DeepDarkSee

OK, I’m out to win this trip to Seoul, and had some fun writing about “The key features of the phone of the future.” in 200-300 words for the entry!  I decided to go ‘first person’ to try to make it accessible.  Here is what I submitted:

My new phone connects to everything around me, it’s got a great display for viewing information, and lets me use voice commands or a mini keyboard for privacy.  Features I want are immediately available to me from the net, yet within all this, I retain control over my personal information.

I make voice and video calls, but what I really have is a personal technology access point.  By the way, you should check out my screen.  It’s usable as one side of my credit card sized ‘access point’, but a flip of the cover and it folds out to four times that size with a mini keyboard for private texting!

So it’s been a while. Kathryn and I are hitting the gym 3 times a week and share a personal trainer. She’s off for two weeks at a Spanish language immersion school in Peurto Vallarta next week, and Audrey is off to summer camp as a “CIT.” I’m still doing things for Bones in Motion and Rocket Mobile, but have been spending lots of time with Moblyng on their mobile strategy and build-out. We’re doing interesting things with video to mobile phones, and web sites that adapt to different phone browser capabilities. Some secret stuff that should pop out soon too! BiM was a great ride, but it’s really fun to involved with a fresh new start-up.

I’ve also been looking at what I want to do next as a self funded project. Lots of digging around Marine related resources on the web, and pondering iPhone app opportunities. I’m really pleased, as an early iPhone adapter, that I’ve got all the capabilities of the new phone except the faster network and better GPS. Go Apple!

Know why January 20, 2009 will be a great day?

It’s funny how things cluster out there.  Yesterday I was all rev’d up at how Where is enabling location capable widgets on handsets, and at Moto’s new MOTOMAGX WebUI capability (ship a JavaME app that has an html canvas and JS capabilities) available late this year.  Today I find that Mike Rowehl has just written an article on mobile platform evolution that touches on this and references a related article by Tom Hume which calls out a mobile widget platform (very early still) called WidX.  Whew.

I like what WHERE is doing, and hey, it’s shipping on Sprint and Alltel.  The rub, however, is that the carriers have to approve the widgets that actually ship, and you’re one of many.  They’ll pay you $5 if you cause the sale of their app (a $2.99/mos subscription for access to ALL widgets), and will do revenue share in some cases.  It’s great that they have LBS capability in place, local scripting, and map resources.  Wish they were standards compliant rather than doing their own markup and scripting (very close to html and js, but with exceptions).  I think the economics are tough to build a business based on publishing widgets on Where, but it is a direct and easy path to a mobile presence for a web property.

WidX looks interesting.  Still very early in the process, but it is web standards based.  In my view it’s a (great, interesting) technology experiment until it is available on lots of phones (including the locked networks in North America).

There was a speech out of Google on Web 2.0 a couple months ago where Sergey described Web 2.0 as widgets that run wherever you are.  At the time I thought this was a rather constrained view of what Web 2.0 is (and I still to), but that concept makes loads of sense, and has lots of interesting implications when you think about the Google Phone.  I also think Apple did us a favor by making people think HTML/JS for developing apps for the iPhone.  Would I like to see third party native iPhone apps supported by Apple?  Sure.  But low barrier to deployment, and easily update-able “widgets” in mobile are worth more attention than they are getting.

So what’s new? BiM is moving along well. Audrey was a wonderful Alice in Alice in Wonderland, her 8th grade play. She also just started her first non- babysitting job, working the concession stand at Lemos Farm, and was a junior counselor at Wavy Gravy’s Camp Winnarainbow. Kathryn has had a rockin’ summer at Camp Winnarainbow, where she was in a chess tournament, did juggling, performed in “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream”, and was invited into the advanced improv group. She is also enjoying being 12! Leann is liking her job at Applied Bio Systems. I’ve been fooling around with a marine commerce site, and working on an iPhone application that shows tides, weather, waves, and marine advisories (and maybe charts!). I’ve also been really active at the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club, sailing the San Francisco Bay on a Santa Cruz 27, and running the Yacht Club summer youth sailing program. It looks like I’m also part of that new old crowd landing on face book. And hey, aren’t my daughters beautiful???

Looks like all I post lately are quotes!

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Web and he won’t bother you for weeks.

This is sort of like Ben’s Bargains, but for marine stuff.  A new favorite place to visit for me.

Having been a bartender through college in a local bar, a party house (wedding receptions, etc), a Hilton, and a 5 star resort, I found this hilarious.  Having hung out in these places with the “food and beverage” crowd, it’s even funnier.  The 86 Rules of Boozing!