I've been experimenting a bit with CouchDB again recently and started thinking more about what it means to see non-relational databases as different from rather than better than traditional relational databases. One idea that I wanted to explore is that these differences mean that we do not have to use these new technologies in the same way as a traditional database layer. A notable feature of CouchDB is that it delivers data over an HTTP connection, so it can deliver data to the web without the need to write a layer of software to go in front of it. It can also store files quite happily. This could hugely simplify the server side of many phone, tablet and Internet TV apps so I thought I would have a go at building an experimental proof-of-concept app for the Samsung Internet@TV platform that gets both its metadata and video files from a CouchDB server.
apps
Just a very quick post about how to get the Asus EEE Pad Transformer working with the Android SDK and Eclipse under Ubuntu 11.04. As the emulator for Android tablets can be a bit slow this could be a handy way to test out applications as you build them. The starting point is to follow the instructions under Using Hardware Devices page on the Android Developer website. Following these instructions I got the machine working on my machine so I thought I would share what I did here.
First edit a new file:
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer might occasionally closely resemble a netbook, but in fact it is a very different machine that has a lot in common with mobile phones. The inclusion of a touchscreen, cameras and sensors such as GPS and a compass contribute to some interesting possibilities. The attitude towards software is different too, like a mobile its software ecosystem revolves around “apps” not “applications” so these are programmes designed to do one or two things well rather than providing a lot of functionality. With this in mind I thought it would be fun to compile a list of interesting apps (in no particular order) – software that shows off various aspects of the device (and similar devices) and some of the emerging ideas for functionality.
Many organisations are offering rich Linked Data stores now that you can interrogate with the SPARQL language. This data might be interesting for the mobile app developer to work with so it would be great to be able to experiment with this data in Google App Inventor for Android applications. At the moment you cannot do this directly as App Inventor only offers quite limited functionality to interact with the web, however with the help of a server side "bridging script" we can close that divide and send a SPARQL query from inside the application and deal with the results we get back.
An application suitable for use on most Nokia phones that have access to the Ovi store that brings content from this site to these devices in a mobile friendly way. It was created with a wizard.
See: Grab the greenhughes.com app from Nokia's Ovi store now!