Poptech! Streaming Live

One of the best social innovation events out there, Pop!Tech is happening right now in Camden, Maine. I attended Pop!Tech for a number of years and have to say it’s one of the best meetings I’ve ever been to with seminars from some of the world’s most progressive thinkers in modern times. It always includes a technicial and pop culture angle as well which makes it all the more interesting, not to mention the beautiful Camden Opera House and lovely “Maine in Autumn” backgroud. I wish I was there.

You can watch the Pop!Tech sessions live for free online from their website here.

Advertisement

BAMaDUG Podcast – Episode 2 available

Once again we have another interesting podcast with an all-star lineup recorded live from the Asgard Pub in Cambridge, MA. We went a little more guerilla style for this using my Nokia N-95 8GB but the quality is pretty good considering we were in a very loud and crowded bar.

Some Subjects Covered:

The recent Forum Nokia Tech Day
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
S60 5th Edition and S60 Platform Services
Adobe CS4 and Flash Player 10 launch
Flash Lite/Mobile Sessions at MAX North America

Special thanks to Alessandro Pace from Biskero, James Talbot from Adobe, and Max Antoneri. Look for the next podcast coming live from MAX 2008 in San Francisco.

Get and subscribe to the podcast from iTunes here.

Download the .m4a file here.

Silverlight 2 and Flash 10 release has the fur flying

So they just happened to release Silverlight and Flash updates on the same day… just some sort of strange and mystical coincidence right? Wrong. And man, the gloves have been off on the Twitter front. Here’s a light sample of the back and forth from two high profile product owners Ted Patrick from Adobe and Scott Barnes from Microsoft on Twitter late last night:

Ted Patrick: @mossyblog I bet we get more installs of SL 1&2 in 5 Days; Check

Scott Barnes: @adobeted you don’t need installs remember, you’re on 98% of machines”, hahahaha 🙂

Ted Patrick: @mossyblog Flash 10 is crushing your head bro! WOOOOOOT

Scott Barnes: @adobeted Adobe is scared… looking to bolster their release on the back of Microsoft’s, smack talking like it’s an instant success? *sigh* newbies.

Ted Patrick: @mossyblog barnes you have no clue. Unleash the hounds.

And some more of this… you get the picture.

Granted you can say this is all in good fun, but believe me it isn’t. It’s as serious as it gets and it’s because of fear. On the Adobe side, it’s the fear of losing what they have, which is a huge marketshare. On the Microsoft side, it’s the fear of never getting there, which judging by things presently, they never will. That’s the only way to explain why two grown men will start smack talking publicy over their products in the wee hours of the night. And I have to say as a customer to both compaines, it kind of throws me off to some degree.

Frankly, Barnes can be right about a lot of things, in fact he’s clearly a sharp guy. But he’s mouthy and always on the defensive which chips away his credibility. He already had a Twitter spat with Michael Arrington this week and has spouted his righteuosness in the matter (accusing Robert Scoble as being responsibile as well? huh?) ever since. I guess I’m just surprised when Adobe folks allow themselves get drawn into the fight that he’s clearly always looking for.

So my advice here is you can argue this all you want while the market will determine who succeeds. Let’s put the smack talk away and let the numbers and products speak for themsleves.

Hands on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Those are my meat-hooks handling that ultra-cool Nokia 5800. Luckily someone brought one to the event I spoke at this past Friday at the Nokia Research Center. In the limited time I had to play with it, I have to say that I really liked it. They really seemed to have freshened up the S60 UI with v2, feature pack 5. It’s still the regular maze that is S60, but the icons really standout, not to mention fluid scolling that was not really present on joystick based devices on feature pack 3.

There seems to be a strategy in place here to roll out touch across all of the product lines, with speculation of a N-series device coming soon. Of course my one big grip with touch is the lack of keys. How am I supposed to text from my pocket in my MBA class if I can’t feel the keys? 🙂