MomoLondon: MWC2014 Stand Competition Live Final

10 companies competing to win a place on the UKTI stand at Mobile World Congress 2014 and press & media activity to go with it. ICT KTN, Mobile Monday London, UKTI and Cambridge Wireless all work together to whittle down the competitors to a shortlist of 10, all competing for five places on the stand.

All the companies this year were remarkably different — in their approach, their development stage and their presentation styles.

In the audience vote, I went for Changify, but the five who were selected were PeachInc, 5 Tiles, 23 Snaps, Capito and Viewranger.

There’s also an official blog post with pictures on the Mobile Monday London blog.

Red Glasses

Adam Martin, Founder

http://MyEarthApp.com @RedGlassesApps

• embedding rich content into 3D objects
• have built a native 3D engine for iPad that deals with data
• also built two sample apps:
  1. visualization of magnified Earth heights
  2. showing videos on a 3D globe
• aim to partner with media & content organisations
• have built bespoke apps for clients for last 15 years
• want to expand to a white-label product
• other demos:
  • showing travel time from a point across the globe
  • luxury retail, where purchasing from

Changify: Design for Social Change

Priya Prakash, Founder

http://www.changify.org @Changify

• basic idea:
  1. spot & share ideas for problems
  2. get support from friends & neighbours
  3. ideas get backed by brands & biz
  4. earn credits for making the change
• partnering with Clear Channel to make a digital bus stop
  • crowdsourcing local opinion by voting on screen
  • touch & NFC
• council get realtime data of reports
• running a 3 month trial with Guardian Data at Elephand & Castle
• working with councils & local businesses
• http://changify.org has been available for 6 months
• also accessible via SMS

Coveritas

Sean Redmond, CEO

http://www.coveritas.com @Coveritas

• based in Bletchley Park
• founding team did functional verification of hardware verification
• have applied same system to software functional testing
• specialise in machine to machine interoperability
• uses randomisation & rules (constraints) to generate end to end use case tests
  • 3GP took 9,000 hours of test engineering
• looking to partner with domain experts in M2M standards testing
• customers are those companies with massive test labs for M2M interoperability
• have an annual time-based license model

SpatialBuzz

Leon Hardwick, Director Global Sales & Marketing; Andrew Blake, CTO

http://www.spatialbuzz.com @SpatialBuzz

• cloud-based customer experience management for mobile operators
• delivering info on status and capability of network
• give the operator an idea of how customers are reacting
• can also provide an early warning to operator of issues
• mix together operator outage & planned works with crowd-sourced input
• can cater for any service delivered geographically
• deployed with Telefonica UK & Germany, also Tesco Mobile
• benefits seen:
  • reduction in calls
  • reduction in response times
  • improving customer satisfaction

PeachInc

Dr Daniel Morris

http://www.peachinc.com @PeachInc

• mobile ticketing using the “MorrisCode” — 2D barcode
  • patented format
• optimised to be read from electronic displays
• at the moment PeachInc are the only people who can read them
• displays well on small screens
• stores a 16 digit number
• have built a suite of apps
  • can receive tickets via SMS (even on iPhone)
• also make hardware
• will be integrated into a
• biggest customer so far Saudi Professional football league
• versus QR codes:
  • reads faster and more successfully
  • reads at 20 frames a second with most mobile cameras
  • 5,000 people at an event with 100% success rate
  • 60,000 football matches in Saudi Arabia with no problems

5-Tiles

Michal Kubacki, Inventor & CEO; Piotr Pieczynski, CFO

http://www.5-tiles.com @fivetiles

• keyboard for Android
• business model based on app sales & licensing deals
• works well for smartwatches (with a touch screen)
  • takes a small amount of screen space
  • have a demo on i’m watch Android smartwatch
• looking to port to Windows & iOS
• also getting keyboard tested by RNIB
• currently have 100s of users on Android
  • and 4,000 downloads of the training app
• takes about 30-45 minutes to learn the combinations
• working to make the learning curve lower all the time

23snaps

Meaghan Fitzgerald, CMO; Ivailo Jordanoc, Co-Founder

http://www.23snaps.com @23Snaps

• mobile-first private social network for families
• spans across different generations
• also organise photos by date & location
• 500K registered users
• posting one photo every second
• make money by selling photo print products
• have users in 179 countries
• going to be launching in Brazilian Portuguese
• content owned by creators
• also provide a one-click export of all content
• wanting to meet consumer electronics, mobile networks, etc
• don’t want advertising next to family photos
• may go for other monetization such as premium features

Available for iPhone, Android, Windows 8, email, web and printed books!

