Social Innovators of the Week: Jonathan Jackson & Vikram Kumar

Mobilising health care in resource-challenged nations...

This week I am featuring two social innovators for the price of one life changing social organisation.Jonathan Jackson (CEO) & Vikram Kumar (CMO) are the founders of Dimagi and their mobile health platform calledCommCare has just landed them the Schwab Foundation’s 2012 Social Entrepreneur Award at the World Economic Forum meeting in Tianjin, China.

Both Jonathan and Vikram were selected from a list of more than 1,000 global applicants for the prestigious award and now find themselves in an exclusive pot of 26 successful awardees (you can see all of the awardees here).

Let’s have a look at their award winning work.

CommCare

When Jonathan and Vikram originally founded Dimagi their mission was to integrate innovative technology into global public and private services in order to improve human health and well-being. I think CommCare is most definitely an excellent representation of this ethos.

CommCare is a mobile technology platform for community health workers in developing countries. The mobile phone app and web interface lets resource-challenged users to store and access patient information and monitor at-risk patients through mobile phones made available to remote health facilities.

Here is a nice infographic about the tech…..

So far the organisation have recorded 300,000 home visits! Take a bow Jonathan and Vikram because you are saving lives, the technology has literally helped mobilise health care workers all over the world (explore a mix of case studies at the bottom of this post).

Jonathan recently said this about the platform when he found out about the award acknowledgement:

“We’ve been working in this field for a long time, and we strongly believe that taking a product platform approach to ICT projects is the key to building sustainable programs to expand the effective delivery of life saving interventions. We greatly appreciate the Schwab Foundations’ acknowledgement and support.”

The video below will help you understand in greater detail the work that Dimagi carry out in the community with their mobile health platform:

If you would like to know more about Vikram and Jonathan then please head here. For more information about CommCare case studies around the globe then please explore the links below:

CommCare ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist – India)

CommCare TZ (Tanzania)

CommCare Zambia

CommCare USA

Let me know if you’ve seen an individual or group worthy of our social innovator of the week title! You can leave your link in the comments section below or drop me a tweet @Nokia_Connects. Have a great week!

My week with the Nokia Asha 311

The Nokia Asha 311 was originally designed for young, social and dynamic people. I’m not any of those things but, for the last few days, I have been using an Asha 311 too.

The Nokia Asha Touch phones were launched in early June; the Asha 305 and Asha 306 are the others in the full Touch family.

These phones are designed for people who are active on social networks, want to use their phones for entertainment, such as music and games, and want to get online. Many thousands of different apps can be downloaded from the Nokia Store. 

Looks

Let’s start with how the phone looks. You would expect any Nokia device to be well made, to feel nice in the hand and to be just that little bit different. The Asha 311 doesn’t disappoint. 

The first thing I notice is that the display appears to take up the entire front of the phone. When it is in lock mode, you can’t see the edges where the display ends – you’re just faced with a deep black façade. It’s very nice.

The bottom lip of the Asha 311 has a nice matt finish and above this runs a thin metal ring that encircles the whole phone and where you will find the two buttons on the front.

Touch Interface 

The Touch interface is the key to the Asha 311, and it is easy and fun to use. I was also surprised at how fast it is. You can swipe the screens down and up and side to side. Thanks to the phone’s 1Ghz processor, the controls and animations are extremely responsive. 

There are also some characteristic Nokia elements that bring a smile to the face when you see them for the first time, such as the icons on the screen bouncing up a little before coming down to a gentle rest when you scroll to the bottom.

Traditional Nokia fans will be familiar with the range of customising options for the screens and shortcuts. One feature that I especially liked is that the third screen can be changed to either the dialler (phone), music or radio functions. This means that you are never more than a couple of swipes from accessing one of the three.

Photos and Social

In trying out the Asha 311, I didn’t use it any differently from any other phone I would have in my possession. I like to check my emails, look at websites, take photos and see what people are talking about on Twitter. Pretty ordinary stuff.

The Asha 311 is a 3G phone with WiFi, has a 3.2-megapixel camera and it has the fabulous Nokia Browser, which uses compression technology to make browsing the web faster and cheaper.

In other words, it was more than capable of doing all the things that I wanted it to do.

