02/11/2008 by nicola.

I have previously mentioned about using a wiki to try and represent some of my thoughts etc, well here goes nothing, you can now decide how insane I am or not, if you haven’t already done so. I was - as a personal development project, hoping to translate it into some other languages but haven’t had time yet, so have stuck a Google translation gadget in for the time being.

I did actually set up this wiki, but always viewed it as currently renting a couple of folders of personal writing space on it. The mobsessed folder is out of date, in terms of an update with that - there isn’t one! I have not been able to focus enough since July, I have written and running some python scripts on my phone, but still not looked at Android Java and looked at mobile web in more detail and I still haven’t found a way to send SMS as files to a web server, but I believe more than I did in May / June that it is possible.

I used pbwiki due to ease of setup but it does mean people have to request access to edit which is a pain, however, you can easily copy from the source code, which is a step in that direction I suppose - could potentially move it to another wiki software too. Some of the pages have nothing there but an intention yet…

This is not formal research and I have not had an opportunity to complete any experiments yet. I also have not attempted to look at neurophysiology before so my understanding is less than basic, am going with gut feel then seeing (if I understand) if the research backs it up or not. I also still don’t quite understand why my own brain which must know how it functions appears to be incapable of helping me type, write, read and understand it easily.

So I am not presenting anything as conclusions, it is ideas only. This wiki does not currently have appropriately cited references, it is a mess of thoughts. It should have and I hope to get that fixed soon. I owe a thanks to Mustafa too for a conversation about - I don’t know how long ago it was - 6, maybe 8 years ago when we were talking about mobile phones and he mentioned about the importance of magnets and magnetism in future technologies which had never occurred to me at the time and really kick-started my own thinking on mobile phones and connectivity.

Thanks especially to wonderful conversations with Inge de Waard and Jo Tait over the past year about mobiles, technology, learning, with their amazing and funny insights into these areas.

Apologies to the following who should be properly cited - who have greatly influenced my thinking on any of this would be - George Siemens - just about everything he has ever published about connectivity, humans and brains in the last few years especially hci and mobile connectivity aspects, ditto Stephen Downes on networks, technologies and openness (btw in case anyone was wondering, I was hoping to join in with the 12 week coursversation and bring some of this to the table, but life got in the way…was genuinely gutted not to),

Jay Cross on how humans move and communicate informally, Yrjo Engestrom on mobility, Jan Chipchase for amazing insights into mobile use and design, Michiel de Lange’s research, Howard Rheingold for the amazing Smart Mobs, Mark Kramer on using mobile devices via Mamk.net, C.Enrique Ortiz on mobility, Ajit Jaokar on mobile networks and openness, Jurgen Scheible with his great tutorials and book who managed to explain Python and programming in a way that I could understand and Ken Banks, Nathan Eagle’s work on mobility in Africa, massive thanks to all of them. Also thanks to various magical people in my delicious network !

I still don’t know where mobile learning is going and since joining the university where I currently work, I seem to have understood less and less what learning is about. I am still undecided about how mobile learning could be designed, completed, or even if it should. I needed to answer some questions and this is a first attempt to do so - an attempt to try and find some organisation of my own thinking about mobile connectivity - what were devices all about, how they behave with other technologies in an environment, how they connect, how they are networked, the randomness of human beings and how this all links back to human physiology and the brain, I think a lot of answers lie in our understanding of magnetic - electromagnetic waves.

I still have a feeling that some of the best mobile learning will be informal mobile learning which links into all of this. In 2008 with increased attention being focused on being mobile, mobile devices and mobile web, it felt like a good year to try and write - something in some way. However I need to move on from wherever this is at - I think why mobile phones and mobility are of so much interest to me is that like many others I think I am nomadic - continually unsettled, continually moving around, maybe I’m trying to make sense of that too - but that’s a bit deep and off the point for this blog.

Oh and because I’m not sure when I will next be posting, I am still looking at wikis and visualisation (I still have it as a to do and I’m still interested in it which makes it kind of difficult not to) after whining last week, someone very kind, patient and wise who knows me, suggested very nicely that I might have different ideas to 2000 other people and should still go for it - I started to look at ajax this week and got as far as attempting to put a list of pages into a jquery to display a treemap (don’t think treemap is best visualisation for this anyway) - but seeing as I know nothing about jqueries it unsurprisingly didn’t work, but I have not given up hope.

