Human Planet

Hashtags working in Hebrew

Hello all,

I have been using twitter quite a lot recently and to users that are using non-Latin tweets, it might have occurred that the hashtags don’t work.

So I took the time to write a greasemonkey script that does the job (for Firefox, Chrome, Webkit and others).

It will add a search link on the word, unfortunately due to a twitter bug, I had to remove the number sign (#) because twitter can’t search with it.

• The script should work with all non-Latin languages (tested Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese)
• The script does not work when the “more” button is pressed. If anyone knows how to solve that please contact me.

I hope this becomes a useful tool for people.

• Download the script here
• Userscripts.org page

India, known for the “world’s cheapest” innovations, unveiled a prototype of a $35 tablet computer aimed at students.

The project is part of an ambitious education technology initiative by the Indian government, which also aims to bring broadband connectivity to India’s 25,000 colleges and 504 universities and make study materials available online.

The government even plans on subsidizing the cost of the tablet for its student which would bring the purchase price down even lower. According to Kapil Sibal, the country’s Minister for Human Resource Development, this is their answer to MIT’s $100 computer.

The Linux-based computer at first glance resembles an Apple iPad and features basic functions you’d expect to see in a tablet–a Web browser, multimedia player, PDF reader, Wi-Fi, and video conferencing ability. It has 2GB of RAM (but no hard disk, instead using a memory card) and USB ports and could be available to kids from primary school up to the university level as early as next year.

(Sources: telecentre.org, cnet news, bbc news)

The computer has been named “Nano” and has been developed through joint efforts of IISc Bombay and IIT Chennai. Although the computer itself has been developed through the interfacing of various off-shelf components yet it has been engineered to be rugged and all-weathered, suited for use by children, and can be termed as a very promising innovation. The use of opensource software and cheap hardware, memory cards instead of hard-disk, makes the promise of $10 (aimed target) somewhat plausible.
Full Story

A tale of five ambitious girls

Sidra, Amber, Tehreem, Hafsah and Zainab Sukhera are the ambitious girls studying in APS Quetta who, after completion of their metric exams, got a brilliant idea to use their time, ambition and intellect to use by making a difference in the society. They thought of making donations in SOS village but since there were summer vacations they couldn’t do much. They didn’t have a hefty saving of pocket money, nor were they inspired by teachers towards social work. Still they had a simple idea of establishing a Mini Tuition Club (MTC). The idea seems pretty old and banal, yet there it provides us with a food for thought! MTC is a remarkable example of the penetration power of media and advertisements. Telenor’s Karo Mumkin project with its simple yet emphatic advertisements aired on all TV channels relating to some (hypothetical) Baluchistan university making it compulsory for students to teach other students as a degree requirement to change Pakistan, might seem like a cliché’ at first (even I thought of it as a cliché’ till I got to see its impact through MTC), yet it does stimulate the thoughts of our youth to direct their energies towards bringing a change. Another example of a similar project is the “Kal ke liye aaj badlo” by Mobilink with their inspirational advertisement.

Getting back to our story of MTC, it’s not a matter of debate if these ambitious students got their inspiration from these advertisements or not, the only thing that matters is the inspiration from these advertisements coupled with their ambition led them to set up a simple tuition club. MTC was setup in C.M.H. Quetta (Baluchistan), utilizing the existing resources. The target students were those female students of mediocre families who aren’t that fortunate enough to get good teachers (as their schools aren’t that great). Since it was summer vacations, 11 students signed up for the club, due to transportation problems. The unique aspect of the club was the level of effort that was put into preparation of the lectures by the teachers (metric students).

 The teachers belong to the era of technology, it is the generation that has actually been using technology for getting education out of it, and they prepared the lectures through all sorts of online tutorials and didn’t resort to the text bookish lectures. They copied the elaborate diagrams on paper from their Google search results and gave the hand outs to the students. The administration of the hospital also provided the students with some computers to utilize them for learning. Using ICTs to improve the teaching methods (even in an indirect manner) is a success story of the technology. The students were mostly from urdu medium schools and therefore they couldn’t really get hold of the superb lectures on various science topics at online resources like Khan Academy. No worries, our crafty teachers were smart! They themselves listened to the online lectures and then compiled their handouts and lectures in accordance with it, translated into urdu, for easy comprehension of the students. The teachers also consulted various text books of O levels to use the illustrious pictures in those books for explanation, not to mention the detailed descriptions in theses better compiled books.

What these ambitious students did might not be truly ‘innovative venture’; however, they did make us realize that there are no barriers to people who want to make a change. They can bridge the digital divide by serving as a link between technology and the non computer literate student to bring the immense educational content, available online, to use.

What did these students have? They had an encouragement from their parents, knowledge of ICTs through the generation above them (brothers and sisters), an ambition to bring a change and an inspiration from TV Ads which presented to them the bigger dimension of small steps towards bringing a change and to make dreams a reality. These students have also given us a clear message that the ideas projected in TV advertisements aren’t a farfetched dream but in fact quite practical if implemented at grass root levels. They have a simple question to all readers…. “its summer vacations… Why don’t you too do the MTC”?

Author’s note: This simplistic idea is very replicable and workable. We can all really join hands to bring many new and interesting things to complement it. To teach the computer literacy the young students can be put onto the typing tutor, which will give them a leap start into the world of ICTs. It will prevent them from jumping into computer games (that might actually backfire and create problems for their parents if they insist on buying computers for themselves, which parents can’t afford). Competitions of typing can be held in students too! Next step can be to provide them with encyclopedias like Britannica etc on CDs for learning. Students of higher grade can be provided access to internet to learn and explore Wikipedia and other educational content in supervision. Every institute has some old PCs like Pentium 2 or 3s which can be given to the children for experimentation. Let us equip and teach our children to use ICTs to their learning and education.

For the Pictures here's 173 Pictures taken with my Evo, and here's another 251 taken by @rasharasem Camera.
As early as it gets, my roommate woke me up at 5:30am. Carelessly without even opening my eyes, I started calling my friends to make sure they’re all awake. Done so, hit the shower, wore my Nexus One TShirt that I got from GTUG Palestine Android Hackathon event, and headed out at 6:10am.
Meeting @moonitta at Abu Jassar square, waiting for 20+ minutes with no cars having five empty spots (We were going to pick up @hammamsamara, @rasharasem and Reham on our way). That was it to decide to go separate.  Got to Ramallah around 6:40 a 7-passenger van left to Qalandiya while I await the rest of the guys, once we got everyone, we headed to Qalandiya, got there around 7:00am.
Shocked by being shocked with a Typical snapshot of Qalandiya Israeli Checkpoint. Busy as hell! over 150 people (including some of us) where still outside the first entrance door. Great enough this didn’t take as much time as we thought it would. 30 minutes later we were inside the checkpoint (some took even more as they came a bit late).