Capito Systems

Tony Ballardie, CEO

http://www.capitosystems.com @CapitoSystems

• speech assistant technology specifically for mobile commerce
• about to sign first customer
• language variations, background noise?
  • have focussed on language understanding rather than speech recognition
• aiming to license to mobile commerce companies
• have built support tools to enable customers to build up a speech corpus of domain language

Viewranger

Ben Howard, Marketing & Sales Exec; Craig Wareham, CEO & Co-Founder

http://www.viewranger.com @viewranger

• digital mobile platform for outdoor activities
• interest-based social network
• publishing platform
• trail guide marketplace
• over 2 million app downloads
• used by over 100 search & rescue teams in UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Germany, Ukraine
• work with 22 mapping agencies & trail guides from 400 brands
  • including CAMRA :-)
• wanting to engage with handset OEMs & wearable manufacturers
• earn revenue through:
  • premium in-app data & services (maps & guides)
  • premium services & analytics for brands
  • syndication of content
  • could go for advertising in the future (have steered away so far to keep UX well)
• main competitors are still dedicated devices
• there are sport-based apps that seem to be fragmenting the need

Available for iPhone & iPad, Android and Nokia

UBIAPPS (Nquiring Minds)

Nick Allot, CEO

http://www.ubiapps.com @nallott

• secure end to end framework for managing apps both online & offline
• server management + enterprise-grade security is proprietary
• protocol is open-source (JSON-RPC over HTTP)
• all nodes are two-way — can manage apps and IoT devices using the same system
• easy & quick to integrate on any device
• looking to work with system integrators
• seen most interest so far from asset tracking systems

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Announcements

• Vision Mobile Developer Economics Survey
  • http://visionmobile.com/DE1Q14MoMoLon
• IDEALondon offering desks, mentoring & support for start-ups and SMEs working on new products & services
  • apply at http://idea-london.com

MomoLondon: Mobile, Maps & Geolocation — so much more than “Where am I?”

This Monday’s session was a little less lively than the previous session on mobile marketing. I expected the panel to violently disagree with each other on licensing, data costs and providing data to the public… but they were all far too polite!

The panel discussion covered a wide variety of subjects, fulfilling the session’s premise: geocoding, open data, data quality, visualisation, alternative methods of navigation, indoor location… It was a huge area to cover in a couple of hours.

For me, the main change in the last year or two has been the opening up of data sets. Open Street Map has gone from strength to strength and can now be linked up with live transport information and other citywide data sets.

As Jeni Tennison remarked, the most exciting area at the moment is putting all this data together in innovative ways. More than the Google Maps mashups of earlier years, we can now experience 3D immersive visualisations of cities, with real-time data pulsing through the streets and under the ground — like ViziCities, for example.

Panel

• Gary Gale @vicchi
  • Director of Global Community Programs for Nokia’s HERE
• Christopher Osborne @osbornec
  • Currently at AlertMe, and founder and organiser of GeoMob
• Jeni Tennison @JeniT
  • Technical Director at the Open Data Institute and member of the W3C TAG
• Ian Holt @IanHolt
  • Head of Developer Outreach at Ordnance Survey
  • just launched their new OS OpenSpace SDK for iOS
  • offline maps really useful
• Harry Wood @harry_wood
  • Currently at http://placr.co.uk and OpenStreetMap volunteer

How easy is it for devs to turn lat/longs into human-readable info?

• HW: hard work to go to postcode or nearest POIs
  • getting hold of open data is important
  • is displaying the map the best thing?
  • FourSquare did really well with a location-based app that didn’t show a map
• GG: location powered by FourSquare has become a heavily used API
  • it’s free to access but large amounts of usage lead to business negotiations
  • similar for other geocoding APIs
• JT: Open Street Map allows us to choose what we want to mark on the map
  • Ordnance Survey was mainly restricted to Churches and Pubs…
  • Open Street Map has shops (and pubs!)
• IH: how do you ensure that all the data is there?
• HW: it’s a problem that goes away with time
  • always find your nearest pub? getting there in the UK, but some patches in the north with less coverage
  • but the map gets built out on an interest-first basis, so better coverage in more interesting/populated areas

How much do we trust what we see on our mobiles?

• GG: in US a woman sued Google ‘cos the walking maps told her to walk across all 16 lanes of a superhighway…
• HW: we trust it too much in some cases
  • OS really shines with quality of data
• IH: Google & Apple’s branding has gone a long way to encourage trust in map data
• CO: Apple chose not to visualise lots of data on the map, but they got panned for it
• HW: there’s an active market in insuring map makers against maritime mapping mistakes
  • it’s an expensive mistake when a supertanker runs aground…
• GG: people have been hauled before the coastguards for using consumer mapping systems to navigate ships
• GG: people tend to accept what they have on their phones

Should map data producers make end-user systems? Or leave it up to smaller companies?

• IH: paper-based maps couldn’t change, so had to make one-off presentation decisions
  • now the data can change for the user context
• CO: routing is hard - still dominated by big companies with background with navigation
  • but lots of space for smaller companies in other areas
• IH: huge explosion of neo-geographers a few years ago
  • lots of mash ups and visualisations using geo data

What’s next in display? Will wearables move away from the concept of maps?