PS if you do visit the RFID page and you get squeamish at the sight of needles……..

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15/09/2008 by nicola.

Mobiforge and Mobiforge mobile - formerly devmobi but launching today - a one stop place for everything related to mobile development

“if you’re interested in the amazing opportunities and technologies of the Mobile Web, then this is the site for you”

It really all is in one place, bigger and better than ever! You can find information and more importantly a dynamic community to help you analyse if you need or want mobile applications, what is the best route for developing them and sharing them with others, multiple facilities for testing (e.g.ready.mobi), a huge device database (device atlas) - if you’ve never thought about how to use content for mobile devices or thought about but confused about the range of options out there, mobiforge can take you through that process.
Fantastic !

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31/08/2008 by nicola.

It may or may not surprise some people to know that at the end of last year my mobile shortlist was a Blackberry Curve and the N82 and if the job that I was moving into involved me being more mobile, I would probably have gone with it. Sony Ericsson are also bringing out phones that I would happily buy but they keep bringing them out around 3/4months after I am in a position to purchase one.

I have a growing admiration for blackberry devices, even though some of the earlier models looked a little like toy calculators (actually so did some phones to be fair) and that ringtone that tells the entire train carriage you are a Blackberry owner. Patent ’stuff’ aside (and I have never read RIM commercial history in detail to be able to comment only that there have been cases filed by both them and others) they seemed to understand the life of a nomadic professional very well and they have got two areas right - email and mobile security and even though some of the earlier models were not very pretty - the QWERTY keyboard seems to be designed well to fit into a smaller design space (or form factor if being technically more precise).

Designing an application for a blackberry is probably beyond the scope of what I can achieve with mobsessed for now, due to needing more Java coding experience, but I think there is a lot of potential to design interesting apps for blackberries as they continue to add newer functions and features into their models. They also provide various models and services through Grameenphone, so potential options there for consumers with less resources. There is also a Blackberry developer challenge underway. For web related apps, as far as I understand you can use either the inbuilt or Opera Mini as web browsers on blackberries.

Re browsers, I have been participating a little in a conversation around browsers from Mark Oehlert’s e-Clippings blog, where he asks a very good question about standardization of browsers - is there data used in decision making around browser procurement or whether it is just based on perception. He also mentions that he works in an organisation which does not allow downloading of a Firefox or non-IE browser.

And as Jay Cross mentions in Mark’s followup post, the significance of politics in the decision making. I have personally experienced this having been in a position (don’t wish to say exactly where and what) where had considerable input and ownership into a process to procure two big web ‘things’ for an organisation and prior to tender, our shortlist did not contain a Microsoft product and I can remember the resulting discussions within IT as we looked to move forward with the process. It is complex. Personally speaking I neither love or hate Microsoft and/or love or hate Apple - I can find good and bad in both and I don’t wish to get into any conversation about this, ever, quite simply because I do not find it an interesting subject to discuss

Stephen Downes also mentioned this week, experiencing frustrations about trying to use Firefox (opensource) on an opensource OS. So it doesn’t sound like we are there yet with opensource browsers. What about mobile ? Webkit is an opensource application framework which allows browsers to be created, is supported on S60, iphones, and at least one blackberry device. Opera mini which has achieved an incredible feat of working on the number of models that it does, is not open source (some of their widget APIs are I think). There are various other browsers out there for mobiles including Skyfire (supports Flash 9, don’t think opensource) and Thunderhawk (also don’t think opensource)

Firefox mobile is in development but doesn’t seem to be quite there yet either in a test from We Deliver Elephants blog. Both browsers could potentially be ’sitting’ on proprietary OSs just as with opensource browsers on pcs. So is this a case of replicating a problem that existed with pc browsing - possibly except it is unlikely that your IT department is responsible for either your choice of mobile and/or what web browsers you choose to use on them.

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26/08/2008 by nicola.

I have started to think about this area a bit more recently, which is very inconvenient when my brain should be thinking deep and meaningful python and java thoughts but…

Via experientia.com an excellent article from Adam Greenfield which analyses differences between location and context, with resulting interaction design based on this understanding of environment, the devices used within it and the interactions between a human, devices and the environment itself.

He refers back to his previous post defining

“a mobile device’s capabilities and available interface modalities at any given moment are largely if not entirely determined by the other networked objects around it…..the device is of almost no importance in and of itself, that its importance to the person using it lies in the fact that it’s a convenient aperture to the open services available in the environment, locally as well as globally.”

