Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Marissa Mayer Talk @ Le Web
Today, I am posting a link to a 30 minute interview of Marissa Mayer by Michael Arrington.
It deals with all the topic of real time web, streams, future search and things Google is dabbling on right now.
1. For finding interesting topics, I used to search on google.
2. Now? I get all those interesting data from twitter.
Google's approach towards solving all the problem including those with newspapers, real time web et all. are well talked about in this video.
Take Aways?
1. Authoritarian Search . - (twitter, Experts on topic.)
2. Newspaper evolution - More of the approach of Google towards solving that. - Do you see some opportunities here?
3. 'Getting' Wave. - I should try out - my friends' 100 threads discussions onto that. Should be fun.
4. Goggles.
On another note, UStream.tv release the live broadcasting app today. - which is TOTALLY cool.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Location Based Apps
You are in the midst Manhattan - and looking for some samosa? - Whip out smart phone and it tells you the nearest location - recommended by your followers / friends.
I remember, thinking about such ideas - in 2005/06 for my Graduate Projects. It was the future that time. Today, its a reality.
Location based applications are going to come of age in 2010. Yelp, Foursquare & Loopt have already proven it. Many more would come up.
Foursquare - has taken it to entirely different 'interesting' level as a game which also ties up to a business model of location based coupons at places where you are the Mayor. FS is something to look forward to in 2010. But, in spite of all the hoopla about FS (foursquare?) , I prefer Gowalla - just because it is not tied to any particular city - and that could be the key for its rise to the top. [ Gowalla - is available where I live and FS in not! ]
With Twitter FINALLY having decided to Geo Enable within the Twitter platform - the world is gonna be a much smaller place. Believe me. There have been clients like Twitterrific which do so, using their own ways. - But having it within the platform - is great thing.
Trending topics in your neighborhoods (no-water today!! - india specific) - could provide all together different insights. (Micro?) Location based news - is what gets achieved with this.
And presenting it as a game (like FS) and still being able to cash on that - awesome.
On another note - micro payments from mobile - should not be that far away in the future now. Its been thought of by many, have been discussed at various meets.. but a very good and formidable solution was not in sight. (not that I was aware of). But with squareup - its gonna be awesome. I truly feel so.
There is still a lot of space in this area to innovate - especially in India - with the number of mobile device holders. and the rate at which the Telecom industry has grown (is growing). SMSOne from Pune, India which was TC'ed and PTed (Pune Tech'ed!) - is certainly impressive - and are doing well in that space. Best Wishes to them!
I see one more area - where location based apps coupled with sensor data could be powerful.
What is the geo-app you would like to use?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Augmented Reality
Its one of the coolest technologies (which matured in 2009.), which interfaces the real world and the streams of data online - and making sense of all of that.
For me, this came through the iPhone 3GS - being accompanied with a compass. ( I read about and watched the Sixth Sense Technology demo's later.)
So, with GPS and the Compass box - the device knew where on earth you are and in which direction you are looking - providing a very powerful dataset.
Because of this - if you hold the phone is a particular direction - it knows what you are looking at! - thus helping to make sense of all of this data in the real world.
Pointing the phone towards a 'restaurant' - shows me the ratings, user comments and all that information available online!
This is certainly a very powerful way of deciphering physical world data. For me, this was like the culmination of the online and the physical worlds.
The kinds of applications being released - based on AR - are indeed very powerful. Yelp, Layar (as a platform) are just the beginning IMO.
I see this whole Augmented Reality tech in a way again referring to the 'recommendation' and NOT SEARCH model.
'You pull out your phone and point to a device - The Information Reaches you at lightening speed !'
And this cannot get more AWESOME that the below video. Google Launched Goggles today. AR is definitely here to stay! About apps. that I would like to see within next year - i would post about them in the next one! Till then, enjoy Goggles B-)
Monday, December 7, 2009
Evolution
Hello World!
Its the 21st century. In the history of human evolution, I consider - the tools that we use(d) - as a very important part of how / what and why we did things the way we did. Necessity is certainly the mother of invention.
Its about time that we add that extra step in the evolution picture, where ubiquitous computing has arrived and is more of a reality and no longer just a part of the fiction books..
Those tools / systems , surround us everywhere - the smart card readers at TOLL booths, access badges, temperature control systems, real time analytics etc. If I look at the picture above, I feel its really difficult to represent the omnipresent smart tools (systems). We are certainly at the cusp of very interesting phase of how human being would live.
This evolution IMO is 2 steps -
1) With the iPhone and likes, being the necessary client for all this systems to work with.
2) the inevitable chips embedded into our biological systems - aka we becoming Cyborgs.
Smart systems have become a part of our surrounding.. and now THEY would evolve to be more intelligent.
Last few years have seen the internet become social and since, all of this meta-data can be understood by systems - its a much more powerful engine -giving us insights on 'n' subjects .
Its the EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES that make us what we are.. and what we would be .
[Needless to say that I am a programmer. You might have figured that out by the first sentence of this post. The primary objective of writing posts on this blog - is for my own learning about emerging technologies and sharing with you all whatever I learn.]
Real Time Web
Internet was engineered as a tool to collaborate on stuff (documents, etc. information basically). Its been always social in those terms - of sending letters, documents via the interconnected computers. It was faster than the usual snail mails. It was near 'real-time' delivery. But then, with chat programs - you might argue it was real-time always.
So, whats the new buzz about the real-time web? Well, now its not just - emails flowing around - or documents flowing around. Today, its about working on those documents, information together - at the same time!
Its about 'knowing' where my friends / colleagues are on the planet, which other people are 'near me', what are they having for their breakfast and all of that. - You get the idea. [Its another question - to question the necessity of twitter updates, the foursquare check-ins and all of that stuff.]
But, its taken almost 20+ years to get to a stage where its possible to do this real-time collaboration on information and grow together!
Its because of all this stuff - the decision making process has to be that quick. Everything you do - has to be done 'NOW' .
With this, have also occurred problems of OVERLOAD of data. And hence, systems which help us make 'sense' of this data streams - is much more important and will play an important role.
Until now, it was SEARCH for information. now the information will REACH you.
We are now a part of the RECOMMENDATION WEB as consumers. No longer would you *necessarily* search for information you need. The 'onus' goes on to the providers to Reach you!
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Years ago when my dad wanted to purchase a vehicle (scooter) - he went to every dealer in town and inquired and finally decided onto the one he wanted. - He had a fair bit of idea on what was on offer in the market through 'advertisements'. He asked his friends / colleagues about opinions and finally settled on something he liked.
6 months ago - when I wanted to purchase a Car. I 'tweeted' about it. I expressed an interest in knowing about that. I DID NOT SEARCH. I got recommendations / experiences / suggestions from my followers - which helped me make a decision that much faster. I would have loved being contacted by the local service providers for that directly. It will happen for sure. Its not that far. In about a year or two.
I did not go and search for the information. I just expressed desire to know about that information and it reached me.
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In client / server systems - there are two types of interactions
- PULL - where the client needs to request for information from the server ( - aka SEARCH / FETCH for humans)
- PUSH - where the server sends 'relevant' (earlier agreed upon) data to the clients to work with. - I look at this as- similar to the RECOMMENDATION model.
There can be numerous examples explaining this. The point is we are shifting from the traditional 'look for information' to the 'information gets you' model.
Analytics of 'continuous stream' of data, data mining and 'searching-for-people-looking-for-that-information'- have a very very important role to play here.
Looking at twitter - the TRENDING topics DO Not make any sense to me any longer - I want topics that are trending among people I follow. -(things I am interested in)
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