Another NetLingo word of the day that fits a gap in tech-vocabulary perfectly:

courseware

Another name for instructional software, courseware can come in the form of a CD-ROM, a Web site, a floppy, an instructional video, or a program tutorial. Courseware is often used to train people on computer business applications, and is the term given to ancillary material in computer training classes.

This is another area where the Mobile device can come in incredibly handy - already today, kids now receive their homework and submit it over email (which presumably if you have a USB dongle inserted is mobile school-working!), but there’s scope for this to extend further in to using Mobile devices for certain projects and coursework.

Can we see a not-too-distant future perhaps where touchscreen devices auto-download the necessary coursework over wireless connection, and then use Apps with clever map/direction/orientational features to make learning a portable, interactive, experience? Only time will tell

Check out the cool tech language site that is NetLingo, right here.

[Via: NetLingo]

Sometimes, what with Orange Wednesdays (a 2-for-1 cinema ticket offer for UK subs), you can forget about some of the other collateral that Orange are marketing out there. One particularly good piece, which popped back up on my radar recently, is Orange RockCorps. What be that, you ask? Well:

Orange and RockCorps come together to help you to give ?something back to your community. Take part in Orange RockCorps ?this year and help transform your local area. Over 40,000 people have already given their four hours and celebrated together at more than 20 live gigs.

All you need to do is join up and give four hours of your time to an Orange RockCorps community project in your area. In return, you’ll get a ticket to one of two exclusive gigs with performances from big name artists. You can’t buy a ticket. You can’t win a ticket. You have to earn a ticket.

And it doesn’t stop there. When you join up, you also become part of the Orange RockCorps Collective – giving you access to thousands of selected volunteering opportunities from around the UK.

Cool eh? The video I caught up on YouTube (here) is a nice promo for the RockCorps, but if you want a lot more info, go here. Seriously, check it out - it’s a really worthwhile project.

Do you want to enjoy the National Gallery anywhere in the world? Well now you can:

The National Gallery is the first ever gallery to make its paintings accessible through a downloadable iPhone application, making it possible to take a mini tour of the Gallery anywhere in the world.

Making use of special iPhone features such as its large touch-screen, zoom, Rolodex and scrollable menus, Love Art offers a playful exploration of the collection, together with informative commentaries. The paintings are showcased to the best advantage using high-resolution images on the iPhone’s excellent-quality screen. Due to a tactile interface the experience gained through this application is not only highly enjoyable, but also lets you zoom in to see details that are often missed.

Having tried out this bad boy, it reminds me of three things:

1) iPhone Apps are great

2) Some art is amazing

3) The App store is VERY big

At least now you have a chance to go download the App if you want - Love Art can be downloaded from Apple’s online iTunes Store, one of the world’s leading sites for downloading audio content. For a short time only it is available free of charge.

Flirtomatic, a leading mobile and online flirting service, has revealed some of the initial patterns it has been seeing since its US launch in earlier this year.  

In February, Flirtomatic began to be promoted on mobiles in the US and since then, numbers have been growing strongly from an initial test marketing push, giving clear evidence that demand is there. Users in the US are logging into the service daily over five times and sending 26 messages. Both stats are surprisingly similar to the UK user stats (given the early stage of the service there and overall user numbers). Anecdotally, it turns out that people in the US love flirting with Brits and vice versa, which is delivering critical mass earlier than expected. Also so far, 36% of US users are enjoying Flirtomatic on an iPhone, which is hardly surprising, given the handset’s success in the US.

So there we have it - Brits are flirty, those in the US are flirty, and iPhone users are flirty - that’s a whole lot of hormones!

If you fancy more of a look/flirt, then check out the service here.

My fave tech-word-of-the-day site, NetLingo, has come up with another really applicable term for the Mobile world:

merchantainment

If you think this sounds like a Mickey Mouse term, youre right. In the Internet commerce world, its the meshing of entertainment content with product information. Ralph Laurens Polo.com has employed it extensively, but the term was created at Disney World. In fact, Disney staff are trained to be “Merchantainment Hosts” or “merchantainers.” The goal is to create a positive experience for park visitors so they will be inclined to buy more goodies.

