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February 28, 2006
mobile AJAX ..
as per a press release from Opera software :
Widgets on your mobile phone: Opera Software and Freedom Media announce world's first mobile AJAX application using Opera Platform™
Opera Software, a global leader in Web browser technologies, and Freedom Media, an independent, consumer-oriented information- and service provider, today announced the world's first mobile widget application based on Opera Software's mobile AJAX authoring environment, Opera Platform™. Named “Freedom”, the application offers a collection of mobile pay-per-view services designed to increase the usability of mobile Web based services by offering a suite of widgets such as news, real-time stock prices and maps, all through a rich user interface.
and also ..
Availability
At this stage, Freedom will be pre-installed on selected Nokia phones in the Norwegian market, and it will also be available as a free download for Norwegian Nokia S60 mobile owners.
Its the second part that interests me ..
The fact that any S60 user in Norway can download the widget.
I am following this with interest!
Posted by ajit at 8:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
futuretext authors - now at waterstones ..
I am very happy to announce that futuretext has formally signed an agreement with waterstones. This means, our books can be bought from waterstones bookstores giving our authors greater visibility - especially in places such as the Waterstones Piccadilly bookstore(Europe's largest bookstore).
It is also the first step to working with many more bookstores (both large and niche) in North America, Europe, Japan and Korea.
This is a major milestone for us as a company. There are two factors that go towards the acceptance of our books in major bookstores - firstly the quality of the books themselves and secondly the authors.
I would specifically like to thank Tomi Ahonen, Tony Fish, Alan Moore and Mark Curtis for the superb quality of the books - which have won us many accolades.
I would also like to thank Phil Hutton , Maggie Baldry, Irina Ignatova, Adele Gladwin and Skaiste Ciantar for their supporting role to futuretext
Watch this space for more author and partner announcements soon.
Posted by ajit at 12:21 AM
February 25, 2006
Carnival of the mobilists
See it at Kelly's blog HERE
Posted by ajit at 7:41 AM
February 23, 2006
Web 2.0 Logos and Links
Some excellent sites over at diggwatchblog
Web 2.0 Logos and Links - Part 1
Web 2.0 Logos and Links - Part 2
Posted by ajit at 9:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 22, 2006
Open systems, Information technology and blossoming (or not) of Civilizations.
On holiday, I met VC Bothra who started off this discussion in context of India and the Gutenberg press. Having an interest in history and archaeology - I have enhanced it with examples of other civilizations and the impact of the global spread of the Internet and Open systems
There are two points I am making here
a) Information technology gives cultures and civilizations a 'once in a lifetime' chance to leapfrog / totally transform themselves
However, it's not enough merely to create a new 'information innovation(a language, a printing press etc)' - it's necessary to remove barriers so that it can spread fast, create new nodes and enrich itself. Leading to the second point
and secondly.
b) 'Closed' civilizations and knowledge centres do not grow. In fact, they shrink and die
Information technology and the transformation of cultures
The best example of this is the Gutenberg press - which created a whole new competitive advantage for the Europe.
India, today, is another example where the IT revolution has led it to effectively 'skip' the industrial / infrastructure changes. In other words, as countries like Singapore, South Korea and Japan developed after world war two, there was first a corresponding increase in industrial output and infrastructure development. In contrast, India still has a long way to go in infrastructure - BUT has effectively levelled the gap using information technology
Another example is China. The invention of paper in ancient China - led to the development of a rich civilization. In contrast - note that the current Chinese development is based on industrial production and not information technology
I have long believed that Africa will be a key beneficiary of the mobile revolution (see The mobile internet will do more for Africa than Live 8 !) i.e. the lives of ordinary citizens in Africa will be transformed by the rise of the mobile internet
Now, let’s come to the second part
'Closed' civilizations and knowledge centres do not grow. In fact, they shrink and die
The Sumerians invented one of the first languages as we know it. As per the link above Sumerian, the oldest known written language in human history, was spoken in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and peripheral regions) throughout the third millennium BC and survived as an esoteric written language until the death of the cuneiform tradition around the time of Christ.
It was the first but it was 'elite' i.e. for aristocracy, esoteric (like Greek and Latin today) and different to almost all the then contemporary languages (like Hebrew).
The result is - inspite of being the first - it's an extinct language today
So, what does that tell us today?
Information technology is enabling pockets of cultures to leapfrog decades of underdevelopment. This development is taking place primarily due to 'links between nodes' i.e. easier communication between people which enables creation and development of the whole body of people.
This phenomenon is being played out at local levels (like India) but also at the global level (the Internet)
In contrast, societies which will not interact or which will choose to erect barriers will shrink (like the Sumerian language)
Finally, I will end this article with another insight for us to ponder about.
