Kern Computing

Sequence Squeeze Contest

2011-10-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Pistoia Alliance, a trade group composed of big pharma and a bunch of informatics companies, is sponsoring a contest. The SequenceSqueeze challenges developers to develop an open source compression algorithm for Next Generation Sequencing(NGS) data.

-jk

ACM hosts Data Mining Camp

2011-10-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hello,

These days massive amounts of data from a wide diversity of sources. I very interested in investigating how we can leverage data in general. The local chapter of the ACM has organized a data mining camp this Saturday. I'm planning to attend.

The morning session is an introduction to MapReduce. It looks pretty rigorous. Looking forward to it.

-jk

Learning from Extremes

2011-07-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Charles Leadbeater gave a provocative TED talk called "Education innovation in the slums".

He offers many references to interesting people and projects. It can be tough catching them in the video. However, it is easy to find them in the companion white paper called Learning from Extremes.

I particularly like the simply graph comparing setting (i.e., formal vs informal) and innovation type(i.e., sustaining vs disruptive).

"Improve schools through better facilities, teachers, and leadership." (sustaining/formal)
"Supplement schools by working with families and communities." (sustaining/informal)
"Reinvent schools to create an education better fit for the times." (disruptive/formal)
"Transform learning by making it available in radically new ways." (disruptive/informal)

Many of the ideas he presents come for other countries like Sugara Mitra Hole in the Wall project in India or Rodrigo Baggio's Centre for Digitial Inclusion.

-jk

Learning environments - adapting to change

2011-07-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a sabbatical. Initially, I was trying to apply computers to environmental issues. While there is a lot happening with alternative energy, the smart gird and optimizing supply chains, I found I was specifically interested in biodiversity and conservation. Sadly, there isn't much happening here.

After struggling with this, I hit a small epiphany. I was watching a TED talk by Nic Marks on the happiness index. While I strongly agreed with it morally, I'm not convinced we can measure happiness. Anyway, he presented a chart. On the X axis is natural resource consumption and the Y axis is "happiness". As you would expect, Western nations were in the upper right. They consume a lot of natural resources and are pretty happy. Nations in the lower left were mostly failed states where life is short and brutish. He highlighted a country that is light on natural resources and is pretty happy: Costa Rica. He went on to talk about the billions of people that will be coming on the planet and wanting a Western lifestyle. Most of whom will start life in slums of large cities. Normally when I think about this line of reasoning, providing people with material goods (e.g., cars, refrigerators, toasters etc.) comes to mind. However I have recently been reading some work by John Seely Brown former head of PARC. He just wrote a book called A New Culture of Learning. He observes change is accelerating. Over the course of the book he considers how computers systems can help people develop advanced learning environments. In addition to materialistic things, this new population will want an education. Standard methodologies of building schools and staffing them with teachers and faculty will not scale. Can we create learning environments where people could learn outside of the establishment? Many people consider the population explosion in environmental disaster. Can we turn that on its head by providing learning environments which allow them to collaborate and adapt to change quickly?

-jk

Qt Quick: using QML to rotate text.

2010-10-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Qt Quick makes fluid UI creation much easier than ever before and allows one to seamlessly let UX designer and C++ developers work together on the same source code. With release 4.7.0, Qt Quick provides the fundamental UI primatives to create fluid UIs.

The cornerstone of Qt Quick is QML. It is a declarative language which extends Javascript. It is designed for writing UI. In this post, let's look at some code which simply animates some text to get a feel for the syntax and structure. Consider this code.

Rectangle {
  id: rectangle1
  width: 360

  height: 640
  color: "brown"
  Text {

      color: "green"
      text: "Hello World"
      anchors.top: parent.top
      font.pointSize: 24

      font.bold: true
  }
}

Here we define a brown Rectangle which will define the background. Text simple defines green text element which says "Hello World". Since the text is anchored to the top of the Rectangle, it will appear at the top of the screen.

Let's animate the text, so that, it will move to the bottom of the screen. To do this we will define another state for the text. By declaring the Text element, we have already defined an implicit state. In addition, we will need to define a Transition element. This tells the Qt runtime how to move between these states. Here is the updated Text element.

 Text {

     id: helloText
     color: "green"
     text: "Hello World"
     font.pointSize: 24

     font.bold: true

// Respond to mouse(tap) events.
        MouseArea { id: mouseArea; anchors.fill: parent }

// When the text is pressed, move, rotate and change the color to yellow.
        states: State {
         name: "down"; when: mouseArea.pressed == true

         PropertyChanges { target: helloText; y: 555; rotation: 180; color: "yellow" }
     }

// How do we get from the implicit state to the down sate?
        transitions: Transition {
         from: ""; to: "down"; reversible: true

         ParallelAnimation {
             NumberAnimation { properties: "y,rotation"; duration: 500; easing.type: Easing.InOutQuad }

             ColorAnimation { duration: 500 }
         }
     }
 }

The state "down" changes three properties: the y coordinate, rotations the text 180 degrees and changes the color to yellow. This is simply a declaration. Without a transtion, nothing happens. This transition goes from the implicit state, represented by an empty string, to the "down" state. It applies to animates in parallel. The first modifies the y value by rotating it and moving it down to the y coordinate defined by the "down" state. The other amiation changes the color from green to yellow.

Reference: Check out the QML tutorial on states and transitions.

-jk

Nokia Developer Days - Hands on workshop with N8

2010-10-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Nokia's N8 has hit the street. Nokia Developer Days is going on tour with the first Symbian^3 device. Here is the line up of cities.

Toronto, Oct 13-14
Austin, Oct 19-20
Silicon Valley, Nov 9-10
Seattle, Nov 15-16
Vancouver,Nov 18-19

For a face to face consultation with a UX specialist who can give you concrete tips on how to improve the design of your app, email your request Ravi Belwal.

Update: This is co-sponsored by ICS. I saw them last year at the Qt Developer Days in San Francisco. They did a great job.

-jk

Tech Tip: Signing and Qt Apps.

2010-06-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Qt apps on Symbian are subject to the same signing requirements as native applications. Here are two tips for troubleshooting these problems.

1) You can use the elf2e32 command to dump out the capabilities a particular executable requires.

C:\S60\devices\S60_5th_Edition_SDK_v1.0\epoc32\release\gcce\udeb>elf2e32 --dump=s --e32input=Location117.exe

E32ImageFile 'Location117.exe'

Secure ID: ea7353f1

Vendor ID: 00000000

Capabilities: 00000000 00020000

Location

2) I love the way Qt Creator seamlessly installs the application on the device. In the case where the capabilities are incorrect, the error message isn't too helpful. If you take the same sis file and install it on the handset manually, you are likely to get a different error. While these errors are vague, they are well-documented.

-hth

John

Test location based apps w/ Qt Simulator via Qt Script

2010-05-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Qt provides a facility to allow you to extend your application with a scripting language called QtScript. It provides full support for ECMAScript Edition 3.

Qt Creator has introduced the Qt Simulator. QtScript can be used to automate the events. Consider this script.

function loc(long, lat)
{
   this.long = long;
   this.lat = lat;
};

var caltrain = new Array;

caltrain['FosterCity'] = new loc (-122.297856, 37.539282);
caltrain['Belmont'] = new loc(-122.276582, 37.521838);
caltrain['SanCarlos'] = new loc(-122.260011, 37.507925);
caltrain['RedwoodCity'] = new loc(-122.231446, 37.486548);
caltrain['Atherton'] = new loc(-122.197647, 37.464658);
caltrain['Menlo'] =  new loc (-122.182502, 37.454750);

for (var l in caltrain) {
   location.longitude = caltrain[l].long ;
   location.latitude =  caltrain[l].lat;
   print ("station: " + l);
   yield(2000);
}

It simply cycles through the locations for various caltrain stations near my house. Handy tool for debugging.

