With the release of firmware 2.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch you can now install third party applications on your device.
One which has just been released is a WordPress app which allows you to write and publish blog entries from your iPhone or iPod touch as I am doing now.
Seems to work well so far.
Though it has to be said that typing on an iPod touch is not fantastic, and without copy and paste means you can’t copy stuff from another application or the web.
Intel’s cheap and cheerful (and in my opinion quite ugly) low end cheap laptop is now available in the UK.
The Register reports on the £239 computer.
Dubbed the JumPC, the Small, Cheap Computer is based on a 900MHz Intel Celeron Mobile processor and the chip giant’s 915GMS chipset. It has 512MB of DDR 2 memory on board and 2GB of Flash storage – though you can select a 30GB HDD instead.
The unit has an Eee PC-style 7in, 800 x 480 display; two USB ports; 10/100Mb/s Ethernet and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. There’s a webcam too.
Oh it comes with a handle too!
It comes with Windows XP and is another entrant in the micro-laptop UMPC market which is having an impact on the UK educational IT scene.
Engadget reports on the release of Opera Mobile 9.5.
Today, it’s out for a beta 1 launch. In other words, it’ll be buggy but likely far more useful than the browser already installed on your touchscreen-based (PocketPC) WinMo professional phone. The initial release includes support for double-tap zoom, landscape flip, off-line page save, tab-like browsing, auto-URL complete, and a Google-search bar to name just a few of the 9.5 features.
Looking good. 
43 Folders has posted a short review of the Evernote application for the iPhone (or the iPod touch).
I need to do a full post on Evernote here some time soon, because it really is a nifty little application for collecting, storing, and organizing practically any kind of information you can throw at it. The iPhone version is a stripped-down, all-business version of the app that will scratch an itch for Evernote fans who are fatigued by having to email everything to the mothership.
Having used it myself, it works quite well.
I have been using Evernote for a while now.
Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.
Now what I like about Evernote, is not only can you use it online from any web browser, they also have clients for OS X and Windows. If you have a Tablet PC you can even use your “Pen” to make notes too.
They also have a Windows Mobile client and one should also be available for the iPhone (and so the iPod touch) soon.
There is this video which helps explain things a little better.
Now from a learning perspective this could have real potential for learner in keeping all their electronic notes in one place. They won’t need to worry about if they are learning at home, in college, at work, whilst mobile or wherever they are.
Pen support means that those learners who prefer to write notes can, whilst those that prefer to type will be able to.
You can even add audio notes.
Well worth checking out, it use to be invite only, but as of yesterday it is now an open beta which means anyone can sign up.
Evernote is now in open beta! No more invitations required. Tell all your friends.
Find out more.
Robert Scoble on TechCrunch has written a well detailed and informative article on why he reckons that Kyte.tv will win over other services such as Qik in the mobile phone streaming live video arena.
Anyway, back to the fight between Kyte, Qik, and Flixwagon over your cell phone video experience. Last year I was Kyte’s top user too. Why did I switch to Qik? Because I saw that cell phone video would let me extend my brand into places no other video network was letting me get to. I was the only one doing cell phone videos from the World Economic Forum, for instance, something that got me a lot of attention and followers. I told Kyte’s CEO, Daniel Graf, tons of times over the past seven months to get video streaming into his product. At first he resisted, thinking it wasn’t that big a deal, but on Friday I finally tested it out on my cell phone and was impressed enough to give Kyte a second look.
Robert Scoble is one of the top (if not the top) streaming mobile phone video users and has done some really interesting stuff at events all over the world.
I have mentioned Qik before, for me it certainly has a lot of potential as a tool for learning (and likewise could be a legal minefield in terms of privacy and data protection).
Article is certainly interesting and well worth reading.
This is the third e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Mainly Phone Stuff.
e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Mainly Phone Stuff
Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
Shownotes
So do you need an internet connected computer to “do” e-learning?
Well of course you don’t.
Back in 2006 I mentioned at an online conference about showing digital images on your TV. So there I was looking in the Guardian today when this advert caught my attention.
If you look closer at the features you see.
What this means is that if learning content is saved as a series of images onto an SD card then the learner will be able to view that content on their new HD TV as well as watch Freesat!
If they have a DVD player, say a £17 one from Tesco (or a console that can play DVDs) they could convert learning content, video, audio or presentation into a DVD format that can be burnt to DVD.
In fact the Mobile Learning on a VLE presentation I linked to above was also available (at the time) in various video formats for mobile devices, I also created a DVD version as well which worked really well on my TV.
A question for you: Can your learners easily convert learning content from whatever format you have it in and stored on the network (or on the VLE) into a format which will play on their TV or DVD player?
In a previous blog post I mentioned various digital video tools which allow learners to do just that.
Now a question you may have for me regarding interactivity; well watching content on a TV or through a DVD player may not be interactive at all, but this doesn’t mean that the learning activity as a whole needs to be non-interactive. A book is generally non-interactive, but that doesn’t stop it being used as part of a learning activity or scenario. The same can be done with content on a TV (and often is with a video shown in a classroom or on YouTube).
So is this mobile learning, well it’s not using a mobile device, but certainly is learning out of the college and the classroom and therefore the learner is learning whilst mobile in a “sitting on the sofa” kind of way. It is about the learner deciding to choose where they access their learning, whether that be in college, on a mobile device such as a phone, or at home sitting on the sofa in front of their 41″ HD television.
Finally who will be buying TVs like the one advertised, I think you will be surprised by who does.
Nokia has bought the rest of Symbian and has “given” it away to the community via the Symbian Foundation.
Probably in response to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, Nokia has purchased the rest of Symbian and has announced, according to the The Register, that it will be then “giving it away”.
Nokia has bought up the bits of Symbian it didn’t already own and is chucking the OS into an open-source foundation along with the S60 UI layer, accompanied by Sony Ericsson and DoCoMo, who are throwing in UIQ and MOAP(S) respectively.
The BBC adds:
Nokia, which already owns 48% of the UK-based firm, intends to develop its software to compete with Google’s planned Android operating system.
This is an interesting response by Nokia to the “threat” posed by Android and the iPhone.
I like Jaiku.
I also think you need to “do” Jaiku for a fair amount of time (and commitment) to get some real value from it.
There is value from incidental chat, what is incidental for me, may be new and innovative for you and vice versa.
Here’s an example of how useful Jaiku is to me.
http://xlearn.jaiku.com/presence/3775764…
Lils mentioned Bluetooth which reminded me I had not got the link to some Bluetooth software that she had mentioned before in a (live) training session, so I asked her.
Not only did I get the link, but an affirmation from (Gary at) Weston College on how they were using it successfully.
Personally I think of it as a more informal Champions mailing list with the added benefit of RSS feeds.