The old tales that we read when we were young, or that someone told us, were full of suggestions for innovative thoughts. Think at Little Red Riding Hood story, a well known one that, after the initial fear (it lasted for me for about five years) leaves the auditor with a plenty of curiosity. Some questions like “why the forest?” or “why she is alone?” or “why does the wolf speak with her instead of eating her immediately?” started to rise in our mind. No logical answers, it’s a legend, you said, but there are some well hidden messages or suggestions we can discover nowadays.
Let’s start to help Little Red with some feature she can apply to the situation for saving her skin.
First of all, her mother persuaded Little Red to go to grandma: why not a phone call, a chat, no webcam at all? Does grandma need something to eat? Call a delivery grocery service, a Chinese, a Pizza Hut. Then, our champion started to walk alone in the forest… without a GPS!! It’s obvious that she lost the way and was forced to ask to such a bad boy like the wolf…
Go back to reality. I started to test a Nokia application that, far to be amazing as some other I already saw, take me to depict some scenarios that could be funnier than the standard GPS navigation. I’m talking about Sports Tracker, you can use it with your Nokia phone in combination with a portable GPS like LD-3W, or with a GPS enabled phone, like the brand new N95… but where is the pleasure? Sports Tracker offers several functions that transform a simple walk in a more “unforgettable” event, meaning that you don’t lose your steps. Choose your best Activity, such as Running, Walking, Cycling, Skiing, etc, and the system (made of your mobile phone+ST and your GPS) starts to record your path, made of speed, altitude, averages, in an exportable file! When you’re at home, simply connect to Google maps and import the files you create, and then your steps are traced, your route is displayed with all the parameters that ST collected. So…think about a virtual marathon, that you can run with your friends IN DIFFERENT days, at the time you prefer, evaluating each single performances simply going thorough a web based application that traces all the paths and organize them into a roster! You go to the city park, you find the start point indicator, you take the run to the end, and then at home you face up to your opponents, linking to the city web site that manages the results. Or what about testing different routes, for evaluating which is the best to travel along, in order to speed up your morning journey and sleep 5 minutes more? I’m going on with my test experience, and if I’ll be lost in a wood I’ll upload my path waiting for a little help from my friends.

Why do I Blog this?
Probably it does not help Little Red, she is designated to become wolf food, but this simple application could give me the motivation to ride my bike again. And take (and win) a virtual contest against you.

(The picture is from http://research.nokia.com/) (Thanks to Max for the hint!)