Mobile Messaging: Indian Style

July 13, 2008 at 5:50 pm · Filed under Funny, India, Video

Courtesy of Geekologie

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DIY Techology Lets Your Plants Twitter You When They Are Thirsty

February 25, 2008 at 3:04 pm · Filed under Twitter, Funny

Well, gang, this one’s so far over the wall that it sounds absolutely daft. Bu I promise you, it can be done.

That would be hooking your plant up so that it can Twitter you when it is feeling kind of dehydrated. Even when you are on the go!

The process involves a plant, a handheld mobile device, as well as technology from Botanicalls, iwhich a system that was developed to allow plants to place phone calls for human help. When a plant on the Botanicalls network needs water, it can call a person and ask for exactly what it needs. When people phone the plants, the plants orient callers to their habits and characteristics.

Step-by-step procedure is too detailed for us to list here, but as described on the Botanicals page, you will need a moisture probe, wiring and a lot of time and patience.

Before you even begin, you will also need:

(1) 2N2222A or 2N3904 transistor
(1) 100 ohm resistor

(1) 10K Ohm resistor

(1) LED

(2) galvanized nails, preferably hot dipped

(1) small breadboard

(1) Adafruit Xport shield

(1) XPort or Xport Direct

(1) Arduino USB board

(1) 9V DC power adapter

hook up wire in assorted colors

solder

USB A to B cable

USB A to miniB cable

USB Serial FTDI adapter (optional)

Ethernet cable

EQUIPMENT:

soldering iron

helping hands

computer with ZTerm or HyperTerminal, Arduino

Oh, and don’t let me forget to mention, a Twitter account.

Hey, spring is coming soon, and your plants are feeling the urge to grow. When they need a little water to help them along, why not let them let you know when they could use a few gulps?

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Mee2Pee Networks

February 14, 2008 at 1:56 pm · Filed under SMS, Funny, Mobile Payments, Commerce

I’m loving this idea -  in order to reduce vandalism of public restrooms, Finland’s road management agency has implemented a system whereby users have to text OPEN to a number printed on the door of the bathroom in order to unlock it.

Your number is recorded in case you decide to <ahem> decorate the facility.

Of course, this is a great example of mobile messaging as an interface to the real world - quite literally transforming bits into atoms…I’m just hoping the restrooms aren’t Twittering their operations.

I wonder if commercial operators of restrooms will follow suit with Pay-Per-Pee, or P-Commerce model? It’s entirely fair to bill a single text message to go number 1 and double for number 2…weight or volume just wouldn’t be equitable…!

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The Changing Face Of Mobile Etiquette

January 14, 2008 at 10:19 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Funny, Communication, Convergence

Good news! Readers in Glasgow will be the first in the UK able to use their mobile phone and get a signal on their metro. The Glasgow Underground is on course to deploy a combined Wi-Fi and 2G/3G service by this February. It should be noted that coverage, as yet, is only for the stations, and not in the tunnels between the stations.

But already I can hear the cries and howls of protest as ‘the last bastion of peace and quiet is breached,’ or similar sentiments (cf MocoNews’ “is nothing sacred”). You know, we’ve been here before. Go right back to the invention of the telephone and it has been slowly moving into more public spaces. Take the start of the 80’s, you would not have walked out on the street to make a call, where everyone could hear your side of the conversation. Nowadays that’s a common occurrence.

As technology has changed, so has social acceptance. We’re seeing it in the field not just of mobile communication (for example are we at the point where it is polite to at least read an SMS at dinner, if not quite the done thing to take the time to reply?) but in all areas of the internet – the most obvious change is the attitude towards copyright and the rewarding of artists but more and more steps in mobile phone etiquette are under way. The next big area, I feel, is in airline travel – and with Air France to start trials of its in-flight call system in the first half of 2008 the airline cabin during flight could be the next step.

Does this all matter though? Are those people who are crying Cassandra at the changes doing the right thing, relics of a more polite past, or will they come around when the rest of the crowd is doing it?

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It’s Mobile And It’s Messaging :)

September 11, 2007 at 4:55 am · Filed under Funny

If you can carry it in your hand, it’s mobile. If there’s some text, it’s a message! I couldn’t resist giving a shout out to Sasha Tseng’s design concept ‘toast messenger’.

All it needs is a GSM radio and we have a text-to-toast protocol! From SMS, EMS and MMS to TMS?

More at Yanko Design…

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