My intention after leaving was to take September off,  but now we are in to October I’m still in no real rush to go out looking for a job. I like the idea doing some contracting until the end of the year, one more xBox game to go then I’ll take a look. Other than playing games, I’m still blogging at Augmented Planet so if you miss me then you can always catch me there.
I have been busy putting together an augmented reality event in London (11th November 6pm -- 9pm, All Bar One, New Oxford Street) for augmented reality enthusiasts, if you are in London and you want to see some cool demos then feel free to register and come along. Feel free to get in touch it you want to show a demo.

There are hardly any augmented reality applications for Symbian devices, so I’m looking to spread my wings and buy (yes buy) a new phone for the first time in 10 years. I’m torn between the Google Android G2 HTC Hero and the iPhone. The Android device has been in the front running for a few weeks, but my brother-in-law recently got himself an iPhone. He has been driving me crazy with it and has turned into the ‘there is an app for that’ advert. For someone that could hardly use his last phone he has discovered Twitter and the joy of installing applications, and boy does he install them.

Feel free to help me decide my next phone choice.

Speaking of new phones, last week I went to the OverTheAir event in London and had the chance to play around with the new Samsung 360 device. For a prototype it was very nice, very responsive and very iPhone like.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGbMsH6i60A

In the meantime Nokia have announced a few other devices based on S60 5th Edition. (Symbian)
The E72 (click here for a review) which is an updated of the highly successful E71 and the 5530 XpressMusic (click here for a review) which is a 5800 clone.

Nokia E72

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbgKV92E_U

Nokia 5530 XpressMusic

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hLXeLYLu0A

Before I left Skype just over a year ago, I had the pleasure of working with Skyecandy Pty Ltd in Australia who had great idea for a speed dating application that worked over Skype and was looking at turning it into a Skype Extra. Now I’m pleased to say that the application is in beta and looks really sweet.

Apart from being one of the few really polished applications available for Skype, what I really like about it is the care that went into producing the introduction video. Anyone who has ever released a product should take note, this sets the bench mark in product teaser videos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkGREScPnQ

So if you’re looking to meet new people or just want to try it out, you’ll find it in the Skype Extras menu, or visit their website for more info.

After a reboot, I found with a wireless connection I could browser to any webpage except SalesForce.com, which was a pain as I was trying to update Salesforce at the time. Oddly if I turned off the wireless and used the Ethernet connection I could only browse Salesforce.com and no other web page, which was even more of a pain as I was trying to copy data out of GoogleMail into Salesforce. To top off the day, I was half way through a phone swap with my 5800 and E71 when the touch screen refused to work so I couldn’t copy over my data to the new device. I was hoping that today will be a better day but I recharged my N71 battery last night and already it’s flat. It’s shaping up to be another one of those days already.
We are testing some software that enables you to use your mobile device as a landline. OnRelay is a desktop phone replacement service, we are investigating not having fixed desk phones here at the Symbian Foundation and using our mobiles as a landline replacement. We’ll still have a fix line number it will just be routed to the mobile. As there is no 5th edition that’s the reason behind me going back to my E71 so I can take part in the trial. I have to admit though, I do miss my 5800 already.

I wrote last week about Cooliris and how it was an excellent way to view images. At the time I moaned about the lack of an S60 version. Well good news, Nokia Beta Labs have released a super cool photo browsers for the Nokia 5800 that gives a 3D browsing effect, magnifying glass and face browsing.

Take a look

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV18PH5LjT4

You can install or get more info from here

Why did I find this the day AFTER I switched from my 5800 back to the E71? I told you it was going to be one of those days.

It works with, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and iPhone. Where S60? (see update below)

Why settle for this:

When you can have this:

Try dragging the pictures around and using your wheelie mouse to zoom in/out. Pretty sweet

I haven’t used it in anger yet but it looks great. Shame there is an iPhone version and no S60 support.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmAaR50DweY

UPDATE
S60 -- 5th Edition here
S60 -- 3rd Edition here

From the last few posts you’ll see that I’m an avid fan of augmented reality technology and I have desperately been searching for a demo that I can install. I finally found one that covers a good number of Nokia devices so you can install and earn yourself some office geek points.

The Virtual Fanta Crew demo works on the following devices:

Nokia N82, Nokia N95, Nokia N95-3NAM, Nokia N95-8GB, Nokia 6120 Classic, Nokia 6121 Classic, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB, Nokia 6124 Classic, Nokia 6110 Navigator, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia N79, Nokia N85, Nokia N92, Nokia N93, Nokia N93i, Nokia N71, Nokia N75, Nokia N76, Nokia N77

It’s a pretty simple demo that just displays a 3D character , visit m.fanta.eu on your phone, print the marker, load the app and view the marker.

Fanta 3D Tennis works on the following devices:

Nokia N82, Nokia N95, Nokia N95-3NAM, Nokia N95-8GB, Nokia 6120 Classic, Nokia 6121 Classic, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB

3D Tennis is a bit more involved than just displaying a character so you’ll get more of a wow factor. Same deal to install, visit m.fanta.eu from your phone and print the marker.

