What will beat iPad?

iPad, as useful/useless a device it may be, is a significant innovation (or lack of?). Nothing can deny its success among Apple fanboys. Assuming people are actually comfortable using a pad than a netbook than obvious question is what will be next?  My guess is that it will be 3D Pads. I haven’t heard of any prototype yet. Nearest I could google up was this 3D Drawing Pad but this is certainly no-where close to what we are talking about. We know 3D TVs are already here. What remains is getting it into our hands. With 3D content development already started, my guess is that we shall start seeing such a product becoming reality by 2012 (given that world doesn’t ends). I just pray that whenever it comes, its running on Chromium instead of iPhone OS

 

Power of Collaboration

I wrote about this a while back as one of the Habits of Innovative People. In recent months, I got some more taste of it so I think I shall share that too.

Most innovative people have a trait of laziness. That motivates or rather makes them innovate for the solutions of the repetitive tasks. But is sometimes also drives for collaboration. They have the ideas but are bit lazy (not enough motivated) to implement it. There is they find an energetic mind, which is willing to follow and learn from them, creates a wonderful collaboration opportunity. Am sure all PhD students can see an analogy here. So the point here is that if you are a innovative person with ideas but without time/energy/motivation to implement it, try find someone who would do it for you. They are not difficult to find if you look in right places. College students and early career professional are generally ideal fit here.

However, if you are on the other side; that is, you are the young energetic mind. Then try to collaborate with someone who has the idea but not the time. You don’t get used for free. You get a huge learning opportunity. And an experience which will take longer if you go alone.

I have noticed trust is often the issue between these two parties. Young want to piggy-back and experience doesn’t want to give a free ride. Perhaps the same old debate about the value of an idea. When I faced the situation, I just asked myself, what I value more – the idea or the implementation. If I feel the idea is worth big, then I do not share and use that to motivate myself to go about it alone. However, if the idea is of not big personally value for me,  I either share or give it away. Or try to ‘collaborate’ to have it implemented. That keeps the ‘joy of creation’ factor alive.

In that previous post I mentioned that solving a complex problem is generally not the need for collaboration. I don’t deny that complex problem are better dealt with when a group of expert minds work on them. What I mean to say is that you don’t need to collaborate only for complex problems. You may do i for smaller (lame) ones too.

This also touches the Mentor-Mentee relationship but that is more than collaboration. We shall discuss that in next post perhaps.

 

And now…when Twitter won’t work

So soon it happened. Can’t agree more this with this article on TechCrunch. The article is not really about tweets breaking the news out from Fort Hood base. But more why we as a society has gone to egoist and deprived of human emotions. With as the sociological and psychological part of it left aside, such situations are always a challenge posed by rule-changing innovations.

Back when Sony first introduced Walkman, it changed the society’s view towards music. It became more like I am enjoying my music and you keep guessing what it is. iPods took it to next level and it was like forget the music, I look so cool listen to it. iPhones did same in mobile phone arena. So the innovations at times are really more about more to make us egoist people be more egocentric.

Same will happen to Twitter and to every such innovation. Soon they loose focus of the actual purpose and end up being a tool to feed our egos. It’s a never ending cycle. If you carefully notice, many twitter clients are not how well we can listen to others. Rather how quickly we can say what we have to (without bothering if there is anyone caring to listen). Most people follow others so they get followed back and get to show a bigger count. For the same reason, they won’t block the spam bots as they inflate their followers count.

As a society we really need some innovations that we make us realize we are humans. We need innovations to teach us manners again. So that, ‘compassion’ doesn’t become a word that we hear only at beauty pageants.

 

Twitter – why it works?

Twitter’s USP lies in the 140 characters. The character limit forces users not only to choose their words correctly, but also makes them state things concisely, cutting down on all the crap and crib that nobody cares about. I can go on and on, saying the same stuff in different words because a blog entry would let me do that. But twitter its different. If I have to say this on twitter it will probably be like

Twitter works coz its 140 char limit forces us to say things concisely.
No cribs/rants. Focus is on facts. It makes us more articulate.

 

Let’s Play

I feel I can spare some minutes now, so let’s restart.