Japan and South Korea excel in industrial production and they have been largely successful in dominating western companies in terms of physical goods
BUT .. I believe that the same will not happen with respect to Information technology. Essentially, there are too many barriers to entry for western countries to 'sell' to Japan and Korea(and also China). These are useful to keep competition out BUT are also succeeding in stifling the exports of Japanese and Korean information technology products (i.e. those not based on physical hardware). The only way out is to 'export' a hardware/a standard FIRST (think betamax, VHS etc). This, in my view, is a no win situation i.e. the nations being 'exported to' are not likely to adopt a proprietary standard and give up competitive advantage in the current climate
In the information technology game, the winner is not the one with the best (or earliest) breakthrough(like the Sumerians) - but rather the one with the greatest number of 'links' i.e. an open system
In conclusion ..
History is a wonderful teacher.
There is much we can learn from the Sumerians(in English!)
Image source: wikipedia
Posted by ajit at 8:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 21, 2006
Good blog about the mobile data industry in India ,,
I met Veer Chand Bothra when I was on holiday in India. Veer runs a good blog about the mobile data industry in India. The link is mobilepundit
Posted by ajit at 7:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Apologies for the radio silence
Been on holiday and just back to cold London now. More soon later this week
Posted by ajit at 6:39 PM
February 10, 2006
tags and identity
More clarifications from Tony Fish about
I am not a number - I am a tag concept
over at forumoxford
Many thanks for all the insights. I was interested in views on the control aspect of numbering and search.
Players (corporate companies who own brands and networks) want control points for good economic reasons [barriers to entry], control of numbers has been an underpinning element in communications, search resolving [directory] has been another.
Whilst I understand comments about what are tags and resolving numbers, which look the same, I accept the criticism that I did not explain my intention well. I am not sure that I will do much better this time, but I am sure you will let me know, and I will still be somewhat vague, as this is thought in progress and your point of view is probably more valid than mine.
If (if) my identity (ID) is only a collection of verified information [assumption], I need two elements to justify identify ( who I say I am) - who I am based on some historical fact(s) and that these facts are conferred somehow. My historical facts are made up from my DOB, NI, education, jobs, interests, relations, finger print, preferences etc. These facts allow me to gain Identity and acquire verified identity (conferred) such as driving license, passport, entry cards etc. These verified identities in turn allow me to buy verified services such as banking. These verified services allow me to pay-for (buy) non-verified services such as communications, who give me a number, that becomes part of my identity. But a communication number cannot be used to identify who I am, therefore the loop is open. This suggests that I can use simple and then complex proof to gain an identity to gain access to services.
Now, Avatar's, handles, numbers and indeed my name; are like tags, totally agree - they are descriptors in space and time to resolve something that I cannot remember as it is too complex [dna, ip address, family history] . However, some of these services are one dimensional and allow a user to hide, to be hidden, to falsely identify who they are and be me [fraud]. Verified Identity, my passport, driving license (in most cases) should be a true representation of who I am at some point in time. Now, how about a verified Tag. Something that allows me to be identified and verified, but not because who I say I am, but others. A closed loop system. Since, the Internet allows me to set up an ID called tonyfish, without proof. I can then take someone’s verified ID can communicate to another channel. As this is open – it can be abused.
“I am a verified TAG” This is built not from who I say I am [ allowing for fraud] but who others say I am [ ignoring corruption] Further, should I want to be found from a tag search term Tony Fish, there needs to be a 'Data Base of Intentions" that translates the search into means (cognitive),hence new search is not about 'searching a database to match' but interruption of intent; aka John B book on “Search”
Is there any merit in having verified Tags, allowing others to confer details and facts. The wider the agreement of Facts, say using friends reunited, linkedin, msn, web pages the more likely the person is who they say they are and it is the right person.
Posted by ajit at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Game Co's to SUN: "We are not amused"
Source : Mobile entertainment
Thanks to William Volk of bonusmobile for pointing this out to me and the title.
I have been saying something similar
at Mobile web 2.0: AJAX for mobile devices – why mobile AJAX will replace both J2ME and XHTML as the preferred platform for mobile applications development (a second version of this article is out soon)
From the mobile entertainment site:
Games elite tackles fragmentation
11:30, Feb 10th by Tim Green
Fourteen of the industry’s biggest hitters have joined forces to address mobile gaming’s handset fragmentation nightmare.
The group, which includes EA, Digital Chocolate, Nokia, Texas Instruments and Microsoft, has defined an open gaming architecture for native mobile games for phones. The big idea? To make development quicker and ultimately cheaper while providing a rich gaming experience for the consumer.
