Thursday, December 18, 2008

Amazon's Platform Business Model

Dr Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, describes Amazon’s platform business model and its ‘flywheel’ for growth on the latest episode of the Telco 2.0 ‘executive brainstorm’ series on Telecom TV. It is well worth the time to watch it.

The other videos are also full of insights:
  • Chris Barraclough, co-founder, Telco 2.0 Initiative describes how the ‘two-sided’ telecoms business model works, and what’s needed to turn it into reality
  • Martin Geddes, Chief Analyst Telco 2.0 Initiative articulates the untapped opportunity for growth in the core telephony business
  • Pieter Knook, Director of Internet Services, Vodafone Group, unveils his vision for a ‘next generation open mobile internet platform’
  • Cenk Serdar, Chief VAS Officer, Turkcell on how his company is blazing a trail with identity and banking services
  • Evidence that challenges the Long Tail theory
  • James Enck, Senior Associate Analyst at the Telco 2.0 Initiative on the impact and opportunity of the Credit Crunch for telcos
  • And a stirring speech by Trudy Norris-Grey, MD Strategy & Transformation at BT Wholesale challenging the Telecoms sector to make the change to realise the $375bn Telco 2.0 growth opportunity

Friday, December 12, 2008

Break Free of the Browser with JavaFX

Internet innovations have taken another step towards Web 3.0 with the introduction of Drag-to-Install feature of Sun's new JavaFX Rich Client Platform. Do you like a (JavaFX) web application? Break free of the browser and drag it to your desktop! Check out the demo video here.

JavaFX is a rich client platform for building cross-device applications and content. Designed to enable easy creation and deployment of rich internet applications (RIAs) with immersive media and content, the JavaFX platform promises that RIAs look and behave consistently across diverse form factors and devices.

JavaFX will have to compete with existing RIA platforms like Adobe Flex/Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. See the JavaFX samples for some example applications.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Kevin Kelly on the Future of the Web

Kevin Kelly recently delivered a pure inspirational talk at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

"I gave a talk yesterday at the Web 2.0 Summit. It's a short talk, only 10 minutes long, so I decided to skip Web 3 - Web 9 and just speak about the upcoming Web 10.0 and what I think will happen in the next 6,500 days."



Some notes:
  • Evolution: Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web 6,527 days ago. In that period we saw: linking of computers (the net), then linking pages (the web), sharing links, the next phase will be linking data
  • Sharing data feels intimate, we are entering an era in which we will share data. Every object we make (even physical) will have data in it, and it will all be part of this web -> the database of Things
  • In the next 6,500 days of the web: it will not be the web only better, it will be something entirely different
  • There will be one machine, everything will be part of it. The web will be its OS. If information is not on the web it will not count. Everything is always on.
Kevin Kelly had a similar talk earlier on TED: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web. Is this the way to Web 3.0?

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Recast Digital Delivers HD Flash Video with RVD1

2009 will be the year of Full screen HD video on the Web.


Recast Digital is a provider of High Definition (HD) Internet video streaming services.

Recast Digital combines advanced Flash Player development with vastly scalable video delivery mechanisms to offer content owners, media businesses, and online advertisers, a highly effective method of serving ultra-high quality interactive on-demand - and live - video to large audiences.

Recast Digital's Flash-based RDV1 player senses the computer power and bandwidth available to the user, and adjusts the definition accordingly up to the 3.2 Mbit/s required for full HD quality. They have re-engineered Flash using existing codecs so that it enables HD content very smoothly, even across the internet and works with Adobe Flash 9 or above. The player supports the following quality and bandwidth options:
  • 580 Kb/s - WD Bronze
  • 736 Kb/s - WD Silver
  • 1036 Kb/s - WD Gold
  • 860 Kb/s - SD Bronze
  • 1.2 Mb/s - SD Silver
  • 1.7 Mb/s - SD Gold
  • 1.2 Mb/s - HD Bronze
  • 2.2 Mb/s - HD Silver
  • 3.2 Mb/s - HD Gold
Experience the Recast Digital high-definition Web video on their demo site.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Camera Phones to Scan 2-D Mobile Codes

Camera phones combined with 2D codes in innovation that mobile users could take advantage of. The use of Mobile Codes is only limited by imagination. One possibility is innovative marketing:
When BMW launched the BMW 1 Series 3-door version last year, it was the first white car they had introduced in a long time. So they decided to produce their advertising campaigns in black and white.
“Because the campaign was black and white, we decided to combine it with 2D bar codes, which we wanted to test.” (2D bar codes, both Semacodes and QR Codes, are also black and white).

What are mobile codes?

'Mobile codes' are codes in the same way as ordinary barcodes are, but their matrix structure can hold more information. The codes are also mobile in the sense that the camera of mobile devices can be used to scan and decode them.

