future

While waiting on a late professor I decided to whip out with my N93 (as anyone with the latest gadget is inclined to do). To a chorus of 'oohs' and 'awws' I demoed a few of its slicker features to onlookers. But there were a few detractors. One in particular loudly voiced his opinion, having the audacity to declare it just a phone. I couldn't help but snicker. I assumed he was either suffering from a mild case of bad-phone-itis or had perhaps caught a much more serious strain of ignorance. I didn't dwell on it.

Then today while reading an interview of Tony Pearce, managing director of Player X, I stumbled upon it again. A phone is a phone, Pearce boldly claims in reference to Player X's decision to expand its media base beyond mobile games. I found this much more troubling and as such warranting further reflection. Are we all getting a little too excited about something that's just a phone?

In the past, mobile game developers have been handcuffed by a lack of manufacture support for advanced APIs used to access devices embedded in mobile phones. This meant GPS, internet connectivity and cameras had largely been off limits to developers.Fast forward to today. Mobile manufactures have begun to give developers the tools they need to utilize the aforementioned mobile features. The stage is set for a renaissance of mobile gaming.

One company taking advantage of these new opportunities is Superhappyfunfun with its latest offering 3D Tilt-a-World. The basic premise of the 3D Tilt-a-World is rooted in old-fashioned tilt maze games, where you physically tilt a game board at an angle to move a ball through a maze. By using recently implemented APIs to access camera data on mobile phones, Superhappyfunfun has faithfully recreated a classic.

An article I read recently claims that Japanese children consider full-size computer keyboards too cumbersome and confusing, compared to the sleek keypads of their phones. Their attitude will probably change when they grow up and find themselves writing long essays – T9 doesn’t cut it for anything longer than a few sentences. Typing aside, today’s mobile phone interfaces are quite efficient and streamlined. But what about tomorrow? While it’s possible to control everything using the numpad and a handful of soft keys, it’s definitely not intuitive. The race to find a suitable replacement is now in full swing.

BUDDY BUTTONS and PLASTIC PALS:  ON COMPANION TECHNOLOGIES

An interview with Roman Onufrijchuk by Richard Smith

Roman is a colleague of mine at SFU and fellow member of CPROST. We worked at NewMIC together and at my request he has turned his philosophical and phenomenological mind to the problem of mobile rich media context-aware technologies. In his view the coming generations of mobile technologies ought to be thought of as "companion technologies."
I grabbed Roman for a minute the other day and asked him a few questions. These are his answers, between smokes and sips of a dark americano, in the sun outside Blenz.

I hope to bring you more of this stuff, as the debate between Roman and I expands and extends over the next few months.