-jk

Qt Mobility - location

2010-05-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

Hello,

The default case for getting location with Qt on Symbian is easy. Consider this code.

source =
   QGeoPositionInfoSource::createDefaultSource(this);
if (source) {
    connect(source,
               SIGNAL(positionUpdated(QGeoPositionInfo)),
           this,
               SLOT(positionUpdated(QGeoPositionInfo)));
    source->startUpdates();
}

This is part of the constructor for QMainWindow. Calling the static method QGeoPositionInfoSource::createDefaultSource() uses the GPS on my 5800 to get location information. When updated location information is available, Qt emits a positionUpdated(QGeoPositionInfo) signal. The QGeoPositionInfo provides all the relevant information(eg, long/lat, time, speed, direction, etc).

-jk

Qt class for HTTP

2010-04-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I wanted to build an API based on HTTP with Qt. Sometime ago, Qt improved its offerring by adding a set of classes which superceded QHttp. They are QNetworkReply, QNetworkRequest and QNetworkAccessManager. Unfortunately, I didn't see good examples of them. So, I thought I'd post this POST example. The Buffer class is just there to receive the finished signal. The relevant method is

void Buffer::replyFinished(QNetworkReply *reply)
{

   QByteArray data = reply->readAll();
   qDebug() << "result: " << data << endl;

   reply->deleteLater();
}

There is the important bits.

QNetworkReply *addIMEI(QNetworkAccessManager *mgr)
{
   QString reqPOST = "http://localhost:8080/?key=853b128a-0c18-42f2-835f-db9f5b6f7fb9&api=1&cmd=addIMEI";
   QNetworkRequest request(QUrl(reqPOST.toUtf8()));

   request.setHeader(QNetworkRequest::ContentTypeHeader,"application/xhtml+xml");

   QByteArray data;

   data.append("<SymbianSigned>");
   data.append("<IMEI>");
   data.append("<number>");
   data.append("356945030065847");
   data.append("</number>");
   data.append("<description>");
   data.append("X6 from Angela");
   data.append("</description>");
   data.append("</IMEI>");
   data.append("</SymbianSigned>");

   return mgr->post(request,data);
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{

   QCoreApplication app(argc, argv);
   QNetworkAccessManager *manager = new QNetworkAccessManager();

   Buffer *buf = new Buffer();

   app.connect(manager, SIGNAL(finished(QNetworkReply*)),
           buf, SLOT(replyFinished(QNetworkReply*)));

   addIMEI(manager);

   return app.exec();
}

First Symbian^3 device/new SDK/ mobility APIs

2010-04-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Today is an exciting day in the Symbian space. The first Symbian^3 device was announced by Nokia. This is getting a ton of press on the Nokia N8. So, I will focus on something which may be below the radar and dovetails nicely with my talk last week.

Nokia rolled out a new SDK. Great for building Qt applications and it is easy to install.

During last week's presentation, I mentioned the Qt Mobility project. This project is designing the mobile API which will become part of the official Qt APIs. The first set have been finalized which include contacts, location, etc. Read more on the Qt Labs blog.

Here is the Qt Labs announcement.

-jk

Symbian Programming SIG: Anatomy of a Qt app on Symbian

2010-04-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

What: Anatomy of a Qt app on Symbian

Who: John Kern

Date/Time: Wed, April 21, 6:30pm-9:00pm

Where:Symbian Foundation at 1051 E Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404

Cost: Free but registration is required. see our meetup group for details

Abstract: At the February SIG , we heard about the UI Extensions for Mobile. This is a UI framework which extensions Qt's UI for the mobile phone. In April, I'll present a talk entitled the Anatomy of a Qt app on Symbian. I'll show you what's involved in building a Qt app for Symbian. You'll learn about some fundamental Qt mechanisms. Qt has a full featured UI library, this talk focuses on a few widgets (QMainWindow, QStackedWidget, QWebView, QTabWidget) which will get you started. Then will use sqlite3 to drive the UI. Along the way, I'll introduce you to Qt Creator, an IDE in Qt for Qt.

Notes on my Qt experience so far.

2010-03-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Today I'm just making some notes about what I've learn developing with Qt.

Many mobile application have a handful of screens. At any point it time, one screen commonly takes up the entire screen. At first, it wasn't entirely clear to me what widget to use for this task. QStackedWidget works well for this task. Widgets are added as pages. Simply changing the index of the QStackedWidget makes it visible.

Qt provides an excellent set of classes for database access. SQLite works well for mobiles. The databases generated by SQLite are simply a file which can be deployed with your application. Query results can be used to populate widgets. You can simply create a QStringList and pass it along to a QListWidget as I did in this post. Qt applies the Model/View pattern throughout the UI. So, one can supply an QSqlQueryModel to a QTableView. Effectively you are simply supplying an sql query to the table view. Qt does the rest. You can also use the database to generate html which can be handed to QWebView.

-jk

QListWidget on S60

2010-03-04T16:44:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Lists are central to many mobile applications. If you are population a list with just a few items which are known a priori, QListWidget and QListWidgetItem are very handy. Nokia Forum provides an example on their wiki.

I think it could be improved. First for each element, they explicitly create an object and insert it. Why not simple create a list and provide to the QListWidget.

QStringList birds;

birds << "Avocet" << "Sparrow" << "Crow" << "Sea gull" << "Kookaburra";

birdList = new QListWidget;

setCentralWidget(birdList);

birdList->addItems(birds);

The other point is we rarely simply present a list. If it is important enough to show the user, they will likely want to do something to an item in the list. We simply need to connect the itemDoubleClicked() signal to a slot we create.

connect(birdList, SIGNAL(itemDoubleClicked ( QListWidgetItem * )),

this, SLOT(displayBird(QListWidgetItem *)));

Here is the definition of the slot.

void MainWindow::displayBird ( QListWidgetItem * item )

{

QMessageBox::information(this,"picked", item->text());

}

Simply grab the text from the item and present it in a message box.

-jk

menubars and softkeys

2010-03-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

Hello,

These days I'm working with Qt. On the desktop it is complete and mature. On mobile, it is coming on strong. There are a number approaches you can take from a UI perspective. Today I'm focusing on using existing Qt widgets as opposed to UIEMO (aka Orbit) or using the Qt graphics view. In this post, I just want to consider the softkeys on Symbian/S60.

By default, Qt for S60 creates a menubar for you. So, the user will see an options and exit softkeys. One can add items to the options menu by...

displayAction = new QAction(tr("&Display"),this);

// Add action direct to menubar

menuBar()->addAction(displayAction);

connect(displayAction, SIGNAL(triggered()),this, SLOT(displayMessage()));

In S60, the softkeys on the bottom are called the Common Button Area (CBA) and there are a number of ways to customize them( for the curious you find the source code here). How does one achieve this via Qt? The QAction class has been enhanced. Consider the QAction::SoftKeyRole enum. QAction::PositiveSoftKey is the moral equivalent of the left softkey and QAction::NegativeSoftKey is the right. I think they chose to rename them because in landscape orientation the right and left softkeys are really top and bottom. Here is a Nokia Forum post which shows how to use this to implement the back softkey.

-jk

Custom Widgets - Qt's graphic view classes.

2010-02-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

Hello,

There is a ton of work going into Qt for Symbian. Tomorrow night, Dan Zucker and Ray Rischpater are coming down to the Symbian Foundation and fill us in on Qt's new UI extensions for Mobile (aka Orbit). Qt Labs wrote about the recent release of it here.