Tried waiting for @zafersh for sometime, but he was stuck inside the business of the checkpoint. Had to leave without him.
@Tova_s from Mercycorps had already arranged the transportation for all of us with 2 vans waiting behind the checkpoint. That was a great help, so thank you @Tova_s.
While on the way, and at another Israeli checkpoint, called in Hebrew Moda’een, they told us to get off the vans and get inside to get rechecked all over again. This time was even terrible than the first time. Especially that I foolishly took my packbag with me carrying the laptop around. They spent like more than 20 minutes just inspecting my MacBook Pro! I mean what’s their to inspect! They kept flipping it around, hitting it around, putting it in differnet pauses. And I was dying inside seeing my full-month-payment-interning-in-Google Macbook get smacked out each time they get it back and forth inside the XRay Machine! It’s just a laptop for God sake! They even asked me to remove the battery and I was like “uh.. no can’t do! Battery is built in.”.

Anyhow, one more check on the IDs and Permits and we were out. This one was exhausting and kinda depressing, but once we were out the guys got their shiny smiles back and ready to Go Google. A bit of traffic jams and we were at the Avenue! Awesome!

Getting inside, registering our names and getting our badges printed out, to find out that there’s amazing amout of desert and light breakfast. And the first thing caught @rasharasem eyes were the Google IO Cupcakes! “Yay they’re here, we wanted some since the IO!”. And what caught @HammamSamara eyes was the free chips at the GTUG Booth. (And He actually spent most of his time there).One of the most enjoyable thing we found, at least me (@mkhatib7) and @rasharasem was what I like to call “Binary Hunting”. They had these binary strings printed all over the posters and on the badge. I was kinda hoping it would be something like Google IO QR Codes Treasures, but they were binary strings that translates to some stuff like: “Welcome to Devfest”, “Have a great Day”, “Session Room”, “Agenda”, “Hacker Launge”, “My Name is”...etcAt 10:00am the keynotes started out, starting with Tal as MC and a small speech Marissa Mayer, VP of search product and user experience. Followed her Brian Rakowski Product Manager of Chrome.
After the keynotes, we took a 10 minute break, and the parallel sessions started. There were two tracks one for Webmasters (Web) and one for Developers (Dev). We were so excited about the Chrome Web Store and Extensions, unfortunately we were out of the session in the first 5 minutes as the speaker was speaking in Hebrow rather than English. Luckily enough, the next two sessions were in English. Chrome Developer Tools and HTML5. After which was the dinner. Unfortunately most of us didn’t like the dinner and barely ate something. The food didn’t taste as good as it looks. After the lunch, it was time to do some hacking. The session were already started, but we found some spots to sit down on the lovely beanbags. I personally liked the hackathon, the bad thing was as @rasharasem puts it “it wasn’t challenging” hence most of the guys left a bit early and maybe didn’t even hack around with the code. But we kept coding, and we loved it, and didn’t leave until we got it working. 
We’ve met some cool guys there, @aloncarmel and @amir_harel enjoyed talking to both of you and hope to meet sometime soon again.At the end, we picked up our Chrome TShirts and headed to Jerusalem. The guys were too excited to visit the Dom of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque. Unfortunatelly not all of us made it there as at our way back the second van was returned and they had to even go to Ramallah rather than Jerusalem.
The 6 guys who made it to Jerusalem including me, went for a quick tour in Jerusalem, visited Al Aqsa and Dom of the Rock. And had a Kabab and Falafel Sandwishes while going home to Ramallah.
Thanks everyone who made this possible. And hope all enjoyed their time as much as I did. Now I leave you with my Awesome Google Cupcake along with my Super Cool Nexus One Loading TShirt! And my amazing Android-powered HTC Evo 4G mobile.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship seem like alien words in the world of College of E&ME, where walking on the layed out (SOP certified) line is “siraat-e-mustakeem”. The lack of appreciation for different personalities and their ideas, coupled with the sole benchmarking based on GPA has turned it into a stagnant system. The immediate and evident consequences of this being that the top notch students of nation coming to this college are provided with a mindset (by default) to seek jobs. Starting a new business or a venture is out of their books! Or at least a lowest grade back up. Students would even prefer low income research jobs (even though they don’t have research aptitude). A brief study of stats shows that it was not until the recession hit market cut down vacancies, that the students started thinking of doing something of their own, otherwise doing own business is out of question. Not that the students aren’t capable enough or worst non-innovative, it’s the general mindset of society, educational institute and the family that first goal set for fresh grads is to find some “cool” job – which necessarily entails some famous multinational or a permanent government job.

Breaking this ice of stagnation, Society of ICTs arranged a lecture on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship for engineers”. The guest speaker was the well-known, Mr. Adnan Shahid (president EME Alumni Association, De 14EE Graduate, Director post paid solutions at Mobilink and an MBA from MIT). The speaker had a solid IT background polished by the studies at MIT. He has been lately talking to the college administration to promote new ideas and concepts in a bit to foster entrepreneurial ventures by EMEnets. These are the earliest attempts of shifting the excessive academic focus of the college administration though. It might take much time to develop an atmosphere conducive to innovative minds to break the conventions and take up new challenges – eventually to get spin out companies formed by college graduates.

Though the lecture was held at a very short notice, the simplistic yet inspirational speaking skills of the guest kept the audience alive, interested and at the same time calling their pals to come to ECR (through SMS). Sir Adnan presented several examples of small ideas which later on changed the technology or the lives of people. Through the brilliant examples and news report clippings (from Pakistani newspapers) he explained the terms Innovation and invention as well as their link. He presented several case studies to students e.g. Facebook, his target of research, and presented his analysis of the marketing techniques Facebook guys implemented to make it such a huge success. Mr. Adnan challenged the students to come up with ideas along with their business proposals and start their own ventures. He presented the examples of content development (applications, wallpapers, ringtones etc.) for Mobilink itself. The students look forward to more of such lectures by alumni to guide them and inspire them J Society of ICTs will be working with the Alumni Liaison Committee to hold more of such lectures. Next semester a series of lectures on software development are also planned with the alumni owning software houses.

