Note: This is the first in a series of posts that explore trends at the intersection of human behavior and technology that might emerge over the next three years from the convergence of other, established trends.
The Macrotrend:
The normalization of social behaviors on the web, in combination with the ability to centralize human networks via [...]

Nation of Go

Its a new community where gearheads can get together to share their passion. Among many cool features, the site has a free mobile mapping application that lets you track drives, trails and racetracks and automatically upload them to your profile. It even adds geo-tagged pics, all from your smart phone. Its pretty cool stuff.

The above video was put together by the good people at Touch – a project based out of the Oslo School of Architecture and Design that is focused on technology that connects mobile devices to real-world objects (Near-Field Communication). The video is intended to illustrate the quiet omnipresence of wireless signals in the spaces that [...]

Two completely different perspectives on independence and telephony:
First, this today on Ars Technica:
Two UK mobile operators are reportedly fuming at Nokia for including a mobile version of Skype on its N97 handset. Both Orange and O2 are so terrified that the popular VoIP service will siphon away profitable cell minutes by allowing users to make [...]

Idris at Innovation Playground has this morning what is among the best posts I’ve read all week. Purporting that the number of social, economic, technological and environmental crisis facing us are increasing more quickly than our ability to assemble creative, innovative solutions to them:
There are a lot of myths about innovation and many organizations still [...]

I posted last week about Jeffrey Sachs comments regarding the potential good that will eminate from extended mobile reach in Africa.
Today, something quite similar, and altogether different, via a post from Chris Muscarella1, in which he quotes Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society from Mobile Tech for Social Change:
“If you pair [...]

It’s astounding, is it not, that not so far in our distant past technology was a novel topic – something to latch on to in an ephemeral manner (as in the above video for Kraftwerk’s ‘Musique Non Stop’?
GigaOM reports that, by 2013, video will comprise 64% of all mobile traffic. This is an astounding figure [...]

Helge Tenno, always about six hours ahead of the rest of us on 180360720.no, has a great post today summarizing a panel from the PSFK Salon this past weekend focused on the mobile user in which he relates a discussion about a patchwork approach to location-based solutions.

Put more eloquently: Mobile is about people, not technology, and the intersection of these two will be increasingly-defined by applications and tools that are uniquely combined by people to suit their individual needs and desires – not provided from a single, global source.

Helge writes:

The Patchwork implies that it is the combination of intelligence in and sensing by these local applications that the “grand machinery” will be produced. Not by a dumber, global, giant solution.

This is wonderfully well-put, I think.

More:

It’s about understanding my life, the activities I perform, which ones are relevant for your company. And discovering how you can ad value to this based on presence (being accessible when the situation occurs, not on the laptop four hours later), people (person + herd = culture) and place (location + time).

Click through and have a read. While you’re there, poke around. Tenno is right on top of things, and a heck of a good writer.

When Jonathan MacDonald suggests that we ought to be talking about what mobile does, not what it is, he makes a fantastically salient point – a point that people are finally beginning to grasp as the discussion moves from platforms and hardware to a million simple, highly-configurable pieces of software.