At present, mobile games development is hamstrung by the fact that one game needs to be tweaked potentially hundreds of times for different handsets. These devices all implement Java differently and have a variety of screen sizes, keyboard lay-outs and user interfaces.
The cost and time implications are enormous. This new architecture won’t solve the problem, but it should ease it with a common set of capabilities. The first ‘reference implementations’ are expected to be available in the second half of 2006.
It’s significant that the 14-strong alliance includes participants from across the chain, namely developers, middleware providers, chip makers, OS vendors, handset companies and operators. “It’s a great achievement to have reached this level of agreement” said Lincoln Wallen, CTO for EA Mobile. “By working together to support the delivery of a standard game architecture onto mobile phones we are shaping the future of the industry.”
The full list of participants is: Activision, Digital Chocolate, EA, Ideaworks3D, Konami, Microsoft, MontaVista Software, Nokia, Samsung, SK Telecom, Square Enix, Symbian, Tao Group and Texas Instruments.
Posted by ajit at 8:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 9, 2006
Should privacy/data protection regulation be extended to social business networks?
I wake up this morning to find the above message on my account in linkedin.
Personal plus account? I did not know I had one. And its expiring it seems. I have to pay up. No idea what happens if I don’t
I am sure there must be some small print somewhere. Perhaps an email would have been sent a while ago and no one expects to use a service like linkedin for free forever.
But social business sites are a unique case ..
They actively ask you to invite everyone you know to their network. Ofcourse they can change at any time. So, you are expected to trust them(in this case linkedin). But the question is – how can I be expected to trust something which changes unilaterally on a whim?
Also ..
a) Why don’t people tell you in advance when you join what the fees are?
b) Why would I invite all my contacts on linkedin and then find that they in turn have to pay as determined by the network?
c) What does that do to my reputation with my contacts?
d) If I leave, will linkedin ‘uninvite’ my network or ‘keep’ it?
I think it would be the later
Finally, I hate the word ‘network’ - these are my friends, colleagues, associates – not a node in a matrixans social network. They are people!
This is a new field – and as yet unregulated. Do you think privacy/data protection legislation should be extended to social business networks? I believe it should!. As I do more work on web 2.0 – I see that these issues are critical.
About a year ago, I made a conscious decision to reduce my involvement with the hype and double standards which social business networks are plagued with.
Happily, VCs have moved away from social business networks as well.
I think its time to go back to basics, value people and not networks/statistics AND introduce some new legislation!
For me, this message from linkedin merely reinforces that. What do you think?
Posted by ajit at 4:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 8, 2006
Dr Mark Searle - on I am not a number - I am a tag ..
Like Judy in the previous blog, I have a lot of respect for Dr Mark Searle's views. He does an excellent job of explaining the I am not a number - I am a tag concept - perhaps better than I did!
Mark says ..(again at forumoxford )
I can't speak for Tony of course and his idea is fairly vague but please let me explain what I think he means.
At present, when we set up a communication session we use various 'addresses'. I use the word advisedly as in reality most addresses are tags in both legacy POTS telecoms and IP-based services. The exception is E164 which developed out of mechanical switch technologies. For example, an MSISDN is a tag as it is not used for addressing but for the identification of an operator and user account. A tempory routing number is used in this case to address a mobile user.
Now things are complicated in IP because this has opened up the possiblities for communication, Email, IM, SMS VOIP etc. The number of 'addresses' has increased enormously. This is where ENUM and NAPTR help by allowing a single 'address'/tag to allow applications to identify the most appropriate 'address' for communications e.g sip+2EU, mailto:+E2U etc.
Now where I think there is confusion is in the next stage. I think tony is refering to tags as arbitary pointers to an individual like what you throw up when you do an ordinary google search on 'Tony Fish'. I think what he is saying is why should I have to remember even the one address that ENUM needs (1.1.2.3.4.5.6.arpa.E164) . I can search simply by requesting 'Tony Fish'. So far so good. However what google can't do is the next stage. The search engine works out from my own information that I must mean a particular Tony Fish and that his contact details are open to you because you are a business collegue and have been authenticated as such. Google can't make a search based on information Tony entered about his status one minute ago. Google can't tell me the Tony Fish I found on the search is really the person I want to talk to and not a Nigerian Engineer who wants my bank account details to that he can deposit $25 millon. Oh, and by the way the search also throws up that 'Tony Fish' is a bridge player on a thursday so if my mobile is switched off contact him there.
I think we had this system once before you know. It worked very well. It was called a switchborad operator. Strowger has a lot to answer for.