Last week, I went to Berlin for the annual LinuxTag event and to participate in the WIPJam running on the first day.

This was my first visit to LinuxTag, and it was interesting to compare it to FOSDEM, which I visited for the second time earlier this year. For those that haven't been, LinuxTag is an interesting combination of trade show, commercial exhibition, conference and community get-together.  Apparently, some 11,000 individuals were in attendance, which would make it almost three times the size of FOSDEM. But a combination of the much larger exhibition centre in place of FOSDEM's university campus, and being a 4 day event compared to FOSDEM's weekend, meant that it never really felt that busy. This is borne out by the speaking events - FOSDEM had almost 300 talks over two days, while LinuxTag only managed 231 across four. Much more leisurely! This turned out to be a good thing - it was handy to have some time to look around the show floor, hold conversations in the corridors, and generally soak up the atmosphere. On the whole, the LinuxTag talks seemed to be pitched more at introductory level, while FOSDEM felt more bleeding-edge and intensively technical. This seemed to suit the audience, which was much more mixed at LinuxTag.

The WIPJam on Wednesday turned out to be lively, with lots of good discussions. I really like the WIP format for these sessions - relaxed and informal with just the right amount of nudging from the organisers to keep things moving. Carlo and Thibaut did a great job of running the event, despite the blistering heat. I'd been asked to help facilitate discussion on "Cross Platform development - platform choices and mobile dev tools". We ran two sessions, both with more than a dozen participants, from a range of backgrounds including developers, researchers, industry luminaries and business owners.

One of the key messages that came out of the discussion was that these developers are very much focussing on HTML5 to help solve their cross-platform problems. The message was "as much HTML as possible, only use native when absolutely necessary". It was suggested that a significant number of apps in app stores only use native to embed browser engines and provide a wrapper around HTML, combining the benefits of cross-platform standards-based development with the benefits of the app store delivery model. It would certainly be interesting to see some hard statistics that back up this perception.

We looked a bit at priorities for picking a platform, and the consensus was that reach, monetisation, tooling, openness and the availability of a vibrant support community ("fan boys") were key.  A corollary of that was that no amount of openness or reach can make up for a platform that is simply too difficult to write for. There was also significant enthusiasm for multiple app stores to be available on each phone platform (a view I'm not altogether in agreement with as I think it will frustrate and confuse consumers). Developers also wanted "Babelfish for Apps" to help them with cross-platform development: a guide to how things work on each platform. For example, on Palm you have a swipe gesture to go back in apps, on Android you have a back button, on iPhone it's typically a UI element on screen.

Finally, the discussion group members were all conscious that we're entering a new era where we don't just need to worry about cross platform development, but also cross form-factor and cross-category development. With the proliferation of mobile devices, netbooks, and the oncoming tsunami of tablet computers, good design and an MVC approach to app construction will only become more important. Cross-platform UI toolkits and frameworks will help, but design and testing will become increasingly challenging.

Elsewhere in LinuxTag, some of the highlights included:

* Paul Adams' talk on  Kolab (it's great to see effort being put into a truly secure, open source cross-platform PIM solution).

* Chatting to the Cream Desktop Environment guys who had a slick demo, some neat ideas and tons of enthusiasm - I hope to see them get involved with upstream GNOME and getting their ideas more widely accepted.

* Most of the mobile sessions were packed with standing room only. Several talks included lots of interesting Q&A at the end (for example "Mobile Development with Qt and Qt Creator") so the audience were not just interested but also very clearly engaged in the topics.

* Dirk's talk on MeeGo, which was interesting, informative, entertaining and included a risky live demo. Dirk was a great advocate for the platform, and spoke at just the right level for the audience.

 

Next year's LinuxTag is 11-14 May in Berlin, and there's a load more WIP Jams coming up in the future - catch one if you can!

 

 

 

 

 

Some of you may have missed the recent news of the v1.0 release of the LiMo-sponsored BONDI Web SDK, which is downloadable here. This tool, developed in the open by LiMo member companies Aplix and Azingo, makes it much simpler to develop mobile web widgets that conform to the OMTP BONDI v1.1 specifications. This is a key industry standard which is being considered for adoption by the global alliance of operators known as the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC).

Using only HTML, CSS and Javascript, web developers can now create advanced mobile phone apps that access mobile features such as sending and receiving SMS or email, finding the user’s current location or capturing a photo.

The SDK includes an emulator that implements most of the BONDI APIs so that it is possible to run and even debug your web widget using breakpoints without access to a BONDI-enabled handset. This doesn’t eliminate the need to test your app on real devices but it does mean that you can iron out most of the bugs earlier and it reduces the time spent getting it working well on the handset. If you happen to work for a company which is a member of the LiMo Foundation, you will find that the SDK also works with the LiMo platform simulator so your widget can be tested in that environment as well.

To assist with rapid UI prototyping, the SDK contains an “HTML Preview” window which updates immediately when any changes are made to the app’s source code. There are no excuses now – give your app the compelling interface that will attract those millions of users and keep them hooked!

If you’re not familiar with the BONDI APIs yet, the SDK can help by providing a browsable list of all the available BONDI APIs, auto-completion when you begin to type in a BONDI API, and extensive Help documentation.

The SDK can be installed either as a plug-in to Eclipse or as a self-contained package which includes everything you need to get going, emulator included. It supports Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Once your widget is ready for the limelight, you can package it, sign it with a digital signature (if you wish) and publish it, all using the SDK. OMTP, the industry body which created the BONDI specs, provides a widget gallery here. Check it out to see what’s been done with BONDI so far, and then get coding!

Apple launched its iPhone 4 amidst big fanfare and it truly lived up to expectations.  In the words of Steve Jobs, the demarcation between technology and liberal arts is getting increasingly blurred. There are some truly innovative aspects to the iPhone 4 such as optically laminated glass for the screen, retina display with a 960 by 640 resolution, metal 5X stronger than steel for the edge (which also serves as the antenna), the A4 processor and more impressively, all this is packed into a form factor that is currently the thinnest smartphone on the market.

