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For three days now I have been listening to podcasts on the Nexus one using Listen. It is a podcast app that allows you to subscribe to and download podcasts from the comfort of the mobile device. What I like about this app is the ease with which you can select which podcasts to listen to. If you want to listen to This week in tech for example just type the name of the podcast and it will find those feeds, allow you to subscribe or manually select which podcasts to listen to. Another aspect of the search feature which I like is the search for keywords function. It displays a number of podcasts according to the keyword. As an example I typed hike to see which podcasts would be suggested. I found some trailcast podcasts and so downloaded a podcast. It works well. If you enjoy the podcast then you can subscribe to and download the podcasts. The settings tab has an interesting set of options. You can tell it to download new apps when possible, select whether you want the downloads to occur when you are using wifi or over the air using the data plan. You can set how many podcasts you want to store on the device at any one time. One of the best features for me is that when you have a few hours to listen to podcasts rather than work by podcast subscription this software allows you to listen to podcasts in queue order. What this means is that I may be listening to This week in tech, then this week in google before moving on to the BBC history podcast and finishing with a trail cast podcast. With this system you do not need to interrupt what you are doing to get to the next podcast. The benefit of a podcast client that is within the phone is that you can select what to listen to whilst on the move. As a benefit of this you are less likely to download hundreds of podcasts you end up never listening to. The last feature is that it is synched with Google Reader. This means that you can see those subscriptions from any google reader application. It is stored in the cloud so should work across multiple devices. This is the future of podcasting, and media consumption. It takes advantage of the power that modern devices can sync from anywherwe at anytime, that your habits and tastes may change and that you actualise it from any machine, computer, or mobile.

If you are living within the European Broadcasting Union member countries you can access live footage of the FIFA World cup matches as well as highlights by going to EurovisionSports. Highlights are also included at the end of the individual games so that you may relive the highlights. There is also a Facebook page where you can hear about the games as soon as the streams start. User feeback so far has been positive so have a look.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/viCj0-KCNtQ/apples_biggest_news_video_calling_as_open_standard.php

Yesterday after work I was meant to meet a friend in Geneva but after a phone call changed my mind. I decided instead to walk to the apple store. What I saw in the apple store was quite interesting. As you walk in, where you used to have iphones and macbooks on display you now have ipads. Walk into the main hall and you have at least three more tables dedicated to the ipad. There were many more ipads than there were people interested in playing with the devices. The geniuses were standing around, with nothing to do. Does that mean that everyone who wanted to get an ipad got one, that everyone was tired from work or does that mean I went at the right time to play with a few devices. Of course I didn’t. I’ve had my own for about a week now so it doesn’t matter. There’s no need to go to the apple store to play with the device as I have mine with me most of the time. What is interesting is Apple’s current move away from laptops and even more so with desktops. When the macbook air came out everyone said that it was a piece of crap in relation to specifications and they were right. Steve Jobs and Apple have taken the netbook concep and skipped it. Instead they provide the Ipad, a device which you expect to have limited capabilities but great potential. What other manufacturers have been able to sell a display without a keyboard after all. You have over two million units sold for over a billion US dollars in spent currency. That’s two million units without a keyboard. That’s a theoretical two million people that are discovering that life without a keyboard works just as well. There’s just one set back ladies. You’ll have to cut your nails if you don’t want the clackety clack as your nails touch the screen. I love the iPad. I love that it’s light, that it’s versatile and that it’s so flexible. Imagine editorial meetings where you have an iPad and the content you’re discussing is in h.264. Drop into the meeting, say the item is interesting and show the editor in chief. There is no need to go to the edit suite, there is no need to go to the computer. There is no need for power cords, adaptors and dedicated bags. We’ve come to what I would call the iPad age. This is going to change the way we discuss and share content. Now what interests me is to see what happens with Apple laptops. Will the touch screen now come as standard and will they release dual screen laptops without a physical keyboards or will they come out with touch screen displays on the screen portion and a keyboard and mouse on the bottom part? Apple have effectively demonstrated how well touch screens can cope with our current demands. The question is how far will this progress? Will we see applications that are specifically designed for a touch screen interface. If so then we are going to a virtual interface that resembles the paper and scissors of our childhood. The computer itself is becoming transparent. What we do with it is changing. What we do with it is no longer local, no longer requiring the same type of data storage and sharing. We are no longer working on one machine. We have decentralised everything. Look at what the android platform can do. Look at Mobileme can do. It’s an interesting time. The computer is the simplest it’s ever been. This means that more and more people, from all ages are able to intuitively interact with the device in front of them. Configuring is as simple as a username and password these days. Everyone understands this method of configuration. It’s a democratisation feature. That’s why two year old children can use the devices as easily as 70 year olds. When you ask the revolutionary and evolutionary question in relation to technology I would go so far as to say this is a revolutionary device. It’s doing away with the keyboard, the mouse, the idea that things have to be configured. It’s the simplest interface yet. I don’t think everyone can justify getting one but it goes one step further in helping people always be connected, never be offline. It helps make facebook, twitter and e-mail be more pervasive in the way we live our daily lives.

