Tag: mobile computing

Many social networks and communications apps here

An issue that I am noticing a lot more with the smartphone era is the use of many different communications apps.

The apps provide at least one of various communications methods like text, picture or video messaging or may support real-time voice or video conversation using the Internet as a channel, typically with the communications being without any extra charge and, in most cases, you can subscribe to the service for free. As well, a lot of the social networks, especially Facebook, implement an instant-messaging function as part of their feature set. Some services like Snapchat offer an “ephemeral” communications setup where the communications disappear when you finish reading or viewing the messages, a feature that appeals to the teenage or young-adult user.

What is happening is that our friends coerce each other to install these apps on our phones, typically with them installing the apps and completing the “onboard” process to have us use them. The services have access to our smartphones’ contact directory in order either to send out an invite to another user to join the service or to monitor if one of our contacts have joined the services.

It is made more difficult by the fact that most of these services don’t offer any bridging to competing or complementary services in order to avoid duplication of functionality.

The point of confusion

Viber or Skype can play difficult with your Bluetooth headset accessory

We then find that the same contact is on one or more communications services alongside the regular email and phone services and end up having to think of what path we use to communicate with our contacts.Then we have to use a different app to communicate using the chosen path. This is also made worse by some voice and video communications apps not behaving consistently with Bluetooth-based headsets and hands-free accessories associated with the particular host device such as not working properly with the accessory’s control surface. It can also make the useability of these services with smartwatches and other wearable devices, or integration with the vehicle’s dashboard a lot harder.

Some of us may define a so-called preferred communications “ladder” for each conversation type (text message, multimedia message, voice call or videocall), each location and network for us and our contacts (work with business network, home with home network, home town or country, or overseas) and whatever device they are using. As well, you may have to go through a particular path when you receive a call or message from someone and you may have to close the conversation if you do want to change medium or call type through the conversation flow.

What could be done

Personally, I would like to see support for device-based contact directories to support the concept of preferred communications “ladders” for particular contacts and call types. Even factors such as you or your contact being connected  to particular Wi-Fi networks could allow you to use a particular “lowest-cost” ladder based around VoIP (Viber / Skype) or logging in to a service like Skype from a particular device like a smart TV to advance that service to the “top of the ladder” for videocalls.

This may involve the engineering of various communications services and mobile / desktop operating systems to support different operating conditions on a per-contact basis in order to support “task-focused” operation. Even practices like properly mapping the control surface of Bluetooth accessories for the likes of Viber and Skype could pay dividends to this direction.

Extended-range batteries are available from a third party for this phone

Article

Lumsing’s Samsung extended batteries on sale for as little as $10 | Android Authority

My Comments

Increasingly, a lot of smartphones and tablets don’t come with user-replaceable batteries anymore. But Samsung have stayed away from the trend by making sure their mobile phones still come with batteries you can replace. This came as an advantage with my previous Samsung Galaxy S Android smartphone which I was using a lot as a phone, email terminal, music player, Web terminal and navigation aid amongst other things. Here, the battery wasn’t holding its charge anymore and I was able to go to a phone accessories shop and buy and install a replacement battery which allowed the smartphone to perform better.

Now Lumsing have made available through Amazon a range of extended-capacity batteries for recent Samsung smartphones. This has a similar advantage to how it was feasible for most manufacturers to supply extended-capacity batteries as first-party aftermarket accessories for your mobile phone so you get that extra run-time out of the phone. It is also similar to how you can choose to buy higher-capacity AA batteries for your gadgets so you aren’t thinking of having to replace them sooner. Similarly, some computer manufacturers offer extended-capacity batteries in their range of accessories for some of their laptop models with some models implementing “dual-battery” setups that work with these aftermarket batteries.

At the moment, some of the batteries are offered for USD9.99-USD$10.99 but this is before shipping and any relevant taxes. People who are part of the Amazon Prime program or have established orders of above USD$35 can buy the batteries free of shipping charges.

The only limitation with this is that you cannot buy extra batteries and charge them outside your device. Rather you would need to charge them in the device before you can use them and you would also fear the batteries self-draining if you keep them as spares. Personally, I would look towards the availability of “off-device” chargers for these batteries for those of us who like to keep one or more reserve batteries.

