What’s most interesting to me is that Google seems to be moving forward with a strategy of competing with iOS via services instead of just applications.

Services (like Conversation Mode translate, constantly updated turn by turn GPS driving directions, more deeply integrated Google Talks) give them leverage against the carriers, who have to meet Google guidelines for Android in order to include the flagship apps and represent a really high bar that Apple would have to overcome to compete.

I realize it isn’t exactly as cut and dried as services vs applications, but it is certainly a strong move that plays to Google’s strengths.

Trillions from MAYAnMAYA on Vimeo.

This is a short film (a fast paced preview of a larger effort) by MAYA Design created to put some perspective on the invisible but fast approaching challenges and opportunities in the pervasive computing age. For more information

More information at Maya.com

Luckily, the bug he was informing me of was sufficiently bone-headed on my part that I was able to distinguish what was going on, but for future reference I’ve put together the following list of how to best take screenshots from a variety of mobile devices:

iPhone / iPod Touch

Tap the Power button and the Home button simultaneously and a screenshot will be saved to your Pictures.

Blackberry

1. Browse to http://m.thetechmogul.com/
2. Install CaptureIt! for Blackberry
3. Use new menu option of “Capture It” to take a screenshot

[via: digital inspiration]

Windows Mobile

Use the free MyMobileR application to remotely control and take screenshots of your WinMob device.

Nokia S60

Use Antony Pranata’s Screenshot for Symbian OS

Sidekick Devices

Press menu+shift+shutter simultaneously to place a screenshot into your pictures.

The shutter button is (and I quote from Y! Answers) – “button u push on top of ur phone 2 take a pic”. Heck Ya it is!

How to Take Android Screenshots

Browse the Marketplace for “Android Screenshot”, a free utility for taking time based Android Screenshots.

[via: Sizzled Core

Automator is a drag and drop tool that allows you to quickly throw together time saving mini applications.

Something many people need to do is to repeatedly convert photos from one size or format to another, and while it’s easy enough to use Photoshop or another dedicated graphics tool to repeatedly Open > Save As > Close files it’s far from efficient.

Step 1: Find Automator

Automator is the application with the icon that looks like a rejected Wall-E case study (in your /Applications folder). Double click him to get started.

Step 2: Choose What To Modify

You’re going to want to drag and drop actions from the left side of the application onto the right “workflow” side of the application. Like gravity, reading and our current economic system, the actions will proceed from top to bottom.

As we’re going to be working with images, it may be tempting to choose the “Ask for Photos” action from the list. Don’t do it as the action should probably be titled “Ask for iPhoto images” as it’s not possible to just get a folder full of images to deal with.

Instead choose: “Ask for Finder items”, which is used for manipulating any combination of files and folders.

Step 3: Choose your Manipulations

From here you can drop in any type of image manipulation technique that you need: scaling, cropping, and thumbnailing are all options that both sound vaguely dirty and are available in Automator. Additionally, “Change Type of Images” will likely come in handy.

If you’d like to see all the options that are available, type “images” into the search box and read the descriptions.

Step 4: Test your Automation

Click the “Run” button in the upper right corner to begin processing. It’s a good idea to back up your files while you’re tweaking things to be just right as you’ll likely dramatically trash a few sets of images while you’re getting things right.

Step 5: Save your Automation as an Application

While you can save your Automation as either a “Workflow” (which will re-open Automator when run) or as an Application, I’d highly recommend saving as an application as it opens up a further world of possibilities: running jobs periodically with cron, distributing the workflow to non technical users, or even adding a cool icon and attempting to sell the application as your own batch processing tool.

We present a proof-of-concept system for
distributed computation of genetic programming via asyn-
chronous javascript and XML (AJAX) techniques which re-
quires no explicit user interaction and no installation of
client side software. Clients automatically and possibly even
unknowingly participate in a distributed genetic program-
ming system simply by visiting a webpage, thereby allowing
for the solution of genetic programming problems without
running a single local fitness evaluation. The system can be
easily introduced into existing webpages to exploit unused
client-side computation for the solution of genetic program-
ming and other problems.

Which I thought lent some interesting quasi legitimacy to my idea, only to almost immediately have my all these hopes dashed by the SETI@Home problem. Essentially the question is: How Can You Verify the results of a Distributed Calculation.

Potentially well meaning, developers have sought to “improve” the underlying SETI@Home algorithm to make it faster and to gain massive nerd bragging rights.
Unfortunately, the side effect of this also risks introducing subtle and overall extremely disruptive statistical anomalies into the overall project.

So, to combat well meaning, but misguided ideas like mine, the SETI project has implemented some classic methods of verifying distributed computations.

What is most interesting with all the the different techniques is that you get a real sense of a vibrant computational ecosystem of checks and cross checks happening within the staid confines of what is essentially a giant math problem.

I’ve been using a Sprint PCS modem with my laptop to insure that I don’t fall into Internet withdrawals and even when a hotel’s wireless is working well, I’m finding it to often still be twice as slow as the modem.

Hotel Access Numbers

Sprint Wireless Numbers

Today Scott Kurtz of PVP fame is writing about moving over his extremely popular site to ComicPress the WordPress installation designed just for Web Comic writers.

Even if you are not a fan of PVP (which you should be), I’d recommend checking it out as it starts to dig into some unique aspects of web publishing that are applicable to many other areas.

• How to structure a decade of archived visual works
• How to draw new readers into non-date specific story arcs (there aren’t “seasons” to the comic)

In keeping with this naming theme, the developer has some of the most evocative version release names I’ve ever seen. Checkout the screenshot:

Bruce Sterling’s inner 10 year old was excited by the Wargames Foundry’s Street Violence Mob horde.

While that collection as a whole is totally badass (and unfortunately also ships unpainted) there is one figure that needs special attention. Browsing through the individual collections I found the image below, and what name could possibly fit this skater punk with ironic gas station uniform? Why none other than “Linux”. All this character really needs is an Open Source is not a Crime T-Shirt to complete the look.

If you haven’t heard Nicholas Negroponte’s TED Talks presentation about the OLPC now, I would really urge you to take a few minutes to check it out as it’s a high point in the mix of social responsibility, technological progress and economics.

What really stuck in my mind from the presentation was: “What is failure?” and that it is not so much about shipping umpteen million of these devices, but about changing the process of how it is done and the attention that is paid to the 80% (my wildly unsourced, made up on the spot figure) of the world that doesn’t currently have a computer.

Is it a “failure” if the laptops are $145 a piece at launch?

Is it a “failure” if they ship 3 months behind schedule?

Is it a “failure” if they draw so much attention to these problems that other larger organizations step in to try to offer similar services?