A web address (URL), a phone number, an email address or plain text can be converted into a mobile code. After scanning it their camera phone, people will have instant access to the encoded information straight on the display of their mobile device.

Mobile codes are increasing in popularity: as tags on flyers and posters; on business cards and CVs; in magazines and blogs; offline and online.

Mobile phones such as a Nokia N82, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB, E66, E71, E90 or 6220 Classic comes with the Nokia barcode reader preinstalled, ready to scan mobile codes.

How to Create Mobile Codes?

There are free easy to use tools to create Mobile Codes such as the Nokia Mobile Barcodes site. Once the mobile code has been generated scan, print or save it for sharing the way you want.

How to scan and decode Mobile Codes?

There are many other tools in addition to Nokia Barcode Reader such as
Have fun and connect the real world and the virtual world with innovative mobile codes!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Mobile Broadband Usage Statistics by Nielsen

The mobile consumer spends $350B each year on connectivity, devices, and content.
Nielsen Mobile provides syndicated consumer research to the mobile media markets.

The latest Nielsen Mobile Insight Research Reports feature interesting topics such as
Check out Nielsen Mobile's other Research Findings here.

Spykee Robot - Remote Control Spy Robot with Wifi Skype Video

Spykee, the spy robot is an innovative home surveillance solution and an incredible fun and cool gadget all in one. It is Skype compatible and have 3 different models.

Spykee Spy is the WiFi robot you build yourself! He can be controlled remotely from anywhere in the world using a computer and Internet connection. Spykee moves, watches, hears, speaks and monitors (whatever you want). He is available for preorder on Amazon.com for less than $300. He is a great toy but also an universal home surveillance security guard robot too.

Discover all his other functions:
  • Photo/Video: Spykee takes pictures and records video.
  • Monitoring and Video Surveillance: He monitors and protects your room from intruders with his video surveillance function! Spykee detects movement and sends you a picture of the intruder by e-mail.
  • VoIP Phone: Spykee lets you make free calls on the Internet with VoIP Phone function!
  • MP3 Player: Spykee can play mp3 music. It is made for iPod through Erector.
  • Self-recharging: When Spykee gets low on power it will find its power station and automatically dock with it to recharge.
The robot is equipped with:
  • Webcam
  • Microphone
  • Speaker
  • Flash lightning and lights
  • Rubber tracks
  • Comes with recharging dock
The Spykee robotic sentry is the most fun wireless broadband gadget you can get today. I can't wait to get mine! I hope that the Spykee remote control iPhone app will soon make it to the Apple iPhone App Store. Check out the Spykee page for more information.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

FUJIFILM FinePix Real 3D Camera and Imaging System

FUJIFILM has finally announced on Photokina 2008 a radical departure from current imaging systems with the development of the Real 3D System that marks a complete break from previous attempts to introduce 3D technology to the consumer camera world.

The Real 3D System consists of
  • Dual CCD 3D digital camera with ‘RP (Real Photo) Processor 3D’ chip
  • 3D photo frame: 8.4-inch “FinePix Real 3D Photo Frame” with over 920,000 pixels
  • High Resolution 3D printing system
One major benefit of the FinePix Real 3D Photo and Movie Camera technology is that for digital camera LCD playback, display and print, the consumer can enjoy the image just as it was originally seen with the naked eye. No need for special glasses! Check out the articles on the Real 3D System on Wired and DPReview!

Welcome to the world of 3D Imaging! The next step is to use 3D desktop, mobile devices and ultimately the 3D Internet!

When will Apple deliver the iPhone 3D with 3D Camera and 3D Display? Until then check out the wonderful animations of stereoscopic images made by Joshua Heineman of Cursive Buildings.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Wuala Launches P2P Online Storage Cloud


Wuala has launched a hybrid P2P social online file sharing service.

Wuala provides secure online storage and backup for all kinds of files (including photos and large videos). Accessible from anywhere at any time and easy sharing with friends, family, and co-workers. 1 GB is free of charge and additional capacity is available either by trading in your local storage of buying more from Wuala at a reasonable starting price of $25 for 10GB.

The Wuala client supports Windows, Mac and Linux. I look forward to downloading a client for the Apple iPhone on the iTunes App Store. Is this the way to the TeraPod?

On the technical side the Wuala has an interesting P2P architecture. Wuala is a new way of storing, sharing, and publishing files on the internet. Unlike traditional online storage systems, Wuala is decentralized and can harness idle resources of participating computers to build a large, secure, and reliable online storage.

Dominik Grolimund, the founder of the Swiss startup Caleido, discusses interesting details in this Google Tech Talk video.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Liveplace - Photo-Realistic Virtual World Rendered by OTOY Cloud

Mobile phones and devices can already access virtual worlds such as Second Life on 3G networks. Vollee delivers Second Life to more than 70 handhelds by rendering it on the server side. Their Second Life iPhone client is in beta.