I believe this is related to the extended mind concept too. I recently read the Andy Clark and David Chalmers extended mind essay which looks at the extension of cognitive processes into the environment and how the mind could exist in an external environment. The Guardian has also recently asked if an iPod is part of the mind.

I don’t think it is but then at the moment I have a very limited understanding of how the mind works. I read the extended mind essay as the mind literally extended into the environment, not into a device as such. There are comparisons between an advanced GPS enabled mobile device such as a smartphone and a notebook with information written in which can be accessed, but is it the connectivity / interaction / relationship between the device and the environment which is actually where the processes are ‘ignited’; i.e when you listen to the radio and a song comes on which invokes a good / bad memory, it is not the physical radio which is connected to your mind, it is just the enabler ?

So if you have a smartphone which can access information whilst you are mobile, wandering around an environment such as a city, with the variety of connections that will soon be available through GPS, Wifi, possibly SMS, I think it would be the combination of - how you are feeling whilst you are freely wandering around, any sounds, sights, smells or something you can touch etc that might be affecting your memory and then with a possible connection to a specific activity/interaction such as RFID / NFC sending information on an exhibition / museum to your phone through a networked tag in the environment, which could all be part of an extended mind, not just the device which could be in your hand, on your wrist, around your neck, on your clothing ?

Maybe…

Forgot to mention, Digital Encounters is another good read around this topic.

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05/08/2008 by nicola.

I’ve tried uploading a version (not very much different to yesterday’s) to Voxeo and testing through Skype but I keep getting “an internal error has occurred”. The voicexml appears to be valid. The xhtml is valid, I’m still not 100% sure about the JavaScript. You can’t check the whole thing on the regular w3 validators. I am too tired to process any more code tonight.

In terms of saving something as a favourite, via a cookie downloaded to the device, it appears to depend on different devices and manufacturers, session cookies appear to work across all, but persistent cookies may disappear once phone is switched off.

In theory, it should be possible to create a series of voicexml forms referenced in an xhtml+voice page which allow someone to choose what type of web coding template they would like to receive and then when the final form is submitted, a mouseclick or spoken event should send a message to the server to deliver back the output of those choices.

Its similar in principle to any type of online shopping. Once you have completed payment an invoice is generated - either on the final ‘thank you’ page or a ‘confirmation that it has been emailed to you’ page. As with a milkshake order, it should be possible to return a receipt of your order as a text file after you have completed the order, so sending a text file back to the user with an xhtml, RSS, php or whatever type of coding template inside it, which can be then saved to the phone or device should be no different.

A guess of how to do it would be to put templates in a mysql database then add php to the original xhtml+voice page to tell the server to fetch the template and include it in an email/SMS back to the customer. I know php has code for email options and for attaching files, I just don’t know exactly how to do it myself…yet - anyone else out there using or developing an ecommerce site tried ?

If this is all possible, it also means that someone who wanted a template might not have to actually go online at all, they could just make a phone call, make their choice and receive the template back - i.e. they would be calling (just like telebanking). Hopefully….

Will return to this later - am SO not on track to complete everything by September (maybe end of) but its still been very useful exercise, uncovering increasingly complex layers of coding, media and to some extent - architecture, now starting to make some connections between some of these too.

There is definitely potential to create pages of code against the 5 original strands (sms,multimodal,standalone vs mobile web/widget, pc vs web, mobile opensource vs mobile proprietary) it is possible to create both stand alone and web applications to do this, will compare and review their efficiency against the other strands in terms of device independence in the final stages of this project. Will also compare and review as to what this could mean for any mobile learning development and if it is worthwhile being deployed.

Anyway, my online persona is going to have a break for a few days, not sure what the offline one is going to be doing yet

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05/08/2008 by nicola.

First unfinished attempt which have not either validated or checked via Voxeo. Please feel free to copy / download (will need to select page and source to view code….once I have finished version will upload as a text file)
Would also recommend waiting until have a finished attempt that is assuming anyone out there would actually want a copy of either finished or unfinished It will hopefully provide at least half an idea. The milkshake one is more complicated in that you need branching immediately upon answering the first question. I guess it is unlikely that if you had such a wide choice of flavours that you would just tell an online form that you wanted one flavour only.

Is based around this text from post yesterday.