Both markers can be found here

Augmented reality is going to change the world for sure, especially when you see cool videos like this one.

(cheers to Paul Golding for tweeting his blog post)

Augmented Guru?
If you are involved in augmented reality technology, particularly for smartphones can you get in contact with me. I want to make a feature of the technology at this years Smartphone Show in London (October). I own the developer piece and I’m looking to brainstorm ideas on how we can get you involved. Reach me at: lester ‘@’ lestermadden ‘dot’ com

There is a pretty cool overview video of augmented reality here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnDZsXK1X9Y

Aside from that, Google have been getting a bit of stick in the press here in the UK over the last week. It seems that (some) people are not happy having their pictures up on the Google Street Map service. I must admit I’m not a privacy buff at all. People take pictures all the time and put them up onto Facebook, MySpace and thousands of other places and I have no control over it and I can’t insist that my face is blurred out. Google on the other hand produce a great service and go to the effort of blurring out faces and car number plates and get slaughted for missing some. If you find an offensive image you can request it be taken down or the face blurred, but even that is not enough for some people. Even Nitin who is our resident ultra paranoid geek gives the service his seal of approval.  Eat that.

Driving around in a car all day your bound to spot some interesting things. For instance:

There can be only one.

View Larger Map

Either I had too many beers or there is a bear waving at me.

View Larger Map

This kid is going to wish his face was blurred when his dad finds out.

View Larger Map

Here are some others pictures that I can’t find map references for.

And a post wouldn’t be a post without a YouTube video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibY_GhK7BR4

If you have the Street Map bug, more funny stuff here:

http://www.streetviewfun.com/
http://streetviewgallery.corank.com/

What about taking a photo of a bus stop and having the time table for the local buses delivered to your phone, perhaps along with a map that shows the location of the buses and nearby taxis so you can decide your best travel option? Do you think that too far fetched? Well perhaps it not as far away as you might think.

Microsoft Research is working on augmented reality technology to enable you to point a camera at every day scenes in the world and get back information based on those scenes automatically that could make these types of scenarios common place in the future.

The video below is pretty interesting and a good look at what may be possible with the technology in the future.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBEXxW3qAMg

I’m not over sold on the bubbles game idea, but I am a pretty poor navigator, even when I have Google/Nokia Maps and I try to get from A to B, chances are I’ll set off in the wrong direction while I orientate myself and have to double back. The obvious potential for me is having this technology in LBS software to make navigation easier. Imagine the bubbles being replaced with an arrow that guides you into your location, or uses your friend’s location placing arrows above them so you can easily spot them in a crowd.

Someone sent me an SMS to ask if I enjoyed the show. The only problem was they sent it to my house phone not my mobile. In the UK that means your phone rings every 30 minutes until you pick it up and listen to the full message. 12:30am the first call started, by the time we located the phone it hung up. 1:00am we got the next one, I finally answered the call at 1:30am only to be greeted with an electronic voice asking me if I enjoyed the show. I’m not sure who sent me the message but in the words of Mr T. I pity the fool.

While is seems like a long time off, especially if you are a delegate, but the Smartphone show is only 7 months away. That means that it’s time to start planning what’s going to be at the show. Last year we launched Mobile DevFest to bring back developers to the show and had an amazing event. This year we want to make it even bigger and better for developers, so if you have any killer ideas that you would like to see, feel free to let me know.

Last year the central attraction of the Mobile DevFest was ShakerRacer. Control a radio controlled car over BlueTooth from a Nokia N95 using the accelerometer API. As you see from the photo below we had a huge race circuit to race the car around.

I found a real version of ShakerRacer where a couple of university students put a BlueTooth module in to real car for their BSc. It’s the daddy of ShakerRacers, the only shame is they didn’t thrash the car in the video, but knowing how hard it was to control the mini version that was probably a wise move.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m4ERvAtP6s

Wow has it really been that long since I last posted? Where has all the time gone?

What have I been up to since I last blogged, well I started working for Symbian who ship the OS for the worlds leading smartphones. If you’re using a Nokia device then chances are you using Symbian OS. My job is to get 3^rd party developers and device developers to build using our OS. Yes that right I have entered the exciting world of marketing.

 It’s funny how your career goes, I started at Microsoft where software is sold for profit, I left and went to Skype who were not open source but believed that software should be free. Nokia have now completed the takeover of Symbian and are creating an open source foundation, there is the strong possibility that I’ll be in the new foundation meaning that I will complete the final piece of the puzzle by working for a open source company.

I still need to get my head around what open source means to developers. How do you guys make money, pay rent, buy beer etc if you give it away?

At Microsoft I wouldn’t touch anything that wasn’t produced by the big M. Skype opened my eyes to Firefox and the wonderful world of WIKIS. How did I cope without?

I think there are interesting times ahead so my new year’s resolution is to be a more active blogger. The wife is away for a 6 week trip to Brazil (family visit), I have no xBox games to distract me and I’m up to date with studying, so at the weekend I have no excuse not to give the blog a new lick of paint.  Ah WordPress, what a wonderful open source tool.