Orange has announced that the Welsh language will be supported on the Samsung S5600 in September. What makes this all the more interesting is that there are about 600k welsh speakers, so clearly Samsung has something on it’s mind in terms of targeting its market, and converting those users. Apparently the phone will hold 44k welsh words….

… and in related news, there is also going to be a Welsh iPhone App, which will basically be a Welsh phrasebook – good I suppose if you are going to be visiting Wales, although I’m pretty sure the locals speak perfectly good English too

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

As I said in my ‘lite’ review of the HTC Hero, I would take about ‘Sense’ (which is the design approach of HTC to user experience) in a separate post – well this is that post!

So without further ado, I’ll let HTC explain more about the ‘Sense’ approach:

HTC Sense is focused on putting people at the centre, by making your phone work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were designed by quietly observing and listening to how people live and communicate: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.

Make It Mine

Make It Mine is about feeling your HTC phone was created for and by you. To do this, HTC encourages you to dictate and organize how you want to access the people and content in your life in a way that fits best for you. For some, this means adding glance-view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times.  HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called ‘Scenes’ that enables you to create different customized content profiles around specific functions or times in your life.

Stay Close

Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates and more. HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating these communication channels and applications into one single view, enabling you to stay closer to your important people.  With HTC Sense, friends’ Facebook status updates and photos, along with their Flickr photos are included alongside their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.

Discover the Unexpected

Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on your HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. It can be something as basic as turning the phone over to silence a ring or as simple as improving the smart dialler for making calls quicker. HTC Sense also includes ‘Perspectives’, a new way for viewing your content such as email, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.

It’s good to see a company taking real time to try and ‘mind-map’ the ways in which people are using their devices these days – it certainly seems to have worked out in their case – the HTC Hero is a dream to use, thanks I think largely to the Sense approach to its UI.

So now you know – ‘Sense’ is the design approach to the UI – and expect to see a lot more in the way of Sense-inspired UIs coming out of HTC, and on to their devices, in the coming months.

Thanks to Jenna for the collateral

LG is bridging the gap between their TV and mobile lineups, as they have recently announced alongside Broadcom (NSDQ: BRCM) a new lineup of Bluetooth-capable TVs. Bluetooth TVs sure are cool and all, but they aren’t entirely new – the first one was announced two years ago, in fact. Still, internet-capable TVs complete with widgets and YouTube are all the rage these days, and we can certainly expect more connectivity between phones and home entertainment systems as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other wireless protocols worm their way into household electronics.

Some of the possibilities mentioned included using your phone as a remote control, QWERTY keyboard input, as well as streaming video, pictures and music to the big screen. Unify4Life is already trying a lot of stuff like this with BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), but once wireless connectivity becomes ubiquitous in TV sets, the need for a third-party peripherals will melt away. In any case, Broadcom has only announced their involvement with LG – we don’t have any info on models or pricing just yet.

[via Broadcom]

DAB: coming 'soon' to replace your FM....?

You might or might not have seen news across various media recently about FM Radio being “phased out”, as Ofcom (regulatory body in the UK) plans to adjust (read: re-aollocate!) the spectrum to better support digital radio services – but have you considered the impact that might have on your car (and its saleability?).

Interestingly, the Ofcom approach approach to digital radio is similar to that with digital TV – with the exception that the digital TV plans are now pretty much cast in stone, and will happen – whereas the plans for radio are much less advanced – but let us consider in more detail the implications for you.

To enable yourself for digital TV at home, all you need do is (a) buy a digital Set-top box and then (perhaps) consider whether you are going to get your signal via satellite, cable or terrestrial. Across a range of costs, you could spend anywhere from £30 to £1000, upgrading things like your aerial, TV, and so on. Potentially that is not cheap, but now let’s look at the implication of changing to digital radio, and how it pertains to your car…

Well again a different receiver would be needed, BUT most cars have their head units embedded in to the dash these days – so swapping something out is in fact either (a) very expensive or (b) impossible – so what are you going to do?

