Looks like the Nokia Design folks have a YouTube channel where they are sharing some conceptual videos exploring the (potential) future of mobile communications. The videos are pretty interesting, animation mostly but they demonstrate integration across numerous smart devices, and >h;gasp touch screens<h; 
Hmm, maybe apple didn’t think of that first.
Connecting Simply (1:41)
An amazing visit to grandma’s high-tech refrigerator.
Inspiring Scenes(1:45)
Can you do some mad edits on the nightclub floor?
Achieving Together (1:50)
No more telecommuting in your pajamas.
Sharing Discoveries (1:36)
I’m also very glad to say I found out about these videos via a Blog that I helped start in the gaming group, it’s called Futurewatch at blog.n-gage.com as it’s primarily a place for us to talk about what’s coming up for mobile gaming on N-Gage (which is going to be the platform for gaming across some yet to be named Nseries devices).
UPDATE: interestingly these were presented at Nokia World last year by Alastair Curtis, Nokia’s Chief Designer.
Alastair said, “Design is undoubtedly a key, defining issue in our industry. This is only set to increase over the coming years as we see people demanding mobile devices that more closely match their lifestyle.”
“As designers we have to be constantly looking ahead, predicting how these trends will develop and provoking new ideas. Making these videos public and sharing some of this thinking with the people who use our phones will help us do this.”
I think it’s quite a step for Nokia to put these out on youtube really, we may not be sharing trade secrets but it’s a much more open approach to engaging the community in a conversation about the future.
Richard at Read/Write Web just posted this awesome link to a music 2.0 directory that is being put together in a wiki (on wet paint). If your interested in music discovery and the such you will certainly dig this. I guess I should go and add the Nokia music recommender
Music 2.0 sites fall into a number of camps:
- Music Services - places like iTunes and Rhapsody where you can purchase or subscribe to music
- Music Discovery - places that help you find music - these fall generally into 3 subcategories:
- Social - wisdom of the crowds sites like last.fm, iLike. Goombah and Qloud
- Content-based - recommendations based on the music content - Pandora, SoundFlavor, MusicIP
- Expert based - Music recommendations from people - music blogs, irateradio.com
- Music Experience Augmentation - sites to make your music listening experience more enjoyable - music dashboards like sleevenotez or Snapp Radio
- Playlist Sharing - this includes playlisting sites like MusicMobs, fiql and Webjay
- Music Metadata - add to the data surrounding the music - MusicBrainz, All Music Guide, Gracenote
Companies like AT&T and Microsoft are sinking Billions (4+ billion each) into IPTV (internet protocol television), enabling them to deliver TV over the internet. And what exactly are these companies trying to do with those billions… replicate “cable” over the internet. Well, with HBO recently releasing the first episode of Extras on iTunes as a free video podcast it makes me wonder if the future of television isn’t something closer to podcasts than broadcast. The ability for me to “subscribe” only to specific shows and forgetting about the whole concept of a channel (which is essentially a hang over from broadcast) makes a damn site more sense to me. Oh, and guess what it makes the whole concept of DVR’s defunct as well, Tivo was essentially a tool to make up for the shortcomings of broadcast who’s value goes away when everything is on demand by default.
Apple TV got a little lost in the hubub at Mac world around iPhone, but this screenshot is extremely interesting.
Sure Steve, we can get episodes of the office, but we can also get podcasts
Tip of the Hat
Subscribe to the Extras video podcast
No doubt the iPhone is an amazing re-imagining of mobile interfaces, sort of the wii of phones. Anyway, I can’t wait to see how the gesture concept works in real life, but the way it is described it sounds very much like the Minority Report UI. The idea of pinching, sliding etc. sounds fascinating.
Anyway, I don’t have a lot else to say other than go and check out Kottke’s post on this, he did a quick cardboard prototype to compare the iPhone to other devices he had lieing around. This is typical of why Kottke is always on my reading list.
UPDATE: Nice little hands on article on NYT
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