Over The Air 2012

Only just noticed (in September) that I hadn’t posted my notes from Over The Air 2012 in June!

I had a fantastic time — and so did my dad and my son! We had three generations at the same tech conference :-)

I need to write a separate blog post about the LEGO hacks that people put together during and following my LEGO Mindstorms workshop, but in the meantime, here's my notes from the other sessions:

Hacking Science and Space

Ariel Waldman @arielwaldman

invisibility

• dark energy pushing us apart
• dark matter keeping us together…
• invisible superpowers:
  
  • belt that vibrates when you face north
  • synaesthesia for those that don’t have it…
  • syneseizure — feel vision through a gimp mask!
  • particle windchime
  • what would particle collisions sound like?
  • being used as an augmentation interface in collision labs

cyborgs

• your phone has loads of sensors, available all the time
• quake canary
  
  • monitor on your phone

interstellar

• humans are really good at pattern recognition
  
  • galaxy zoo
  • planet hunters
  • the work you do actually gets credited to you!
  • grean peas galaxies
  • discovered as galaxy zoo lets you drill down into data behind images
• NASA makes stuff available, but not necessarily accessible
  
  • spacelog.org
  • takes PDFs of transcripts and makes them come to life

science hack day

• weekend hack day
  
  • isodrag: a typeface where all the letters have the same wind drag
  • DNAckery: cocktail of extracted Strawberry DNA…
  • arm alarm: won’t shut off until your pulse is angry
  • near death lamp: lights up when an asteroid gets close to the Earth

Open Web Device

Francisco Jordan @mepartoconmigo, O2 Labs

Slides available

• still lots more people with feature phones than smart phones
  
  • 4 billion feature phones will be sold between 2011 & 2015
• mainly because they can’t afford a smart phone
• especially in Latin America, where Telefonica is trying to grow
• want to provide a phone for $60-70!
• Open Web Device - based on Boot 2 Gecko
• plan to launch in Brazil at beginning of next year
• Also partnering with Qualcomm to provide the chipset
• still haven’t decided the OEM(s) who will be manufacturing
• all open source: http://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G
• can build your own ROM based on Android 3.0 or 4.0 kernel/driver backends
• can also build B2G for desktop
• Gaia is Mozilla’s front-end for B2G (also open source)
• don’t have to use Gaia — B2G doesn’t even have to look like a phone
• the keyboard itself is an application
  
  • you can replace the keyboard with another web app!
• most new APIs in B2G are also finding their way into Firefox for desktop
  
  • just download Firefox nightly to see what’s available
• apps are just webapps in a directory with a manifest.webapp JSON file
  
  • can use appcache to store stuff locally as well
• using Sumon as a demo webapp
  
  • runs about 3x faster on B2G than on iOS!
• Marketplace: http://marketplace.mozilla.org
  
  • open for developers, but not yet for users
• or install from web: navigator.mozApps.install(manifesturl);
  
  • install an app from directly a web page

Anyone Can Code an Embedded Controller

Nicholas Herriot @nicholasherriot

Example device: connected printer — text questions to it and it will print them out!

• Vodafone trying to bring connectivity to embedded controllers
• Arduino and other microcontrollers exploding since 2005
• mbed (http://mbed.org/) similar to Arduino, but started by ARM
  
  • 96MHz
  • ARM Cortex M3
  • can run USB host and I2C slave
• online compiler & tool chain - works cross platform
• easy to install & run code:
  
  • runs as a USB mass storage device
  • just copy code across and press restart button
• can export from mbed online IDE to other toolchains:
  
  • CodeRed: eclipse & gcc based
  • others
• wanted to set up a platform for microcontrollers
• online IDE has a built-in SVN repository per project
• built-in libraries has lots of common stuff
• can extend with downloadable libraries (search available through online IDE)
• Vodafone has an M2M network - GDSB
  
  • used by Kindle, TomTom
  • SIMs don’t expire, don’t need to top up
• trying to open GDSB to developers…

You do know it is a phone, don’t you? (Adding voice to your mobile apps)

