Heuristix

Adaptive Thinking: a future for HP's WebOS

2011-12-23T10:12:00.000-04:00

This is a good article (if I do say so myself!) about the potential of HP's WebOS... in watches!

Smoking the pixelpipe

2011-12-21T20:17:00.001-04:00

Email's days are numbered?

2011-12-05T10:17:00.000-04:00

Adaptive Thinking: Atos bans internal emails... really??

All Hallows Eve

2011-10-31T18:19:00.001-04:00

So the witching day is upon us again, and I'm missing the bonfire and fireworks and dark early nights of a British Halloween (well, and Guy Fawkes night). Bajans dont really do Halloween - bit too heathen for the Bajan spirit. There are parties, but they're mostly private and, in the North American tradition, fancy dress rather than scary dress.

Which makes me miss the ghoulish fun all the more. Like English ale, I was pretty ambivalent to it when I lived in UK, but as an expat of 7.5 years I've grown to love some of the quirkier British traditions. Perhaps it's a surrogate nostalgia for our kids' sake: I wish they could partake, and enjoy some of the very British traditions that I did. Except the ale. That's just because there's nowhere else on the planet that serves beer that is warm & flat and tastes so good. Except Ireland, and that's Britain's nearest neighbor and only one drink.

So maybe I don't miss Halloween, I just miss sharing it with the kids. Maybe we'll have a small bonfire in the garden on Guy Fawkes night and burn a lolly stick effigy. Not quite the same as those giant medieval beacons that light up big, smokey crowds at playing fields across Britain, but something a little bit different for the kids. Maybe we'll read spooky stories to the kids, try to bring some autumnal chill to the Caribbean air..!

Stunning planet - in HD

2011-10-30T14:27:00.000-04:00

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

I've always enjoyed these snippets in nature documentaries, but they're even better segued to music - truly majestic!

Privacy: it's all about the information source

2011-10-26T14:44:00.001-04:00

Listening to a presentation from Eric Gertler about privacy, it struck me that the root of the issues with privacy seems to be source definition. Who/what is the source of the information that I, as a consumer, am trying to evaluate?

Sure its about trust, but trust is not very solvable from a technological perspective. Information source definition is very solvable, be it email source validation, social peer review, or genuine twitter accounts. It seems to me that a lot of privacy debate is looking the wrong way: at securing your information assets, rather than providing tools that more readily enable you to validate the sources of information requests. Eg. the UK Data Protection act enables a consumer to obtain any information that a particular company may hold about them. But you have to know that that particular company holds data about you.

A solution that would help to get to the root of the privacy issue would be a non-profit service that tells you (and only you) which companies have information about you. It wouldn't know or tell you what information, only that companies x, y and z have some of your personal information.

Transformers 3: CGI FX porn

2011-10-13T08:24:00.001-04:00

I finally got round to watching the latest Transformers film, and came to the conclusion that it's effectively a porno for computer effects geeks. The effects are gratuitous: not only are the models and particle effects staggeringly complex and overwhelmingly detailed, but the film effects are extreme too: the slow-mo's, wide pans, focus shifts... it's like someone just had to use every FX filter in the box.

But the plot is bad. Porno bad. And the music is epic... a bit too epic... over the top, even. It's not slap bass cheesy, just baffled in the same over-emphatic, this-might-get-dull-otherwise way.

Just like a real porn film, with fx instead of sex. A tad more expensive, too...

So, the verdict: Transformers 3 is porno for FX geeks. That's not meant to be disparaging: its the third in the franchise, so there's obviously a market. And, as a techies who used to try graphics on a ZX spectrum, I am still in awe of how far computer graphics have come within my lifetime.

Google (and ex-Amazon) engineer' fascinating insights

2011-10-13T08:17:00.001-04:00

Google Engineer Accidently Shares His Internal Memo About Google + Platform | Unfiltered Opinion From Silicon Valley

Interestingly, Google didn't censor him they merely suggested he consider how his opinion might be construed outside the organisation (and therefore possibly out of context). He decided to withdraw the post from public view with an explanation.

Great visualisation!

2011-10-12T22:34:00.001-04:00

Where people don’t use Facebook shows a map of the earth with black showing facebook use. Pretty awesome!

A thought: private libraries

2011-10-12T11:06:00.001-04:00

You know those films where there's a big house with a library: either one of those oak-panelled country mansions, with slidey ladders or a nifty little spiral staircase and balcony, or slightly more modern, with shelves for DVDs, CDs and vinyl records. When I was a kid at boarding school, we had similar libraries. At prep school (a converted country manor) the library even had a snooker table, reading lecterns and 19th century Times newspaper reprints. I vowed that one day I would have such a space. A place for contemplation, grazing on information, debating issues with friends with evidence at our fingertips.

Today, as I tidied up my media server, removing duplicates and consolidating different media types onto the one shoebox-sized set of disks, it occurred to me that I had reached my dream, albeit not quite as expected. Over 6,500 tunes, 3,000 videos, 9,000 photos and and small but rapidly increasing collection of ebooks - perhaps 100. Probably enough to fill one of those oak-panelled libraries. In a shoe box.

While the miniaturization is incredible, so rapid an evolution as to be trivial, I couldn't help lamenting the lack of ambience. Sure, I could get the leather chairs and some calm decor and create a 'contemplation space', but I know that it would be superfluous - a nostalgic throwback to a bygone era. With my tablet and headphones anywhere is a contemplation space. And anyone who thinks that's sacrilege should consider which option our forebears would have chosen if they'd had the choice: ipad or all that paper and plastic that had to be stored and indexed and damp & fire-proofed? Libraries are like boats: really nice as long as someone else has to look after them.

Now, as my sync software finishes its consolidation, I'm pondering online backup options. The photos are already on Picasa. The docs are on Sugarsync. And while I have most of the music/video on CD/DVDs in a cupboard a lot of it isn't. Maybe a Mozy backup to Amazon S3 is what's needed.

Maybe, when I re-read this blog entry in 10 years time, I'll snigger at the archaic media server shoe box backup method and wonder how I ever bothered to manage my own media when its all just there online anyway. As content becomes more and more virtual across all media, so the concept of content ownership become increasingly nebulous.

OS vs Web vs Apps

2011-10-11T14:30:00.000-04:00

Open source Operating Systems (OSes) and the web have effectively rendered operating systems irrelevant. Microsoft was so busy milking its cash cow Windows OS that it failed to see this and is stuck in a legacy net. Sure, it profits, but only because businesses (the bulk of Microsoft's profit base) move slower than technology. Consumers have already forgotten about OSes. All they need are apps.

Apps are the excellent middle space between OS and web. OSes are device dependent: you can't run a Windows app on a Mac without some emulation; a blackberry app will not run on an iPhone. The web is network dependent: you can't run anything unless you are connected. Apps are a hybrid: beneath that icon is some local functionality and some web-based functionality. Some apps are little more than a pretty bookmark to a website. Some apps are mostly offline (like games), with a small online component (eg. posting high scores to Twitter).

If you're going to build an app today where do you start? Apple has the bigger, more profitable app market, but Android has more devices out there. And what about the smaller players: Windows Mobile and Blackberry? I believe the answer is simple: the web.

Since most apps have an online component anyway (particularly if you're looking to exploit cutting-edge in-app purchasing), you might as well start there. The technology platform is ubiquitous - every phone, tablet and laptop has a browser - and most web analytics track what browsers are accessing your site, so once you generate a crowd, you can then decide, based on actual evidence, which app channel you're going to develop for first.

Undervalued privacy

2011-09-30T11:19:00.001-04:00

Great piece along the same theme as my prior post about Facebook not being free: Cory Doctorow - Tech Companies Exploit the Way We Undervalue Privacy - NYTimes.com

Doctorow is a specialist in this field, and his view are more developed and rigorous than mine.

Facebook is not free

2011-09-23T20:34:00.003-04:00

See original post here.

Parenthood

2011-09-17T18:32:00.001-04:00

Since my wife has been at a conference overseas for a week, and I've been left in charge of the offspring (girl, 5 and boy, 2), it's been a good time to focus and reflect on parenthood. I'd best capture my thoughts here while they're fresh and before the comfortably numb family routine dissipates them like whispers in a strong breeze.

Parenthood is the greatest thing that can happen to a person. Not only from the biological imperative perspective (continuing the genes etc.), but from the self-discovery and self-fulfillment perspective. Nothing makes you reflect on the value of your life like the responsibility of raising children. Nothing gives you the full gamut of emotion, from elation to tears, of watching your offspring navigate their way through life. There is no greater love, even though it is seldom as well expressed, as inspirational, as romantic love.

The thing that surprised me about parenthood, as a single person, was how much it influenced my attitude and actions. I recall many times, as an uncle to my brothers' kids, thinking that there's no way I'd do this or that for someone else. Yet when they are your own offspring not only do you do it willingly, it doesn't even occur to you to do otherwise. Selflessness is not really a choice for a parent: we all have to do it to a lesser or greater extent. That lack of choice is scary for some and underestimated by many (particularly those without kids).

Yet parenthood is so common it's trivial. Naff even. Although I think the naffness is really to do with schmaltzy films trying to cash in on the phenomenon, rather than treat it as it really is: a background plot of incidental, often poignant moments in the lives of most adult humans on the planet. It's an experience, like the best and worst experiences, that can be described and compared, but never truly shared with anyone but your partner.

Right, back to cottage pie and Wallace & Gromit...

Impressive social media stats

2011-09-12T17:29:00.001-04:00

Report Details Rise of Social Media - NYTimes.com

So social media is 22.5% of peoples' time online, with Facebook being the bulk of that. What would really interest me is how that compares to other leisure activities. I still think that social media is more leisure than business/production, although I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

Tablet v smartphone

2011-09-09T17:05:00.001-04:00

I'm always intrigued at how technology blends together in real life. "The street has its own use for technology," as William Gibson said.

My cheapo LG smartphone died. Battery was getting tired anyway, so I switched to the backup: a bog standard Nokia X2 17-button phone. Sure it has data (GPRS, here in the Caribbean), but the screen's tiny and these days I'm about as good at typing on a numeric keypad as I am at sharpening a quill.

Luckily I have a 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab (yes, the one that is now illegal in Germany - all offers around the price of a 7.7" Tab considered!). It has a waterproof wallet (living on an island it's best to have every portable electronic device waterproofed) with a shoulder strap. I didn't realise it came with a shoulder strap when I ordered the Beachbouy wallet, but am now glad it does because it is effectively my briefcase. I'm typing this blog entry on it now. No, it doesn't replace a laptop, but if I need to sit down and do some proper work I'll use my laptop because I'll work faster with a 15" screen and a keyboard. You see, with a 7" Galaxy Tab you can type fast standing up, unlike bigger tablets. Just try it with an iPad - preferably someone else's, just in case you drop it.

But you can type fast on a smartphone standing up too, right? Especially one with a keyboard. Yes you can, but the screen is too small for seriously productive correspondence because the keyboard takes up too much of the screen, or, in the case of blackberries, the screen is a bit too small. And the apps are crap, but that's another post.

Since switching to the small dumb phone and the tablet I have realised a few things:-

1. Fewer distractions: instant email is distracting. If I need to check email, I'll pull out my tablet. Otherwise I'm instantly reachable by phone if its urgent. "Urgent" emails are usually simply a reflection of the sender's self-importance or poor communication skills, unless the sender is willing to follow them up with a phone call - the real urgent bit.

2. Better organisation: the power feature of Android is actually the 'Share' menu option. Unlike other mobile OSes this is not app-specific, but an OS service that exposes apps that subscribe to it. So when I download a new app it automatically can share to any other apps on my phone that support sharing. This means I can share the Blogaway post with my Twitter app, my Facebook app and, say, Evernote. I can add webpages and emails directly to my Gtask list or my calendar for dealing with later. I could do this on my smartphone but the trouble with that is that I would, wherever I happened to be, as soon as I got that distracting email or other beep. With my tablet I can still do the organising anywhere but at a time that suits me.

3. Media: just because you can watch TV on your smartphone doesn't mean you want to. Same with ebooks. I've actually read several books on my smartphone, and switching to a Tab was a revelation: its paperback book size and after dark readability was lovely. Similar for movies: holding the 7" screen at book distance is as good as a wide screen TV.

