I recently signed up to IMVU 3D chat. It’s worth a spin. Instead of the relatively mundane text interface on most IM services, users chat via avatars. The text appears in speech bubbles that slowly float upward. A range of expressions and moves are available, such as a handshake, hug, break dance, hi-five and many [...]

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My kids, like most of us, are often perplexed by simple choices, especially when choosing from a wide selection of options, like which of their friends are “it” first. Whereas we adults pretend to use common sense and analysis in order to dress up an otherwise arbitrary decision, kids resort to more playful means. They [...]

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As the dust settles from the iPhone whirlwind, sanity returns. Whilst it is truly a brilliant gadget and will upset a few vendors out there, let’s not allow Jobs to get away with his claim to re-invent the phone. There was an apparent contradiction in his presentation, which on the one hand wanted to impress [...]

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We’re still in the starting blocks for 2007, but already there’s a lot of buzz about video as this year’s hottest category for mobile services, surpassing music.
Most vendors I’ve spoken to so far have got video on the top of their list and a lot of my effort will be in creating video services for [...]

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If you’ve watched Derren Brown, Britain’s “answer” to David Blaine, then you will probably know his phone trick. An suspecting member of the public answers a ringing phone in a phone booth and within seconds they fall down in a trance. That’s probably what ought to happen to someone who picks up a ringing public [...]

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The usual camps are making their voices heard. Mac-heads are drooling over the iPhone whilst Windows-nerds are nonchalantly asking “what’s new?”
We’ve heard all this before and I don’t intend to add to the Mac-Windows debate. I have both and I like both for different reasons. I would also recommend them differently to different people and [...]

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At last we get to see what Apple has been doing to bring their design flare to mobile devices.
Fantastic UI - yes. Web-centric - yes. [2.0? - yes, it's Safari browser!] iPod - yes. Sexy - yes.
Ticks in all the expected boxes. A large format screen will make the device useable: so obvious, yet so [...]

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