Regards Mark
Posted by ajit at 8:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
cognitive aggregation of tags ..
Over at forumoxford, Judy Breck whose work I admire expanded on out I am not a number - I am a tag idea
From a purely content angle, there is a fundamental difference between a tag and a number. A tag carries cognitive meaning and a number carries little if any cognitive meaning. The tag "New York" conveys the meaning of the city to most people. The number "212," assigned as a phone area code to New York, becomes a bit cognitive as it is learned by those who use it, but most numbers do not even convey that much meaning.
With apologies to linguists for over simplifying, the cognitive aggregation function of tags is the use of something that has been happening on the Internet from its beginning - if informally. An early example was the "Hittite Homepage" (http://www.asor.org/HITTITE/HittiteHP.html) where virtual cognitive material about the ancient Anatolians has been aggregated by its experts since at least the mid-1990s.
It is observable that the cognitive aggregation that makes the Internet so valuable for learning (and for commerce, too) - that this aggregation follows the laws of small world network theory. (My 2004 book "Connectivity" describes that cognitive networking). Informal tags like "Hittite" are the underlying mechanism, seems to me. It would have been pretty hard to aggregate cognitively if the Hittites were designated only as something like #889345.
I realize that at a techical level every address is no more than a number, But the cognitive networking occurs at a virtual level that emerges from the technical level. At the virtual cognitve level numbers are a nuisance. Humans are going to tag webpages regardless of what transmission does. Would it be simpler just to use the tags humans choose for their cognitive appropriateness?
Thanks Judy. We seem to be developing this idea nicely with help from the community
Posted by ajit at 8:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 5, 2006
Is enum the answer to the I am not a number problem ..
I got two comments about enum to my article on I am not a number - I am a tag
Is enum the solution to the I am a tag question?
My take is – enum is a much lower level of abstraction – and hence subject to the slow uptake/control issues/standards problems. The beauty iof tags is – they are at a much more ‘user’ level of interaction. Seek thoughts?
Steve Kennedy says
ENUM goes someway towards this, people think of it as a "electronic directory" but it isn't.
ENUM allows a user (or the owner of an electronic number) to set their own rules on how other can contact them.
It's based on the DNS system (and if successfull will mean DNS needs a complete overhaul to cope with the added demand).
It uses what are called NAPTR (pronounced napter - i.e like napster without the s) records and these are routing/preference records for how a particular number should be routed and to where.
ENUM was specified by the ITU-T and there's an RFC for it. It uses the e164.arpa DNS zone (E.164 was the ITU-T group that specified it).
It only supports numeric numbers which are stored in reverse direction, so take a random telephone number +44-20-7123-4567, this would be stored as: -
7.6.5.4.3.2.1.7.0.2.4.4.e164.arpa
In DNS terms this is easy to parse, and fits into a hierarchical storage system (as does DNS in general).
When someone does a query for this it would start at e164.arpa which is managed by RIPE, they then delegate 4.4 to the UK (there is only ONE registry per country which is in UK terms will be allocated by the DTI).
The registry then holds the info for 4.4
(In the UK how the infrastructure will be run has not yet been agreed/organised, there have been some limited trials. Austria has a working ENUM infrastructure and is probably the most advanced country to date. It has been decided there will only be one registry and many registrars. A registrar can not be a registry, there are other parts beyond scope here).
So for an invidual number there's a NAPTR entry which has URI's telling the system how to reach that number and preferences. So it might say between 9 and 5 try the SIP address SIP:steve@gbnet.net, at other times use telephone number tel:0777777777. Any type of service may be specified in the URI.
What this means is that users (or number owners) control how calls should be routed to their numbers, which potentially is disasterous for telecoms providers as they lose control (i.e. dont pass traffic over the PSTN, use IP instead), but it does go someway to the end user controlling how people contact them,Steve Kennedy
Paul Golding says ..
I think Tony's presentation must have been aimed at old-school telco managers who don't understand IP. Ultimately, to "find" someone in the IP-connected world, you need their IP address. This is how to "locate" someone and therefore connect. You can tag an IP address any way you like and stick those tags in a search index. If you want to use a telephone number, you can (ENUM is only one method - a "standardised" one).
However, you still need to locate the IP address somewhere on the network. In the "Next Gen" operator world (e.g. IMS, TISPAN etc.), they still intend to control that process and have fully embraced tags already, which is what SIP addresses are essentially all about.
Posted by ajit at 7:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 4, 2006
Carnival of the mobilists
The carnival of mobilists is at the Mobile Enterprise Blog this week. Topics covered include Web 2.0, mobile behaviour and the latest apps. As usual, it makes great reading.
Posted by ajit at 12:48 PM