Today, in preparation, I would like to introduce a few related classes which can be used to create custom widgets. Qt's graphic view classes provide a nice solution. It consists of a scene (QGraphicScene) which contains items (QGraphicsItem). The scene is made visible via a view (QGraphicsView). Scene's perform collision detection and determine which items are selected among other things.

If you look at the initial set of demos provided for the Symbian/S60 port of Qt, you'll see these classes are heavily used. Consider weather info ( video | source) example. The text and images you see are all items in the scene. With S60, creating a custom view like this one is not the faint of heart.

You'll see this is heavily used by UI Extensions for Mobile too. Come down to the Symbian Foundation in Foster City tomorrow (details here) and see what they built on top of the Qt graphics view.

-jk

Symbian Programming SIG: UI Extensions for Mobile

2010-02-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

What: UI Extensions for Mobile (aka Orbit)
Who: Daniel Zucker and Ray Rischpater
Date/Time: Wed, Feb 24, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Where:Symbian Foundation at 1051 E Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404
Cost: Free but registration is required. see our meetup group for details

Abstract: At our next meeting, Daniel Zucker and Ray Rischpater will share their thoughts on Nokia's UI Extensions for Mobile (previously referred to as Orbit) , the new UI framework Nokia has recently open-sourced to Symbian and Gitorious (see http://qt.gitorious.org/uiemo) . They will provide a summary of the business case for developers to move to Uiemo, followed by a review of its architecture. With these fundamentals out of the way, they will provide a brief tour of benefits for Uiemo to Symbian developers including more in-depth discussion of individual UI components.

Tech tip: Stop mode debugging

2009-11-19T08:03:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Recently, the Symbian Kernel and a baseport for QEMU (aka SVP) were released. As people start to extend it, debugging becomes more important. Debuggers can be broken down into run more and stop mode debugging. Run mode is what we want at the application level. It controls a specific process running on the target machine. The process can be stopped and inspected while the rest of the machine continues as normal.

Stop mode is handy for device driver and device creation. Since we are debugging the OS and device drivers, we can not rely on them to inspect the code being debugged. Stop mode freezes the CPU and stops the OS. The debugger needs to do the data discovery and object manipulation.

Here is a way to do it with SVP.

Build ELF File

Symbian uses the E32 object file format. gdb understands ELF and instruments the code with DWARF. Use the elf4rom command to build an elf file which both gdb and qemu understand. This step assumes you have created a image rom.

R:\sf\os\kernelhwsrv\kernel\eka\rombuild>

c:\Symbian\Tools\bin\elf4rom.exe -i SYBORGARMV5D.IMG

-l ROMBUILD.LOG -o SYBORGARMV5D.ELF -p 0x0

In this example, SYBORGARMV5D.IMG and ROMBUILD.LOG are inputs from the rom creation process.

At this time, I am seeing warnings of this form.

Warning: could not find ELF file for \Epoc32\release\ARMV5\UDEB\EVFP.DLL.

For this task, we can proceed.

Launch QEMU

Now let's fire up QEMU using the image we just created. Here is the command

'/c/Program Files/Qemu/qemu-system-arm.exe' -M /r/sf/adaptation/QEMU/baseport/syborg/syborg.dtb -kernel /r/sf/os/kernelhwsrv/kernel/eka/rombuild/SYBORGARMV5D.ELF -S -s -p 1234

The directory separators are reversed because I use trivial bash script to launch the application. Focus on the arguments. Instead of a rom image, we supply the elf file we just created. The capital S option (-S) freezes the CPU at startup. The lowercase s option (-s) waits for a gdb connection. The -p option defines the port we are using.

%%%% debugger

Now simply invoke gdb with the elf file. Gdb's target remote command is used to sync up with the QEMU at port 1234.

C:\Program Files\yagarto\bin>arm-elf-gdb.exe R:\sf\os\kernelhwsrv\kernel\eka\rombuild\SYBORGARMV5D.ELF

GNU gdb 6.8.50.20080308-cvs

License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying"

and "show warranty" for details.

This GDB was configured as "--host=i686-pc-mingw32 --target=arm-elf"...

(gdb) target remote localhost:1234

Remote debugging using localhost:1234

[New Thread 1]

0x00000000 in ?? ()

(gdb) c

Continuing.

Hit control-C to interrupt the process and we can inspect the code.

Program received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.

SyborgWFIIdle ()

at R:\\sf\\adaptation\\qemu\\baseport\\syborg\\specific\\/interrupts.cia:44

44 }

Current language: auto; currently minimal

(gdb) l

39 {

40 // Enter an idle state and wait for interrupts

41 asm("mov r0, #0");

42 asm("mcr p15, 0, r0, c7, c0, 4");

43 asm("bx lr");

44 }

46 /********************************************************************

47 * Service 1ms tick interrupt & timer 1 interrupt

48 ********************************************************************/

(gdb)

-jk

QEMU tech tip: redirecting serial output

2009-11-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Recently I've been working with QEMU and Symbian port called syborg. By default you see Symbian, the QEMU Monitor(ctrl+alt+2) displays standard error and standard output which is essential when debugging. The problem is this information quickly exceeds the length of the screen and you lose it. How does one capture this information?

Here are instructions for windows XP which I'm using today.

connect a USB to serial cable to two ports on your PC.
There should be a new COM port. To confirm:
1. go to control panel
2. double click on administrative tools.
3. double click on Computer Management
4. select Device Manager from the tree on the right hand side of the window
5. expand the Ports (COM & LPT) and look for new port
In my case it is RadioShack USB to Serial Cable (COM42)
We will use Tera Term to listen to the port (ie, COM42 in this case). Simply launch it and setup the serial port.
Launch qemu with the -serial COM1 option

At this point you should see the ouput from QEMU displayed in Tera Term which also has a logging feature allowing one to save the output to a file.

Update: A simpler alternative is to use -serial file:logfile.log option to QEMU.

-jk

Symbian programming SIG: What Qt brings to Symbian

2009-10-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

What: What Qt brings to Symbian
Who: Jason Barron
Date: Thursday November 5th, 2009, 6:30pm (registration), 7pm(talk)
Where: Symbian Foundation at 1051 E Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404 ( map ).
Cost: free but registration is required. Check here to register.

It is my pleasure to tell you that Jason Barron will be speaking at the November SIG. He is in town for the Qt Dev Days. This is a great opportunity to learn what Qt brings to the Symbian Platform.

Bio:
Jason is a Software Engineer at Nokia, Qt Development Frameworks. After a 3 year career working with embedded Linux in the Qt Support team, he transferred into the Development team to lend his experience in helping to port Qt to Symbian OS. Jason has been working on the port since its inception and today maintains the Symbian specific parts of the QtGui module related to windowing and graphics. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Abstract:
Qt 4.6 will bring with it the introduction of the long awaited port of Qt to the Symbian Platform. In addition to being able to target a new platform, application developers will now be able to take advantage of new functionality in Qt to ensure their application integrates seamlessly with the underlying mobile operating system. This talk focuses on mobile application development using Qt for Symbian OS.

2009-08-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

What: Symbian programming SIG - developer tools
Who: Paul Beusterien
Date: Wednesday, September 16th, 2009, 6:30pm (registration), 7pm(talk)
Where: Symbian Foundation at 1051 E Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404 ( map ).
Cost: free but registration is required. Check here to register.

Everything You Wanted to Know about Symbian Developer Tools

As the Symbian Foundation is opening up all of the Symbian code to the development community, we are also increasing the focus on development tools so that it will be as easy as possible to develop and deploy mobile applications. The Symbian Tools Team will get you up to date on what is happening with developer tools for the Symbian platform.

