Now that said, I did have a Twitter exchange with Steve Dembo (Teach42) regarding geocaching that then led to something startling involving Qik.  Steve owns the Nokia N95 (a phone that I have been demoing from WOM World / Nokia for the last week and a half) and he has been using it for geocaching.  So at the end of the day when he said that he might look stream his bike ride home, I assumed that somehow he was going to be uStreaming his voyage…

Then a few minutes later I received a tweet from him that he was streaming live so I grabbed my Motorola Q Global (as I was driving – well I WAS stopped at a light) and launched Skyfire my new favorite mobile browser and jumped to his uStream page and he was not there… I checked the link I received through TinyTwitter (my mobile Twitter client) and it referenced www.qik.com.

Since I was rolling by now, I put my phone aside, but when I got home, I checked TinyTwitter again, and Mark Wagner had tweeted that Steve was live with 42 people watching his stream.  I bounced out to Qik and followed Steve most of the way home via Qik and his Nokia N95.  He was even talking about the brewings at Capitol Hill.  This was really cool!  Oh and Steve, I am proud of your for being “biking attired” helmet and all! Now this was truly the MOBILE web!

So, I now wanted to know more about Qik and how I might be able to get it on my phone.  As I mentioned, for the next week I still have a Nokia N95, and I will have my Motorola Q Global until my contract ends in November and I decide there is something else out there I need to have. I didn’t know if it would even work on my Q.  Well it does!

Qik is a streaming video service that leverages the cellular networks around the world.  While it WILL work on a 2G network, it is MUCH better when you are running on a 3G connection.  Now Qik is still in open Beta, and a number of their FAQ, About etc. pages return server error apology notices, but they DO list a phone number to CALL them if you have questions… how’s that for service.  Also, Qik has contracted with www.getsatisfaction.com a web service support forum where both company employees and other users provide support and information to people needing help.  Qik has 6 employees working with Qik users to help folks out… which is pretty interesting seeing as how twitter, flock, mozilla, and… GOOGLE… have either 6 or 7 employees monitoring their services and supporting users via www.getsatisfaction.com. The best way I found out information was simply to “sign up”.  Below is a list of cell phones that are currently supported by Qik:

What phones do we support?

In Beta

    * Motorola Q9c
    * Motorola Q9h (my Q Global)
    * Nokia 3250
    * Nokia 5320 XpressMusic
    * Nokia 5500
    * Nokia 5700 XpressMusic
    * Nokia 6110 Navigator
    * Nokia 6120 Classic
    * Nokia 6121 Classic
    * Nokia 6124 Classic
    * Nokia 6210 Navigator
    * Nokia 6220 Classic
    * Nokia 6290
    * Nokia E50
    * Nokia E51
    * Nokia E61i
    * Nokia E65
    * Nokia E66
    * Nokia E70
    * Nokia E71
    * Nokia E90
    * Nokia N71
    * Nokia N73
    * Nokia N75
    * Nokia N76
    * Nokia N77
    * Nokia N78
    * Nokia N80
    * Nokia N81
    * Nokia N81 8GB
    * Nokia N82
    * Nokia N91
    * Nokia N91 8GB
    * Nokia N92
    * Nokia N93
    * Nokia N93i
    * Nokia N95
    * Nokia N95 8GB
    * Nokia N95-3 NAM
    * Nokia N96
    * Samsung SGH-I600
    * Samsung Blackjack II

In Alpha

    * iPhone 2G

Coming Soon

    * iPhone 3G
    * HTC Shift
    * HTC Touch
    * HTC Touch Diamond
    * HTC TyTN II

They seem to love Nokia… or is it that Nokia is really moving their phones into the digital space big time?!

So, set up my account and within 1 minute I was streaming via my cellphone.  to Setup, you simple enter your cellular phone number and then Qik sends you an SMS with information about downloading the client.  Once the client is installed, you run Qik for the first time, and when it makes the connection to the Qik servers, your browser automatically advances to the next step of setting up a username and other information and finalizes your account.  While this was all pretty easy, it was not all that intuitive to do… (leave everything alone and let the service take care of itself)… but that is what you need to do.  You might run into something that I did.  While it took my username, it would not allow me to enter a password… I simply needed to click the “forgot password” link and Qik reset it and provided the information via SMS.

Here is my first video:

Now, the video that I shot was actually about 4 minutes streamed, but I had a “Delay of 2:30″ on my phone when shooting.  Unfortunately, I did not know what this meant at the time, so when I closed the application, I actually deleted most of the stream BEFORE it was sent up to the servers.  There are a couple of quality settings I have since learned that will help with that, but I also now know that when you are done streaming, you simple need to let any Qik delay lapse and say “upload complete” before you close out the application on your phone.  I plan on streaming more to test, but I can see potential HUGE applications in the educational environment. 

Now before I start throwing out ideas, I would like to hear from you… in what ways do you feel that Qik might be able to be used by students and teachers to impact instruction and authentic learning?

~Scott

Physical Characteristics

Overall, the N95 is a pretty big/thick phone.  It is about the size of a thick digital camera (about 3/4″) about twice the thickness of my Motorola Q Global… not all that terrible, but it will make quite a big bulge in a pocket.  Weight isn’t too bad, but it is NOT a light phone.  The sliders (there are two ways the screen slides) are smooth and still working well after all the abuse the phone has taken to get to me.  There are buttons on the on one of the edges for camera (taking pictures), volume (which doesn’t work well – but it could be the demo), and play/pause for the media.  There are also two largesque (is that a word) speakers, one on each side, that put out a pretty good sound quality. 

On the face there are a number of buttons that control a variety of functions, but they are not very intuitive.  The strongest evidence for me on that issue was the fact that I actually had to read the manual to figure out how to turn it on… Ok, I am not always the brightest bulb, but I really couldn’t figure out how to turn it on…  (There is a little button up on the top… you don’t use the send or cancel button like… oh… every other mobile phone I have ever owned.) Overall, the most glaring physical deficiency that is apparent is the lack of a full qwerty keyboard… Didn’t know how much of an issue that really was at first, but …

Here are some pictures:

Software

The default software package on the N95 is really quite good.  There are a number of default applications like Nokia Maps ™ (currently free, but I think that is because of the trial) and other GPS utilities including a positioning system that would be great for geocaching… however, it also provides a level of confidence for how accurate the satillite signal is… at times it was as close as 9M (little over 27′) other times when stationary it read 35M (a bit over 108′) that will make a big difference when hunting for something as small as a pill container.  The N95 really seems to be geared (almost exclusively) toward being a multimedia device. There are numerous applications for audio and video everything from playing to recording.  Additionally, there are the standard office type applications, text/multimedia/email apps.  The N95 is built on Nokia’s Symbian platform so 3rd party java applications can be installed and run relatively easily.

Niceties and the Outrageous

As I mentioned the N95 is really a multimedia device.  There is a nice 5MP digital camera built in as well as a 1.3MP webesque cam built into the face of the phone to allow video calls. There is even a cable to allow the N95 to be connected to the component RCA connections on your TV to play pictures and video…

I need to spend more time using the various capabilities and applications on the N95, but my first impression of the N95 is that it appears to be a very good media device and player.  However, as a phone it leaves a bit to be desired.  The call quality is very quiet and tinny.  But, I finally figured out how to turn up the volume during a call, so the volume issue may be moot.  However, let me add this in reference to using the N95 8GB North American Edition as a phone.  In briefly looking at the user manual the first time “making a call” is reference is page 83!

More in a few days…

~Scott