1.   HipLogic
HipLogic is a new real-time, web-based platform intended as an alternative user interface for some mobile phones. This free download currently delivers applications like Facebook, news, and Twitter to both Windows Mobile and Symbian devices with plans to offer an Android version of their software sometime in the future.

Learning is fast turning Social, Informal, & Mobile.

That’s the message I’ve been hearing loud & clear from Learning Technologies 2010. While what’s being said in most of the sessions isn’t entirely new to us, it does reaffirm the direction in which things are going. The level of participation in these areas was clearly visible at the event which is a good sign. Adoption, after all, will happen only when L&D professionals start making some sense of it in first place.

Here are some highlights from the Day 1 sessions I attended:

I have great respect for Apple as an organization particularly because I use an iPhone and I think the iPhone has definitely become one of those game-changers in the smartphone world and by a large margin.

I was looking forward to the Apple iPad even more so as we have been doing good stuff on mobile learning and putting up applications and tools on iPhone as pilots and on a trial basis. The iPad was supposed to be better and bigger than the iPhone, closer to a computer and much more than just a phone.

1. Printliminator
The Printliminator is a bookmarklet with some simple tools you can use to makes websites print better. One click to activate, and then click to remove elements from the page, remove graphics, and apply better print styling.

2. Apple’s Tablet Interface
The design of interaction is often restricted by the user interface paradigms in current use. There is speculation that the Apple Tablet (if there is one) will push the envelope of UI design. This links to a post in Gizmodo – worth a read. Haptics and touch technology are already transforming the user experience, couple that with a sophisticated UI and it offers learning interaction designers new avenues to explore.

The Horizon 2010 report has been published and is available for download. It’s definitely worth a read; lots of interesting trends that will affect the way we live and learn.

I found it interesting that the report points to mobile computing and open content as being on the near-term horizon, within the next 12 months. To follow after on the horizon are electronic books and augmented reality.

During the course of a routine trawl of my news-feeds I stumbled on something interesting that I found relevant to my current research into mobile learning.

This particular post was from ReadWriteWeb and writes about a new type of iPhone application called PowerOne that in the post says ‘…wants to solve the “there’s not an App for that” problem that many professionals experience when they try to use their iPhones at work.’ I see mobile learning taking many forms, perhaps this is one of them.

1. Kodu
“Microsoft Research released a community game cum programming environment for the Xbox 360 called Kodu. Unlike most other video games, Kodu would let players create their own video games for the Xbox without any prior knowledge of programming.

The initial version of Kodu required the Xbox 360 console but now Kodu is available as a free download for your Windows PC as well. This means you no longer need an Xbox to design games with Kodu and you can play them on just about any computer using a keyboard and mouse (or an Xbox game controller, if you have one).

Wikipedia defines mobile learning as “Any sort of learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies”.

In other words, mLearning decreases limitation of learning location with the mobility of general portable devices¹.

Simply put, mobile learning is the acquisition or modification of any knowledge and skill through using mobile technology, anywhere, anytime and results in the modification of behavior².

We are happy to share that Upside Learning has again won global recognition from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Red Herring.

We have been included as a Winner in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2009 Program for the second year running. This program ranks the top 500 public and private technology companies with the fastest annual revenue growth rates in Asia Pacific over the past three years. It includes companies based in Australia, China (Hong Kong), India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Participating companies come from diverse industry sectors like software, electronics, biotech and pharmaceuticals, media and entertainment, and green technology.

1. Morgan Stanley – The Mobile Internet Report
Morgan Stanley’s analysts set out to do a deep dive into the rapidly changing mobile Internet market. The Mobile Internet Report is largely in PowerPoint and published it on the web, and they’re expecting that bits and pieces of it will be cut / pasted / redistributed and debated / dismissed / lauded. Their goal is to get thoughts and data into the conversation about what may be the biggest technology trend ever. I found the PowerPoint format a bit unfriendly, but the content itself merits not one but perhaps several reads.

“May we live in interesting times” –Chinese Proverb

It’s amazing to see an accelerating rate of change leading up to what is now generally accepted as the true beginning of the ‘age of collaboration’. As more and more humans bring devices into their lives that connect them to the global network in its myriad forms.