Abstract:

Symbian Development Tools Survey - If you're experienced with the Symbian developer, come and share your ideas of the top areas for Symbian tools improvements
Tools Plans - Overview of the strategy and plans for Symbian tools, including a discussion of how the issues raised in Section 1 fit in.
Development Environment Survey - Symbian has a wide range of development environments including C/C++, Java, Python, Web, and Flash. We'll give a brief overview of each of them including the advantages and disadvantages.
Web Development Tools - In recent years, the web is transitioning to be a first-class development platform. We'll give a survey of some of the different technologies and directions like phonegap, Blinki, Appcelerator, RhoMobile, and WRT.
Lightening Tool Tips - A series of 5 minute talks that give some specific tips about how to improve your Symbian development experience. If you have a favorite Symbian tool feature, let us know and we'll add you to the agenda.

Bio:

Paul Beusterien is the manager of the Symbian Development Tools group responsible for the tools strategy and implementation. Paul has 21 years of system software development and management experience working on compilers, debuggers, IDEs and real-time operating systems. Before joining the Symbian Foundation, Paul spent 13 years at Wind River Systems.

Tech Tips: tracking down tools/build error

2009-08-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Today, I was chasing a problem. After building the application based on Symbian^2 with PDT 1.0b and PDK v2.0d, I click to debug in carbide. When I tried to open the application in the emulator, it silently failed. Is the problem with debugger, the emulator or something else? Here are a few quick tests to help track these problems down.

Does the emulator work stanalone?
If the emulator works, does your application correctly start?
In my case, it didn't. So, I added the lines below to the epoc.ini file. This will dump a ton of trace output which showed me that RProcess::Create() was returning KErrCorrupt.

LogToFile 1
EmulatorLog z:\epocwind.out

Tomorrow I'll focus on the build and inspecting the offending executable.

-jk

QR Codes

2009-07-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

Hello,

QR codes are a great way to get information to the mobile. One can use one of the QR code generators to encode information into a barcode. Contact information is very common but you can use them for any type of information. Here is one using them for geotagging.

I used this generator to create this QR code.

It represents a URL to a widget. Nokia's barcode reader nicely translate the image into a URL. Unfortunately, there are two steps to install the widget on the phone. Selecting open from the options menu downloads the file. You then need to fire up a file manager. When you open the file in the file manager it will launch the installer.

-jk

Symbian Exchange & Exposition

2009-07-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Hello,

The Symbian Smartphone show is now the Symbian Exchange & Exposition or See2009. The date has been set. There is still an opportunity to participate. So check out the website.

-jk

Book: Here Comes Everybody

2009-06-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I just read

The theme of the book is organizing without organizations.

In the first part of the book, Shirky chronicles the impact of the raise of a number of key technologies: wikis, blogs, sms. He asserts that as technologies become technically uninteresting they can become social profound. He explores

Ronald Coase theory of firms in the context of technologies which have hit a critical mass. What happens when new technology effectively eliminates the cost of a transaction?
What happens when people publish first and filter later?
What happens when it is trivial to create groups?

In the final chapters, he evaluates groups on the internet. Breaking them into a promise(why), tools(how) and the bargain(value). What I respect about his writing is he not only talks about the successes but analyzes the failures. In the chapter entitled "Failure for Free", he argues open source has a distinct advantage because people can explore a lot of alternate solutions to a given problem.

-jk

Building a tools team

2009-06-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

Hello,

We are looking to hire. There are openings for eclipse, web and mobile engineers. Also, we need a build master. There not all posted just yet but look here. BTW, the positions are under the heading San Francisco Technology. We are actually based out of Foster City.

-jk

Tech tip: installation quirk with Widget

2009-06-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Often when downloading a widget to a handset, it shows up in the inbox as a message. Today I was working with an e71. Bluetooth appeared to be working fine but no message was received. Initially I thought it was not support with this rev of the OS but that wasn't it. Turns out it was simply saved to the file system. You can install it by going to the c:\Widget directory and opening the wgz file.

-jk

Seeking Lead Software Engineer

2009-06-12T16:05:00.000-07:00

Hello,

The Symbian Foundation is looking to hire a Lead Software Engineer for our Developer Tools group based on the Foster City, California office. It is a cool role. You'll get to work on Eclipse, Mobile OS, etc. Lots of open source stuff. Apply over here.

-jk

Economist on Mobile

2009-06-07T19:54:00.001-07:00

Hello,

This weeks issue of the Economist features the Technology Quarterly. While you may learn about some new technology, I find there forte to be insights into business, culture and politics related to it. There are two stories involving mobile technology worth mentioning.

The article called "Taken your medicine?" focuses on patients who need to take medicine for TB over extended periods of time. After the symptoms subside, many patients stop taking the medicine for bacteria is whipped out. MIT developed a new patch which changes color to reveal a code when exposed to a patients urine IFF the medicine is in their blood. They send a text message containing this code and recieve free airtime on there mobile.

"Sensors and sensitivity" is the other piece worth mentioning. It is a good survey of high profile project using mobiles to collect data.

GeoChat is a tool to help people respond to a crisis. Mobiles can be used to collect location data, broadcast sms messages and coordinate with others.
Sense Networks "wants to use the predictions derived from tracking mobile phones".
Eric Paulos, a computer scientist at CMU, envisions a Citizen Scientist who can "measure and sample their surroundings.

-jk

Tech Tip: extending the reach of your website

2009-06-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hello,

If you already have a website, what is the simplest way to deploy it as a widget? Given the WRT api, you might be tempted to use the URL as an argument to widget.openURL(). This will go to the desired website but it will launch the web browser. This is a computationally expensive. Also, when the user exits the browser they will need to widget.

An alternative is

window.location = dist;

Now with one click, you can go to the website. If you run this widget, you'll notice a problem. There are no softkeys. Here is the code to fix that.

if (window.widget) {
menu.showSoftkeys();
}

-jk

Tech tip: deploying a widget via a website

2009-05-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

Hello,

When downloading a file via a browser, we need to give the browser a hint about what to do with it via a MIME type. If this is not provided, the file is simply saved to the filesystem. The Web Developer's Library tells us that...

Specify the MIME type of the widget installation package in the HTTP response header. The MIME type must be application/x-nokia-widget.

The following is an example of how to define the widget MIME type for an Apache server configuration file:
AddType x-nokia-widget .wgz

The w3c is in the process of standardizing widgets. According to the w3c standard for widget packaging and configuration the MIME type is application/widget. At some point, I expect a future version of WRT to migrate to this standard.

Here is the behavior I am seeing at the moment. After the widget is downloaded, the user will need to open it with the file manager. This can be done in the browser from the options menu. In the file manager, they need to go to the download directory and open the .wgz file they just downloaded. This will start the normal installation process.

I suspect the host hasn't been configured with the right MIME type. I expected the browser to launch the installer directly. It you can log into the machine where the http server is running, this is pretty straight forward to confirm. In this case, I don't. So, I'll be looking to intercept the http traffic. I'll bet I can do it with telnet. Anyway, I'll update this blog when I get to the bottom of it.

-jk

What's a minimal widget?

2009-05-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I like to understanding what is required for a minimal application. Not only does one understand what is required but you learn to appreciated the functionality provided by what is optional. Let's consider a minimal Symbian/S60 widget. It is composed of two files info.plist and an html file.

info.plist is an xml file containing key value pairs. It must define the application name, an identifier and the html file. Here is a example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Nokia//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/DTDs/plist-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>DisplayName</key>
<string>Kilroy</string>
<key>Identifier</key>
<string>org.symbian.widget.kilroy</string>
<key>MainHTML</key>
<string>Main.html</string>
</dict>
</plist>

The only constraint on the html file is the name. We just defined it in the info.plist file. Here is a trivial html file which must be named Main.html.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Kilroy</title>
</head>
<body id="body">
The sky is so beautiful. I can bite my toes.
</body>
</html>

Deploying is pretty simple:

Assuming these two files are in there own directory, we can simply zip it up. Users of the Windows Explorer and Send To a compressed folder.
Rename the file extension from zip to wgz.
send it over to the phone. I used Nokia's PC Suite.

