Mobile Computing

Facebook is, in fairness, a seemingly unstoppable runaway train. The service, which has been breaking milestone after milestone in recent months, has now crossed the 500 million user threshold. Yes, that’s correct, there are over half a billion active Facebook users.

Plus 100 million in five months

This announcement of crossing the 500 million active Facebook users threshold comes less than six months after the company announced it had over 400 million users back in February. In effect, the company, which is now about six years old, grew 25 per cent in a half a year. Remarkable for any Internet service; unreal for one that now boasts around 1/13 of the world’s entire population as users.
Facebook stories

Zuckerberg announced a new Facebook application called Facebook Stories along with the active Facebook users’ announcement. Essentially, the application will serve as a touchy-feely place for Facebook users to share how the service has come to have meaning in their lives beyond that of a mere social network.

This very premise of being more than a ‘cool’ social network is a key focus of Zuckerberg’s. Speaking at the Computer History Museum in the United States, Zuckerberg emphasised that the company cares not for being ‘cool’. He said: ‘We’re here to build something useful. Something that’s cool can fade. But something that’s useful won’t.’
Bigger than a company

Like Google and Microsoft before it, Facebook is evolving into a service that’s bigger than the mere business it facilitates. As a result of its enviable reach, and social impact, the company comes under constant scrutiny for its privacy policies.

Additionally, leeches (or is that jilted business partners?) have emerged to make various claims of ownership, copyright infringement, and ‘he-did-she-said’ tomfoolery. The most recent of which saw a New York man claim he owned 84% of Facebook, prompting a judge to temporarily freeze the transferring of assets within the company.

Are you one of the half a billion active Facebook users? If so, how has your opinion of the service changed in recent times, if at all?

A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a palmtop computer, is a mobile device which functions as a personal information manager and has the ability to connect to the internet. The PDA has an electronic visual display enabling it to include a web browser, but some newer models also have audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones or portable media players. Many PDAs can access the internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi, or Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs). Many PDAs employ touch screen technology.

The term PDA was first used on January 7, 1992, by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. In 1996, Nokia introduced the first mobile phone with full PDA functionality, the 9000 Communicator, which has since grown to become the world’s best-selling PDA and which spawned a category of phones called the smartphone. Today the vast majority of all PDAs are smartphones, selling over 150 million units while non-phone (“stand-alone”) PDAs sell only about 3 million units per year. HTC, Apple, Palm, Nokia N-Series, and RIM BlackBerry are typical smartphone brands.

Currently, a typical PDA has touch screen for entering data, a memory card slot for data storage and at least one of the following for connectivity: IrDA, Bluetooth and/or WiFi. However, many PDAs (typically those used primarily as telephones) may not have a touch screen, using softkeys, a directional pad and either the numeric keypad or a thumb keyboard for input.

Software typically required to be a PDA includes an appointment calendar, a to-do list, an address book for contacts and some sort of note program. Connected PDAs also typically include E-mail and Web support.

Many of the original PDAs, such as the Apple Newton and Palm Pilot, featured touchscreen for user interaction, having only a few buttons usually reserved for shortcuts to often used programs. Touch screen PDAs, including Windows Mobile devices, usually have a detachable stylus that can be used on the touch screen. Interaction is then done by tapping the screen to activate buttons or menu choices, and dragging the stylus to, for example, highlight. Text input is usually done in one of four ways:

* Using a virtual keyboard, where a keyboard is shown on the touch screen. Input is done by tapping letters on the screen.
* Using external keyboard or chorded keyboard connected by USB, IR or Bluetooth.
* Using letter or word recognition, where letters or words are written on the touch screen, and then “translated” to letters in the currently activated text field. Despite rigorous research and development projects, end-users experience mixed results with this input method, with some finding it frustrating and inaccurate, while others are satisfied with the quality.[1] Recognition and computation of handwritten horizontal and vertical formulas such as “1 + 2 =” was also under development.
* Stroke recognition (one Palm implementation is called Graffiti). In this system a predefined set of strokes represents the various characters used in input. The user learns to draw these strokes on the screen or in an input area. The strokes are often simplified character shapes to make them easier for the device to recognize.

PDAs for business use, including the BlackBerry and Palm Treo, have full keyboards and scroll wheels or thumb wheels to facilitate data entry and navigation, in addition to supporting touch-screen input. There are also full-size foldable keyboards available that plug directly, or use wireless technology to interface with the PDA and allow for normal typing. BlackBerry has additional functionality, such as push-based email and applications.

Newer PDAs, such as the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and Palm Pre include new user interfaces using other means of input. The iPhone and iPod touch uses a technology called Multi-touch, as does the Palm Pre and HTC HD2.

iPod Touch

Apple iPhone

Palm Pre

5 NewsRack

NewsRack has proven it’s worth as a RSS feeder. By connecting to my Google Reader account, all of my RSS feeds are available. The app caches the articles for an offline read. What’s great about the app is that you can enter a category and click the unread link at the top. This
pulls out all the unread articles across all blogs in that category. There is also a read all button after you’ve been through the category.

Price: $4.99

4 Kindle

iBooks does not have all the books I’ve been looking for so I’ve resorted to buying books from Amazon for the Kindle app. The Kindle app allows you to create notes and highlight text whereas iBooks allows you to copy, search, bookmark and check the dictionary for words being selected. I’d love to use iBooks more, but they simply do not carry what I’m reading.

Price:Free

3 Zinio

I’ve used Zinio for digital magazines for quite some time and when I bought the iPad I knew the device would be perfect for viewing digital magazines. When I first “purchased” the Zinio app, I had to read magazine while connected to the Internet or I the app did not work for me. The developers have apparently fixed that since the first version. The digital magazines can be read in portrait or landscape mode and allow you to zoom in.

Price:Free

2 IM+

I purchased IM+ which seemed to be the only instant messenger client in the app store when I was looking for a client. The product exceeded my expectations and connected to all my IM accounts including Facebook not to mention Twitter and Skype connectors. The client includes a built-in browser, custom status and geo-location. For an extra couple of bucks, you can purchase speech recognition for the app.

Price $9.99

1 Mail

Yes, I’m talking about the Mail app that comes with the iPad. The iPad has completely changed the way I access my iPad.
I have mail connected to Gmail (not using Exchange but the Gmail connector) and checking for new mail is quick while navigation between the folders is easy. The message content takes of roughly 70% of the screen on the right. The interface is so much better than what can be done with an iPhone. As a side note, I check my personal and Gizmos for Geeks email on the iPad almost all the time.

Price Included

What are your favorite iPad apps?

Doug Felteau