Month: April 2008

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Sony Ericsson adds Flash lite support to mobile Java

Sony Ericsson

A great news for Adobe Flash lite developer, Sony Ericsson today announced at its Developer World conference plans for a new technology that bridges Adobe Flash Lite and Java ME development platforms.

The technology, called Project Capuchin, allows Java ME applications to use Flash Lite as the front-end interface for mobile phone applications.

More importantly, it builds a connection between the phone’s applications and Flash, something that the few phones able to run Flash don’t do. Flash is just a display layer, not actually interactive with the phone!!

“In using Flash, you typically can’t access properties of the phone. But with Capuchin, you can get at information and applications in the phone and use that info with the Flash display,” said Christopher David, director of long-term platform planning at Sony Ericsson

So its a kind of a great tool that wraps that Flash content in a Java file, so it can be used as a Java file.”

Preety cool 🙂

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vivek

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Sweet little “Flori” out of the i2fly studio: with Flash lite Screensaver and Wallpaper :)

Sweet little “Flori” out of the i2fly studio

Sweet little “Flori” out of the i2fly studio

Have a look to my new character design straight out of the i2fly studio, She is playing around my creative studio for quite a few months so I thought to release it and show the world.
I name this character as “FLORI” I really love this character very much. Flori is sweet, cute, innocent and naughty too 😀 .

You can use “FLORI” as a screensaver/wallpaper in your mobile phones, it looks just beautiful, i really love it. And I am sure you will love too 🙂

Download this content to your mobile phone here.

Flori as an character is also available for license worldwide, kindly get in touch with me at design@i2fly.com

As usual love to know your feelings. Feel free to post your comments/suggestions/views anything. Curious to know about it.

vivek

Unplug your mobile chargers: let’s save the world for tomorrow

unplug your mobile- lets save the world

It’s not a story or just an another post to read !! We all love our mobile devices and can’t live without it. But the simplest thing which we always forget to unplug our mobile chargers after fully charged!!!

Do you know

If 10% of the world’s mobile phone owners unplugged their phone chargers when fully charged, it would reduce energy consumption by an amount equivalent to that used by 60,000 European homes. So pull then plug and start saving energy.
Think again.

Let’s save our beautiful world for tomorrow.

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vivek

Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?

Jan Chipchase

A cellphone shop in Accra, Ghana, which carries and repairs a variety of handsets.

A great article via The New York Times featuring Jan Chipchase and his work style to find about how people use their cell phones, where they keep it, understanding their behaviour in terms of usability, business and Psychology many more ways . . even a simple idea can make a product more innovative and solution providing as mobile phones are getting more personalized mere just not a functional device to talk. The premise of the work is simple – get to know your potential customers as well as possible before you make a product for them.

“This sort of on-the-ground intelligence-gathering is central to what’s known as “human-centered design”, a business-world niche that has become especially important to ultracompetitive high-tech companies trying to figure out how to write software, design laptops or build cellphones that people find useful and unintimidating and will thus spend money on. Several companies, including Intel, Motorola and Microsoft, employ trained anthropologists to study potential customers.”

Jan Chipchase at work

Chipchase talks to Accra street vendors about what an ideal phone.

Jan Chipchase is 38, a rangy native of Britain whose broad forehead and high-slung brows combine to give him the air of someone who is quick to be amazed, which in his line of work is something of an asset. For the last seven years, he has worked for the Finnish cellphone company Nokia as a “human-behavior researcher.” He’s also sometimes referred to as a “user anthropologist.” To an outsider, the job can seem decidedly oblique. His mission, broadly defined, is to peer into the lives of other people, accumulating as much knowledge as possible about human behavior so that he can feed helpful bits of information back to the company — to the squads of designers and technologists and marketing people who may never have set foot in a Vietnamese barbershop but who would appreciate it greatly if that barber someday were to buy a Nokia.

I really impressed with him, his thoughts to create innovation and more focussed for the people.

