Recently found out about a free contact exchange app from Bump Technologies called, appropriately enough, Bump. According to their website “Bump makes swapping contact information as simple as bumping two phones together.” The video looks like magic. Sweet, iPhone magic.
I had to see this thing is action so a co-worker and I both installed Bump to test it out. Once you install the app, you enter your contact info and you’re ready to find someone to Bump. When you’re in a Bumping mood, you choose what info to share (phone, email, photo, address, or all of the above) and then Bump away.
I didn’t think the iPhone had anything that would detect another phone so I couldn’t see how physically bumping hands actually mattered. Instead, we tried doing a simultaneous jan-ken-po shake to get the party started. Woo! It worked!
Said “yes” to transfer info and voila, it was done in a couple of seconds. We both already had each other’s contact info and Bump was smart enough to update/append the transferred info to the existing records. Still seems like magic.
The app description says that Bump requires location info, or for both devices to be connected to the same wi-fi access point. It’s probably using a combination of proximity and timing to associate the two parties of the transfer. I’d love to see what happens if you had a room of people all shake at the same time. iPhone mixer anyone?
One last comment: Information is exchanged via wi-fi or 3G connection so I’m guessing data is traveling to Bump Technologies’ servers. They could be building a massive database of names and contact information. Make sure you read their privacy statement. Caveat bumper!
I just realized that January is almost over and I haven’t posted anything yet in 2009. My apologies to anyone that’s been checking in recently!
While I’ve got a couple longer posts rolling around in my brain, here’s a quickie post for some cool Twitter tricks.
Trending
Check out TweetStats (web) or TwitterTrend (free iPhone app) to see what topics are hot on Twitter.
MrTweet
Follow mrtweet (“Your personal networking assistant”) and get an analysis of the folks following you but you haven’t followed yet, suggestions of tweeps you may be interested in following, and statistics about your own Twitter activities.
TweetWheel
Punch in your username on TweetWheel for a graphical map of the relationships between your Twitter friends.
Even if you’re not in Hawaii, you probably heard by now about the massive power outage that occurred this past Friday by virtue of how it included the vacationing President-elect.
On this particular evening eGeekette and I were checking out the after Christmas sales down in Waikiki when we thought we saw the flickers of lightning in the sky. Since we didn’t hear thunder we figured the storm (if any) was far away and kept on window shopping. Little did we know…
Waikiki is one of those places I imagine is always brightly lit – kinda like Las Vegas – so you can imagine my surprise when everything all of a sudden went dark. No streetlights, all the stores blacked out. After a brief ohshit moment I had to take a couple pictures. You can’t really see what’s going on but that’s pretty much the point.
Lights in the darkness
There were people all around us but the only lights were from the passing cars and tiki torches down the street. I won’t be complaining about Hawaiian hula kitsch any time soon!
The next thing I tried to do was post the photo to Twitter and discovered that AT&T was offline (uh oh!). Good thing text services were still running as I began to get SMS updates from a conscientious buddy. Island-wide outage baby!
We made our way back to the car by the light of the iPhone (still useful even without service!) and began the perilous trek out of Waikiki. Not sure if everyone forgot or just didn’t know about the four-way stop rule when signals are out, but crossing every intersection felt like a game of chicken. Making matters worse were the ninja pedestrians jumping out of nowhere and darting across the street at random intervals.
Once we made it home AT&T was back up and I was able to track the unfolding news of the outage via Twitter in real time. Updates from the Twitterverse were often more current and relevant than what was on the radio. Things got even better when @Hawaii set up the #hipower hashtag that allowed everyone to follow all outage related tweets on Twitter Search.
Another lifesaver was my recently acquired Lenmar PowerPort universal battery. With the included adapters, we had juice for both my iPhone and eGeekette’s Palm Centro throughout the entire outage. Originally purchased as backup power for videos and music during air travel, it came in handy sooner than expected. Lenmar PowerPort FTW!
Fedex delivered my iPhone a couple days ago (ironically the day the whole AT&T network was down for the entire state of Hawaii), an early Christmas present from eGeekette. I’d been fending off the iPhone jones for a long time, but the wealth of available applications finally won me over, especially the Twitter and Facebook apps. Woo hoo! Always connected!
Since I carry my phone with me everywhere, I figured I’d better get a case to protect my shiny new toy so I headed over to the Apple Store. The variety of cases available for the iPhone (for every iProduct, actually) is pretty mind boggling so I spent a long standing in front of the display. I have the good fortune to be going to Macworld Expo in January so I finally settled on a basic silicone jacket, figuring that I’ll look for the case of my dreams there at Mecca of all things Apple.
Clutching my case, I headed to the back of the glowing cavern but discovered there was only the “Genius Bar” there. Oookay… looking around it took me a couple moments to realize there were no registers anywhere in the store. A passing Apple employee in a blue shirt took pity on me and let me know that anyone in a blue shirt could help me check out – except her, since she was helping someone already.
I headed towards the nearest blue shirt, but he was setting up an iPhone. There were a few other blue shirts scattered around the store, most of them hustling back and forth busily. Trying to catch someone’s attention was like a three year old trying to play professional soccer. Unsure what to do, I followed blue shirt that looked like he was actually checking someone out and once he stopped moving, hovered hopefully. Once he finished that sale, I would buy my case and be on my merry way.
