The day started @ 4:00 am for me. Was a trip for more as 4 hours to Basel, Swiss. Thank you Christine for all have you done for the AR community!!

For the first we must to clear the „Mission“ of this community. The AR Standards Community seeks to:

- collect/monitor progress and activities across a wide variety of SDOs (and relevant industry groups which provide open interfaces for AR experiences) in a consistent fashion with a special emphasis on
detecting complementary work/redundant or overlapping work, and then providing a neutral/grass roots

- driven environment (platform) in which leaders of initiatives can explore ways to coordinate activities and reconcile areas of overlap or conflicts

- provide, where and when necessary, inputs to SDOs and communities interested in open and interoperable AR (some of these inputs are the community resources–see Resources tab of this portal)
 

- detect the emergence of and provide a centralized place/forum for the expression of needs from the AR development community including obstacles to the growth of AR.

Our meeting goals was to obtain reports on activities and discuss progress in relevant standards development organizations:

- continue development of the community resources including but not limited to:
AR Standards landscape and status of what each SDO we are tracking is doing in the area of AR

- AR vocabulary and definition of terms (also numerous posts on the mailing list)
AR Use cases and Use case categories

- Open letter to AR-related subsystems providers and Communications plan
initiate development of new community resources and discuss emerging challenges which may be addressed via standards or open source interfaces.

Program Committee members for the fourth meeting currently includes:

• George Percivall, Open Geospaital Consortium
• Neil Trevett, NVIDIA and Khronos Group
• Martin Lechner, Wikitude
• Timo Engelke, Fraunhofer IGD
• Dan Romescu,  Augmented Citizen
• Douglas Knisely, Qualcomm
• Lars Erik Bolstad, Opera Software
• Gerard Kim, Korea University
• Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore & Keio University CUTE Center
• Ed Parsons, Google
• Blair MacIntyre, Georgia Tech Augmented Environments Lab
• Anthony Wiles, ETSI
• Rob Manson, MOB

We enjoy at the beginning from Open Mobile Alliance the Doug Knisely, Qualcomm (on behalf of OMA)  with „Mobile AR Enablers Work Item“

Rob Manson  and Lars Erik Bolstad from Opera continue with W3C „leaks or problems“ :-) POI WG, HTML 5, GeoLoc, DAP

Neil Trevett have presented, from my side - Device ( Developer ) side,  the coolest stuff for today. Open GL/ES - WebGL, OpenCL - WebCL, Device Sensors Framework  a lot, more in detail you can find on AR Standards ( thanks you very much Christine for your wonderful work to keep life this community ) etc.

Gerry Kim can not participate but sent us his presentation on ISO/JTC 1 SC24 AR Study Group, ISO/JTC 1 SC29 MPEG-V, I miss here my friend Marius Preda who is working on MPEG standardisation.

Anita from Web3D Consortium help us to have a image what are the movements in the 3D Area. On every mouth is now 3D, will be interesting what Added Value can 3D offer us. I have from my side some small projects - most of them on MUX. hope you will see some results on the end of the year.

George Percivall form OGC talked about their projects ARML, SWE, 3DIM. What was interesting was the GeoLocated SMS. I am curios if are some implementation for indoor :-)

The breakout sessions can focus on specific sections of the new AR Standards Landscape, on the improvement of any other Community Resource, or may also serve as the first face-to-face meeting of a Special Interest Group within the community.

Then we divide us in 2 Teams, one to do the Formal Modeling and second to build a Topology Map of the Actual Standards from OGC, Khronos, W3C, OMA, Web3D Consortium etc.

At the end we make a plenary analysing the results of the day.

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October 2011 will remain as a lost ICT Mentors for me. My first contact with Denis was begining of '80-ties when I started with Unix and C. It was a time of gr8 developments, and for me the start in the world of the OS that will dominate 40 years the market and is not the end.

"Dennis Ritchie, the Bell Labs computer scientist who created  the immensely popular C programming language and who was instrumental in the construction the well-known Unix operating system, died last weekend after a protracted illness. Ritchie was 70 years old.Ritchie, who was born in a suburb of New York City, graduated from Harvard and later went on to earn a doctorate from the same institution while working at Bell Labs, which then belonged to AT&T (and is now part of the Alcatel-Lucent). 

There he joined forces with Ken Thompson and other Bell Labs colleagues to create the Unix operating system. Although early Unix evolved without the naming of progressively advanced versions, the birth of this operating system can be marked by the first edition of the Unix programmers’ manual, which was issued in November of 1971, almost 40 years ago.Although AT&T had been engaged in the development of an advanced computer operating system called Multics in the late 1960s, corporate managers abandoned those efforts, making Thomson and Ritchie’s work on Unix that much more impressive.

These researchers threw themselves into the development of Unixdespite, rather than in response to, their employer’s leanings at the time. We should be thankful that Ritchie and his colleagues took such initiative and that they had the foresight and talent to build a system that was so simple, elegant, and portable that is survives today. Indeed, Unix has spawned dozens if not hundreds of direct derivatives and Unix-like operating systems, including Linux, which can now be found running everything from smartphones to supercomputers. Unix also underlies the current Macintosh operating system, OS X.Ritchie’s work creating the C programming language took place at the same time and is closely tied to the early development of Unix. By 1973, Ritchie was able to rewrite the core of Unix, which had been programmed in assembly language, using C. In 1978, Brian Kernighan (another Bell Labs colleague) and Ritchie publishedThe C Programming Language, which essentially defined the language (“K&R C”) and remains a classic on the C language and on good programming practice in general.  For example, The C Programming Language established the widespread tradition of beginning instruction with an illustrative program that displays the words, “Hello, world.”For their seminal work on Unix, Ritchie and Thompson received in 1983 the Association of Computing Machinery’s Turing Award.

In 1990, the IEEE awarded Ritchie and Thompson the Richard W. Hamming Medal. Ritchie and Thompson’s work on Unix and C was also recognized at the highest level when President Bill Clinton awarded them the 1998 National Medal of Technology. And in May of this year, Ritchie and Thompson received the 2011 Japan Prize (which was also awarded to Tadamitsu Kishimoto and Toshio Hirano, who were honored for the discovery of interleukin-6).

 Spectrum attended the Japan Prize awards ceremony and had an opportunity to ask Ritchie to reflect on some of the high points of his impressive career. During that interview, Ritchie admitted that Unix is far from being without flaws, although he didn’t attempt to enumerate them. “There are lots of little things—I don’t even want to think about going down the list,” he quipped. In December, Spectrum will be publishing a feature-length history of the development of the Unix operating system.

 Rob Pike, a former member of the Unix team at Bell labs, informed the world of Ritchie’s death last night on Google+. There he wrote, “He was a quiet and mostly private man, but he was also my friend, colleague, and collaborator, and the world has lost a truly great mind.” A charming illustration of some of those qualities comes from David Madeo, who responded to Pike’s message by sharing this story: I met Dennis Ritchie at a Usenix without knowing it. He had traded nametags with someone so I spent 30 minutes thinking "this guy really knows what he's talking about." Eventually, the other guy walked up and said, "I'm tired of dealing with your groupies" and switched the nametags back. I looked back down to realize who he was, the guy who not only wrote the book I used to learn C in freshman year, but invented the language in the first place. He apologized and said something along the lines that it was easier for him to have good conversations that way."

