by Chilldor

Computerworld recently wrote here that Vatican has launched a Facebook and iPhone applications for better communication with the tech savvy. Release also includes website Pope2you with links to these and other services.
The Pope2You portal is run by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications and is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. It was launched ahead of the church’s World Communications Day on Sunday.
These services are part of web based offerings that included recently Vatican Youtube website complementing Vatican main website and Vatican Museum Online.
Read more about potential of new technologies here.

by Chilldor

Some quotes what is Web 3.0:

In May 2006, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web stated:^[16]

People keep asking what Web 3.0 is. I think maybe when you’ve got an overlay of scalable vector graphics—everything rippling and folding and looking misty—on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data, you’ll have access to an unbelievable data resource.

—Tim Berners-Lee, A ‘more revolutionary’ World Wide Web

At the Seoul Digital Forum in May 2007, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was asked to define Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.^[17] He responded:

Web 2.0 is a marketing term, and I think you’ve just invented Web 3.0.

But if I were to guess what Web 3.0 is, I would tell you that it’s a different way of building applications… My prediction would be that Web 3.0 will ultimately be seen as applications which are pieced together. There are a number of characteristics: the applications are relatively small, the data is in the cloud, the applications can run on any device, PC or mobile phone, the applications are very fast and they’re very customizable. Furthermore, the applications are distributed virally: literally by social networks, by email. You won’t go to the store and purchase them… That’s a very different application model than we’ve ever seen in computing.

—Eric Schmidt

At the Technet Summit in November 2006, Jerry Yang, founder and Chief of Yahoo, stated:^[18]

Web 2.0 is well documented and talked about. The power of the Net reached a critical mass, with capabilities that can be done on a network level. We are also seeing richer devices over last four years and richer ways of interacting with the network, not only in hardware like game consoles and mobile devices, but also in the software layer. You don’t have to be a computer scientist to create a program. We are seeing that manifest in Web 2.0 and 3.0 will be a great extension of that, a true communal medium…the distinction between professional, semi-professional and consumers will get blurred, creating a network effect of business and applications.

—Jerry Yang

At the same Technet Summit, Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix, stated a simpler formula for defining the phases of the Web:

Web 1.0 was dial-up, 50K average bandwidth, Web 2.0 is an average 1 megabit of bandwidth and Web 3.0 will be 10 megabits of bandwidth all the time, which will be the full video Web, and that will feel like Web 3.0.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0

by Branimir Parashkevov

Everybody likes to see/experience ads, which are not very annoying and still very easy to remember. It’s even better when they are requesting a certain level of interaction that gives us, as targeted people, the feeling of participation or even collaboration. Such innovative ideas are the main target of The International Advertising Festival.

The 55th International Advertising Festival has passed recently and it pronounced this year’s winners of the prestigeous golden lion statuette. The Media Grand Prix award went to Forsman & Bodenfors Gothenburg for their innovative and interactive MMS campaign, created for AMF’s pension plan.

AMF Sweden let consumer take a picture of himself and send it to AMF through MMS. Then, the sender was returned an MMS with a picture of himself, but 30 years older. As a result, the consumer is more attracted to adopting a pension plan. This was a brand building exercise for AMF resulting in 300.000 uses(Sweden has 9,1 million inhabitants) within the month of the campaign, while the target was 50.000. Isn’t this a really successful campaign?

by Chilldor
2 open-source mobile-phone platforms, which may have a great future are OpenMoko and Symbian foundation. Both of those are currently not as famous as Android but this will probably change in near future.

Symbian foundation is lately announce mobile phone platform. It is based on Nokia S60, and targeted to give user or developer more options and control over the system. This platform is planned to be released with new devices in 2010. It is a general platform, all major mobile phone companies ( Nokia, SE, Motorola ) can use it in their mobile phones. For developers it means more easier work, since there is no need for separate API-s anymore, and for end user it means no more compatibility issues any more. When all devices are based on same platform, you can run same programs on them, and you don´t have to worry about if this program is going to work on your mobile device or not. When released, SymbianFoundation OS is “closed” but it becomes Open-source after 2 years from release date. But it is a still innovative idea in that field.

