The University of Sydney has a great bunch of interaction design students and one of them is Stephen Davis.
As you all know Amnesia Razorfish is always trying to stay ahead of the curve especially when it comes to new technologies so when Stephen had the idea of the BrandTable we were able to help him out a little.
Together with Publicis Mojo we were able to get him first hand insights into Paypal and Google and what they are planning in regards to mobile payments. We were also able to help him with the build of his prototype that shows how NFC could be used in future.
Check out the video:
Here is what Stephen has to say about his creation:
Brand Table is a product designed initially for shopping centre food courts that takes in an order via a mobile device in where item selection and payment will occur.
Today Google and Samsung finally had their Nexus event where they released the next version of the Nexus phone series as well as the announcement of their new iteration of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich.
So let’s start with the phone: Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Obviously it will be running ICS and it will have some very impressive specs:
– a huge 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720
– 1.2 Ghz dual-core processor
– 5 Megapixel rear camera with LED flash
– 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera
– 1080p full HD video recording
– 1 GB of RAM
– Wireless N network
– NFC capabilities
– the usual accelerometer, compass, gyro, proximity sensor
– a barometer
and to power it all a big 1750mAh battery
It will be released in November, but so far we haven’t heard any carrier announcement or if it even hit AU shores any time soon. No price yet either.
The success of Tesco’s new retail store in Korea is something to behold:
Why? Because there is no physical store and no physical product. However the experience of the store has been fully recreated two dimensionally as a backlit poster with the products and ordering fulfilled using mobile and QR codes. It’s a neat idea and solves a number of issues:
1. The familiar supermarket experience. Tick! 2. Impulse shopping. Tick! 3. Cheap rent. Tick! 4. Open a new store in high traffic areas in one day. Tick! 5. No internal fit out costs. Tick! 6. No need to stock shelves Tick! 7. No Staff wages. Tick! 8. Open 24hrs. Tick! The list goes on.
Personally I’d like to see NFC integration as well as QR codes. I think we can also expect to see these walls become screens rather than printed products in the very near future.
Going through the San Diego Comic Con 2011 toy lists, came across this awesome set of Andrew Bell Google Android figurines exclusive to the show. Personal favs little moustachey and capey are just too cool to turn down (I’ve made these names up, you should be able to deduce which ones they are). Any mad bastards in the states wanna help a bro out and nab me a set for my desk?
They really should include these figurines with every Android sold!
Googles I/O event is in its second day and personally I was more excited about yesterdays announcements, but Google is not stopping with new and improved ideas.
Today they showed off their Google TV running a new honeycomb UI that will be released later this year.
You will be able to run your apps and widgets on the screen and there will be a much faster way to get back to your live TV.
The Google TV remote app was always a bit too complicated and Google announced today that the source code for it will be made open source (source code here) so anyone can make their own and improve it. The Anymote protocol code is also available (here) which means you can integrate it into phones and tablets.
More things to come as well as soon as Android 3.1 will hit the TVs – mentions of 3D support and Game Controller support for example.
The Android Market was another topic for Google today and they announced improvements on discovering apps – the market has grown to over 200000 apps and it is quite hard to find the good ones. Now there are 5 new features that will help you find the next Angry Birds:
New Top app charts – fresh new look and country specific Editor’s choice section – apps chosen by Google Top Developers section – a special icon next to the name of the developers that fit the criteria improved related apps trending apps – it shows you which apps are growing the fastest
Right now they are only on the web based version of the market, but Google mentioned that it will come soon to the phone and tablet versions of the market.
From June onwards the market will also support larger apps – up to 4GB – and it will give the developers the ability to exclude specific handsets – sorry HTC Magics
So what was left for Google? Chrome OS
The biggest improvements to Googles OS are that it will support Netflix and Hulu (can you please hurry up and establish yourself in Australia) right out of the box.
There will be new hardware – both Samsung and Acer models were shown off and they will include offline versions of Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs. They will probably hit the market in a few month.
Chrome OS laptops will cost you nothing upfront – instead you will pay a monthly subscription that includes regular software and hardware upgrades.
There was also a teaser that Samsung is going to build a desktop version called Chromebox that will run Chrome OS
And who would have guessed, but there will be Angry Birds at the Chrome Web Store – it is build in WebGL, but also has Canvas support so it should run in different browsers to Chrome, however it will get exclusive content like chromebombs.
If you have been left out of the Chrome Web store you will be pleased to know that it is now available worldwide.
Google started as an online search engine that within month make a massive impact and took over the space and we all love googling.
Last night Google had their annual I/O event and the future seems to be all about everything you can imaging. Google will be in your life if you like it or not.
Android has been the big buzz word for a while now and with 200000 apps in the Android market, 400000 daily Android activations and a lot of manufacturers joining the Android hardware bandwagon, this train is not going to stop.