Once again, it is not always about inventing new technology.  Video mail, which is being touted as one of the most of impressive features of the new iPhone 4, has been around for years but now that Apple has repackaged it in a great format, do we have any doubts that it will be the latest craze that will take the world by storm?

This then takes us to the next question – what does this mean for the mobile industry at large?

Clearly, the customers are more than thrilled with the toys that Apple is coming up with but what about the other handset manufacturers.  Why is there only one single company that can deliver such cutting –edge innovation and the rest of the players have to resign themselves to playing catch-up? Is it because the industry players have their focus completely wrong?  Are there not enough resources being put into R&D and engineering amongst the leading handset manufacturers and operators as compared to more front end functions such as marketing?

In the companies, where there is an impressive pool of engineers, the problem is then of a complete disconnect between the engineers that create technology and functionalities and the "artists" that understand user interface and user experience.

If this situation is not already keeping the leaders of the mobile industry awake at night, it should.  Otherwise, Richard Windsor’s prediction about the “iOS(iPhone OS) becoming the de facto standard and making a joke of openness” might well become true!

 

The Wireless Industry Partnership is hosting a WIPJam developer day on Wednesday, June 9, in Berlin. The Jam is free to attend, and is running alongside LinuxTag and IT Profits -- and Jam attendees will also gain free admission to those leading open-source events too!

WIPJams are unconference-style events with the motto "No PPT, No Panels, No Ties!" The format is designed to encourage interaction and knowledge sharing, and gives participants a chance to learn about the things they're most interested in through interactive unpanels and deep-dive discussion groups. This Jam, co-hosted by IT Profits, is focused around mobile profits and the mobile enterprise. Open source in mobile is now a reality, and we'll focus on what open source enables developers and enterprises to do, rather than how open source works.

Some of the topics to be covered include:
- IT or Marketing -- who drives your mobile decisions?
- Mobile cloud technology
- Mobilizing the enterprise
- Building apps for netbooks and tablets
- App Store Placement Optimization and driving downloads
- How to make money from mobile software!
- Cross-platform development
- Augmented reality

Andrew Savory, LiMo’s Open Source Manager, will be leading the “Cross-Platform development” discussion group.

To register for your free ticket,  visit http://www.wipconnector.com/wipjam/ITProfits10_call today!

The Open Mobile Summit returned to London on May 26th and 27th to serve as a platform for the Great and Good to come together to debate, evangelise and predict what will happen in the coming years in this wonderful industry we live in.

 

So let’s get down to details and look at the key themes that emerged from Day 1 and Day 2 of the event.

 

Day 1

 

Everyone is obsessed with Apple. Despite no one from Apple being at the event, the major part of the first half of Day 1 was spent talking about Apple and its impact on the market. While some like to paint Apple as a villain of the peace, some key data points emerged such as “the best apps live for 2-3 months in the top 25 list and sell 400-500k copies a month”. As this author pointed out in his questioning of the first panel session - why not focus on learning how to replicate this as I am sure there are a lot of developers that would love to suffer this type of ill treatment!  For sure, all is not perfect with iTunes but Apple seems to have a strong, and from a quality perspective, self regulating model that proves you can make money in mobile apps.

 

There was also a discussion around the business case of the mobile Internet for network operators. With overloaded networks and the cost of deploying new high speed infrastructure, has the Internet become a curse for network operators?

 

 

Thankfully, the conclusion was now with new air interfaces such as HSxPA+, LTE and LTE Advanced (side note to industry; please hire some better naming people!) viewed as delivering more cost effective solutions than previous platforms, the economics will stack up to support broad market deployments. We also, thankfully, appear to be moving beyond the concept of the “mobile internet” being somehow separate from the "Internet”. Hopefully, this time next year, we will only talk about the “Internet” as it becomes clear to all that for most consumers, this is how they view the world.

 

Consumer adoption of mobile services continues apace. Orange shared an interesting data point that underlines this with 25% of their user base now regularly accessing the internet from their mobile device – up from 10% only a year ago. T-Mobile spoke about their research findings that users of Facebook on their handset use the service 2X the level of people who only access it from their PC. This is perhaps the most insightful comment of the day showing that people not only use the services but it has a broader impact on their overall behaviour and interaction levels.

 

Interestingly, Qualcomm also highlighted that there is still a lot of life left in voice. Something that I believe is very true indeed. This also stimulated some interesting feedback for the operators in the room from some of their higher spending customer about the quality of service currently being delivered. Another talking point was around the statement that the next 1B mobile subscribers will come from Africa, China and India. This has significant implications for developers as these consumers will bring different experiences to mobile with many having their first taste of the Internet via their mobile device. It also suggests that price points will need to be different and so will the way that applications are purchased, with many of these consumers not having traditional bank accounts. So while it will be a challenge, it will also lead to many new innovations for the industry.

 

Richard Windsor of Nomura delivered perhaps the most challenging presentation of the day showing how the new market dynamics are playing out and cutting through much of the hype to deliver a few key home truths such as:

• Today the closed systems are the ones making the real money.
• Developers typically go where the money is and right now, they are going to Apple and Android.
• Apple is successful because it focuses on selling the hardware and is not too worried about making money directly from iTunes and the   Apps store.
• Simple experiences well executed sell – poor ones executed badly, do not.

 

Finally there was also a great discussion around content with a host of the leading publishers in mobile on a panel session. While the industry frets about fragmentation and multiple platforms it seems that if publishers can make money then, at least for now, they are not too worried about mobile being overly complex.

 

So key takeaways from day one were:

-          Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) applies as much in mobile as it does anywhere else.

-          Expect to see 3G+ / 4Grolling out in the near future as operators make the economics work.

-          Still too much time spent talking about Apple rather than bring equally compelling experiences to market.

-          Developers and publishers can and are making money in mobile even if it is a little too complex in some areas.

 

 

Day 2

 

Day 2 of the Open Mobile Summit continued to stimulate much industry debate.  At the heart of much of the discussion was “will the web win over apps?”  For this author, this was largely a moot question as the key issue is rather how does the industry help developers create, publish, and be discovered. So while the debate raged on with almost religious intensity at times the key takeaway message was - give developers great tools and let them worry about what the right approach is based on the experience they want to deliver.

There was also a lot of debate about “how low can Smartphones go”.  It’s clear that Smartphones are poised for rapid growth over the next 5 years not only in established Western European markets but on a global stage. There was much excitement about the prospect of true low cost mass market handsets running Android and Symbian reaching consumers’ hands in the second half of the year. Orange shared some interesting data such as their expectation that by the end of the year 50%, yes 50%, of new handsets they buy will be running a Smartphone OS.

