Age of Discovery

 After listening to a series of presentations around the Digital World at a recent workshop and being reintroduced to the film WatchUsNow, it made me think once again about the Age of Discovery.

As humans we have mostly learnt to discover in an analogue world with our senses, but with the ever increasing digital environment that we surround ourselves in ways of discovery have radically changed.

From finding 'how to do it' on You Tube to being able to see what you are heading to, or where you are going before you get there is something that is lost on the digital native, as they can have a full image and any supplementary information available at their disposal .

A great example of this is now even with Augmented Reality and its potential change in viewing buildings in the street. The thought of discovery either through exploration or picking up a book to find out more about a buildings origins will soon change.  An inbuilt app for the browser developed called Layar (see below) enables users to see metadata on a particular building which will no doubt be quite comprehensive in a few years time, from not just its Wikipedia entry but also perhaps other images of what it may have looked like previously as well as stories about the landmark from recent news.  It can also as the video shows have more daily uses around directories or perhaps current house prices on buildings for sale. 

I can only imagine how this might be changing for the future of education. School field trips for a start would never be the same!

 

Lonely Planet Cantonese

 Language learning by mobile takes more than dedication, as often moments of study are mostly short instances which are often interrupted by friends, calls, texts or just life in general. So I thought that they best way to learn Cantonese was through repetition of common phrases which I would use as much as possible in Hong Kong.

I have grown up travelling with the Lonely Planet franchise, so I thought I would give them a go on the iphone. The actual reviews on the iphone App Store didnt look so positive. Nevertheless, I had faith.

The App itself has phrases which are less detailed than their city guides, so it is aimed at the short term traveller rather than the resident like me

The main sections are:

Border Crossing * Accomodation *Bars and Restaurants. * Shopping

Entertainment * Banking * Greeting People  *Health  * Emergencies.

The app also has a search function so you can find phrases. The problem with this is that some of the phrases do not match with what you are searching for even though they are saying the same thing. A context based search would be better.

Once you have the phrase you want, it is as simple as touch, and listen. The phrase is in Tra

ditional Chinese Characters and then Romanised with a recording.

After testing it out with a few colleagues they felt that some of the expressions werent authentic, while, as  a learner I felt that the speed of natural speech is fine, but  often was a bit too fast and required numerous listens. A speed control function would be useful too for an app which is nearly 5GBP.

I haven't seen this available on other phones yet.