On the photos, it comes with a fully featured editing suite that lets you rotate, flip, crop, warp, add frames, clip art, text, adjust the brightness and contrast and add special effects.

To be able to do all these things without downloading an app was a real, and unexpected, bonus.

I enjoy mobile gaming but sadly I am not particularly good at it. The Asha 311 though is a really good phone for getting some practice in because each device comes with 40 free EA games that you can keep forever. How could one resist? The only cost to me is my sense of pride when my young nephew beats all my high scores.

Me and My Asha

Over the last few days, I have come to look at the Asha 311 with a great deal of fondness. Yes, it is smaller than my regular Lumia 800 but that only makes me feel more protective of it.

Listen to what Pimorn in Bangkok or Ana Laura in Mexico City said about their Asha phones. They and 10 other Asha owners shared their stories in some wonderful and personal videos in a series called ‘Me and My Asha.’

I’m beginning to know how they feel.

Introducing Nokia Wireless Charging Stand DT-910

Face your phone while it charges wirelessly: http://nokia.ly/Q7xJPO Simply place your phone on the stand to start charging without having to plug in your phone. At the same time you can use your phone in portrait mode.

The World of Red Bull app, coming exclusively to Nokia Lumia

Watch the worldwide debut of the World of Red Bull app, coming soon exclusively to Nokia Lumia and Series 40.

The number of new smartphones in the MTS-Ukraine has exceeded the number of new subscribers

The mobile operator "MTS Ukraine" provided statistics on the use of communications services owners of smartphones running the popular mobile operating systems.

As noted by the operator at the end of the third quarter of 2012 in its network, there were almost 3 million smartphones, which is 1 million more than last year. Thus, the number of new smart phones that are registered in the network in one year exceeded the number of new subscribers during the same period (about 800 thousand).

While still on the market is dominated by devices based on the platform Symbian, the most dynamic growth demonstrate smartphones running OS Android, the number of which, compared to the same period last year increased by five times. Devices on iOS and bada has doubled, but the smartphones' OSes »Windows has increased by only 12%.

The number of smartphones in the MTS network in early September 2012 (top 5 most popular OS):

Symbian - 1600 thousand.;
Android - 640 thousand piece.
iOS - 221 thousand piece.
bada - 207 thousand piece.
Windows Phone / Mobile - 91 thousand.
Owners of smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS are the most active users of mobile Internet services - on average they use about 1 GB of traffic per month. Following them in the ranking are fans of bada. It is these operating systems are leaders in the use of services to reduce the cost of Internet access - "NET at" and a package of Internet traffic.

Covers for the Nokia Lumia 820: standard for wireless charging and fortified

During a recent announcement smartphone Nokia Lumia 820 was announced that the device will come with removable panels. And now the Finnish company said what exactly options will be offered. So, you can purchase a standard rear panels of polycarbonate: red, yellow, blue, purple or white (glossy) or gray and black (matte).

You can also supplement the Nokia Lumia 820 back panels for wireless induction charging: white, yellow, black, red and blue, all frosted and made of polycarbonate. They can be used to charge the smartphone wirelessly according to Qi, placed on special charging docking stations from Nokia or connect to speakers JBL PowerUp.

Finally, reinforced panels are available in green, orange and yellow colors - matte with a black border. These panels are a little thicker than the others, but it provides the best protection against shell damage, including covering angles of the unit. Release removable panels will be held simultaneously with the start of sales of Nokia Lumia 820.

Nokia Siemens Networks sets TD-LTE speed record, goes beyond 4G - #1GBperday$

Equivalent to full HD movie download in 24 seconds on a commercial 4G platform

Nokia Siemens Networks has achieved world record TD-LTE throughput speeds of 1.6 Gigabits per second (Gbps). In the demonstration, the company used its commercial Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station to receive and send data in simultaneous downlink and uplink connections, reaching an overall speed of 1.6 Gbps. At this speed, a 3 Gigabyte (GB) high definition (HD) movie would download in just 24 seconds while over 1.7 GB of data could be uploaded at the same time, all via mobile broadband.

The speed record was achieved at the Nokia Siemens Networks lab in Arlington Heights, Illinois, USA. This is the company’s fifth straight LTE speed record in the past six months*.