Nokia showed that they are far from giving up their leadership of the mobile market.  During a keynote presentation they shared some compelling data about the growth of the OVI platform (now hitting 1.75m downloads of applications and content per day), the uptake of their new mobile maps strategy (11M users of Drive and Walk) and a very interesting insight into the emerging markets, where they have 1.5M paying users of Nokia Life Tools. As you would expect Nokia also hit on its new handset offerings such as its first Symbian 3 handset, the N8 and also announced that MeeGo Release 1 is now available for download.

There was equally much discussion about the role of tablets moving forwards. Clearly, the iPad has got off to a flying start and many, including CCS’s Ben Wood, openly stated that it was outperforming their expectations. Indeed Ben went so far as to say the iPad would own 80% of the tablet market. Aside from agreeing that tablets are set for higher levels of success than expected, there was also a lot of focus on the usage model. Clearly, publishers like this new format for delivering real time content to a device where it is easy to consume print as well as new multimedia formats. However, others believe that Tablets will become a “device for updating Facebook while watching TV”. Regardless of the usage model, it’s now clear that Tablets will find their own niche in the market and will also force the industry to think anew about how to enable consumers to take content and experiences across the rapidly growing range of form factors.

There were also some great presentations on the role of User Experience design from companies such as Frog Design and TAT- The Astonishing Tribe. Clearly they are enjoying the new world of open platforms and have the shackles removed from their creativity. IF half of the concepts shown come to market, this is going to be one amazing industry to be part of.  Interactive applications that have the intelligence to help you find and share content with friends, boundless usages of Augmented Reality, a significantly reduced number of clicks – at this point I have to give great credit to the presenter from TAT who managed to overcome IT issues, saying "Click" every time he wanted to change slides while talking about reducing the number of clicks. It turned out to be a great way to deliver the message – instant recognition of people and places with the ability to immediately interact with friends around the media and as you would expect all wrapped up in mouth watering eye candy and delivered on a wide range of new device form factors.

So, all in all, a very insightful two days covering many of the key issues in our industry and as I look into my crystal ball I am looking forward to:
· Much faster connectivity much sooner than expected
· No limitations on creativity
· More development options with enhanced, HMTL 5 enabled browsers
· Ever more gorgeous user experiences
· Ever increasing levels of competition – driving innovation
· A better focus on making applications and content stores work for developers

Now I think I need to go and write a new Christmas list!

 

 

 

 

 

Finally the details of the NOKIA Innovation contest as prophesized in our previous post are out. The contest details are available at the Official Site. The targeted contest for Pakistani Developers are here. The contest focuses on development of mobile applications.

Access all details regarding the contest here. read more

It has been really long time since I have posted any updates. Yes, I was busy, but the number of open tabs with interesting articles kept on growing. So, today I have a moment to breathe and I decided to close some of them (before my Firefox crashes). Although some of the link are not as timely as they were when I first opened them, I think they are still relevant and interesting.

Enjoy!

Recent news related

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

Digital Divide

MICT regulation

“New” media

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

Recent news related

Not so much news at this point, but still an interesting and important development.  Not so long ago a federal court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks the authority to enforce net neutrality in a case where Comcast chose to discriminate against BitTorent users on their network.  This is interesting because on the one hand, this decision raises questions about other internet related policy initiatives by the FCC, such as cybersecurity, privacy and consumer-protection policies.  On the other hand, it is highlighting the need to redefine the media landscape in light of the change in the technological environment.  Today, internet service providers (ISPs) are regulated differently from the traditional media or traditional telephone companies that have much more checks and balances.  This ruling can trigger redefinition of the ISPs placing them in a similar category with other companies oversaw by the FCC or perhaps a creation of new category  (yes, i am thinking about something like MICT category).  In the meantime, however, the FCC decided to not intervene.  Here is a good discussion of the issue on NPR.

Another big (old) news was the launch of the iPad, which was met with great hype and many hopes, but also with a substantive amount of criticism.  One article used an example where Apple rejected Pulitzer winner cartoonist’s iPhone app because it “ridicules public figures.”  It is used to raise questions about about the direction Apple is taking and the online experience it is tailoring for us.  Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing voiced his concerns about the locked nature of the iPad and so did David Weinberg.  Harry McCracken, posted a really thorough comparison of iPad to the various other devices.  I will let you judge.

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

“Youth, Privacy and Reputation” (PDF) – The Berkman Center has released a massive literature about “the intersections of youth, reputation, and privacy online, focusing on youth attitudes and practices.”

“Google is way bigger than you realize” (via Bob) – A visualization of comparative sizes of server farms owned by Google, Intel, Facebook, and a number of other large players.

Particular stats:

• Canada – Internet use

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

“FCC hands Hollywood the keys to your PC, home theater and future” – An opinion piece from Cory Doctorow about a recent decision of the FCC to allow “Selective Output Control” technologies in your TV set-top box.

“Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative” and “dear facebook, freedom or friends? that’s not a choice” – Just a couple of examples of people’s reactions to the recent changes in Facebook’s privacy settings and the introduction of the global “Like” button.  What do you think?

“How to Regulate the Internet Tap” – An opinion calling for government non-intervention in net neutrality issues.

Digital Divide

“The Digital Divide Will Ensure a Broadband Ghetto” (via Josh) – An interesting discussion, especially in the comments, of the broadband situation in the US.

“Telecom companies seek to make Haiti a mobile nation” – Another interesting debate in the sphere of the digital divide – will the future be wireless or we will still need wires to gain appropriate bandwidth?

“The $99 sort-of-Smartphone” – A report on a US $99 smartphone aimed for the developing market and a short discussion about whether or not this is a sustainable development.  I apologize in advance  for the narration :)

“Two Billion Laptops? It May Not Be Enough” (via @rafik) – A NYT article about OLPC, its vision, challenges, and criticism.

“Bridging the Online Language Barrier” – An NPR story on the various ways of dealing with multilingualism online.

MICT regulation

“$4 Million Spent Lobbying Congress on Domain Names” (vai @IGPAlert) – A brief note summarizing the investment of various companies with interest in domain names in their Washington DC activities.  Take a look what they spent the money on.