• IH: we’ve always been shifting display methods…
• Jo Rabin: years ago, a taxi driver in Chicago had a book of turn by turn directions but no map
• HW: a large proportion of people get rather upset when they see a map (including Harry’s girlfriend…!)
• Audience: worth thinking about how blind people navigate
• IH: navigating a city by sound — turn away from the areas that sound threatening
  • Ed.: this is not new — there was an MIT project in this vein in 1999!!
• HW: Google Street View seems a useful addition at the moment, but not a replacement for basic navigation
• CO: 3D mapping is a bit gimmicky at the moment, but the data gathering behind it is massively useful
• GG: for every mapping service, you only ever see less than 5% of the underlying data
• CO: one of the best designed apps for mapping was an app for blind people on old Nokia phones — vibrate once for left, twice for right

What’s new and exciting in the next 3 years?

• GG: indoor navigation
  • multiple companies working on it
  • but all currently incompatible
  • holy grail: directions from your house, through the tube to the exact exhibit in the V&A Museum
• JT: putting open data together, e.g. being able to know when you’re in an area with a high risk of flooding after rain
  • 3D sim city-style simulation of London, with data such as crime rates superimposed
  • how can we bring in time-based information to our space-based navigation?
• IH: early years education
  • inherent part of the general data structure
  • Ed.: Scratch, a programming environment for children, is working on integrating Google Maps
• IW: Ed Parsons (Maps @ Google) — “geospatial will no longer be geo-special”
  • not just a map screen in the app, but mixed throughout the app
  • promise of access to raw data
• GG: NOAA have produced a low-power app which warns you about tornados, just using cell tower data
  • another innovative location-based service which doesn’t require a map…
• CO: massive growth in transactional apps, e.g. Hailo & YPlan
  • also Google etc building an ecosystem e.g. their purchase of Waze
• GG: wearables: I wouldn’t buy Google Glass, but I would buy a smart watch
• GG: hospitals making savings by tracking their equipment locations (and stopping it sprouting legs)

Licensing

• GG: businesses scared of using OSM data due to fear that they will have to share their private data
• HW: share-a-like license aims to ensure that data is not taken and locked away
• JT: OpenCorporates make company data available for free on a share-a-like license, but also offer a paid license with less viral terms
• HW: OSM can’t do that — would have to agree with all contributors…

What about mobile operators? Indoor location?

• GG: cell tower location works well in urban areas
  • less so in countryside…
  • and mobile operators in Germany are restricted to telling you only two of the nearby cell towers (not enough to get a fix)
  • mobile operators had their chance 8-10 years ago when they tried to sell their data to marketing companies
• CO: starting to see traction in government
  • e.g. who’s moved on what roads at what speed
  • useful for real-time traffic management
  • high value areas: marketing & business intelligence

Coping with geospam…?

• HW: Google are already dipping their toes in the water there (Ed: e.g. the map tiles have advertising built-in)
• IH: walking past a shop and being offered a service
• GG: been proved to be pretty worthless — you’ve already past when the message comes through
  • data of where you are not so valuable
  • where you’ve been is more valuable
  • where you will be is where the money will be made

Apple iBeacons — Bluetooth LE with an ID

• CO: one inspiration for that comes from certain countries with restrictive regimes
  • walk into a bar and turn bluetooth on — get offered services that are normally not available
  • need a strong well-designed way to broker your data

Where are you failed by current map services?

• HW: developing world — none of existing providers have coverage
  • Google Map Makers pushing hard
  • Open Street Map
• Dan Appelquist: cycle maps for London
  • Google maps keeps on directing me through routes on Hampstead Heath that are not passable by bike
  • http://cyclestreets.net routing for bikes based on OpenStreetMap data
• CO: pedestrian mapping
  • most of the data has come from driving cars around
  • huge value as people much more likely to make a purchase when they are walking
• GG: but getting data is hard as many areas are private
  • no public right of way
  • hard for commercial companies to map
  • OSM has an advantage here — can’t really sue OpenStreetMap for trespass

How long rather than how far away?

• IH: common GIS function, but doesn’t crop up in consumer stuff
• JT: mapumental by mysociety — where should I live so that I can commute to work?

Royal Mail PAF file restrictions

big database of postcodes & business locations for the UK — really valuable and the Royal Mail are holding tight…

• JT: campaigning to open it, but it seems extremely unlikely
  • would have to create an open street gazetteer
  • if someone would like to sponsor it — please see Jeni!

Linking to map model data

• HW: most OSM data has a URL
• GG: for roads — Nokia has Routing Segments, OSM has Ways, OS has ITN (Integrated Transport Network)

Summary

• JT: collaboration is the most interesting area
• IH: everybody should edit something on OpenStreetMap.org
• GG: expected a question on location & privacy, Facebook & Google…
  • “I now trust big internet companies more than I do the government”

Next session

• July 15th: Mobile Operating Systems — with Ubuntu from Canonical

MomoLondon: Data Driven Mobile Apps - Open data and more...

I missed last month’s Mobile Monday on Mobile Games but this panel more than made up for it.

Thanks to Jo Rabin and the rest of the Mobile Monday team for organising, and to Kasabi for the drinks!

