major point in email’s favour was interoperability – the fact that its a plural market with any number of provides, an established standard, and everyone has an email address. While it’s getting easier to conceive of the time when everyone has a Facebook account (even my brother) much in the way everyone now has a mobile, concerns over the privacy, longevity and usage of our content still stand.  If Flickr shut down or dramatically changed its operating conditions I would lose all the meta data and comments for the few hundred photos.

If we were to host our own content, we’d still need some way to authenticate those who we wished to permit access.  But if we could host our content, while we used a network to connect to others’ – in my mind I imagine this as being a little like the arrival of peer to peer networks for file sharing and distribution – we could have the best of both worlds. Especially if the software that enabled the hosting and powered the network were open source.  And this, as I understand it, is what Diaspora will offer when it is launched in a couple of weeks.

The best of both worlds for me, though, is not necessarily something my friends will want or enjoy. Most of them are unlikely to want to host their own seed, or even know how to. So Diaspora could then easily become a ghetto for techies and nerds, if they did not have their eye on the WordPress model of free open source software (.org) for those who want flexibility and power and hosting (.com) for those that want the convenience.  Although with hosting you’re still trusting to a provider, you have choice and there’s no lock-in: it’s all portable if you want to switch.  The critical factor will be over whether anyone can find a way to offer Diaspora hosting for free, in the way WordPress.com (and of course FB) are free.

If so perhaps Diaspora can repeat Firefox’s trick of carving out a share of a market heavily dominated by one player.

Of course the key thing in terms of its success for me will be how many friends will join. Alas, I got no responses at all to a post on both Facebook and Twitter last week, suggesting my friends are all happy to stay put.  I’ll either have to stay with them, or end up on a social network talking only to myself…

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