Future Files:Mobile Devices Will Help You Lose Weight, Free Music and Save the World
Posted On: 13 April 2008 By: Jay Oatway Filed Under: Future-Stuff-That-Goes-Ping | Leap-frogging Poverty | No Strings | Toys For Geeks
The new titans of mobile sports technology, Nike+, are once again teaming with their cohorts at apple — this time developing wifi and 3G tie-ins for the next-gen iPhone. Lace up your sneakers and tune to your power song — this is going to be one hell of a run: [via Engadget]
Stuff.tv is kicking back in Nike’s HQ at the moment and claims to have official word about Nike’s future plans with Apple. They say that the Nike+ system will “definitely” extend beyond the iPod nano to support the relatively bulky iPhone and iPod touch. Interestingly, it will leap-frog the proprietary RF link between the shoe module and nano adapter to take advantage of WiFi and eventually 3G. This of course leads to all kinds of speculation with regard to Apple’s “lifestyle companion” patent we showed you last month. 3G support would presumably allow for real-time coaching and uploads of your training activity through the Nike Plus website.
The music side of Nike+Apple’s running technology, however, continues to stumble. The mobile music industry still can’t figure it out. A recent article about ringback tones hits hard at executives on both the music side and the mobile side: [via Reuters]
And while there’s been much discussion about how ease-of-use, need for innovation, pricing and so on contribute to the problem, one of the overlooked issues is that of marketing. Talk to any mobile industry executive or major-label representative, and they’ll tell you all about how excited they are over ringback tones, mobile video, full-song downloads and such. But ask them to take out their checkbook and pay for some advertising around these services and you’ll soon be facing empty air.
Mobile music is the bastard child of mobile and music industry parents, and neither wants to take full responsibility. Both want to make money on mobile music, but both want the other to pay for advertising and marketing needed to generate consumer interest.
Perhaps the good old jukebox can save the day [via Engadget]
Trust us, this isn’t the first time LocaModa’s dabbled in the cellphone-controlled gadgetry game, but it’s never been more friendly than it’s being with the Social Jukebox. The aforesaid company has teamed up with TouchTunes in order to give patrons the ability to interact with flat-panels on TouchTunes jukeboxes. On-screen applications will include information about the song currently playing, elusive “user generated content” and even “patron photos” from their social networking profiles (scary?).
However, even the MP3 is looking too proprietary–make room for truly free music standard bearer — ogg [via Wired's How-to Wiki]
Much like the MP3 or AAC audio formats, Ogg Vorbis music files are compressed, enabling you to fit thousands of songs onto a compatible portable player. But in contrast to the more popular MP3 and AAC, Ogg Vorbis is free of licensing and patent restrictions, so anyone can code up a software player or hack together an Ogg-enabled hardware device without paying a fee to patent owners.
How does Ogg Vorbis sound? Compressed Ogg audio files offer comparable quality to AAC files, and slightly superior sound to most MP3 files.
Here are some recommendations and tips to help you make the move to open-source software.
Of course, all this running around to free music isn’t making the world a better place. But there are those at the New York Times who believe that the humble mobile phone might just end poverty: [via SmartMobs]
What amazes Chipchase is not the standard stuff that amazes big multinational corporations looking to turn an ever-bigger profit…Rather than sending someone like Chipchase to Vietnam or India as an emissary for the company — loaded with products and pitch lines, as a marketer might be — the idea is to reverse it, to have Chipchase, a patently good listener, act as an emissary for people like the barber or the shoe-shop owner’s wife, enlightening the company through written reports and PowerPoint presentations on how they live and what they’re likely to need from a cellphone, allowing that to inform its design.
Over several years, his research team has spoken to rickshaw drivers, prostitutes, shopkeepers, day laborers and farmers, and all of them say more or less the same thing: their income gets a big boost when they have access to a cellphone.
Chipchase told a story about meeting some monk disciples at a temple in Ulan Bator… One of the disciples asked to look at Chipchase’s phone. “So he’s got my phone and his phone,” Chipchase told me. “And as we’re talking, he’s switching on the Bluetooth. And he then data-mines my phone for all its content, all my photographs and so on, which is absolutely fine, but it’s kind of a scene where you think, I’m here, I’m so away from everything and yet they’re so technically literate. . . . ”
The future fits in your pocket.
