Internet – Page 32 – Stilgherrian

10 August 2013

Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 5

It’s time to catch up on my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial, skipping over Day 4 to Day 5, Saturday 3 August 2013 — when I finally discovered the proper way to synchronise the phone with my MacBook Pro.

I’d been frustrated by the slow process of using Bluetooth to transfer photos. Nowhere in the “Welcome” booklet that comes with the phone is there even a suggestion that you can plug the phone into a computer, let alone that there exists an official Microsoft Windows Phone for OS X application!

And it works!

Furthermore, if you use Apple’s default workflows for managing your images in iPhoto and your music in iTunes, then that all works too.

OK, so I’m an idiot. Maybe I should have looked, or perhaps browsed Nokia’s support site. But I still think this is something worth mentioning from the beginning — particularly as certain phone configuration options are only available from the management software.

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 5”

06 August 2013

“Corrupted Nerds” podcast goes cloud and big data

I’ve finally posted a new episode of my Corrupted Nerds podcast, a wide-ranging conversation with Peter Coffee, vice-president and head of platform research at Salesforce.com.

Cloud computing is inevitable, says Coffee. “Processing power has grown at about 25% per year, and compounded over a period of 30-some years that’s a lot. But bandwidth has grown at about 45% per year over that same period of time.”

So whatever the application, no matter how complex, eventually it’ll be cheaper to process the data somewhere else, and your device — desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone — only has to manage presentation and interaction.

I’d been wanting to catch up with Coffee for two or three years, and we finally managed to arrange being in the same room at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I think you’ll enjoy it too.

06 August 201306 August 2013

Talking Vote Compass on ABC 666 Canberra

ABC logo “It’s not every day that I find myself agreeing with Senator Eric Abetz,” began my column at ZDNet Australia yesterday. But as the remainder of my 89-word opening sentence reveals, we’re in agreement over just one word: Orwellian.

My concerns were about the data being collected by the ABC’s Vote Compass project, and what it might end up being used for somewhere down the track.

You should probably read the full article for the nuances of what I’m on about, but here’s a taste.

Vote Compass may remove personally identifiable information (PII) from its data before sharing it, but it’d be an easy task for a third-party researcher to re-identify users by cross-matching Vote Compass’ data with their existing databases.

“Scientists have demonstrated they can often ‘re-identify’ or ‘de-anonymise’ individuals hidden in anonymised data with astonishing ease,” wrote law professor Paul Ohm of the University of Colorado in 2009. It’s become easier since, for everyone from Google, Twitter, and Facebook to all the less well-known data mining companies on the planet…

The Orwellian scenario implicit in all this is that secretive data mining companies could match your political beliefs with the psychology of how you make decisions (gleaned from that “What breed of dog are you?” questionnaire you filled out five years ago) and use that to generate (through your favourite news site) a selection of persuasive news stories, opinion pieces, and advertising designed just for you — and you’d never know.

Well this piqued the interest of ABC 666 Canberra, and earlier this morning I was interviewed by presenter Genevieve Jacobs along with the creator of Vote Compass, Cliff van der Linden.

Here’s the audio — and my apologies for it being cut abruptly at the end. Finger trouble on my part. Ms Jacobs was saying that the ABC is satisfied with the precautions being taken by Vote Compass, and I must stress that I have no direct issue with their work either.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:13 — 5.3MB)

The article I mention is How Companies Learn Your Secrets by Charles Duhigg of The New York Times.

05 August 2013

“Fleeting mists” goes Android

I’m re-posting one of my favourite photos from last year, “Fleeting mists”, because it’s being used in the new Android weather app BWeather by Denver-based developer Brit Clousing of Atomicboy Software.

There’s a screenshot of the app at right, and you can click through to embiggen it. The app itself you can download from Google Play.

It’s Clousing’s first smartphone app and it’s pretty basic — but it’s free and there’s no advertising, and I really like the way the temperature for the days ahead is shown as a vertical bar.

“The photograph displayed on the top section is designed to match the current weather forecast. There are about 20 different photographs for the different weather and day/night conditions,” writes Clousing in an email.

I’m hanging out for a foggy day to see my photograph in context.

Clousing was previously responsible for the turn-based strategy game Empires of Steel, published in late 2009.

I publish most of my photographs under a Creative Commons Attribution license, so they can be used for pretty much everything. I enjoy knowing that they’ve been appreciated by someone else.

[Photo: Fleeting mists, originally posted in Weekly Wrap 89: Storms and too many podcasts in February 2012.]

04 August 201304 August 2013

Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 3

On Thursday I decided to check out the Nokia Lumia 925’s video capabilities. That’s a frame grab above I continue to be impressed with this phone’s image quality.

Indeed the video, which I’ve entitled Strathfield to Central for obvious reasons, is the highlight not only of Day 3 of my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial but of the entire trial so far.

I had hoped to embed the full video here. But I’m on mobile bandwidth today, and unless I upload a gigabyte or two of data, it simply won’t do it justice. So it’ll have to wait a while. Stand by.

Meanwhile, here’s the rest of my bullet-point observations from Day 3.

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 3”

02 August 201302 August 2013

Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Update 1

No, I haven’t forgotten you. I’ve just been flat out. I’ll be posting the Day 3 and Day 4 observations in my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial just as soon as I get the chance.