If Samsung can see these high-capacity batteries offered by a third party work properly and safely in their phones, it could be a chance for them to consider offering extended-capacity batteries to their aftermarket.

Article

Inaugural ‘Girls Make Games’ Summer Camps Fight Industry’s Gender Gap | Mashable

My Comments

Women and girls are increasingly dabbling in computer games, especially the strategy and casual types on mobile platforms, as I have seen lately with the likes of Candy Crush Saga and Piano Tiles being played by them on iPads and similar devices. But a lot of games, especially “core” games are being developed by men for men.

Just lately, there is activity taking place to encourage women and girls to develop these games and this is taking place in the form of a “summer-camp” or “school-camp” model where groups of them stay at particular locations to work together on this goal. This is an attempt to fight an industry gender gap and increase interest in this activity amongst under-represented groups. One of the issues that was raised was creating interest in “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, maths) subjects amongst women and girls to have them show interest in programming and related disciplines/

It is also being cultivated through the existence of “indie” game development which is brought along with the rise of mobile devices, especially tablets like iPads and the Sony VAIO Tap 20, as a gaming platform along with the increased capabilities that these devices offer.

But could the participation of women and girls change the landscape of game content? Personally, I would find that they could provide games that appeal to more users such as middle-aged and older people along with other younger women. As well, they could work towards opening up computer gaming as a leisure activity for more people across the board. One thing to be aware of is to encourage the use of the platform’s abilities when it comes to graphics, sound and interaction rather than being “basic” with the games.

Article

Vodafone Germany looks to provide end-to-end encryption with SIM signatures • The Register

My Comments

The SIM card could be the heart of corporate-grade end-to-end mobile data security

If a company or person wanted to have highly-secure data or voice communications on their smartphone or tablet, they had to install an “over-the-top” software package and establish a separate password or key for the secure path..

Now Vodafone Germany, who is part of the Vodafone mobile-telephony conglomerate, have worked on a SIM-based setup that they can easily provide as part of a value-added service. This is based around all the passwords and keys being part of the SIM card and software held on the handset making use of these keys along with native apps to provide the secure tunnel.At the moment, this is offered to larger corporate and government customers but could be offered to small business accounts especially as some of these businesses also provide goods and services to the large corporate and government user base

One reason I would suspect that Vodafone have worked on this concept is to provide an easy-to-deploy end-to-end encryption service for consumers and small business in the wake of the Snowden affair. At the moment, the setups would be designed to work with Android devices but with Blackberry and Windows Phone ports being considered. In the case of Windows Phone, this could allow for the concept to be taken further to Windows-based tablets, laptops and desktops which are used for a lot of business computing.

A limitation that I see with the SIM-based solution is that it is dependent on a device having an integrated 3G or 4G modem thus wouldn’t be considered truly “transport independent”. I see this as being of importance as people use Wi-Fi hotspots provided by many different venue hosts and not many of these are kept secure by the venue owners thus making the customers’ data vulnerable. Similarly, this will also be of concern for client-to-box VPN setups where the “other end” of the VPN tunnel connects to the Internet via a fixed WAN connection like cable, DSL or fibre-optic.

This could be a step for mobile carriers and telcos to provide the encryption needed for secure communications especially in the wake of some serious spying scandals.

Article

Streamz Reveals Android-based Smart Headphones | Tom’s Hardware

My Comments

Headphones like these could become like the current crop of smartwatches

Streamz are exhibiting a proof-of-concept headphone system that is effectively the headphone equivalent to a smartwatch. Here, these headphones have the Android operating system and an app platform along with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity to provide access to online and network-hosted music sources.

They will be managed via a control-surface app for most regular-computing and mobile-computing platforms in a similar vein to what Samsung, Sony and others are doing for their smartphones. As well, they maintain their own 4Gb onboard storage and a microSDHC card slot for additional storage.

One of the goals provided by these headphones is to provide hi-fi-quality digital-analogue converters in the headphones where the DAC in these headphones works to CD-quality (or should I say DAT-quality) 2-channel 48khz 16-bit standards along with hi-fi-grade drivers and amplifiers.

Being the first product of its kind, there will be issues with compatibility with other “smart headphone” software and the headphones missing certain functions like the ability to exploit Wi-Fi Passpoint technology. Similarly, as far as I know, they aren’t really a stereo headset with a built-in microphone which you can use also for communications purposes.

