Lif is ALWAYS surprising

Posted on 03/08/2006 by admin

It’s been a while I had this post in mind (and it’s a couple of weeks it’s staging on the draft folder of my WordPress admin). But life’s really busy in the last period and vacations are fastly approaching thus I have little or none time to settle things down to be ‘nough concentrated on writing.

Never say never could be the claim of this post. And my life in the last months really proves it.

I’d have said I’d never ever abandoned research. But now I’m managing a lot of innovating and interesting projects at one of the leading real estate (!!!) firms in Italy. Didn’t thought that research is just one of the faces of innovation.

I’d have said that this little italian guy was far to little to be cited by his U.S. UX myths. But then Luke Wroblewsky (!!!) wrote an entire post speaking of my UXmatters article on forms label positioning.

I’d have said that Italy was the farest province of the Internet empire. But then small projects like yours truly’s Mobup and bright minded companies such as Kallideas are taking the worldwide stage (and – BTW – it’s opening an office in Silicon Valley. VPs keep your eyes on them!).

And I have my two loves with me in this wonderful adventure.

Thank you.

The Flickr camera is coming

Posted on 17/07/2006 by admin

There’s a massive question I’m asking myself quite often lately; and after a mail chat with my friend Alberto d’Ottavi (who’s – by the way – a technical journalist form magazines such as Computer Bild) finally convinced me to place my thoughts here on Yellow Line.

Now back to the question. Digital camera market is nowadays massive: it’s reaching cell phones both for dimensions and collateral status-symbol effects on consumers all over the world. The more common (and economic) way to look at digital photos is to place them on a PC; the more used way to share them with friends and relatives is to place them online (on your blog or using services such as Flickr or 23, or both). You NEVER EVER keep them on your camera memory card.

So why are we using memory cards if we use them just as transitional spaces to hold the images?
Well, because since you usually use your camera on the move it’s more comfortable to store them on a 2 square centimeters piece of tech instead that in a 2Kg computer.

True? Well, partly.

Broadband wireless technologies such as UMTS or WI-FI open networks let us bypass the camera physical memory and place the photos DIRECTLY online. You don’t need any (limited) memory when you have literally infinite capacity on the internet.

If you read this blog from more time then just today you probably know that I invented a small piece of software called Mobup which takes care of shooting the photo from your camera phone and uploading it (with tags, bells and whistles) on Flickr.

Well since I installed Mobup on my cameraphone my 1GB of memory is used just for Tom-Tom maps. I could have placed there more then 1000 photos but (let me check) I just have 15 images there (mostly old); why should I use a limited memory space that could be differently used when I have infinite gigabytes of space waiting for me online?

My prediction is that in a few years digital cameras are going to get rid of the physical memory to make space to UMTS cards or similar technologies that can connect them directly to the internet thus bypassing all the unuseful steps of downloading the images on the computer and reuploading them on the web.

My hope is that these cameras will come equipped with Java technology (which is a great environment to develop application where space, computing capabilities and memory are very limited) for the implementation of 3^rd part applications.

I hope one day I’ll see this forecasted technology I call the â€œFlickr cameraâ€ that uses Mobup. Nice times are coming.

Interviewed by IDEO on Mobile Market scenarios

Posted on 30/06/2006 by admin

A few weeks ago I received a mail from Jennifer Leonard asking me for a brief interview for a paper whe was writing. The interesting thins is Jennifer’s employer: the uberfamous design firm IDEO: they’re preparing a deep research on mobile future scenarios and wanted to hear the thoughts of this humble Italian guy.

So, here below all the questions and my answers; in their full form.

IDEO: When you think about the future of mobile multimedia, what comes to mind?

Matteo: I have this dream in mind. That – as Bill Gates correctly pointed out (and
this is probably the only time I’m completely agree with him) – mobile devices,
cellphones in particular, could be the main ingredient in the solution of the
digital divide. They’re cheaper, more reliable, with long lasting batteries
and with already existing wireless networks.

Thus, when I think about the future of this type of devices I see vertical multimedia application and devices capable of very few tasks at the same time, but absolutely perfect in these task accomplishment.

Even if at a very seminal stage Mobup is a perfect example of what I’m saying. Just install this less-then-40KB app on your cameraphone and you’ll transofrm it in a full featured moblogging platform. Dare I say Ubicomp?

I: What are you most excited about?

M: I’m 30, and just a few years after I was born the first personal computers
appeared. I saw their raise and the computational power becoming greater anbd
greater. Now the same thing is happening with cell phones: just 7 years ago we
had narrow-band monochromatic devices useful just for talking and sending SMS.
Now we have broadband multifunctional devices where – if you like this kind of
things – you can also receive TV programs and films, you can use them as
photocameras (I’ve choosen a Megapixel device to be used as a slim camera
always in my pocket), you can read your favourites weblogs… just as you were
in front of your computer.

If this is happened in this short time-frame, the next 7 years are going to be even more exciting!

I: Where in the world are the most interesting things happening?

M: Tough question. US have a GREAT wi-fi diffusion, but is in EU that mobile
networks are becoming mature. Thus it’s here in Europe that we’re seeing great
innovation in mobile services; but Japan (and the wider Asian area) is a
challenging competitor.

I: Any unmet needs you can think of when it comes to mobile phones?

M: Usability. Let me spell it: U-S-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y; Nokia is probably the
cellphones manufacturer who’s trying its best in following usability and ergonomy
principles when projecting its devices. But we’re light-years faraway the accomplishment of this objective; I still haven’t found the perfect device where everything is easy and quickly accessible.

I: What would be your dream mobile phone application and/or service?

M: Me and my wife had a baby last year (Francesca is in her 10th month while I’m
writing) and – since I’m often far from home I’d like a mobile who can be “awaken” when she performs or discovers something new (a new movement, a new expression, a new word learned, etc.), record it and send it to me to be viewed. That would be really lovely…