“The Supreme Court: The Anonymity Of The Talkbacks Should Be Preserved” – The article in the link is in Hebrew and it reports on the Israeli Supreme Court decision to maintain the anonymity of the people leaving comments online.  The claim was to force the ISPs to reveal the identity of the comments’ authors for the purpose of a civil suit, but it got dismissed.  This is an interesting addition to the debate about ISPs as intermediaries in regulation of the Internet content.

“Public Policy Questions for Internet” – A 2005 article outlining an agenda for internet governance public policy debate.  Very long and still surprisingly relevant.

“New” media

“52 Percent Of Bloggers Consider Themselves Journalists” (via @joeymornin) – A report on a recent study with the observation in the title as well as the fact that most bloggers rely on other blogs and Twitter in their research.

“Twitter Updates, the 18th Century Edition” – A report on the paper written by one of our professors at Cornell, where she is telling a story of 18th century diaries, which resemble Twitter updates.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

“BeetleCam: Safari via remote control” – A project from two British brothers photographers where they mounted a camera on a remotely controlled car to take close pictures of animals in Africa; pretty cool!

“SA pigeon ‘faster than broadband‘” – A BBC article about a group in South Africa who compared the speeds of sending information online with sending it with a mail pigeon.  I heard about Yossi Vardi doing the same thing in Israel a few years ago with a similar result.

A TED talk by Jane McGonigal of the Institute of the Future about utilizing games for changing people’s behavior and making the world a better place.  I think she takes way too long to get to the point, but if you happen to listen to the end, I would love to hear what you think (also see the discussion on TED website):

A couple of old videos trying to envision the future of MICT.  It is really interesting to watch them from where we are today (thanks to Josh)

Although there are some books on the topic of API Design and other material available on the web including, notably, an excellent presentation by Joshua Bloch of Google, the subject remains more of an art than a science.  A key reason for this is that many elements of API Design involve a social and intuitive understanding of the context in which the APIs are to be used and the overall system in which they reside.  In order to understand how to design an API, you need to understand and be able to empathise with the mindset of the developers who will use those APIs.  This may be reasonably straightforward to do when those API users are in the same team or company as the API developer, as is the case with many internal interfaces, because the developer can work directly with the customers of his or her API to ensure it works as required.  However, it becomes much harder when you are designing APIs for use by potentially thousands of external third party developers located all over the world.  In that situation, it is very difficult to determine in advance all the requirements and thus to design for real life use rather than for an ideal model.  To compound matters, once your third party APIs are published, you are typically required to maintain them perhaps for several years so it’s important to get them in good shape before you publish.  It is possible nonetheless to establish a set of guidelines to bear in mind when developing third party APIs.  These guidelines require developers to address the human aspects of API design together with software engineering best practice:

* Understand your system:

The underlying design philosophy you adopt for your API should be informed by the system as a whole which that API will comprise a part of.   This requires that you design in the vernacular of your system using design patterns, idioms and data structures in harmony with your environment.   An API designed to work well within a system just ‘feels’ right to work with.  This is partly what is meant by developers when they use the approving expression "Pythonic" in relation to elegant Python module design.  In order to successfully design in this way, you need an in-depth  technical understanding of your system.   In large software platform organisations, such knowledge often resides within a central System Architecture Group which is typically built around the most experienced platform software architects.  A primary purpose of this group is to guide and align individual engineering teams working on different parts of the platform and raise awareness of platform-centric thinking amongst them.  The role of such a System Architect should thus be global in reach but local within each sub-context.

 

* Adopt the principle of least surprise:

 

It is important that developers coming afresh to your API are not immediately confused by the design of your API.  A key issue that can give rise to this sort of confusion is breaking the unwritten covenant that the API should conform to the usability expectations set by related platform APIs.  Another is that your API should come "batteries included" and wherever possible not require unnecessary knowledge of additional APIs before it can be used.  Mike Taylor (aka the Reinvigorated Programmer) wrote about this recently in the April issue of PragPub.  He introduced the concept of a "Radius of Comprehension" in his article as a loose metric to capture how much additional contextual knowledge a developer requires in order to start using an API.   Taylor’s idea is related to Joshua Bloch's observation that an “API should do one thing and do it well".  An API designer would do well to take such advice on board and make a conscious effort to minimize inconsistencies and unexpected features in their APIs and look to make them fit together as orthogonal components of a complete system.  And this needs to be done from the perspective of the developer who is the customer of the API, not from the point of view of the designer.  The ultimate upshot of this additional work is likely to mean that the cost of engineering the APIs is higher in order to lower the cost incurred by the third party developer using the API.  This is likely to feel counterintuitive or even unhelpful to a developer under pressure to deliver an API and its underlying functionality to time and to a previously developed specification.

* Genericise but plan for change:

Few APIs withstand first contact with customers and industry experience suggests that it is not possible to release APIs that never change because few developers can anticipate all possible future uses for their APIs.  Instead, it makes more sense to try and minimise the impact of change.  There are several strategies that can be adopted to make design more generic.  A key one is to think in a more data-centric way and employ bundles or dictionaries wherever possible because they allow evolution of the API to be accommodated within data structures rather than via additional arguments, which can cause compatibility breaks.  Another is to include vectored methods in your API in a similar style to the popular Unix file and socket control interfaces, fnctl and ioctl.  Yet another is to use a version number argument to switch between different behaviour.  As pointed out by IBM's Jim des Rivieres in an illuminating Software Engineering Radio podcast on API Design, being generic requires a change in mindset to balance the inclination to be productive or “mechanistic” with a more abstract or "meta" way of thinking.  The former is what many time-pressured software engineers might more instinctively feel drawn to.

* Release early and adapt to feedback:

It is vital that APIs go out for customer review as early as possible to allow maximum time for them to evolve to a state of fitness for purpose and publication.  Solicitation of feedback from key users is so important because once APIs are fixed and baked, the inevitable commercial constraints of binary compatibility mean that they require long-term support.  This process of review should be conducted with as much openness and humility as possible.  Don't be afraid of criticism – you’re likely to receive some no matter how well you’ve designed your API and, in fact if you don't get any, you should be concerned because this means that developers are not engaging with your API; and an API without an involved and engaged customer is not a finished API.  For third party specific APIs, there is the additional complicating factor in that you may have to go out and find your customers first and set up suitable developer forums and events.  You may even want to employ standard usability techniques such as user studies with such developers to find out what's important to them prior to starting work on any v1.0 APIs.  A further technical factor that is crucial in composing well-designed APIs is the careful study of the comparative platform offerings and assessment of publicly available developer feedback of those alternatives to assist in determination of the right design approach.