It is an example of increasing the functionality in the peripheral devices that augment a smartphone’s operation leading them to become standalone smart devices rather than become totally dependent on other devices.

Articles

Upcoming USB Type-C connector won’t have “right” and “wrong” sides | Gizmag

From the horse’s mouth

USB Promoters’ Group

Press Release (PDF)

My Comments

USB data / power cable to be eventually replaced with the USB Type-C data / power cable with the same plug each end

A new USB equipment connector is in the process of being designed and will be called by the USB Promoters’ Group by the middle of 2014. This is to cater for technology equipment that is becoming smaller and thinner while also allowing for quick worry-free connections.

This connection will be the same size as the existing USB Micro-B connector used on most smartphones or the Apple Lightning Connector that Apple uses on their latest iDevices. This will cater for devices that are acquiring an increasingly-low profile such as the smartphones, tablets or Ultrabooks or even peripherals like some external hard disks and keyboards.

The socket will be designed so that you don’t worry about which way you plug it in and the patch-cords will have the same connection on each end so you don’t have to worry about which end of the cable you are using, in a similar vein to the RCA connections used on most stereo equipment.

Of course, the standard will also define the patch cables that allow you to connect equipment that has the USB Type-C socket on it to equipment that has commonly-available USB connections like the Type A found on computers and USB power supply equipment or Micro-B connections found on the smartphones or USB hard disks.

As we are seeing the USB connection become the universal power-supply connection for many different gadgets. Here, the USB Type-C connection will also allow for scaleable power-supply and charging situations and to provide further support for improved USB bus performance. A commonly-raised question that could surface is the power-supply performance for particular USB patch cables especially as we find smartphones not charging as quickly with some cables compared to others given the same power-supply equipment.

Of course, this will cause a requirement for power-supply standards for mobile devices to be revised because of the current standard supporting only the Micro-B connection on the mobile equipment and Type-A on the power-supply equipment. As well, we will be ending up with USB Type-A to Micro-B and USB Type-A to Type-C as power/data cables for most of our gadgets in the near term.

Updated 16 October 2013

This is an advanced way of setting up a DLNA Home Media Network and requires a network media player to be able to be controlled by other devices on the same network.

It is a function integral to DLNA 1.5 compatible devices and is part of TwonkyMedia Manager (which I have reviewed here) since it started. Now it will be an integral part of Windows 7 where you can select “Play To” to have music playing on another device that you have specified. There will be many handheld terminals that have this functionality, either as part of the operating system or as add-on software and is considered an essential function for mobile devices and the new crop of Wi-Fi-based wireless network speakers, some of which have been reviewed on HomeNetworking01.info.

The open-frame alternative to Apple AirPlay which can handle pictures and video content as well as music

The three boxes in this DLNA media network

Three are three logical units in this equation

Media Server

This holds media files or references to media streams and is typically represented by Windows Media Player 11 or TwonkyMedia Server which is part of TwonkyMedia Manager which I have reviewed in this blog.

Also, in a PC-less solution, it can be a network-attached storage or music server device, which is become a very important trend as we move towards a highly-portable home network with a book-sized NAS holding our music, photos and video.

Media Control Point

This is primarily a software program or hardware device that can find material on any Media Servers on the home network and allow the user to “push” the content to any Media Render device on the network. Some of these programs such as most of the smartphone Media Control Point apps also have the ability to “push” device-local content to the Media Render device.

Examples of these include Twonky Manager, Windows Media Player with its “Play To” function, and Linn Kinsky for Windows; Twonky Mobile, PlugPlayer and Gizmoot for the iPhone or iPad; and Twonky Mobile and BubbleUPnP for Android devices. For that matter, this feature is also being considered as a desired for any highly-capable music player or similar application for the Android platform.

Media Renderer

Boston Acoustics MC-200Air wireless speaker whcih can be controlled by a DLNA control app

The Media Renderer is similar to a UPnP-capable Media Player except that it can accept instructions via the home network to play particular media files or streams. Typically this setup is represented by three boxes but a device can have two or three of the functions built in to its housing.

An example of this is the TwonkyMedia Manager program or the PlugPlayer DLNA controller for the iPhone or any of the recent Nokia N-Series mobile phones. Here, the program has a built-in software media renderer function as well as a software media server function and control point.

