More and more we see the emergence of Location Based Services for those using smartphones (or app-phones as I heard recently). Although there is not a definitive app the space is getting crowded.

Take for example Loopt, a company that offers a service to help you find your friends on the go. They are now introducing a new search service called Pulse. Not only it will provide suggestions according to where you are, but also based on your past history will generate a personalized and ever-changing list according to the time of day and also based on where you and your friends have been. This makes the suggestions and information even more relevant to the user. But that is not all. Pulse includes also a ranking to suggest places that are popular among other users. This opens a great deal of possibilities for the users and also for the retail and food industry who are planning to offer coupons to potential visitors. Everyone wins.

Last night I had a chat with my friend Alex Holden and he pointed out something that makes a lot of sense. How come popular sites like facebook for example are not picking up on the fact that people would like to know where their friends have been, or even if their friends are close by. Using a filtering system you can catalog people that you really know, people that you’ve met and people that you would like to meet.

Aka Aki is has a similar concept. So is Google Latitude. The problem is, that they are lagging behind in popularity. Even my 75 year old dad has a facebook account! Then again I wouldn’t be surprise if that feature will come sometime soon in a new update.

I installed an TV from Telekom on my iPhone a few weeks ago. So far the only one watching the stuff is my 8 year old son. As it turned out, there are a couple of channels (like Cartoon Network) not available by our current cable provider. Honestly I installed the app just to test it, but I realized how handy it becomes on the train when I am embarking on long trips.

TV as we know it is dying. My son find it entertaining but at the end of the day, he wants interaction just like he does with his Playstation. The passive user type is an endangered specie in the realm of modern technology. TV will evolve for sure, I cannot wait for the era of the real converged media.

The service for having “Mobile TV” from Telekom is another 5 Euros a month on your bill. If you ask me is worth the money. At the same time it makes me realize that iPhone users or as I heard the other day “App Phone” users are the only one with a flat rate that allows this type of app. If you think about it, most people who can actually afford app phones grew up watching TV.

On my way to work I’ve seen people watching morning TV shows. I find it interesting because Germany is a country that is not very keen on “TV watching” lifestyle. It makes me wonder how it will be in USA…

So everything started this last summer. My bike was basically dead and I wanted to go biking with my son, so I opened an account with “Call a Bike” the renting bike service from the Deutsche Bahn (trains) here in Germany. Starting at 0,08 EUR/Min is not the cheapest service, but somehow convenient when you are bikeless. After registering online I was almost daily using the service. The whole process of renting the bike is a terrible pain in the neck. It should be easier, especially if you have an smartphone with you. I though this service needed an app to boost their business and make life easier for everyone.

A screen from my iPhone app
Click to enlarge

An app? yes. For starters finding a bike can be a challenge. Although they have many, people seem to use them a lot, so you have to find one that is free. The DB have on the Website a Google map that tells you where to find the bikes. One would think that if you are on the road it would be a mobile friendly website…think again. Frustrated by the service or rather the lack of it, I decided to create a concept for an app that could solve the problem and make the whole experience more pleasant.

I downloaded a Power Point presentation where the whole process and the customer journey is explained to the detail and used it as the basis for my concept. I was aiming for:

• Open a new account directly from your mobile phone
• Read a PDF with the more important info
• Do the whole unlocking process via mobile phone
• Have a bike locator
• Speed and minutes counter
• Street map and route recording for further sharing
• Guided tours around cities in Germany (these could be sold for extra)
• Also in two languages German and English (there are tourists that also use the service)

I rolled up my sleeves and went to work. All pieces where finish to put a presentation together. It was the end of the summer and I though it might be stupid to come up with such application now when people will rarely use this service in the next following months. So I decided to put it off to the following month: October. The app could be ready for next summer, I though.

Official Call a Bike app

Those of you with an iPhone and living in Germany probably know that an official app from Call a Bike was release recently into the app store just a few days/weeks ago. Developed by the company INOZ from Berlin, it became an instant success, featured in the top position of the app store. Tho, still in version 1.0, it features a bike locator and lets you via Click-to-call rent the bike. It won’t take long before they work out version 2 featuring what I mentioned above.

As soon as I saw the app my jaw fell to the floor. “Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today” , “The early bird gets the worm”… All these similar phrases came to my mind at once. With technology timing seems to be in most times the decisive factor. When is just the right time and when is not? Are you too early on the game or too late? I guess there is a lesson to be learn here but I don’t seem to grasp it. What I do know for sure is that as soon as I get a similar idea, I won’t hesitate to at least build a prototype as soon as possible. If the idea is crap it won’t survive anyway and if is good it will stand the test of time… No excuses, just business as usual: blood sweat and tears (well, maybe not the tears).

