The New York Times Company announced today the beta launch of ShifD,
an application that provides users the capability to seamlessly shift
content between their computers and mobile devices. ShifD eliminates
the need to separately save certain information to both a computer and
a mobile device. Users can update information from any Web browser, by
text message from a mobile phone, through a mobile Web browser or by
using the downloadable application on Adobe AIR™. Information added
through any of the various methods is saved to the user’s ShifD account and automatically updated on all devices.
For the beta launch users can add and save content through ShifD in three categories:
- Notes - save everything from your grocery list to the book title your friend recommended.
- Links - save links to news articles or links to sites from around the Web to be viewed later.
- Places - save addresses with corresponding maps.
“SifD is an experiment in giving
users the power to bring their content with them by easily shifting it
among all of their Web-enabled devices,” said Michael Zimbalist, vice
president, research and development operations, The New York Times
Company. “We see a future for device-independent media, with
convergence around the user experience and not any particular delivery
platform. Developing services that allow users to access content
wherever they are and on whichever device they choose is an important
part of our strategy.”ShifD was conceived by Nick Bilton,
design integration editor and user interface specialist for The New
York Times, and Michael Young, creative technologist, research and
development for The New York Times Company, at the 2007 Yahoo! BBC Hack
Day London competition. The application won the competition’s award for
Best Overall Hack.
To sign up for the beta launch visit: http://ShifD.com. ShifD will work on most mobile phones and BlackBerries in the United States.
Adobe AIR is a new
cross-operating system application runtime that extends rich Internet
applications to the desktop, which is compatible with both Macintosh
and Windows computers.
mBlox is providing the SMS services enabled by the mBlox global platform.