From: http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/software/dennis-ritchie-1941-2011

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I meet Jan Jursa for some years ago at the first UX Camp in Berlin. Jan present himself :

"I was born in Prague but I definitely speak German better than Czech. I live in Berlin --
a very hot place to be :) ...

I am Editor in Chief of UX Storytellers,
I tweet as IATV,
I co-organize the German IA Conference,
I co-organize the Berlin IA Cocktail Hour,
I am the EuroIA Country Ambassador (DE)
I am part of the European Centre for UX.

I am an Information Architect at T-Systems Multimedia Solutions."

We are happy to announce a discount for friends of Augmented Citizen of 60 Euros (82 Dollars). Simply go to http://mobxcon.org > “Buy Tickets” and enter this promo code using the button below the ticket purchase form: MobX_Friends-of-Dan 

Here is a interview with Jan about the importance of MUX in adoption of new Apps, Services, Hardware. 

1. Jan, tell our readers who you are and where you see your position in the Mobile UX ecosystem.  

Hi Dan, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be part of this interview. 

I work as an Information Architect for T-Systems Multimedia Solutions. We build a lot of mobile applications and services at our Berlin office. So the topic of Mobile UX is very near and dear to my heart. 

2. You co-organize the MobXCon mobxcon.org, what motivated you to make this step? Have you organized mobile or UX conferences before? 

I co-founded MobX this year to basically scratch my own itch. I don’t want to have to fly to Sydney or San Francisco or elsewhere to meet leading Mobile UX experts. It’s much more pleasant to organize a great conference and have everybody come to Berlin - at least, it is for me :)

But, seriously; I - and the rest of the MobX team - try to give something back to the global UX community, simply by organizing a state-of-the-art, kick-ass conference ... at a very affordable price, I might add.

We have been organizing the well-known IA Konferenz - the German IA Summit (http://iakonferenz.org) - for several years now. Our 6th German IA Summit is coming up in May, 2012 and it will be very enjoyable, too. 

3. Why do you think MUX will become ( or is ) very important for the mobile industry and will be interesting for us to join the ecosystem? 

You know, I have many computers at home. One of the most powerful ones is my current smartphone. And we all have heard this before: With great power comes great responsibility. User Experience is everywhere, and now that we all have those supercomputers in our pockets or by the sofa, as UX experts, we have to take on the job of helping to deliver a flawless user experience and to design easy and usable interfaces. 

4. Please let me know what can motivate me to come to MobXCon on November 17-18.10 ? 

Dan, that’s easy. a) We have 11 amazing speakers. You wouldn’t be wrong if you said we have some of the very best experts in Mobile UX today. b) We have booked an amazing location in the heart of Berlin. c) We will have free beer and a live band playing. Finally, d) MobX is priced very fairly, so people will find it basically pretty affordable.

5. What can we learn in your Workshops in the first day of the conference? Who will bring us in the world of MUX? 

Dan Saffer, author of two great books, will talk about “Brainstorming and Design Principles”. I’m sure you know that Content Strategy (CS) is the big thing nowadays. That’s why one of the most respected experts in CS, Karen McGrane, will teach us ”How To Do Content Strategy”. Josh Clark, author of several books on Mobile Interfaces will talk about “Designing for Touch” in his workshop. Rod Farmer and Gabriel White, two renowned Mobile UX experts will teach us all about “Prototyping Mobile Experiences”. And last, but not least, we have Darryl Feldman, Director Nokia App Labs, will discuss “Designing for 'Microexperiences” in his workshop. 

So, there you have it. Five great half-day workshops. The only problem will be which ones to choose :)

6. What are your expectations from us ( the mobile community ) ? 

The MobX team and I hope that many of our colleagues and friends from the worldwide community will show up. We are convinced this will be an amazing conference and we would really feel bad for you if you missed it :)

We are happy to announce a discount for friends of Augmented Citizen of 60 Euros (82 Dollars). Simply go to http://mobxcon.org > “Buy Tickets” and enter this promo code using the button below the ticket purchase form: MobX_Friends-of-Dan 

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How good is to be back and start to write :-). No more constructive stress about the Summit organization. No more nights without sleep in long conversations with colegues, speakers, friends to pick the trends that are spiking at this moment.

Everything was start at the begining of the year sometimes in February. We had the same experience like I had last year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/  we had 7 leads from big companies that were interested in organizing this event. At the end was remaining just one trusthy and this was Blackberry http://us.blackberry.com/developers/. >

 

 

I have learned a lot of differences between the visitors behavior in Germany ( where I organize the European Augmented Reality Business Conference http://www.arbcon.eu/ )

and in Romania where I just founded together with my coleagues and friends from Mobile Monday Romania http://www.mobilemonday.ro/

The biggest Mobile Event event in Eastern Europe http://www.mobilemondaysummit.com/.>

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I meet Bruce for some years ago at the ARE and was impressed from his "Menschliche" way to be. We have talk a lot about Behavior and tools that will expand, increase, build new somatic patterns in our brain. Where our limit is - if this limit exists :-) we do not know and will not know. with every generation we "Menschen" are evolving. But let's have a look at the Master Bruce Sterling: 

Here a Interview made by Kelvin Holmes, Talking to the Future Humans is a new column in which we speak to the people who have shaped and continue to shape the future, or at least ideas surrounding the future. It is the mindchild of Kevin Holmes, Managing Editor for The Creators Project.

VICE: Hey Bruce. What've you been up to today?
Bruce Sterling: Minding damaged computers, mostly.

Damaged how? What happened to them?
They aged.

Do you tend to hold onto technology until it's on its last legs, or are you a 'use it then lose it' kind of guy?
Neither, really. I'm an 'endure until the opportunity cost becomes unbearable' design-theorist type.

What does that mean in practical terms?
I've been putting up with a lot of "technological excise" from the wife's brand new Mac Air and its daffy new operating system recently. I'm the system administrator of last resort for the hardware menagerie.

I see.
When one spends all day fighting screens, it becomes impossible to produce anything; it's like a confiscatory tax of one's space and time. It's something that I refer to as "technological excise."

Technology is a pain in the ass. What kind of technology is exciting you at the moment?
I'd have to say that I find the kit of Otzi the Bronze Age Iceman to be really "exciting". It's a rare find, that kind of insight into quotidian life of a vanished technological culture. Tutankhamun's tomb loot is similarly great. Not the glamourised sarcophagi, but stuff like his boomerangs, musical instruments, walking sticks.

Hare the complete interview

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Not for a long time some people asked me why I am so enthuziast about Android. Ma answer was very easy - was most openess from all bit 4: iOS, Windoes Mobile, BlackBerry OS ( the semnificant at this moment on the market - WebOS can be a candidate when Amazon will push it - HP don't make it, Bada is growing but right now is to small )

I have found some interesting articles about How android is:

Is Android really free software?

Google's smartphone code is often described as 'open' or 'free' – but when examined by the Free Software Foundation, it starts to look like something different.

Richard Stallman ask how free is Android and here are some of his credo:

"Android is an operating system primarily for mobile phones, which consists of Linux (Torvalds's kernel), some libraries, a Java platform and some applications. Linux aside, the software of Android versions 1 and 2 was mostly developed by Google; Google released it under the Apache 2.0 license, which is a lax free software license without copyleft."

Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel. People who erroneously think "Linux" refers to the entire GNU/Linux combination get tied in knots by these facts, and make paradoxical statements such as "Android contains Linux, but it isn't Linux". If we avoid starting from the confusion, the situation is simple: Android contains Linux, but not GNU; thus, Android and GNU/Linux are mostly different.

Reto Meier - Geek, Googler, Android Developer Advocate, and author - "Today is one of those days that has my heart racing; we’ve just released the source code for Android 2.2. This is a big step forward for the entire Android ecosystem. Please don’t melt the servers down again while trying to download that latest source code.

This blog typically talks about developing Android applications using the SDK and NDK. However, the skills of a platform contributor aren’t fundamentally different from those of an application developer. Those are simply different roles using the same skill set. I’m providing an update here to the experienced Android programmers all around the world on some of the recent developments in the Android Open-Source Project.

For Google engineers working on Android, releases are mostly known by their code names which are chosen alphabetically after tasty treats. I’ll call Android 2.2 “Froyo” throughout this post, since that was its code name. Raw version numbers don’t make me salivate as much as the thought of a cold dessert in the California summer."

This was in  on 23 June 2010 at 8:35 AM and from that time we are just waiting...

Please let me know your thoughts, I love Android, but how can we protect OUR Android from the "Black Forces" arround Google Strategies? As community - for example on Xing apox. 7k people in the Open Source OS Group : Android & Co - open source goes mobile we can collaborate and sustain the idea of Open Source Operating System.

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When champions are going the Stadium of Lights remain just Lights, the Game need another Champion to win our hearts. When Captains are going the Ships remain just Ships, the See need another Captain to navigate and reach inconnu destination. When Steve was gone the Bits will need another Steve to reinvent the OLD one...

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From 00:00 of 10.07.2011 will be completly analog.

I will immerse complete in the analog world... write the last tweets, email - is a little stressfully 

I will use just my video cam 10 minutes per day 4 daily diary...

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I was loving Nokia maps, was the only free Maps App that let you to use everything offline :-). Now google let Nokia no

breath, in the Android version you can download maps offline.

No matter which side of the smartphone wars you’ve landed on, it’s hard to deny that Android’s Maps application blows iOS’s out of the water. And this week it’s getting even better.

Yesterday Google highlighted a new feature that’s super handy for anyone who uses above-ground public transportation on a regular basis: turn-by-turn navigation for transit, which helps make sure you never get off at the wrong bus stop. And they’ve just another great addition that I’ve been yearning for for ages. Say hello to offline maps, thanks to a new feature in labs called Download Map Area.

To activate the feature, you’ll first have to visit the Labs section of the Maps application, which you can access using the Menu button. Enable the Download Map Area option, and from then on when you browse to a Place page and hit the ‘More’ button, you’ll see an option to locally store a map of the surrounding area.

And it’s a big surrounding area — Google will download local copies of the map tiles within a 10 mile radius of that venue. Which means that you can easily download the entirety of SF or Manhattan in a single tap (the download itself took about a minute for me over a Wifi connection). Then, next time you fire up a map but don’t have a data connection, you’ll still be able to pan and zoom around the city all you’d like.

The feature is made possible by the fact that Google Maps on Android uses a vector-based system for displaying map tiles, rather than the older image-based system (which is what the iOS version of Maps still uses). The vector-based tiles use much less data (around 1/100th), which means they are quicker to download and can be stored locally without using too much storage space. Google Maps for Android has actually been caching mapping data automatically for some time now — the difference this ‘download maps’ feature  brings is that it lets users explicitly choose which areas to store locally.

It’s a great start, but it’s still clearly a work in progress. You can’t look up transit maps while you’re offline, and you can’t run search queries for venues and addresses that appear in the map areas you’ve downloaded. But these are pretty obvious features, so hopefully they’re in the pipe.

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I have related last year about Apple Augmented Reality Displays. IPR on Interface Design is going in a new dimension, and apple is the champion. Qualcom as platfrom accelerator, on top of Apple Patents can give us an Image how state of the art will be the next generation of Apple. This make very hot the launch of new Apple Model in september/october  - A new report by DigiTimes is claiming that the companies that manufacture and supply components to be used in the production of Apple’s next-generation iPhone and iPad devices are preparing for an October launch of both of these devices. The report cites sources throughout Apple’s supply chain and claims that Apple will be launching a single new iPhone model, which is expected as there was no new iPhone hardware previewed at the 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference, alongside the iPad 3.

As Apple Insider reports today, the US patent office just published two interesting patent fillings by Apple in January 2010.

The first, titled "Synchronized, interactive augmented reality displays for multifunction devices" is a very broad term patent and discuss methods to identify object, display an information layer on top of a live video feed and share that layer between users.

The second, and surely much more exciting is simply titled "Transparent electronic devices" and concerns "A method and system for displaying images on a transparent display of an electronic device ... the display screens may allow for overlaying of images over real world viewable objects"

How big will be the surprise in september?

These overlays whether in handheld or other electronic devices 10, may provide an "augmented reality" interface in which the overlays virtually interact with real-world objects. For example, the overlays may be transmitted onto a display screen that overlays a museum exhibit, such as a painting. The overlay may include information relating to the painting that may be useful or interesting to viewers of the exhibit. Additionally, overlays may be utilized on displays in front of, for example, landmarks, historic sites, or other scenic locations. The overlays may again provide information relating to real-world objects as they are being viewed by a user. These overlays may additionally be utilized on, for example, vehicles utilized by tourists. For example, a tour bus may include one or more displays as windows for users. These displays may present overlays that impart information about locations viewable from the bus

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Over the last couple of years, Android has been fixing a lot of the problems that keep it from being as polished as its slicker and more profitable counterpart, iOS.

With the huge array of Android devices on the market from dozens of manufacturers, it’s incredibly difficult for applications to run identically on wildly different hardware. This means that even current Android hardware isn’t always guaranteed to run the most current version of the OS. It still has a long way to go in this department, but Google is taking steps to help fix some of the issues plaguing the platform.

One major failing of Android may have just gotten its fix directly from the mothership. Google+, if it gains traction, will give Android one of the things that it has been lacking so far, its very own killer app.

The term ‘killer application’ has been around a while. In general it describes an application written for a given platform that provides such a potent draw for users that it becomes a major, if not the main, reason to adopt that platform.

Examples of this in the non-mobile world include Microsoft Office for Windows, XBox Live, Tetris for the Gameboy and the grandaddy of all killer apps, VisiCalc for the Apple II. While some of these products no longer retain their killer app status because of deprecation or distribution, in their moment they represented a major shift in consumer support for the platforms that they appeared on.

Most of the major mobile platforms have had their version of a killer app at one point or another. These things tend to come and go a bit as products wax and wane, but they can provide a big enough effect on user influence that they drive the growth of a platform for a not-insignificant time. One of the prime examples of this in the mobile space isBlackBerry Messenger, which arguably, along with extensive enterprise support, has extended the life of the BlackBerry product by years and most likely accounts for a sizable portion of device sales.

The iOS ecosystem is an interesting case because it is so dominant when it comes to quality applications. The iPhone doesn’t have just one killer app, it has hundreds. Not that there aren’t some very nice apps for Android, but you’ll honestly find most of those hanging out in Apple’s App Store as well, and most likely making more money there too. And, alongside applications that make their primary home in iOS, there are thousands that exist there exclusively.

