iPhone painting application for children released – written by a child!
Coding in Pascal is not an everyday activity for a nine year old but Lim Ding Wen is not your average boy.
Fluent in six programming languages and with over 20 programming projects under his belt, Lim is quite possibly the world’s youngest iPhone programmer.
The painting application, Doodle Kids, was first designed and programmed on Lim’s computer but was later modified for use on the iPhone. The inspiration for Doodle Kids was Lim’s two younger sisters aged three and five who like to draw but the application has proved popular with the general public reaching 4,000 downloads in less than two weeks!
Based around the number of times the user taps on the screen, Doodle Kids allows children to draw random shapes in random colours and sizes and erase the image by simply shaking the iPhone – it couldn’t get much easier than that!
Lim’s father, who is also an iPhone application developer, claims that Lim is an ‘above average boy with an interest in computers’. He goes on to state that “Doodle Kids is an extremely simple program that can be done by anybody. Everybody can program - if Ding Wen can, so can you,”
Well…can you?!
Brand recognition - Cadburys’ purple
Most companies get protective over their brand and it seems that Cadburys‘ is no different!
The chocolate giant, who has been supplying the country with chocolate since 1824, is currently undergoing legal action to try and patent the colour purple which appears on most of their products. The move comes after an Australian chocolate company started to use a colour closely resembling Cadburys’ purple.
The history of the colour purple and Cadburys’ stems back to 1905, a time where the colour purple resembled royalty - adding value to the new luxury food that was (and still can is) chocolate.
Whilst on the topic - check out this spoof video of the Cadbury gorilla advert…
The Impact of Chrome
In the days before Chrome there were two main contenders in the browser wars - Internet Explorer and Firefox. With its release in 2004, Firefox proved that ever monopolising Microsoft could be taken on at their own game and has been chipping away at IE’s market share ever since.
This seems set to change with the release of Google Chrome.
There are now two contenders ready to take on Microsoft and both have an extremely good product with which to achieve it. But what does the release of Chrome mean to the browser world?
Firefox
Its latest version, Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 (code name ‘Shiretoko’), has recently been released to developers and boasts new additions such as the ability to drag and drop tabs between browsers windows, giving the user a much more controlled experience whilst searching the web. Firefox are aiming to make the first beta version available at the end of October and so far it does not seem that Chrome’s release will have affected it too much;
TechCrunch have provided some useful statistics on their readers browser usage as can be seen from Image One and Two.
Image One - 2nd September 2008
Image Two - 4th September 2008
(Both graphs taken from TechCrunch on the 09/09/2008)
What is interesting to see is that the number of Firefox users were not affected over the time period that Google Chrome was released, however this could be due to the fact that Firefox timed the release of Alpha 2 to correspond closely with the release of Chrome.
Internet Explorer
The latest version of Internet Explorer, Version 8, saw the launch of its second public beta in August 08 with improvements being made to security, ease of use RSS integration, CSS compatibility and embedded Ajax support.
As the TechCrunch stats show, IE usage took a hit from the introduction of Chrome. 30.7% to 23.9% is a drop that can’t be ignored, even if the stats refer to a heavily tech based audience.
On the other hand, as Harry McCracken (from PC Advisor) points out, perhaps Microsoft should be more concerned with the impact that Chrome could have on Windows rather than Internet Explorer. As it stands, IE is free to download and comes as standard on most computers, world wide. Contrasting to this is the big revenue earner, Windows, which brings in millions each year for Microsoft and has already been ‘threatened’ by Google with the release of Chrome.
More critically McCracken considers that maybe the world should be wary of yet another Google product “that didn’t change anything at all” and wait to see what happens once all the hype has calmed down. If Chrome can achieve anywhere near the market share that FireFox enjoys then we could be looking at a scenario where IE no longer holds an outright majority, a situation not seen since the lofty days of Netscape vs. IE.
So, what does the future hold for web browsers?
It is fact that the introduction of Google Chrome has changed the browser landscape, but time will tell whether its impact is in direct market share or simply to raise the bar for all concerned.
- Will Google continue to fund Firefox as promised?
- Will non technical users move away from IE, or will the move be limited to the techIEs amongst us?
- Can Google maximize the value of google.com as a platform to push Chrome, if indeed they want to at all?
- Will the “minor players” such as Opera still be in business in a year to come?
Further Reading / For Reference:
- Google Chrome Press Event: The Video
- Google Chrome - The world famous comic launch
- PC Advisor - Google Chrome versus Firefox & Internet Explorer
- Bbc.co.uk - Google launches internet browser (video)
- Cnet.com - Chrome privacy settings could threaten Microsoft (video)
Google Plans to Launch Online Newspapers
Google announced they are to add a whole new level of content to search engines this week with the introduction of online newspapers.