Weather is something I don’t really care to take note of because it doesn’t change much about my appearance. It does change what I drive though. In summer when the weather is nice and warm then I’d much rather drive the scooter than the car. That’s because if I see a mother distracted by children whilst pulling out onto the main road it’s easier to overtake her. It’s also easier, when at traffic lights to get to the front of the queue rather than wait like an unambitious car driver, and before you object I’m very often trapped in traffic, so please remain polite in the comments (as if there were going to be any. The interesting part. Today and yesterday I was at an event in the lovely rain one day and sadistic rain the next. I call the rain sadistic because it resulted in many cycling injuries during a local race around the lake. One person at the event was playing with weather pro on the Iphone, and from the glimpse I caught I saw something useful. I’m home now and I downloaded the weather app on the Ipad, after all if you’re going to spend money on an app you might as well have a frame to display it. I love how this app displays information. You have the weather graphic to show the main weather trends of the day. You have temperature information, rain information, wind direction, pressure, humidity and more. As an additional feature you have the ability to add your favourite cities, let’s say London, Geneva, Paris, South Africa (for the World Cup) and maybe one more. Click on the right side of the screen and you have information for each city. There are three bonus buttons at the bottom of the screen, the weather button, whose features I have described. The radar tab shows you where the most recent precipitation has been. Satellite images show you what the clouds have been doing for a set time period. We’ll see how often I use this app. I like that it has all these features.

Paul W. Swansen - 6th May, 2010

So which one did you get? I was in the Apple Store at Cherry Creek today , and one of the staff told me that they were out of them currently. They also have a reservation list of hundreds of people who are still wanting one. Local Big Box Electronic stores are in the same situation of not having enough iPads to meet the demand.

The iPad is a glorious device and I am in love already. What makes this device particularly attractive is that it has a large keyboard and a large screen. This is important for two reasons. The first of these is typing speed. I am very closes to touch typing speed already. The second thing I like about it is that I could easily see myself putting it in the stand and using the calendar feature and e-mail client. The display feels like a sheet of paper. They tend to go for that look. The advantage with such a device is evident. I can see the whole email without scrolling. This means I am less likely to skip over something that I should otherwise have notice. The sound when you type is quite interesting. You hear low taps most of the time but for some keys you do hear the sound of the nail hitting the glass. If you hold it vertical then with my hands you can type although the fingers stretch a little too much.

This is a simple Iphone, Android and other platform solution which allows you to add your foursquare, gowalla, brightkyte and other accounts to checkin. The idea is simple. You have one interface where you see everything your friends are up to. You have a second interface where you can check in to locations several at a time. It will save time and battery life to use just one application.

Paul W. Swansen - May 0, 2010

I’m currently testing Geo Tags on a Palm Pre Plus as well. So far it’s not working.

This is to test the android apo