There are many reasons that a developer may choose to have an app available only on iOS and it would take an extensive amount of explanation to investigate all of the reasons more thoroughly. You can check out this interesting post from Sarah Chang of the husband-and-wife team at Peegos Publishing on why they’re sticking with iOS only for some interesting insight.

But in the end, most major applications will probably end up taking the multi-platform route. Once the Android ecosystem becomes less fragmented and increases its attractiveness in terms of revenue, we could very well start to see pretty much every major app release on both platforms.

Which brings us to Google+, which is available now for Android and will be soon for iOS. While we haven’t seen the iPhone version yet, its easy to assume that it will have at least the same level of polish in its presentation as the version on Android. In fact, because of factors like platform maturity and fragmentation, the iPhone version of the Google+ app may actually be more pleasant to interact with than the Android version.

So, if Google+ will be available on both platforms and may very well work just as good, if not better, on iOS, then how could it possibly be Android’s killer app? The key to the answer is a shift in the way that we define a killer app on a mobile platform.

The instigators of this shift are simple and obvious, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and all of the other major social networks have made it impossible for a killer app to be a self contained experience that is isolated on the device. Instead it must have an aggressive social component that makes the device feel alive and connected.

It doesn’t matter how many hundreds of thousands of apps that an App Store has any more. The apps that are the most likely to engage the attention spans of users in an intense way and continue drawing them to the platform in the long term are those that offer a constant influx of content from social networks.

I was talking with a friend about closing his Twitter account, which he did on a whim. The thing that stuck out for me the most is the way that it affected the amount which he used his phone. He found himself picking it up and turning it on much less, even though he has dozens of apps on it, because he new that there was really “nothing new” to look at.

Give it a try yourself, delete your Twitter, Facebook and Instagram apps from your phone and see how much it affects your desire to pick it up and look at it just to see what’s happened in the past 30 minutes on your networks. It’s stunning how much the apps that give us access to our social networks drive the use of our mobile devices.

Google+ taps into this need on a basic level, providing Android users a reason to pick up and use their devices even more. This is what the platform needed, an aggressive play by its creator to give its users something to gloat about. A way to justify their love of the platform and the feeling of support that has, up to this point, been lacking from Android’s creators.

With Google+, Google is casting a spell of longevity and relevance on its mobile platform in a way that no amount of cheap hardware sales could ever do.

Because Google+ is also available on the iPhone you may be tempted to downplay the significance of the app for the Android ecosystem. But, in fact, Google+ was created to inherently take advantage of the more open architecture the Android platform offers. Google will be able to do things with the app on its platform that would never happen on iOS.

Things like a Hangout or Huddle widget, the system wide integration of Google+ into the OS to capture photos and videos or email addresses and phone numbers categorized by Circles will only exist on Android. In the end, it’s safe to say that Apple will never integrate even basic Google+ functionality into the innards of the iPhone’s OS.

And it’s not enough that Apple has its own equivalents to some of these features in its iCloud suite. for instance, every picture can be automatically uploaded to your Google+ gallery every time you press the shutter button of an Android phone, mimicking the behavior of the Photo Stream in iOS. But these photos cannot be instantly shared with a Circle of your friends, they can’t be viewed in a gorgeous, socially enabled, online gallery.

Google is positioned to offer its users an extensively social connected web experience to go along with the mobile app that Apple can’t hold a candle to.

Apple is definitely aware of the potential of this kind of integrate, they have been experimenting with social integration for some time now, as evidenced by the appearance of a Facebook system settings option in unreleased betas of iOS 4. We know now that they ended up making a deal with Twitter instead and will offer extensive sharing options from within system apps in iOS 5.  This still leaves them without an overarching web presence, despite the (for apple) strong social media play that a deal with Twitter represents.

At this point Google+ is still incredibly fresh, with little indications as to its long-term status as a major social network that can play in the same leagues as Facebook and Twitter. Early signs point to widespread adoption among the technorati, but we’ve seen this before with services like Quora, which got great initial traction but has yet to reach the tipping point of momentum it needs to get truly big.

If, and it’s admittedly a big if, Google+ manages to gain traction in the crowded social space, then it stands to garner Google a great toehold in the online social space that will help it to shed its ‘service toolbox’ reputation. It will also give the media giant another place to show its advertising which, lest we forget, is what pays for all of this network building.

But the real winner here isn’t Google as a company, its Android, which will finally get its killer app and a definitive answer to the question “why Android?”

Plus Potentials for Schools

The first reaction among many educators is that Google+ could work well. As a post on the Apps User Group points out, there is a lot of potential with Google+: better student collaboration through Circles, opportunities for blended learning (a combination of offline and online instruction) with Hangouts, project research with Sparks, and easier school public relations with targeted photo-sharing, updates, and messaging.

Privacy: As Google's own description of the new social feature highlights, it may well be the granular level of privacy afforded by Google+ that is the key to making this a successful tool for schools. Although some educators do use Facebook or Twitter in the classroom, neither of these are ideal in a school setting. Privacy concerns continue to plague Facebook and Facebook users, and although the addition of Facebook Groups late last year did make it easier for educators to have "private" conversations with smaller groups, many schools and teachers have still been reluctant to "friend" students or use the social networking site for educational purposes. And while Twitter has been embraced by many educators - for both professional development and for back-channeling in the classroom - there's still that "always public" element of Twitter that makes many nervous.

True, Circles gives teachers and students better control over sharing and by extension could be the key to making many more comfortable with social networking. But sharing online isn't simply about weighing privacy concerns; it's also about sharing with the right people. Circles will allow what educational consultant Tom Barnett calls "targeted sharing," something that will be great for specific classes and topics.

Educational Hangouts: Sharing isn't just about pushing information out, of course. It's also about finding and hearing the right information and right people. And like most of the new users to Google+, it may be Hangouts that have educators most intrigued. Skype has become an incredibly popular tool to bring in guests to a classroom via video chat - so much so that Skype has launched a service to help match interested teachers and classrooms. But as those weighing a move to a Google Chromebook are quick to discover: Skype isn't a Web app. Hangouts, on the other hand, is, and many teachers are already talking about the possibility of not just face-to-face video conversation but the potential for integration of whiteboards, screen-sharing, Google Docs, and other collaborative tools.

Plus Minuses for Schools

These early reactions from educators echo what seems to be the general consensus about Google+: it's very cool. But there's a big gap between this initial excitement and more widespread adoption - particularly when it comes to schools.

Limited Field Trial: The most obvious obstacle right now to that adoption of Google+ for education is the limited nature of the field trial. The number of people using the service remains small, and as many of the educators there are early adopters - already active on Twitter, for example, already challenging their schools to be more proactive with technology integration - it's hard to gauge whether or not Google+ really will see wider usage.

Google Apps Integration: The second problem, of course, is that Google+ is not yet integrated with Google Apps accounts. To use Google+, you need a Google Profile, a feature not yet available with Google Apps for Education. However, a Google spokesperson assures me that that's coming soon and that "we're working to bring features in the Google+ project to Google Apps users in the future." Indeed, Google Enterprise's Dave Girouard posted enthusiastically on Google+ that "Can't wait to get Google+ out to some of our Apps for EDU schools!"

For its part, Google says that it wants to make sure to "get it right" in terms of the technology and in terms of the privacy controls before bringing Google+ to its Apps for Edu customers. Google could offer no timeline for that roll-out.