“We have been pushing the limits in 4G technology, and this time we have done so with 1.6 Gbps data throughput and increased uplink capacity. We are proud to be enabling the commercial readiness for LTE-Advanced and beyond,” said Tommi Uitto, head of mobile broadband value creation management at Nokia Siemens Networks. “Users want to be able to upload and download huge files, which underscores the need for operators to drastically increase data throughput and capacity in their mobile networks.”

The record breaks Nokia Siemens Networks’ own record of 1.3 Gbps data throughput on TD-LTE. In the new record, the company used 60 MHz of aggregated spectrum with an 8-pipe radio module that enables eight streams of uplink MU-MIMO**. With this approach, Nokia Siemens Networks is taking TD-LTE beyond the LTE-Advanced*** (4G) specifications that require only four streams of uplink MU-MIMO. TD-LTE can enable users to enjoy rich video content and other advanced services with even greater data throughput.

“With our commercial Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station and MU-MIMO, we are ready to help operators significantly increase per site capacity and uplink capacity at a reduced cost,” added Uitto.

With its comprehensive mobile broadband and services portfolio, Nokia Siemens Networks is at the forefront of TD-LTE development and commercialization. The company is involved in more than 16 major field trials in China, Russia, Taiwan and elsewhere, and has commercial deals with eight TD-LTE network operators including Bharti Airtel in India, Mobily in Saudi Arabia, MTS in Russia, Sky Brazil and STC in Saudi Arabia. A GSA report of September 2012 lists eleven commercial TD-LTE network launches around the world, with five of these eleven networks being supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ complete network life-cycle services for TD-LTE are delivered both locally and remotely by a team of global experts. This approach allows operators to ensure uninterrupted, high-quality TD-LTE network rollouts. It minimizes technical and commercial risk and provides 3GPP compliant data security and protection with no disruptions to existing users via multilayered network optimization.

For more information about Nokia Siemens Networks’ advances and innovations in LTE and other topics, please join our #1GBperday$ webinar series starting on October 4, 2012. Registration for the series is open now: www.nsn.com/1GBperday

To share your thoughts on the topic, join the discussion on Twitter using #1GBperday$, #TD-LTE and #mobilebroadband.

About Nokia Siemens Networks

Nokia Siemens Networks is the world’s specialist in mobile broadband. From the first ever call on GSM, to the first call on LTE, we operate at the forefront of each generation of mobile technology. Our global experts invent the new capabilities our customers need in their networks. We provide the world’s most efficient mobile networks, the intelligence to maximize the value of those networks, and the services to make it all work seamlessly.

With headquarters in Espoo, Finland, we operate in over 150 countries and had net sales of over 14 billion euros in 2011. http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

Bloomberg comes exclusively to Nokia Lumia

When it comes to following the latest business news or managing your finances and being ‘in the know’, you want information on your companies and your portfolio right now. Bloomberg, the most-trusted name in business and finance has provided the answer. The brand new, exclusive on Windows Phone Bloomberg Hub is the one-stop app for getting all your business and finance information in a single place.
The Bloomberg Hub for Nokia Lumia brings all the Bloomberg properties together to Nokia Lumia to keep market watchers current with personalized business and finance news, global market data and portfolio tracking tools.

Take a look at all the innovative features found in the Bloomberg Hub:

Personalized news, portfolio tracking and breaking news alerts.
Customized watchlists for stocks, mutual funds, bonds, ETF’s and more.
Download your favorite Bloomberg TV and Radio shows to enjoy offline.
Deep pin Live Tiles for stocks, bonds, indices, futures and currencies.
Coming from 35 news categories including Economy, Politics, Technology, Bloomberg brings the latest to your phone so you can be empowered to make your financial decisions with the latest insights.

Are you addicted to Bloomberg TV? The Bloomberg Hub app gives you on-demand video access to all the biggest stories right now. Plus, check out favorites including Charlie Rose, Bloomberg West or Sportfolio.  Also, the last days’ worth of top financial news clips can be watched just in case you missed something.