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vivek

Microsoft Challenges Adobe Stranglehold: Silverlight versus Flash Lite in the Mobile Arena

silverlight-flash

The Strategy Analytics report says, “Silverlight on Mobile will not catch up with Adobe’s Flash Lite in the foreseeable future, but Microsoft recognizes a great opportunity beyond providing an alternative to Adobe’s Flash Lite. This Silverlight strategic offering will boost Microsoft’s online and cross-platform ambitions in the mobile space according to analysts at Strategy Analytics.

“The Silverlight deal with Nokia gives Microsoft access to Nokia’s S60 licensees including LG, Samsung which is vital for competing with Flash Lite,” commented Sravan Kundojjala, Analyst at Strategy Analytics. “They estimates that over 1.7 billion Flash Lite-enabled phones will be shipped globally over the next three years alone.”

Stuart Robinson, Director of the Handset Component Services added, “Strategy Analytics believes cross-platform wars will likely heat up in the mobile space, an argument strengthened by Nokia’s Trolltech acquisition. And also believes that SUN Microsystems will join the fray with its JavaFX platform.”

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vivek

Mobile designers “Hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip”

hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip

A nice article on The New York Times, what mobile designers think behind the scene and workaround for “hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip“. Forecasting what consumers will want next year, and into the future. Designing a Mobile phone is just not an easy task there are many things to see, evaluate and analyze around the people. Jotting down feelings about features  what users are looking for, share their emotions about mobile phone, understanding the psyche of consumers and why they pick one phone over another.

Even interesting designs do not necessarily spell success. The group is the first of its kind at Nokia, the world’s No. 1 seller of mobile phones, bringing together 14 designers and researchers from California and Helsinki, where the company is headquartered. Their charge is to tell Nokia’s top executives not only what consumers will want next year, but 3 to 15 years from now.

“We have the ability to clarify the needs of real people,” said Rhys Newman, who heads the team.

“Design used to be inconsequential: just make it pretty, make it sell,” said Mr. Newman, who, along with three members of his team, was interviewed at Nokia’s design center near a strip mall in downtown Calabasas, north of Los Angeles. Now, he said, “we have to think about human fundamentals.”

When asked if they felt pressure to design new phones more quickly in an increasingly competitive market, Mr. Jan Chipchase responded with a quizzical stare. “Why do you want to innovate faster?” he asked. “Are you innovating something gimmicky just to sell a product? Or is it saving the planet you are after?”

So what you think about your mobile phone, how you use it, Do share your emotions, feelings, and what you want in your phone? 🙂

vivek

Forum Nokia: Flash Lite Webinar on Flash and Mobile Browsing

 forum nokia

Forum Nokia organising a Flash Lite Webinar on “Flash and Mobile Browsing”. This Webinar will explore the integration of Flash Lite on mobile devices, give pointers for developing online mobile Flash content, and provide a full question-and-answer session.

Presentation time: approx 60 minutes.
Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2008.
Time: 3.00 pm London, 5.00 pm Helsinki, 10.00 am New York, 7.00 am San Francisco.

Register here

vivek

Adobe merges business units serving PCs, mobile

Flash CS3 Professional, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3

Adobe Systems Inc said on Monday it was putting under one roof businesses selling software for computers, phones and consumer electronics to make them run on a single technology platform.

The announcement is part of a series of management restructuring moves and represents the further consolidation of its 2005 Macromedia acquisition with the broader Adobe organization while also recognizing the growing convergence of once-distinct software and the need for it to run across a range of devices.

The merging of the different business units may appear on its face to be simply an organizational restructuring, where the Mobile and Devices Business Unit will be folded under Adobe’s Experience and Technology group.

“As the proliferation of digital content continues to accelerate, customers worldwide are looking to Adobe for a platform that enables the creation of rich, engaging experiences across a variety of media and devices,” said Shantanu Narayen, Adobe president and CEO. “Key to delivering a well-integrated technology platform is engineering our desktop and device technologies more closely together. Bringing our mobile and platform businesses together under the leadership of CTO Kevin Lynch better positions us to meet the needs of our increasingly diverse customer base.”