Web Filtering: Of course, Google's efforts are just part of the puzzle, and while Google+ may be a no-brainer for its Apps for Edu customers, there are still many schools which have been slow to adopt technology and have been quick to block all social networking sites on campus. Even Google's own YouTube is blocked at a lot of schools. While students name this one of the biggest obstacles in their use of technology at school, the schools claim they must do so to "protect the children."

Will schools block Google+? Or will the finely-tuned privacy controls it offers trump schools', parents', and politicians' concerns?

The early ed-tech adopters I've talked to seem excited about the possibilities for having a place where students and teachers alike can embrace "the social" and collaborate in the classroom, at home, across the school, and with others around the world. As it stands, those activities are now scattered across Twitter, Nings, and wikis. To have them under one Google roof is a big educational play. Will it be the one to help more schools realize the potential for social media and collaboration tools?

Questions, Games and Social Search?

Recently added sprites (see images below) include a question mark, icons for dining, movies, map pushpins, star ratings, emoticons and more. One of those icons (see bottom), which looks like two little people, could be involved in some kind of social search feature, Rohrweck guesses.

He also found an icon with a chess symbol on it, backing up his earlier discovery where a product called "Google+ Games" was referenced by name.

Shared Circles

However, the most intriguing find had to do with four icons, all whose names begin "shared_circle." This seems to imply that Google+ will allow you to create Circles containing other Google+ users, and share those with others. This would serve a function similar to Twitter lists, where power users can take the time to create lists on various subjects (e.g. "top tech," "humor," "politicians,"), fill those lists with related Twitter users, then make those lists public so anyone can subscribe to them. That would certainly help with the administrative overload of Circle management, for those who want to use Google+ to follow industry peers of some kind.

It also could serve as an easy way to get family, friends and other non-tech-geeks (read: Facebook users) to join the network. Instead of those users having to configure all their Circles for themselves, they could start off with some sample Circles, shared by you. Perhaps these Circles, once shared, could be edited and added to by authorized participants, Rohrweck wonders. And we're curious if the Shared Circles could even copied to a user's personal profile to serve as the basis for a Circle of their own. That last feature is one that Twitter lists decidedly lack - you can't use someone else's Twitter list as the starting point of your own, without manually recreating it yourself.

Yesterday was a gr8 day for me - a realize that technical stuff help just to speed and enhanced your efforts ;-). is not new but is reality. I have tried to augment my navigation to the mLove location, the Schloß Teutschenthal :

The big challenge was my iPhone, no battery :-(. The in-car charger was at home ( why do we not have a USB 2.0 in cars ;-)). Me and my good friend Konrad navigate with the old rules of navigation - INTUITION. We have found very good the Teutschenthal castle - with a little intellectual necessary effort - and this in the analog way!!

Harald opened the event, the whole world in a castle aggregating energy for mLove, he was looking tired but with enough energy to do this event.

@hneidhardt - Thank you for your red pil, now I am out from Matrix in the mLove reality world, thank you second time to give me the red pil ( is true i had headache )

I talk with a lot of people and heard a lot of stories, but most impressive was the Truck story and the Diving story. This two stories were the most impressive for yesterday ;-).

The end of the day, "Rhythm on Drums" - synchronicity, was a great moment where 150 people find a synchrony way to make music, 

Now sleep... in Dormero Hotel:

and wait the second day of mLove

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Will start with the mobile "Nexus Prime" will be a flagship device for Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich. Furthermore, the screen will use Samsung's "Super AMOLED HD" glass and come with a 1.5-GHz, dual-core OMAP4460 chip from Texas Instruments.

Notably, Geller also said "Nexus Prime" will lack carrier bloatware or manufacturer customization, much like Google's first Nexus phone, the Nexus One. This could either mean that Google is attempting again to launch the device on multiple carriers, as it notoriously failed to do with the Nexus One. Or it could mean that Google is following in the footsteps of Apple, which doesn't allow pre-installed apps from its carriers; this is generally very welcomed by its consumers.

Last week Geller reported that the next-generation Nexus would be a dual-core, button-less, super-thin LTE device, featuring 1080p HD video capture and playback, 1-megapixel front-facing and 5-megapixel rear-facing cameras, and 1GB of RAM.

And now to the right things :-). Google have now a + , a big plus I mean... 

But back to the roots, the policy is, however, very direct and simple, with statements such as “After someone tags you in a shared photo or video, you may choose to remove the tag.” The social network’s policy for what’s acceptable behavior is also concise, direct and well, almost human.

But that doesn’t mean all is crystal clear.

For instance, Google+’s opening disclosure is widely open to interpretation.

“We will record information about your activity – such as posts you comment on and the other users with whom you interact – in order to provide you and other users with a better experience on Google services,” the policy reads.

While the language seems to be plain-spoken, it’s very unclear what this actually means. “Google Services” has grown to be a huge category, including such a range of diverse products that includes search, e-mail, maps, advertising, and even a high-end women’s clothing shopping site.

Wired asked Google to clarify what that statement meant:

The answer: “Like all Google products and services, we are running analysis of how users interact with Google+. We do that to make sure the products and services are running correctly and to consider future improvements.”

Which basically explains nothing about how they are using this data, or whether even the data usage is limited to Google+.

For most of its existence, Google has largely decided that what you do on its properties — such as search and Gmail — will not be used for its ad program that shows banner ads on third-party websites. That program uses tracking cookies on more than a million sites around the web to create an anonymous profile of you in order to show you more targeted ads (click here to see your profile). By contrast the ads you see in Gmail and in Google Search are targeted by the search terms you use or the words in your recent e-mails.

To date, the only site Google runs that feeds into that marketing profile is YouTube. Google has long emphasized that it won’t use your search history to create targeted ads and that they use different cookies so that the marketing cookie can’t be matched with your Google user profile cookie — despite the temptation of the advertising riches that could be gotten by combining and mining such a rich vein of data.

So will Google+, with its likely very rich about users’ interests, feed into that marketing profile, now or in the future?

The answer: “Google+ is not part of the Google Display Network,” a spokesman said. But that’s not to say it won’t ever feed that network. YouTube used to live outside that wall as well.

As for Google advertising inside the social network? Well, there is definitely much money to be made advertising inside a popular social network — as Facebook has learned. In fact, Hehehehe ;-) Facebook is now displays more “display ads” than any other company on the net.

But for now, Google says there’s Google+ will be ad-free. Hehehe the  question is:  HOW LONG?

Google's Android is still the favourite among mobile software developers, ahead of Apple's iOS ecosystem according to research firm VisionMobile. The 2011 edition of the Developer Economics survey found that 67 per cent of developers polled are working with the Google platform, up from 59 per cent in 2010. The gain helped Android to maintain its developer lead over iOS, which rose from 50 to 59 per cent over the same period.

However, the biggest shift in next year's report may come, not from any of the top platforms named this year, but from Windows Phone. The survey found that 35 per cent of developers intend to use the Microsoft platform, second overall behind Android and ahead of iOS.

It’s a position that’s endorsed by research firm IDC, who this month predicted that Android will still be ruling the worldwide smartphone landscape in 2015. By this time IDC expects the number two spot to be claimed by Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. IDC forecasts it will claim more than 20 per cent by 2015 once it replaces Symbian as Nokia’s primary smartphone OS.

