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
- 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
- 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