Panel

• Chair: Matt Biddulph @mattb - http://hackdiary.com
  • used to run http://dopplr.com
  • then worked for Nokia as Head of Data Strategy in Location & Commerce apps
  • any mobile phone company is becoming an information company
  • a data driven app is one that gets better the more data it has
  • good example is the evolution of Foursquare
  • in the last few months, they have added features to let you explore the area around you
  • human interaction and input makes data come alive
• Leigh Dodds @ldodds - CTO, Kasabi
  • Kasabi trying to make data more accessible and easier to use
  • most of the apps I use are just interfaces to content, though not really data driven
  • data driven would be getting data from lots of people, or from historical data
  • favourite app is MyFitnessPal: a calorie tracking app that tracks everything he eats — either barcode or search
• Jeni Tennison @JeniT - Linked Data Expert, Technical Architect for http://legislation.gov.uk
  • been involved in data.gov.uk esp. linked data
  • mobile devices have a lot of context available
  • how do we create the API that allows us to get out just the data we need for right here, right now?
  • what is the UI to summarise the data and pull out the really interesting bits?
  • pulling in data from multiple sources
  • feeding back data
• Ian Holt @IanHolt - Developer Programme Manager, Ordnance Survey
  • quality of data is paramount
  • OS run masterclasses to help people use their data
  • favourite data app: ASBOrometer
  • what was important was people’s perception of the data…
• Hannah Donovan @han - Design Director, This Is My Jam
  • used to work at last.fm
  • thisismyjam is just coming out of beta
  • data driven apps provide a key to the mess of the universe around you

What are your favourite datasets

• LD: NHS dictionary of medicines and devices
  • recently been relicensed under new open govt license
  • everything that you could ever be prescribed
  • annotated with mappings through to product codes — so can scan a barcode and get a reference
  • good base data set as can reliably ensure people are talking about the same thing
  • a crucial problem in big data…
• IH: often the geo data is a backdrop rather than the actual IDs
• HD: echonest danceability
  • at a hackday made a prototype to throw a track at a robot to dance to it

Do apps get worse with more data?

e.g. twitter signal/noise dropping?

• HD: bad example: Spotify getting hooked up to facebook and timelines being spammed…
  • thisismyjam trying for a slower pace
  • doing things realtime is hard but just becoming possible
  • has been a trend just to add more realtime ‘cos it’s cool
  • but actually we want to see more useful social & cultural info not just realtime firehose (“API vomit”)
• IH: crowdsourcing is great but watch the quality…
• JT: developers like to put everything on the screen
  • but need to think about that the user wants to do and how they’re going to do it
• MB: should be a symbiotic relationship between designer and developer
  • not even back and forth, but an exploration

Good/bad experiences of designer and developer? How do you avoid API vomit?

• LD: pairing up with a designer to explore some ideas is really interesting
  • designer asking “can I do this?” - stretching the developer
• attendee: disagree completely! esp. govt should not pre-judge data based on use cases
• IH: there has to be cartographic decisions at some point
  • what do we do now that we want digital output from the data that was collected previously for paper use
• JT: there’s difference between what is available in the API and what’s shown in the UI

Historically, data was in libraries by default — in the public domain. But now owned by corporations. Have we sleepwalked into the police state?

• LD: in a library is not public domain - now data is more accessible
• HD: there were also people who controlled the content in libraries and only a few people had access
  • now the data is accessible from anywhere, not just in a big city centre

Combination of licenses from different data

• Creative Commons movement has tried to clarify the concepts of collaborative works etc
• If I want to take open govt data and combine it with wikipedia…?
• LD: there aren’t any hard and fast answers
  • still in a murky state
  • Creative Commons is very useful and people are starting to apply them to their data, but creative commons licenses do not apply to content in Europe
  • though there does appear to be CC 2.0 licenses available
  • been some work in Creative Data Commons
  • commercial data has custom licenses
  • generally assume that the most restrictive license applies
  • attribution stacking problem — might have to attribute 1000 people to use one piece of data

Where does the data in an app come from?

• IH: data may be untraceable
• HD: really important to tell your users where the data is coming from
  • we still need quite a lot of different sources
  • content, editorial, user generated
  • depending on what you’re looking for, the answer might be different every time
• JT: in legislation data, trying to maintain audit trails
  • if something goes wrong, want to know where

If data is important to people, it will tend to become free…

• IH: OpenStreetMap are a wonderful bunch of people
  • OS remit is to capture a high degree of detail
  • have to have a universal coverage of Britain
  • some of data has been released as open, and some is licensed
  • keep pressuring for what you want and it might be delivered…

A mobile data driven app: integration and consequence

• MB: important word is “driven”
  • there are plenty of static data sets, and data based applications
  • the thing that I do is magnified either by the depth of reference, or the other people who have done a similar thing
  • need to involve connected reference data and activity data
• HD: people are the special sauce
  • navigating a mess - the layers that people create around what’s around
• MB: in the first year or two, delicious.com/popular or the twitter hashtags were actually interesting
  • but with too much data, everything tends to bland
  • this is a huge issue with data driven apps
• HD: last.fm data was indie focussed
  • but when integrated with XBox suddenly changed overnight to reflect country wide
  • overall stats now reflect national taste
  • but can drill down by category
  • but need to watch out for the important filters — make sure you don’t lose the “friend dataset”