In summary, there's only one important interruption in life: somebody calling you, either in person or via phone. The rest should be received whenever and wherever you're ready to process it. Basic phone + book sized tablet is the perfect combination.

The real value of Facebook?

2011-09-07T20:04:00.001-04:00

Facebook's intrinsic value

Google+ and identity: a pseudo-controversy

2011-09-01T09:54:00.001-04:00

When you're a ubiquitous internet company, and your very name is a dictionary noun, it's inevitable that any actions you take that impact privacy/security will be closely scrutinised - at best.

The bruhaha about online identity verification being a pre-requisite for membership of Google+ is, to my mind, a non-argument. Cynics and even sceptics try to buff up the tired old arguments about Google helping oppressors oppress, about them abusing our privacy, about them wanting to take over the world. Frankly, they're living in the old, amateur internet, where commerce was still basically offline (although transactions might be online, your identity was typically proven, initially, offline) and identity didn't matter. The internet is no longer a simple playground for self-expression.

These days, Technology, the god of amplification, is completely inter-twined with people's sense of identity, be it financial or socio-political. It can amplify and mobilise mass-sentiment: one man's insurrection is another man's riot. It can record an increasing amount of your life's interactions: your family and friends' lives, your preferences, hobbies, opinions.

These are precious things, worth protecting. My identity is mine, not yours. Oh yeah? Prove it! "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog". Nobody knows you're you, yet you (or your identity thief) are increasingly asking people to vouch for you on the internet. To establish a trustworthy, creditable (yes, and commerce-able) ecosystem you have to be able to establish credentials. Is that REALLY @stephenfry you're following on Twitter? Or one if his web flunkies? Or an imposter? Twitter has attempted to establish a trustmark, to validate some Twitter accounts, so why not Google?

Nobody is saying you MUST identify yourself on the internet. They're saying "if you want to enter our network, please verify your identity". If you don't want to join, don't fill out the form. In this age of identity theft, social hacking and spam I welcome any such initiative. Woof!

The Web Masons

2011-08-22T23:12:00.001-04:00

m.e.driscoll's blog - a really interesting, if slightly romanticised view of silicon valley engineers. In my own experience engineers can be as trend-hungry and trend-setting as catty fashionistas. The difference is that their tastes are more geeky: software thread performance, rather than actual thread arrangements.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Samsung's slice of Apple's hefty pie

2011-08-11T04:55:00.001-04:00

Great infographic from The Economist on how much Apple relies on Samsung and how much revenue they make on iphones. Basically they make two thirds of the money, yet they just design the damn thing. Nice work!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Taking the App out of Apple

2011-07-27T20:06:00.001-04:00

http://m.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/sidestepping-apple-from-amazon-to-conde-companies-rethink-their-app-strategies/

. . . is why Im glad I didn't get an ipad (just yet anyway). With the new Lion OSX's app store I may not be upgrading my macbook pro, either. The app model has its benefits, but profiting through adding little value is a short-term game.

They made the same mistake with macs in the 90s: got greedy and said that only Apple-certified peripherals could be used with a mac. So no HP printers, no monitors etc. It was their death knell because too few consumers were willing to compromise choice over Apple's 'usability' benefits.

20 years on, they're playing the same card again. Maybe they have enough momentum this time. Doesn't make it right, though. Or sustainable.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

iOS 5

2011-06-12T09:11:00.001-04:00

It's usually a telling moment when a market leader starts to obviously copy the competition, especially when they drive so hard at innovation being their key differentiator.

So, I see that the latest iPhone/iPad OS update has pull-down notifications. Wherever did they get that cool idea? Android. To be fair they did downplay the 'innovation' mantra this time, but could this be the turning point in Apple's cheeky, self-consciously sophisticated, upstart image? A hint of market cap leader complacency, perhaps?

The downside of having a closed business model, where you're constantly seeking to lock your customers in, is that the more you succeed the more you risk isolating yourself and your customer. You risk padding yourself from the cutting edge of competition, and if your customers take a dislike to your products/direction, the difficulty of switching could cause a strong backlash on your popularity. Basically, it's hard to sustain.

Personally, I prefer the days when Apple were the rebels, layering great design over open source technologies in the perfect mashup devices.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.1

"Ownership" and the cloud

2011-05-23T13:58:00.000-04:00

Reading this somewhat biased piece in Wired, I started thinking about what ownership of digital assets is starting to mean. Those books we download for Kindle, those tunes we buy in iTunes... do we own them, or have we just bought the rights to use (read/play) them in certain circumstances? What's the difference?

Well, try lending that Kindle book or iTunes album to a mate, just as you might a book or a CD. You can't. There's not even a resale model. What about those hotels with little libraries where you leave a book and grab another holiday read off the shelf? How would you do that with a Kindle? This is the big attractor for publishers: everyone must 'buy' their own copy - there's no transfer of ownership. Which is quite at odds with the rest of modern technology's recent 'socialise & share' ethos.

And what about piracy? Not the industrial scale store-full-of-DVDs piracy, but the small, friendly stuff: borrowing a CD and ripping it to your iTunes. If you were to fill your 160GB ipod with music at $0.99 a tune, your ipod would have $50,000 worth of music on it. That's a lot of money depending on a couple of hard disks (1 ipod, 1 computer).

When you buy a digital song from Amazon, it doesn't use up any of your S3 cloud storage. Presumably this is because it's already stored in Amazon, so your purchase simply gives you access to their stored copy. Taken to its logical extreme, the proposition is that we'd only be paying for access rights to pieces of media from any device that is authenticated as our own. So, I buy a new device (laptop/tablet/phone), login to my Amazon/Google/Apple account, and then either download or stream my entire music/video/book collection. You could see a future where such service providers could then profile how much of your collection you play, and then offer a subscription service. $20 a month for whatever music/video/books you like - flat-rate media consumption. It's already there for some media (eg. Netflix for video). All that's missing is the application to full multimedia collections, and the custom pricing (utility pricing, even?)

It wouldn't eliminate piracy, but by taking our personal media management into the cloud, it would presumably make piracy more awkward: iTunes would only backup your purchased music, right? Or if it did backup the other stuff, it might not sync it as well across other devices (eg. streaming). Will it all join up? What if I'm an iTunes user, but that tune I like is only available through Amazon?

We're about to have an interesting couple of years in the consumer media market, I think.

Laughter

2011-05-16T09:14:00.001-04:00

One of those fascinating parenthood micro-events happened last night - the sort that are apparently mundane, but when it's your kids, whom you observe so closely, the event takes on some profound insight.

We were watching Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and while Bella was rapt, Ryan was barely watching and more absorbed in playing with his trucks. At one point in the film, the father figure is juggling and drops an apple into the gravy, which splashes all over his face. One by one, the whole family in the movie starts laughing until they're all guffawing. It's actually rather twee and forced, but as they start to laugh on the TV, Bella and Ryan join in. I don't think either of them found the initial event that funny (not even sure Ryan caught it), but they were both guffawing away as much as the folks in the movie.

Such is the infectious power of laughter. Haha!

How Amazon has outsmarted the music industry (and Apple) | ZDNet

2011-03-31T21:37:00.000-04:00

This article got me thinking.

I first bought Amazon music when I got my Android phone. I was in London, in a cafe and saw an advert in a magazine for the new Gorillaz album. In a brainwave, I browsed my new phone to the Amazon MP3 app, signed in with my Amazon credentials, searched and found the album, and purchased & downloaded it right there. I left the cafe listening to my freshly downloaded album. No PC or mac (or shop!) required. A few months later that phone died - the screen smashed. I took out the SD card, slotted it into a new Android phone right there in the phone shop and walked out listening to that same album. Try doing that with an iPhone (you need a PC/mac to register and sync your iWhatever).

So, on Monday, I was talking to one of our enterprise software suppliers about trialling the newest version of the software. Did they have a virtual machine I could add to our test server and run it? The trouble was getting it to me: I'm in Barbados and they are UK-based. It's probably a 20GB file - take a long time and probably fail. Easier if I create an Amazon Web Services account and they then hook me into a Machine Image (AMI) on there. Setting this up proved to be a fifteen minute job. And I realised what Amazon web services has become. It is no longer the purview of the data centre techies who want big servers 'in the cloud', and so are willing to spend the hours figuring out virtualisation and clustering and stuff. Sure, all that stuff is there for them, but it is also viable and accessible to the individual, whether it's just backing up your files, running your own online desktop (yes, Windows Remote Desktop!), or running your own website without all the usual shared hosting restrictions.

Finally, yesterday I saw the original announcement of Amazon's Cloud disk and thought 'just another dropbox/sugarsync online disk thingy'. I went and claimed my free 5GB anyway and noticed that your Amazon-purchased music and kindle books aren't included in the storage quota, which I thought was quite nice. Oh, and it has a music player to play your stuff through your browser, which I ho-hummed at.

Now this article has got me thinking. Amazon as Apple's main competitor? Yes, I see it. Amazon started at the warehouse end, flogging products online and then extending that to marketplaces and finally to the infrastructure itself, which it is now in the process of personalising. All that media you buy from us? Keep it with us, and consume it when/where you need it, either on our device or someone else's. Apple, on the other hand, produced a cool little music player with an online catalogue, and extended that to a multimedia player for podcasts, movies, books and, with increasingly more sensors, apps. All these wonderful toys, just for our devices... via our store.

They have met in the virtual middle. On the one hand you have cool devices, and on the other hand you have powerful, flexible online storage. How long can Apple keep its cool?

Barbados highway code

2011-03-29T08:41:00.000-04:00

A highway has two lanes to provide more room for folks who drive their cars like boats. It provides you with freedom of choice: to choose a lane, irrespective of speed, that suits you, that enables you to coast alongside your buddy at a stately 40km/h, while you're on the phone with your other buddy. And should you notice a fast-moving vehicle approaching you from the rear, it is your god-given right to maintain your course and not yield to the scurrilous pursuer, who may or may not be racing to resolve a life-threatening situation.

It has been said that an Englishman will form an orderly queue of one. A Bajan, on the other hand, will form a large queue... as long as they are at the front of it.

Google connects to Microsoft Office - finally!

2011-02-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

Of course there is 'bait & switch' here: Microsoft's business model is predicated on having fat desktops with far too much functionality/complexity/resource utilisation. Google's business model is for you to stick everything on the web, where it has to be simpler, but also less secure and, yes, more exposed to Google's advertising.

The difference is that Microsoft's web offerings still expect you to use (== purchase) Microsoft desktop technologies (at least the browser, which means the OS too, these days). Google's offerings have no such limitations and are typically free. So why shouldn't they try to connect them to Microsoft's bloatware?

The pace of mobile tech

2011-02-06T21:24:00.001-04:00

I heard about the LG Optimus 2x phone at CES in early January. It caught my eye because I have an LG Optimus 1 and it's reasonably good, but fatally flawed by a crap touchscreen (resistive, rather than capacitative). I got it because it was just over 100 GBP unlocked for a fully-fledged Android smartphone. Why unlocked? Because I live in a land where Blackberries are considered smartphones and cost as much.

So I was watching these videos of the Optimus 2x and it struck me: there are now phones that can record HD video, and you can plug into your giant flat TV and watch the HD video. Or play an HD video game. Or browse the internet. Or make video calls. So: screw DVD, blueray and set-top boxes. Screw consoles. Screw video conferencing. Do you remember before the internet, when PCs were natty little workhorses, with the occasional nifty game, like Wolfenstein 3D? Well, that's where they're going again: back to the workplace.

Personal Computers (truly personal) are now cigarette pack-sized touchscreens with optional keyboards and big screens. I don't want an iPad, or any tablet. I want a paper-light 10" touchscreen that I can snugly dock my phone to. And optionally plug a keyboard or mouse into. Finally, the size constraint of the technology is fast becoming the user's physical interactions - our fingers are only so small, and nobody can depend on styli. Touch is just the beginning: it's just a brittle surface and it's already becoming a constraint.

So that's all happened in, what, 5 years? My daughter's 4. What the hell am I going to be buying her when she's 14? The mind boggles..!

