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Well this is definitely a good story if you are having a hard time convinving your parent/relative/babysitter/other person-in-charge that you should spend more time in front of the TV with a controller in your hands:

Pew Internet & American Life Project has found nearly all American teens–97 percent–ages 12-17 play computer, Web, console, or mobile games. Teens are also playing these games with relative frequency and duration. Nearly one-third (31 percent) of teen gamers play games every day …. In a surprise twist, the study has found that video games are actually beneficial to teens …. the full report (PDF) shows that gaming and community helps kids become more civic minded, encourages interest in charity and politics, and increases socialization.

Yes yes yes! That’s what we want to hear! The media is often full of very negative reports about gaming (one particular story springs to mind from the last weeks worth of news), so it’s good to see research being done to show the benefits too - a balanced view is a wonderful thing.

Of course, some simulator games are a rather easy-sell for benefits to kids, since they are supposed to simulate reality. Button-mashing games have long been said to boost reflexes, but perhaps we should also be considering the social angle too - particularly with Mobile games, since the personalisation and connected-world is integrated in to the experience. The bottom line is that gaming ain’t all bad, despite what people think.

[Via: news.cnet.com]

Give me TV!

Crumbs, when Nokia go big, they go REALLY big!

Along with the announcement of the N96 launch date (October 1st, for anyone living in place without the Internet!), Nokia have announced a stack of N96-only TV channels, calling them Capsule 96.

Interestingly, or perhaps teasingly, each episode (mobisode?) is 96 seconds long - as oppose to 4 minutes, which is Madonna’s song with JT…

There will be channels on motoring, gadgets, culture, homes, fashion, and comedy - and will features some celebs such as Wayne Hemmingway (he does fashion). I’d assume people will make use of the WiFi chip inside the N96 and get the content that way, or else there is 3G - as these will be episodes for download.

[Via: TechRadar]

Vodafone Spain and Qualcomm - helping the elderly

The Vodafone España Foundation (FVE), the Spanish Red Cross (CRE) and Qualcomm have announced an alliance to launch a pilot project named “3G Connecting Generations.” The project aims to take advantage of HSPA broadband technology to connect the elderly to their caregivers and families by unifying voice and videoconferencing through a familiar device like television.

Apparently the video conferencing system will stimulate plenty of social interaction - in addition to which the Red Cross is goin to be able to do health checks of the participants. On top of that, there is going to be a networking function to allow members to increase their social circle, download content (like exercise videos), and also games, to help them stay active.

One hundred people will participate in this initial trial, of which the majority are in some way disconnected (usually by distance) from friends and/or family. Day centres will also be involved, having the technology installed there.

3G Connecting Generations was based on the experience gathered by the Spanish Red Cross and the Vodafone España Foundation through the PLATAS project, which was financed by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce as part of the 2006-2007 Advance Plan.

Wow - good on Vodafone for doing something like this to help a segment of society that is all too often discounted from advances in Mobile Tech.

[Via: Cellular News]

Butterfly, formed from text

Following on from my post the other day about Japanese Smileys, NetLingo were kind enough to let me know via email about “Straight-on” smileys too - these are again generated using text characters to form shapes that you may not associated with the component characters on their own.

If you want to add some aesthetically pleasing ascii-art to your texts, then you can find the NetLingo page here.

Skypephone S2

So, the folks at Skype were nice enough to lend me a Skypephone S2 to play with - and in the time-honoured tradition of telling you my thoughts, I present a “lived-in” review. This means simply that given I only had the device for a couple of weeks, I can’t tell you details that you would get from 6 months of usage - however, I can tell you the opinions I formed in the short time I had it.

The S2 is the follow-up to the original Skypephone, which if you remember was white/ice blue in colour, and did pretty well in the target markets - which, in this case, are Hutchison 3G (Brand name “Three”) operating countries, since this is a Three-branded device:

Skypephone back casing

It’s here I’ll begin to feed in my thoughts, since I think the hardware is a great improvement over the original. Not that the first skypephone was bad, just that this one looks and feels very nice indeed. Good job Three design team!

Not such a great job however with the keys on the device - if you look at the first pic you’ll see a ring of keys (three per side) around “Menu” and “C” markings. Now I have reasonably big hands (!), but I still kept catching the wrong key, since they are the bar type, favoured on devices such as the N82 and K810i. Bar keys are fine, just not on top of each other!

Moving on the software, there’s a raft of well-known services on the device - key amongst these is of course Skype - but there is also Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, and Google, amongst others. In addition, all the usual suspects in terms of browser and media player are there in the menu too, for good measure.

Now what of the apps? Well Skype works well, although my feeling is that the client makes a circuit-switched call (this is where Three has tons of capacity), and that gets converted via a server to VoIP once it gets in the Network core. So kinda cheating, but hey, do what works I say!

I was disappointed a bit at Facebook, since it’s just a cached login page, or “stub”, rather than a special app, like the one that has been designed for Blackberry. As such, logging in to the minimalist WAP site didn’t excite me much at all.

All the other functions on the phone work well enough, and it’s well put together - both in terms of build and box contents:

Skypephone S2 and box

In summary, this is a GOOD little phone - both diminuative, and keenly-priced. It’s really centred around services, with quick access to all apps via a carousel homescreen menu, and it does what it set out to do well. A decent battery and quality packaging round off a well-presented offering from Three. Overall, very good indeed - buy one if you love your “social networking”-type services!