 

Paused

I have started a new blog related to Eclipse and PDE. Ya, its all technical stuff and that’s what am really busy with. So till I achieve a balance with the new work, this blog remains paused. Hope to get writing here, not soon though.

 

Condron

This is wiered but it is so. I noticed almost all the traffic to my blog is coming through condron. But this shouldn’t be completely unexpected. This is an obscure unknown blog and any chances of it to get eyeballs if through a blog roller like condron. Am not complaning

 

So long, so long

I had disappeared again for long. Been busy with life. And now a baby to keep me more occupied than ever. Don’t think any body here would have missed me But just in case you did, me is back. At least trying to be. Won’t be as regular as I used to be.

What’s new?

Nothing much. I made few disclosures recently. Things didn’t turn out rosy. Ideas get shot down. Need to face it. Will talk/crib about it more but later. Some more quotes, some fundas but lets see if it can be more innovative. Will try change some flavor.

 

Liberty and Safty

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
                                                        Benjamin Franklin

 

Privacy and Internet

The biggest casualty of terror I see is the privacy. Governments across the globe are embarrassing themselves with privacy invading laws. And people are are somehow OK with it.

With that companies too are finding ways to creep into your browsers, hiding behind cool features. And we are unknowingly letting them know so much about us. Needless to name, you-know-who is leading the pack. We don’t realize but the browsing habits can reveal so much about out personality, our habits and our needs. Think about it, if you are selling a brand of gadget. Won’t you be ready to shell out good money just to know, if people are searching more for your brand or your rivals ones. That, in which area, which time of year, and so on. The one you buy this information from captured from it for free.

Now whatever you do, people are so scarred these days, they don’t mind being watched. Now you can fight for your and their privacy. Or. Be the evil lord and make use their fear. I would recommend later. Cause, if you don’t someone else. So its better be someone lesser evil.

The time is ripe for hitting the market with such products. Trust is all time low. Lower than Mr. Bush’s popularity ever was. This is best time to sell surveillance products. Both hardware and software. In coming years, it will only get easier to sell software that will capture data directly where is generates. Without human interventions. Managers don’t trust their employees anymore. They want the information right out of the your machine. You don’t have to fill time sheets anymore. Won’t you would be fudging it anyway. Because you don’t trust you employer with honest reporting.

 

Internet and Browser

We can’t imagine the world without Internet anymore. It’s into our life so deep and even those who would vow against computers unknowingly are so dependent on it. Superstores, ATMs, reservations, where not?

Browsers has been the way we access it. Start with text only like Lynx. Then came Mozilla and IE. And with that started something new. Standards. We started talking about standards. Open standards, to be more specific. Standards are like Law. You are supposed to follow them but if you want to get faster, richer, better than other then you have to bend few and break some. That’s what IE did too. And now chrome doing the same. Trying to optimize the browsers in favor of particular format for the content. But that’s another debate.

So the content is what makes the Internet. And the content is getting richer by the day. It can be so because the bandwidth is increasingly getting cheaper. We start with text, then images, then videos and now we are already talking about real time streaming HD quality. So will the browsers remain relevant in next decade? I certainly don’t think so. We are probably seeing the end of them. In two more years, as enter next decade, they will become much incapable to cope up with the amount of content and the processing required to present it.

How we will be browsing net in next decade?

Before trying to envision that, lets quickly check the kind of data we be dealing with. HD quality video stream, 3 D worlds like SecondLife, IP TV, VoIP, Maps, Gaming, MMOs and MMORPGs. Today we have separate desktop application to deal with each of them. So, of course, a new platform has to come that can present this rich content. That platform needs to be hardware accelerated. That is, it need to take help of your graphics cards and you need to have a good one. Quality graphic cards might be luxury today but so were CD drives and sound cards once. Near future we can expect them so be standard part of motherboards.

Does this mean we will be browsing using sophisticated browser?

Again, we will have to glance back to predict this. With the internet and dot com boom of late 90s a variety of browsers became available. Many couldn’t sustain or perform with time and hence, gone obsolete. History will repeat itself. We will have variety of paltforms for rich content delivery. Few will win.

What about standards?