Thunder in the Cloud

2011-01-16T09:22:00.001-04:00

I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone exposed the dark side of cloud computing. Graphics processing chips are experts at floating-point calculations and matrix transformations. These forms of maths are particularly useful for cracking security keys. Ergo, GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) are good for cracking codes. Until recently the Amazon Electronic Cloud Computing (EC2) platform didn't offer GPUs, only the more conventional CPUs. EC2 allows you to massively scale up your processing power and charges for it like a utility. This very useful for one-off heavy computation tasks, or for web startups who, if they find their site becomes incredibly popular very quickly, can scale up automatically, without incurring significant infrastructure costs.

So, Amazon EC2 cloud + GPUs = massive GPU processing power for rent = great hacking platform. I suspect this is just the beginning: this is a new battleground for good vs evil exploitation of technology.

The interesting question, for now, is the ethical one: should Amazon prevent such activity? There was a lot of criticism when Amazon booted Wikileaks off their cloud. As one pundit on Slashdot.org put it "Amazon should show the same responsibility that Ford show in preventing their cars from being used as getaway cars." (ie. none). However, the counter-argument could also be that military contractors are obliged not to sell their state-of-the-art tech to dodgy countries.

The Internet and the state

2011-01-06T16:41:00.000-04:00

This is a good summary of the key issues in the simmering debate about whether the internet is a good or bad thing for society. What's most interesting is that this avoids the tiresome discussions about personal use/abuse of technology (which is a matter of choice/conditioning anyway) and sticks to the sociological & political factors. It also takes a long-term view, not the usual "look at this example of disruptive technology - cool, eh?", arguing that "Internet freedom is a long game, to be conceived of and supported not as a separate agenda but merely as an important input to the more fundamental political freedoms."

Christmas catharsis

2010-12-23T18:50:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I took this week off expecting to powerwash the pool & steps, do some touch-up painting and replace some fixtures & fittings. "Painting up for xmas" as the Bajans call it. Well, shit, if I'd have known how it would have gone I'd have stayed at work.

First the dishwasher died. A brief forensic analysis implied the water valve: when I put water in it worked, but the water wasn't pumping in automatically, despite the pipe being clear. Must be the valve. Then the powerwasher didn't work. It started, but as soon as pressure was applied the motor cut out. Okay, I'd left it a few months and didn't drain it, so change oil, drain fuel, check plug. Need oil.

Monday: 2nd destination I found right motor oil, and 3rd destination yielded... "no" to the water valve. Not "try " or "we could order the part for you"; just "no". Our survey said "eh-ehhh". Gotta love that Bajan "I really don't care about selling you anything" customer service.

Tuesday: Colin popped round, and since he knows his way around the tricky bits of a 747, I figured my powerwasher problems were solved. "Air's ok, sparks ok, so it's your fuel pipe or carburettor." Or it could be the water pressure as the hose, even when connected by a shredded brass end to the washer, is pissing water. So, sort out the hose, drain the carb. Got hose fixture at 2nd destination. Wrong fixture: 5/8" hose not 1/2" - fucking imperial measurements. The British empire has a lot to answer for... in America, where they still use the stupid fucking system. "The British are coming!" No, we fucking left, as you LOVE to point out, shortly after the Boston Tea Party, but you still insist on using our antiquated measurement system. Now, there's a post-imperial headfuck for you: you threw us out of your country, yet retain our stupid fucking measurement system, even though we, along with many other sensible nations, have moved on.

Wednesday: swapped hose fitting, got part for dishwasher... at the 3rd attempt + an hour wait because the person with the cashbox went to lunch and forgot to give anyone the key. 3.5 hours on de road. Dishwasher part did not fix the problem. Fuck you, dishwasher!

Thursday: morning with Ryan - bliss with my 18 month old boy. Holetown was a parking lot sprawled over most of Sunset Crest, so I avoided the supermarket, got a couple of presents and navigated the traffic with Ryan yelling unintelligible support from the back seat. Afternoon: attempted to fix hose, no joy. Tried other hose: it leaked; brass fixture was hand-tightened, but I couldn't get it off the tap. Tried hammer, tap blew off: we had a fountain in the garden next to the porch. Called father-in-law, who called James the plumber. He's in the area, will be here shortly. I decided it's rum o'clock, so took a beverage and decided to get some garden xmas lights up and varnish a couple of bar stools. James the plumber proved to be a xmas miracle: not only did he turn the fountain back into a shiny new tap, but only charged $150 for the privilege. Okay, it's $150 I hadn't planned on spending, but it could have been a lot worse. The AC guy I got in last month cleaned 4 AC units, one of which wasn't working, and charged me $1000.

Gotta take the positives where you find 'em. I'll have one last crack at the powerwasher tomorrow morning. If that fails then fuck it, the garden's grimy for xmas. Thank god I didn't attempt the garden nativity - I'd probably be in hospital by now...!

WikiLeaks, the "War On Terror" and personal empowerment

2010-12-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

This articlet (The Economist) makes a very interesting point at the end; that, while calling Assange and Wikileaks terrorists is 'deeply counterproductive' the best lessons for dealing with Wikileaks can be gleaned from the decade-long "war on terror":

Deal with the source of the problem, not just its symptoms. Keep the moral high ground. And pick fights you can win.

It got me thinking that the pattern here is really one of personal empowerment. Modern technology provides individuals with incredible augmentation: no X-men genetic mutations required, just a few grams of strategically placed combustibles, or a phone camera, or a website, or all of the above. The capacity for one individual to influence their society has never been greater, and is still increasing exponentially. If mass media put gods and demons among us, then multimedia significantly lowered the qualifying criteria. Julian Assange is no media tycoon, nor even a feted (foetid?) journalist. He's just an outsider with strong principles and powerful media skills. Yet he has captured the world media's attention with an incredibly anarchic act that has angered nation states across the world.

Whether you're for it or against it, Wikileaks, like international terrorism (or 'asymmetric warfare', as the Pentagon liked to call it) is here to stay in whatever incarnation it takes next. It's for society, and our civic structures in particular, to get to grips with these 'people with causes' and address them appropriately. One approach may be that sometimes adopted by the information security industry: offer them a job.

Why Google may not go the way of Microsoft

2010-12-11T17:18:00.000-04:00

Interesting article discussing the current threats to Google, and how it is mitigating them. Bookmarked here, so that I can find it again next year and compare how they are doing then.

The evolution of spam

2010-12-08T15:28:00.000-04:00

The economist had an excellent piece about spam and online fraud last month. Key points:-

Spam email has massively reduced in the last 5 years. Research in 2008 showed only 28 “sales” on 350m e-mail messages sent, a conversion rate under .00001%
It's now more about making you click, to download malware, than making you buy whatever's on offer.

In the face of these diminishing returns on spam email, spammers are now targeting social apps:

Twitter ... estimates that only 1% of its traffic is spam. But researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana show that 8% of links published were shady, with most of them leading to scams and the rest to Trojans. Links in Twitter messages, they found, are over 20 times more likely to get clicked than those in e-mail spam.

In Facebook, BitDefender set up some fake profiles to research ease of spamming:-
They got up to 100 new friends a day
When they invited people with at least 1 mutual friend, they got 50% hit-rate of new friends
Overall, they got 25% of their new friends to click on malware links.
The koobface trojan, spreading via social networks since May 2008 has profits estimated at $2m, and it's still out there...

So, caveat clicker, and be careful who you befriend!

The FT's take on Facebook

2010-12-05T12:33:00.000-04:00

This is a nice layman's summary of the whole Facebook phenomenon. It's a private members club of 500 million people. The inherent threat to Facebook's existence is, therefore, a mass exodus. Social networks are nothing if not fickle, so to hedge against this Facebook has to wall the garden: members can put stuff in, but we can't take stuff out (easily, anyway). If I upload a photo to Facebook from my phone, I can't share that photo using Google Buzz.

If, like me, you believe that information fundamentally wants to be open, then Facebook may seem like the best enabler of that; except that it's a privately-owned company and it co-owns whatever information you give it. Your rights are not exactly violated so much as 'shared': you can control you stuff on there, but so can they. But they can also change the rules on that, and if past evidence is anything to go by, the majority of us won't care. So, Facebook does not really practice open information.

Unlike Google. Imagine if Google had thought of Facebook first. How would they have done it? I suspect it would have been rather like Diaspora. A completely open platform for anyone to create their own Facebook, but federated using Google identity management, and of course, linking to Google's giant advertising machine. Would it have caught on as well? Very doubtful: most of the awesome tech that Google develops is too raw, too geeky for mainstream users, and even the more user-friendly stuff assumes more tech knowledge than the average punter has.

So Facebook has its place. But as its importance increases, as it burrows its way into the social fabric, it will hit sensitive seams like religion and politics head-on, not just via its users, and those walls around the garden will be challenged. The question is: will they open them, or fortify them?

Facebook takes on email - good luck with that!

2010-11-16T13:23:00.000-04:00

Good article here (Facebook's Platform Coup D'Etat of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo) about Facebook's new messaging. Interesting that it says Gmail is only 15% of online email, with Hotmail at 30% and Yahoo at 45% - the latter two effectively being Microsoft. So it's not so much a blow at Google as at Microsoft/Yahoo's 75% share, it seems.

But is it a blow? I'm not sure that the convenience of integrated email in Facebook would outweigh privacy concerns. Facebook already has rights to all the pictures of my kids I post there. That's why I post most pics to Picasa, which then notifies Facebook. They'd have rights to my email contents too? And even if they don't have rights, they know who I've been emailing with, both inside and outside Facebook. Fundamentally, their business model is predicated on users' online promiscuity.

While teenage communication behaviour is often used as a predictor of future communication culture, you have to balance that with life phases. Most teenagers (certainly those with time to burn on Facebook) don't have a professional life. Their life is all about social networking, online and offline. I'm not convinced they'll carry those same traits into their professional lives.

Will Facebook become more than a 'keep in touch with friends' tool in mainstream adult culture? I'm not convinced. Facebook taking on email is a good, sensible progression - I have several friends & family whose email I don't know because I just contact them via Facebook. But as anything more than a convenience?

Fackin' students

2010-11-11T09:06:00.000-04:00

What is all the fuss? Record high grades at GCSE and A level would imply that the country's youth are getting smarter. Are they really? Or are standards slipping? Moot point, but the net result is that there are more people than ever in the UK trying to get a higher education. On the face of it this seems a good thing, but only if what they are studying will enhance their ability to contribute to society.

My year was one of the first to pay student loans. We still got grants for tuition fees (if eligible), but they wouldn't cover full tuition and certainly not living expenses. The interest was about 1.2%, and I paid mine off in about 3 years. Some of my peers with less vocational qualifications (my degree was Computing Systems) took longer to pay theirs off. IT seems to suffer a perennial 'skills crisis' in the UK, so I had every confidence I could pay my loan off. I was also a member of the National Youth Theatre, which opened many doors to drama schools. I chose not to take them. Because I met successful and unsuccessful actors, and not only did the latter far outweigh the former, but often the only difference in talent between them was a lucky break. The difference in income and lifestyle was tragic: kings and clowns. My MBA was self-funded and done in parallel with a full-time job.

Most private sector loans have eligibility criteria that factor in the ability of the person to pay back the loan and the risk of default. Why not include those here? How about tiered payments based on usefulness of the degree you're taking? Useful = grant supported; Underwater basket-weaving = pay for it yourself. Base it on a list published by Dept of Industry (or whatever it's called these days) every summer. Not only would this encourage students to take more useful degrees and acknowledge the risk of studying less useful ones, it would also encourage UK industry to be much more specific about the skills it needs.

Sure, it's biased against some of the more traditional, less directly vocational subjects (eg. classical greek or latin), but I suspect there's a strong case that so are the aspirations of the bulk of student applicants these days. Many just want a degree in whatever they think they can get. There's nothing to stop a smart kid wanting to study ancient greek at Oxford; they'll just have to pay more, presumably smug in the knowledge that an Oxford MA is a good enough meal ticket to pay off the bigger loan, even if it means a couple of years working in the city to pay it off before tootling back to get the PhD and become the next Classics professor. And if you're a good artist or actor there are plenty of other ways to get sponsorship from people who appreciate your talents (some of them are even televised, for your nation's enjoyment!).