Now let's turn our attention to the phone. This minimal widget will show up on the phone like any other application. Launch the application which we called kilroy. Not too exciting. You should see a white screen displaying the text from the html file. Developer's will appreciate that no signing was involved. User's will appreciate not having to entry a URL on the phone and that it is ease to launch the application.

-jk

tech tips: finding Web runtime examples

2009-05-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

Where can you find example code for WRT? The Symbian^1 SDK (aka Symbian/S60 5th edition) provides a dozen or so examples. They are organized like a collection of little recipes. For example,

send a message
get location information.
getting access to the calendar/contacts

The Aptana IDE provides a few templates to seed your projects. These include an RSS reader and a Flickr application.

-jk

Symbian Programming SIG on Web Runtime

2009-05-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

What: The initial release from the Symbian Foundation will be based on Symbian/S60 5th edition and is called Symbian^1. One interesting implication for open sourcing Symbian/S60 is the Web Runtime(WRT) is part of the mix. This allows programmers to use standard web technologies like javascript, html and css to deliver applications to the phone. Unlike native applications, no signing is required. In addition to extending JavaScript for the phone UI, the WRT allows to access the phone via the Platform Services API. This talk is an introduction to it.
Who: John Kern
Date: Tuesday, June 9th, 2009, 6:30pm (registration), 7pm(talk)
Where: Symbian Foundation at 1051 E Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404 ( map ).
Cost: free but registration is required. Check here to register.

Update: Jo Stichbury, a well known Symbian author, is planning to attend.

Placing a call with the WRT.

2009-05-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Symbian/S60's Web Runtime has a rich set of javascript extensions called Platform Services: contacts, calendar, location, logging, media, messaging, etc. Nice but how does one make a call. It is a phone after all. Turns out there is the well known tel URI protocol. The syntax is simply tel:<number>. This can be used directly in an href or in javascript.

var url = "tel:123-123-1234";
widget.openURL(url);

Here 123-123-1234 represents a generic phone number.

-jk

Symbian, the Web Runtime and Aptana

2009-05-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Recently, I joined the Symbian Foundation which is at the epicenter of open sourcing Symbian/S60. The initial releases of the will based on S60 5th edition and is called Symbian^1. One interesting implication for open sourcing Symbian/S60 is the Web Runtime(WRT) is part of the mix. This allows programmers to use standard web technologies like javascript, html and css to deliver applications to the phone. Unlike native applications, no signing is required. In addition to extending JavaScript for the phone UI, the WRT allows to access the phone via the Platform Services API.

Aptana is an IDE which can be used to build web widgets for Symbian. It helps to create, edit and deploy applications to the phone. Unlike native S60 development, you can do all of this on Mac OS X because Aptana does provide a preview mode for the application. On windows, you still may want both Nokia's PC Suite and the SDK. The PC Suite makes pairing bluetooth devices (like your pc and phone) ease. The emulator in the SDK provides a much more faithful emulation of the phone.

While Aptana does not allow one to debug javascript, integration with firebug is on their roadmap.

-jk

Six Sense

2009-03-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

Hello,

A friend of mine steered me onto this project by Pattie Maes at the MIT Media lab. It uses a cell phone, camera and projector to provide users with access to all kinds of information in a timely manner. In this video, she is presenting it at TED 2009. Check out the video below.

-jk

Carbon Diem - tracking carbon footprint

2009-03-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Carbon Diem is a mobile application which tracks personal carbon footprint. Each employees personal footprint can be aggregated by the company for analysis. The website doesn't provide a lot of data but it is one to watch.

-jk

Mobile phones as sensors

2009-03-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

Hello,

KQED's quest series aired a broadcast on Tracking Carbon trough your Cell Phone. Here is the video from UCLA's PEIR, the Personal Environmental Impact Report project.

Pretty cool. The research center is the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing. This list of research projects is impressive.

-jk

SVCW: Mobile Opportunity during tough times

2009-03-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Silicon Valley China Wireless has organized a timely panel called Mobile Ecosystem: How to survive and thrive through the economic tsunami. The panel will be looking for opportunity in the mobile space in these tough economic times.

-John

Need a chart?

2009-01-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Recently, I've wanted to embed graphs on my web pages. Google Chart's API is very hand for this. You simply send it a URL and it returns a PNG. Here is an example.

To see the URL used to request this graph via the firefox browser, right click and select view image.

It is very flexible. I was surprised to find out it support some maps too. Here is an example.

-jk

Hot, Flat and Crowded.

2008-11-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Thomas Friedman's previous book, The World Is Flat, explored the impact of globalization. In this book, he was an observer of the global business process. He accepted pop economics and ignored economic externalities. Externalities are a burden placed on someone who isn't invoked in the economic transaction. A factory polluting the air, land and water is a classic example.

This is why his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, is so welcome. Here he takes on the profound impacts of these economic externalities are wreaking on our planet. He breaks these into five key issues:

the growing demand for ever scarcer energy supplies and natural resources
a massive transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries and their petrodictators

disruptive climate change

energy poverty, which is sharply dividing the world into electricity haves and electricity have-nots

rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss, as plants and animals go extinct at record rates

I admire the way he ties economic and human needs with the environment when analyzing the challenges of our age. Much of his work is based on conversations with political and business leaders. Many books warn us about these problems but few attempt to provide solution. Friedman provides solid economic policy suggestions and took a stab at engineering and natural resource problems too. While the book has no reference section, you can generally find information on these people, projects and topics on the web.

-jk

Announcing smart grid blog

2008-11-21T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I have started another blog. It focuses on technologies for energy efficiency, renewable energy and combating climate change.

-jk

Symbian Partner Event in SF

2008-11-19T17:18:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Since Nokia bought Symbian, I've been looking forward to an event which would enlighten us. On December 4th, Symbian will be hosting an all day event in San Francisco called the Symbian Partner Event. Bruce Carney posted the agenda to the Symbian SIG. It is a regular who's who at Symbian:

Nigel Clifford, CEO
David Wood, EVP
Charles Davies, CTO
Lee Williams, Executive Director

-jk

The impact emerging markets are having on Mobiles.

2008-11-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Next month the SDForum's International SIG will be talking about the impact emerging markets are having on mobile. It is schedule for December 4th in Menlo Park. When an announcement is posted on their site, I'll update this post.

-jk

Panel on integrating SMS with Web applications

2008-11-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Hello,

The SF Mobile 2.0 and Wireless group has a panel discussion on Integrating SMS with Web applications on November 6th. Check out the lineup and details here.

-jk

Studs Terkel

2008-11-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

Studs Terkel passed on. This is my favorite quote of his:

"With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what's the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven."

-jk

David Wood note's on Google

2008-11-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Recently I mentioned that David Wood, EVP at Symbian, starting blogging. In a recent post, he comments on Google and enumerates on Google's design philosophy. It is a refreshing alternative to the least common denominator approach(eg, xhtml, css, sms) which was the dominate approach over the last few years.

-jk

OnSkreen seeks Android Developer

2008-10-31T15:01:00.000-07:00

Hello,

OnSkreen is a startup in Seattle. When the are in the Silicon Valley, they participate in MoMo SV which is where I meet them. Seems like a good outfit. They are looking for an Android Developer.

