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Sir David Attenborough’s Story of Life

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One of the most enjoyable educational apps I’ve yet experienced :

Join broadcast legend Sir David Attenborough to explore more than 1000 of the greatest wildlife moments ever filmed.

  • Explore the most comprehensive collection of Sir David’s work ever released online.
  • Includes six decades of highlights from more than 40 landmark BBC programmes, including Planet Earth, Blue Planet, The Life of Mammals, Africa and others.
  • Watch unique collections of films curated by Sir David and others.
  • Create and save your own collections and share them with friends and family.
  • Hunt for hidden films featuring Sir David, recorded exclusively for the app.
  • Explore extraordinary sequences of animals and plants, from iconic large species to rarely seen enigmatic creatures. See them hunt, mate, eat, travel and communicate in their natural habitats; ranging from the high mountains to the deepest oceans, across deserts, forests and the polar ice caps.
  • Watch lions, polar bears, whales, sharks, eagles and giant lizards and many more.

Available at no charge as a universal app for iOS, and on Android, this has barely been off the family iPad since we downloaded it.

Tip of the hat to Vowe.

Ekta front view

Kodak announces Ektra smartphone featuring 21 megapixel f/2.0 lens

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The EKTRA Smartphone announced yesterday is named and modelled after one of Kodak’s classic rangefinders. From the back it resembles a standard point-and-shoot camera, with an oversized (for phone standards) f/2.0 lens protruding from a faux black leather surface. When it comes to specifications, it has a 21 megapixel fast focus sensor, with 6-axis optical image stabilisation and 4K video capture. The device also packs an ‘industry leading’ 13-megapixel front-facing camera with Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) and /f2.2 aperture.

Circle logo

Circle: The Local Network

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Circle logoCircle is the mobile app that’s in the know, anywhere you go. Circle keeps you up to speed by adapting to your location and letting you view what’s happening near you, now.

Our goal is to build on the lessons learned from traditional social networks to make a new kind of community: positive, local and useful, wherever you are.

Each month, more than a million people are joining Circle for real-time information and conversation about nearby crime, traffic, natural disasters – as well as places to go and things to do.

Lost dogs. Best fishing spots. Free kids events. Closed roads. Flash mobs. Amazing, scary, exciting and crazy are happening everywhere. The Circle community is there to help you navigate your world.

And we have some help. Circle is funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Ashton Kutcher, Ron Conway, David Sacks and other top investors. Headquartered in Palo Alto, the company was founded by CEO Evan Reas with the goal of truly connecting the mobile web to the real world.

Circle has truly beautiful design, a clever focus on local news and events, apps for Android and iOS, and excellent integration with existing networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Circle screenshot Circle screenshot Circle screenshot

As ever, the key question is whether your friends and peers are on the network – that’s what makes it sticky.  Right now, that’s not the case, and there’s precious little being added within 50km of my location – I’m sure it would be different in San Francisco, NYC or even London.

However, I’m hopeful that this will change – I like Circle and would like it to succeed.

Social Business Online for iPhone

IBM ‘Social Business Online’ app now available

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IBM Connect is just around the corner (I travel on Friday, so better crack on with the packing!), and thoughts turn to sessions, schedules and social events.

After a few false starts this year, IBM has settled on the Social Business Online tool as the official means to view sessions, create a personal schedule and network with other attendees.  A combination of IBM Connections, Sametime and Domino/XPages platforms, it can be reached via the web, mobile browser or using the recently released native app for iOS (iPhone and iPad):

Social Business Online for iPhone Social Business Online for iPad

or Android:

IBM Social Business Online Android IBM Social Business Online Android

I’m fairly impressed with Social Business Online, and would advise all attendees to at least check in once or twice to see the latest content.  I do see this as the last year for this particular site though – I had hoped that the days of the ‘for one week only’ social sites were over.

There is also an exciting community-provided alternative from Mat Newman, Turtle Partnership and others ‘The totally unofficial, totally unsupported IBM Connect 2013 session database‘ (it does need a snappy acronym though!). This is available as a Notes database, mobile UI and now as a native iOS app too.

Either way, there is no excuse for not being properly prepared for IBM Connect.  My advice is to create a detailed schedule of sessions you plan to attend, plus a list of backup sessions should you be running late, the room is full or your first choice is not as engaging as you hoped it would be.

Lotus support for Android is making the news

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Even the usually anti-Lotus UK online tech news site, The Register is starting to cover the Lotusphere 2010 news stories in some detail.

IBM bakes Lotus Notes for Android

IBM isn’t forgetting about Google’s mobile OS after squeezing Lotus Notes onto the iPhone and the BlackBerry.

Big Blue has said that an Android-based app for Lotus Notes is now in the works. Deadline: before Microsoft makes its own Android-based app for Exchange.

Lotus Notes Traveler Companion, IBM’s first application for the iPhone App Store, was announced on Monday at Lotusphere 2010 in Orlando, Florida. Companion is a free plug-in that lets iPhone users read their encrypted Lotus Notes email on the Jobsonian cult communicator.

IBM already offers support for Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry phones, so the odd-mobile-OS-out is Android-based devices. IBM plans to remedy this soon, beginning with a client for Google’s Nexus One.

“We’ve been looking at our options here — a quick-fix approach to using the installed software on some of the Android-based devices, or a more serious commitment to building a full client,” said Ed Brill, IBM chief of product management for Lotus software, on his blog.

Brill said IBM chose the latter approach, but the open source nature of Android makes creating the app a bit more difficult.

“The different providers can and will create their own distributions and installed software,” Brill said. “As such, we’re doing the engineering to do this right — and ahead of Microsoft, by the way.”