* Document wisely:

It's important to understand that your API effectively is your code from the perspective of the user because in many cases that's as much as they will want to see of it.  So it is crucial to document it wisely.  It's not enough to add basic document mark up to your code.  This tends to lead to sterile and insufficiently detailed API documentation.   What third party developers are really interested in is what your API does and how to use it.  The quicker and easier it is for them to get started, the better.  That's why it's important to generate meaningful example code as soon as possible to help give developers an early boost.  It is better to focus your documentation efforts on example code and short rough usage guides if you can and avoid generating reams of automatic documentation that may look superficially impressive but don't really help a typical third party developer because they haven't been edited into a consistent whole.  Producing short documentation of high quality is more useful to third party developers as further pointed out by Mike Taylor in his PragProg piece.  One tip that may help is to approach the problem of rough usage guide construction from the perspective of an engaging narrative (or story) about the API that walks the user through how it works.  Once that mindset is adopted, it often becomes natural to interleave humour and an informal technical language as the Dropbox team did within the documentation covering their recently released RESTful web service APIs.

* Address security requirements:

It is important to address platform security concerns within the broader API design discussion.  There are many conflicting views on the openness, availability and indeed, publicity of platform APIs with adherents to ‘security through obscurity’ inclined to avoid all unnecessary publication of sensitive information.  For our purposes, for APIs suitable for third parties, ‘security by design’ is a more relevant paradigm where the software has been designed to be secure without relying on being secret itself.  Within this model, platform API security concerns are necessarily specific to the system in which the API resides.  You may, for instance, be operating within a perimeter security model where APIs are policed only at application install time.  Or your API may have to fit into a finer-grained platform security model with permissions required within API calls to access certain system interfaces such as address book, messaging or phone service at runtime.  The Dropbox APIs are a good example of security by design where OAuth based authentication is encapsulated within a separate API that must be used to generate an access token for subsequent web service calls to create, access and delete files within a sandbox.

* And don't forget the software engineering hygiene factors:

It is, of course, essential to acknowledge the better understood technical aspects of API design you'll read about in software engineering books and articles.  Namely, implementation details should be hidden wherever possible; specifics and special cases should be avoided and errors and exceptions should be consistently handled to avoid leaky abstraction.  Other technical best practices that have gained wider currency over the last decade or so are the development of use-cases to drive top down architecture and APIs, test driven design and the avoidance of gratuitous side effects.  This latter aspect has come to the fore with the increased interest in functional programming, where the importance of referential transparency in the context of function design has long been extolled.  Finally, it is important that consideration be given to the performance impacts of particular design choices, especially in relation to API calls involving mutable data structures.

The above guidelines aren't meant to be exhaustive but are offered in the hope that they will help inform developers involved in building platform APIs for third party developers.The key takeaways if you are such an API designer are that you need to recognise that developing great third party APIs is a difficult and expensive business and that locating and engaging actual third party developers (your customers) in improving your API as soon as possible is a vital step in a healthy design process.

 

 

I see HTC have taken retaliatory action by lodging an ITC complaint against Apple, alleging patent infringement by the iPhone, iPad and iPod:- http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?id=129616〈=1033

The action apparently relates to 5 HTC patents, covering (amongst other things) a technique to extend battery life and how numbers are stored/looked up/dialled:- http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1636250/htc-sues-apple

As previously mentioned, the ITC can’t award damages but can, if a complaint is upheld, issue an order barring the import (by the respondent – Apple here) into the US of infringing product. Could the “i” family of devices be barred from entering their “home market”? Surely not…

 

 

We hear you.

We know that the LiMo SDK has been a source of repeated frustration for our developer community. We understand that we need to be more forthcoming with information for you, our developer community. We recognize the need to provide you with better lines of communication and the opportunity for an open dialog with us. And so, while we’re a bit late to our own party, we want to get things kicked off today – right here, right now.

As you know, LiMo is about collaboration and collective knowledge. Our SDK holds true to these fundamental underpinnings. The base architecture, contributed by LiMo member companies, is in place. But the last thing we want to do is to deliver something that’s half-baked, providing you with inadequate tools and lacking essential functionality. It’s a recipe for frustration and failure. So we need your help.

Developers are our lifeblood; without the support and engagement from the developer community, the LiMo Platform is just another platform kicking around in a market already crowded with OS choices. And without the next-gen apps that users want and demand, handsets are nothing more than fancy telephones that can double as paperweights. Therefore, our challenge to you today is this: help us make the LiMo SDK into something that truly delivers what you need.

Put your stamp on it by telling us precisely what you want to see and what you expect to find in the LiMo SDK. Help us learn from the mistakes of others, so that we can deliver an SDK that’s finely tuned to meet your needs as mobile developers. While we can’t promise that every single recommendation and request will find its way into the final SDK, we can promise you that we’ll listen to your ideas, seriously consider them, and if possible, implement them into the LiMo SDK.

We are dedicated to helping our developers’ success, so we hope that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And oh yes, there will be cake and it will be delicious.

 

The recent change of privacy controls on Facebook and the introduction of a global “Like” button are steering a lot of discussion all over the internet.  My friend Lokman has already left Facebook all together and keep hearing about “Leave Facebook Day” planned for May 21.

Many people, including those in major outlets are voicing their criticism of the erosion of privacy and introduction of the inverse Beakon.  For example, the Washington Post ran a number of articles on this subject and is reporting on a bill for privacy online being drafted following this outcry, ars technica writes about complains filed against Facebook at the FTC, Huffington Post posted some visualizations of how more and more of our information is exposed to more and more people on Facebook, and the Wired has recently posted a very opinionated piece from Ryan Singer criticizing Facebook’s behavior and calling for an alternative.  What I find amusing in this situation is that all these major outlets (and many others) have wholeheartedly adopted the universal “Like” feature and other Facebook gadgets.  When you come to read their articles, you are welcomed by familiar faces of your friends through some Facebook social feature.

To me it creates a dissonance.

