My Year in Mobile

In September of 2009 I dove head first into the mobile industry, becoming Creative Director for the Paul Allen/Vulcan Ventures start-up Kiha Software. We launched our private beta in November 2010 and called it aro.com.

We've been developing mainly for the Android platform, but also plan to release on iPhone in 2011. We are using semantic analysis, natural language processing and a unique user experience to make your smart phone smarter. The movie above gives a basic overview of our software. Note: the UI graphics in the video are already out of date...we are constantly iterating.

So that's what I've been up to for the past year. That's why this blog has gotten zero love.

Here is what the press is saying:

11/29/2010 — First Look at Aro for iPhone: Can This Semantic Software Replace Your Core Mobile Apps? Sarah Perez, Read Write Web.

11/15/2010 — Aro Mobile Uses the Cloud to Build Smarter Smartphone Ryan Kim, GigaOM.

11/15/2010 — Aro Offers a Parallel Universe Where Mobile Apps Work Together Liz Gannes, All Things D – Wall Street Journal.

11/9/2010 — Aro Organizes the World Inside Your Smart Phone Tom Simonite, MIT Technology Review.

11/9/2010 — Aro Smartphone Application: A Personal Assistant in Your Back Pocket Tammy Wolf, TMCnet.

10/28/2010 — Aro Mobile and the Next Generation of Business Phones Casey Fictum, Digitalfewsure.

10/27/2010 — Aro Mobile Shows Some Skin — Some Android Skin. And We Have Invites. MG Siegler, TechCrunch.

10/26/2010 — Aro Mobile Wants To Simplify Your Mobile Phone Bits Blog, Jenna Wortham, New York Times.

10/25/2010 — First look at Aro: another example of why chaos on Android is good Robert Scoble, Scobleizer.

Adobe Media Player for Internet TV Content

Adobe is now in competition with iTunes, Windows Media Player and Real Player. Their new Adobe Media Player is a great digital media content player that helps you organize your favorites and find great video and audio.

Adobe has also teamed up with a bunch of participating content producers and suppliers such as CBS, Comedy Central, BlipTV, MTV and Universal.

Adobe has a great history of making universal, cross-platform apps that quickly become the standard. This Media Player has a chance to become the standard tool that allows digital content consumers to aggregate and control the incredible amount of audio and video that is sprouting anew every day on the web. Check out my previous three articles on the convergence of TV and the web.

"Adobe Media Player software provides control and flexibility to view what you want, when you want — whether online or offline. You can queue up and download your favorite Internet TV content, track and download new episodes automatically, and manage your personal video library for viewing at your convenience."

Photoshop. For Free? YES!

It's like some beautiful dream. Adobe Photoshop has released a free online version of their software. Yup, you heard that right. You can go to a web page and use Photoshop Express thru a browser.

So, it's definitely not a "full" version of Photoshop...but it is everything you need to do your basic editing. Crop, hue, sharpen. They also have a neat Gallery feature that allows you to share your artistic creations online. With a free 2 GB of storage.

Dreams really do come true.