LivePlace plans to take cloud rendering of 3D virtual worlds to a new level. TechCrunch has posted a very impressive video of LivePlace's City Space which is a Photo-Realistic 3D virtual world. The beautiful ray tracing is done on the server side or "in the cloud" and delivered to the clients via OTOY. OTOY is a 800k web plug-in that enables cinematic quality 3D rendering in a browser with compressed content streaming.

The City Space demo shows beautiful and highly realistic rendering of different environments. It looks and feels more real and immersive than Earthmine, Everyscape or Google Maps Street View.

The demo video shows real time rendering using an ATI RX 1900 GPU and live streaming to a Treo 700 at 240 kpbs. The final product is said to be even more impressive! The first comment on the demo: "this is the pinnacle of what has been dreamed of since computer modeling and rendering was begun."

TechCrunch has more details on OTOY and LightStage here including interesting interviews with Jules Urbach, the founder and CEO of OTOY.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Exaflood - Internet Video Traffic - Zettabyte by 2015

From YouTube, IPTV, and HD video, to “cloud computing” and ubiquitous mobile cameras–to 3D games, virtual worlds – the new wave is swelling into an exaflood of Internet traffic. An exabyte is 10 to the 18th. The Discovery Institute estimates that by 2015, U.S. IP traffic could reach an annual total of one zettabyte (1024 bytes), or one million million billion bytes.

Video and rich media is expected to dominate IP traffic. TDP's IP Traffic Projection in the U.S. by 2015 shows:
  • video calling and "virtual windows" could generate 400 exabytes
  • Internet video, gaming, and virtual worlds could produce 200 exabytes
  • movie downloads and P2P file sharing could be 100 exabytes
  • non-Internet “IPTV” could reach 100 exabytes, and possibly much more
  • business IP traffic will generate some 100 exabytes
  • cloud computing and remote backup could total 50 exabytes
  • other applications (phone, Web, e-mail, photos, music) could be 50 exabytes
Will this huge data traffic increase drown the Internet? No, it won't - argues Nate Anderson of ars technica.

Friday, July 25, 2008

IT in 2018: From Turing’s Machine to the Computing Cloud


How will the IT landscape look like in 2018? This is the question asked by Nicholas Carr, the author of "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google". He takes readers of this free Internet.com eBook on a trip one decade into the future to see how IT as we know it will change and what those changes mean for IT professionals, hardware and software vendors, and corporations of all sizes.

This interesting journey starts at 1936 in Cambridge where Alan Turing has invented the idea of the universal computing machine.

"With enough memory and enough speed, Turing’s work implies, a single computer could be programmed, with software code, to do all the work that is today done by all the other physical computers in the world.

And that is why the modern corporate data center, with all its complex and expensive stacks of machinery, is on the path to obsolescence."

Carr clearly explains the current hot virtualization and consolidation trend:

"Turing’s discovery that “software can always be substituted for hardware” lies at the heart of “virtualization,” which is the technology underpinning the great consolidation wave now reshaping big-company IT. As the cost of computing power and storage capacity has continued its decades-long freefall, it’s become possible to turn more and more hardware into software code – to use a single powerful computer to run many virtual machines.

All the pieces of hardware stuffed into corporate data centers – not just servers but storage drives, load balancers, firewalls, switches, and even the cables connecting the gear – exist, after all, to carry out instructions. Virtualization simply turns the hardwired instructions into code and gets rid of the physical machinery. That not only saves a lot of cash, it makes the radical automation of formerly manual IT processes possible. Once IT infrastructure turns into software, it can be programmed, easily and from afar. Code, as always, replaces labor. "

Check out his eBook to take the journey to the conclusion:

"Just as the last century’s electric utilities spurred the development of thousands of new consumer appliances and services, so the new computing utilities will shake up many markets and open myriad opportunities for innovation. Harnessing the power of the computing grid may be the great enterprise of the twenty-first century."

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Inexpensive 3D Camera to Control Second Life

Mitch Kapor and Philippe Bossut are developing body language mirroring with 3D cameras. The exciting Handsfree 3D demos use a 3D camera to navigate and work in Second Life. They plan to use the camera so that avatars can directly mirror body language and facial expression. Kapor expects that 2009 will see mass availability of inexpensive 3D cameras which could be used to control virtual worlds.

Check out the impressive innovation on the video.



The Hands Free 3D blog features more info such as:
  • Price of the camera, time to market
  • Applications Beyond Games
  • “Hands Free” Object Editing

Monday, May 5, 2008

Facebook Leads Top Tech Startups List

Silicon Alley Insider has published the list of the World's most valuable digital startups. In the SAI 25, they value and rank some of the world's leading private digital companies.

So far, the SAI 25 ranks the world's 25 most valuable digital companies and 25 additional "Contenders." More companies are expected to be added to the list.