I realize that in many cases these are journalists reporting on a piece of technology-related news and I realize that the opinions of the columnists belong to them and not necessarily to the news outlet. I also realize that the news outlets are involved in financial survival battle and using Facebook advertising and social platform may be an opportunity.  I even appreciate the fact these discussions are taking place and that the mainstream media, the blogosphere, and  even Facebook itself are hosting this debate.  Nevertheless, when I see that Ryan Singer’s super critical piece has two “Like” buttons and almost 3500 likes on Facebook, I understand why over at Facebook they feel so confident and comfortable messing with the privacy of their users.

And what do you think?

LiMo’s Legal Counsel, Chris Edwards, summarises some interesting IPR/patent-related snippets that have caught his eye over the past few days:-

1.  Red Hat/Novell Patent Triumph

Red Hat & Novell have successfully defended a patent infringement suit, brought by 2 “non practicing entities” (who some choose to call “trolls”…), in the Eastern District of Texas.  The jury, apparently comprised of individuals with no knowledge/experience of open source software, unanimously found in favour of the defendants.

Having had (pre-LiMo) first-hand experience of dealing with such “claimants”, and the related pressures (both financial and commercial) to settle (even unmeritorious claims), I can only applaud Red Hat & Novell (and, of course, their Lawyers :-)) for sticking to their guns and coming out on top.

See http://opensource.com/law for more information.

2.  Microsoft & HTC

On 28 April, it became known that Microsoft & HTC had signed a patent license deal under which HTC will pay royalties in respect of HTC “Android” mobile phones to Microsoft.

 

This is interesting on a number of fronts, especially against the backdrop of the recent Apple/HTC “Android” spat:-

·      Will Microsoft (and, for that matter, Apple) seek to “license” (or “tax”…) all Android OEM’s? If so will this reduce the competitiveness of Android?

·      Who will be next to assert patents against Android devices? Another Blue Chip or, perhaps, a “non practicing entity” or two (or three…)?

·      Will Google attempt to do something to “protect” Android?

See further http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63R0WX20100428

3.  MeeGo & patents

Nokia have been attributed with certain comments concerning MeeGo and patents (see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/04/meego_linux_mobile_android_microsoft/ ) which, if read literally, could be seen to imply that Nokia & Intel will protect MeeGo from third party patent assertions by using their respective patent portfolios (presumably as a “shield” to ward off any prospective predators, and as a “sword” should anyone actually launch a patent infringement action against MeeGo.) If this is the case (and apologies if my interpretation is incorrect), then the MeeGo community will obviously be able to derive some comfort, although the threat of assertive patent action by Nokia and/or Intel is unlikely to deter “non practicing entities” (who do not have products/technology to assert against.)

4.  Apple & Adobe

It appears that Adobe have complained to the US anti-trust authorities about what they see as attempts by Apple to prohibit the use of Adobe products to create iPhone/iPad applications (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-04/apple-policy-said-to-prompt-u-s-allegation-by-adobe-update1-.html ). If this is in fact the case, then don’t hold your breath waiting for flash content to run on your mobile “i” device, as - even if an investigation is mounted and ultimately finds against Apple - technology is bound to have moved on by the time of any final determination, thus rendering any potential Adobe “victory” academic (albeit potentially costly to Apple should financial penalties be imposed…)

It's not that there's nothing interesting going around or I don't have something to blog about. On the contrary the past few months were the busiest yet most active months I've ever been (Except for blogging ... and studying. I guess). I've been active on Buzz, Twitter and FB. So if you've been following my updates, the following news might bore you.
Anyhow, I've been working with Palexo, trying to give the children a chance to learn better with their XOs they got. I think we did pretty good job, and we still planning on doing more. Visited around 8 Schools and will be moving to the rest. Got my infamous 5 minutes interview on radio Angham talking about Palexo.
Things being said, we just met Nicholas Negroponte the Founder of OLPC and his team Santa Barbara and Robert Fadel yesterday. And it was amazing. 
If you live in Palestine, we do need more dedicated volunteers, who would love to help. Lots of us are leaving for either higher studies or work. Tamer Alkhouly is getting married in May (Congratulations dude!) and starting his Masters degree in Germany on June, while I will be rejoining the Webmasters team at Google, Switzerland in Augest. Yay me!
I've also been working with Hamza Abu Salah and group of students in Birzeit University on GeekMesh. Things have been slow the past month due to Strikes in the Universities! But we are coming back soon enough.
Peeks is another community I am involved in. Although I haven't been active lately. 
I have been planning on making my first visit to US on May, I have my Visa interview on Monday, and will be going to attend Google IO 2010. Thanks to Gisel Hiscock and Google for sponsoring my trip. Have been excited for this for too long and can't wait till the 18th. Plus, I am getting a Google Nexus One Phone. Isn't that awesome or what! Can't wait to trash my old cranky Nokia mobile.
Been working with Exalt Technologies since December last year on a Part time basis. Personally loved working there, the guys there are really great and dare I to say they got the smartest developers. Will be working there for awhile to transfer knowledge before leaving to Google. 
Moving on to Birzeit University, we had recently ITExpo 2010, had our graduation project (Bluetooth Controlled Robot) and a course project (Air Pointing Device) showcased. And I didn't make it to the third place, not even once. Was lots of fun though.
Haven't paid much attention to school. But things will be going great. This is my last month in BZU. Having my Graduation Seminar on 15th May. 
The hardest thing was dropping my MacBook Pro and breaking its HDD. I felt useless for awhile and couldn't do anything without it. I sent it to get repair, hopefully I could get it soon.
Got a new cat and manage to lose it in 2 weeks! All I can say that it wasn't my fault. Leads point that my neighbors stole it! I am still investigating that.
Avoiding anymore laptop accidents I should really hit the bed. 
How's that for a short update? What you were up to these days?

Hey all,

I came across the need for a portable VOIP phone for windows, apparently there is no package out there for this.

So I repackaged QuteCom, a cross-platform softphone. Just adding a simple parameter did the job!

You can download the package here.

Extract it and simply run the “runme.bat” file in the folder.

The package is kindly hosted for me on Hamakor FOSS Society. There is also a wiki page with additional information about Qutecom portable there.

Cheaper Than SkypeOut!

Thanks to this package I can now call anywhere on my VOIP accounts. Where usually only skype was available, meaning I have a cheaper-than-skype providers (Curently using voipvoip.com and callcentric). I really think standard VOIP should be more out there among the people giving a healthy competition.

Would love to hear feedback!