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vivek

Mobile Smells: NTT DoCoMo upcoming new Mobile Fragrance Communication Service

Mobile Fragrance Communication Service

You must be downloading a lot of things onto mobile phones these days, and now you can even download smells. 😀 isn’t interesting to you. This week, NTT Communications Corp. will test a mobile version of the Fragrance Communication service it offers to fixed-line customers.

Mobile users can download “fragrance playlists” from company NTT DoCoMo Inc. i-mode mobile Website. Via the phone’s infrared port, the fragrance data is sent to a special device that mixes various scents to get the odor the user selected. Users also get to watch and listen to audio/visual content associated with the smell.

NTT says it’s looking for applications that combine fragrances with ringtones, music, and horoscopes. The new mobile version offers the convenience of using mobile communication to download Fragrance Playlists, or files of recipes for specific fragrances together with visual (GIF animation) and audio (MIDI) content.

Now we can think about an application say a cooking one and receiver getting smell of what’s cooking hope to see such live experiments here. My mind is getting many ideas 😀 .

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vivek

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Build a reusable Flash Lite 1.1 component

forum nokia

Forum Nokia published an in-depth article on “Build a reusable Flash Lite 1.1 component”

Components and reusable code are important aspects to developing applications for any platform, including Flash Lite 1.1. Components speed up development and help make coding tasks easier. Many people still thinks or left designing applications or content in Flash Lite 1.1 for many reasons or off-course limitations but i still feel and try my best to work on Flash Lite 1.1 as device can be targeted more and you can reach it to more users.

vivek

Flash Cast Channels on Verizon Wireless

 Flash Cast Channels on Verizon Wireless

Little posting late about this news but its a great news!! via Bill, Developers now can develop Flash Cast Channels for Dashboard on Verizon Wireless.

There is now more details available about Dashboard, the tools for creating and testing channel content and how to contact Verizon Wireless about getting started. Once a developer is accepted by Verizon Wireless to participate in the Dashboard program, they will then receive access to new tools, testing server, documentation, discussion forums and other information. The Dashboard be available around Mid 2008.

Some helpful links are:

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vivek

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“Nomophobia” Are you fear of being without mobile phones !

india mobile
Image source from Jcyrai

I found this very intresting while reading some blogs that Researchers have named the fear of being out of mobile phone contact called as ‘Nomophobia’.

No one want to loose loved ones and it’s a highly common fear that most of us possess. Everyone keeping in touch with friends or family using mobile devices and its something no one can forgot to keep anywhere and always carry.  Weather in job or personal we never swtich off our phones normally.

Stewart Fox-Mills, the head of telephony at the Post Office, UK commissioned the survey, noted that nomophobia affects many people. However, men (52 percent) are more likely to be mobile phone phobic as compared to women (48 percent).
Out of the 2,163 people who were questioned, more than 20 percent agreed that they never switched off their handsets, whereas 10 percent admitted that due to their job profile, they needed to be contactable all the time. While, over 55 percent people of the volunteers use their phone to be in contact with friends and family, 9 percent agreed that switching off the phone made them anxious.

I have to be honest and yes i am nomophobic 😉

Are you in the category of nomophobia?  😀

vivek

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Adobe launched Adobe Mobile Gallery showcasing Flash Lite content from developers around the world

Adobe Mobile gallery

WOW !!Adobe have launched a great new Mobile Gallery showcasing Flash Lite games, animations and applications from developers around the world.

i2fly also featured in Adobe Mobile gallery, you can have a look of our Mobile content under wallpaper & screensaver section “Snowy Mountains“ 🙂 sweet thing.

If you like to try “Snowy Mountains” as a wallpaper or screensaver in your mobile phone. And it will be great to know your feedback too.

Download here

vivek