The current list of the most valuable technology startups and their estimated valuations:

1. Facebook - $9 billion
2. Wikipedia - $7 billion
3. Craigslist - $5 billion
4. Betfair - $5 billion
5. Mozilla Corp - $4 billion
6. Yandex - $3 billion
7. Webkinz - $2 billion
8. LinkedIn - $1.3 billion
9. Habbo - $1.25 billion
10. Oanda - $1.2 billion
11. Linden Lab - $1.1 billion
12. Kayak - $1 billion
13. QlikTech - $850 million
14. Ning - $560 million
15. Slide - $550 million
16. TheLadders - $500 million
17. Stardoll - $450 million
18. Ozon - $450 million
19. Thumbplay - $400 million
20. Glam Media - $400 million
21. Rock You - $325 million
22. Tudou - $300 million
23. Efficient Frontier - $275 million
24. Zazzle - $250 million
25. Spot Runner - $250 million

Contenders

Federated Media - $245 million
Yelp - $225 million
Meebo - $220 million
Indeed - $200 million
Zillow - $200 million
LoveFilm - $200 million
Metacafe - $200 million
Adconion - $200 million
4INFO - $175 million
Photobox - $150 million
Vibrant Media - $150 million
Gawker Media - $150 million
Mahalo - $150 million
56.com - $150 million
Youku - $125 million
Digg - $125 million
Etsy - $115 million
LinkExperts - $100 million
Powerset - $80 million
Trialpay - $80 million
Huffington Post - $75 million
Associated Content - $65 million
Live Gamer - $60 million
Twitter - $75 million
Mint - $50 million
Prosper - <$50 million

Who would you add to the list?

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Google App Engine + Opensocial = Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 has been defined earlier by Eric Schmidt as applications living in the cloud that are pieced together. It is a fundamentally different application model that we have ever seen in computing before. Google App Engine is a big step towards this cloud computing vision. It lets developers run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. How does App Engine fits into the Web 3.0 world? Let us review the definition by the CEO of Google:



Take Google App Engine and OpenSocial and a couple of other APIs to get to Web 2.5. It is the beginning of The Big Switch - the coming age of information utility. They let developers focus on innovation rather than the undifferentiated heavy lifting of IT operations, such as setting up and maintaining scalable servers, databases, storage, and networks.

Google is not the first big company to offer utility computing or platform as a service (PaaS). Amazon leads the space with its successful Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). There are very interesting analysis and comparison of Google App Engine and Amazon AWS on the SmoothSpan Blog.

App Engine costs nothing to get started and there are dozens of examples to check out in the Applications Gallery.

App Engine applications are easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. The open source Scalr aims to offer similar Auto-scalability on the Amazon AWS platform.

Welcome to the cloud computing age! Let clouds do the dirty work of operations and let developers innovate.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Sun's Open Source 3D Virtual World - MPK20

MPK20 is a virtual 3D environment built using the Project Wonderland Toolkit. In this 3D world, employees can accomplish their real work, share documents, and meet with colleagues using natural voice communication. Just like on Sun's physical Menlo Park campus, known as "MPK," inhabitants of the virtual MPK20 office building can work together in planned meetings, or can talk informally in unplanned encounters. Unlike the physical campus, however, in MPK20, the community can be built and maintained without the constraints of physical location.



MPK20 is a sample virtual world built using the Project Wonderland open source 3D virtual world toolkit. Within the world, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio, and can share live applications such as web browsers, OpenOffice documents, and games.

The Wonderland toolkit is built on top of the Project Darkstar server infrastructure. Darkstar, a platform designed for massively multiplayer games, provides Wonderland with a scalable and secure multi-user infrastructure well-suited for enterprise-grade applications.

Check out the interesting demo videos on the MPK20 project page.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Hybrid P2P-CDN Streaming Enables HD Video Delivery

Peer-to-peer technology innovations will take center stage for content delivery. Why? The combination of commercial P2P technology and Content Delivery Networks promises the best of both worlds: scalable yet cost effective media streaming and delivery.

The companies and services that have voted for Hybrid P2P-CDN architecture include:
Have a look at this interesting panel discussion at Streaming Media West on how P2P is emerging as a critical enabling technology of a video-centric Internet.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Yahoo Search Architecture Based on Hadoop

How to implement internet scale search based on open-source technologies?

Yahoo has solved this problem using the open-source Apache Hadoop distributed computing framework. Hadoop provides a distributed filesystem (HDFS) and support for the MapReduce distributed computing metaphor that is also the foundation of Google's architecture.

The Yahoo! Search Webmap Hadoop application runs on a more than 2,000 node Linux cluster each with two quad core processors and produces data that is now used in every Yahoo! Web search query.

The Webmap build starts with every Web page crawled by Yahoo! and produces a database of all known Web pages and sites on the internet and a vast array of data about every page and site. This derived data feeds the Machine Learned Ranking algorithms at the heart of Yahoo! Search.

