In July I spent a month backpacking through England and Scotland. Unlike my trip a year and a half ago where I carried a camera and a netbook, this time I travelled with only my Android Nexus One phone running Froyo (2.2). Here are my observations on how that worked out.

Network

As soon as I landed in London I dropped into the first mobile store that I chanced across. Through a foggy jet-lagged haze I discussed my needs and ended up purchasing a one month pay-as-you-go plan from O2 for about $17. This included a sim card, $17 worth of talk time, 300 text messages and 500 megs of GPRS/Edge data. I could have added 3G coverage for another $17 but given where I would be travelling I figured the 3G coverage would be pretty spotty and that I could instead complement it with wifi which is what I'm used to doing here in Canada.

Well I've finally succumbed to the peer pressure of it all and started using twitter. For a short while a few years ago I shared an office with super-hacker Blaine Cook who left Vancouver to become the chief architect of the twitter service. I have great respect for Blaine's skills and politics and I probably should have paid closer attention to what he thought was important.

In any event, I've only been using it for a couple of days now and today I received the message that Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hahn, is following me (on twitter). Turns out it's the staff organizing his American tour but it's still super-rad!

Metamorphosis and the Whimsical Dark

The Parade of the Lost Souls is a celebration of the cycle of life & death, of our facing fears in order to live life to its fullest. It is a time and a place to share losses at one of the many shrines and celebrate life and to enrich our community.

Gather: Grandview Park 6:30 PM

Procession: 7:00 PM in the NE corner of the Park

http://publicdreams.org/section_details.html?trunk_id=1&branch_id=1

New Forms Festival is introducing Open Mobile this year at the festival in September. Sponsored in part by Mobile Muse, Open Mobile is a day of case studies and sessions designed to bring together artists and technologists, as the leaders in the mobile space illustrate and highlight their work, prototypes and proven mobile technologies and experiences.

To register: http://openmobile.eventbrite.com/

MobileCampVancouver2 is bringing together iPhone junkies, Crackberry addicts, couch surfers, coffee shop hackers, vagabonds and mobile nomads to share the current state and their visions for the future direction of mobility. MobileCampVancouver2 hopes to support the many voices helping to unlock the potential of a truly mobile life.

Today's announcment that Verizon and Mozilla are joining the Linux Mobile Foundation (LiMo) is great news for the advancement of mobile Linux.

Having a major carrier like Verizon announce that they "will encourage its handset partners to use the OS even if it is not a part of LiMo" and that they will "make a big financial commitment by hiring people" signals great confidence in open platforms as the way forward.