Opera have just released beta 2 of their Opera Mini 4 mobile browser. Considered by many the best mobile browser out there. They’ve also published an article on the dev center on designing sites for mobile. There is also a video of Opera Mini 4 in action. Download the beta here. View the article here. Play with a live simulator here.
Base64 encoding is a very useful technique that allows for the sending of binary data, such as an image file, over the wire using plain-text. This means it can be embedded in XML (plain, SOAP or XML-RPC), it also means the binary data can be stored very easily in a database. It works by reading in data in packs of 6 bits, and turning each one of those into a character in a simple 64 character alphabet. This input data can be text, but it can also be binary data stored in a ByteArray; perhaps the contents of a file, or an MP3 your Flash application has constructed in memory. ...
“You do computers don’t you?”. That’s the phrase I and no doubt many of you have heard from family members or friends of the family over the last however-many years. Any time anyone bought a new computer, had computer problems, setup a new WiFi router (what am I up to now, 20?), or even problems with a VCR it was my job to fix it because “I do computers”. Let me tell you, for a cup of tea and a few biscuits the daily rate you are missing out on fades into insignificance. ...
This demonstration is pretty incredible. The software performs calculations on the entropy of an image (amongst other things), to allow you to resize it whilst maintaining key visual entities. Some examples include mountains, tree-lines or people. Other features include the ability to assign positive and negative weights to areas to make sure they are not distorted too much, or drop them out of existence entirely. View the video here (or hi-res version here).
Update: Just a quick update to say that we are also recruiting for New York, San Fran and DC, so if you are interested please feel free to get in touch via the email to the right. (original post as follows…) Some good news, we have a lot of exciting projects coming up and are currently looking to expand the team some more with fresh talent. So if you are interested in working for clients such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Fiat and XBox as part of a great team please read on. ...
NASA have released a Java component called World Wind that enables developers to build something that includes Google Earth-like 3D map data. This component can be added to for example a Swing application and the developer can create a mashup in any way they see fit. These applications can be launched via Java web start (an app that launches from a web page as long as the Java JRE is installed, they state 1.4 onwards with some minor trepidation) or distributed as a standalone desktop app (again JRE required). ...
Some good news, we have a lot of exciting projects coming up and are currently looking to expand the team some more with fresh talent. So if you are interested in working for clients such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Fiat and XBox as part of a great team please read on. Our team is known as CRD (Creative Research and Development) and we use technologies including Flash, Flex, AIR, Silverlight and WPF on a daily basis as well as real-world pieces for integrated campaigns and tacticals. Anything cutting edge, we’ll be the ones to use it. Feel free to check out the latest work over at AKQA.com and drop me a mail at the address over on the right.
There was a time when Nokia was the style icon in the mobile industry, the 3210 widely considered one of the best phones of all time (I can’t substantiate that claim), it was good looking, worked flawlessly and was as tough as old boots (if I remember it was also the first with Snake). In particular the foray into smartphones has left them looking a little bit… purely functional, leaving the Samsungs and the LGs to take the crown for best looking in the last few years. ...
Possible gotcha with the XML class, but I’d like to get this confirmed if anyone has a second to try this out. It seems that the XML class is converting " to its literal ASCII representation (i.e. the quote mark “) when converting a String into a new XML object. I’m sending this data over XML-RPC and I cannot have quotes being sent as plain-text, they need to be XML/HTML encoded. ...
Here’s a fantastic execution of an idea for mobile, using Flash Lite. For those up and coming Asian businessmen without a PA of their own, BreakDesign (makers of Dawn of the Fly) have created a digital PA that has a calendar, finds bars, taxis and other information. I’m a big fan of giving a consumer something useful and then branding it. As opposed to giving a consumer something that does something associated with the brand (brand self-love I think they call it). In this case they hit the old golden “sweet spot” and did both. Some brands lend themselves to this naturally, such as Nike with Nike+, sometimes its harder to create something of real value. ...