Comments (2)

By leo.flor, February 3, 2011 14:34

Got to spend time with my cousin Andrea recently who although diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, it doesn’t get her down.  Every time we hang out we have laughs and she is super-positive.

For her birthday last year, her parents and sisters bought her a Blackberry Torch 9800.  She uses Blackberry Messenger to stay in touch with friends and family.   However, knowing that she has some difficulties with motor functions and sight, I suggested that instead of typing out a message, she try using the voice recorder, record a note and then fire it off to selected Blackberry Messenger recipients.  We walked through the process that I demonstrate in the video.  This could work with WhatsApp too but I haven’t tested it (iPhone may not like the file format of the Blackberry, *.amr file).  The voice note file sizes are pretty reasonable.  iPhone/iPad is great for this with Facetime, but you normally wouldn’t use it unless you’re on your own wi-fi.

I apologize for the blurry ending to the video, the video recorder had trouble with the font size I use so it couldn’t focus.  The screen should look like this picture.  I recorded the video with one phone then the other.

I think it’s pretty cool if we use technology to give people who may normally feel isolated an opportunity to remain social.  Maybe it’s time to get Gramma and Grampa some crack(berry)?

Comments (3)

By leo.flor, January 31, 2011 11:38

I’ve been using WhatsApp for a couple of weeks now and it’s been great for communicating with my non-blackberry using friends.  My California cousins are all about the iPhone and I needed some way to cheaply and efficiently communicate with them especially while I was there last week.  I added the US data plan from Telus again and my usage came out like this.

Every time I received a text message my wallet cried a little.  SMS is so 00′s.  It’s time to install WhatsApp.  The data usage wasn’t all instant messaging, (I wish I had set up a way to isolate it) it’s combined with me emailing, tweeting and Facebook-ing (uploading/downloading pictures and videos) and of course Google mapping.  How did people travel without their own personal GPS??

I’ll be posting a more thorough review after some more testing (like conference chats and sending/receiving of files) but I’d like to get the word out so that I can have more people to test with.