Sony Mobile's little Android campaign

Adverts? Who likes them eh? But I have always been a fan of good adverts that passes off as an art form. Take Fallon's excellent Sony Bravia 'Playdoh' or Walkman 'Project Music' advert for example. Remove any reference to Sony and these ads could have easily been submitted to Cannes' short film Palme d'Or award for consideration, or indeed any film. Adverts do not need scream buy me in order to be imaginative, it just need to be memorable. Why else do you think Cadbury's 'Gorilla' and the incredible and legendary 'Eyebrow' adverts, both which had nothing to do with chocolates, were so well received?

Now that Sony Ericsson has been bought by Sony, it is time to see what Sony Mobile can do. I have high expectations for Sony's new NXT device range but a good phone can only do so much by itself (even Apple has to rely on massive advertising campaign to promote their wares). Sony Mobile along with ad agency McCann Erickson, has recruited Wes Anderson of Fantastic Mr. Fox to direct a new stop-motion animation campaign. The TV ad will premier on the evening of Saturday 24 March, but they have released a teaser to explain their creation, which will tell the story of their little robot (Android, geddit?), through 37 handcrafted cyborgs.

The Social Network Timeline

These days when you talk to someone about social networks, they think of Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. And if you talk to a digital marketer, they will tell you of how best to monetize them and why social networks are such a new thing.

Internet veterans, the snobs that they are, will know that social networks and internet-based social media has a long illustrious history that began immediately when the Internet was born. After all, the public Internet was born out of human's desire to be more social.

When we finally got connected to the Internet in 1994, it didn't take me long before I got onto IRC, and off shot of BBS, one of the world's first truly global social networks. Back then we didn't have marketers and self-loathing social media consultants telling us why it was important to sell our personal brands, and we would talk about anything. There were no numbers to sell, no artificial metric to live by. It was raw. It was good.

Three Web Cube wireless hotspot review

Last month Three UK, the network that likes to think outside the box (cough), announced a new product that aims to free users from the tyranny of fixed broadband. The cute boxy Web Cube is a semi-portable wireless access point hotspot optimised for home use. Like Three's own MiFi, the Web Cube supports up to five simultaneous wireless connections, HSPA+ download speed of up to 21.6 Mbit/s and HSUPA upload speed of up to 5.76 Mbit/s.

Three is currently conducting trials in three locations: Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leeds. It is likely that not all Three base stations has been upgraded to take advantage of HSPA+ technology yet, like where I live just outside North London (more on this later), so do bear that in mind when reading the review.

The Huawei-made Web Cube has been lovingly designed and is both stylish and practical. The case is made of translucent white plastic housing the internal hardware and a couple of blue LEDs on the top (as a signal strength indicator) and glowing inner blue LEDs that doubles as a network status indicator. I am not a fan of blue LEDs, but fortunately the LEDs here aren't too bright to be annoying. The device is heavy enough to be able to store it on a shelf without fear it would fall under the weight of the cable.

Kanga Yoga in East London

Apologies to anyone who did see this blog post coming (there's a first for everything). A friend of mine, Emma, who used to work at Nokia House Soho, is offering weekly adult classes and children workshop in East London. If you or anyone you know are into Yoga, please check out the press release below. I am not into Yoga, so don't expect to see me mediating there anytime soon!

But you never know, especially if they do a Doctor Who party for adults!

PR after the break.

How Microsoft won me back

The i-mate JAM is my first true smartphone. Announced in 2004, the i-mate JAM was a highly anticipated mobile device being the first Windows Mobile smartphone that comes in a portable package. Also known as the HTC Magician, the i-mate JAM was a beauty. I remember paying £400 to Expansys to ensure I got it on day one and boy was worth it.

As it runs on a modified version of Pocket PC, the compact i-mate JAM was a familiar device to use. I've already owned quite a few none-cellular Pocket PC devices. With a 2.8" (problematic) touchscreen LCD display with 240x320 resolution, an Intel XScale PXA272 processor clocked at a screaming 416 MHz (overclockable to 520 MHz!), 64MB RAM and 1.3MP back camera. It was cutting edge hardware. Best thing about it? It ran on a Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Pocket PC, the mobile OS you want if you were a self respecting smartphone geek in 2004.

My then awesome i-mate JAM next to my still awesome Palm Tungsten T3

Nokia Lumia 800 with FW 12070 out now

Nokia has begun rolling out a new firmware update for the Lumia 800. Firmware 1600.2487.8107.12070 is rumoured to fix among many things, the fast battery drain problem and sound quality. Contrary to speculations on the interweb, I can confirm that it lacks any new camera shooting modes.

Despite never truly suffering from awful battery on both my review unit and Batman Lumia (Nokia Diagnostic always reported around 1480 mAh available capacity), the power management on the Lumia 800 could have been better. Now that I have more apps with my Lumia, many which relies on background tasks, the Lumia 800 regularly last half a day of active use before needing a recharge. This isn't ideal as it means I have to carry a portable battery pack with me at all times. I am happy to report that this update does improve the standby time by a significant margin.

Nokia's promise to fix the rather awful camera performance has since been met with silence. The latest firmware update 12070 apparently promises to fix the white balance issue, but I can't confirm that yet until I do more shooting. Do note that you will not be getting Internet Sharing with this update. While Internet Sharing is part of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, operators and manufacturers are free to disable it. While this does not affect me personally, Nokia has promised back in November that the feature will eventually arrive. At this rate I suggest not to bother waiting for one if WiFi hotspot is a deal breaker.

DoDonPachi Maximum review

Smartphone gaming, what's there to talk about? Not much really. These days smartphone gaming are about quick first person shooters clone with no innovations, or racing games with high quality textures and tacked on accelerometer steering. In fact mobile gaming is the bane of the industry, filled with quick me-too indie-dev wannabes with little to no aspiration to innovate and stand out. You can't blame them though, gaming on a touchscreen only device is just, well, shit. Try playing GTA III on Android or iOS - it's unplayable. And don't let me get started with all the crap Gameloft puts out.

Developers has recently started looking back at older arcade games an. Old school arcade titles were the bastion of simplicity, often only requiring a single directional stick and a button or two. And more often that not, they work. Mind you, not all arcade titles will work on a touchscreen device, particularly those that were created with more than two buttons in mind. For example Street Fighter IV on iOS had to be reduced to such simplicity to make it work on the touchscreen you have to wonder, why did Capcom bother? Still, people get pretty excited when supposedly full console titles gets ported down to mobile games, and excited people pay good money to stay excited.

EPIC Assassin's Creed III trailer

There is little doubt that Assassin's Creed series is one of the most original video game to come out of Ubisoft in recent years. The series Renaissance Italy setting introduced in Assassin's Creed II however has gone stale a little bit, with each sequel introducing very little in gameplay innovation and improvements. Brotherhood and Revelations may have been good games, but everyone wanted Assassin's Creed III to be different.

Assassin's Creed III takes the action away from Italy to North America during the American Revolution. Here you will play Connor, an assassin born from a Native American mother and British colonist father. The trailer has no gameplay footages but do reveal what we should expect from the title. You can now navigate the wild by free running up trees and branches, possibly hunt animals in the wild ala Red Dead Redemption. Better yet, Assassin's Creed III is due out on my birthday week. Bring it on!