Hartmut Esslinger, one early superstar of high-tech design, was responsible for the design of Apple devices in the 80s. He then developed together with Steve Jobs a prototype of a touchscreen phone whose main function was to make possible sending digital bank checks though a phone wire. This quite revolutionnary gizmo – remember that we’re then in 1983 – was part of the Snow White design language applied to the IIc and the original Mac.

Was Apple already trying to raise the buzz?

The big news here is that Spotify has launched its mobile version for iPhone and Google Android’s owners! This is somehow surprising, knowing Apple’s usual protectionist habit, that it finally decided to let it in its AppleStore when we know that Spotify is a direct rival to iTunes. Is it a demonstration of good will or did Apple finally realized that the future of music lies within its ability to remain available anytime, anywhere and for free?

The free app allows you to stream any of its nearly 4 million tracks over WiFi or 3G and syncs playlists for playback while disconnected. However, it is available exclusively to Spotify Premium members in the UK, Sweden, Spain, France and Norway (a US launch is expected soon).

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In one of its articles published last month, Mashable highlighs that it is possible to “store up to 3,333 songs in offline mode, making it ideal for listening to your music on the plane. The core selling point, however, remains the same as the desktop app: on demand access to 6 million+ tracks. Another neat feature: it syncs with the desktop via wifi…no need to hook up your USB cable. Even US reviewers are blown away: Wired’s Epicenter blog claims it’s so good that “you’d have to pry it out of my cold, dead iPhone before I’ll delete it from my phone”.

You just read it well: The big attraction of the Spotify app is its ability to store your playlists so you can listen to them while completely offline – on the Underground, on a plane, or wherever. Needless to say that this is a revolution in the music industry. For this, you definitely need wifi, and the foresight to remember to sync your playlists before you leave.

My feeling? I just can’t wait to have Spotify made available for Nokia S60 users… windows mobile users (Kerolic kindly shared a link to a video on which we can see Spotify running on a Nokia S60. It is just gorgeous!)

Read — Spotify on Android
Read — Spotify on App Store
Read — Spotify on Symbian S60

“And then the invasion slowly started, deeply burying its roots in the neuralgic points of major industrial cities, before it spread all over the World.

And there they were, all around us, before we realized it was too late.”

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To that point you are maybe wondering if this is some kind of stupid joke like the Crop Circles, a punk movement like the Army of the Twelve Monkeys or if this is real and we are under the threat of an Alien-like invasion.

“None of them” you’ll say. And you’re damn right and clever! Those weird drawings are only QR Codes.

Very common in Japan, QR Codes or “Quick Response Codes“  basically look like this:

Yes I do agree, not so attractive.

Technically speaking, QR Code can be described as a two-dimensional barcode which can be decoded quickly by cameras, especially those in mobile phones, supporting the codes.

Most cell phones * (see the list at the bottom of this article) are today able to scan QR Code and open the associated resource in the cell phone. The resource is usually a website but can also be a phone number, sms or text. Anyone using a cell phone to open websites can imagine how much faster and comfortable this method is.

I’m using this technic for the day to day business, as for instance I featured a QR code at the back of my own business cards (print and digital)

Some print publications also started to include QR codes in their magazines to provide their readers with a better experience, and every articles in the print version of this blog features a QR code so that readers are able to access them online from a mobile phone Internet browser.

If until that point you’re lost or not convinced by the good of QR Codes, this video will clear all your doubts.

A nice illustrated story by Kaywa is also available here

You got it now: a QR Code Generator allows anyone to create QR Codes easily. Websites such as Kaywa, BeQRious and QR Jumps offers this functionality. The good thing about Kaywa and BeQRious is that there is no need to register to create new QR Codes (which is unfortunately not the case for QR Jumps). Both sites distinguishes between basic and advanced QR Code and Damatrix generation. The basic form contains of course fewer options. But it is still possible to use the basic QR Code form to create url, sms, phone number, text resources and RSS feeds for mobiles!

Indeed, most Blogs or websites have an RSS feed, but content is still unadapted for mobile devices. Feed2Mobile will simply let you create a mobile version of your content and make it available to mobile visitors. For instance, by scanning the below QR Code with your mobile phone, you’ll be able to easily reach and bookmark the mobile version of of 52nd & West

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Kaywa also offers the possibility to download a 2D Barcode Reader for your cellphone. The Kaywa Reader is a 2D Barcode Reader to install on your mobile phone. Once installed, you can scan 2D Barcodes and the content of the 2D Barcode is then immediately resolved on the phone.

