cooliris is cool
I ran into cooliris when it first launched because of its initial focus on photography, and since then the company continued to dramatically improve its scope and has quickly become an appealing application to get news presented visually.
Stronger put, I predict that in 5 years from now the browser (like Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer) will not be the predominant way we access the internet. But that perhaps is an easy prediction. The majority of applications on an iPhone already use non-browser access (Facebook, Plaxo, eBay etc) and so do a few others on the PC (such as iTunes).
The browser is a very technological way of accessing data on the Internet, with poor navigational attributes. The URL language is certainly not one everyone understands and that relegates the dependency on search, which is still the primary way to navigate the Internet. And as the internet continues to grow in size, search will yield ever diminishing navigational success.
Clearly more companies are looking to improve Internet navigation. AT&T’s new Pogo browser, Google Chrome and enhancements to Firefox are an indication of the awareness of the pain. We will see more examples of improved navigational capabilities, some of which I can’t divulge at this point. But until then - enjoy cooliris.
BlackBerry just got a make-over (by Cingular)
Thursday - July 27, 2006 Filed in: Mobile | Consumer
Technology
Having tested a ton of phones, PDA's etc over the years, the 7130c is a very attractive competitor to the bulky Palm Treo 650 and ... certainly more usable. The small dimensions of the 7130c cuts the size of the older Blackberry almost in half, a little thicker than the Motorola RAZR (which I love) and a bit taller, the 7130c still fits in the pocket of my pants easily. I like it so much, that I decided to get rid of my old Blackberry (on eBay) and my RAZR (although I'll keep it around, just in case) and combine two capabilities into one.
The 7130c with EDGE internet connectivity is actually fast enough to make it a delight to browse the internet (and visit the WAP site of CNN) and read e-mail, while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. The industrial design is good enough (not great) and appealing, the screen that is clearly visible in bright sunlight and adjusts automatically to your surroundings. This is absolutely the best screen I've ever seen on a mobile device.
Phone services are integrated into the PDA capabilities, but this part could be more intuitive. The heritage of the scroll menus from the Blackberry PDA platform complicates things beyond what is necessary. More 'special purpose' buttons would solve the problem. For now however, the Blackberry 7130c has become my new one-eyed king in the land of the blind.