If you want to catch up with the news but only wants listen to audio, Bloomberg Radio is there for you, straight in the application with access to shows such as

Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene
A Closer Look with Arthur Levitt
The Final Word with Ken Prewitt
No matter how you want to consume your Bloomberg news or follow your portfolio, the Bloomberg app has you covered. The Bloomberg Hub application is a Nokia Lumia Exclusive and can be found in Marketplace.

What’s your favorite feature of the Bloomberg app?

Important notice: there might be a publishing delay (1-2 days) on Windows Phone Store. Just wait a bit until the Windows Phone Store page updates. Thanks for your patience.

How tech is making snowboarding even more awesome

Created during a moment of genius, snowboarding has always been powered by innovative ideas.

Snowboarding might be all about stamina, balance and instinct, but the sport was born in a Eureka moment of inspired thinking. Way back in 1965, a big hearted guy called Sherman Poppen fastened two skis together and attached a rope at one end, so his daughter could glide down a hill in Muskegon, Michigan.

Named the snurfer, in homage to snow and surfing, the contraption sold over a million in the next decade. Snowboarding has changed a heck of a lot since then. What hasn’t changed is the way inspired thinking keeps making it more awesome.

Get on board

Take the board. Back in 1977, when Jake Burton started his company, he introduced the Backhill, a narrow board with single strap bindings. After experimenting with materials from surfboard foam cores to fiberglass, he eventually chose wood.

 

Fast forward thirty-five years and Burton is one of the world’s largest snowboard and snowboarding equipment manufacturers. It’s also one of Nokia’s partners, and together the companies have been thinking of ways to use mobile tech to benefit snowboarders.

Give me five!

The first real fruits of this collaboration began a couple of years back when Nokia introduced Push Snowboarding. This snowboarding tech is built around five key measurements: heart rate, rush, speed, orientation and pressure. By adding a sensor to a snowboarder’s kit, it’s possible to see what’s happening physically and mentally to snowboarders as they do their coolest tricks.

Harri Holmsten, ex pro snowboarder and Nokia partnership manager who worked on the project, is full of enthusiasm: “By using the smartphone, something we all carry around, as the core to this, we developed technology that lets snowboarders relive their ride in amazing detail once they’ve finished. It gives them a whole new perspective.”

Top shots

But Nokia and Burton’s collaboration doesn’t stop there. As a sponsor of the Burton Open Global Series (BOGS), one of the most progressive competitive snowboard series in the world, Nokia is working its tech magic to help snowboarders on an ongoing basis.

At the European Open earlier this year, Nokia rigged eighteen Nokia Lumia smartphones to a specially created rig. The aim? To record snowboarders’ trampoline jumps in a 180-degree bullet time shot. As you can see, not only did the resulting films look incredible, but they also provided an invaluable insight to boarders about how their tricks looked and what they could do to improve them.

The speed way

The most recent Burton event, the first annual Burton ‘High Fives’ in Wanaka, New Zealand, was a snowboarding show like no other. For the first time ever, it combined traditional snowboarding action with unique off-snow team challenges like riders knife throwing and car racing. Winners got to choose the order for halfpipe and slopestyle. 

Nokia also helped out by installing Lumia smartphones in race cars so team members could watch and help their team members drive.  And if that weren’t already cool enough, competitors got their hands on the just released Nokia x  Burton Insulator Case. Thanks to special layering, the case keeps your mobile warm in sub zero temperatures and can extend battery life up to 50%!   

As for the future, Harri says the companies have some exciting plans, which could well make mobile tech an integral part of snowboarding in the future. Big words, but if the past is anything to go by, mobile technology has a big part to play in an awesome sport becoming even more awesome.

Exploring the wireless world of NFC

We are hearing more and more about NFC, and the momentum will keep on building especially since it was announced that the Nokia Lumia 920and Lumia 820 will both have NFC connectivity. 

So what is it? 

NFC, which stands stands for Near Field Communication, is a short-range wireless technology that allows a device, such as a smartphone, to interact and communicate with other objects that are also NFC-enabled or have NFC tags.

For example, the new Lumia 920 or Lumia 820 will be able to connect with NFC to a range of accessories, such as the JBL PowerUp Wireless Charging Speaker. There’s no need for wires or doing anything technical – you just tap your phone on the speaker to pair them up. 