It's good to see students marching again. Student activism is the most vibrant, wholesome, cathartic part of a democratic society. But I think the social contract between student body and government just needs tweaking: less swingeing cuts and more clinical cuts. But cuts nonetheless.

Tron 2 preview - wow

2010-11-09T16:02:00.000-04:00

Looks very slick... "lickable", as Steve Jobs would have said 10 years ago. And in 3D it looks to be spectacular...

Stat of the day

2010-11-04T11:17:00.001-04:00

From the Economist:

In Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia (the so-called BRICI countries), there are 610m regular internet users but a staggering 1.8 billion mobile-phone connections, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

So THAT'S why Apple, Google and now Microsoft are getting all jumpy over mobile data. There are a billion people out there with a capability in their hands that they are not using yet. Cha-ching!

Nothing grey about this economist's outlook

2010-11-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

Tim Jackson's economic reality check (Video on TED.com) is a fascinating reflection on what it is to be a member of society today. It's about as zeitgeisty as it gets in a lecture hall, especially from an economist. The principle is, well, the title of his book, really: Prosperity without growth. Historically, the two have always been tied together: companies grow profits, increase market share/value; countries increase GDP; I buy a bigger house/car. His argument is that this is not sustainable, so we need to review this assumption at both personal and societal levels.

It made me think about a lot of things, not only concerning my life, but the world my kids are emerging into, and the issues they are going to face. All in a very upbeat and sensible way - no fear-mongering, moralistic ranting here.

The Players of Games

2010-11-03T11:17:00.000-04:00

I saw this article in the Economist, which led to this article, about professional computer games players. At first sight the idea of computer gaming as professional sport may seem absurd, but, as the first article points out, snooker's early professionals were probably similarly derided.

The top players in this sport can earn over $200,000 a year, making it as viable a career option as many other sports. But is it as wholesome, as skillful, as spectacular as other sports? Perhaps not physically, but, having watched a couple of bouts of Starcraft 2 on the biggest gamer channel's biggest tournament, I think it might be a goer.

Each bout (or 'set') is about 45 minutes, which is well within sports watchers' attention spans. I'm no big gamer, although I have played similar games, so I'm vaguely familiar with the format, controls and complexity of such realtime strategy games. While the action was at times difficult to follow, it was no less accessible than, say, cricket. All it would need is better explanatory commentary. The commentators covered the highlights well, explaining the skills and tactics on show, but it was quite hard to grasp what you were seeing. Packaging, in other words: there's little wrong with the product, from an entertainment perspective, it just needs better presentation. The screen is a bit cluttered with arguably unnecessary detail. I believe Starcraft 2 is one of the first games designed with spectators in mind, and there's clearly more scope for evolution here. But with over 250,000 viewers for some matches, there's definitely an audience, so plenty of justification for such an evolution.

While it's never going to replace more tangible sports, I think there's sufficient complexity and excitement within the games, and beyond-amateur prowess on show that, coupled with the inherent low cost global distribution model, there could be serious money in such sports in future.

'Like' button elections - the future?

2010-11-02T09:50:00.000-04:00

Some strange quotes swarmed into my consciousness today, starting with...

The means of communication the electorate can use and enjoy are becoming more and more inaccessible while the fantasies of those who seek to influence us become more and more powerful.

from AL Kennedy in the Guardian.
Which got me thinking about influence and where people in this day & age ascribe credit. Is it that society is simply addicted to the trivialities of 'reality' TV, instead of wholesome political discourse, like junk food vs a healthy diet? Maybe the problem with politics and economics is not content but presentation. Opinions about reality TV are social & frivolous. They are sport: accessible, fast-evolving interactions, with 'like' buttons, blogs and discussion threads. Whereas politics and economics are weighed down with gravitas, and as such find it necessary to spurn lightweight interactions.

Perhaps the true electoral reform would simply be a Facebook Election page, with 'like' buttons next to the candidates. Referenda could be conducted the same way. When you think about it, opinion polls are simply models to compensate for a lack of capability: historically, it was impossible to get everyone's opinion about a topic, at least in a time frame that was reasonable for research purposes. Now, with the internet, and social networks weaving their way through it like ivy up a tree, there is a capability to rapidly grab and even validate votes online.

Obviously, in practice, the validation mechanisms would need to be more robust than Facebook (I think there are 6 other Neil Taggarts in the UK on there, and any one of those could be an alter-ego for an enterprising immigrant), but the principle is sound. Let the fast-flowing opinions pour forth. Sure, the crowd is fickle, but as any Pericles fan will tell you (shortly after explaining that, no, he's not on Facebook) that just means the oratory must be better. More immediate. More intimate. Shorter feedback loops. For politics to be more active, it must become more interactive.

Autopilot

2010-10-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

Seeing all the fuss about Google experimenting with cars that drive themselves (cue eerie music) got me thinking.

Much of public transport drives itself these days: the Docklands Light Railway is unmanned, in most other trains the driver is only there to supervise. Even commercial aircraft are fly-by-wire, auto-navigation, Instrument Landing System -equipped behemoths. Airline pilots don't fly the plane so much as ensure it flies itself properly, and when it doesn't, they know what to do: they manage by exception, which is no less exceptional than their predecessors, it simply takes the mundane bits out of their jobs.

So why are cars different?

For Americans it's obvious: their society and cities are all relatively modern and shaped around the automobile. They are a combustion society, whether it's handguns or engines. Cars are deeply personal to the American individual: kids can 'take a roadtrip' before they can drink. But the speed limit in the US is 55 mph; US cars are not kitted for speed and handling, like European cars, they are built for comfort; for crossing states the size of Europe. Would Americans mind if their car could auto-drive them the 4 hour journey to Disney World on Labor Day weekend? Probably not. Would they be happy to take the train? Certainly not. Having a car is emblematic of the constitutional rights of the individual.

For Europeans, it's a bit more complicated. European cities are not designed for automobiles, with simple grid patterns, wide avenues and ample parking. European roads can be small and twisty, requiring nippy, agile cars, as opposed to big engine, comfort cars - formula one instead of NASCAR. Yet European public transport is generally excellent: even the French have rapid, efficient trains. Most Europeans don't have an issue with public transport, either - possibly because of the history of this efficiency. I've inter-railed throughout Europe and quite enjoyed the whimsical dilemma of standing at Munich station and opting to go to Rome instead of Vienna because the Rome train was 40 minutes sooner. Driving for Europeans is a pleasure, as much as driving for Americans is an expression of personal freedom. European cars are far more popular in the US than US cars are in Europe, not because US cars are crap, but because Europeans, and even shrewd Far Eastern car manufacturers, make cars fun to handle.

At the extreme cars are now intimate: they are no longer a way to get you from A to whichever B takes your fancy, in comfort, but they are almost pornographically personal symbols of status, pleasure and loyalty. To automate that is to steal its soul.

And yet... I remember seeing the first fly-by-wire airline at the Farnborough Airshow, and my dad trying to explain the significance of this rather mundane looking passenger aircraft. He, an experienced fighter and test pilot, was positively effervescent about this technology. There was no hint of it spoiling the art/enjoyment of flying aircraft, of robbing him of the enjoyment of flying. It was all about safety. This aircraft could do things that no pilot could do: it could fly amazingly close to stall point, it could automatically trim the aircraft, should an engine fail, in milliseconds. The point was: you could tell the machine what you wanted to do, and it would figure out the details. I remember when power-steering was first introduced in cars and the skeptics said that it took away the 'feel' of the car. Yet how many luxury sportscars today DON'T have power steering? None.

Auto-drive, like autopilot, can still be switched off. But, as any individualist knows, it's nice to have the choice.

September Morn

2010-09-07T02:50:00.000-04:00

Waking with cold ears, cold tiles, cold toilet seats... just some of the subjects Neil Diamond could have sung about in September Morn. Living in hot countries so long I had forgotten such important minutiae of UK autumn living. 2nd night jet lag also meant that there was no treefrog/cicada orchestra to mask odd noises and woo me to sleep at 3am. Just the deafening english countryside silence, with intriguing feral taps and rustles to pique your curiosity... at 3am. Im typing this under covers, trying to work up the warmth for the bathroom run. How quickly you forget when it's no longer part of daily routine, eh?

Book synopsis: Credit

2010-08-20T23:52:00.000-04:00

Ryan Alexander is a young business analyst in London, dreaming of being a startup millionaire. He wakes one morning to find several million pounds in his bank account. What will he do?

He takes it and invests it... rather well, as it turns out. When the original owners of the money catch up with him, they're not sure whether to sue him or hire him... nor are the people who bungled the attempt to steal it from them.

The story explores the questionable credit status of modern society: our reality-media values, our virtual libertarianism, our media-propagated vices. What does credit mean in our hyper real age?

On devices

2010-08-13T15:33:00.000-04:00

So, last month my Macbook Pro died - a logic board failure. My perfect, portable, emailing, browsing, report writing, movie watching, photo editing, ipod syncing sliver of aluminium (with backlit keys) was done. Priceless data safe, but expensive hardware now history. Well, fixable, but half the cost of the laptop again + shipping + duties = a laptop (+ shipping + duties).

I was peeved, but at least I had my work laptop and my trusty Google phone (nexus one). I could do most of the above list from my phone too: email, browsing, movies, photos, vids, music... and it stored or accessed the data for most of my 'stuff'. It dropped at 14:04 this afternoon, as I was lifting 4 year old daughter's birthday bike into the truck, and the screen cobwebbed. Again, data safe, expensive hardware consigned to history. This was a blow.

Barbados does not have an Apple store, or Apple-certified support centre. From a strict licensing perspective Apple products do not exist here. Nor do Google phones. Barbados is off the technorati map, basically. Having these items was not some status thing, for me - I've had macs and PDAs for years. They were, on reflection, talismans of my first world ties. I am still a technologist, honest! Look, I've got the decent laptop and phone to prove it. I may live in an IT backwater, but I wont succumb to the local ambivalence/antipathy/apathy/crumb-gathering towards technology. My tokens of civilisation. Gone.

"Good grief, geek, get over it!". Tell me, how would you feel if your TV broke, and it would cost too much to replace it. You'd like to think it wouldn't bother you: "I don't watch much TV anyway". We all like to think we're social, healthy, 'doing' kind of people who don't have time for TV. Try it. See how much you miss it. It's a passive addiction, like electricity: you don't think about dependence unless its not there. We don't have TV. We have an internet connected mac mini attached to a TV. All our content is pulled, there's no push, no broadcast, no channel-surfing chewing gum for the eyes. Content matters to me. Good content is rare in this part of the world: you can pay hefty premiums for dozens of US ad-filled, repeat-laden channels, or watch the single local channel, or pay hefty fees for a little more bandwidth and go seek on the infinitely various internet. If I'm going to pay big money for content anyway, I might as well get the most selective option.

So, the devices I use to access and manipulate content are important to me. And now two of them are gone in as many months, and I can't afford to replace them. They say that madness, true madness, starts with one of your senses going nuts: an unscratchable itch or a sound that won't die away... I'm about to enter content deprivation, and my senses are twitching...

The Sporting English

2010-08-01T12:44:00.000-04:00

So the England-Pakistan test match is over a day early, with Pakistan collapsing for just 80 in the second innings.

English sport has always seemed to lack the professional ruthlessness of other countries. I think the English have always been uneasy with professionalism in sport, as though it undermines the spirit of sport, the British sense of fair play. After all, we didn't invent these sports so that people could make money out of them. This sense of 'fair play' has pervaded into the professional era. How often have you seen an English team or player narrowly win (or even lose) a seemingly obvious victory because they seemed to lack the killer instinct to mercilessly dispatch an inferior opponent? English teams have rarely, if ever, won convincingly. Deservedly, yes. But not convincingly. Leave it to the Aussies or South Africans to show us how to win consistently, even against superior talent, always with spirit and determination, rarely unconvincingly.