It is quite similar to a familiar Xhtml page except that it has slightly different DOCTYPE and namespaces to be declared. Another difference is use of time - which you can declare in seconds or milliseconds, you also should provide script so that the browser reading it, knows that you’re finished / stops listening. You also use scripting (JavaScript) to manage events such as prompts, speech input and branching etc I’m not entirely sure I’ve got my “elements by ID” in the right sequence to fit with the branching at the moment, but will inspect in more detail tomorrow

You can put the voicexml directly into the Xhtml coding or reference it as an external voicexml file (based on everything I’ve understood so far, external is better because you can reuse it, even within the same document). You set up grammar files to help with understanding i.e. a file will include typical words that you might expect to hear in response to a prompt/question.

Tomorrow’s task is to reference this unfinished version against the W3 guidelines Then put together an aural stylesheet. Another option is to record the prompts and save as audio files which you can then reference within the forms, so might do this too.

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04/08/2008 by nicola.

Mentioned this on the original post about this mini-project

“…multimodal web & messaging only, so I understand it as….a future extension of mobile web and learning - giving people choice over how they interact and use information and for the purposes of this little project, looking at voice-text only. A multimodal browser will allow multiple types of input or output using a range of options - keyboard, touch, voice etc I will be looking at Xhtml + Voicexml (x+v) markup languages”

Have deliberately not done much with due to other more intense programming bits but thought it was about time to post something. Prior to May, had not attempted to write/code anything related to voice before, although wrote an audio stylesheet about 2 /3 years ago.

Trying to think this along the lines of:

1. Should it be a mobile web page with a basic form ? This would not appear to be what xhtml+voice forms have already been designed for (e.g. examples so far seem to be things like using a form to find something or order pizza etc), but was wondering whether you could create a basic mobile web page, with options when selected by voice input would return a web page template as a file, to the user either via SMS or the web. If you’re going to be online anyway, would using voice add any value in terms of speeding up the process, so you could edit / create mobile web pages on the go ? Hmmm, not sure, but having both a visual and voice form would make it more accessible.

2.If not a whole mobile web page, could it be a regular web page with voice annotated ‘elements’ on the page that could produce a similar result ? Would it be better than a mobile web form ? Don’t know yet until try.

3. Due to limits of connectivity / bandwidth / cost / time, would it be more useful just to provide a standalone mobile voice application that could produce a set of templates and is it possible ? Could any files or the code be generated by a form similar to the above to generate either a voice or text SMS? (As above, re using voiceSMS - from an accessibility point of view - is better to have both a text and voice option?) Also don’t know yet until try. (Will return to this in a future post).

Will not be starting with an example of a mobile-friendly web page just yet because as per mobile web experimenting, haven’t done that yet - however will be bringing into this project later on.

In order to accept user input i.e. someone saying something, this is coded on a web page in a similar way to inputting text, using a form. So just as each text box would appear on a page, there can be an equivalent set of code to allow for speech. The examples provided by others would be things like - ordering food or drink, so if you were using your mobile phone and wanted to quickly order something like a milkshake (why you would be ordering one via the web, but off the top of my head…) your order would be a set of speech ‘events’.

So, am wandering around in Bournemouth, UK, its a lovely sunny day and I want a milkshake - so decide to order from Shakeaway (if you are ever in Bournemouth….) so a form would include questions like

Would you like a milkshake with:
Chocolate bar
Cake
Biscuits
Cereal
etc

Would you like anything else with it?
(note - if it was Shakeaway then a mobile web form would be totally inappropriate because there are hundreds of combinations)
Strawberry
Cherry
Lime
Kiwi
Melon
etc

Dairy or alternative?
Dairy
Soya

Any extras?
No thanks
Extra icecream
bran
protein
etc

Finished?
Yes
No

Would you like to save this as a favourite?
Yes
No

All of the above could also branch out - imagine if you were standing at the counter and being asked what you wanted, with lots of choices to look at, you might need several decisions or you might have a favourite - mine is chocolate & cherry with soya - so on the form I would be saying chocolate then selecting cherry then soya, no thanks then yes to finish. However if you would like anything else (question 2) you could potentially have additional sub branches e.g. 2a being lists of chocolate bars, 2b being cake options etc etc, depending on how many flavours you wanted.

In voicexml forms, each question would be treated as its own ‘block’ so you would need to add in extra code to tell the form to go to other blocks. No idea exactly at this point how to code the cookie bit (i.e. would you like to save as a favourite, am assuming that you can save cookies on a form on mobile device in same way as pc, but haven’t looked into as yet), but it would be useful seeing as you are using a phone and want to save time being online.