Second platform – OpenMoko, is a bit older and with longer history.

OpenMoko is a open-source platform with its own hardware. First device was released in 2007 and it was “developer only” device, So you had to have some programming skills to play with it. Next hardware platform ( GTA2 ) was released in 2008 summer, and it is available to general public, end users. Programming skills are not needed anymore to use that phone, but general knowledge of Linux might come handy if you want to “hack” or customize that device as you like. So what makes that device so special ? It is not just an hardware platform made from scratch, but it is almost entirely open-source and Linux compatible. OpenMoko operating system is based on real Linux, not stripped down kernel, you can easily port any Linux application for it, as long as it can run on low hardware specs. Also you can install your own favorite Linux distribution for it, or make one yourself, if you have enough experience with Linux. OpenMoko has a wide community, people all over the world share what they know about it, how to get the most out of your device, how to install some new programs and so on..

You can get more information about that project from OpenMoko Wiki page

Although OpenMoko has still some HW issues since it is quite new hardware platform, and Symbian Foundation is not public until 2010, these 2 things should definitely something worth being watched for.

Neo Freerunner booting linux

by Martin Koppel
For most of the people Web 2.0 is just a buzzword – round corners, a bit childish web design but nothing too special. But there are some key elements that make Web 2.0 different from yesterday’s web (Web 1.0). Major difference is that Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information – people are able to create their own content and be part of democratic and organic web.

Main keywords for Web 2.0 are openness, collaboration, dynamic, interactive, context sensitive services, third party content. Vast majority of the Web 2.0 doesn’t have a good business model behind it, although recently we have seen a bit more of the ones that do. There is also a tendency that services with a business model tend to move away from Web 2.0 ideology (openness, third party content, content sensitivity). I think that Google AdSense is the best example of Web 2.0 with a great business model.

But what comes next?

I’m not talking about major buzzword Web 3.0, but we may call it Web 2.5 at least . We are going to see business models behind wikis, podcasts etc, so that third parties would also be able to earn revenue. We already have some great examples in that field, but this will become a MUST feature in near future. I believe that creating opportunities for third parties is the next phase in the web and it is almost here.

Context sensitivity, third party content and long tail are creating opportunities for everyone who has ideas, knowledge and will to do something. Everyone will be able to benefit from their knowledge and experience, and what’s most important – the business doesn’t have any borders or limits. One is definitely sure, mobile services are involved as well.

Marino Bresciani

YouTube Blog reports on a new channel called called Mobile Tricks posted by Google Mobile

It is a original way for readers to show what they do with their own cell phone. and you can start watching the video embedded above of with a guy who’s a bit obsessed with them. He’s fabulous!

They’re asking for all kinds of tricks, from the useful to the completely ridiculous, and they can be with or without Google Mobile products. Among all of these, the ones I liked the most were:

• Free dating advice
• Portable X-Ray
• Unknown caller

by Marino Bresciani

Deploy localized SMS services is a challenge that hasn’t found a clear winner. Anyhow, from the States there is a SMS that aims to consider the location of the final users. This means that your text message will only be received once the recipient reaches a certain location such as school or restaurant.

It’s simple yet amazing service which you can use to remind of yourself or others once they are in certain locations. First you need to sign up at JotYou.

The follow these simple steps:
Send messages from your computer or mobile phone. Send to one friend, many friends, or just yourself. Specify a location so your friends get a message when they arrive at school or the mall. When your friends arrive at the location you specify, JotYou alerts them by sending your text message to their cell phone, and delivering the message.

How does it work?
Actually you need a mobile phone that supports J2ME, Symbian or Windows Mobile. In this way, you need to keep the JotYou application switched on all the time, and this will permit you to track your position in the JoyYou server. Ah, you also need a GPS integrated, unless you use the Windows Mobile application; in this case, you can also use wireless positioning (similar to Google Mobile Maps’ “My Location”)

Despite the limitations of needing a continuos gprs connection, the applications deriving from localization services look promising.