One of the big negative aspects of Android is its fragmantation and Google announced today that the new version of its OS, called Ice Cream Sandwich, will change all that. Hardware manufacturers had to promise that newly released devices will need to be capable of new instances of the Google OS for at least 18 month of the hardware release. The new OS starting with Ice Cream Sandwich will also run on both handsets and tablets and will be smart enough to adjust itself to the actual device capabilities.
It is the step in the right direction, but personally I don’t it will stop people like HTC and Samsung to take forever to release the new OS because they are customizing theirs so heavily.
But Android will not be limited to mobile devices anymore.
Google announced the Android Open Accessory API which is based on Arduino, the universal open source hardware. This means that Android can live in any device you can imagine – fridges, medical equipment, exercise equipment and and and
This API will be available at the end of the year so next year we will be overrun with Android devices.
Google Music was announced today as well and Google is going after Amazon and Apple (even though apple isn’t ready yet) by offering a music locker that seems to be worth using. It is really targeted at hard core music fans that can upload their nicely sorted and curated music collection to the Google cloud and then listen to it on any Android device they own.
Then Google announced something new – Home Automation with Android@Home
Their vision is to have little Droid doing all the work for you – Open source libraries will allow developers to create apps that are Android compliant. This way you can dim the lights from your couch, start the washing machine on your way home from work – all you need is a Android@Home receiver.
Another shot at Apple here too as the new libraries incorporate Google tungsten that will allow you to stream your Google Music collection to any speaker in your house – no more Apple Air play
This was only Day 1 of the I/O and there is more to come in the next 24 hours. We haven’t heard anything about Google TV or Chrome. Does Google have something bigger still to come?
Only time will tell – Let me know your thoughts on Googles announcements in the comments below.
At Google I/O in San Francisco, Google unveiled its new version of the Android operating system, 2.2, dubbed “Froyo.”
One impressive improvement is its speed and Google isn’t shy to show it off and compare it to, let’s say the iPad
In the video after the jump, 2.2 is the phone on the left, 2.1 is the phone on the right. And on the other side of the stage on the other screen is the iPad. All the devices have a 1 Ghz chip, and all are running the same (web-based) app (in which a creature races around a screen).
the iPad is out and it seems that it is very popular as it sold over 300000 units in its opening weekend. I have been talking about alternatives to the iPad already here, but every day I come across more and more of them.
So here are a few more.
It seems that the windows versions are getting more attractive. Not only that they are running windows 7 (which just sold more than 100 million licenses a couple of days ago), but they also support multitouch, flash and everything else that windows supports out of the box.
GBook tablet
1.2GHz Intel ULV SU2300 processor with integrated Intel graphics and 2GB of RAM – it looks like you can put a 2.5 inch HDD or SSD in it for storage. it will run win 7 and the multitouch panel supports up to 10 touchpoints – no word on price or release date yet, but definitely an option to keep your eye on
I believe the developer said everything that needed to be said about this:
"The app is called iReverse… Although iReverse is fun to play, the most amazing thing about the project is the fact that it runs in all these different environments completely unchanged. In other words, the exact same code base is used to build versions for five different environments. There’s no other platform in the world that can boast this level of flexibility – not even close."
Check out the video where he shows off his app running all different OS platforms and handheld devices including his brand new iPad
This is sweet and I can see a lot of people getting really excited about it already – I know I am
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So I talked about how they can stop you from talking on the phone while driving here.
Soon they will be able to stop you from texting as well.
A $10 application called Textecution for Google’s Android mobile platform that will sit in the background and use the phone’s GPS system to detect whenever the phone is moving faster than 10 MPH, at which time the app will deactivate the phone’s SMS capabilities.
Once the phone comes to a standstill (say, at a stop light) the driver will be allowed to text again within a few seconds.
The application has been designed primarily for adults looking to keep their teens in check.
When parents install Textecution on their child’s Android phone, they are asked for an ‘admin phone number’, which will be contacted if the child ever needs to temporarily deactivate the app (like if they’re on a train or in the passenger seat). To grant the exception, the parent simply sends an SMS message saying “Allow”.
I’m holding off getting my new all singing, all dancing phone until I know a) which one is actually going to be the best and b) when an acceptable deal comes along that doesn’t make me feel like I’m getting ripped off.
The fact that we don’t get the latest handsets straight away, there’s no unlimited data plans and they love 24 month contracts in Aus doesn’t actually help much on either account. But when I see things like this I’m optimistic that I’m doing the right thing and not jumping on the iPhone band wagon.
It’s an augmented reality app for the android. Wikitude, developed by Mobilizy is a…”AR travel guide with functionality based on Wikipedia and Panoramio. You search landmarks in your surroundings and view them on a map, list, and on an augmented reality (AR) camera view. You’ll see an annotated landscape, mountain names, landmark descriptions”.
![image_thumb[3]](https://amnesiablog.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/image_thumb31.png "image_thumb[3]")
Posted by stephanlange 
for Google’s Android mobile platform that will sit in the background and use the phone’s GPS system to detect whenever the phone is moving faster than 10 MPH, at which time the app will deactivate the phone’s SMS capabilities. 
