I’ve just received an email post from our ‘man in the field’, Peter Sells, Knitware’s very own mobile phone expert. He’s currently wandering the halls of this years (2008) Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona. Over to you Peter…

Day 1 - The iPhone effect.

Hall 8 is the handset hall, a cathedral dedicated to the god of convergence. We are most definitely in the Post iPhone age. Samsung, LG Sony Ericsson are all touting touchscreen media devices that attempt to mimic - whilst being careful not to fully replicate - Apple’s seductive UI. Perhaps Apple should be flattered by this homage, but really they should be worried. Samsung can knock these babies out way cheaper than Team Jobs. Soon, or at least “quarter 2″, I can buy a device without the commitment, without subsiding the handset, that easily runs all the 3rd party software, and is nearly, but not quite, as sexy as the iPhone.
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Isn’t it interesting how the results differ when you type the same search in Flickr as Google Images?  Google Images throws up the most obvious commercial images, whereas Flickr tends to throw up much more interesting creative work.

 Try “cat plush” in Google Images and you get this. Lots of cheap, cheesy toy cats. The sort they sell in Toys R Us.

Try “cat plush”  in Flickr and you get this. Really fresh, cool looking, quirky toy cats. The sort they sell in Habitat. 

 Amateur content really can be better than professional stuff

(Weird how Google Images doesn’t see into Flickr - I guess because it’s owned by Yahoo! If you know more than that,do let us know.)

One of the things i really like about Google is that they’re always trying out new stuff. Check … Google Experimental Search … five new ways to improve their search features. Choose one you like the look of and join in the experiment.

Doc Rogers

Jeff Jarvis has written an interesting post writing off polls and listing a number of new ways to take the pulse of the nation during US election campaigning. They include:

• Google searches
• AdWords demand
• Mentions of candidates in blogs
• Textual analysis
• Web traffic
• Video traffic
• Microblogging traffic (Twitter)
• Social sites
• Prediction markets
• Bookmakers odds