Some Webmap size data:
  • Number of links between pages in the index: roughly 1 trillion links
  • Size of output: over 300 TB, compressed!
  • Number of cores used to run a single Map-Reduce job: over 10,000
  • Raw disk used in the production cluster: over 5 Petabytes
Smaller companies who cannot afford to run their own Hadoop cluster can combine it with the Amazon EC2 ans S3 cloud computing service. The result? Open source utility computing on Google scale!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

iPhone Roadmap Possibilities Until 2012

The future Apple iPhone generations will generate huge waves of innovations. Tomi T Ahonen argues that June 2007 marks a watershed moment in time. He is certain that the mobile telecoms world will count its time in two Eras. The Era BI: time Before the iPhone, and the ERA AI: time After the iPhone.

What are the possibilities in the Era AI?

2007 iPhone
  • Samsung ARM SoC 620 MHz 1176 running at 412 Mhz + PowerVR MBX 3D GPU
  • 128MB RAM
  • 8 or 16GB Flash storage
  • 320×480 3.5” 163 DPI display with multitouch input
  • 100 Hz Accelerometers
  • 2 Megapixel camera with Micron CMOS
  • Quad band GSM + EDGE
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g
  • BlueTooth 2.0 EDR
  • Web applications
2008 iPhone 2.0
  • 3G/UMTS
  • Wireless USB
  • Open SDK
    • Cocoa Touch
    • OpenGL ES 3D graphics
    • OpenAL 3D surround audio
  • Applications like
    • Google Earth
    • Facebook
    • Ebay
    • Twitter
    • Home automation / remote control
  • Games like
    • Spore
    • The Sims
    • Second Life
2009 iPhone and iCar
  • Next generation 45 nm SoC with advanced processing and multimedia
  • 512MB RAM
  • 64GB flash memory
  • GPS
  • 5 Megapixel camera with Image Stabilizer
  • iCar integration
  • HDMI TV/video interface to work as a personal AppleTV or videopod
  • Next generation LCD with embedded scanner functionality
  • NFC radio interface for contactless applications like
    • Access
    • Payment
    • Ticketing
  • Personal 3D display as iPhone accessory
  • Games
    • Social, Location Based and MMORP Games
  • Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality applications
2010 3D iPhone
2011 iPhone, iPhone Mini or iWatch
  • WiMax/LTE 4G wireless networking
  • Alternative iPhone Mini or iWatch form factor
  • Embedded pico projector
2012 iWow
  • Terabyte iPod or iPhone aka the teraPod
  • What else do you need in an ultimate iGadget?

If you like this post check out this fun iPhone roadmap forcast until 2010 in The Red Ferret Journal.

Disclaimer: based on my own ideas and research - and not Apple information

Copyright Geekr 2008

Monday, March 17, 2008

Management 2.0: Business Model Innovation

Innovation is core to internet startups. What kind of innovation?
  • Business Model Innovation
  • Product & Service Innovation
  • Process Innovation
  • Technology Innovation
It is usually the business model and not the technology that creates unique competitive advantage. Alexander Osterwalder of Arvetica examines the role of business model design and innovation in the age of management 2.0.




Alex examines and visualizes the innovative business models of Zopa, Google, Grameen Phone, Apple iTunes & iPod, Amazon S3, Skype, Netflix and others. It is an excellent and very informative presentation on strategy and innovation.

The slides include valuable tools such as
  • Business Model Framework
  • Business Model Template
  • Big Picture on Business Model

Friday, March 14, 2008

iPhone 2.0 SDK Applications to Lead Mobile Internet Innovations

What it takes to have the Internet in your pockets? Apple understands the needs and delivers. The recent announcement of the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) and the iPhone 2.0 marks the start of the revolution of mobile computing:

"What we saw today was the spark. The explosion will continue for twenty years. We will all feel the warmth. Watch the Steve Jobs video from today and you will understand how Apple will dominate the smartphone market for the next 25 years. Wow. What Microsoft and Windows was to the desktop, Apple and Touch will be to mobile. "

Until now the internet experience required a PC or a Mac with a browser, e-mail client and several other applications or clients like Google Earth or Second Life. To deliver this multimedia experience it takes a powerful device and a full featured operating systems like Mac OS X. The Apple iPhone is a unique device that makes true mobile internet experience a reality for the first time.


