wahlau's online hut

Dear Internet,

i just wonder, if your notebook can adapt its settings according to the environment you are current in, what are things you wish to see or have? At this point we can at least get the best connection (via NetworkManager) and perhaps best display (via xrandr/xorg), but most of the time we still need to configure a little here and there. Is it necessary to have an "intelligent system" that knows what it should serve you according to your current situation? Or the system should always be passive?

i was watching the tv a few days ago, and saw this interesting not-so-new news - Tom Tom, the leading navigation system company released a new product/system end of last year. The system is able to process traffic jam information, based on the anonymous mobile phone information collected in different base stations. The press release can be read here.

saw this in my mailbox today: a mail from Jaiku, an activity stream and presence sharing service, working on web and mobile phones, is now part of Google. For more information read here. i have tried their services since months ago, and find their software neat and nice. You will be able to update your location and other information while you are on the move. If you coupled your phone with it, you can even help the system to almost precisely note down you current coordinate.

if you have been reading some of the how to in this blog, you would have come across synchronization stuffs like sync'in K800i with Evolution, or N70/N73 with Evolution. I have also tried out something else like synchronization between N800 with Evolution, and also Google Calendar with Evolution ( i think i tend to have Evolution as standard/center copy).

yeah, before it's too late, i should also write something about the iPhone to earn some traffic to share my thoughts on this product. I will not tell things you could have read from here or here or here or here. After all, it is the most "In" mobile phone at the moment. I would bet that some might even do anything just to get themselves an iPhone. :)

if you have never learn anything about Mark and his vision on Ubiquitous Computing , read the following scenario suggested by him:

Sal awakens: she smells coffee. A few minutes ago her alarm clock,
alerted by her restless rolling before waking, had quietly asked
"coffee?", and she had mumbled "yes." "Yes" and "no" are the only words
it knows.

ever though how close are the future world to us now? following a link i came to Current TV and saw a videocast on Hug shirt by Cute Circuit. it was really cool idea. Pressure can be applied on different areas on the hug shirt, and the values of the different areas will be measured and passed via bluetooth to a mobile phone. This can be then sent to another hug shirt user where you want your "hugs" to be sent. The received message on the other end will inteprate and send the values to the recepient's hug shirt. The shirt will then apply vibration and warmth on the spots pressed by the sender to simulate hug :)

Exploring the potential for social tagging and folksonomy in art museum: proof of concept

by Jennifer Trant from Archives & Museum Informatics/Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto. pdf obtained from here.

published in New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 2006.

Summary:
This paper presents the author's work in the area of applying social tagging and folksonomy in managing information and contents found in museums. The approach implemented is called steve. The work they do here is similar to the currently known and popular social tagging sites, such as del.icio.us or conotea, but the application of the now-hot tagging technique is focused in the area of museum information. The work studies the feasibility and result of user-created/managed knowledge in a highly professional area - art and history. The tagging of paintings and artifacts aims to help visitors identifying and finding artwork they have seen. Visitors can also help each other by collectively adding tags (which are objective definitions) to the various artwork.