Data protection: need to ask users to explicitly opt-in

• IH: MapAction in Haiti
  • some events will create a lot of noise
  • needed to concentrate in specific countries
• JT: UK is pretty near the forefront of open govt
  • open data institute
  • hard to work in balance with legal framework

Privacy: user backlash

e.g. Path uploading your address book without asking

• LD: product development — want to get as much data as possible as that’s where the value is
  • from the consumer side, want to know where the benefit is for me
  • don’t want to give it away just for marketing or selling on
• HD: we’re currently working with blunt tools when explaining to user how we want to use consumer’s data
  • OAuth screens don’t offer room to tell you how your data will be used

Web or apps?

• MB: most exciting thing is the phone being full of sensors
  • the map (generated data) can become worth more than the territory (the app you build)
  • so always think about native apps over web
• JT: (as W3C contributor) should always be using proper web apps, of course…
  • but apps can always get more data than generic standard APIs
  • payment model is good on devices but not good at the moment on open web

Is there a good description of different types of data and how you might need to combine them?

• HD: use cases are fundamental
  • often see a tendency to make things consistent
  • but the different things may have different contexts
  • for example, last.fm on a TV with XBox is different to what you would want on your phone
• LD: took a while for the language of film to evolve
  • maybe we’re going through the same thing in mobile?

What kind of data stores are people using in real life? NoSQL, RDF, Oracle…?

• MB: more about really rigorous approach to data identity
  • have to keep provenance and individual promises

Is there any way I could buy and sell my data?

• LD: lot of work going on in this area
  • storing personal data and allowing apps access to it
  • My X (?) in the UK
  • Ed.: I couldn’t find a reference for this one

Announcements

• 19th March: ePublishing/eBooks
• 2nd April: DEMO NIGHT
  • applications open very shortly!
  • looking for 16 companies
• Mobile 360 Live
  • 20% discount for Mobile Monday London members

BarCamp London 8: wheelmap.org

Holger Dieterich — @holgerd

More details on lanyrd

• http://wheelmap.org — find wheelchair accessible places to eat & drink
• Made by http://sozialhelden.de — Social Heroes
  • one of the founders is in a wheelchair
  • problem is not how to get somewhere, but how to find somewhere suitable
  • is there a step? is the toilet accessible?
• databases in Germany have 30,000 places, but they’re not so easy to use (mostly commercial)
• had a wheelchair tag in OpenStreetMap before they started, but only about 5,000 places were tagged
• now have about 18,000 places in germany
  • 300-400 places edited a day!
• website finds your location by IP and offers you places to edit/add
• also an iPhone app
  • using OpenLayers to display
• CloudMade is good, but is read-only and not updated regularly (once a month!)
  • want to have immediate update
  • don’t yet have immediate, but 3 minutes is close
  • OpenStreetMap itself is sometimes down (for three days at one point), so had to implement caching and their own intermediate API
• also approaching companies to share their data…
  • they’re really scared… so talking with Berlin government to convince them
• having slight issues with OSM community as wheelmap data is added anonymously by a pseudonymous user
  • but it’s better that data gets added
  • and there’s no real chance of spam since the data is added automatically

Droidcon London 2010 - Day One

I’m heading home with my brain stuffed full of new knowledge from Droidcon London 2010. And this was just the first day, with unplanned, unprepared barcamp-style presentations!

Most of the presentations today were technical (tomorrow there’s a design and business thread as well) but they varied from doing continuous integration through discussing low-level TCP details to a Q&A session with some of Google’s Android team.

I’m seriously looking forward to the second day’s programme.

In the meantime, here’s my notes for the sessions I attended:

Android UI tricks from Sony Ericsson

• limit of 200ms to respond to user interactions — don’t do long running tasks in the UI thread
• so how do you deal with longer lasting processes? use the Handler & Service classes
• …and use Toasts to show quick popup status
• number of devices on 1.5 is below 10%
• all demos will be available on the Sony Ericsson developer blog

Handler

• don’t use inner class Runnables inside a Handler (save heap & garbage collector)
• within XML use onClick for buttons
• handler.sendEmptyMessageDelayed(message, delay);
• then have a message handler that deals with loop & sends next message
  • any UI activity should be in a Runnable called with runOnUiThread(runnable)
• don’t forget onDestroy

Service

• used for downloading
• pass a message from service to activity by implementing your own Application class
• Application defines callback interface and methods to fire & receive
• use IntentService for your service
  • deals with sequential handling automatically
• call to the application (need to cast getApplication())
• don’t use AIDL interfaces — unless you want to share service with other apps or between multiple processes in your app

Animation

• create an AnimationSet and add Animations within the getAnimation call
• second parameters for RotateAnimation are relative to view, not screen
• can also do animations in layout.xml
• Twitter app removed animations from their home screen…
  • the background was a live wallpaper — consumes a lot of battery
  • continuous animations can use up battery so be careful
  • shouldn’t be a problem with performance though
• see also Zooming demo and