Well, we will gradually start writing standards too but then who will follow them? I will be equivolcal here though. Because we do need standards. And the way it will work in reality will be that there will be some standard and everyone will be deviating away from it. But the deviation will be much controlled and lesser copared to abscence of standards. You can say the variance will be much lesser and that will be a good thing.

Who will be causality?

Browsers shall be first. Then, the technologies that can not support rich contents like XML. Yes, I don’t see the future of XML in content delivery. Doesn’t mean XML will die. XML will remain and hopefully be used only were its really needed. Next will be the companies, the sites and the platforms which won’t support rich contents. Google is slowly moving that direction already. Microsoft made a head start ( we are already seeing early prototypes of photosynth, etc from them).

Conclusion

Changing times ahead. Once this economic depression is over and the IT industry is weeded out of non-IT thinking brains ( there was a time when everybody thought they could code). And with that IT industry will probably come of age. Internet would have penetrated much deeper in out lives. The way we look at computers and internet will change. Because the way computer and internet look will also change. With all this technological biggest casuality will be PRIVACY!!

 

Next is what?

Lets start a new series. New year. New chain of thoughts. Lets try and think and innovate. Lets glance back and gauge where we stand today. And from this lets try to extrapolate tomorrow. It’ll be fun. Let me know if you had any premonitions

 

Happy New Year

Wish you a very safe, peaceful and joyous New Year 2009.

The definition for “Happy” changes each year. And I believe this year Happy means being safe. And being at peace – with self, with others, with mother nature and with God. These are difficult times and might it be getting darker ahead. But I wish you sleep peacefully – not having to worry about you job, your mortgage, and your family’s future.

So wish you again a “Happy” New Year. We will be discussing more stuff. More of innovation and less of my dose of philosophy

I have been away for a while as I was busy welcoming new addition to our family. We were blessed with an angel last September the 1st, 2008.

Hope to be back and regular here again.

 

Common sense

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
                                        Josh Billings

 

Conquering hesitation : Talking to strangers

Why men don’t ask for directions? Of the many reasons, hesitation is one. Many of us are too hesitent to walk up to stranger and talk to them. Even when we are looking for help. When was the last time you spoke to a stranger?

Have you been to an village or small town. People so easily talk to strangers. Have a chit chat – over whatever be the topic – politics, economy, sports, doesn’t matter. Everyone has his two cents to throw in. But what a stark contrast you see in big cities. You won’t even pass a smile to your neighbour, forget the greeting. Why?

I don’t think lifestyle is a reason. In a smaller town, you will somehow secured and easy. A big city gives a very intimidating feeling. Like you are nobody and no one bothers about you. More or less true, but why let that feeling hang on to us so tight? I know, even if you gather courage to tell something to a stranger, first look you will get will be of suspicion. That’s a hazard of times we are living in. Anyway, let get back to the point. We are hesitant to talk to strangers and how we get rid of it.

You surely would have met a salesman and a beggar on the road. Next time notice how they approach to strangers. There’s a lot to learn from them. Both have a very different approach. A salesman will start with introduction, but a beggar cuts all the crap and throws a one liner at you. We all know who is more successful.

Again, lets take it in a vice versa situation. How you would like a stranger to approach you. To be point. Specific and precise. Isn’t it. So lets do the same. When you approach a stranger get to the point right after a a polite greeting.

Easier said then done. We know what to say but approaching take guts. Remember we spoke of Baby Steps process. Lets use the same.

Start small. One day just walk on the road, without your wrist watch. Ask for what time it is. And move on. Try it after every 50 yards or so. This will give you some confidence. Do not forget to smile when you are asking for time.

What next. Perhaps you guessed it right. Ask for directions. Pick up a landmark and ask for the directions towards it. When you are asking for direction, the length of conversation is longer and give you little more confidence.

Now the some more practice. While waiting for elevator or bus or tickets, try to hit a conversation. Now do not use a one liner like “Oh! Such a sunny day”, “The elevator is taking forever” or “Is the queue even moving”. As soon you let something out like this, any scope of decent conversation is over. Because now if say anything more after this, it will look like you are “trying hard” to get that person’s attention. And this puts people on back-foot.

How to hit a conversation then? Its getting longer than I expected to lets split here and take that topic out as Conversation Starters.