Beyond, pairing your smartphone with funky accessories, there are plenty of other potential applications for NFC. Every time a Londoner uses their ‘Oyster card’ to travel on the Tube or a bus, they are using RFID, NFC’s older brother. 

Among many others, NFC can also be used for:

• Cashless payments
• In advertising on ‘intelligent’ billboards
• As a way of tracking an asset
• Monitoring attendance
• Tickets
• Loyalty or membership cards

To find out more about NFC, we spoke to Derek Greene, the founder of track4services.com, a company based in the UK and Finland that has pioneered the use of NFC in areas ranging from public transport to advertising.

By happy coincidence, Derek started his work on NFC with Nokia, and has a long history with the company, so he should feel right at home here on Conversations.

What are the origins of NFC and how does it work?

It goes back to Michael Faraday, who made lots of discoveries on electricity. He realised that you could send energy over a radio wave.

You use it every day when you use your Oyster card. There is an emission from the Oyster card reader, the yellow plate on the tube or on the bus, which energises the antenna inside the Oyster card.

A forerunner of NFC is radio frequency identification (RFID) and that’s been in use for packaging and logistics for about 30 years but it has been incredibly expensive. For example, you can scan an entrance port to a warehouse and everything that goes through will be automatically read and there will be a big powerful gate emitting this energy.

Now, we all have a mobile phone and that is emitting the energy. So the tag can be fixed because the infrastructure is the phone.

How does NFC differ from Bluetooth?

Bluetooth, let’s face it, can reduce you to tears trying to get it to pair with another item. With NFC, it is always on; the security is provided by the fact you have to be near to something.

Bluetooth typically has a 10m range so you have to have a secure pairing, with passwords or a number. It’s got better but it has always been quite a difficult technology.

Another thing is that it tends to get crowded out – there’s lot of people with Bluetooth and if there’s lot of people around, it tends to stop working.

Will NFC drain your battery if it’s always on? And how closely do you have to hold your phone to connect via NFC?

NFC’s energy consumption is miniscule. It literally has no effect on day-to-day use.

Picture the size of the ping-pong ball – the NFC range is half of that. So you do have to physically touch it but in human terms it is very intuitive. You don’t need to do anything. You just see the NFC icon and you touch it. 

In which areas are you seeing NFC being used a lot?

The area with the biggest use of NFC for us is advertising. Billboards will have NFC tags and they are then associated with whatever is on the billboard.

The benefits to the advertising industry is that it is transforming what is a visual paper medium, out of the home, which is great for awareness, but is poor when it has to compete with the likes of Google because it doesn’t have a digital element.

Do you sense that NFC is really starting to take off now?

I don’t think take off is the right phrase but we are at least building the airplanes now. NFC is simple to use, but it is also easy to do it wrong.

I was the first agent to promote NFC in the UK. Nokia trained me up about 5 years ago but the market wasn’t right back then. The tags were very expensive and the phones didn’t materialise so we had a stop-start relationship, which was terrible in terms of trying to attract investment and get the commitments that people have to make.

Having NFC on our phones should make a big difference, right?

It is the convergence of technology on smartphones. Our phones are already crucial to our lives and now with NFC if you happen to see a NFC tag at a bus stop then you can touch it, and there’s no need to download the app or do anything.

For example, lots of young people have grown with their phones and won’t have any problems putting in long URLs manually but for other people it gets to a point where doing things like that becomes a hassle. 

NFC is going to be genuinely hassle-free. You touch it and it just works. It is very, very cool.

Nokia Lumia 920 Camera image stabilization and low light

Nokia Lumia 920 Camera image stabilization and low light

Nokia Lumia 920 hands on preview (parody)

When Nokia launched their Lumia 920 smartphone using faked video and photos, it didn't take long for their trickery to be exposed. In this exclusive hands on preview, Nokia's brand recovery specialist Lars show off the Lumia 920 and some of its deceptively good (and not particularly useful) features.

Specs Sheet: lumia 920 vs. Apple iPhone5 (by Krisitian Tuomikumpu)

Here is a really nice Specs Sheet comparison between the Innovative Nokia Lumia 920 and the mediorce Apple iPhone5.