Or you have most recent DLNA-capable AV equipment like the Denon CEOL Piccolo that allow you to choose the content to play using their control panel or remote control; or let you “push” content to them using a DLNA Media Control Point.

What can you do

Put the netbook, tablet or another computer to good use as a media controller

An idea that would appeal to many geeks and media enthusiasts is to load a program like TwonkyMedia Manager 1.2 or Linn Kinsky on to a netbook or subnotebook computer and use this computer as a remote media controller for the DLNA Home Media Network.

This could mean that you could bring up pictures and video on a DLNA-capable TV or electronic picture frame using this terminal. This would end up being much easier than finding the remote control for the TV and working through an unwieldy user interface.

As well, handheld devices like smartphones, mobile Internet devices or PDAs that are equipped with WiFi functionality can work as a remote control, whether natively (in the case of phones like most of the Nokia N-Series phones) or through one of many software programs available through their standard app stores Web channels.

Similarly, you could use your office PC to show merchandising videos / images on your DLNA-equipped TVs and picture frames in the shop’s public space rather than going around to each TV or picture frame to bring up the right merchandising material. Again, you could use the “Play To” function in Windows 7 or 8, or “Cast To Device” in Windows 10 for this purpose.

Use of AV network media adaptors for music or other audio content

Typically, an AV network media adaptor like the D-Link DSM-320 or the Zyxel DMA-1100P typically doesn’t have any form of display on it. Instead it requires the user to control it using the remote control while using the attached TV as its display. This wouldn’t equate very well if you intend to play music rather than show pictures or videos using the device. Here, these devices can be managed by having the music playlists pushed to them without need for the attached television to be on.

“Follow Me”, “Party Mode” and other advanced playback techniques

Some of the DLNA media controllers allow for advanced playback techniques where program material can be “pushed” to other Media Renderer devices from a particular point in the track. This can allow for “follow-me” playback where the content which was already playing on one device is played on another user-specified device with the content stopping at the previous device; or “party mode” where content is broadcast to a group of devices. The last mode may have problems due to the data-oriented network protocols not being able to work well in supporting synchronous playback from one source. Similarly, there could be other playback techniques like exhibiting different pictures from the same cluster on different screens.

Portable devices being part of the DLNA digital media network

Another application for this kind of operation is for a digital camera or mobile phone to “push” digital images held on that device to DLNA-compliant TV screens or picture frames. This would typically work well for “there-and-then” showing of pictures and videos taken with the device rather than downloading of pictures to a network-attached storage device.

Similarly a mobile phone or MP3 player could “push” digital music held therein to better speakers via a digital media adaptor. To the same extent, these devices are also being used as a key interaction terminal for the Social Web with the likes of Facebook being replete with albums of photos created by everyone on these networks. What would be a good idea to show that album that your Facebook Friend filled from their holiday on your large TV screen and page through each of those pictures using your smartphone as the control surface.

The main issues and hurdles

Is the playback device able to be controlled by the home network

Not all DLNA-capable playback equipment is capable of supporting “3-box” push-mode operation at the moment. Typically, most DLNA equipment from the big names that was issued over the last two years, especially televisions and network media adaptors and home theatre receivers will support this functionality “out of the box” or through a firmware update that the customer does. Some existing equipment may support the functionality through a customer-performed firmware update or may do so out of the box.

One of the best references for this capability is this list in the TwonkyForum discussion board run by TwonkyMedia, in relation to TwonkyMedia Manager.

Is the playback device set up to be controlled by the home network

Another thing to look for with playback devices is whether the function is enabled even though the device has the function. This may be looked at in the form of a Settings menu option in the Network Settings Menu or similar menu which may be labeled “Digital Media Renderer Mode”, “DLNA Remote Control”, “Network Media Control” or something similar. Some devices may put up a prompt that asks if you want this function to happen the first time content is pushed to that device using the DLNA method. This includes a few wireless speakers that support AirPlay and DLNA having them as selectable operating modes.

If this mode is set to on, the device can respond to DLNA requests. Some devices have the function disabled in the default factory setup while others may allow this kind of control by default.

Conclusion

Once you have this issue worked out, you can then use a handheld device, computer or dedicated remote controller to cause media to play on other home network devices.