BootListener

• when the phone is rebooted, the alarms are cleared
• don’t listen for boot completed unless you really have to
  • slows down startup if you have too many
• can have a broadcast receiver that is disabled
• in app xml set bootlistener disabled by default
• then in listener when intent comes through: {{{ context.getPackageManager().setComponentEnabledSetting( new(ComponentName(context, BootListener.class), PackageManger.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_DISABLED, PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP) }}}

3D & OpenGL with Android views

• combine the strengths of Android views (text, layout, etc) with OpenGL (3D but not text)
• create a bitmap
• use MeasureSpec method
• draw the view onto the OpenGL texture bitmap
• GLUtils.texImage2D(...)
• if you do this today, suggest you use OpenGL ES 2.0

Location services

led by Nick Black, Founder & Head of Products at Cloudmade

cloudmade

• cloudmade will support Android later this year with a Maps SDK
  • based on OpenStreetMaps
  • worked out a way to squeeze vector data onto the device
  • map data comes as you need it and is stored locally on device
  • downloadable data includes searchable street names, etc
  • early access available end of this year, early next year
• cloudmade also has http://maps.cloudmade.com/editor to let you choose and configure your design —- your style will work on mobile too!

Impleo

• formed from ex-Motorola & Alcatel employees
• also adding tracking for insurance
  • includes accelerometer info so can tell how good a driver you are!

cloudmade location-based advertising

• created a network that finds highest value ads from other networks
• goes out to other ad networks, will also go out to more specialist networks
• trying to deal with the fill-rate problem…
• some android apps got backlash when adding advertising after the app release
  • put the ads in at the beginning!

map data

• most owned by Google, Nokia or Tomtom (Navteq)
• skobbler Android app - built on cloudmade’s navigation service
• cloudmade see navigation services not as an app but as a feature within apps
• Google don’t allow access to driving directions API on Android

google latitude and other services

• Is anyone using the latitude API?
• GPS in Android drains the battery quite heavily
• if things are further away then turn off GPS temporarily
• battery management isn’t good built-in
  • have to manage your own choice between coarse and fine location services
• Motorola went to use Skyhook instead of Google location API on Android
  • that way they would get data for their customers WiFi location
  • Google forced them to switch back to Google location
  • Skyhook now suing Google…

Always in sync client & local unit testing

Carl from Novoda (@charroch)[http://twitter.com/charroch]

RESTProvider

• available on github
  • depends on JacksonJSON etc
• makes a RESTful API available as a Content Provider
• couple of branches — caching_carl one stores locally in SQLite
• can start service with loads of requests — it will handle them in a queue
• can add params: putExtra("params", new List(...))
• Tip: adb shell setprop log.tag.Database VERBOSE
  • slows it down a lot
  • can add your own tags too
• ResultReceiver: a way of passing back status to app UI
• if connectivity is lost, it stops the queue
• need to watch out for the user setting to disable background downloading
• extend HttpQueuedService
  • override getMarshaller
  • create a LoggableJsonRequest with a marshall method to store data using a ContentProviderOperation
• library supports ETags too — saves a download as server data is just a HEAD response
• also created novoda.mixml (minimal XML) which works in same way as Jackson JSON
  • integrated into RestProvider to cope with XML content as well as JSON
• hopefully have time to build a more stable version over the new year
• end goal: to have declarations in application XML and service definition

Unit testing of android classes without emulator

• see also the RestProvider code on github
• android.jar only contains stubs, so can’t even instantiate
  • major problem for your subclasses even when you only want to test your additional methods
• PowerMock works somewhat
• need to find a different way of doing the tests
• Carl has copied the source of the Android classes into his test source and modified them to ensure no call to the system…
  • not too hard — just need to ensure that the constructor can work
• have to keep your code copy up to date with the base Android source
  • but it doesn’t matter that much as you won’t be testing Android code
• possible next step: Android will run on Intel — could run locally with unit tests
• currently have three projects:
  1. main classes
  2. local tests using this mechanism
  3. instrumentation tests
• changing to have a single folder with tests marked with annotations
  • want to have some tests marked as local if possible
  • android instrumentation tests should run all of tests (including local tests)
• maven could be overkill for Android development
  • build process is quite well-defined, not that many other libs
• SBT could be interesting (simple build tool, written in Scala)

App Analytics from Capptain

• combining in-app analytics with CRM
• collect/measure -> analysis -> engage
• send messages to users and get feedback
• SDK available in Android and iOS
• similar services: motally (acquired by Nokia) & xtify
• released beta two days ago
• have REST/JSON API for data
  • not publicly available right now, but available on a case-by-case basis

• also have a real-time API

• pricing:

  • free during beta period
  • haven’t decided pricing structure
  • probably freemium — pay for additional functions/users

new analytics capabilities

• how long users are spending in each screen of your app
• really nice user path — based on screens, not events
• real-time analytics — can monitor where people are in your app right now
• crash logs with device, firmware, etc details
• as per other analytics, store data locally and send later if not connected
• Android SDK automatically picks up activities