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The first reaction from Nokia to the Samsung, Apple growth is N9. They learned that MUX is in the first place "1 Handed use " , no Home button etc. :-)

In this video, Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia's SVP of Design, announces Nokia N9

It only takes a swipe to get to what you want with the Nokia N9, and it all floats beautifully on the large, curved display. Stay in touch with people, news and events. And browse the web. Quickly. Get around with free maps and navigation. And take great pictures with the 8MP camera. The Nokia N9 makes it all smooth, effortless and gorgeously stylish.

Learn more about the new Nokia N9, visit: http://nokia.ly/jUnOCP

Nokia Connection 2011 is an annual event held in conjunction with CommunicAsia 2011. The event is an exciting platform for Nokia to showcase the latest and newest devices and services to customers, operators, media and analysts from the region: http://bit.ly/NokiaCnxn

And here the all story from Nokia :

Nokia N9: the designer’s story

ESPOO, Finland – I love sitting down with Nokia’s designers. There’s not one square millimetre of each phone that doesn’t get refined and revised a hundred times. They always have a mind-blowing story to tell about each aspect of the design. It’s never, “We chose blue cause that would be cool”; it’s always like, “We chose cyan, not blue, because the design is pure, so colours need to be pure, and…” at which point, my head explodes. I sat down with the Nokia N9′s lead designer, Anton Fahlgren, for a chat about his epic two-year project…

How did the Nokia N9 begin?

I headed up a team in Copenhagen during the summer of 2009, and that’s where it began. The brief was to evolve the story from the previous Nokia Nseries/Eseries devices, and define it moving forward. We chose to work with an Nseries product as it was interesting times at Nokia – things were bumpy in the high-end market. Extreme numbers on a spec sheet was not the way to win. We knew we needed innovation at every level.

I’ve had the option to do this before, but those occasions didn’t feel so very exciting: here we had a blank canvas. I wanted to define what high-end means today and take a more software-driven approach, and show people it’s not just the hardware that makes a great phone: it’s the UI and platform and how it all works together.

Did you know you’d be creating for something other than Symbian?

The MeeGo stuff had started bubbling, but we hadn’t seen it. We tried to simplify and distil the existing story, because there was a lot of good in the work that was done. That was the starting point - no compromises. We tried different styles; we did a range of devices like slide-and-tilt; we did a couple different sizes, but they were all based on the same design family. But the one that made it to the market was the Nokia N9.

What makes the Nokia N9 unique?

Above all, it’s the continuity that you feel from the shape of the glass continuing to the side profile. It just feels right. The basic concept is that seamless continuity of the form, and I think it was something we refined with the UI. It’s just something nice about interacting with a device that has a gentle curvature. Once you have something that’s more continuous in your hand, it’s just more pleasant to interact with it, all the way to the edges. Try to swipe stuff on other phones, and you’ll soon see that the edges will bother you.

When you see it in three dimensions, there’s not a single straight surface on the product. It’s actually really difficult to model in CAD. It’s almost like a pillow. In concept, a pillow is a simple form. It’s not hard to understand. But if you have to build those surfaces on a computer, you’ll realize how complicated they are. So the concept is simple, but as a piece of geometry, it’s quite elaborate.

No buttons! Just swipe!

Once you’ve got a flavour of life without buttons, it’s hard to go back. I find myself with other devices trying to swipe, but I can’t. Phones with keys feel old now, in some respects.

What’s so cool about a uni-body design?

No designer likes split lines. Split lines mean imperfection, parts and colours that may not match perfectly. It feels bad. It’s noise. You don’t want that. At the same time, most designers like metals. The Nokia N9 has many antennas, and that meant we knew we could never do a metal device. If you use plastic, the antennas would work better. But that leads to other challenges. Consumers may perceive plastic as of lower value than metal. But plastic is transparent to radio waves, metal is not.

The one piece polycarbonate plastic allows for really great antennas but it also feels expensive in the hand. You need great performance from your antennas, of course, for fast download speeds and quick connections with satellites. So it’s all about a good user experience from that point of view. The challenge was that when creating something that feels like high-end quality design with plastic, the material alone won’t carry that story.

It’s great to see another smartphone with colour, not just a “black rectangle”.

We started off looking at a plastic bar without paint, it gives us a chance to almost think in any colour we would like – eventually, it came back to essentially the basic colours. Cyan, magenta, black.

Plastic is all about offering colours. So we really wanted colours where people could express themselves. Brown and grey is almost an excuse for a colour with plastic. If you’re going to offer a colour, offer a real colour.

Last question, how would you like consumers to feel when they first pick up a Nokia N9?

That’s a good question. What’s important for us is that if this becomes a hardware story, we’ve failed. It needs to be in context with the UI. I hope the first point of delight will be about the interface, the button-less navigation. I hope it’s not only about the hardware design. The idea was to create a canvas for the UI and the user to shine. When you watch TV, you don’t want a frame, you just want the content.  

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A new augmented reality startup launches today. String Augmented Reality claims to be a fast and powerful augmented reality technology for iOS.

String claims to be capable of live two-way broadcast AR capabilities using Kinect, something they developed with Norwegian company Labrat. An application for this might be watching a live concert projected into your living room, in full 3D augmented reality.

CEO and founder Alan Maxwell says the company is releasing an SDK for developers today (a developer licence is £79).

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5 LESSONS I LEARNED IN SCHOOL AND NOW WANT TO FORGET from Steven Handel

1. Grades are more important than knowledge.

This is one of the most common critiques I see regarding schools, and rightfully so. There is a world of difference between knowing how to regurgitate facts on a multiple choice or “fill-in-the-blank” test compared to actually understanding the material you are learning. In school, we are taught that an “A” is the highest level of achievement. And so long as you know how to memorize the right things and take a test, then you are presumably “intelligent.”

Why it doesn’t work: When we teach our students how to be more focused on grades, rather than the love for knowledge, we set ourselves up for an intellectually lazy generation. One that is content on mediocrity and “getting by,” rather than developing a true sense of wonder and curiosity.

2. The key to success is obedience and conformity.

As I mentioned in the introduction, I was a very good student on paper. Teaches usually liked me because I didn’t cause a ruckus, I didn’t question what they said, and I was very obedient and complacent to what they demanded from me. Even when we were told to write persuasive essays, I usually argued in favor of something that I knew the teacher would approve of (even though in my head I wanted to rebel against these social norms). My few experiences trying to deviate from what was expected usually back-fired on my report cards. I remember one time writing an essay about why video games were good for children, I remember my grade being significantly deflated compared to the times where I argued in accordance to my teacher’s values.

These troubles were especially prevalent throughout my history classes (which were by far my least favorite subjects). As a social science, you cannot teach history without presenting the information from some kind of point-of-view. The best history teachers are the one’s who try to cover issues from a variety of different perspectives, but often times your history teacher is personally biased to present information in a certain way. Critical thinking often becomes diminished for the sake of being a “good student.” To add to the fire, these classes are usually our first taste of politics, so we become molded into a certain way of thinking before ever having the ability to form our own beliefs.

Why it doesn’t work: Often we aren’t just learning English or history – we are implicitly being taught how to conform to the teacher’s worldview, beliefs, values, and personal philosophy. Parents may think they are sending students to school to learn fundamental and universal skills, but often children walk out with a cleverly molded view of reality. (This of course is also true in parenting and other early experiences throughout a child’s life, but the point still stands strong, and schooling is one of the biggest culprits).

