THE WEB AND BEYOND

On thursday the 22th in the Beurs van Berlage a conferance was held. The 12th conference of Chi Netherlands (which so I heared is the second biggest) with the theme of today; mobility. Now that interactivity, user generated and a lot of communities are the latest trends, mobility is the next one. Mobile operating systems, everything mobile... which is funny... in China, the other half of the internet users 'mobile' is the standard for using the internet. Not the desktop. Interesting.

I signed up as a volunteer; after doing half hour locker-room maintenance I could run around the whole day for free. So that was nice, joining all the readings, and meeting people on the drinks, like Joost, Soocial and OpenOffice. I had even the chance to touch and play with the EEE for the first time, which was quite a big issue on the conference itself. I did not find this very renewing -as some of the *oldies* in the hall- (looking on old blog posts, See "An Organizer with Attitude", and the announcement a half year ago), but it was still amusing.

Especially because it is one of the main items of mobility, which was the theme of today. If I had the chance in China, I would already had bought one. But nevertheless, it doesn't matter, I'm waiting on the 9" version. Which is on the market right now, but not in the netherlands yet... and it's going to cost a little more (*damnit*). Maybe I would buy one in france (out on the 28th of May) this summer, when I'm on the moped again.

Some of the readings I found to vague, and could be told in like 5 minutes, without the whole governance and maintenance issues like privacy. Alright it's an issue, but I was looking for new stuff, trends, innovative things. Like on of the readings of Luminis, which has invented a system for within the 'caring' sector (for the people who are cleaning homes, and helping the disabled), which I found quite interesting, and took away a lot of problems and unnessecary administration. Their service product 'iO TouchPro' just launched and has over 5000 clients already.

An other reading of Robert Gaal (Alchemyst) was also quite interesting; he introduced the Roomware project, which is the operating system for interactive spaces. He explained some of the technological and cultural challenges, as well as opportunities to make spaces more interactive. Like with your bluetooth connection on your mobile phone is a lot more to do, as the audience experienced a live feature using the phone's in the room. Got it ? I guess not, let me explain briefly. He showed one of the systems the firm build, which was build for an experience when taking a pee. People go in the toilet, and music starts to play (it activates on your bluetooth). But you hear only one instrument, when somebody comes in the toilet an other instrument will play and joins the band. Funny.

For the fun of it; he has showed some other cool stuff aswell, like from a party of 'hyves' (the biggest community website in the Netherlands). People who were invited were asked to change their 'mobile blue tooth name' as the username used of within hyves. On the party, pictures were shown on the walls randomly, which were pictures from their accounts!

Think of privatised commercials, and all of the extra features you could bring with it. Not mentioning even the extra things that you are transmitting; like gps, infrared, wireless and RFID chips...