Geo-enabling a moblogging tour.

On my new project over at MIDMoves.com, i'm talking about how i'm going to Geo-enable my part of the tour. Obviously it's something i'm very interested in but there's a long long way to go before this stuff becomes easy enough for the the mainstream customers.

Here’s the list of what i’m trying to achieve.

• Location. Where am I now? Exactly?
• Turn-by-turn, step by step. Where do I need to go. How long will it take?
• Public transport. Where is it? When does it depart and arrive?
• Phototagging. Ensuring that my images are tagged with their location
• Live location tracking and networking. Allowing other people to view my location and to enable notifications when friends are near.
• What’s near me? How do I find the nearest hotel? Wifi? etc.
• Location tracking. How to I archive my locations and route?
• Map mashup. How do I create a map that shows my tracks along with all the ‘e-things’ I did along it. Photos, blogs, podcasts, twitter updates etc.

Check out MIDMoves for the posts and more moblogging action.

Wibrain and movie maker

Click to Play

Video created and processed completely on the Wibrain i1. Samson usb mic and Philips webcam also used.

Formats available: Windows Media (.wmv)

Tags: umpc, podcast, mobile

More Jog than Blog.

Well that was pretty much a total failure on the blogging front wasn't it. I definitely should not have taken the M528 out with me. It's not ready for service yet. [Note: Its a production sample from at least 2 months ago. No indication of what the final build will be like] I just couldn't get the browser to work without crashing on blogger.com. I lost two posts!

What was a success was the tracking and photo tagging. The S60 Sports Tracker software does a really nice job there. There are lots of things for Nokia to improve on but the core system is sound. I'm sure we'll eventually see it merge with Nokia Chat and Nokia Maps under Ovi.

Other things that didn't quite work so well:

• My Jack Wolfskin body bag. Despite having some good straps, this over-the-shoulder style doesn't work when blogging.
• Battery life on the N82. With audio playing, GRPS data uploads, GPS calculations and other apps running, the phone needed a battery swap after a few hours. It wasn't dead but I definitely would not have made it back
• The crappy Nokia headset keeps falling out of my ears. I hate those in-ear things.
• It was a bit too hot for jogging. 30 degrees!

In the end I did 10km in three stages taking 11500 steps and burning 839 kcals. At least that's what SportsTracker is telling me so I think i'll go and light the BBQ after this post!

As for the blogging part, well i'm going to have to try that again I think. I think online tools are going to be OK through the browser so I won't have to switch to XP or anything silly like that. TheM528 form factor is pretty much perfect and it appears that the CPU power, although less than I'm used to, is acceptable for this sort of work. I'm going to need a slightly better keyboard than the one on this demo device though. I hope they use a different one on the final version.

So that's it for Jog and Blog #1. There's a few thing to work on for #2. You'll see a notification through friendfeed if I do another one.

Jog and blog stop 2

Unfortunately the m528 crapped out on me so here i am T9ing the text into blogger.com on the n82. So you could say that the experiment failed although really i shouldn't have chosen alpha release hardware!

The experience is painfull but at least the view is good! Im off on the return journey in a few minutes.

Jog and Blog. Tracker is live.

Here's the URL for my tracking page.

http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/user/profile.do?u=chippy
Update: No, that doesnt work if you're not logged in which is strange because I can make a track public and you can follow live. For example, here's the track i'm running now.

If I can't find a better way, you'll have to just use the tracking app on the right.

The latest track is shown on the right and is marked 'NOW' Click through to see live updates.

It appears that the latest live info is shown. I'm not sure if it auto-updates. I'll test it out.

The other problem is that images can't be updated live. I have to finish a stage and upload images before they show.

Its free and it's beta so I guess I can't complain too much!

I'm off to put sports clothes on and fill up my water bottle now. Will set off in about 30 minutes.

Jog And Blog. A new Tech Sport!

I have some great ideas in the shower. Possibly!

One problem with pro-blogging is that can be unhealthy, especially when you do it from home. I rarely get enough sleep. My breakfast is sometimes lunch. I don't move around as much as I should and I'm surprised that I don't have back and eyesight problems! I've tried a bit of Live Photo-blogging before and that's been fun. My Wife is doing a good job of getting me out of the house too but I need to do more. My latest mad idea is to combine work, sport and UMPCs in a new activity called Jog and Blog. I'm sure this will be an Olympic sport in London 2012!

It's fairly self explanatory. You  jog with and think about work. When you want to write something, you stop and blog. You can add fun things like photography and tracking too which will earn you extra points from the judges. Today I'm going to give it a try.

To start, you need a light, small, rugged computer with a keyboard. A notebook style PC might be to big for this but maybe an ASUS SSD-based Eee would be OK. Alternatively you can use a UMPC with a thumbboard. The other option is a mobile phone with a good keyboard and the right software to connect to your blog.

For my experiment today I've got three SDD-based PC choices. The Raon digital Everun, a low-end, light, Windows-XP UMPC with a tiny and difficult chicklet thumboard or a Samsung Q1 U with SSS and HSDPA, also with a tiny and difficult chicklet thumboard or, and this is the device i'll be using today, a Gigabyte M528 MID that has been loaned to me by Expansys. Although the software is incomplete on this sample device, all I need is a browser window and fortunately that works on thia M528. At 350gm its light and with built-in HSDPA I'm going to be able to access the net anywhere. It's a shame that the built-in GPS doesn't have any software to drive it yet but I'll use my Nokia N82 for that. SportsTracker will give you a live update of my position as well as being able to geo-tag any images I take with it. You will also be able to see my completed track on my SportsTracker applet in the right hand column on the blog. (I don't think it updates in real-time unfortunately.)

In addition to tracking, i'll use the N82 for instant messaging (send cheers and abuse to chippy@ovi.com via Gtalk or an Ovi Talk account) and music while I work. Of course i'll be switching off 3G and taking an additional battery because if I did all that with 3G enabled I probably would get past 90 minutes without getting a low battery alarm!

So al I need to do now is to wait for my devices to charge and then i'm off! I'll run the experiment here at Chippys UMPC Moblog so stay tuned. I'll post the URL for the live tracking as I start the experiment.

You heard it hear first people. Jog and Blog will change the world. This is the end of the blogosphere and the start of the blogosvelte!

Sportstracker Applet launched by Nokia

At last, Nokia have created a way for Sportstracker users to export their tracks onto an external website. I've been using sportstracker for mobile photo blogging recently and exporting data was one thing I highlighted as a possible improvement for the service. Although the data still seems to be locked into a Nokia Applet and i'm not sure if it's live, i'm testing as I post here! (see right hand column for applet)

These are the sort of apps that lock me into a brand. Nokia is showing me I need to stick with them with these sorts of apps.The next stage for Nokia maps and photography has to be integration into Nokia Maps 2.0 which would allow you to see friends on a live, local map. Awesome! MID manufacturers and Moblin software developers take note!

More details and a how-to at All About Symbian