A little Application…
3 Dec 2012 by Evoluted New Media
Never has the term ‘generation gap’ been quite so relevant to me as when my 3-year-old recently tried desperately get her good, old-fashioned, paper-based sticker book to access the internet. She looked at me with highly disapproving eyes and exclaimed: “Daddy, this iPad has broken”.
Trying to explain that not all tablet sized items connected to the internet only led to more confusion, but it did bring home to me that she’ll never know a world without the internet. Or the App store. Or broadband. She’ll never be frustrated by not knowing train times, or left to wonder what the capital city of Peru is. With access to the internet comes a new paradigm of information retrieval, and currently one of the best ways to access this is with a mobile device.
And so it is time for us here at Laboratory News to do our part – we now have an iPad App. Available care of the App Store, it is free and features all of the goodies you might expect – news, features, interviews and comment – plus exclusive video content – all at the beck and call of your prolific finger swipes.
While we are on the subject of online access – it pleased me no end that the launch of our app has coincided with the first use of a new kind of internet. I am not talking about 4G, or any other kind of enhanced broadband – indeed I’m not even talking about a service that is based here on Earth. Last month a huge step forward was taken in the creation of all together more exciting internet system – one that has been developed to work in space.
This interplanetary internet uses experimental technology known as disruption-tolerant networking protocol – and has been developed as a future way to communicate with astronauts on Mars.
As a magazine with ambition already, this has given us something extra to aim for – we’d like to have a visit to our online offerings from space. To coin a well-worn cliché, we are literally aiming for the stars.
But while we inadvisably lobby NASA to this end, we are of course welcoming all of our more earth bound readers to download and make use of the Laboratory News app. Please do point your iPads in our direction and explore our app – while it can’t be viewed on a sticker book, I am confident you will find it both useful and interesting.
