Thanks to the 850 people that dropped in to the session last night. We ran for about 4 hours and in that time you racked up 940 hours of viewing. That’s a lot of attention so clearly we’re getting something right with the live reviews.

The first thing to note from last nigh’ts N900 session is that there we didn’t find any show stoppers. Sizing is clearly an issue for some but within the bounds of the size of the device, Nokia have done an incredible job and married it with a software stack that is fit for the next-generation of ‘computing-first’ handhelds for both the geek and consumer community. Pricing appears to be acceptable to our target audience too. Over 85% of those voting in a poll during the session said it was value for money based on street prices we’re seeing of 500-550 Euros.  In Germany the N900 is already free from some third-party resellers with high-end contracts.

Read the full story

Finally we’ve got a bit of sun here in Bonn so it’s time to get out with the devices for some mobile blogging. I’ll be jumping on my bike to find a suitable place to work. Not too crowded, not too sunny. I’m thinking that the Rhine, south of Bonn might be good.

First though, I need to decide on what device to take and to do that, I need to write down exactly what I want to achieve.

• Work. Full keyboard, 7” or greater screen. Bright.
• Location. Tracking, occasional or live gps location information? If live, Ipoki or lattitude?
• Connectivity. Built-in 3G or tethered?
• Microblogging. Pocketable
• Photography. Reasonable snapshot camera with easy export facilities.
• Audio. For some tunes/podcasts on the way
• Communications. Phone, instant messenger.

The first problem I have is that a true ‘work’ device doesn’t quite match up to the microblogging requirements because I would like a big keyboard. My phone, as with nearly all phones, isn’t up to what I want from a microblogging experience so we’ve immediately hit a choice between taking 3 different devices or making some compromises.

See full article for live tracking…

Read the full story

You might remember that on the Solar Tour last year I used RoboGeo and a Garmin Etrex to enable an internet based track and tagged photo stream. The Etrex would do the tracking and every time I stopped I would download the track, to a UMPC, download the images I’d taken and run them through RoboGeo which would match the timestamps on the images to the position at that time according to the track. I would then export a kml file which would be uploaded to my website and automatically pulled into my Google Map. It was about the easiest way to do it then (see my day-plan for more info on it) but a lot has changed now!

Recently I bought a Nokia N82 smartphone which has built in GPS. Google Maps has been great fun to play with on a phone and even more fun was the beta release of Nokia Maps 2.0 which added satellite imagery, internet search, live traffic and a pedestrian mode. The other application I found was the Nokia Sports tracker. This phone-based applciation does the same job as my old Etrex in that it logs data and shows statistics pretty much as the Etrex did. The best part of it though is that you can authorise the software to send data to an online Sportstracker account, live! Users accessing the current activity on the website can then see your location in real time overlayed on a Google Map. Fantastic! Once you’ve finished your activity the program then goes through your photos looking at the timestamps and offers to upload them all with GeoTags to the same Sportstracker service. With a few simple steps, the track is automatically overlayed with image pointers. Groovy!

Here’s a public ‘track’ I made on SportsTracker.
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=74767

With one more step, you can export the KML file and import it into a Google MyMap thus breaking it out of the Nokia Sportstracker website and making it easier to share and add mroe info too. There’s one more thing though. I didn’t quite fancy my images being stored at the sportstracker website so I’m using Shozu to auto-tag and upload to Flickr. Using a great tip I picked up from TheNokiaBlog I found out how you can auto-link a geofeed from Flicker and have it show up live on a Google Map. The only thing missing is being able to auto-export the track in the same, live, way from Sportstracker online, or the Sportstracker app on the phone, to Google Maps. I’m sure that will come soon though as it seems like an obvious way to make live people-location mashups and create even more excitement over the location aware possibilities with Nokia phones.

Here’s a map I prepared earlier!

View Larger Map

I’m sure that we’ll see Nokia combining Maps2.0 and some form of live tracking soon. It would be so much fun to see where your friends are and what they’re doing. Can you imagine that in a very short time we’ll be able to link this into live personal video too for the ultimate GeoVideo experience!

One problem with all this is that it takes a lot of battery power from the phone. Where I was getting 20 hours from two AA batteries, the Nokia N82 will last for 3 hours if you set it up correctly using lower-power GSM-based data. If you use 3G data, your battery life will suffer even more and you’ll see soemthing less than 1.5 hours. You might need to take a spare phone with you or turn off the live upload feature which will give you all-day tracking. Even if you upload every time you take a break, its a lot easier than using the manual process I was using before.

Goodbye Garmin Etrex! Goodbye Robo Geo!

Despite the terrible weather forecast (rain, clouds, heat, thunder) It’s time to finalize the pack-list and buy the last items, prepare the solar equipment (which should turn up today) and do some test loading and test cycling. Over the last weekend I fitted the baggage to the bike and loaded it up with random heavy items including the new tent, sleeping bag etc. There should be no problem with space or loading weight. I also tested out the tent and it seems OK although some dampness came through from the floor. Is that normal? I’m surprised.

I’ve written the pack-list in Google docs and shared it for everyone so you can always see the latest version. Its organized into sections. Feel free to take a copy for your own use.

View the pack-list here.

I will go through it and weigh each section before I go and add that to the pack-list. Despite the sub 1kg PC, it won’t be a light load! Here’s the list of electronic equipment I’m taking.

12v AA battery charger,12v charger for Nokia phone,12V lead-acid battery (70W/hr),Adaptor cables and tips, Batteries 8xAA for camera, Batteries (2xAA for GPS), Camera case, Camera USB cable, DC-DC adaptor, Digital Camera + 2GB mini-SD card, GPS logger and holder, GPS serial cable and USB-serial adaptor, Li-ion battery (56W/hr), Mini battery tester, Multimeter (voltage, amps, sun, temp), N800 (spare web-access kit), Nokia headphones / adaptor. , Nokia phone (6280) + 2GB mini-SD card, Nokia USB cable, Passive USB mini-hub, Solar panel (25W) +cable kit, Spare mobile phone (voice only), Standard UMPC battery, Torch, Tripod, UMPC (Samsung Q1b) + Extended battery, case + keyboard, USB LED Lamp.

Later today  I should have more details about the solar panel/battery to post. Pictures too.