Ubiquity and Mobility

I'm typing on my iPhone again, and I'm thinking about the state of the mobile computing experience. I see one person in my class using a laptop, and there's a girl texting on her Blackberry and another on some flip phone. (It's a pretty boring class, IMO). But the thing I was thinking about, and wanted to mention, is the key difference between using a laptop versus a mobile phone in this context.

Even the most advanced phones have various disadvantages in comparison to the laptop... a smaller keyboard, or inability to run multiple applications simultaneously. Phones however have a potential advantage here, but it's not fully realized: the relative availability of radio signal - useful for various communication, as well as the less conspicuous form-factor.

I can't wait until using my phone is as fun - and as productive - as using my laptop. Because then, I could work anywhere, coveniently.

Chatting with a Robot

So, I'm talking to IMified, a bot/service that enables you to interact with multiple other web services through instant messaging protocols. So, you add the buddy "imified" in AOL Instant Messenger for example, and send the message "menu" to create an account and get options. It's quite nifty. You can interact with your Google Calendar, or your Remember the Milk to-do lists... or even your blog! In fact, that's where I'm typing this right now. I've set this up so that I can post to my blog from the IM Chat app that I've installed on my iPhone.

Anyway, I think chatting to bots, and through bots will become ever more common. Case-in-point: Twitter. I think of Twitter as some sort of next-generation communication platform, something unlike ever before. You can access and post to twitter from various interfaces including SMS, IM, web, and desktop applications... If you're using Twitter through IM, you're chatting with through the Twitter bot, with other people. Anyway, it's worth checking out. You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/Rex

Hello World

I think technology has the potential to fix a lot of what's wrong in our world today. Robots for manual labor and the Internet for communication of knowledge and ideas. But it's not there yet... I mean, our world is not the utopia I think it could be. It is up to us - you and me - to take it there. Care to come along for the ride? Please subscribe!

Cheers,
Rex