Blog by Paul Golding

There was a good mix of topics and levels of interest. Continuing with a recent theme on this blog, I ran a session about Ambient Communications, which is another way of saying "always on" applications. Where possible, we also tried to incorporate the theme of widgets because of the attention they received in the earlier session by Dan, and because I have recently conducted an analysis of the major competing mobile widget systems (from a developer perspective). 

I captured some of the ideas in order to post them here. So here goes (in loosely structured note-form):

We discussed how frustrating it can be to share photos among friends and family in a "it just works" fashion that is "mum proof" (i.e. mostly disconnected from Internet and probably still a regular TV viewer).

1. Ambient photo-streaming widget on the homescreen of "mum's" mobile

2. Family and friends join into a photo timeline (stream) via the widget on their mobiles

3. Photos taken on camera phones are automatically store in the cloud (e.g. flickr)

4. Widget can be displayed as "TV widget" on the TV display, including ambient (picture-in-picture) mode - also known as "stackable" media

5. Remote control for TV widget (expand, collapse, advance etc.) all via the mobile widget

6. Possible use of Femtocells to accelerate the photo uploading process when in the home cell

7. Stream also displayed on widget in kitchen - fridge magnet, O2 Joggler or Chumby

8. Geo-tagging of pictures - mash-up with maps and Google street-view for animated "timeline" slide show

9. "Follow Me" geo-tagging for live update of friend and family locations - merged somehow into the timeline

1. Twitter for ideas - constant ambient stream of ideas, thoughts, "notes to self" had in the past

2. Notes to self and Getting Things Done (someday, somehow)

3. Notes via mobile - SMS, widget, voice

4. Voice memos converted to text in the cloud - "Google Voice API?"

5. Ability to merge thought streams with friends, family, followers

6. Voice notes can also be distributed to groups as means of "outloud thinking" and instant crowd-sourcing

7. Voice input is instant - no dialling

8. Could also display stream on TV and fridge magnet widgets - also stream to in-car widgets

2. Enable many-to-many voice channels ("conference calls") to form around trending topics and tweets

3. INSTANT voice connectivity - no dialing and no answering (optional)

4. Voice streams are public - "public by default"

5. Multiple streams of voice are audible to listener as ambient "murmur"

6. Keywords/tag cloud sensor "highlights" key words in the murmur

7. Listeners can tune/de-tune from the murmur by use of keywords

8. Instant "barge-in" to any stream

9. Re-packaged push-to-talk on handsets

Thanks to fellow collaborators who came up with the ideas while I drank (crap) coffee - @andresteder @mjbdreamer @spugamola 

Thanks to all those who attended openMIC and to Chris for organizing - great job!

Been there, done that - GOT THE T-SHIRT......