Jan 19th, 2007
Idle Bites
The best mobile news and discussions for the week of 19 January, 2007.
Culture of Mobility
1// Mayor Bloomberg announced that New York will soon allow 911 (and 311) to accept digital photos and videos.
“If you see a crime in progress or a dangerous building condition, you’ll be able to transmit images to 911, or online to nyc.gov,�? the mayor said in his annual State of the City address. “And we’ll start extending the same technology to 311 to allow New Yorkers to step forward and document nonemergency quality of life concerns, holding city agencies accountable for correcting them quickly and efficiently.�?
2// Book, I hot mod balk. (a.k.a - Cool, I got one call.)
Kottke.org has a mention of kids in the UK using “book” as a synonym for “cool.” It’s rooted in a T9onym where the word cool and the word book both come up when you enter 2665 on a T9 keypad.
3// In the clamor of the Apple Keynote, Nokia and Visa’s announcement of mobile Visa payments in the US snuck under the radar.
Mobile technology news
4// Mainstream press picks up on Qualcomm: BusinessWeek has a feature on emerging mobile technologies primarily mentioning Qualcomm’s mobile TV offering, MediaFLO.
5// Mobileburn has a review of Samsung + Cingular’s latest sleek little smartphone — the BlackJack, a Windows Mobile handset that is slightly smaller than Motorola’s popular Q. Being skeptical about Samsung handsets doesn’t mean I don’t want one. Did I mention it’s black?
Mobile UI
6// Looks like Alltel is doing the widgets thing.
7// Mike Krisher has an interesting piece on FlashLite.
8// Mike Rowehl on Rails Dev for the Mobile web: Rails and Mobile Content