Tag: Technology

I’m on the iPhone

I cracked and bought one this morning. I could try justifying the decision by saying it was because my ancient iPod has worn out, or that I was getting frustrated by trying to use email on my Nokia, but really, it was sheer Apple-induced gadget lust and I simply gave in to temptation.

Quite funny seeing the interaction between Apple and Carphone Warehouse on this. CPW aren’t exactly known for their seamless customer service and I did have to be quite forceful to convince them to give me one. The problem was that they weren’t letting O2 customers out of their contracts to get iPhones. Then there was obviously some edict from on high sent round their call centres on Saturday afternoon. They had me sorted out within a few minutes of complaining.

  • Set up: From opening the box to having everything synched up was a very easy and pleasurable experience.
  • The way Google Maps work: On wifi anyway the directions thing is brilliant — not sure how fast it will be on O2.
  • Multitouch: just incredible. It becomes second nature within seconds and then you realise quite how advanced the technology must be.

As lots of people have said, it’s not perfect, but it is the first device I’ve had in a while that really does fit Arthur C Clark’s maxim. I love it.

Seedcamp reflections

I’m exhausted but very happy. School of Everything didn’t win at Seedcamp but we’ve had an amazing week. The winners are all brilliant ideas being turned into new companies by great people. Hats off to them and we’re actually going to be working pretty closely with a few of the companies over the coming months.

We’ve been put right at the heart of a wonderful network of mentors and advisers and I feel even more confident that the School of Everything idea is a goer and that we can pull it off.

By the way, it’s worth anybody who wants to get innovation going (policy makers or business people alike) looking at the Seedcamp model. I’m now a very big fan. Saul Klein, whose baby it’s been, is a very clever and generous guy. As a team I’m pretty sure I speak for us all when I say we feel very privileged to have been part of Seedcamp’s Class of 2007.

A towering idea

My friend Peter Macleod has a great idea in a comment piece in the Toronto Star today. He suggests that the new LED lighting system on the CN Tower should be used to show the city the impacts of citizens’ collective behaviour:

A nighttime glance at the tower could tell us whether we were gradually rolling back car usage or whether it was continuing to spike. It could tell us whether power consumption was in hand or we were headed for a brownout. Most importantly, it could illuminate our public imagination – to remind us of our goals and the progress we want to make.

Here’s the full piece.

Instruction manuals — pah!

Nokia 6300

So I’ve got a new phone with which I am very pleased. It’s a Nokia 6300 and looks and feels lovely. Nice stainless steel covers, bright screen, easy to use menu system. No complaints at all so far.

The interesting thing for me has been how I’ve been getting it to work better than any phone I’ve had before by connecting it to my mac with bluetooth. It didn’t work at all to start with but a little hack from Koos Kaspers managed to get iSync to work. And then when I couldn’t get iCal synchronisation to happen another bit of advice from SwimGeek did the job.