CRM

• announcements and polls
• target by carrier, country
• test before publish by sending to a single device
• schedule for particular times

Qualcomm Alljoyn

http://developer.qualcomm.com/dev/alljoyn-p2p

• exposes a shared communication bus based on DBus
• automatically uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as device allows
• Java and C interfaces
• Java interface lets you just send/receive/call POJOs
• Wi-Fi uses mDNS to find services by well known name (a URI)

Continuous Integration with Maven & Hudson

Hugo Josefson from Jayway (founded Maven Android plugin)

http://code.google.com/p/maven-android-plugin/

Slides and Hudson installation script available from http://code.google.com/p/maven-android-plugin/wiki/Presentations

Android and Maven

• there’s also a proguard plugin — can use to trim unused classes
• maven can handle inter-project dependencies
  • keep pure Java code in a Library (so can have local unit tests)
  • then can have app depend on library and on-device tests depend on app
  • see Samples project for MorseFlash example
• there’s also an Eclipse plugin that helps ADT & Eclipse understand that they’re dealing with Maven
• the process that takes the longest time is the DEXing

Android, Maven and Hudson

• don’t see any reason to run Hudson in Tomcat — it comes with its own webserver
  • though it should work fine within Tomcat too
• Android emulator plugin for Hudson: http://wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/HUDSON/Android+Emulator+Plugin
• emulator settings: 2.2, mdpi, hvga, en_US, 64M
• can loop through different settings for emulator
• Hudson server needs some X libraries but will still run headless
• currently don’t find out which tests fail when Android tests fail — have to look at logs

Google Q & A

I only noted down one question from the second Google Bootcamp Q & A session:

• can you target apps at Android tablets?
  • can target large screen devices (currently Galaxy Tab + Dell Streak)
  • will also hit Evo 4G as that has hi resolution too, but smaller screen

MomoLondon: Go your own way? A fresh look at LBS

Tonight’s event was probably the busiest I’ve ever seen the CBI Centre — the room was packed and there were loads of new faces. In terms of the content, there were good bits and not so good old bits — the “walk past a shop and get a voucher” idea reared its ugly head yet again, despite being shown several times to be of no interest either to advertisers or to the consumers.

Vodafone showed off their 360 phone and some services, but shorn of the glitzy launch, it looked a little clunky. The panellists spent a lot of time talking about foursquare and Andrew Scott of Rummble got a few words in edgeways. I’m not quite convinced that either of them have a business model. Shazam looked impressive and gave a good demo — they do have a business model, even with Spotify around. The guy from Cloudmade knows his stuff about maps (the stuff they do is fantastic), but didn’t seem to have much of a clue about mobile.

Skyhook Wireless

Kate Imbach

• Now selling hybrid location: Wi-Fi, Cell ID & GPS
• 10-20m accuracy within 1s
• Drive to find networks
• London coverage follows people, but empty in parks
• 125m+ APs worldwide
• 70% population coverage in Europe
• Commercial apps require an ad revenue share or a licensing fee
• Free apps can use SDK for free

Some examples (all on the iPhone):

• Sit or squat — rate toilets…
• MyStarbucks
• Flixster — cinema reviews w/social features + find cinemas & restaurants close by
• Shazam tying music to locations
• Sportacular — voting by location, then see stats over country
• TuneWiki — see where people are listening to what music, and what’s popular around you

Advertising

• MyTraffic — driving alerts, works in Boston
  • has smarter location-based advertising — but who is selling them?
• Scoreloop — location-based leaderboards
• Amazon — what’s popular in Seattle this week? what are the business books selling in London?

http://www.skyhookwireless.com/developers/developersguide.pdf

New launch — Maps Booster for S60

• feeds Skyhook location into all location APIs on the phone

Vodafone 360 Demo

Patrick Weissert

• WiFinder acquired by Voda and providing location for 360 phone
• VF 360 widgets (see http://jil.org) have location API available
• Apparently Vodafone 360 is still beta…

Flook

Tristan Brotherton

• browse photos (“cards”) around you and see where they are
• can add comments to the cards
• have a follow model like twitter
• can collect cards you find interesting (favourite)
  • can then add categories
• scoring mechanism
  • if other people collect your cards, you score more
• seems too much like twitter with twitpic
• (integrates with twitter)
• what’s the business model?

Shazam

Jonathan Symons

• > 35m users
• live in 150 countries
• Jonathan’s role is to think of the money…
• money comes from:
  • users getting involved, sharing app & music
  • buying things
• getting roughly 60,000 tweets of music a day
• “I can find myself in a bar”…
• meet new people who like the same music
• basic service for free, funded by advertising & follow-on content acquisition
• additional services cost

Panel Session

Panellists:

• Stuart Dredge of Mobile Entertainment
• Kate Imbach, Skyhook Wireless
• Jennifer Hicks, Ink Communication
• Nic Black, Cloudmade
• Roberta Lucca, Vertu
• Patrick Weissert, Vodafone

Vertu

• just launched a new phone
• together with a location awareness service
• Vertu consumers work hard, play hard, spend hard
• travel way more than average
• not digital natives — use things that are relevant for them
• want recommendations & whole experience, completed with human concierge

Cloudmade

• here to lower the barriers to entry for location apps
• making location a feature, not a whole application

Ink Comms

• Global Marketing & Strategy
• analysis

Is iPhone leading the way? What about Android & Symbian?