Yet, this summer saw inspirational performances from an English team that, above all other accolades in my mind, has proven it can ruthlessly dispatch inferior foes. I saw first hand an English 20/20 cricket team that was not only exciting to watch, but showed that methodical level-headedness of consistent winners. Collingwood keeps talking about confidence, and I think that's part of it, but the main part is British sports people being unapologetically professional. And what better sport to laud the rise of a truly professional attitude in England? Let's see the other sports take heed when representing our country.

Listless, restless - a daydream

2010-07-20T10:34:00.000-04:00

So I have lots of work to do: a retail system to setup, a regional telecoms contract to negotiate, an intranet site to help design... and I'm watching two tiny birds do an intricate mating dance on the road outside my office.

Is it that I'd rather be with my family, mucking around in the pool, and just leading our family life?
Or that I want to work for a dynamic technology company, where I'm doing really stimulating, rewarding stuff?
Or both: be self-employed, work my own hours on my favourite things, and play with the family the rest of the time. Cake. Eat.
Gotta work the cashflow angles... and thus the brain is back at work! Thank you, little birds.

The wisdom of children

2010-06-19T15:40:00.000-04:00

We're getting ready for school/work. Bella is dressed and ready to go, I'm putting a sock on with a croissant in my mouth... and Ryan is tottering around like a Thunderbirds puppet, shouting "UGH! ARGH! DA! DAdadada" etc. and waving a toy hammer around.
I say to Bella, through the mouthful of croissant, "your brother is bonkers."
Bella (aged 3) looks at me shrewdly and says "Takes one to know one, daddy!"
My initial irritation at the cheekiness of the responses melts into laughter as I reflect that I'm hopping around half-dressed, with a croissant in my mouth.
God bless the child & all that...

Froyo gives me chills

2010-05-20T20:56:00.000-04:00

Official Google Blog: Android Froyo, with some sprinkles: and so we get Google opening up the smartphone market with both barrels. Apple may match this, but I'll be amazed if they top it. If anyone can, Apple can, but I think their vice-like grip on the smartphone market will be their undoing. As Googlers like to say "information wants to be open", and this latest Froyo update to Android certainly pushes that ideal. For free. No Microsoft software tax, no Apple 'new magic device' talisman. Just free software to update any android phone (eventually - Google phone gets the initial boost).

Google, I love you: you make money off the people I don't care much about (ad people) and give riches to us poor consumers. Sure, it's not totally altruistic, of course there are commercial reasons, but those reasons are far-sighted enough to be enriching for all. Nice play, guys. So, Apple... you got 2 months... worried?

App stores - why Amazon and Google need to talk

2010-04-16T12:15:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time there was an online store that sold one particular type of media really well. So well, in fact, that it expanded to other media. It engendered customer loyalty by tracking customer purchases and, using sophisticated algorithms, recommending related products for purchase.

Question: are you thinking 'Amazon' or 'Apple'?

Up to this point in the story it could be either, right? Amazon with books, or Apple with music. Arguably Amazon is more obvious because that's all it had, whereas Apple had an additional loyalty weapon in its arsenal: the ipod. And what a weapon! With an ipod you're umbilically locked into iTunes. Imagine if your entire CD collection could only play on Sony CD players. You'd feel restricted, right? You'd mock the absurdity of it: how dare Sony be so presumptuous! Yet millions of us bought, or were bought ipods. The word 'ipod' has, like 'walkman' before it, made the transition from proper to common noun. And we happily bought our music, then our videos from iTunes.

Then Apple produced the iPhone. The device itself was not particularly revolutionary: multi-touch was a beautiful gimmick, but functionally similar phones had been around for some time. Except this was an ipod too. So rather than carrying around an ipod and a phone, you could just carry a phone. Sony offered walkman phones, but they didn't have iTunes, where many peoples' media collections now resided. So the iPhone took off, enabling Apple to beef the device up with GPS and 3G compatibility... and tack an app store onto the side of iTunes.

Meanwhile Amazon finally figured out that tethering customers to your own hardware device was a good loyalty move, so they produced the Kindle for reading their books. Except books are an ancient and familiar technology, with little need of an electronic overhaul; and if you did prefer electronic versions, why not have the reader software on your own preferred device, rather than Amazon's?

Now, Apple have produced the ipad - a bigger ipod - and tacked a bookstore onto iTunes. Again, the device is not particularly revolutionary, and functionally similar devices have been around for some time. Except this is an ipod too, with all your music, video, apps, and now books from iTunes on it.

Imagine if all your music, videos, games and now books are only usable on Sony devices. Even if Samsung TVs are better, or JVC music players offer richer sound - you can only use Sony. While books are written about the marvelous Apple gadgets, little is said of the true Apple genius, its truly imperial mastery of media distribution: the iTunes store.

What could possibly compete with such a physical bond with loyal customers, that fully bespoke (not even USB!) ipod/ipad/iphone cable? As I mention repeatedly above, despite what the frothing media pundits say, the device is not the magic. HTC do better phones, and there are a number of tablets hitting the market. Building competing devices is not the issue: it's how you intercept that iTunes bond.

The answer is straightforward in principle: provide a better store. But how could you possibly do all the deals with content providers, build the catalog and transaction and loyalty mechanisms? You don't... if you're Amazon. Amazon's singular failing is in not providing a lean, aggregated interface to all the things that a smartphone/tablet user needs. It has an MP3 store, and it offers video on demand. It even has a bookstore. All it has to do is serve these up in a seamless manner directly to smartphones and tablets. No iTunes client, just device to service, with the significant selling point that it's not tying you to specific hardware.

So, Amazon: drop Kindle and get Androided. Google: go talk to Amazon about doing a proper App store. And both of you leave the hardware to the experts.

Apple hubris

2010-04-11T10:18:00.001-04:00

This article: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/y-PHmbhiMPQ/apple-takes-aim-at-adobe-or-android.ars
... sums up Apple's position nicely, and it's from a reputable, non-partisan source (Ars Technica).
It seems that, once again, Apple's self-belief is straying into hubris. It's one thing to have great products, but to guard them so jealously smacks of last-century fast buckaneering, rather than 21st century sustainable business. As a company that has benefited significantly from open systems, their current closed approach seems disingenuous at best and cynical at worst.

Why Ancient Mayans and Media Barons Are Alike

2010-04-03T17:50:00.000-04:00

This is an intriguing angle on the state of modern media. Basically, that their reluctance to change may not be reluctance but actually incapability.

Dead gecko

2010-03-24T01:51:00.001-04:00

You prowl the dwelling,
Seeking sustenance in the niches of our home,
Your success is your size - a giant of gecko!
The perfect eco insect repellent.

Your skin adapting to adobe walls, your patient stillness in the doorjamb,
Unseen
By all including me as I close the door.

The crunch of tiny bone sickens as much as your fall to the floor,
floundering, flailing,
As I reach for something to end it,
You gasp, defiant dragon, your adaptive, diligent resilience snuffed by an oaf with a shoe.

Big church = big abuse. So lets socialise rather than institutionalise

2010-03-16T12:15:00.000-04:00

When I read articles like this...
http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=2db4346fb4f046232a2ea7db782473f9
... it panders to my suspicion that religion is (forgive the apparent paradox) God's cruel joke. After all,what place does old fashioned church have in the age of information? Surely we should focus on exploring the unknowns rather than writing them off to divine providence; minimize uncertainty rather than prey on it.

It seems that all religion really provides, in this day and age, is an excuse for irrational behaviour or reasoning, and/or the opportunity to exploit that trait in an institutionalised way. Evidently faith-based institutions are fertile ground for trust abusers: a surfeit of trust is bound to attract abuse. Yet it's interesting to note that the more sceptical/questioning/'protesting' flavour of Christianity, Protestantism, seems to have far fewer cases of child abuse. It does suggest a direct correlation between religion (in the sense of the degree of institutionalisation of faith) and sexual abuse. Or in plainer terms: the bigger the church, the bigger the abuse.

I actually believe in the power of faith. Any competitor knows (be it sport or combat) that having faith can give you a psychological advantage, just as anyone who has experienced a trauma can appreciate the comfort of faith. But in this age of global social networks, does it really need to be institutionalised? Why not belief clubs?

Checking the internet, many are already there: Jedis, trekkies... they appear to be cod-religious nouveau entities, but their zealots are no less faithful. They may lack the gravitas (and body count!) of a centuries-old institution, but I suspect they are also more honest, earnest and less prone to abuse.

R&D: Apple vs Microsoft vs Sony [Graphs]

2010-03-08T11:15:00.000-04:00

Some interesting research here. Key takeaway for me: Sony spend on avg $11.5m per product; Apple $78.5m. Microsoft spend $9bn a year on R&D! What the heck are they up to??

Research and Development: Apple vs Microsoft vs Sony [Graphs]: "

The core of any long-standing technology company is research and development. Here's how Apple, Microsoft and Sony's last decade of spending stack up.

Note that the first graph shows research and development as a percentage of revenue (to scale the spending by company, since revenues differ so greatly). This next graphic can help you conceptualize the revenue and R&D gap:

A Few Interesting Notes:

• Now, Microsoft spends about 17% of their revenue on R&D. Sony spends about 8%. Apple spends less than 4%.

• If you were to break down the amount of R&D that goes purely to physical (non-software) products sold by Apple and Sony, Sony would spend about $11.5 million per product while Apple would spend about $78.5 million per product. (Of course, that's rolling the cost OS X and iPhone OS development into Macs and the iPhone, which could be seen as inflating their per product spending.)

• Microsoft just spends a lot of money in R&D, period—about $9 billion this year. In terms of percentage growth over the last decade, Apple's R&D has grown the most (nearly quadrupled) while Sony's has grown the least (not quite doubled).

In light of these bare numbers, is it any surprise that Sony is struggling the most to capture the hearts and minds of a public hungry for gadgets?

Research by David Chaid

IT project failures - an analysis

2010-02-24T09:30:00.001-04:00

This is a good summary of typical IT project failure. Certainly rings true for me & the project failures that I've been involved in. My only addenda would be a couple more reasons why IT PMs tend to dumb down risks & assumptions: they either form an over-optimistic view of the features and benefits of the new system (they start to believe their own sales pitch), or they overestimate the level of buy-in from end users (they overestimate the success of their sales pitch).

The lesson for me is not to treat IT projects like other engineering projects. Most non-IT projects deal with tangibles, so the concepts are much easier to share with the layman: a model, drawings, artist impressions, VR walkthroughs, materials to touch etc. IT projects are intangible - mostly invisible to the end user, so as such there may be a wide gap between the IT pro's concept of the workload required, and the layman's concept. So while the PM process can be similar to traditional engineering project management, the emphasis at certain stages should factor in the conceptual differences: both end user and IT pro should ensure that they have a common understanding of the design and effort required.

Update: another good article with more detailed common assumptions and remedies.

Good intro to Google Buzz

2010-02-10T16:33:00.000-04:00

(Hands On With Google Buzz - Webmonkey) covers the salient features well and I like the conclusion that it's less a Facebook competitor, as most pundits are trying to draw it, and more a drawing-together of what Google already offers.

Where I think it may have killer app status is in the enterprise. I hooked us up to Google Apps last year, so can't wait to see what Buzz will do for work collaboration across our 5 offices in 5 countries.

Multitasking

2010-02-09T10:37:00.000-04:00

With the recent announcement of the iPad, there's been a resurgence in the issue of multi-tasking. The iPhone, famously, doesn't support multi-tasking - a fact that Palm were quick to exploit in marketing the multi-tasking Pre. The iPhone can do multiple things at once, but only Apple things, like checking mail, or ringing on an incoming call during your game of Grand Theft Auto. The technorati would have it that multi-tasking is an essential part of any computing device. After all, it was the killer feature of Windows that brought us out of the dark ages of DOS.

The trouble with multitasking is that your hardware has to know how to juggle, without necessarily knowing how many balls or how big each ball may be. To compensate, the hardware tries clever things to re-prioritise the tasks (balls), so that each gets something approximating the resources it needs. This takes time, and requires a certain amount of flexibility on behalf of the task: it may not get all the resources it asks for. A robust app will cope gracefully, a sloppy app will crash. So, with multitasking your mileage may vary.

Now this usually seems a reasonable price to pay for being able to juggle several things at once: copying that text to your spreadsheet from your browser,while it downloads the next page in the background. But on a phone? Do I really need that multitasking enough to risk sacrificing the snappy, consistent response I need from a phone?