As you can see, the Lumia 920 does quite a number on the iPhone5, a bigger 4.5inch screen, dual LED flash, a bigger cloud ctorage, PureView camera with Carl Zeiss lens, super sensitive synaptics touch screen, a bigger battery, array of exclusive and very useful Nokia Apps, wireless charging and more, much more.

If you are wondering when this awesome Lumia 920 will be available, rumor has it that it is scheduled for release the last week of October, first week of November, 



See the really neat Specs Sheet as designed by Kristian Tuomikumpu..

A full size image is also available on our facebook page.

Thanks Kristian!

This photo was inspired by an Poster Ad Samsung put up comparing their SGIII phone to the iPhone5..

Nokia tweeted a response to the Ad saying...

Nokia is slowly becoming the King of "Snappy comebacks" lol

http://www.nok4us.com/2012/09/specs-sheet-lumia-920-vs-apple-iphone5.html

Nokia Lumia 820 comes out of its shell

The newly announced Nokia Lumia 820 comes packed with some great features, a 4.3 inch ClearBlack OLED screen, an 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and wireless charging – thanks to the interchangeable shells.
These interchangeable shells play a big role in the look of the phone, and more importantly, certain functions of the phone. The brightly coloured shells are more than plastic covers; they activate the wireless charging function or protect your phone if you’re more of an active user. Each one is created to suit a person’s different needs without the need to change your phone.

“We’ve moved beyond just changing the colour of your phone. People can now decide how they want to use their phone, by doing something as simple as changing a shell to add a function.”

Explains Tuomas Reivo, Lead Designer on the Nokia Lumia 820.

Made from PC/ABS – a material that was developed to make the shells easy to clip on and off and remain strong at the same time – they allow for easy removal whenever needed. And the colours aren’t just painted on; they are inherent in the material. This means that if you were to scratch the shell you won’t be left with a noticeable mark, you’ll actually hardly notice it’s there. It keeps its colour for longer.

When you buy a Nokia Lumia 820 you’ll receive a standard shell in the box, made from the PC/ABS material. High gloss colours available are red, yellow, cyan, purple, and white. Matte colours are grey and black.

To take advantage of the wireless charging function you’ll need to purchase the Wireless Charging shell. With this connected to your Lumia 820, you can place your phone on a Nokia Wireless Charging Plate, Nokia Wireless Charging Stand, the Fatboy™ Recharge Pillow, or the JBL PowerUp Wireless Charging Speaker. These are available in five matte colours: white, yellow, black, red and cyan – all matte and made from PC/ABS.

If you’re more heavy-handed with your phones, if you have a more active life-style or just want to make sure your phone is protected at any point, there is a ruggedised shell too.

Rather than using a solid, rigid, plastic case like you find on some other phones, this protective shell is built to protect all parts of the phone without making it too bulky. It’s the same width and same length as the other shells, but only a fraction thicker.

This softer shell is also made from PC/ABS but has another rubber-like material around the front and the edges. It covers the back, as you’d expect but also stretches around the front slightly to protect the edges of the screen and the corners – the most at risk area if you drop your phone. These will be available in matte yellow, green and orange with a black TPU trim.

The range of interchangeable shells will be available at launch of the Nokia Lumia 820.

Stunning photos of alcohol under the microscope

Until today we couldn’t think of any circumstances when mixing alcohol and technology was a good idea. Then we happened upon Bevshots. This incredible company does something we love, it makes the everyday amazing. How, you might ask? Simple. They take different drinks, cocktails, beers, spirits, you name it, crystallize them on a slide and photograph them under a polarized light microscope. The results are so impressive even the most discerning art critic amongst us would be hard-pressed not to raise a glass and say cheers to cool ideas.

source

Make Me Smile Monday #36

It’s that time again. Time to make your mouth do something it shouldn’t do by rights on a Monday. Smile. Grin. Bend upwards. Reverse frown.

Firstly this week (with a hat tip to Paul) some cracking guerrilla signsthat have been stuck up on the Tube in London. There are some really rather funny examples – I especially enjoyed the gravy and the Shepherd’s Pie. Very clever. Made me smile. Not something I’d recommend trying on your local transportation though (see the supermarket guy from last week’s Quick Grins for details). 