The company aims to scan pre-digital newspapers and bring them into the new age web world. Google has already coupled with over 100 newspapers who will allow them to digitalise their achieves and make the scanned copies available online. Those interested in the newspapers will then be able to access the entire pages of their selected newspaper and view it as it was published but on a computer screen.
Google have created a new algorithm for the newspapers which will allow users to focus on the specific article that they want to view and they see other related articles from the same paper or other newspapers of the time.
Obviously from a business perspective, the introduction of online newspapers will have many advantages to other Google products such as links to Google Books but also, more importantly, there will be a high advertising turn around with Google being able to run its AdSense service alongside the newspapers. This will mean that Google will be able to crawl the content of the papers and produce adverts relating to the articles, with the advertising revenue then being shared between Google and the publishers.
Moreover, the implications of online newspapers will have a profound affect on a large section of the web using market. One key group of people that will benefit from this service will be academics who will be able to access historical documents which will prove invaluable to work being conducted that relies heavily on this kind of primary source.
Another winning party through online newspapers could be companies who have a long timeline of history as past advertising adverts will be available to access giving them a) the chance to earn more revenue from new advertising and b) giving customers a sense of the history of the company.
Overall it is hard to see many parties who will not benefit from the production of online newspapers. Hopefully this sharing of information will be embraced as a much larger section of people will be able to access information more readily.
The only perceived issue…?
Who is going to scan all those papers?!
Read more at the BBC
Facebook changes face!
Several weeks ago, users were greeted with a new site design when they logged into Facebook. They were also faced with the choice to stay on the ‘old’ design or embrace the ‘new’. Every now and again ones Facebook account would default to the new design without being told, resulting in (from my perspective) an instant click back to the old design!
However this ‘default’ is to become a permanent default with the announcement that Facebook will be moved to the new design, whether the users like it or not.
There has been social uproar on Facebook with numerous numbers of groups being created to voice peoples hatred of the new design. Despite this company founder, Mark Zuckerberg insists that the change is a positive one, made for the ease of the user.
Facebook has commented that around 40 million of its users have already tried the new design, with around 30 million users sticking with the new design rather than returning to the old (or maybe they were not being able to find the ‘Back to the old Facebook’ button!).
Critics have already suggested that Facebook is playing a dangerous game which could result in them losing users to rival social networking sites, however it is hard to see a contender on the horizon.
So…Facebook’s facelift will become permanent for all its 100 million users, like it or not.
What do people think of it?
Sugar Plum (tomato that is!)
Do you have a sweet tooth? Always feel guilty about those sugary treats you eat?
Well heres a little fact in which to ease your conscience- one of the country’s leading sugar brands - Silver Spoon - offsets their spare energy by using it to grow tomatoes!
The company has over 70 miles of piping carrying hot water from the factory to the tomato greenhouse where it is used to maintain the temperature needed to grow the fruit.
So the next time you feel like baking that cake do so with a smile - think of all those tomatoes happily growing away thanks to your sweet tooth!
One Laptop per Child ‘$100 laptop’ production begins!
One Laptop per Child ‘$100 laptop’ production begins!
Hardware suppliers of the project One Laptop per Child (OLPC) have been given the go ahead to begin ramping up production of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines.
The OLPC is a project to produce a unique machine with features created specifically for children of the emerging world. The goal of the project is “to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves”. Not a small task by anyone’s estimations!
The innovative design of the XO machine has drawn praise from the technical community. The XO is built to cope with the harsh and remote conditions found in areas where it may be used, such as extreme locations such as deserts or mountains . It has a rugged, waterproof case and is as energy efficient as possible so much so that it can be solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered!
It does have its critics though, some whose opinions carry some substantial weight, these include Intel chairman Craig Barret who famously described it as a “$100 gadget” and none other than Microsoft’s Bill Gates who questioned its design, lack of hard drive and its “tiny screen”.
Others question if there is a need for a laptop in countries which have more pressing needs such as sanitation, water, starvation and health care.
Internet Advertising “Growing Fast”
A report by research body Forrester shows that European internet users now spend 14.3 hours a week online, compared with 11.3 hours watching TV, and 4.4 hours reading newspapers or magazines.
These figures support the trend of why firms are heavily increasing their online advertising spend causing a decrease in television and print advertising.
If you would like to discuss your online advertising needs please contact gideon@forwardslashmedia.co.uk our Business Development Manager.
What’s the only company that scares Google? Facebook.
Google has become what many people call the operating system for search & Facebook is now well on its way to becoming the operating system for social networking. This is making Mountain View sweat buckets. Why? The very same reason we are rubbing our hands with glee … viral distribution.
We are in the process of working on several applications for Facebook for our clients so this is of particular interest to us, you can read more over at Advertising Age.
“How is 2007 shaping up in terms of web technology trends and activity?”
As it’s halfway through 2007, let’s take a look back on the highlights of the first half of the year…