I had a couple too many apps open on my Google phone the other day - mucking about with a few newly downloaded apps - and I abruptly had to make a phone call. I pressed the Phone app button and... waited. Probably a full 30 seconds later, one of the other apps crashed, and my phone was usable again. Way too long for a phone to make a call. The trouble is, the phone is just another app on a smart phone, and if the smart phone is multitasking, the phone app has got to juggle and jostle with all the rest of the apps.

The truly smart thing about Apple and their iPhone is a) single-tasking, and b) except where Apple decide multitasking is needed for notifications. And Apple control the latter by vetting every single app to hit the app store. So while some may bemoan Apple's control of apps, I actually think it is necessary quality assurance to ensure that users get a snappy phone that does apps, rather than a micro PC that happens to have a phone app too. This will be the chief hurdle that Android/Google/HTC will have to leap.

As for the iPad, it's an interesting gambit by Apple: their second bite at the tablet market, after the Newton (no, it wasn't a PDA)! This time they have the iStores, so maybe they'll pull it off, but my gut says it's a product looking for a need. I can do all the things on it that I can do on my iTouch, so that just makes it an oversized iTouch, right?

Media Publishers' dilemma

2010-02-05T16:35:00.000-04:00

So Macmillan, the book publishers, beat Amazon into submission, forcing them to charge $14.99 for bestsellers, rather than Amazon's proposed $9.99. And now other publishers are lining up to make their demands on Amazon.

It seems like Amazon tried to do what Apple did with the music companies after the ipod became ubiquitous: leverage their big channel to customers to push supplier prices down, in a market that they had effectively reinvented. Your CD sales are dropping, but thanks to us, people are still buying your music online. So drop your prices because we own your customers and they don't want to prop up your tired old distribution model, they want to pay less for something that costs a lot less to produce & distribute.

So why did Amazon fail, where Apple succeeded? Possibly because of Apple, who, during their iPad announcement also revealed that they had deals with the major book publishers to release books through the iTunes store (or iBookstore as they're calling it). And I'm sure they were willing to distribute at whatever price the publishers wanted, happily taking a percentage, like they do for iPhone apps. Who is going to bet against the iTunes/iBook store?

Now, I suspect these publishers will end up dropping prices for the same reason the music publishers did, but not until they've milked it as much as they can. Trouble is, it might be too late: in their greed they could well kill the iBook market. Scenario: I want the latest bestseller. It's $14.99 at Amazon and $14.99 at iBookstore. The former is presented in a portable, lightweight, rugged format. The latter requires a $700 not-so-rugged device to read it. Which do I opt for? The publisher doesn't lose out in either case (okay, margins may differ slightly, but a book is a book). So maybe Apple starts to lose out. Or maybe the other attributes of their versatile device make it the de facto reader of choice. What will they do then? Same as with the music publishers: squeeze the supplier. Then the publishers would lose out.

My Google Phone - the Nexus One

2010-01-27T15:59:00.000-04:00

So I've had my N1 for just over a week now, and you know what? It makes my ipod touch look a bit dated: the screen looks a bit washed out soft compared to the N1's amazing sharpness and colour.

A few people commented that they thought I worshipped at the Apple temple, so why no iPhone? Simple: a) the only way to get one here is to jailbreak it, which I'm unwilling to do for something so expensive, and b) the nexus is cheaper and (hardware-wise) better. It's actually made me reflect on the cult of Apple, and I think they are heading down the Sony path of too much lock-in. The 'but we do it to protect our customers' line is getting a bit, dare I say it, seedy. So, while I'm happy for Apple to look after my music and some media (ipod touch, old ipod, macbook pro and mac mini for the TV), I'd like a bit more freedom with my personal device (phone, GPS, 'reality augmenter').

So, I've gone Android. And it's growing on me like a proper favourite tune, rather than one of those over-played catchy tunes that you love then hate.

Now, the iPad ... that's another story... I suspect most people will buy it out of curiosity, rather than because it fits any compelling need in their lives. After all, what can it do that a laptop + smart phone can't? Nothing. The phenomenal success of the iPhone wasn't Apple's marketing, it was a ground-breaking product widening an existing mobile niche (ipods), so that you didn't have to carry around 2 portable devices. The apps bit was a huge bonus. The iPad is more a filler. You use it sitting down... like a laptop. Or walking about... like a phone. My phone has 800x480 resolution. I'd guess that's not much less than the iPad's. So, it's basically a giant phone for the visually impaired... ;o)

Haiti's history: bullied and blackmailed independence

2010-01-27T10:43:00.001-04:00

This was emailed to me by my wife, so I don't have the original publication source (happy to add should anyone with more knowledge stumble upon this post). It's a pretty lamentable tale, and it certainly puts America's chest-thumping about independence into perspective...

The Hate and the Quake

Published on: 1/17/2010 by Sir Hilary Beckles
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES is in the process of conceiving how best to deliver a major conference on the theme Rethinking And Rebuilding Haiti.
I am very keen to provide an input into this exercise because for too long there has been a popular perception that somehow the Haitian nation-building project, launched on January 1, 1804, has failed on account of mismanagement, ineptitude, corruption.
Buried beneath the rubble of imperial propaganda, out of both Western Europe and the United States, is the evidence which shows that Haiti's independence was defeated by an aggressive North-Atlantic alliance that could not imagine their world inhabited by a free regime of Africans as representatives of the newly emerging democracy.
The evidence is striking, especially in the context of France.
The Haitians fought for their freedom and won, as did the Americans fifty years earlier. The Americans declared their independence and crafted an extraordinary constitution that set out a clear message about the value of humanity and the right to freedom, justice, and liberty.
In the midst of this brilliant discourse, they chose to retain slavery as the basis of the new nation state. The founding fathers therefore could not see beyond race, as the free state was built on a slavery foundation.
The water was poisoned in the well; the Americans went back to the battlefield a century later to resolve the fact that slavery and freedom could not comfortably co-exist in the same place.
The French, also, declared freedom, fraternity and equality as the new philosophies of their national transformation and gave the modern world a tremendous progressive boost by so doing.
They abolished slavery, but Napoleon Bonaparte could not imagine the republic without slavery and targeted the Haitians for a new, more intense regime of slavery. The British agreed, as did the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.
All were linked in communion over the 500 000 Blacks in Haiti, the most populous and prosperous Caribbean colony.
As the jewel of the Caribbean, they all wanted to get their hands on it. With a massive slave base, the English, French and Dutch salivated over owning it - and the people.
The people won a ten-year war, the bloodiest in modern history, and declared their independence. Every other country in the Americas was based on slavery.
Haiti was freedom, and proceeded to place in its 1805 Independence Constitution that any person of African descent who arrived on its shores would be declared free, and a citizen of the republic.
For the first time since slavery had commenced, Blacks were the subjects of mass freedom and citizenship in a nation.
The French refused to recognise Haiti's independence and declared it an illegal pariah state. The Americans, whom the Haitians looked to in solidarity as their mentor in independence, refused to recognise them, and offered solidarity instead to the French. The British, who were negotiating with the French to obtain the ownership title to Haiti, also moved in solidarity, as did every other nation-state the Western world.
Haiti was isolated at birth - ostracised and denied access to world trade, finance, and institutional development. It was the most vicious example of national strangulation recorded in modern history.
The Cubans, at least, have had Russia, China, and Vietnam. The Haitians were alone from inception. The crumbling began.
Then came 1825; the moment of full truth. The republic is celebrating its 21st anniversary. There is national euphoria in the streets of Port-au-Prince.
The economy is bankrupt; the political leadership isolated. The cabinet took the decision that the state of affairs could not continue.
The country had to find a way to be inserted back into the world economy. The French government was invited to a summit.
Officials arrived and told the Haitian government that they were willing to recognise the country as a sovereign nation but it would have to pay compensation and reparation in exchange. The Haitians, with backs to the wall, agreed to pay the French.
The French government sent a team of accountants and actuaries into Haiti in order to place a value on all lands, all physical assets, the 500 000 citizens were who formerly enslaved, animals, and all other commercial properties and services.
The sums amounted to 150 million gold francs. Haiti was told to pay this reparation to France in return for national recognition.
The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved people before independence.
Thus began the systematic destruction of the Republic of Haiti. The French government bled the nation and rendered it a failed state. It was a merciless exploitation that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian economy and society.
Haiti was forced to pay this sum until 1922 when the last instalment was made. During the long 19th century, the payment to France amounted to up to 70 per cent of the country's foreign exchange earnings.
Jamaica today pays up to 70 per cent in order to service its international and domestic debt. Haiti was crushed by this debt payment. It descended into financial and social chaos.
The republic did not stand a chance. France was enriched and it took pleasure from the fact that having been defeated by Haitians on the battlefield, it had won on the field of finance. In the years when the coffee crops failed, or the sugar yield was down, the Haitian government borrowed on the French money market at double the going interest rate in order to repay the French government.
When the Americans invaded the country in the early 20th century, one of the reasons offered was to assist the French in collecting its reparations.
The collapse of the Haitian nation resides at the feet of France and America, especially. These two nations betrayed, failed, and destroyed the dream that was Haiti; crushed to dust in an effort to destroy the flower of freedom and the seed of justice.
Haiti did not fail. It was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations on earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current condition.
The sudden quake has come in the aftermath of summers of hate. In many ways the quake has been less destructive than the hate.
Human life was snuffed out by the quake, while the hate has been a long and inhumane suffocation - a crime against humanity.
During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, strong representation was made to the French government to repay the 150 million francs.
The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21 billion. This sum of capital could rebuild Haiti and place it in a position to re-engage the modern world. It was illegally extracted from the Haitian people and should be repaid.
It is stolen wealth. In so doing, France could discharge its moral obligation to the Haitian people.
For a nation that prides itself in the celebration of modern diplomacy, France, in order to exist with the moral authority of this diplomacy in this post-modern world, should do the just and legal thing.
Such an act at the outset of this century would open the door for a sophisticated interface of past and present, and set the Haitian nation free at last.

Sir Hilary Beckles is pro-vice-chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, UWI.

Spinning rum yarns through the centuries

2010-01-20T13:41:00.000-04:00

Gotta love this short article about the origins of "rumbullion" (rum), grog, bumboo and other such colorful language used to describe the Caribbean's favorite booze.

Why walled gardens are a limited strategy in online ventures

2010-01-14T16:00:00.000-04:00

This story prompted me to think about the longevity of Apple's App Store. Apple's secretive and power-crazy ways may yet be its undoing (again - that's why it lost the PC wars: because it insisted on vetting every piece of hardware you plugged into your Apple computer). In its effort to ensure its customers are truly locked in Apple vettes all App Store apps. Not only has it garnered criticism for:-

taking too long to vette apps
blocking apps that may compete with its own products (god forbid!)
being laughably draconian about age ratings for apps
allowing wholly inappropriate apps

.. but it has now added to that list with allowing legally questionable apps. That's the trouble with dictatorship, even beautifully designed, "lickable", "insanely great" dictatorship: too much control is not sustainable.

Take Facebook, another walled garden. You can put your content in and share it, but don't expect to take it out again, or have any rights to it. Now, in the short term who cares? Sharing your thoughts, pictures and affinities is much more exciting and interesting than how they might be used by an unknown third party. But what about the longer term? The biggest demographic in Facebook is 30-40 year olds. The youngsters are not using it. Is it because it's a 'certain age' tool, or because the yoof have more sophisticated views about their online interactions and privacy? Facebook's business model (what there is of it) is based on loyalty: its main advantage over Google as an advertiser is that its users stick around for a lot longer - minutes vs the seconds we tend to hover at most other sites. How does it protect that loyalty? By subtlely manipulating your privacy and removing your rights to any content you submit. Effectively, your loyalty is not to Facebook, but to your friends on Facebook - the wisdom of the crowd. That's not very sustainable as a business model.

