Mobup + GEOtagging now available

Flickr has recently released a new tool to display geotagged photos and manually geocode existing ones.

I’m very happy to announce that the NEW version of Mobup (v.0.4) is now freely available with a function to automatically geotag your photos using an external bluetooth GPS device.

We’re supporting ALL the external GPS devices that could be used paired with a bluetooth cameraphone. If you don’t have any you could buy one for few bucks on eBay (I’ve bought mine there, and it’s plain great!)

All the Mobup geotagged photos are visible not only on Flickr and its maps but also on our very own mash-up prepared by Tom Landspurg.

Sigurtà garden: a bad example of Italianity

Update: be sure to give a read to the comments below.

I spent last friday with my family in one of the least known and most spectacular gardens in Italy: the Sigurtà garden. it extends over 125 acres and was built in 1600; it hosted ancients VIPs such as Napoleon the 3rd and is open to the public since 1978.

It’s really a jewel and since a few years we visit it once per year to be astonished by its treasures. We like to rent a golf-kart to go through the garden since its quite huge (more then 6 kilometers of drivable paths): it’s a enjoiable experience and the best way to experience the various sights the garden offers.

The cost of the kart is 12€ per hour and it can hold a maximum of 4 people (don’t ask me why, this is the park law).

After this long intro let’s go directly to the reason for this post (with a subject so unusual here on Yellow Line . We took the cart at 3pm and enjoyed a wonderful visit to the park (they use electric power and have a pretty poor top speed, so it’s confortable for a man follow the kart by feet).
We were 5 + Francesca (Barbara, my mom and dad, my sister and yours truly) BUT - for the last 500m - my father reached us on the kart and once of the park patrol immediately stopped us asking for one people to leave.

When we left the kart (it was 5pm) at the rental office they asked us an extra amount of 3€ per hour for the extra people the patrol reported driving the kart (I don’t want to go against this decision, we made a mistake and it was ok for me to pay for this. I made the sum and lend 30€ to the officer, but then he asked for other euros since - he said - we took the kart at 14.35 (I was sure - as previously said - it was 3pm since I had a call frpm Barbara in the very moment they gave me the kart keys, and my phone took the call at 15.02pm).

So we had to pay the extra half-hour EVEN IF we didn’t ejnoied it. 37euros against the scheduled 24€ (+6€ of ticket for our error) with no receipt from the park officer. I complainded strongly about this but no money was refunded.

This is my first effort to keep everybody aware of this (the park is plenty with foreign tourtists): keep track of the time you take the kart and double check it’s the same time they write on the voucher.
I’ll then forward this post to the park director citing the name of the employee who asked for the money.

Thankyou for your attention. Now back to the usual topics on user experience, cameraphones and eyetracking.

Interfacce06

This year I’ll be involved - as part of the efforts of the divulgation of UXnet related themes in Italy - in the organization of the interaction day at Interfacce06 (Interfaces06) a whole 2 days on usability and user interfaces that will be held in Rome on the 10th and 11th of October 2006.

The call for papers is still open, you might want to give it a look (note: it’s written in Italian); don-t hesitate to contact me should you need further infos.

Porto rotondo (sardinia)

Note: originally posted with the geotagging capable version of Mobup (actually in private beta)

Porto rotondo (sardinia): On our friends boat (a Menorquin 160 yacht) near the yacht club restaurant where we had a spectacolous lunch. Take a look at this map to find this geotagged photo on a mashed-up Google map.

Life is ALWAYS surprising

It’s been a while I had this post in mind (and it’s a couple of weeks it’s staging on the draft folder of my Wordpress admin). But life’s really busy in the last period and vacations are fastly approaching thus I have little or none time to settle things down to be ‘nough concentrated on writing.

Never say never could be the claim of this post. And my life in the last months really proves it.

I’d have said I’d never ever abandoned research. But now I’m managing a lot of innovating and interesting projects at one of the leading real estate (!!!) firms in Italy. Didn’t thought that research is just one of the faces of innovation.

I’d  have said that this little italian guy was far to little to be cited by his U.S. UX myths. But then Luke Wroblewsky (!!!) wrote an entire post speaking of my UXmatters article on forms label positioning.

I’d have said that Italy was the farest province of the Internet empire. But then small projects like yours truly’s Mobup and bright minded companies such as Kallideas are taking the worldwide stage (and - BTW - it’s opening an office in Silicon Valley. VPs keep your eyes on them!).

And I have my two loves with me in this wonderful adventure.

Thank you.