One of the most important financial centers in North America, Mexico City is also one of the ten most populous cities worldwide. History here reaches a long way back. 700 years ago, the Aztec people founded a city on this site, building over an earlier settlement of the Mexica people. 500 years ago, that Aztec city was obliterated by Spanish explorers when Cortes vanquished Montezuma, and seized the region as a colony of Spain.
[machine translation of this blog post into Spanish]
Mexico gained political independence from Spain in the 19th century, only to have Texas, California, and New Mexico forcibly annexed by the United States. When US Marines sing their hymn about "the Halls of Montezuma" - they are refering to storming this castle in Mexico City in 1847.
The "Halls of Montezuma" - Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City - seized by the USMC in 1847, sung about ever since
The MOTODEV team is currently in Mexico City for the eighth stop in our round-the-world App Summit series. This global tour helps developers get up to speed creating apps for the XOOM tablet and ATRIX smartphone. As well as giving training to developers, we also listen to developers describe their apps, and offer advice and suggestions.
More Barometric Entertainment
Mexico City is located on the high plateau in the center of the nation, at an altitude of 2,240 metres (1.4 miles high, or 7,350 ft - a quarter of the height of Mount Everest). My first thought on arriving was "I can't wait to take a few air pressure readings using my XOOM tablet with the built-in barometer!" Air pressure varies significantly with changes in weather, and also altitude and local gravity field strength. On a clear, still day (yesterday) in the center of Mexico City, my XOOM tablet gave a reading of 776 millibars.
Let's run a quick "reality check" on that number. There's a table of standard altitude/pressure readings here. The table shows
air pressure 797 g/cm2, at altitude 2134 meters
air pressure 768 g/cm2, at altitude 2438 meters
At 2240 meters, we expect the barometric reading to be in the range 768 to 797 g/cm2 (yes, yes, assuming standard temperature, and in the same latitude to keep gravity constant). And, yippee, my observation of 776 is between those two points, so it passes the sanity check. The main conclusion for me is that I should update my barometer reading app to take GPS readings, too, and display the latitude and altitude, dude. Cross-checking with the temperature and the values in the table will indicate whether we are experiencing a barometric high or low, and hence predict the weather. I'll get right on that, in my copious free time ;-) If anyone feels like doing it first, here's a link to my blog post with barometer reading code.
Copies of MOTODEV Presentation Slides
I had many requests in South America for a copy of my NDK and Renderscript slides. You can also find all our MOTODEV presentations on slideshare.net.
Other Observations in Mexico City
I wanted to take a picture of the very famous statue of Winged Victory (El Ángel de la Independencia) so I walked along the Paseo de la Reforma until I reached it. The plaza around this statue is a prominent site for demonstrations, protests and celebrations. When I got there, there was an exuberent display of pride in the achievement of the local Pumas soccer team, so I recorded this video as well as taking some pictures of El Ángel. Love that smiling guy with the drum who shows up at 1:16!
Back at the App Summit, Emilio Carlos Lomniczi, the General Manager of Motorola Mexico, displayed the same kind of exuberent spirit when he decided to demonstrate the water resistance of a DEFY handset. To wild applause, Carlos dunked the DEFY in a goldfish bowl. Then, to even more wild applause, he pulled the handset out of the water and made a call, proving that it survived the bath perfectly! Don't try this with any handset except the DEFY!
VP and General Manager Carlos tests the water resistance of a DEFY on stage!
Some participants said that this Mexico City App Summit was the most successful App Summit so far. I can't disagree with that. If you were present, please let me know your impressions in the comments below.
Peter van der Linden
Android Technology Evangelist, and Amateur Barometrician.