-jk

Google release source for android

2008-10-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

Hello,

As promised, Google released the source for android. Google took a unique approach to version control using git. While you can look at the git files on the web, I don't see a way view the source. So, one is forced to bite the bullet and do a lot of setup first. Not very Googly. :-(

-jk

WhereWednesday: NAVTEQ on Developer Network

2008-10-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

Hello,

WhereWednesday will be meeting this month at NRC on October 29th at 7pm. See NRC for detail.

NAVTEQ will be talking about their Developer Network and Global LBS Challenge.

-jk

BASE vs ACID

2008-10-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Last night I went to a talk by Nikunj Mehta about his AtomDB project at Oracle. Here is a link to their technology home page. I was introduced to the BASE vs ACID trade-off. Now, ACID is a set of database properties that guarantee transactions are processed reliably. This was introduced long ago by Jim Gray I believe. BASE: An ACID alternative which trades some consistency for availability can lead to dramatic improvements in scalability.

Update: Nikunj posted his slides here.

-jk

S60 5th edition

2008-10-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Nokia has announced the 5800 and with it a new SDK... and there was much rejoicing! The SDK is called S60 5th edition. [ Say, what happened to 4th edition!?!]

Let's take an initial look. Obviously, the UI has been extended to support the touch screen which the 5800 sports. Here are some other highlights.

The sensor API for:
- Accelerometer to determine orientation and acceleration of the device
- Magnetometer to determine the strength and direction of the magnetic field.
- Tapping is also handled by this API
An API has been added to support the Toolbar.
Web Services and XML parsers have been greatly enhanced.

-jk

PCD: Natural Interactions with Digital Content

2008-10-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Terry Winnograd's People, Computers and Design Lecture series has begun again. This Friday David Merrill of the MIT Media Lab is presenting. His talk is entitled Natural Interactions with Digital Content.

HCI in this realm is always a challenge. It will be interesting to hear about his approach.

-jk

Tech Tips: debugging with Carbide

2008-09-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Panics are a big help when debugging on Symbian. The lastest Carbide.C++ IDE doesn't show the Panic code by default. To understand why, read this wiki entry. Basically, there are two modes. One starts the OS(host mode); the other the application directly(application mode).

I was debugging in application mode. Unfortunately, it doesn't show the panic code. So, I wanted to switch to host mode. I ran into a small problem. For the release process, I appended the UID to the application name in registration resource file but not to the executable itself. If they are inconsistent, the application you want to debug will fail to launch with system error -1 (or KErrNotFound). It is looking for app but you named it app_uid. Oops!

-jk

SVC annual conference on October 4th.

2008-09-24T16:56:00.001-07:00

Hello,

Silicon Valley-China Wireless Technology Association will be holding their Annual Conference at the Computer History Museum on October 4th. They always have top flight speakers. With Apple and Google entering the market, there has been a lot of focus on them. This Chinese perspective will surely be enlightening and refreshing. I hope I can fit this into my schedule.

-jk

OSM: Street mapping party in SF next weekend.

2008-09-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Open Street Map(OSM) is sponsoring a mapping party next weekend in SF. (see events on there main page or the Squid list for details).

Update: They will be meeting at Urban Mapping, 690 Fifth Street, Suite 200, San Francisco, CA 94107 map. Click here for full details.

I'm planning to attend. I would like to play around with a GPS and learn how to process the way points for inclusion in OSM.

-John

Mobilize panel on operating systems disappointing.

2008-09-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hello,

My greatest disappointment with the recent Mobilize conference was the panel on mobile operating systems. The panel was chalked full of talent but the moderator demonstrated no understanding of the mobile space. All this questions were binary. Is A or B going to win? While this works fine for an eye exam, it doesn't work for mobile. Should apps be written in a native language or a web app? He wanted one or the other. Sorry but it depends. What a shame?

-John

A great panel at Mobilize

2008-09-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Hello,

My vote the best panel at Mobilize was Thinking Experimentally: What creates a good mobile user experience? I have heard both Jason Devitt and Jyri Engestrom speak before. They are very knowledgeable and have engaging perspectives. When they are on the lineup I seek them out.

This panel introduced me to Rachel Hinman. Here is a recent paper she co-authored with Mirjana Spasojevic and Pekka Isomursa of Nokia. I like the way the break the results of their study down into design principles.

-John

David Wood starts blog

2008-09-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hello,

David Wood recently started a blog. He is the EVP at Symbian (bio). Check it out.

-John

J2ME vs the web runtime?

2008-09-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Last year I classified mobile applications into three buckets.

XHTML/CSS and SMS - This was a list common denominator. While you could hit about every phone on the planet, the experience wasn't very satisfying.
j2me - J2ME provide a lot of functionality and some variation of it was on most handsets.
native - The ultimate in functionality but it was expensive to build and only ran on one operating system.

I had always planned to move up to J2ME to get a wider audience but the mobile landscape has changed radically in the last year. Web browsers have made great advances. Apple and Google have entered the race.

With respect to native applications, not much has changed. In rare cases, an application must be native. Web and J2ME is a more interesting comparison. Nokia and Apple are providing compelling web runtime solutions on their handset. Have we turned a corner where one should prefer mobile web apps over J2ME?

Update: I ran into a post by David Wood on this topic.

-jk

SF Bay ACM: Information for People

2008-09-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Laura Haas is scheduled to speak at the local chapter of the ACM. She has earned her reputation in the database world. Her talk is entitled Information for People. "Having access to a billion records is cool, but having access to a billion is people awesome." You can find a related paper here.

-jk

User data point: Landmarks on a map.

2008-08-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Here is an interesting discussion on the content which is provided via online street maps. The argument that online maps are 'wiping out history' seems quite melodramatic. Where do paper maps come from? In general, they are computer generated. Every day people add more data to online maps. As an industry we are still learning. What types of uses make sense? What is the appropriate amount of information to display to the user? How do they want to display, manipulate and add to it?

What I think is interesting in this article is the passionate, user discussion. Telling us would they believe is important about a map.

-jk

W2M&SN: another great lineup.

2008-08-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Catherine Burton has done it again. Check out the line up for the Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Group meetup in September.

Abaqus “Record your Geotracks with a phone and other GPS devices. Annotate with mulitmedia & organize your GeoDiary. Publish to any site on the web for location-based activities such as fitness, travel, social networking, mobile work etc.”
Planet 9 Studios “Planet 9 Studios was founded in 1991 and was the Internets' first 3D content provider. The company is a California Corporation based in San Francisco and is privately held. Mission – Planet 9 is building the next generation of data and software to bring 3D city interfaces to applications. Vision – We believe that 3D city interfaces will enrich a wide range of consumer and business applications.”
“Fire Eagle™ is a new service designed to make it safe and easy to build and use location-aware applications and services. It's a place where users can store and manage information about their current location that trusted apps and sites can update or access. Fire Eagle exposes a rich set of web services that allow developers to write location-aware applications.”

It is scheduled for September 23rd at 7pm at Google. See their website for more details.

-jk

2008-08-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hello,

One nice thing about Symbian is code that compiles and links against the emulator will compile and build for device. I'm sure someone can come up with an exception but in my experience this is very rare.

With the iPhone OS, I'm finding one needs to watch out for this. Consider this example. I wanted to display the current time in a formatted matter. After routing around in the SDK, I found this which compiles fine for the simulator.


NSString *t =  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Time: %@",
   [[NSCalendarDate calendarDate] 
   descriptionWithCalendarFormat:@"%I:%M%p"]];

It should generate a warning because the NSCalendarDate class has been deprecated. If you compile for device, it will generate an error. Here is a reasonable version.


NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter =
 [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[dateFormatter setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterNoStyle];
[dateFormatter setTimeStyle:NSDateFormatterShortStyle];

NSString *t = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Time: %@",
  [dateFormatter stringFromDate:today],nil];

-jk

LBS SIG - Location without GNSS: Perspectives and Research

2008-08-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

Hello,

The LBS SIG, which is associated with Wireless Communications Alliance, will be meeting at PARC on September 30th. It will be a panel discussion focusing on approaches to determining location that do not involved satellite.

-jk

Getting started with Cocoa Program

2008-08-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Coming up to speed on Apple's iPhone can be challenging. Apple does provide a lot of documentation. Their programming guides are comprehensive. It is easy to reference specific classes. They do provide sample programs. The catch is they do NOT bootstrap the developer.

Normally, SDK's are full of sample programs which the documentation references to demonstrate key concepts. This allows the reader to look at the full program and play with it to ensure they understand concept and explore the periphery.

Aaron Hillegass wrote a book which nicely compliments Apple's work.

He provides a structured path through the SDK. After introducing you to Objective-C and the IDE (Xcode and Interface Builder), subsequent chapters talk about a specific concept. He tells you about it and walks you through writing an app to demonstrate it. While this book focuses on the Mac OS X desktop, it is very help primer for the iPhone OS 2.0 too.

-John

ETech 2009: call for participation

2008-08-04T18:57:00.001-07:00

Hello,

O'Reilly sent out their call for participation for ETech 2009. I love it. Applying technology to address important issues of the day.

-jk

Open Street Map

2008-08-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Last night I want to learn about the Open Street Map(OSM) project at CloudMade satellite office in Menlo Park. OSM creates and provides free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. Here is there main wiki page which helps you get started, tells you how to make maps and provides references for development.

-jk

August Where Wednesday

2008-07-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

What: August 2008 Where Wednesday (Location based advertising)
When: August 20th, 2008 - 7pm
Where: San Francisco, CA 94102. Since space is limited, please RSVP
Cost: Nothing!
Who: Blair Swedeen, Vice President of Market Development @ 1020 Placecast
What:

Where is Location-Based Advertising today?
How can location information be leveraged in web advertising?
What is place-based advertising?

Blair is responsible for 1020 Placecast's marketing and business development activities with ISPs, web publishers, mobile application providers and other distribution partners.

Prior to joining 1020 Placecast , Blair founded Partenza Consulting, a strategy and business development consultancy advising leading players and investors in the Location-Based Services (LBS) industry. Previously, he had overall responsibility for the Internet/Wireless product line at NAVTEQ, the leading digital map content company, and launched the company's mobile content product line.

About this group: Where Wednesday focuses mobility, location and maps. "If your App has a Map, join us!"

Mapping and Social networks group on Location

2008-07-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hello,

The Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Group meetup has announced their August lineup. It is about Location:

Loopt - you know 'em, you love 'em, but have you met 'em...
Geogad - Your personal mobile tour guide
3SI Security Systems-...the world leader in cash protection systems...

It is scheduled for August 19th at 7pm at Google. See their website for more details.

-jk

Fish Phone

2008-07-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

I heard about the Blue Ocean Institute Fish Phone on Living on Earth. You'll find the radio broadcast here.

No technical wow factor here but it is a handy website which works well with the mobile web and SMS. While you're at the supermarket, you can check to see if they type of fish you're considering is health for you and if that species is depleted.

-jk

Randy Pausch: A life well lived.

2008-07-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Hello,

While listening to the radio, I heard about Randy Pausch and the Last Lecture. It is an incredibly courageous, moving and inspirational speech. His research focused on Virtual Reality (see the Alice project). Technology isn't central to this talk. It is about Humanity. At the time of the lecture, he knew he was dying of cancer. In this 90 minute lecture, he shares some bits of wisdom from a life well lived.

-jk

O'Reilly's first ever Open Mobile Exchange

2008-07-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

Hello,

O'Reilly will be hosting their first ever Open Mobile Exchange. It is schedule to take advantage the Open Source Convention. Looks like a great place to hear about in mobile linux and browser enhancements.

-jk

People are starting to talk about privacy.

2008-07-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hello,

The iPhone has really changed the mobile landscape. User now understand that their phone is connected to the web, you can download applications and, finally, we are starting to hear people discuss the privacy issues. Here is an article from the Washington Post talking about it. Unfortunately, it just talks to technologies and privacy experts. I would love to see a study by an anthropologist.

-jk

tracking ships on the Aegean among other places

2008-07-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Here is a mashup which tracks naval vessels. Automatic Indtification System(AIS) transmits location information (e.g., GPS, gyrocompass, rate of turn indication) via VHF to receivers on shore or other ships.

-jk

Mapping Infectious Diseases

2008-07-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Here is an article on a very interesting mashup. HealthMap searches a variety of sites for information on infectious disease. It parses the text for the location and type of disease. Then it adds markers on Google Maps for each. The UI allows users to decide which sites to search and what diseases to map.

-jk

Quick Recipes on Symbian OS

2008-07-08T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Symbian Press just released a new book.

The heart of the matter are the later chapters. Each chapter address one technical topic(e.g., telephony, networking, graphics and drawing, etc) and is composed of a collection of recipes. What's a recipe? In this context it is an answer to a how to programming question. How does one play a video clip(see 4.7.2.2)? How does one retrieve the network signal strength(see section 4.8.1.4)?

This is a very welcome compliment to the SDK and associated documentation. Sometimes code snippets in the SDK documentation allude to critical nits and leave it to the reader to figure it out. Recipes are a small but complete unit. The recipes are more concise providing a consistent template which includes the header, the library and which capabilities are required. Much of the source code is available online.

The SDK has always had example programs. Recipes are a nice compliment to them. Many times I want an answer to a how to question. While there is an SDK example which talks about that concept, it may not be the focus of that example, it may lack documentation or it may be tangled up with a bunch of related concepts.

-jk

Sorting through the mobile platforms

2008-07-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

Hello,

In the last year or so, the landscape for mobiles has changed a lot thanks to Andriod, Apple and LiMo. I found Om Malik's article useful when sorting through it.

Update: Something just hit me about this analysis. For the last three years, the trend has been to program to a runtime(either J2me or brew). These are not mentioned in the article.

-jk

mobile DB update: Converging on SQLite

2008-06-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Symbian has had a DMBS for along time. I thought this was so cool when I learned about it. However, I'm glad to here about the Symbian SQL which will be build on top of SQLite. Apple's iPhone and Google's Android are both supporting SQLite. In addition to these mobile platforms standardizing on SQLite, Mozilla and Adobe are using SQLite. This will make development easier although I'm sure each platform will provide a platform specific wrapper. This only makes sense since the languages are so different.

-jk

Schedules on mobiles: using location for context

2008-06-27T14:52:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Schedules are a nature fit for mobiles. For a variety of reasons, I wish to revisit them. I'll be using the Caltrain schedule because I ride it regularly and there is some interesting prior art. Before outlining my motivation and target, I'll review some related work.

The first one I saw was Caltrain's schedule for PalmOS. They did a great job. These comments are from my memory which is a bit rusty because I haven't owned a palm in years. I liked they two column layout. The other columns are not important right now. One tap inverted the trip. Also, I like the one tap to get information about a specific train (ie, fare, zone, travel time and distance ) and a simply gesture brings up information station information. Also, also, they provided alerts to remind you. Palm was a nice platform in the day but their share of the smartphone market is small. Some are calling for Palm to drop Palm OS entirely.

There are J2ME and web implementations. They are pretty bare bones when compared with the earlier work on Palm but should work on about any phone.