Google, for all their dominance and the fear that invokes, have got it right, I think. They have no walled gardens: there are APIs everywhere and you can move data out as well as in. Fundamentally, they win and retain market share by offering customers what they want, efficiently. They want your loyalty but appreciate that the core of that is transparency: you're making choices based on the best possible information, not based on coolness factor, or lock-in because Apple didn't mention that you can only use iTunes with your iPhone or Facebook didn't tell you that there's no easy way to export your personal data, or even see how it is being used. Don't expect bells & whistles and "lickable" user interfaces. Just solid, simple products that play nicely with others and gradually evolve - like nice children. Now there's a sustainable business model.

I'm really not a Google-vangelist: I don't think that they can do no wrong. But I do think that they appreciate that walled gardens weaken you in the long term because just as they hoard super-normal profits, they also breed complacency.

Google Nexus One phone - it's about software, stupid!

2010-01-07T14:28:00.000-04:00

From a business perspective, the amazing thing about the ipod/iphone isnt the device, it's itunes. The device is simply the enticement and lock-in to the service, which is where the real revenue is made.

For Google, the Nexus One is simply a delivery mechanism for Google Voice and associated services.

The trouble with other smart phones (including the iPhone) is that they are locked to carriers. Why is that a problem? Imagine your cellular phone company being like your phone company or ISP: you pay a flat rate for a pipe. No plans or charges per call/text/whatever. Your modem isn't owned by them, and nor is your landline phone (the concept seems laughable now).

It's a dream for you, and a nightmare for your cellular provider, who is pushed away from the customer to become a wireless packet herder. So how does a software/service provider reach your dream? By providing you the means to untether from the carrier. Once you're unfettered, you're much more likely to focus on what matters: the software services, and not the proprietariness of the network's packages. Google Voice aggregates your phone numbers into a single voice service, so that, effectively, you no longer need a number, except as a legacy.

Just go big with the thought for a second: imagine if everyone had untethered phones with services like Google Voice. Knowing your carrier-provided phone number would be like knowing your computer's IP address: useful for diagnostic purposes only. In the age of avatars and 'screen names' isn't it quite remarkable that we still have phone numbers?

Whatever happened to Second Life?

2010-01-06T09:44:00.000-04:00

Here's a really interesting article by Barry Collins at PC Pro about a recent visit to Second Life, three years after his initial visit. He tells the story well, and it's a thought-provoking conclusion.

Google are building an information ecosystem

2009-12-24T09:54:00.000-04:00

From SVP of Products at Google comes 'The meaning of open', which is a fascinating insight into Google's business philosophy, and, by extension, a formula for running a successful internet business.

The article has caused quite a stir in the internet firmament with skeptics saying that it's very disingenuous: that Google only opens up some technologies and that, as a listed company, it is obliged to try to dominate and maximize profits through 'closed' strategies, even if it uses 'open' tactics.

Yet, the article does address these points directly: Google's fundamental assumption is that the Internet has a long way to go in terms of growth, and rather than trying to cordon off sections of it, their approach is to facilititate the overall expansion of it and simultaneously create offerings that are compelling not through their market dominance (a la Microsoft Office), but through their cohesion with virtually any other products, and their empowerment of the user. Their rationale for keeping search algorithms and advert creation closed is consistent with that philosophy: to open them up risks people 'gaming' the systems, and not only eroding their value, but also putting personal privacy at risk. To this latter point, Rosenberg also dodges contradicting Eric Schmidt's comment that "only people with something to hid should worry about privacy". Google are not champions of users' privacy, but they are champions of user control - it is up to us to control our privacy.

On the one hand it all seems simply sensible to me, but in this age of short term quarterly stock market results intermingled with 'on message' platitudes to sustainability, and nanny states 'protecting' us from ourselves with health & safety and Legislation for Dummies, it reads like a revolutionary philosophy. Google are trying to build an information ecosystem. Now that's sustainability.

The cusp of media

2009-11-22T13:06:00.001-04:00

So Murdoch says that Google and their ilk are 'content kleptocrats', "stealing" news from news makers. Then we have Google Books trying to "steal" copyrights from established publishers.

It all sounds very similar to Napster "stealing" music from music distributers in the early noughties. That industry has shifted fairly well. Fundamentally, I think, because they realised that 'the customer is king' was not some ropey business school mantra, but, in the age of social media, business critical. Gone are the days when the company is, de facto, better informed about the market than its consumers. In fact, with social media flattening all that marketing persuasion, the savvy companies are realising that they are outnumbered and that trying smother off-message consumers is not only uncool but also potentially very damaging.

While this is all very disruptive to modern business models, think about the raw substance for a minute. A musician creating a tune. A journalist investigating a story. A novelist creating a book. Surely the true measure of value is the time taken to create the content times the popularity of that content.

Content value = creation time x quality factor(copies sold)

This was undoubtedly the case before recorded media: the printing press, the phonograph-CD, the photograph-movie. In fact the historical precedent in the music recording industry was sheet music: have a read about the fuss that recorded music caused the sheet music industry. There's a fascinating case of one industry devouring another and now, decades later, being devoured.

So the modern argument against my little equation above was Marketing. Big bands/authors/movies couldn't be big unless there was huge expenditure on media events: launch parties, adverts, hype etc. The fundamental assumption of that argument is that consumers cannot inherently choose for themselves - they need to be guided by some Marketing Machine that tells them what is cool and what is not cool.

Yet, ironically, the most attentive consumers of any given media/brand/band/author/director studiously ignore the marketing hype in favour of valuing the content for itself - the quality factor in my equation above. Now, before social media, the loudest voice was the biggest, so the attentive consumers could easily be smothered by the Marketing Machine. But now the attentive consumers have the tools to fight back.

I don't know about you but whenever I research any buy online these days, be it books, music, consumer goods or holidays, I always look for the best and worst opinions. So not only is consumer king, but, from the content creation perspective, contrast is king.

Football decisions

2009-11-20T10:53:00.000-04:00

BBC Sport - Football - Roy Keane has no sympathy for Republic of Ireland exit - I'm with Roy Keane on this one. The rules state that the referee's decision (not matter how bad) is final. This has always struck me as being completely at odds with football players' (at all levels) attitudes towards referees: they shove the ref, swear at him, shout at him. This is such a stark contrast to rugby, where, at all levels, the ref is rarely given abuse, and when he is the player is dealt with harshly: at least moving the penalty 10 yards forward, and at worst an early bath.

Video refereeing would never really work in football: there would potentially be too many stoppages, or the griping would switch from 'whether it was a foul' to 'whether the ref should have used the video ref'. In rugby it works because the ref only really uses it for try scoring, which can be a messy affair (bodies piling over, or a touchline tackle). In football, the goal is usually much more clear cut: ball over line and in net.

Maybe the solution is multiple referees, like American football. Or maybe simply more powers to the linesmen to advise on referee decisions. Or maybe just more powers to the ref to impose player discipline and command respect. Adversarial team sports are not democracies (unlike boxing, diving or gymnastics), with good reason: fundamentally it's about subjective judgement and timely decision-making.

Apple's Apps

2009-11-15T12:53:00.002-04:00

Arguably, the reason Apple computers never took off in the same way as PCs did in the 80's was because you could only use Apple-approved peripherals with your Apple IIe or whatever. So even though there were better HP printers around, or better Sun mice, you couldn't use them with your Apple because they weren't approved. The pro-Apple lobby simply put this down to quality control: Apple didn't want to risk tainting an 'insanely great' user experience with sub-standard 3rd party products. The cynics said that Apple were simply being greedy control freaks. The result was that these 3rd party products became as good, then better than Apple, and users left in droves - they found more choice.

Here we are, twenty-something years later, and it seems like Apple are crossing that line again: their App store vetting procedures are pissing developers, partners and users off. If they are not careful, the open source Android army will simply outflank iPhone apps and push them into a niche.

My solution? 2 tiers: one Apple-approved, one Unapproved, with appropriate disclaimers.

Skype the Social network

2009-11-10T11:11:00.000-04:00

How Skype Can Quickly and Easily Become a Social Network (and Clean Facebook’s Clock) : this is an interesting piece on the features of Skype that lend it to being a social network.

It's an interesting proposition, if only from the conceptual sense of having the full spectrum of realtime voice and video to IM to status updates and wall postings to messages and email to bookmarks and recommendations to games and apps, all under the same account, and available from most devices. Tantalisingly close to a fully converged communications platform: no more phone numbers or email addresses, just your name and a whole bunch of privacy settings to ensure that, while you're available anywhere, anyhow, it's only to the right people.

Skype already offers many of those things (I only found out recently that it did games), as does Facebook, of course. In fact, on reflection, the overlap looks so obvious - why doesn't one buy the other? Skype could do a nice client integration with Facebook. Both have their own walled gardens (skype audio/video technology is proprietary; Facebook owns any data you put on there). Seems like a perfect match.

Cell Size and Scale

2009-11-02T10:25:00.000-04:00

Cell Size and Scale - neat animation showing relative cell sizes. I believe it was the great Wayne Campbell, of Wayne's World, who said "Whoah! Extreme closeup!"

The Facebook creeper

2009-10-30T14:04:00.000-04:00

So somehow I got to this page about new developments at Facebook. I scan through what look initially like the usual tedious release notes, adding a thingy there, moving an icon there... and then I see about halfway down the Open Graph API:-

...will allow any page on the web to have all the features of a Facebook
Page – users will be able to become a Fan of the page, it will show up on that
user’s profile and in search results, and that page will be able to publish
stories to the stream of its fans.

Oh my god. So every page on the web can draw a Facebook fan base. They're burying Digg and bringing a peer recommendation engine to the whole web in one swoop. This is potentially huge: akin to Google Adwords, but based on your friends' opinions, rather than some clever algorthm related to the content you're reading or searching for.

A broadside on British social etiquette

2009-10-27T16:02:00.000-04:00

There's nothing like a bit of Jacobson social polemic. This article by Howard Jacobson gets right to the marrow of the matter of British social conduct.

I was chatting to a Trinidadian the other day, recently moved to Barbados, who was lamenting the violence in Trinidad and Jamaica. He had recently been caught running a stop sign here in Barbados, and found his initial irritation at the pettiness of Barbadian crime prevention give way to an acknowledgement that Bajans sweat the small social stuff because they can and always have. He described a chat with a Jamaican police commissioner where he asked why so many motorbike riders rode without helmets, when the law stated that they must wear them. The commissioner replied that, with 1500 murders a year to deal with in Kingston alone, bike helmet wearing was a pretty low priority.

Jacobson's article highlights the mad contrast of a nanny state that made it success on catering to the whims of its society finding itself unable to cope with the whimsical society it fostered. "Whatever happened to common decency?" is cliched, even by international cliche standards, but it seems to be an increasingly important question to ask in British society. Look to your little former colony: Barbados. Where decency is still common.

Countries' struggle for global identity

2009-10-27T11:14:00.000-04:00

While this article in the Times by David Millibank has a generous dollop of political bravado (I could almost hear Land of Hope & Glory swelling as I read it!), it does describe a very interesting perspective: of countries trying to find their place in the globalised world.
Russians getting annoyed with Estonians, Iranians taking to the streets after dodgy elections, Somalian pirates taking on whatever seems to float past, be it yacht or frigate... As we evolve from full-on war to information (media) activism, it seems that both unconsciously and deliberately, most countries are trying to find their global niche. It's no longer enough to have a jostle with the neighbors. As a nation you have to join a pack or risk being picked off or marginalised by one of the other packs.
To me, 'Great' Britain is still a historical term, but that's not to demean it: Britain was the first to industrialise and to globalise. Followers may have perfected it, but there's still an advantage to having done it first, that Milliband does touch on: the relationships and connections that span the globe. In corporate terms, Britain created the market, and while there are now bigger players in that market, they all know who to turn to for guidance about the market.

Botnets: not just big, but all over the place

2009-10-20T11:43:00.000-04:00

Botnet coverage in the press typically highlights the scale of some botnets: 50,000+ zombie PCs that bot-herders rent out to the criminal fraternity. This research highlights another intriguing and sinister aspect: botnets that may be used for corporate espionage.

It's like something out of a thriller, except thrillers about such geeky topics never seem to catch the imagination: either too dull for the layman, or too glamourising & simplistic for the geeks.

This is a medieval age of information: there is a vast difference between the haves and have-nots, with all the myths, mysticism, superstition, and intrigues of that era. So where (or what) is our Shakespeare?