*****

Remember young Caine from MMSM #15 way back in April (a little reminder for if you don’t – he made a fully operational cardboard arcade)? Well he’s back! This has more than made me smile – one 9 year old boy, an empty cardboard box, a global empire:

So my challenge to you is to make a cardboard version of your favourite Nokia by October 6th for the Cardboard Challenge. Ready….Go!

*****

Another link from another colleague (I love it when the global Nokia Connects family pulls together and contributes to MMSM). This timeElisa noticed some people with an empty parking lot, some luminous tape and some shopping trolleys who recreated a massive game of Snake.

Snake always makes me smile, but I haven’t seen a version this good since the N-Gage Human Snake. Still smiling.

*****

Quick Grins

Following on from Caine’s story above, check out this real life carnival hustler. Well, not actually, he’s just really good on the midway.

Clocks and torches made of bread.

Amazing Perseid time lapse video.

Your turn, What’s been making you smile this week? Send me a link in the comments, or on Twitter using #MakeMeSmileMonday, and let’s see what gives you the giggles.

5 innovations that changed movies forever

When it comes to using technology to spread love, laughter and romance it's hard to beat the movie industry.

We love it when innovative ideas became real world awesomeness. One industry, besides mobile tech, where you see this all the time is the film business. 3D, Imax, popcorn – it’s hard to nail down which cinematic gizmo has meant the most to moviegoers over the years. With worldwide attendance on the up – global box-office takings reached US$32.6 billion in 2011! – there’s never been a bigger audience on which to test-drive invention in the talkies. But which past innovations have been the real game-changers? We take a look at five contenders.
Colour

Sure, it’s an obvious one, but nailing non-monochrome images was the Grail of the photo-geeks back in the early twentieth century. Hand-tinting frames was one of the first techniques – In 1902, Georges Melies’s A Trip To The Moon was coloured in by twenty-one women in what must have been a rather finicky production line.

Then came the likes of Kinemacolor, Kodachrome, Trucolor, and everyone’s favourite, The Wizard Of Oz in Technicolor, and now there’s ne’er a black-and-white movie in sight.

Sound

It’s not like the pre-talkie flicks were actually silent – orchestras often played alongside movies in the fancier theatres, and piano-players were a common sight in cinemas when the budget didn’t extend to a larger ensemble. But once Hollywood managed to synch up sound and vision and record actors’ words, everything changed – from acting styles to casting, scriptwriting, soundtracks and the theatres themselves.

Warner Brother’s Vitaphone system, a sound-on-disc invention, kicked it all off in 1926 with Don Juan, and then The Jazz Singer, in 1927, was the first feature film with recorded dialogue. Now we’ve got surround sound not only in our theatres, but also in our homes. Silence? What’s that?

Green Screen

We’re all graphics experts these days, with Photoshop on our desktops and our eagle-eyes peeled to spot tell-tale CGI blunders in the latest blockbusters. But back in the early days, there weren’t many ways to fake it.

The era of digital compositing was launched way back in the 1940s when RKO Radio Pictures developed what they called the ‘travelling matte’ – an early version of what we’d recognise as green screens and chroma key technology – superimposed backdrops with the actors performing against a blank, coloured wall. Their pioneering movie was The Thief of Baghdad (1940). Anyone…?

Nonlinear Editing

Scissors, sticky-tape and film gave way to digital editing back in the 1970s, but really took off in the 1990s with the rise of Avid and their non-linear editing kit – leading to an explosion in relatively easily created video effects, from split-screens to digital crash-zooms and multi-track sound-effects, all made at the same desk at the press of a button, saving time, money and effort.

It’s not always obvious to the consumer, but to the movie-makers, the nonlinear revolution was like the switch from horse-and-cart to the Model T.  Which led right to…

Low-Budget Film-Making Equipment

Semi-professional kit like affordable video cameras, hard-drive storage and Final Cut Pro has flung the doors of movie-making wide open. Now fledging directors can get their groove on without sourcing multi-million dollar financing.

Sure, not every cheap film is a masterpiece, but there’s nothing like practice, right? And with festivals like the London Independent Film Festival catering directly to the no-budget market – and the option to distribute your films for free online, if you choose – there’s never been a better time to be a young Spielberg.

These are our five cinematic tech superstars, but what about yours? Does IMAX deserve a place on the podium? Should 3D be given a big thumbs up? Let us know in the comments below.

