MMS taking off? "During the third quarter of 2006, an astonishing 88 million picture messages (MMS) were sent throughout the UK'saverage, almost 1 million per day throughout July, August and September. October's total was the highest yet, with 30 million picture messages sent across the networks."

Paul from M:Metrics made a couple of really interesting observations at the last Mobile Monday: that mobile photography gets much more compelling once camera quality passes the 1 megapixel threshold, and that in many areas, mobile data usage is growing - just slowly. I don't personally expect MMS to reach anywhere near the level of SMS traffic - and why should it? It's not a straight substitute for text messaging, it's more like gift-giving than conversation in my experience.

But with WAP showing decent usage, 3G uptake growing and MMS now seeming to go beyond non-trivial levels, it looks like this mobile data thing might actually be going somewhere :) Kudos for the Mobile Data Association for tracking this stuff over the years (even if they have quietly stopped showing the graph indicating that WAP traffic has stalled since mid-2005, and replaced it with this one showing unique users).

We're sponsoring the first Brighton Geek Girl Dinner: "an opportunity to meet up and socialise with interesting people over dinner. "

It's not just for geeks and you don't have to be a girl, but I can confirm the existence of the dinner ;)

I came across this lovely presentation from Yilbu after Stephanie commented here. Great stuff, beautifully presented: "Creating ‘Casual’ Games, Content and Applications for the (Mobile) Long Tail"

And on the subject of mobile play, Mr Jones has an article in the latest Receiver mag: "...in play we explore, try new things and push our limits more than in any other state. The practice of experience design often tries to prescribe set paths for the end-user of the device, rather than allow the frustrations of a free exploration of the system. What would it mean to create truly playful space in our systems, services and devices?"

At Aikido last night, Tom came out with a great Rumi quote which I've spent much of this morning trying to remember: "There is a field beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there."

The Magic Smoke in Electronics: "a reminder of how easy it is to attribute magical properties to technology when there's no obvious mechanical functionality. Not even engineers can see moving electrons, and (I suspect) this "naive" gut-level explanation easily emerges, and regularly reappears."

Does anyone make a USB device that will blow smoke, belch, make smells, vibrate, and otherwise let us expose all sorts of digital happenings into the real-world, tapping into all of our senses? Nabaztag is good for sound, and to a less extent sight, but there's a whole range of other stuff out there.

Imagine if code smell *actually smelt*... or in a less geeky, more Everyware stylee, if my living room start to get a bit musty when I'd forgotten to take books back to the library. One of the things we've noticed from our Nabaztag is the subtle way that rabbity announcements get straight to the subconscious when they're part of the background noise of an office.