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The URL is certainly the most interesting type of information which can be encoded. After scanning the 2D Barcode, you get a connection to the mobile site.

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The user selects the content type at the top and enters the information below. Creating a QR Code for an url would mean to enter an url in the form. The generator will then create the QR Code image which can be created in various sizes and the two image formats jpg or png.

Easy, isn’t it?

BeQRious regularly publishes interesting news on how QR codes are used around the world. You can access them from here

So next time you see a QR code-like art in the street, don’t freak out, unless you see this…

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muuuuhahahahahhahahahah

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* Compatible OS include: Symbian 2nd Edition, Symbian 3rd Edition, Symbian UIQ 2.x / 3.x, J2me, windows Mobile 5.0 / 5.5 / 6 / 6.5, Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm (Palm OS / Windows Mobile) Windows XP / Windows Vista (Webcam Reader).

Online resources:

- http://reader.kaywa.com/

- http://www.beqrious.com/

Don’t have a cell phone with embedded QR code reader? Dowload a QR Code Reader for your mobile here or use an online QR Code Decoder.

Brian Hart of The iPhone Blog conducted a detailed benchmark of those two Apps.*

How Do They Compare?

Shazam and Midomi are both excellent products and have nice interfaces, so the edge in this contest will boil down to feature sets. Without further ado, let’s dive in and compare these two contestants!

Shazam

The design and interface for Shazam is all about simplicity. When you open up the app, you are presented with My Tags, the main screen for Shazam which displays anything you tagged Today and anything you tagged that is Older. “Tagged” means you have identified unknown music with song title, artist, and other information associated with it.

From the My Tags screen, you can view older Tags or tap “Tag Now” in the upper right corner of the screen to tag some new music. Be sure to have your iPhone close to the music source when you tap Tag Now, because as soon as you hit the button, Shazam will start “listening” and do it’s best to identify the music your are listening to.

If Shazam is successful in tagging the music, your iPhone will display the artist, song title, genre, record label, and album from whence the song came. Album art will also be displayed. If you scroll down, there are several tag options: purchase the music via a link to iTunes, watch the music video on YouTube (if available), take and attach a photo, attach an album photo, share the tag with a friend, or delete the tag. All of this is very straight-forward, but requires an audible sound source of the original music. Shazam is simple and effective in it’s design and it’s easy to use.

So, to use Shazam, just open the app, select “Tag Now”, and let your iPhone listen to the music to identify the artist and track name. You can save your tag history and build your own list of music over time. You can buy the music you hear via a link from Shazam to iTunes. If your tagged music has a music video, Shazam will link you to the music video on YouTube. You can personalize your tagged music with your photos and send your tagged music to friends and family via email.

Shazam works well, is simple to use, and gets the job done. It does require a music source to tag your music.

Midomi

When opening Midomi, you will see a splash screen for a couple seconds, then the application will launch where you left off before. Midomi is similar to Shazam in that it helps you identify music and tag it, but if Shazam is the Toyota of identifying and tagging music, then Midomi may be the Lexus.

Midomi is loaded with more features. In addition to tagging music by “grabbing” the music (your iPhone listening to the music, then matching it with song title and artist), Midomi has additional options. You can sing the lyrics, hum the tune, speak the lyrics, artist or song title, or enter the information by typing it. This is all very handy if you have that song bouncing around in your head, don’t have a music source nearby, but want to put a name and face to your torment – just hum the song and Midomi will search it’s 17 million plus database.

Like Shazam, Midomi tags the song and gives you the options of watching the video on YouTube, buying the song from iTunes, bookmarking the song, and sharing with a friend via email.

There are a lot more screenshots for Midomi because there are many more ways to tag your music. If you have a music source, then great – select the “Grab” tab and let Midomi listen to your music. Or, use one of the other several tabs, like Type, Say, or Sing. Each is self-explanatory and adds additional dimensions to identifying and tagging your music on Midomi.

You can Type the artist, song title, or lyrics and let Midomi search it’s database. You can Talk into your iPhone and let Midomi recognize your speech, or if you are brave and consider yourself a shower-singing aficionado, then give it your best shot and Sing or hum the song. This latter method may be the least accurate given that it’s dependent on your talent level.