Nokia fan treks 400 miles for Lumia event

How much do you love Nokia? Are you ready to call yourself a serious fan of Lumia? How about getting up at 3 a.m. to drive 400 miles to be among the first to check out the brand new Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 smartphones with Windows Phone 8?
Aaron Hall from Youngstown, Ohio, did just that. The 32-year old system administrator saw the invitation for Nokia’s evening event following the announcement of the new devices in New York. He RSVP’d, got the day off from his boss and got into his Nissan Altima to drive seven hours across the eastern U.S.

“I worked seven days a week since Memorial Day so this is my time off,” Aaron explains to us when Nokia Conversations sat down for a chat.

He was the very first one to stand in line for the fan event, which opened at 6pm. A few friendly Nokia employees tried to make the waiting a little more comfortable, bringing him a chair and some lunch from a nearby restaurant.

“I originally wanted the Nokia Lumia 900 but I’m not eligible for an upgrade until December. Now I have my sights on the Lumia 920 – I want the red one,” he says.

Aaron says he used to only buy HTC phones but was disappointed by the lack of support from the company: “They just release a phone but never update it.”

He says this is a big contrast between Nokia and a lot of the other players in the industry.

“You guys understand what it’s all about. When you realized you had a data connection issue with the Nokia Lumia 900 you took care of it – and fast. Since then you’ve released other updates. Not a lot of companies act that way.”

Aaron can’t wait to get his hands on the Nokia Lumia 920, and he loves the style. “It’s unique and stands out,” he says.

He’s also excited about the PureView camera and OIS technology. “I see this as a killer feature. I think it will really stand out and I can’t wait to be able to show it off to all my friends.”

He admits that he would’ve loved to see more megapixels, maybe a whopping 41 megapixels like in the Nokia 808 PureView. “But I’m technical enough to understand that it’s not about pixels, it’s about quality,” he says.

Aaron left the event tooting a Nokia Play 360° Wireless Speaker and a Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster. We can’t wait for him to hook them up to his Nokia Lumia 920.

Interview with Midnight Bonfires – Part 1

When the guys from Midnight Bonfires got in touch and asked if they could shoot their latest music video on a Nokia 808 PureView, you can imagine we jumped at the chance to put the phone through its paces. You may have seen the preview a couple of weeks back. Well, we went along to the shoot for ‘Wait’, took some exclusive snaps, and found out what the band had to say about the experience:

How did you originally form the band?

We have all been mates throughout school [in Birmingham, UK] and played music together in various projects. Midnight Bonfires started when Dave (lead vocals, Guitar) and Rick (Mandolin) wrote the first takes of ‘Misbehave’ and ‘Wait’. After showing Sam (Bass) and Mark (Drums) the songs at Sam’s house we realised the potential and took to the practice studio. 

‘Midnight Bonfires’ who came up with the name and what does it represent?

Dave came up with the name. We wanted quite an earthy, natural name that tied in with the folk elements of our music. But we never really set out a scientific way of going about finding it. We all came up with various examples but Midnight Bonfires just felt right. We liked the imagery of fire and the idea of the night and how it contrasts in different ways.  

For those who don’t know you, what song would you recommend they listen to and where can they find it?
Our single ‘Misbehave’ is available online, it was our first release and we’d most likely recommend that one. We’re also looking at releasing ‘Wait’ as a single before an EP launch in November. Our Facebook page currently has a preview of one of the songs on the EP – ‘Voodoo Eyes’

Do you have any cool or funny stories you could tell us about when you have been performing or rehearsing?

Dave: I got electrocuted a number of times on stage whilst performing at a gig, they were little at first but by the end they were pretty big! Luckily it was the last song! I also bit an apple randomly on stage, threw it, and oddly someone kept it. Me and Rick also took a trip to Vancouver and whilst we were there, did a few open mic nights which went down pretty well.
Rick: When recording the EP recently we cracked into a litre bottle of whisky nearing the conclusion. We judged the timing a little off and I wound up recording the group backing vocals slightly intoxicated.

What would you do with a Nokia? Are you a musician/artist that has an idea? Let us know. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for the final version of the video from Midnight Bonfires and their thoughts on the Nokia 808 PureView.