Category Archives: technology

How to view Flash on your iPad and iPhone

Posted on by

Have you wanted to view Flash on an iPhone or iPad? Well now it is possible (well it always has been with a few workarounds). Apps are coming out that display Flash content, so rest assured, Flash does work on these devices.

One such app, iSwifter, is a browser that displays Flash content. You can try the browser for free for 10 days and it costs 4.99 to purchase. I tested it out and it works pretty well. I tested video, motion, sound, and interactions in flash and they all worked. I think anyone interested in viewing Flash on the iPad/iPhone should definitely invest in this app. It’s cheap, and it works.

You can download iSwifter from iTunes here

E-Readers lead to more reading than books

Posted on by

A new study by the Pew Research Center, that included 1,400 adults, found that people who read books with e-Readers read an average of 24 books per year compared with those who read text books only read 15.

Other findings:

-1/5 have read an ebook
-People are also reading ebooks on their cell (i’m not, too small screen)
-People prefer ereaders for themselves but books for children

There are tons of other statistics in the report and worth taking a look: Report can be found here

Test your mobile websites on iPhone emulators

Posted on by

There are many iPhone emulators out there. For those that do not know, an emulator is a program that mimics or acts like a device. For instance, there are NES (Nintendo) emulators that allows you to play old NES Roms. The following emulators act as iPhone emulators so you can get an idea of what your website looks like on pretty much any mobile device. Just to note, the emulators are not perfect, so there may be some slight alignment differences. I noticed this when I tested them although it was only a slight difference.

TestiPhone.com

iphonetester.com

iPhone4Simulator.com

Future of computing…

Posted on by

I think this image says it all. That is an iPad. Simply stick it into the dock and it becomes a laptop then take it out as needed. This will replace laptops once these devices become more powerful. Currently they are not nearly as good but in a few years they will be.

Android and Malware?

Posted on by

While I havent had any problems, apparently others are. The best way to avoid problems with apps on Android and even Apple? Do research on the app before download. See what the user comments are. You dont need to do more than a few minutes of research to find if the app is bad or not but it can save you. That alone should prevent pretty much every type of app problem.

Here is an article that discusses the issue

Want to know what the best malware app are:

DARPAs Robot

Posted on by

Always cool to see what new technology DARPA is working on. Here is a link to the website

“The Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program is creating manipulators with a high degree of autonomy capable of serving multiple military purposes across a wide variety of application domains.  Current robotic manipulation systems save lives and reduce casualties, but are limited when adapting to multiple mission environments and need burdensome human interaction and lengthy time durations for completing tasks.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeABMoYJGEU]

 

Objectives should determine the technology and instructional strategies

Posted on by

Many times clients, students, peers, etc. come to me and say “We want to build this in Flash/Articulate/Insert fav software here”. My first comment is: What are the learning objectives? Then I look at the needs analysis and instructional strategies to be used to see if they all align. Too many times does the justification for the technology used not coincide with the learning objectives.

What happens is that we tend to get caught up in the technology side of things. I guess this is common as we are instructional technologists, however, this is not what we want to get caught up in. Remember, technology is a tool that helps us teach material. It is an aid. We use it when it is the best method to accomplish our goals and objectives (even though sometimes realistically its our only option). So often I see training developed in an advanced authoring tool like Flash that probably could have been developed in PPT, which would have saved money and development time, and still met the learning objectives.

So what question should clients, students, peers, etc. be asking? They should be asking: Here are our learning objectives, what are the best technologies/instructional strategies to convey them to the learners? This is much better than the other way around. Remember, objectives should guide instructional strategies and the technology used, the technology shouldnt guide how the objectives are presented. They should be presented using a strategy that is effective, not one limited by software.

What is 4G and do you want it?

Posted on by

4G refers to the speed that data is received on your cell phone. Currently most phones use 3G speeds, such as the iPhone. This means that when connecting to the internet it feels like you are using old dial up modems. Current 3G phones get about 1-2 MBPS speeds while 4G is closer to 10-20 with the possibility of getting up to 100 once the technology is available, so its significantly faster. 4G feels like you are using wireless high speed internet. The best comparison between 3G and 4G is dial up vs high speed internet. Here is a good article which goes into the details of 1G-4G.

However, one interesting fact, Verizon just released data showing that while their 4G coverage area serves 200 million customers, only 5% of their customers are using 4G services. This means that people are just not really using the high speeds. Personally  I use it all the time. So much better than 3G. Here is an article that discusses this issue