Canary Wireless has a neat hot-spot finder when you’re not sure where to go for a free Wi-Fi connection. They call it the world’s first Wi-Fi spotter with LCD.

Why is an LCD important? It tells you the signal strength, and if the hot-spot is free (‘open’) or not.

Interestingly, this product has been designed to be branded –meaning it’s a ideal giveaway item that can be ordered from the company site.

Ok, so one more gizmo for the laptop bag –beside the power cord, USB multi port, and digital camera card reader!

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If you have been wondering what the incredibly shrinking cell phone may end up being, stop guessing because this digital swiss army knife of our present era is going off int many different directions: the Movie phone, the Google phone, of course the MP3 phone, and the media phone.

Sure the screens have better resolutions, but there is an interesting trend afoot –shoting mini movies on a cell phone. Check out the finalists of something called Nokia Shorts, featured at the indie film festival, Raindance.

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Skype, GoogleTalk and a host of other VoIP services is a truly amazing example of how innovation happens from those outside of the traditional industry.

I just published an article on VoIP in IABC‘s CW magazine (membership required) and have to thank Manoj Fernando, co-founder and EVP of business development at of LiteScape Technologies Inc., a VoIP company.

Today, it’s not about the instrument; it’s about the application. As Avaya likes to describe it, in the old world of telephony, we always called a location; today we can make a phone call to a device.

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Nice touch, Honda. This ad, created for the Honda Civic is a video podcast. Features an unusual script (nothing new for Honda, which once created an ad out of nuts and cogs). The ad was created by Wieden + Kennedy, UK.

See story here. Also check the Honda site here for a mind-blowing interactive display of the car. THis is truly a stylish car, but the site has been created to enhance the experience.

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Skype never ceases to amaze me. Being an avid user, it is something of a pleasant surprise to see an add-on feature called Skylook. It works by integrating Skype with Microsoft Outlook (hence its name!)

The full version ranging from $15 to $35, lets you to record a phone conversation and save it as an MP3 file. The (FREE) basic version, however, allows you to make Skype calls to contacts on Outlook.The full version would be a great tool for conducting interviews.

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Guy Kawasaki, who has just started a blog, writes of a technology called Film Loop, a way of sharing and broadcasting images to friends or colleagues without any logins. Intriguing, since it seems like a cross between a social network and a Flikr-type photo-sharing site. See explanation here.

If you’ve read Kawasaki’s books (especially his early work, Rules for Revolutionaries) you can bet it’s a pretty creative company (he is on the board of Film Loop and was an Apple Macintosh evangelist in its early days.)

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The radio-phone will soon be more exciting than the camera-phone? How about the video-phone? Or the XM-satellite phone, a Skype phone, or a Yahoo phone?

There’s just no way of knowing what else we will pack into our cell phones. If radio gets as popular as the buzz around it suggests, our MP3 players may suddenly do more than store and play music. Today two models made their debut at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show: the Inno (by Pioneer) and the Helix XM2go from Samsung. See This Washington Post story.

Then there is WiMax (the broadband wireless standard) and EvDo (that stands for Evolution Data Optimized) to watch out for. These will allow streaming of video, and high-speed internet access to phone-like devices. Think detachable car stereos, wrist watches etc. The WiMax forum, is a non-profit group comprised of hundreds of companies such as BellCanada and Samsung, Ericcson and Motorola. Even those like Time Warner and Saudi Aramco are in the wings.

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Following my previous post, about plugging into communities, I came across a MarketingProfs article that makes a good case as to why online communities will flourish as trust systems get built online.

Apart from social networks, here are a few good/unusual communities I have found:
Open Source Research Community
Freecycle
Intentional Communities
World Community Grid
NativeWeb

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Fifty six years ago, today, RCA Victor announced plans to manufacture LP records. This meant a staggering 46 minutes of music (on both sides) using a 12-inch piece of vinyl (as opposed to four minutes for per side of the then standard, the 78-rpm.

It’s interesting to compare this to how we store and listen to music today. To use an extreme example, the Motorola phone in Singapore, the E398 ‘Hijacked‘ by MTV, with built in 22Kh speakers, 3D surround sound and removable flash memory, is an MP3 player, really and is almost incidentally a phone!

Then there is satellite radio’s Sirius S50. The receiver can also record music, apart from allowing rewinding and fast forwarding, and saving your own MP3 and WMA songs to the device!

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Hard to predict where we are headed as far as web-based communications are concerned, but this got me thinking: An article in the Washington Post online about Time Capsules, and how people’s infatuation with the web is not so much about community, but about themselves. See "Back From the Future: Messages to Yourself."

"Indeed, the Web lets us speak with the global community much in the way that a lunatic minister with a bullhorn has a dialogue with passengers trapped on a Greyhound."

Contrary to this kind of thinking, however, is Evelyn Rodriguez’ blog, as she revisits tsunami-ravaged countries in Asia, looking at community. She says she’s "collecting stories of resiliency, growth, faith, and grassroots action – and whatever unfolds once actually there."

My prediction? Blogging, often described as the epitome of navel gazing, (and even podcasting) is probably going to to see some refreshing changes in 2006. The web is ripe for colloboration, as the tools get more sophisticated. 2006 just might be the year when we create and plug into communities like never before. Happy New Year!

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