Good Fake Steve Jobs rant

2009-09-23T18:41:00.000-04:00

This must be one of the best of Fake Steve Jobs articles. Hilarious hyperbole.

Windows 7 on my netbook

2009-08-24T22:11:00.000-04:00

I installed Windows 7 RC on my little HP Mini netbook at the weekend. Installation went smoothly, with most drivers working (except internal mic, oddly enough). Added it to the work domain today - very smoothly & easily. Work's security software hasn't caught up with it yet, so I've got a free one until it does, but other than that I have to say, as a hardened Microsoft sceptic, I'm thoroughly impressed.
It's really quite fast. The XP Home that was factory installed on the netbook was ok. I installed XP Pro on it for work, and it slowed a fair bit, especially with security software too. Still tolerable, though - it only slowed when I was flitting between apps that were each working (ie. XP's no multi-threading).
Windows 7 is fast, even on a netbook. It boots, with domain user login, in under a minute. I've had no pauses when flitting between apps. The Aero preview screens work and move sweetly. It sleeps and wakes in under 10 seconds. It feels light and breezy, but also robust, diagnosing some network connectivity issues very well.
Better than Apple OS X? In terms of usability its just about on par, but OS X just looks more stylish and is usually in a more stylish box with naturally better integration. The startling feat that Microsoft have done is to make this work so well on a non-native, non-'certified' machine.
I hate to say it, but: bravo guys. At the end of the age of the desktop OS, Microsoft have created one excellent last hurrah.

Open-source software in the recession | Economist.com

2009-08-21T16:28:00.000-04:00

This is a nice summary of what's going on in software right now, and the current temperature of open source.
In my opinion it's simply the business manifestation of an old software industry dilemma: is software a product or a service? The answer is: it depends on what you're paying for. As software products have become increasingly commoditised, so software services, with the help of the internet, have become better guarantors of cashflow than clunky product release cycles.

20 GREAT Liverpool FC QUOTES

2009-07-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

20 GREAT LFC QUOTES
Personal favorite:

"I will never forget Steve Nicol's arrival in October 1981. Until then, the three Scots already at Anfield, Al, Graeme and me, had been pretty well able to look after ourselves. We had built up an understanding that the Scots were the master race. We would quote historical facts to the English players to prove it. Some of the most important inventions and discoveries in the world came from from Scots, like television, the telephone, penicillin, the steam engine and tarmac. Their names are part of history - John Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Fleming, James Watt. Not to mention those other wonders of the world, golf and whisky... Everything we had built up, he destroyed in 10 minutes." (Kenny Dalglish on his fellow Scotsman)

Definitive numbers on the environmental cost of spam

2009-06-20T22:04:00.002-04:00

The numbers are quite remarkable: 62 trillion unsolicited emails in 2008, burning some 33 terawatt hours of electricity, equivalent to the annual output of 3.1 million cars, or 17 million tonnes of CO2, representing 0.2% of global CO2 emissions. On wasted email. Outrageous, right?

But then I think... if that's the waste caused by 62 trillion spam emails, what about all those facebook hours, and myspace hours and inane IM messaging hours, and the 'solicited' crap chain emails and jokes? How much CO2 do they burn? Aren't they just as wasteful as spam email? I guess the best excuse is that if you weren't on facebook, you'd be burning carbon much faster with your car, but that seems a bit fatuous.

In the age of smart machines and a network that can analyse everything about itself, perhaps ISPs should track and charge carbon offsets for internet users. They'd be only too eager to revert to usage-based fees, and it might make users think twice about what they use the internet for, even if we're just talking pennies.

2009-06-20T20:59:00.000-04:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Bears & Balls - Tobacco, Project Natal & Graveyard Bids

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Stephen Colbert in Iraq

Credit and credibility

2008-12-10T11:07:00.002-04:00

It's odd to reflect that the current financial crisis should have a marginal effect on most individuals' everyday lives. So the financial markets were creating vastly inflated opinions of themselves based on selling each other dodgy products. But the dodgy products were only in their domain. My company's paint is pretty much the same stuff we've been selling for 35 years, barring the odd technological advance. Eggs are eggs, bread is bread, so why should we care if some bankers managed to dupe each other on a massive scale?

The banking system is all about trust, as most bankers will say. And now all that trust has gone to pot because the banks don't know if they can trust each other any more, because they've all got dodgy products they're trying to offload.

But what about the rest of us? Eggs are eggs, bread is bread, and paint is paint. As long as we pay our debts and provide our goods & services, there's no reason for us to fall into the black hole that banks have created for themselves. Unless they try to use us to fill it.

Maybe the only thing we can't trust is the banks.

'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'

Thomas Jefferson 1802

Mr Google on business

2008-11-01T07:35:00.000-04:00

It's nothing particularly revelatory, but it's a very well-expressed view and insight from the top of the internet.

The derivatives bubble: $190k per person!

2008-10-26T16:48:00.003-04:00

Fascinating insight into the financial crisis. Puts it into perspective (eg. headline stat: value of derivatives market = 22 x GDP of entire world!). Some good links here too.

FT.com | SEC probes United's sudden slump

2008-09-15T13:56:00.001-04:00

Here's a fine example of the downside of excessive media, and excessive automation in news media. Basically, one person visiting a website to look at a 6 year old story about American Airlines' bankruptcy caused a 75% drop in their share price last Monday..!

The thing is, I can only see this sort of thing occurring more frequently in the race to get fresh news. Mis(dis?)-information is not new, of course, but the online/automated component does amplify the problem somewhat.

Another software vs service battle line

2008-03-20T13:48:00.003-04:00

The end of software… by ZDNet's Dennis Howlett --

…as you know it. Right now I’m falling over startup vendors vying for attention in the so-called ’social software’ space. The fact enterprise people hate the term doesn’t seem to bother those who are bypassing IT as they sell into the marketing departments of companies at departmental budget prices. But there is a battle brewing [...]

Interesting article, with good research links. The only aspect I'd question/add is the typical decision context of an IT manager. They are not as well-informed about the free-range end of the software market because a) they don't have time/budget to research every blossoming software phenomenon and b) a significant chunk of their external focus is on beating vendors off, rather than trying to explore more. So, they typically depend on their existing vendors to provide 'free insights' or 'briefings' on the latest software ideas. These are, of course, skewed by the vendors' own marketing filters. When IT managers do try to broaden the discussion, they are met by a similar response to the Microsoft guy's reply in the article: ours is better for your situation (translation: we own you, so don't even think about straying or we will give you an integration nightmare, and you'll have to explain to your boss how you messed up that sophisticated social networking project)

2008-03-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

Interesting quote from a Silicon.com newsletter:-

The other day, silicon.com's editor had lunch with a technology
company CEO. He came away from the meal with three things: the
bill, a bloated, gassy feeling in his stomach and an intriguing
perspective on the vocational resilience of the modern CIO.

Essentially, the crux of the pinot noir-fuelled argument is that
of all the senior managers in a business, the CIO is the least
likely to get the sack (see:
http://newsletters.silicon.cneteu.net/t/303332/1260442/427895/0/
).

The argument goes thus: the role and responsibilities of the CIO
and the IT department are so Byzantine it's hard for the rest of
the business to work out whether the CIO is actually doing a
good or bad job - or indeed anything at all. Brilliant.

Not convinced? Consider this: the sales director can be judged
on whether that team has sold enough widgets and whether his/her
expenses claim is marginally less than the GDP of Ecuador.

The finance director can be judged on whether the figures add
up. Easy. Dull bunch accountants but very accountable.

HR directors can be judged on the sheer volume of pointless,
soul-draining forms and procedures they manage to foist upon
company staff. By the way, sacking your HR director isn't that
difficult, you just need to be SMART about it.

However, CIOs are wise and wizened corporate arachnids, hidden
in dense webs of jargon and service level agreements, tangles of
multi-coloured cables and stuttering, blinking lights that the
rest of the business simply can't comprehend. Or, at the very
least, can't be bothered to try and comprehend.

So given the existence of the bullet-proof CIO, it's no wonder
that insanely tech-savvy kids are having problems getting jobs
in IT these days.

After all, there's a serious log-jam of lifers in the system
already (see:
http://newsletters.silicon.cneteu.net/t/303332/1260442/426845/0/
).

Software: product or service?

2008-03-02T07:14:00.002-04:00

I've always maintained that software is a service, and not a product. After all, the only raw material is man/brain power. The reason it has traditionally been sold as a product is because producers could get away with it: dollops of functionality released periodically as new products are a more secure revenue stream than the perpetual service update. The article below blends Software as a Service (SaaS) into the traditional software stack - quite nicely, I think.

SaaS and the global virtual stack by ZDNet's Phil Wainewright -- SaaS isn't just a deployment option. It's part of a bigger picture that will obsolete conventionally licensed packaged business applications and change the entire framework of how businesses consume computing. Here's what that bigger picture looks like.

Chief Googlers' letter

2008-02-01T18:11:00.000-04:00

I've never actually seen this before, although I'd heard of it. It's a letter Sergey Brin wrote to potential investors prior to Google's flotation in 2004.

It's a great template for any forward-thinking organisation of our times.

The future: cheap laptops or super phones?

2008-01-31T16:50:00.000-04:00

With the rise of the Asus Eee and the Apple iPhone, it seems the desktop PC's days are numbered.

Internet attacks affecting real stuff

2008-01-21T17:05:00.000-04:00

I suppose it was only a matter of time, but this is the first evidence I've seen of internet attacks affecting real-world things (financial stuff is still just numbers in machines, which can be reset, effectively).

Electronic warfare - City style

2008-01-14T11:15:00.000-04:00

Check out the specs for these new trading algorithms offered by Goldman Sachs. They read suspiciously like computer virus descriptions, or guided weapons specs..!

I wonder if all financial trading will one day be simply subscribing to one algorithm or another. Some will inevitably be more popular than others, so there will be a market in algorithm pricing. Then, if Google Search is anything to go by, there will be systems developed to 'trick' the popular algorithms, requiring counter-measures... and so on.

2008 Will Be “Nothing But Net” - again?

2008-01-10T17:16:00.001-04:00

JPMorgan Predicts 2008 Will Be “Nothing But Net”. Interesting, but, as with the .com bubble, you really have to wonder where they'll get the revenue.

Media has always had convoluted revenue streams, but I'm extra dubious about the net. Take Facebook: okay, so they make money from advertisers paying them, based on Facebook's huge user-base. But where is the evidence that those users actually spend money on those advertisers based on the Facebook advertising? Click-through advertising is based only on clicks, not on customers. My ad click to purchase ratio is all but negligible: in fact I can only think of one instance when I bought something based on an online ad.

So, where's the intrinsic value? These companies are creating revenue and huge valuations, but what is it all based on?

Anatomy of malware

2007-12-24T14:58:00.000-04:00

I had no idea such things were so sophisticated... not so much the technical sophistication, as the market around them.

Startups in 2008

2007-12-24T14:22:00.000-04:00

Note to self for one year's time: see how these companies did.

Bees and internetworking

2007-12-18T16:09:00.000-04:00

The principles of swarms are not new to computer networks - bittorrent networks are based on them - but this is an interesting spin (or dance) on a similar theme.

I couldn't help thinking, while reading it, of Eddie Izzard saying "Brian, where's the honey!"

Datacentre raid

2007-12-14T16:43:00.000-04:00

I suspect these crimes will become more commonplace in future...

Space quest - storage leads the information revolution

2007-10-26T10:37:00.000-04:00

Peter Cochrane makes some interesting observations here about the storage market. We all know it has transformed significantly, but the scale is astounding. 1MB 35 years ago cost 1000GBP, and today it costs less than 1p. The implications are profound and they still have some yardage... all that space to fill...

He also comments on the need for speedy networks to complement this explosion in storage. I hadn't really considered storage as a compelling driver for network speed, but seen this way, it is obvious that there is a huge disparity in the speed of improvement in these technologies.

AppleInsider | Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Spaces [Page 2]

2007-10-12T08:58:00.000-04:00

Interesting treatise from AppleInsider about the history of virtual desktops. I always wondered why they were never in desktop OSes...