Happy slapping is nothing new. We’ve seen the documentaries, heard the stories and read the articles about it. What is surprising to me is how it keep spreading like a bad cancer among the young population around the world. Only a combined effort of equal intensity between citizens and organizations (governmental or not) will help find a solution for this criminal activity that is everything but happy.

According to the Times, it started in the London Borough of Lewisham around 2005, spreading to other countries faster than anyone could anticipate. Just like any other trend it was just a matter of time until we had the first cases here in Germany. According to the 2008 German study on mobile phones JIM, 28 percent of teenagers had at some point such videos in their mobile phones and shared them with others. “Lustiges Draufschlagen” or “Fröhliches Schlagen” is gradually becoming a real problem in playgrounds across German schools. In Bavaria, the police confiscated around 200 phones containing this sort of violent material from Teenagers ranging from 12 to 19 years old.

Handygewalt (Source: IZMF)

To counteract this stupid trend, the Informationszentrum Mobilfunk e.V. (IZMF) in cooperation with the Polizeilichen Kriminalprävention der Länder have created a short film called “Handygewalt” (translates something like mobile phone violence). Aimed directly to teenagers in school, the film portraits the consecuences for both the bully and the victim involved in the “happy slapping” (god I hate that name). The film is part of a group of a DVD set called “Abseits?!” touching on typical topics for teenagers. The plan as it now is to show the film to students in all German schools starting as soon as possible. Gemany hit the slappers back!

In case you are curious, there is an online version available. My son is eight and has a mobile phone, so he will be watching that film this weekend, no questions asked.

As a parent it is important to understand where this is going. While I am a sucker for technology, I came to realized that the social implications are yet to be further monitored and studied for a better understanding. The “Digital Natives” (everyone born during or after the 80′s) might had the luxury of being born in a time where technology grows exponentially, but just like everyone else, they can’t keep up with a such rapid pace. Happy Slapping is sadly a product partly created by the technology itself. Like media guru McLuhan predicted back in the day, the medium is the message.

Born Digital is one of the few books I’ve seen on the topic of understanding the impact of technology on the new generations. As a parent I’m glad a read the book. It made me ponder fundamental questions about my own life and the life I want for my son. While technology might be in part at fault, nothing beats good parenting. The game still the same, rules are just slightly different now.

Among the highlights of the evening was for sure “YOUR REEBOK”. An application for the iPhone created by the UK company insidemob for shoe manufacturer Reebok. The app is totally free and allows you to customize the colors and materials of your traines, upload your design to a gallery if you want to share your creation and even order them directly from your phone. The app is been running (no pun intended) for a few weeks on the app store with a very good acceptance. The only downside is that is 62MB! which is kinda big considering how many times you will use it.

Accuterra was also very interesting. Created by geospatial solutions company Intermap it promise to be the companion of choice for those who enjoy the outdoors activities. The application is a digital map system that can be updated wirelessly and give an accurate elevation and location of the terrain around you. The app is free for download and you only need to pay for the maps. The map sheets can be bough for specific areas or for large areas for under 70 euros. The small downside is that the app is only available in the US for the moment, but soon coming to Europe.

After the presentations a nice Bavarian dinner was served buffet style including “Helles” beer. There was a good time to network and meet some people. I’ll be there for the next event for sure.

After the recent elections fallout, the Iranian government has been trying to cut every possible way of communication to the outside world. Journalists are not allowed to enter Tehran and some Iranian officials are even accusing England of inciting the demonstrations taking place at the moment. Iran has turned into “I ran” the hell out of there before getting shot.

Historically Iran has been a country where freedom of speech is forbidden and media is controlled by the government. This time around, Iranian citizens have turned to the use of non-traditional media (blogs, twitter, youtube…etc) to broadcast the truth to the world. In this context the mobile phone has become an instrumental part for reporting events as citizens use it to take pictures and record videos that find their way to the internet in a matter of minutes. In the current climate it’s easier and safer to walk around with a mobile phone than with a camera. The broadcasting can take place on the go without the risk of doing it at home and get detained by the law enforcement (which would normally mean that your life is as valuable as a farm in the middle of the desert).

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) admitted selling a surveillance system for “lawful intercept functionality” to the Iranian government, powerful enough to pinpoint the exact location of every phone, listen to every call, read any SMS and watch every video or picture sent. Basically they have full access to any mobile phone operating within the country. Despite all that, new videos, posts and pictures are showing up every day for the world to see. After so many years of oppression Iranians are so fed up, that they’re willing to take the risk and show the world what is really happening in their country.

The sad part is that contrary to other concepts like the GoogleMap mashup Ushaidi monitoring the 2008 elections in Kenya or recent ones adopting the same model (Nigeria, Lebanon and Mexico for example), Iranians don’t have the chance to put their data in a central location. Some videos and short messages have made their way to YouTube and Twitter, but the rest are scattered around on the internet like a message in a bottle.

Once again the mobile phone has prove to be a powerful ally in the fight for social change. Allahu Akbar.