Google published a format for specifying for transit information and the local transit authority has published the caltrain schedule this way. This makes it easy to get the underlying schedule data. Google did a nice job integrating these data into Google Maps. Here is a common route for me. It provides alternate routes. The Reverse option is nice on a mobile but a desktop? even a laptop sounds awkward. The overall layout is well done for the desktop browser but for a mobile it is too much.

I want to extend this work with location.

In the coming year, many phones will have some method of computing location. It is very handy for a schedule. It can ease input by positioning the starting station with the nearest station. We can set alerts to remind you that you are nearing your destination.
Maps are not available on the handset. Would this enhance the experience? From time to time, people ask me for directions. This would be a good way to show them. It would be even better if I could send the result to them.
One should be able to use the web or mobile. If you use the desktop to plan a trip, you should be able to send it to the phone.

-jk

Symbian OS: Communication Programming

2008-06-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Last November, Symbian press came out with the 2nd edition of...

It has been re-written from scratch. In general, I like it. The only real hole is SIP/RTP but this makes sense as the SDK support for SIP/RTP is not ready for prime time. [aside: while poking around for SIP on Symbian, I ran cross the pjsip SIP implementation which has been ported to Symbian. I've not done any due diligence on it.]

The two major sections are Low-level technology (sockets, bluetooth, infrared, telephony, etc) and High-level technology(messaging, OBEX, HTTP and device management).

-John

Geo/LBS talks clustered on July 15th

2008-06-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hello,

A number of interesting talks are clustered on July 15th.

The Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Group's July meeting is about Web 2.0 geospatial applications meet travel, adventure and the outdoor experience.

Three presentations will include:

Rico Simpkins on user-generated maps and REI
Craig Rosa an interactive producer for KQED Quest
Eye.fi, a company which builds a digital photo camera memory card that attaches GPS coordinates to every shot

Silicon Valley China Wireless will be hosting a seminar on Location Based Services. They do a nice job. So, this should be good too.

-John

Nokia to acquire Symbian and open sources Symbian/S60

2008-06-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Nokia to acquire Symbian. This is a big move. It makes sense because it saves them money on royalties and should speed up S60 development.

Update: I missed the high order bit. Nokia is going to open source Symbian and S60. Here is the press release.

-John

Future Salon: next-gen mobile devices.

2008-06-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

Hello,

My friend Martin send me an announcement for this month's Future Salon on June 23th at SAP in Palo Alto. It address next-generation mobile devices.

Bug Labs will be there. I say them at Where 2.0. They allow you to hack hardware. The start with a base computer about the size of a mobile. You can then add GPS, accelerometer, motion detector, etc.

I haven't heard of the other project but I look forward to hearing about it.

-John

Telling Stories w/ maps

2008-06-15T20:05:00.001-07:00

Hello,

Since returning from Where 2.0, I've been exploring telling stories with maps. Towards that end I've been creating a new site using the Google App Engine.

As I read the news, I see a lot of stories which deal with people and the landscape but the websites don't use maps. This site will investigate alternative designs which treat the map as an integral part of the narrative. The first one involves endangered history sites in the United States as identified by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Click here to check out my new site.

-John

Magitti: mobile Leisure Guide

2008-06-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

Hello,

One characteristic I try to exploit when designing mobile applications is context. Magitti is a great example. It is both context and activity aware application which offers recommendations. This lecture is available online.

-John

Development, highlighting LBS

2008-05-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hello,

This SD Forum's Mobile Internet SIG will be hosting to speakers focusing on Location Based services on June 5th in Menlo Park.

Mario Tapia has a broad background in mobile. He is currently at Yahoo.

Christian Wiklund is the CEO of Wichro which recently launched their ZKOUT social network which has LBS baked into its soul.

-jk

Nokia code camp on LBS in Mt View

2008-05-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Nokia is hosting code camp in Mountain View focused on LBS on June 10th. Click here for more details.

-jk

ECOresearch: Semantic and Geospatial Web

2008-05-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

Hello,

ECOresearch is a website using Semantic Web and Geospatial Web techniques to aggregate environmental information. I'll have to evaluate it when I'm not so tired.

-jk

GABA presents a mobile internet panel

2008-05-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

Hello,

German American Business Association is presenting a panel entitled Internet Going Mobile. It will be held on June 12th at SAP Labs. They do a great job. So, I'm looking forward to it.

-jk

Spatial history

2008-05-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hello,

One aspect of Geospatial data which deserves more exploration is time. Richard White, a Stanford Professor, is the PI for the Spatial History Project. While it appears early in the project, it looks very promising. I have much to learn from this site.

-jk

GeoWeb 2008

2008-05-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I just learned about a conference called GeoWeb. It will be held in Vancouver, BC, Canada on July 21st through the 25th.

-jk

Science 2.0: The Design Science of Collaboration

2008-05-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Hello,

There is another outstanding talk at Winograd's Seminar on People, Computers, and Design. The speaker is Ben Shneiderman. He'll be talking about Science 2.0: The Design Science of Collaboration.

-jk

public geo data

2008-05-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hello,

The recent Where 2.0 conference has me poking around geo data. Here are some sites which provide public data.

The US Census Bureau gives provides data on Cartographic Boundries states, counties and such.
The USGS National Atlas provide a ton of interesting geo data.
The Canadian Government has an outstanding site called GeoBase

If you know of others, I'd love to hear about it.

-jk

Nokia's Tapio Tolvanen presents at SF ACM

2008-05-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Nokia's Tapio Tolvanen will be presenting the following talk to the SF Bay ACM on June 18th. Their month meetings are at HP in Cupertino.

-jk

PRESENTATOR:
Tapio Tolvanen, Technology Manager for Nokia Devices’ Linux Computers.

TOPIC:
Developing software for mobile devices – Nokia Internet Tablets.

TOPIC SUMMARY:
In this presentation, you will learn about the Nokia Internet tablets both from a hardware and software perspective. Explore the devices, applications and communities, hear the features and study the architecture of the operating system and hardware configuration. Also discover the
essentials of the application development platform, ranging from application frameworks to development tools.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:
Tapio Tolvanen is currently a Technology Manager for Nokia Devices. Tolvanen has been defining architectures and guiding the development of several applications creating engaging and compelling Internet Experience on Nokia's first Open Source based platform - maemo. Prior to this, Tolvanen has been developing several applications and products on Nokia's platforms, including Series 40, S60 and maemo in Europe, Asia and the U.S.A.

2008-05-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Here are some blog entries about the Where 2.0 conference from the official O'Reilly site.

-jk

Towards exposing location via the web browser

2008-05-15T07:16:00.001-07:00

Hello,

Locationaware mission is to establish a standard to expose location-specific information via the web browser.

-jk

GeoGraffiti - combining voice and google maps

2008-05-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Today I read about GeoGraffiti. It is a voice 2.0 mashup with google maps. All content is audio. You can call their IVR and leave a voice message which will be associated with a place. This is called a "Voice Mark" and will be shared with everyone. Check out their demo on YouTube.

They have a lot of challenges ahead of them from a technical, business and privacy stand point.

Voice data is hard to structure. So, the kinds of queries you can ask about the data is limited. If they obtain critical masse, how would they filter through all the voice marks for a popular location. Also, it is difficult to ensure the quality of the recordings. My un-scientific sample of their recordings revealed.
- A young girl leaving a message for Captain Jack. Was this intend for publication?
- a recording of a voice machine accepting a new recording.
- an empty voice message
- some guy telling us about rad new gas station in Irvine.
You can become a "fan" of someone and track them. That is be alerted as they leave new "Voice Marks". Their privacy statement doesn't address this directly.

While I applaud the idea of combining telephony, the web and maps, they have a tough road ahead.

-jk