There are a bunch of ‘hacks’ you could use, if you are stuck in a situation where you can’t upgrade the head unit:

• use a mobile device that supports a plug-in FM transmitter dongle, and tune your (soon-to-be defunct) FM radio in the car to that – making it your own personal music entertainment centre
• find out if your head unit supports an ‘aux’ input and try and plug something, ranging from a mobile device, to a dedicated DAB receiver in to that
• find a custom company on the internet that specialises in splicing DAB units/mobiles/etc in to car speaker systems

… and IntoMobile readers can probably think of another ten ways too!

The point I am getting to is two-fold really – firstly that it’s a significant cost to change things in your car, as and when the signal gets turned off, and moreover this would also affect the sale price of the car. So perhaps we can consider options where our mobiles can be used to mediate this problem?

Now, mobiles don’t have a great track-record with TV (DVB-H broadcast mobile TV hasn’t really happened, excepting a few countries), and I’d argue even less so with radio – it’s typically a function of not having that long antenna you need for FM, leading to a rather ‘variable’ signal!

So if our mobile devices are not going to provide the receiver/source for a DAB signal, can we consider that perhaps they might reach a level of multimedia handling where they become acceptable replacements for broadcast radio – delivering instead some kind of personalised playlist? Well, yes, definitely! Many devices, both music players and handsets, are being used in this way already.

So is the future bright for FM? Well, probably no. Will its successor, DAB, be easy to integrate in to our car? No. But can we rely on mobile devices as one link in the chain that might provide solutions for those of us with cars that aren’t brand new? I think yes.

[Image via: AMP3]

I just read a nicely-written piece by Dr. Jim Taylor, regarding the psychology of UI – in it he talks about five dimensions when someone (you or I) are choosing a UI that we like. A couple of these I have included below – the rest you’ll have to follow the link to the original article for:

The first dimension that struck me is perhaps the most obvious, namely, functionality. Different people have different needs. For some, it is a business tool to maximize efficiency through email, contacts, and calendars. For others, it is a toy for entertainment, with an emphasis on music, Internet, texting, and photos. And for still others, the smartphone is, well, a phone. Each set of needs requires a different type of UI that best satisfies those needs.

One more dimension that seems to be of importance is efficiency which is translated into being able to launch an application in the fewest number of maneuvers. For example, on my Fuze running TF3D2, I’m able to directly access more than 15 applications through the touch screen and physical buttons with just one touch. And thanks to the iPhone Today and Manila Today Page, I can access my most popular programs in one touch and a swipe or two.

I’m quite a fan of the whole study of user experience, and it’s nice to sell a well-written piece on the subject. My comment on the matter is that a particular UI is only good, if YOU think it’s good – no matter what the weight of evidence might be to suggest something is good or bad, it’s your opinion only that counts – particularly if you are the guy/girl holding the credit card to buy the device with that UI!

Have a read of the full article here.

Yep, tomorrow is the day I am planning to take the plunge on getting an iPhone 3GS – finally, some weeks after the launch I am thinking I have a free window of time, and some electronic moolah on my credit card, ready to take the plunge.

Of course, there are some concerns:

• My iPhone 3G (current device) was scratched REALLY badly by the case that was SUPPOSED to be protecting – to see another expensive device get scratches and marks soon after buying would be gutting
• The slightly onerous contract is a bit of a bummer dude … I don’t fancy 24-months locked-in, but 18-months means a shedload of upfront cost, on all but the highest tariffs
• Speaking of upfront costs – the likely cost of my device will be £274.23 – nearly 300 smackeroos…!

But on the upside, the fact that a better camera will be on-board, along with reasonable video is a major plus – I’m a heavy user of that, plus the iPod functionality – all of which should be rocking along at a better pace thanks to the GPU and quicker processor.

Now, the only remaining question is what to do regarding all the imminent/upcoming devices – we are due a Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre and an HTC Hero in the UK at some point this year, and they are tempting devices too – oh well, of I go to sell more vital organs to fund my device-buying antics

Ben

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.