Tim Panton @Steely_Glint, Tropo

Tropo API

• SaaS for server-side phone handling
  
  • Voice (PSTN, VoIP/SIP, Skype, iNum)
  • SMS
  • Other services via HTTP or XMPP
  • Multi-lingual (with multiple voices in each language)
• SaaS provided by Voxeo
• Web API is JSON/javascript based
• also scripting APIs for Python, Ruby, etc
• example uses:
  
  • making calls without sharing phone numbers (e.g. speaking to taxi driver)
• scripting vs web api
  
  • scripting runs on Tropo servers and has no access to external data
  • web api runs on your servers - can access your data
• also a REST API to start outgoing calls and other control & management services

Phono

• jQuery plugin to make phone calls from the browser
• open source client
• picks up microphone from computer
• can use server-side voice recognition…
• can also pick up messaging from the tropo service
• requires a back-end (but same API for all)
  
  • Flash
  • Java applet - takes much longer to load
  • Panda (Flash with echo cancellation)
  • WebRTC - native in Chrome Canary
  • PhoneGap/Cordova plugin
  • iPad/iPhone actually works better than most laptops
  • pot luck on Android < 3.2
  • much better on Android >= 3.2
  • early version of native iOS (available in github/phono/phonosdk)
• can run both Tropo & Phono from a car battery
  
  • has been done at Burning Man

Development costs

• in the US can make free calls
• outside the US, need to ping Tropo for permission
• they will often let you run a demo server with small number of minutes for no money

Mobile Websites Can Have Nice Fonts Too…

Laura Kalbag @laurakalbag, front-end designer

slides available here

• typefaces can evoke emotional responses
  
  • not just in typographers!
• iOS app: Fonts by AppEngines — shows you all the fonts available on your device
• embed them on mobile using @font-face in CSS, just like on desktop browsers
  
  • works on opera mobile, android mobile >4
  • doesn’t work on IE Mobile, Opera Mini
• sources of fonts:
  
  • fontsquirrel - all free
  • fontspring - one off license per domain
  • myfonts - one off license per domain
• but can have a high impact on performance
  
  • and can flicker when load, etc
• tips for better performance:
  
  • just use the fancy font for headers
  • can choose to subset a font on some services (e.g. FontSquirrel)
  • see http://24ways.org/2011/unicode-range
• hosted fonts:
  
  • google web fonts - loads of free ones, but not so good quality
  • typekit, fonts.com, fontdeck are better - but pay subscription costs
  • but loaded using javascript… can be laggy
• watch out for missing fonts on mobile (e.g. no Arial on Android)
• and fonts can render differently on different devices

choosing a good font

• heineman: designed for people with dyslexia
• want to make something that’s really inviting to read, but then just sit back and actually read it easily
• what makes a typeface relevant?
  
  • context of content & features of typeface
• old style or humanist serif: based on early printing presses
• transitional serif: high contrast, sharp
• modern serif: modern classic, magazines, high class sophistication
• egyptian/slab serif: marketing, shouting, very bold
• humanist sans: clean & easy to read
• transitional sans: utilitarian, clinical, swiss
• geometric sans: clean, slick, structural, slightly childlike
• script: lots of variety, generally not good for body text, better for logos or headers
• novelty or themed: lack any subtlety, cheesy, decoration on a poster
• watch out for free fonts — they’ll most likely be overused
• choose the weight carefully:
  
  • too heavy is hard to read
  • too light may disappear on smaller screens

laura’s taste

• easy to read
• attention to detail
• subtle
• well-balanced, consistent & uniform
  
  • nothing jumps out too much

ePatient 101

Mark A M Kramer @mamk

• a lot of healthcare is based on communication between the doctor and the patient
• often doctor communication is not very effective
  
  • slow responses to email
  • constrained mobile devices due to privacy & security issues
• big issues just scheduling appointments
• quantified self — capturing and logging health information:
  
  • especially body monitoring
  • apps that take photos of food, confirm the food, then estimate the calories
• Dan Appelquist: most mHealth is focused on the hospital & medical enterprise