What does this look like in voicexml?
Will try and post tomorrow. Am hoping that same principle of menu items would apply for this project i.e.
What kind of page do you want to create?
xhtml
RSS
php
etc

Then a branch if selected Xhtml:
What type of Xhtml?
Strict
Transitional
etc

or if selected RSS -
Is this for a podcast?
Yes
No

(If select yes, this would be telling the server that you want RSS 2.0 and automatically bring in a template with itunes, encl and other media-specific tags)

This is about as far as I have got in terms of thinking it through. There are a whole bunch of resources available and I spent (productively going round in circles) several hours trying to work out how it was possible to test anything without having access to your own voice server. I have signed up to Voxeo because you can test anything you create using Skype which sounds useful. You can also enable voice if you download Opera browser (Voice is not on Opera mini yet.)

Refs and sources for this post on delicious with voicexml tag

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22/07/2008 by nicola.

I have recently decided to spend a few hours a week volunteering with Kiwanja.net and Frontline SMS:

“FrontlineSMS is free software that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub. Once installed, the program enables users to send and receive text messages with large groups of people through mobile phones. What you communicate is up to you, making FrontlineSMS useful in many different ways.”

More info about the mobility project and plans for Frontline SMS

I am fairly new to this side of online volunteering, having only done website design / reports / publication work before so I do not have contacts with a lot of NGOs, although will be progressing this over next week or so. I wondered if you also may know of any who might be interested and/or you would like to join in too, please could you let me know via

n.avery@surrey.ac.uk

Thanks !

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20/07/2008 by nicola.

I had a mess around with the internet connection feature on the GPRS modem software - it gives you the option to set up e.g. a connection using Vodafone (i.e. I am with Vodafone) GPRS. Haven’t set one up yet because then had a thought - remembered that Nokia have released a web server recently.

Its available from mymobilesite.net and there are more details on their wiki. I’ve just installed a copy - this screenshot below is what you can see when you open the application.

You can also view options through a browser, this screenshot below is an example of my site which have just set up.

I’ve had a very quick skim through the guide, you can send SMS to the mobile server (although at first glance they appear to go directly to a mailbox) and it says you can create mobile content using html and python, so I will do a followup post once I’ve had a chance to look into further.

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20/07/2008 by nicola.

Its GSM / GPRS / EDGE modem (approx £170 - ouch !) so that I can send and receive SMS, MMS, email and connect to the internet using a SIM card with the modem on my laptop. I am using a great SMS tutorial on Developerhome website - this page explains the basics of sending, receiving SMS and pcs including the AT+ codes to use e.g. AT+CMGS for sending a message.

Hopefully this short video will explain further.

transcript.

I haven’t yet found a way of using SMS to connect to the internet in order to see if can use HTTP and FTP to send an SMS message as a text file to my web server, but without the modem, I don’t think there is another option. There may be a way using Python but in order to find that out, I need to know more Python than I currently do. You can use mobile phones, blackberries etc as modems but you have more limited options such as unlikely to be able to send MMS and concatenated SMS (i.e. when you type a long text message and it gets sent as 2 or 3 text messages).

Text editor
I have found a python editor which is now installed on my phone. It is an application which has the kinds of features that I would like to create in a mobile text editing application, as per the pictures below. As far as I am aware you can’t type html code - its been written for people who wish to develop Python on the fly. In order to make the application work, install by downloading PythonS60 (am using 3rd edition on my phone) and the shell first, then download the python editor .

These three screenshots below show parts of the application. The first shows some of the editing options available on the application - common editing options that you would find in a text editing or coding application for a pc too.

The second screenshot shows options for tabs - with Python, tabs are important - when you are e.g. writing a list of statements / commands you want a pc or phone to perform and you want to write a sublist (e.g. if….else… type ones) it works in Python by using tabs and if you don’t use the right number of them, it will produce an error message. I guess it depends how complex the programming is, I’ve only had to use two tabs to indent so far.

The final screenshot shows how you can use the menu to insert your code into an SMS and send it in a variety of ways.

So, if you can insert text as a file in SMS, then surely there must be some way to send it via FTP once it has gone through to a pc…..I hope.
I haven’t had much of a chance to look at Android SDK yet but I saw they have a sample notepad application too which is cool. Maybe there will be an answer there.

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