Kids with mobiles do the darndest things

I loved this story when I read it this morning through MocoNews.net - a device that creates an annoying mosquito-like tone, which is only audible to under 20's (used as a "teen repellant" by adults for various reasons), is now being turned against the age-ist population. Teens have recorded the sound and are using it for ringtones and message alerts so that they can use their phones in class where the teacher can't hear it (and presumably in other scenarios where they don't want adults to know they're using their phones). Ha!

In the immortal words of all Scooby-Doo villains, "And I would've gotten away with it to0, if it weren't for those pesky kids!".

OZMaD underway

Last night we had the opening meeting of the new Australian Adobe Mobile and Devices user group (OZMaD). I was really happy to see 9 people at our first meeting, and they were great people too. All types of backgrounds, current interests and future dreams ... but all keen on seeing Flash mobile become part of what they do. Managing user groups is not something I set out to do when I started Moket, but we did have a mandate to be active in the developer community so this is a great way to fulfill that role in the local Brisbane and wider-Australian region.

And it was a very un-developer type meeting too ... no beer and pizza ... mainly wine and cheese (and ok, there were a few beers). We had quite a few people turn up from a multimedia training college here in Brisbane which was very exciting. They're all learning Flash Lite in their semester course so this group will be a great source of information and support for these next-gen FL developers.

If you haven't already, check out www.ozmadgroup.com and sign up if you're interested! And yes ... next time I'll remember to pass out some Adobe schwag :(

... how's a first time UG manager supposed to remember everything on the first night!?

The ultra mobile personal computer

Australian IT reports today on the next "small" thing - the Ultra Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC).
It runs Windows XP Tablet Edition, has a touchscreen but no keyboard or pointing device. Pretty sexy little thing, but I find it hard enough sometimes working on the laptop I've got, let alone something that you could leave behind in a taxi. I've seen the Sony Vaio that Bill Perry uses, but I think this thing would make his look like a boat anchor. Specs are a little light-on, but it looks very interesting anyway. I'm not sure if tablet PC's have really taken off the way people thought they might, so the UMPC might have some further hurdles to get over ... we'll wait and see I guess.

Read more ...

My ugly mug in the Flash Mobile Dev Centre

My friend and colleague James Talbot and I have just had an article published in the Adobe Mobile and Devices Developer Center. It's an excerpt from the Flash Lite 1.1 course that James developed, and that I'm an instructor for. it's a good introduction for those of you wondering what the courseware is like - if you can get past the two outstandingly good looking presenter photos on the first page ;)

iPod to go Mobile

Oohhh baby, talk about the killer app ... According to Australian IT, Steve Jobs has met with Japanese internet and telecommunications group Softbank and stiched up a deal to create mobile phone handsets with inbuilt iPod funcitonality.

They're talking about the handsets coming out "sometime this year", but as early as next year, the iTunes Music Store will unveil a new service that will let users download songs directly to compatible mobile phones, which the two firms will develop.

Look out Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, things are going to get a whole lot more crowded in the mobile music space!

Read more ...

Pocket Charlie World beta now open

When I was last in Melbourne I spent some time getting to know Alex Young, the CEO at Mostyle. He's a great young guy with tonnes of experience on mobile content and applications, and has just recently announced the beta program for their new "mobile community media portal" - Pocket Charlie World. Check it out and if you want to participate in the beta, you can download the application from a WAP site and join in. They'd love feedback on the application during the beta so if you join up, make sure you tell the guys what you think.

Move has been made

I think we're all up and running now under the new domain and blog URL ... if you experience any dramas just let me know!

New blog location

Just to let you all know, I'm going to be closing down DRDblog and reopening it as just my own personal blog at www.dalerankine.com/blog. If you have any hassles leaving comments or anything during this time, I apologise and will try and make the switch as quickly as I can.

Since Moket has actually become the main focus of my time and energy, I'll be transitioning away from DRD over the coming months so this is just one of the early steps I'm taking. The new blog should be up in the next day or so and will pretty much be business as usual - just with a new name and URL.

Please update any links you may have to this site to reflect the new location ... and please, keeping coming back and reading whatever it is that interests you :)

Thanks DRDblog, you've been great ...

"Whack Attack" available on new Nokia 6131 in Singapore

Moket is pleased to announce that an updated version of its popular "Whack Attack" game is going out preinstalled on the new Nokia 6131 in Singapore.

The Series 40 phone features the new 16 million colour TFT screen, delivering exceptional display qualities for a clamshell-design handset.

Moket made some variations to the original Series 60 version of the game, mainly to accomodate the larger 240x320 screen resolution, and also adding sound (both digital/MP3 and MIDI versions).

This is a great step forward in Moket's relationship with the world's largest handset manufacturer, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. There are now plans for further content to be supplied for preinstallation on other models where possible.

An Update from the World of Moket

Well, there's been a lot happening around the Moket office, and not much blogging. So I thought I'd do a bit of a Flash Lite Friday style round-up of some of the things happening so people can catch up.

We're working on some new titles and content at the moment which has been good. Sometimes it's hard to balance business growth with production speed when your team is small, but we're getting there. We're launching a new series of games under the brand name "Pixel Drips" with local art-studio TDP Design. These are going to look very different to your normal mobile-game so stay tuned for news on our first releases. Stay tuned also for some details on a game of ours that is being pre-installed on a device in the near future!

We're currently working on relationships in Singapore, Korea and the US to help with distribution of this new content.

Our work with i.lab has been proving invaluable in helping me move this company forward. We're getting close now to being investment ready and are looking forward to shifting into top gear. Business plans and spreadsheets can be hard for creative people like me to sustain interest in, but this has been a great process and has preally helped me to clarify what my vision for Moket really is, and how I'm going to achieve it.

Our Flash Lite 1.1 training courses are filling slowly. We may not run all the courses we had booked due to numbers, but Brisbane and Sydney look like coming off at this stage. It's a hard sell at the moment - trying to get current mobile guys interested in Flash Lite when there's still no phones on the market here yet. I'm sure once there is, and more phones are available globally, interest in Flash Lite training will grow. We're also in talks with Adobe to offer the upcoming Flash Lite 2.0 version of the courseware.

We're hosting the very first meeting of the Adobe Australia Mobile and Devices Usergroup (OZMaD) on the 29th of May. Details are on the OZMaD site, and I'm very excited to finally start the group. We have a handful of people already coming along which will be great. We'll discuss the forward motion of the group and see what people are interested in covering, and I'll also be presenting a short slot on the current state of play in the Flash mobile world. If you're in Brisbane on the 29th of May, you're more than welcome to come along and see what it's all about. Contact me if you'd like to come.

On a different creative front, as many of you know my wife and I have had a band going for the past few years called "Farlow Star". Well we've decided to wind the band up and set Tanya on a solo-artist path. Tanya was a solo artist/singer/songwriter when we met and it's something she's always been meant to get back to. So ten years, a husband, 3 kids and 1 band later, she's finally getting there! Watch www.tanyagordon.com for a new website shortly.

Well that's about all (at least with regards to things that you may find the least bit interesting - we're getting a new fence down the side of our house, but I didn't think that was very newsworthy in the blogosphere!). There'll most likely be some changes as well with this blog's location and name in the next little while also, but we'll let you know all about that when the time comes. Change is good! Cheers.

PS. Since this is a very long post and I've got to go and get the kids ready to go out, I'm going to ignore spell checking this thing ... please excuse any typos you find :)

Bono Fatigue - It could happen to U2

A satirical site that has just become my favourite of recent times - www.bonofatigue.com

Very funny, although I'm still looking forward to seeing them in November :)