• KI: a lot of focus on iPhone
  • Android devs scaling back and going for iPhone instead, since that’s where the money is now
  • Lots of faith in Android but it will take its time
• NB: various limits for iPhone, esp. everything has to be active
  • Android allows swapping out services for others, e.g. using Cloudmade map service instead of Google
• PW: VF360 addresses 3 out of 6 segments
  • iPhone is making mainstream what we thought a couple of years ago was just for geeks
  • Android will take similar path
  • can share VF360 even if you’re not on Vodafone (and it picks up facebook, etc)

Foursquare

• JH: foursquare may come up with a biz model with advertising on a local level
• NB: foursquare about building up local content
  • need it for developers to play with
• RL: content useful and so is location, but targeting is vital — need to match the right content according to the influencers
• NB: have a choice of “what don’t I show on the map”
  • depending on the activity, the time, the context
• SD: segmenting by the apps you select
• RL: sometimes people don’t want discover things — they want the choice made for them

Has the industry come round to starting with the service rather the tech?

• KI: lots of complaints that the Apple App Store has too many apps, but there are a lot of niches
• KI: 100s of millions of lookups every day — location is becoming ubiquitous within apps, becoming mainstream

How are people making money?

• KI: Visa are sponsoring a shopping app, seeing $15-24 CPMs — does anyone know what this is?
• JH: still trying to come together
  • lives in Amsterdam, people are using foursquare like crazy
  • social networking side of location services
• NB: releasing first part of location based advertising service later this year
  • tailor advertising to app’s context
• RL: need to involve audience
• PW: flixter are ticketmaster — they sell tickets
  • the app is advertising for their own service

@torgo: What about the privacy issues? Could that lead to a backlash against location services?

• KI: app developers are sensitive to the privacy issues
  • generally sharing location for the user experience
  • weird when app asks for location for no reason
  • Skyhook don’t do user application tracking
• JH: consumer issues will hit as this stuff spreads
  • consumers can get picky
  • getting libel suits as twitter becomes mass market
• NB: thinks the early adopter community are more concerned by privacy issues

How does immediacy affect social mores?

• RL: different countries reacting differently
  • next generation will not bother about personal info
  • e.g. Google StreetMap just useful
• KI: gave up on privacy after my mother guilted me into accepting her friend request on facebook
• Floor: In Amsterdam, youth feel privacy is very important
• JH: want you to ask permission to share their info
  • teens will not part with their phones
  • will not be sliced by age; depends on industry
• PW: need to enable location selectively
  • not enable every tweet
  • choose to

How does Vertu work with location?

• RL: Vertu handsets are Series 40, but luxury
  • use of location is made clear — transparency
• SD: more like “push my location to the paparazzi right now!”

What is the thing that O2 UK could do that would be most helpful?

• NB: reduce barriers to entry: make location part of the platform, and pay them for using it, via location

Does advertising really work?

• A user is in Kensington, shoe shopping and I want to serve them an ad. Right now, advertisers might have an advert about shoes, probably clothing instead, almost certainly not Kensington
• NB: might also want to tell people about coffee shops nearby
• JH: talks about walk-by advertising…
• @fj says “I’m not responsible for any store making money - get outta my phone!”
• KI: no inventory
  • no incentive to sell more targeted ads as they sell less impressions that way
  • location-based banner ads are probably not the way things will go
• PW: time & location push model doesn’t really work
  • more about pull — enabling people to find you

Will there be more integration between mobile and web apps?

• PW: VF360 all about that. Can sync them up
• RL: all about lead time: takes a long time to put a new device on the market, but not to launch a service

Are we going to see content fragmentation?

• PW: biggest problem of app store model — think that services will converge
• SD: federating content like wikipedia
• NB: will be launching a “publish content through a central service” later this year

For certain apps, a facebook app is worth about 400 leads

• JH: it’s too early
  • foursquare think they will make money from local advertising
  • they’re experimenting at the moment
• Andrew Scott: foursquare not making money — just taken $100m of funding…
• RL: concentrate on providing something that is highly valuable for their consumers

Upcoming events

• 26 Oct — Mobile Phones for the Senior Market
  • Even in the UK there is only about 50% penetration in the 55+ market
  • Learn about the opportunities and how to take advantage of them
• 26 Oct PM — DCKTN Mobile World Congress competition judging
• 9 Nov — Mobile Monday joint birthday part w/Swedish Beers
• 7 Dec — Heroes of the Mobile Screen
• 4 Dec — OpenMIC in Guildford on AR & Location