What makes the Apple iPhone uniquely powerful? Kontra has found 10 reasons in his blog post on Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
  1. Design - Apple’s industrial design and highly polished multi-touch interface have no peers
  2. Stores - The promise of the iTunes Store-like App Store is genuinely outstanding
  3. Pricing - Apple can now leverage its high-volume iPod/Mac businesses to get favorable component prices
  4. Games - high-resolution 3.5" screen, Core Animation, H.264 video, SQLite, OpenGL ES, 3-D OpenAL sound, accelerometer and multi-touch makes the iPhone 2.0 the most capable mobile game platform. Have you seen Spore on iPhone?
  5. WebKit - the Web shines on the iPhone with its multi-touch gestures and big screen
  6. Depth - multi-touch patent portfolio and gesture library bridges PCs and mobile devices. Economies of scale, core design competencies and cross-device integration opportunities will give Apple an huge advantage in product design in the post-PC era
  7. SDK - Cocoa Touch, the marriage of OS X and multi-touch UI, gives developers access to the hardware, multi-touch controls and events, accelerometer, camera, etc., in the top of the line XCode IDE with built in emulator
  8. Enterprise - The mobile space enables Apple to openly court businesses large and small. The enterprise world is a new and significant market for the company.
  9. Ecosystem - Apple has already created the biggest-ever ecosystem around a consumer electronics product line with the iPod. No other player has comparable experience in growing a billion dollar plus ecosystem
  10. Curatorship - Apple has proven with Mac OS X and the iPod that it can anticipate user needs, trade features for enhanced user experience and carefully distill choices to create coherent and desirable products.
User satisfaction surveys consistently prove actual users love their iPhones at rates far above rival devices. Safari on the iPhone has already captured 71% of the mobile browser market in less than a year.

The new iPhone SDK will start a new wave of innovations in mobile computing with applications such as:
  • Reality Tagging
  • People Tagging
  • Reality Recognition
  • Physical Social Networks
  • Personalized Travel Guides
  • Digital and Physical Treasure Hunt
  • Distributed Mobile Games
  • Credit Card and Biometrics as Software
  • Paperless Receipts & Digital Business Cards
  • Medical records as Software
  • Physical Browsing & Digital Shopping
  • Location/time-based deals
Will Apple Dominate Next Gen Computing? It is hard to tell. But the iPhone value proposition looks great for developers and users alike. A revolutionary new platform is a rare and prized opportunity for entrepreneurs as well. So much so that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has created a $100 million fund to fuel this innovation. KPCB’s iFund™ is a $100M investment initiative that will fund market-changing ideas and products that extend the revolutionary new iPhone and iPod touch platform.

Developers are indeed interested. Apple has announced more than 100,000 SDK downloads in just the first 4 days.

It is certainly a challenge for Google Android, Microsoft and Nokia/Symbian (to catch up?). What do you think?

Monday, March 3, 2008

A Practical Guide To Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) brings virtual objects into the real world where we live in.

Powerful mobile devices and smartphones such as the Apple iPhone can be enhanced with innovative video-see-through technology. Just hold the device up and see through the display to view both the real world and the superimposed virtual object. Move around and see the virtual object, model, animation, or game from different views as the AR system performs alignment of the real and virtual cameras automatically. Augmented Reality is a technology that could become mainstream in a couple of years and revolutionize mobile entertainment and our interaction with the world around us.

Imagine Google Street View, Earthmine or Everyscape on steroids!


Augmented Reality: A Practical Guide will introduce you to Augmented Reality (AR), provide detailed explanations of how the technology works, and provide samples for you to try on your own. Code samples using the freely downloadable ARTag software SDK in C++ and C# are included; all you need is a computer, printer, and a webcam.

The book provides everything you need to quickly start developing your own Augmented Reality (AR) applications including
  • how to get started by running AR on your system
  • how OpenGL is used to create computer graphics for AR
  • how to create OpenGL applications
  • how to develop Augmented Reality applications
  • how to integrate ARTag into your OpenGL programming
  • how to create 3D models and import them into the AR program you're writing
  • how to create a 3D Augmented Reality video game

Monday, February 25, 2008

Telepo Delivers Enterprise FMC

The promise of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) has been envisioned for a long time. However the challenge to deliver true mobility with flexibility for enterprise workers – anytime, anywhere and on any network is huge. True fixed-to-mobile convergence solutions need to integrate the mobile phone and new IP based communication services into the enterprise communication infrastructure. The requirements:
  • same set of call handling features both on fixed and mobile
  • easy to use and manage
  • no change in end-user behavior
  • open standards (such as SIP) and proven components
  • future proof and interoperable
  • security

Telepo is a pioneer in FMC innovation. Telepo provides companies with a feature-rich, cost optimized communication system that spans both wired and wireless networks, providing a consistent user experience on a variety of commercial phones. It has won the Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service award by the GSM Association in 2007.

The Telepo Business Communication Solution provides mobile business users and enterprise voice administrators with a uniform set of services – independent of device, network and location including:
  • Single Number Reach (i.e. Single Identity)
  • Presence Services
  • Personal Call Routing
  • Unified Messaging
  • Least Cost Routing
  • Rich set of traditional PBX features
  • Mid-Call Services
  • Corporate Directory Services
  • Support and roaming between VoIP clients, IP phones and dual mode mobile phones
  • Telepo Mobile+ and VoIP clients, including the Telepo Softphone+
Telepo has innovative solutions where the internet and mobile technologies meet. Check it out!