Thanks to both Peter and Gemma for organising the loan of the device!

The Japanese Smiley for "In Love"

I just got a great email from NetLingo.com - all about Japanese Smileys!

For those of you that don’t know, NetLingo.com is a great source of Interweb jargonry (OK, that’s not a word) - in fact, they put it better themselves:

NetLingo has thousands of definitions that explain the online world of business, technology, and communication — including the largest collection of Internet acronyms and text messaging shorthand.

So today, they mailed about Japanese Smileys, which have the same effect (graphics from text/symbols) as our traditional friends, but look arguably a bit cooler. They originated (surprise, surprise) from Japan, and don’t required the “head tilt” that the “traditional” smileys do. Here are some of my faves below, but of course check out the NetLingo site for the full ticket:

(^_^) - male smiley

(*^o^*) or (*^.^*) - exciting

(?_?) - confused (or wondering)

(*_*) - frightened (or in love)

(=_=)~ - sleepy

Disturbingly, I think I may have, in a slightly Freudian slip, picked out the character traits I find most like myself. Hmmmm, that’s a bit odd. Eek.

X Factor website video player, sponsored by Carphone Warehouse

In past years, it has been Nokia who have taken on the mantle of sponsoring the X Factor, but this year sees new blood, with Carphone Warehouse stepping in to the breach. They have adopted quite a cartoony visual style, which is applied to all the in/outs on the Ad breaks, plus the online properties of the X Factor - as can be seen above from the X Factor website video streamer. Unfortunately when I checked, the video player didn’t seem to be working properly, but nonetheless, the Carphone visual ID is all over it.

Of course, CPW sponsoring the X Factor is perfect, as it’s just the demographic they want in their stores, buying devices and contracts. A quick flight over to the CPW website, and they have some attractive tariffs, and devices - notably the iPhone 3G, and the Samsung i8510 (the 8MP, Series60, 16Gb, uber-device!).

So if you want to take a look at the X Factor site, go here.

If you’d prefer to see the Carphone Warehouse site, go here.

Xperia X1

OK so just throwing this out there … but … is the touch UI of the Xperia actually not very good at all?

I say this based on watching the video that Will posted about the other day - from what I saw, the demonstrator had to catch the screen square-on with his finger, with long presses, to get stuff to happen. And more importantly, there were BIG (seconds) delays whilst stuff was happening.

You see, the thing is, if you hang a graphically-heavy UI off an operating system that is known for lagging anyway, then, aren’t you definitely going to get slow, laggy responsiveness? I had my concerns right from day dot about this device, and what I saw on that video only confirms it.

Don’t get me wrong though, I would LOVE to be proved wrong - but what is it they say - the camera never lies? (80’s pop group Bucks Fizz said “My camera never lies“, but that’s a different story!)

Come on X1, be great, be wonderful!

I was just watching MTV, when a classic track came on “Degrees in Motion - Shine On”. If you don’t know this hands-in-the-air classic from back in the day, I’d encourage you to hunt it out. Degrees of Motion also did another track called “Do you want it right now”, which is probably in the all-time Top 10 dance tracks, but that’s another story…..

Anyway, the lead singer I believe was called “Biti” (no, no, not “Bitty” like in Little Britain, you strange people!). In the video she was wearing some head apparel that was (a) difficult to describe and (b) er…. outrageous. In fact, it was verging on the ridiculous, even factoring in the decade, and the fact it was a dance video.

This got me thinking, I wonder what the most outrageous design for a Mobile was? Hmmmm, well given lots of manufacturers play it safe and shoot for candybar, there are not that many candidates, but I’d like to offer my vote - and then readers can feel free to chip in with theirs……

So my contender is the Nokia (yes, really!) 3650 - for two reasons. The first being that the keyboard layout would take a rocket scientist to be able to use easily, and the second being that with very few exceptions, Mobile devices should not be available in Gold!

Of course without these designs, we couldn’t push the envelope of consumer acceptance, so in a strange way we owe a debt of gratitude….

There we have it then, my entry in to the Mobile hall of fame for outrageous handset designs - what are yours?

O2 is about to switch on coverge for the first underground mobile network in the UK, in the city of…….. Glasgow! Yes, you might have thought that was going to be the London Underground, but alas no (or yes, depending on your viewpoint).

The service will start in December, and utilise a “multi-user distribution antenna system“, in five of the busiest stations - the plan being to extend the coverage onward in to the tunnels too. The whole “services” theme is in play too, with 2G/3G voice, calls, text, and data, all possible.

The tech behind this isn’t new, but there is significant cost attached - like with all infrastructure rollouts. London Underground did announce a trial last year for stations platforms and some of the tunnels, but I can’t say I noticed that ever working!

Of course, all the associated blue-sky thinking around the possibilities enabled by coverage underground doesn’t take in to account the fact that perhaps a good percentage of people won’t be in favour of this being enabled. Currently subways, and (during) flights are the only major “places” where you don’t automatically expect coverage - and even the latter of these has been under review for some time.

So what do we think? Mobile on the subways a good thing? It it does happen, I can predict some people answering the phone, and exclaiming in extremely loud voices, something along the lines of: “What…..what…..yes…….what…..I’M ON THE TUBE!” - which will be nice for the rest of us …..

[Via: Times Online]