I’m very much looking forward to attending my first EyeforTravel Mobile conference next month in San Francisco. Mobile is playing and increasingly central role in the travel sector and while we’ve seen amazing impact so far, I think the best is yet to come. I can’t wait to see what people are doing and hear how they’re looking to further integrate mobile into...
As we ended 2011 many people were asking me what I thought was next in the world of mobile and whether I had any predictions. My response was that companies should focus on getting the basics right first (develop a coherent mobile strategy, create mobile optimized versions of their websites) before even worrying about “what’s next”. I’m a big advocate for creating native or...
Amazingly investors keep throwing money at companies that are engaging in potentially illegal enterprises (re: local lodging regulations). Couchsurfing is in the same vein as Airbnb and Wimdu although they claim to be more benign (“building communities” rather than focusing on transactions). The best part of the article: “Evidently, the San Francisco-based company...
Now, I’m not saying that Meg Whitman reads my blog or calls me for advice, but I’m glad to see they followed my suggestion last month to make WebOS an open source project. Open sourcing WebOS and HP’s statements of continued financial support to the project, really gives WebOS one last chance to fulfill its promise. Although it’s hard to really know what...
In a move that was a long time coming and not terribly surprising, Adobe announced today that they will drop all future development of Flash player on mobile devices. Instead Adobe will put most of its energy behind HTML5. During the past year, Adobe has steadily moved towards embracing HTML5 and refocusing its efforts on continuing to create the world’s best design tools and less...
Recently new HP CEO Meg Whitman announced that the company will keep Personal Systems Group as a part of HP’s core, undoing the decision that caused great consternation about the technology giant’s future and essentially led to former-CEO Leo Apotheker’s ouster and Whitman getting the job in the first place. What’s a little disappointing is that it looks like...
For all of those who demonize Apple as closed, remember this and WebKit. The code is available under an Apache license. The Apple Lossless Audio Codec project contains the sources for the ALAC encoder and decoder. Also included is an example command line utility, called alacconvert, to read and write audio data to/from Core Audio Format (CAF) and WAVE files. A description of a...
In a somewhat surprising announcement one the first day of their MAX 2011, Adobe Systems announced that it was acquiring Nitobi Systems, the creator of PhoneGap. At Ness we’re big supporters of PhoneGap and have used it for clients in some cases, so we’re happy to see this deal happen (not at happy as the Nitobi guys are ) as we think it will lead to more enhancements to an already...
That’s the opening statement from an Amtrak commercial that I saw last night (at least it was new to me). As a consumer of travel it’s a sentiment that resonated with me very strongly. Pretty well executed ad overall, although the point about the ‘shoes’ is probably too veiled a reference to TSA security for the average viewer to catch. But moving right along. As a participant...