Monday, February 4, 2008

Amazon EC2 Flash Video Streaming

The ability to host web video clips in the Cloud is getting near with the release of the Wowza Pro media server for Amazon EC2 (beta).

Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited is a high-performance, extensible and a fully interactive, Flash media server for live and on-demand flv streaming, chat and recording.

Wowza Media Systems has teamed with Amazon Web Services to make billing quick, easy, and secure for the combination of Wowza Media Server Pro, machine time with various EC2 instances and bandwidth.

Pricing of Wowza Pro Unlimited for Amazon EC2 is:
  • Instances
    • $0.14 per Small Instance-hour consumed (or part of an hour consumed)
    • $0.45 per Large Instance-hour consumed (or part of an hour consumed)
    • $0.88 per Extra-Large instance-hour consumed (or part of an hour consumed)
  • Data Transfer
    • $0.12 per GB of data transfer in
    • $0.20 per GB of data transfer out
  • Monthly Charge
    • $5.00 recurring monthly charge
This pricing includes all charges for the use of Wowza Pro instances on Amazon EC2 (both Wowza Pro licensing and Amazon EC2 fees).

It is still in beta so improvements might be expected related to
  • performance
  • load-balancing
  • using Amazon S3 for hosting videos
  • management
Streaming video using Amazon EC2 and S3 is a great utility computing and storage application. It could help startups with limited resources to compete with youtube and other video hosting services. Check out the user guide and the forum to learn more.

Recommended books on Flash Video Streaming:

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Amazon EC2 and S3 Surpassed Amazon.com


Amazon has announced in its fourth quarter earnings release that the bandwidth usage of the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) has surpassed all of Amazon.com’s global website traffic combined. This milestone means that the 330,000 registered Amazon Web Services (AWS) developers collectively use more bandwidth than the web retailer itself. Amazon has become the leading cloud computing service provider with its own internet platform.

The Amazon Web Services solution catalog lists more than a hundred solutions based on AWS including innovative backup, archival, community and media hosting services by web 2.0 startups and developers.

The resources of AWS Developer Connection grows rapidly. Check out these featured tutorials and articles:
The Amazon Cloud propels new innovation by changing the economics of scalable computing and storage resources. Let's prepare for the Big Switch!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Google Maps Apartment View (Fun Video)

Two young men take a turn down the wrong street view and discover a secret Google Maps feature. Brilliant!


A fun video by the Vacationeers - a stylized comedic film group that features Todd Berger, Kevin Brennan, Jeff Grace and Blaise Miller. Imagine the (frightening) possibilities of this innovative feature where reality and virtual worlds meet!

Monday, January 28, 2008

Trend Map for 2008+

See what to expect in 2008 and beyond on the latest Trend Map!


Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network have once again collaborated to create a trend map for 2008 and beyond. The map uncovers key trends across Society, Politics, Demographics, Economy, and Technology.

Innowave is focused on technology innovations and trends so here they are:
  • Geospatial web
  • Ubiquitous connectivity
  • Robotics
  • Nanotech
  • Biotech
  • Embedded Intelligence
  • RFID
  • Open innovation
  • Transparency
  • GPS
  • Virtual worlds
  • Wireless
  • Device convergence
  • Mobile devices
  • Social networks
  • Place shifting
  • Too much information
  • Time shifting
  • Aggregation
  • Personalization
  • Online video
  • Web 2.0
  • Enterprise 2.0
  • Simplicity
  • 3D printers
  • VoIP
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Reality mining
  • Humans 2.0
Click on the map below to get the full pdf of Trend Blend 2008+.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Storm Worm and the Rise of P2P Malware

It is estimated that several million PCs have been infected by the Storm Worm. It represents a new generation worm/botnet. Although it's most commonly called a worm, Storm is much more: a worm, a Trojan horse and a bot all rolled into one. Storm has been around for a year, and the antivirus companies are pretty much powerless to do anything about it. Why?


The Storm worm first appeared at early 2007 in e-mail attachments with the subject line: "230 dead as storm batters Europe." Those who opened it became infected, their computers joining an ever-growing botnet of zombie computers.

There is no central "command-and-control point" in the Storm botnet that can be shut down. The infected windows host computers use encrypted communication over a modified version of the eDonkey/Overnet peer-to-peer protocol. The name and location of the remote servers which control the botnet are hidden behind a constantly changing DNS technique called ‘fast flux’, making it difficult to find and stop them.

We simply don't know how to stop Storm, except to find the people controlling it and arrest them. The Storm botnet uses the power of P2P networking to protect itself.