Another advantage of Midomi is the vast database of music samples. When you tag your music, you can play a sample of the music on Midomi, which may be helpful in verifying you have tagged the correct song. On a humorous note, when using the Sing method for tagging your music, the sample you play may be the singing voice of another Midomi user out there somewhere.

Conclusion

Both Shazam and Midomi offer features like tagging music with artist name and song title, linking to music videos on YouTube, and sharing your tagged music with a friend via email. However, this is where similarities end and Midomi takes it to the next level. With the additional methods of tagging (Say, Sing, and Type) and a database of music samples, Midomi is more feature-rich.

Midomi Rating

Shazam Rating

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* I’m usually not a fan of reproducing content featured in other blogs or websites. That’s not the purpose of 52nd & West. But Brian Hart did a great job in this benchmark and there is not much I would have added from my personal experience, he did not already mentionned. So two thumbs-up Brian for this great review.

It would also be worth highlighting in this review that midomi offers on its website a free “voice search engine” for those who can’t run the mobile app on their cellphone. Another “plus” for this piece of software.

Sorrell just got the MiFi — a mobile, battery-powered WiFi hotspot that can share a high-speed cell connection with several devices via WiFi – and coupled it with an iPod Touch.

And when you actually think about it in terms of costs, it just clearly appears that “the combo of iPod Touch and MiFi might just be better than the iPhone”!

According to Sorell, “The real point is that if you have a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot in your pocket, it is going to be cheaper than an iPhone contract pretty much anywhere, and can not only enable your iPod Touch to have an always on connection, but let you make Skype calls and stream music without having to worry about the usual iPhone size limits, as you’re on Wi-Fi. You can also share the connection with five machines in total, including a netbook, for true on the go video calls and (gasp) Spotify.”

And all of that without to have to use a swiss knife! Just amazing…

This somehow reminds me quite a similar experiment I conducted 6 month ago when I turned my Nokia cellphone into a wifi hotspot (using JoikuSpot and my unlimited 3G monthly plan to surf the Web). In terms of download and upload speed, I managed to peek at a very decent average of 850 kbps in downloads (I eventually managed to reach 1259 kbps!) and 85 kbps in uploads (peeked at 98 kbps during my speed tests on speedtest.net).

What would be interesting now would be to find a way to have my Nokia cellphone use its own generated wifi hotspot to surf the Internet, use Skype and its built in Internet radio or Deezer/Jiwa while on the go.

It seems that I just gave myself a new challenge to raise!

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To see the full article on Wired.com: click here

My Facebook friends sometimes leave me wall messages that I take forever to respond to when I’m running between Paris and Vienna. Now they can call me or chat with me directly via a widget embedded on my Facebook profile page. The Nimbuzz widget detects presence and shows if I’m online. If I’m offline, Nimbuzz also includes a “Buzz” feature to alert me that people are trying to reach me.

The head spins with the potential for abuse of this well-intentioned feature, though. Calling me from overseas from a PC? Nimbuzz can help. Sending international SMS? No problem, you can use Nimbuzz. Theoretically, you could use some combination of Meebo/ebuddy/Trillian, Skype, Fring and your phone’s native IM/text messaging to do all that, but Nimbuzz packages it well and makes it simple! Simplicity comes from the unified interface across devices; I don’t have to import IM contacts into Skype and vice versa, for example.

While lots of companies are working on some combination of voice and IM features, Nimbuzz’s differentiation is its support for a wide variety of mobile handsets (currently at 1000 devices with native support for Symbian, Java and Windows Mobile) and good integration with several other social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Windows Live, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ and many other more.

I downloaded the Nimbuzz social networking widget here, which made it brain-dead easy to add a Facebook application to my profile page. I was then able to send messages and files from Facebook to the mobile phone Nimbuzz client installed on my Nokia.

Call quality using Skype or Nimbuzz’ online widget really went beyond my expectations (as I am a former disappointed fring user): the sound is just as clear and crispy as if I were calling from Skype on a desktop.

Nimbuzz’s last to date release features everything and the kitchen sink: It provides PC to PC/mobile calling, IM aggregation across several communities, group chat and conferencing, free voicemail, file sharing, a Facebook/LinkedIn application, a social networking and email call/chat widget, a WAP site, a Symbian/Windows mobile application as well as a desktop program. It also goes without saying that the company is working on an iPhone-specific version.

Now the mobile version of Nimbuzz convinced me, I’ll probably head for the PC version to benefit from the same “one login, one contact list, all accounts” feature.