Of course, we’ve seen loads of merchantainment Apps on the iPhone, haven’t we - many branded “applications” or “games”, that actually lean heavily on the brand of the company that supplies the App (usually via a developer)…. this is a trend that I see set to continue - and now we have a name for it!

[Via: NetLingo]

My fave tech-language site, NetLingo, brings us another classic: 

screen-saver face

Ha ha ha! How many of us have been there at some point in our lives? Quite a few I’d bet. Of course, the new fashion on Mobile Devices is to have some kind of ’smart homescreen’ or screensaving feature, whereby you can get  a slideshow of images - so perhaps the term is going to be slideshow face soon!

If you want to check out the excellent site that is NetLingo, click here.

[Via: NetLingo]

The quality online tech phrase site that is NetLingo is ‘in da house’ again - with a phrase that we’re hearing almost daily relating to mobile nowadays:

in the cloud

Whenever you see an illustration in a magazine or newspaper about how the Internet works, there is usually a cloud drawn in the top portion of the picture to represent the technology and data transfer processes. Since these are too complex to illustrate in a simple diagram, they are shown as happening “in the cloud.”

It wasn’t all that long ago mind that Mobile devices couldn’t really access the web properly - they had to use dial-up modems, and had a ‘WAP’ browser (in monochrome!). Now, even mobile service provision can occur ‘in the cloud’ - take Apples ‘Mobile Me’ for example - that’s even got a picture of a cloud on the packaging, just to hammer home the point!

What with the new wave of Mobile Applications these days, the line is increasingly blurring between where functionality lies on the device, and on a server in the cloud - now if we could just get 4G service everywhere, all my Apps could be online

[Via: NetLingo]

What with the advent of the supposed new iPhone, with its supposed rubber case, I thought it might be interesting to consider a selection of back cases (or mouldings) of various devices - with a view to ID-ing the best and worst in terms of medium-term wear. So readers, here are my best(s) and worst(s)

BEST: contender: BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold - the faux-leather effect back case actually betrays what is a very nice idea for masking the effects of scratches etc

BEST: contender: Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N95-8GB - a thin covering of rubber-like material meant that the back-case didn’t easily scratch

WORST: contender: Nokia 8800 Scirocco - the removable back case of various Sciroccos that I saw in use scratched just by putting them in and out of the ‘protective leather sheath case’ that came with the device - to be accurate, the paint job on the devices wore away very easily…. why why why?

WORST: contender: iPhone 3G - a very shiny case, that is contoured so that only the middle will sit on a flat surface, means many shallow scratches occur quickly. The bezel on my device also scratched very easily

Conclusion: is it too much to expect your device to remain reasonably scratch-free if you don’t have it in a special case? Well maybe, depends on how whether any engineering thought has gone in to the case design, as regards its wear - certainly it seems to vary between devices.

What do you think readers? Do you try and keep your devices nice? Do you use a special case for your device? Has your device scratched easily? Let us know!

My fave online terminology site, NetLingo,  is back again - with a definition that I’m very familiar with, but a term that I’m not: 

whole-house opportunity

Term used by John Malone (one of the world’s richest people) to describe what the combined efforts of AT&T (NYSE: T)/TCI could offer consumers: “seamless” integration of video, voice, and Internet services.

It’s another way of saying the Operators’ holy grail of getting a subscriber for every service they want - or in other words, “converged service offering”

I’m currently trying to see how I can pare down and simplify the number of service providers I have - the trouble being of course that no single service provider is top dog in all categories. Give it a couple of years, and I think more and more of us will become ‘whole-house’ subscribers, as those services get closer to being utilities….

[Via: NetLingo]

Well it’s not everyday you find an entrepreneur who gives their profits to charity, but that is exactly what Alicia Navarro is doing!

According to TechDigest, the person behind the good.ly service is also shortlisted for a prize at the National Business Awards!

Alicia Navarro’s Skimlinks company allows online publishers and bloggers to create affiliate links automatically, turning big hits into big bucks.

And after tweaking this technology she’s found a way of making money from tweets. Using her good.ly service, which like tinyurl.com, shortens URLs, Navarro’s users link to say, a book they enjoyed and someone else buys it - cablow! Navarro is in the money.

So there you have it! Are you impressed? I am, and if you want to know more you can go to the TechDigest site.

[Via: TechDigest via: London Evening Standard]