But no… After a couple of minutes waiting, he too hustled away, not even acknowledging my presence. Was I supposed to follow him? Wait there for him to come back? Find another blue shirt and start stalking all over again?
Aren’t stores supposed to sell you stuff? It doesn’t work if you’re so “innovative” that you confuse your customers and make the process as difficult and demeaning as possible.
I gave up and walked out. I’ll stick to shopping at places that actually want to let me buy something.
For today’s post, I started and trashed a bunch of things that have been noodling around in my head, mostly because they were too damn serious. I figure that you, my loyal readers (all 3 of you), probably don’t come to elementalgeek to find the answers to the world’s problems or to discover life’s greatest truths, although if I ever do figure those out, you’ll be the first I tell.
Today’s post is just plain geek diversion. While your personal preferences regarding tattoos may vary, the Science Tattoo Emporium shows that just about anything can be “art”.
I keep on thinking I’d like to get a tattoo someday, but I haven’t decided what will still look good on an 80 year old triathlete. Try picturing a tribal armband on an elderly woman for a reality check. Maybe some traditional Japanese artwork – the samurai/yakuza guys still look cool when they get old (or maybe it’s the sword/gun/missing finger)
What (@Not the LG: what else) would you be willing to put on your body permanently?
A while back I did a strength assessment quiz based on the book by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton called Now, Discover Your Strengths. My top five strengths turned out to be:
Maximizer
Analytical
Intellection
Ideation
Strategic
Put that all together and what’s that spell? G-E-E-K.
“Ideation” caught my attention, partly because I never thought about it that way, and partly because it rings so true:
You are fascinated by ideas. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. You revel in takiing the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you.
Based on this description, it’s no surprise that one of the coolest sites I’ve ever been turned onto is TED.com. TED features videos of the world’s greatest thinkers presenting their insights on just about everything – technology, science, nature, business, art. The array of selections is pretty mind-boggling.
Even if you don’t explore any further, check out these two:
Ken Robinson on how schools are killing creativity:
One of my favorite non-acquaintance blogs is by Scott Adams. His writing style is very readable and often “hold back the tears as you try to laugh silently because you’re at work” funny, as you would expect from the creator of Dilbert, but can also be about serious stuff as well (saving the planet, world peace, politics, etc). Some of the things he writes about are truly fascinating. Well, fascinating to me at least, but then this is the elementalgeek blog – what do you expect?
Dilbert has been used in several court cases where an attorney tried to demonstrate the date when obscure technical issues became “common knowledge” and therefore something that a reasonable person should know. The importance in the court cases is that a defendant couldn’t claim ignorance about something that is so widely known it can be included in a Dilbert comic without explanation.
It appeals to my inner geek that a comic strip has become a symbol of human knowledge but also nags at the back of my brain that something so pop-culture is becoming so authoritative. So what do you think? A) Neat, B) troubling or C) egeek has too much time on his hands?
Argh. This article on Ars Technica says that Pandora, the streaming music service I wrote about last week may be shutting down soon due to exorbitant fees imposed by a royalty hike on internet radio. Considering that no frills Pandora is free, I suppose it was too good to last forever.
The thing that gets me is that the Big Fat Corporations (BFCs) are likely to kill off entire revenue streams in the quest for the Big Bucks. By leaning on all the little guys to try to squeeze every possible dollar out of them, they’ll force innovative players like Pandora out of business. Let’s see… less income at reasonable rates vs. no income at Greedy Bastard rates… gee tough call there.
Oh well, this geek update actually turned into one those rants where I really have no idea how to change the way things are. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
In any case, check out www.pandora.com while you still can!
The original concept for elementalgeek was to highlight mainstream tech stuff that I think is cool and possibly useful for others. While I definitely have geeky tendencies, I’m not exactly on the bleeding edge of technology so from time to time I’ll be featuring stuff that’s probably been out for a while but falls in the “it’s new to me” category that hopefully you’ll still find interesting.
I was recently introduced to Pandora Radio, a streaming music website. You start by choosing an artist or song that you like. Based on your selection, Pandora will play other songs it thinks you might like. You give each song a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to influence what plays next. What sets Pandora apart from other internet radio stations is that it’s not based solely on music genre or other user’s playlists, but rather the “DNA” of individual songs.
As part of the “Music Genome Project,” the folks running Pandora have broken down the attributes of songs into “genes”, properties that combine to describe what a song actually sounds like. When I’m in a pop/R&B mood, I apparently prefer “mild rhythmic syncopation, a vocal centric aesthetic, and a subtle use of vocal harmony.” On a rock day, it’s “hard rock roots or punk influence, minor key tonality, extensive vamping and heavy electric rhythm guitars.” Who knew?
What does this mean? Not surprisingly, starting with Paramore (OK, yeah I admit it…chick rock rules!) led to Evanescence, Linkin Park and Fallout Boy, but also to songs by Flyleaf and Fireflight, stuff that I doubt I’d have ever discovered on my own.
Initially, you may discover that Pandora repeats songs fairly often. You can broaden the range of songs that play by adding additional songs or artists to your base genome selection or simply ban songs temporarily by using the intuitive on-screen controls.
The next time you’re in the mood to listen to your favorite tunes, rediscover forgotten songs or explore new artists, give Pandora try.