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations explains this nicely. Although a starfish and a spider have similar shapes, their internal structure is dramatically different—a decapitated spider inevitably dies, while a starfish can regenerate itself from a single amputated leg. In the same way, decentralized organizations, like the Storm botnet are made up of many smaller units capable of operating, growing and multiplying independently of each other, making it very difficult for a rival force to control or defeat them.

The Storm botnet has been used for spamming, distributed denial-of-service attacks, and other malicious activities including phishing attacks targeting banking European banks. It appears that portions of the Storm botnet and its variants were for sale. The controllers of the Storm seems to lease out portions of the network for misuse.

The Storm represents serious security threat for internet users but it is only the tip of the iceberg. It has started a new wave of innovation by hackers. More advanced P2P malware like Nugache is on its way. Are we prepared?

(To remove the Storm Worm from a Microsoft Windows computer use the Malicious Software Removal Tool as described in the link.)

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Most Compelling Startups and Innovations

The Winners of the 2007 Crunchies award have been revealed. The most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year have been nominated and chosen by the internet community.

  • Best Overall: Facebook
  • Best technology innovation / achievement: Earthmine
    Earthmine picks up where Google Earth leaves off, bringing deep semantic data to 3D panoramas of the real world. They are indexing reality into 3D maps.
  • Best Clean Tech Startup: Tesla Motors
    Tesla’s green sports car has captured the imagination of a public who had come to expect electric cars to be dull are boring.
  • Best video startup: Hulu
    Hulu put television online. Their mission is to help you find and enjoy the world's premium content when, where and how you want it.
  • Best user-generated content site: Digg
  • Best mobile start-up: Twitter
  • Best International startup: Netvibes
  • Best consumer startup: Meebo
    Meebo made instant messaging ubiquitous by bringing it online.
  • Best enterprise startup: Zoho
    Zoho’s comprehensive online suite of 14 business applications ranging from document editing to CRM continues to lead the way in the move away from desktop computing to working in the cloud.
  • Best design: SmugMug
    SmugMug is professional photo site.
  • Best new gadget/ device: Apple iPhone. See the Apple acceptance speech here.
  • Best business model: Zazzle
    Zazzle is an on-demand factory of consumer goods for top brands. It lets consumers become producers by uploading their own images onto that T-shirt, mug, or mousepad and receive a commission on products that they sell and design.
  • Best bootstrapped startup: Techmeme.
    Techmeme serves as the front page of the tech blogosphere. The site’s advanced algorithms identify the day’s top stories by making sense of conversations across the web’s best blogs.
  • Best Startup Founder: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
  • Best Startup CEO: Toni Schneider (Automattic)
  • Best new startup: iMedix
    iMedix combines search and social networking to change the way people find health information online. Users are encouraged to help each other by sharing health experiences and links from around the web.
  • Most likely to succeed: Automattic (WordPress)
    The open source blogging platform that powers the long tale and turned into a multi-million dollar spam fighting and hosted blogging service. They have just announced 3 GB of free space thanks to hosting on Amazon S3.
  • Best use of viral marketing: StumbleUpon
    StumbleUpon’s service lets users bookmark and discover new sites they love. With only a $1.5 million investment in 2005, StumbleUpon gew to over 4 million Stumblers and was bought by eBay in 2007 for $75 million
  • Best time sink site: Kongregate
    CEO Jim Greer describes Kongregate as XBox live for casual games. This site hosts some of the webs most addictive casual games. Remember Desktop Tower Defense?
  • Most likely to make the world a better place: DonorsChose
    DonorsChoose.org is dedicated to connecting classrooms in need with individuals who want to help.

Monday, January 14, 2008

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

I have found this amazon.com review today:

Don't walk, run to your nearest bookstore to read Carr's dazzling THE BIG SWITCH. If you can only read one book in 2008 this should be it. The writing is clean, pure as spring water and thoughtful. Nicholas Carr makes the coming "information utility" simple for the layman to understand. The description of the development of electricity and its impact on society is fascinating and lays the groundwork for the likely outcome of the information age over the next few decades. I enjoyed this book which is a must for anyone interesting in the future of the information utility.

I am looking forward to receiving my copy of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google.

The Big Switch's full ramifications are still far from clear, but the areas it has touched so far are profoundly changed. We are further along in The Big Switch than most people suspect, and the momentum to continue is unstoppable.

The Big Switch represents a great opportunity for the next wave of internet innovations. In fact utility computing or cloud computing is maturing quickly thanks to Amazon EC2, Google and many others. Let's get ready for a great ride!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

2007 Year in Review

2007: What an exciting year in terms of internet innovations!

Let's highlight the most interesting news and trends of last year.


Amazon Web Services (AWS) has ruled the Cloud:

3D Virtual Worlds have met the Real World Online:

Devices and gadgets:

Web 2.0 and Telco 2.0 disruption:

Hot startups pioneered unbeaten paths: