Three hundred eighty-five development hours, 3.5 median hours of sleep per night, 265 pounds of food, and roughly 4,000 cups of coffee. That's what it took for five teams to compete in last week's Microsoft's Mobile Incubation Week, an intense five-day hustle to create the best Windows Mobile application, from concept to finished product.
In the dark auditorium at Microsoft's modest Mountain View, Calif., offices last Friday, the breakneck development rate showed. Two bleary-eyed developers stepped onto a dark stage before a smattering of peers, press, and judges to present their showing: a Windows Mobile version of Brightkite, a location-based social network that lets you create a photo journal of your day that friends can track.
Gokivo Navigator will feature turn-by-turn directions and a Facebook tie-in.
(Credit: CNET/Photo by Jessica Dolcourt)While Brightkite founder Martin May and his co-developer, Brady Becker, were the only team to take the stage without a finished application to demo, their mobile social networking application has two distinct real-world advantages over most of the other competitors--Brightkite's established user base and existing applications for iPhone, Google Android, BlackBerry, and the Web. All that's missing from the Brightkite lineup, May freely admitted, is a Windows Mobile app--even more essentially, the know-how to develop for Windows Mobile. Although Brightkite's Windows Mobile presentation consisted largely of prototype slides, the team is hoping they'll have a Windows Mobile client ready by the time Microsoft launches its Marketplace for Windows Mobile in the second half of 2009.
The cohort
Brightkite wasn't the only established company in the field. Networks In Motion, the brawn behind Verizon's VZ Navigator, AAA Mobile, and Yellowpages.com, was also there, introducing a first peek at Gokivo Navigator for Windows Mobile. It's the first NIM-branded turn-by-turn navigator that is already available for a subscription fee on AT&T phones, including the BlackBerry Bold.
... Read more
(Credit:
in Xile Entertainment)
Even in the Web 2.0 universe, a literally two-dimensional concept can give way to a cult classic, provided it contains a compelling kernel of originality and ways to brand the finished product as your own. The sledding game "Line Rider" humbly began as an online Flash game in which a boy sledded down a track of your design, but it quickly garnered fans who created fantastically creative tracks across which the rider dramatically tumbles and swoops.
It's only fitting that "Line Rider" make the leap onto the iPhone. "Line Rider iRide" ($2.99) lets your fingers draw the track, pinching and pulling the iPhone screen to zoom in and out for a closer look. The basic controls to draw freehand, lay down a straight line, and erase lines are there. So are buttons to undo lines, move around the screen, leave a placeholder, and flag the rider's current position. If you have a LineRider.com account, you can make a name for yourself by sharing your sledding course, or download someone else's track to admire.
Although you can give your courses limitless scenery and outlandish jumps, the ride itself will be staunchly guided by Newtonian physics. Make your pawn fly too high, fall too far, or loop at unnatural angles, and he'll skid, thud, or somersault to his demise. Keeping him going right-side up is addictive--and harder than you might imagine. Just consider that the next time you hurtle down those snow-covered slopes.
Google on Thursday released an application called My Tracks that turns the T-Mobile G1 Android phone into a full-fledged GPS receiver.
The free software can record tracks showing where you've been, display them on a map, show elevation gains and losses, and share data with various online services.
As a geography buff, I have to confess that this one of the first applications that actually got me excited. I carry a Garmin standalone GPS device so I can geotag my photos and keep track of my trips, but My Tracks one-ups it in several ways.
For one thing, it's a phone and therefore much more likely to be toted at all times, not just on dedicated occasions. But more important, it's an Internet-enabled device, which means it shows my position on Google Maps--either map mode or satellite image mode, not just the feeble and expensive Garmin Maps--as long as it can find the Internet. Track data can be saved not just as a GPX file, but also uploaded and shared with Google Maps. And statistics can be uploaded into Google Docs spreadsheets or even Twittered (for example using the Twidroid application).
... Read more
(Credit:
FindWhere)
The other day my esteemed colleague Leslie Katz mentioned a lightweight gadget you can slip into a car's glove compartment or onto a pet's collar to locate the things you care about wherever they are. If the device doesn't provide enough stats for your detail-hungry brain or seem adequate to cover human cargo, FindWhere offers a similar tracking service using a gadget that your teen/workforce/elderly parent most likely already has--a mobile phone.
Like the Zoombak Universal GPS Locator, FindWhere offer worriers no-go zones whose border crossing sends text message or e-mail alerts to whoever's at the helm of Mission Control. The service keeps going with detailed location reporting, a panic alert for emergencies, and a number of battery-checking and motion detection routines for each cell phone under surveillance.
Of course, it's not as good at geolocating your pooch, and subscription prices can skyrocket the more advanced a micromanager you are. The GPS device works out to be cheaper in the long run, but FindWhere is another service we thought you should know about that goes beyond the basics.
If you've ever wondered how many minutes a day you spend using Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Gmail; or how much of your day is "wasted" by community Web sites such as Digg, Slashdot, or MetaFilter, a free application called RescueTime (also available for Mac) can track that information for you, while providing several other valuable features to monitor your time.
Monitoring productivity in the Internet age has become more complicated than ever, especially if you work online. E-mail, instant messaging, and multitasking keep many of us switching constantly between projects or contacts. RescueTime combines a local application with complementary Web-based software to track the time you spend with specific applications and Web sites, down to exact minutes and seconds.
The online RescueTime app provides lots of ways to slice, dice, and analyze your data.
(Credit: CNET Networks/RescueTime)Getting started with RescueTime is simple. You'll need to download and install the data collector and then sign up for an account on the RescueTime Web site in order to start tracking your productivity. The local software monitors your application/site usage, communicates with the Web service, and lets you manage your privacy and other program settings. The Web service provides the meat. That's where you can view your usage statistics (as well as slice, dice, and tag them), set productivity goals and alerts, and grab HTML widgets for monitoring your time without even visiting the RescueTime site.
Once you get the RescueTime monitoring software up and running, it will take about an hour for your statistics to show up on the Web site. As soon as you can manage your application/site data, it's smart to tag your applications and Web sites to create some meaning from the raw data. For example, I tagged the CNET blogging tool and my favorite text editor, NoteTab Light, with the tag "text," which means "hey, I'm writing here." Next, I tagged the Web-based Download.com catalog tool with "catalog" (duh), SnagIt and Adobe Photoshop as "images," and Outlook with "e-mail." You can see a snippet of my usage data from the RescueTime widget below.
So, you might ask, am I seriously suggesting voluntarily allowing "Big Brother" access to your PC? Well, yes and no. If you use RescueTime in the default manner, you will certainly be providing personal information on application use and Web site visits to a software company. However, RescueTime does have a very solid privacy policy, and it also includes various options that let you customize exactly how much info (and what type) is shared with the Web service.
The RescueTime privacy options let you restrict the sites it tracks.
(Credit: CNET Networks/RescueTime)For example, if you're concerned about sharing your Web browsing habits, you can enable a domain whitelist for tracking in the Privacy tab of the local RescueTime app. A domain whitelist is simply a text file with a list of Web sites. If you visit one of the sites on your whitelist, RescueTime will track it. All other Web sites will be grouped together in the data under "Other Web sites," which could be useful for browsers concerned about sharing their private surfing habits. You can also use the RescueTime Web service to exclude any specific applications or sites from its monitoring.
Similarly, you can ask RescueTime to only monitor domain-level URLs. That option means that the app will record that you visited Download.com, but not specifically the Kelly Clarkson Sex-E Screensaver. For security reasons, you can also set RescueTime to send updates to the Web service using the SSL protocol.
The communication between the local RescueTime client and the Web service is also completely transparent. To see the exact information that the software is sending online, visit the RescueTime.com folder in your Application Data directory within Local Settings. For XP users, the path is usually "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\RescueTime.com\logs\." For Vista users, it's generally "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\RescueTime.com\logs\." The "uploaded" directory holds all logs already sent to RescueTime; the "pending" directory holds the logs waiting to be sent.
Most importantly, you can always turn off logging by either quitting the local RescueTime application, or right-clicking the RescueTime icon in your system tray and disabling logging. The default keyboard shortcut for enabling/disabling logging is Ctrl-Alt-L. In my specific case, I have corporate monitoring and remote-access software on my work machine anyway, so I have no PC privacy to lose. Those users who consider installing and using RescueTime on their home PCs may want to consider the pros and cons, and contact RescueTime directly if you have specific concerns.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
When Power Downloader gets a download request in an e-mail from a friend, he always searches for the perfect software for his friend's quandary. Recently, when a friend who lived in a hurricane-prone area asked if there was a way to track storms, Power Downloader knew exactly what type of program she needed.
Nobody likes to hear there is a storm brewing if they live in a place where hurricanes ravage the coast frequently. That's why Power Downloader knows that a simple storm-tracking program can put a person's mind at ease, or in a worst-case scenario, give them more time to plan for a possible evacuation.... Read more
- prev
- 1
- next