3. Procrastinate ’till the last minute and you’ll be OK.

So many people I know bullshitted their way through school. They learned all the tricks on how to perform well on homework and tests without ever really putting in any planning or effort. For example, in English class, I used spark notes the night before I had to write an essay way more than I ever read the books we were supposed to read. And grade-wise, I did just fine. For most tests, I could usually cram some memorization in the night of and pass with flying colors. By the time the test was over, I forgot everything I “learned,” and got prepared to bullshit for the next chapter.

Maybe I was smart, maybe the classes were just too easy. That’s one problem you’re going to have when you try to standardize the curriculum to fit hundreds of individual’s varying needs. For me? I rarely felt challenged. I left school thinking I could cut-corners everywhere (and I still face the consequences of this mindset today).

Why it doesn’t work: Now that I’m in the real world, I know that the success I want to accomplish is going to take deliberate planning and hard work. I never learned these lessons in school – I’m trying to learn them now.

4. Your individual interests are largely irrelevant.

In this great interview, John Taylor Gatto describes the origins of our current school system. He claims today’s system is largely modeled after the Prussian educational system in the mid-1800s. In the U.S., the Prussian system was advocated and financed by industrial power giants like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and JP Morgan. They viewed individuals in a population as essentially cogs in a wheel; individuals were described as “raw materials” that needed to be “processed” in order to fit the demands of the current economy.

Instead of supporting students to pursue their individual talents and skills, their potential was largely ignored or thwarted, and instead the demands of society as a “whole” (mainly decided on by a select few social engineers – industrialists and politicians) became of primary importance. In essence, the education system was designed to manipulate and control populations on a massive scale. I would argue much of this still holds true today.

Why it doesn’t work: At the very least, the current education system diminishes our potential to evolve and grow, both as individuals and as a society. As individuals – our talents, skills, interests and values are placed as secondary importance. As a society – we lose out on a lot of creative and innovative thinking that could otherwise improve social progress. See this classic TED lecture by Sir Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity.

5. Social hierarchies are rigid and hard to break.

One aspect of education that isn’t exactly related to class work is the social hierarchy that is often reinforced behind school walls. Of course, every child has certain social inclinations. Some may prefer large groups of peers, while others may prefer to hang out with smaller groups. The problem with schools is that there isn’t much breathing room to accommodate different student’s social preferences. Most students are usually mandated to be in a classroom with 25-30 students everyday of the week for 6-7 hours (this is usually the standard in both private and public schools).

As a result, introverted individuals, who may need extra time away from people to “recharge their social batteries” won’t get that accommodation met. Instead they will be uncomfortably placed in social settings that in-fact inhibit their social development and make them incredibly nervous and anxious.

School doesn’t directly teach us how to be social or manage our relationships, it just sort of throws us into a social cage and whatever haphazardly develops out of it is what we get. Often for males, aggressive jocks and alpha males rise to the top, while passive nerds and geeks get bulldozed over. And for females, looks and gossip are of primary importance if you want to fit in. Of course these are cliches, but it touches on a general tendency that develops and becomes reinforced throughout many school hierarchies. In return, many students graduate with a warped view of others.

Why it doesn’t work: Schools are a very confining place for social interactions to develop in a healthy manner. They are rarely a good environment to foster compassion and empathy toward others.

25 Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs

Jobs has paved a powerful path of innovation, excellence, passion, and prosperity and has modeled a way of leadership that’s all his own.  Here are some of the key lessons we learn from his journey:

1. Beginners don’t have baggage. The lightness of a beginner frees up creativity.  Steve says, “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
2. Be bold. Life’s brief, then you’re gone.  Steve says, “Life is brief, and then you die, you know?”
3. Be what’s next.  Don’t chase after what you missed.  Instead, figure out what the next big thing.  Steve says, “If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
4. Design by committee doesn’t work.   You can’t arbitrate your way into a great design.  Take it from Jobs, “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
5. Design is more than veneer. Design is a multi-layered thing.  It’s a lot more than just veneer.  Steve says, “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
6. Don’t live someone else’s life. Live YOUR life.  Steve says, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
7. Drive to do great things.  It’s your ambition, passion, and drive that will take you places you never dreamed possible.  Don’t worry about impressing others.  Impress yourself.
8. Excellence is a way of life Steve finds the art in life and the beauty in engineering.  He sets a higher bar.  Steve says, “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”  Jobs also says, “We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.”
9. Get out of the way for the moving force. The ones doing the work are the moving force. Steve says, “The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.”
10. If they fall in love with the company, everything else takes care of itself.  The real secret to taking care of the company is hiring people that fall in love with the company.  Steve says, “When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else.”
11. It better be worth it. If you’re going to put your life force into it, then the journey has to be worth it.  Steve says, “And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”
12. It’s not the money.  It’s the impact.   Make people’s lives better.  Leave the world a better place.  Steve says, “I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.”  Jobs also says, “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
13. It’s the crazy ones who change the world. Think differently.  Don’t be afraid to be different. It’s the crazy ones who change the world.  The crazy ones change the world. The ones who think they are crazy enough to change the world, are the ones who do it. It’ not crazy, it’s genius.
14. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.  You don’t buy your way through innovation.  Innovation is a by-product of leading great people.  Steve says, “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”
15. Make people great.  It’s tough love.  Steve says, “My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”
16. Perseverance pays off.   Steve says, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
17. Put your heart and soul into it.  Don’t just go through the motions.  If it’s really worth doing, then it’s worth doing really well.  Steve says, “I think the key thing is that we’re not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things.”
18. Pick your priorities carefully.   So no to the hundred other good ideas.  Steve says, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
19. Simplicity wins. It’s about power and simplicity.  Steve says, ““We’ve gone through the operating system and looked at everything and asked how can we simplify this and make it more powerful at the same time.”
20. Talent is a huge multiplier. In the book, The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation , Jay Elliot and William Simon write that Steve Jobs would say, “great engineers are a huge multiplier.” They also write that a lesson they learned from Steve is, “One of the greatest things about finding good people is that they become your best recruiters. They are the people most likely to know others who have the same values and sense of style that you and they themselves do.”
21. Take responsibility for the complete user experience. Don’t take a piecemeal approach to user experience.  It’s not about a bunch of beautiful parts …it’s about the end-to-end experience.  Steve says, “Our DNA is as a consumer company – for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.”
22. What you don’t do defines you as much as what you do. Steve says, “I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”  In the article, “Think Different”: The Ad Campaign that Restored Apple’s Reputation, Tom Hormby writes, “Amelio had reduced 350 projects to 50, and Jobs cut that number down to 10. He turned Apple’s convoluted (and often overlapping) product line into a simple product matrix.”
23. You have nothing to lose. Follow your heart.   Avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.  Steve says, “Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
24. You just might be right, even if nobody listens to you. Just because nobody listens to you doesn’t mean you’re wrong.  Steve says, “You know, I’ve got a plan that could rescue Apple. I can’t say any more than that it’s the perfect product and the perfect strategy for Apple. But nobody there will listen to me.”
25. Your brand is your most valuable asset.  It’s what you stand for.  It’s the attributes that people think of or feel when they think of you.  It’s the perception and the aura.  Steve says, “Our brand is the most – or at least one of the most – valuable things we have going for us now.”

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5 LESSONS I LEARNED IN SCHOOL AND NOW WANT TO FORGET from Steven Handel

1. Grades are more important than knowledge.

This is one of the most common critiques I see regarding schools, and rightfully so. There is a world of difference between knowing how to regurgitate facts on a multiple choice or “fill-in-the-blank” test compared to actually understanding the material you are learning. In school, we are taught that an “A” is the highest level of achievement. And so long as you know how to memorize the right things and take a test, then you are presumably “intelligent.”

Why it doesn’t work: When we teach our students how to be more focused on grades, rather than the love for knowledge, we set ourselves up for an intellectually lazy generation. One that is content on mediocrity and “getting by,” rather than developing a true sense of wonder and curiosity.

2. The key to success is obedience and conformity.

As I mentioned in the introduction, I was a very good student on paper. Teaches usually liked me because I didn’t cause a ruckus, I didn’t question what they said, and I was very obedient and complacent to what they demanded from me. Even when we were told to write persuasive essays, I usually argued in favor of something that I knew the teacher would approve of (even though in my head I wanted to rebel against these social norms). My few experiences trying to deviate from what was expected usually back-fired on my report cards. I remember one time writing an essay about why video games were good for children, I remember my grade being significantly deflated compared to the times where I argued in accordance to my teacher’s values.

These troubles were especially prevalent throughout my history classes (which were by far my least favorite subjects). As a social science, you cannot teach history without presenting the information from some kind of point-of-view. The best history teachers are the one’s who try to cover issues from a variety of different perspectives, but often times your history teacher is personally biased to present information in a certain way. Critical thinking often becomes diminished for the sake of being a “good student.” To add to the fire, these classes are usually our first taste of politics, so we become molded into a certain way of thinking before ever having the ability to form our own beliefs.

Why it doesn’t work: Often we aren’t just learning English or history – we are implicitly being taught how to conform to the teacher’s worldview, beliefs, values, and personal philosophy. Parents may think they are sending students to school to learn fundamental and universal skills, but often children walk out with a cleverly molded view of reality. (This of course is also true in parenting and other early experiences throughout a child’s life, but the point still stands strong, and schooling is one of the biggest culprits).

3. Procrastinate ’till the last minute and you’ll be OK.

So many people I know bullshitted their way through school. They learned all the tricks on how to perform well on homework and tests without ever really putting in any planning or effort. For example, in English class, I used spark notes the night before I had to write an essay way more than I ever read the books we were supposed to read. And grade-wise, I did just fine. For most tests, I could usually cram some memorization in the night of and pass with flying colors. By the time the test was over, I forgot everything I “learned,” and got prepared to bullshit for the next chapter.

Maybe I was smart, maybe the classes were just too easy. That’s one problem you’re going to have when you try to standardize the curriculum to fit hundreds of individual’s varying needs. For me? I rarely felt challenged. I left school thinking I could cut-corners everywhere (and I still face the consequences of this mindset today).

Why it doesn’t work: Now that I’m in the real world, I know that the success I want to accomplish is going to take deliberate planning and hard work. I never learned these lessons in school – I’m trying to learn them now.

4. Your individual interests are largely irrelevant.

In this great interview, John Taylor Gatto describes the origins of our current school system. He claims today’s system is largely modeled after the Prussian educational system in the mid-1800s. In the U.S., the Prussian system was advocated and financed by industrial power giants like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and JP Morgan. They viewed individuals in a population as essentially cogs in a wheel; individuals were described as “raw materials” that needed to be “processed” in order to fit the demands of the current economy.

Instead of supporting students to pursue their individual talents and skills, their potential was largely ignored or thwarted, and instead the demands of society as a “whole” (mainly decided on by a select few social engineers – industrialists and politicians) became of primary importance. In essence, the education system was designed to manipulate and control populations on a massive scale. I would argue much of this still holds true today.

Why it doesn’t work: At the very least, the current education system diminishes our potential to evolve and grow, both as individuals and as a society. As individuals – our talents, skills, interests and values are placed as secondary importance. As a society – we lose out on a lot of creative and innovative thinking that could otherwise improve social progress. See this classic TED lecture by Sir Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity.

5. Social hierarchies are rigid and hard to break.

One aspect of education that isn’t exactly related to class work is the social hierarchy that is often reinforced behind school walls. Of course, every child has certain social inclinations. Some may prefer large groups of peers, while others may prefer to hang out with smaller groups. The problem with schools is that there isn’t much breathing room to accommodate different student’s social preferences. Most students are usually mandated to be in a classroom with 25-30 students everyday of the week for 6-7 hours (this is usually the standard in both private and public schools).

As a result, introverted individuals, who may need extra time away from people to “recharge their social batteries” won’t get that accommodation met. Instead they will be uncomfortably placed in social settings that in-fact inhibit their social development and make them incredibly nervous and anxious.

School doesn’t directly teach us how to be social or manage our relationships, it just sort of throws us into a social cage and whatever haphazardly develops out of it is what we get. Often for males, aggressive jocks and alpha males rise to the top, while passive nerds and geeks get bulldozed over. And for females, looks and gossip are of primary importance if you want to fit in. Of course these are cliches, but it touches on a general tendency that develops and becomes reinforced throughout many school hierarchies. In return, many students graduate with a warped view of others.

Why it doesn’t work: Schools are a very confining place for social interactions to develop in a healthy manner. They are rarely a good environment to foster compassion and empathy toward others.

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The MVSC “InLand Mobile” display system is an advanced, conformal* 3D, volumetric Head Up Display system designed to be small and robust enough for fleet-wide police and first-responder deployment, accurate to < 1 meter, and cost engineered to become – very soon – a standard tool for ordinary as well as military drivers, pilots and mariners. 2 or three years should see it on our roads. We’re negotiating with Big 3 and foreign auto companies as well as defense contractors to fully commercialize the system. “InLand” capabilities are exceptional. It can generate still or motion graphics at 60fps, re-cast aerial recon imagery, video, or generate a “guide wire” navigational line using high quality GPS. Previously considered unaffordable for ordinary drivers, 3D HUD now CAN make it into our cars, showing objects at distances from a few feet to infinity in the landscape. The difference is a highly unusual optical design, patents pending, and a team dedicated to pushing this to public markets by keeping our eyes firmly on cost control as well as quality.

* In a conformal display, images appear to “conform to” a true location in the landscape ahead, at appropriate depth cues. NASA pilot studies confirm that conformal display is essential to promoting maximum situational awareness and reducing tunneling caused by “head down” console maps and 2D windshield “pseudo HUD” displays that require the eye and brain to refocus many times between “car” and “road.”

Rendered as a translucent overlay InLand will display safety and navigational symbols at appropriate depths from your car and your eyes.  Collision warnings generated byDSRC may enter the HUD looking something like this:

http://www.inlandmobile.com/images/20546123.png 

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NAVTEQ  is holding their first Developer Day events in EMEA. Learn directly from the experts how to use NAVTEQ® map data and partner APIs to quickly apply your skills toward creating the most compelling location based mobile apps in this emerging space.

Come and learn about the latest developments and innovation in location through case studies, interactive panel discussions and unique networking opportunities.  Participate in a Lucky Draw to win an iPad and other cool prizes ;-)

You can see more information here

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