Open Gardens

RIP Charles Moore

2010-03-16T18:16:05Z

Charles Moore died last week. To see his iconic work, see this slide show from the BBC about Charles Moore Image source: CBS news

The democratic appstores and Customers voting with their downloads. The wider implications of Skype on Nokia Ovi/Symbian devices ..

2010-03-13T19:14:51Z

Update:

Another way to say this is: 'Apps are the spearhead to Operator deals'. i.e. while Operators have blocked many applications on their portals .. the apps are more democratic and reflective of the true customer intentions. Their success motivates the Operators/handset vendors to align better with their customers's wishes by integrating successful apps deeply into the network / device Last week, Skype announced their launch on Symbian/Nokia devices through Ovi. This means, 200 million Nokia mobile phones are capable of making Skype-to-Skype calls anywhere in the world over WiFi and 3G This is good news ofcourse .. But there are wider implications. With both Nokia and iPhone allowing customers to access Skype over their respective application stores, this could be a part of a wider trend. Skype was hugely successful on the iPhone with one million downloads in the first two days. Thus, there was a clear customer demand. This was followed by Skype on Verizon (deeper integration for the Operator). And now by Skype on Nokia. Thus, we are seeing a virtuous cycle where appstores demonstrate a demand for services Appstores, by their nature, are Long Tail and hence 'democratic'. In other words, you would never have seen Operators rushing to deploy Skype on their portals! So, now we create a virtuous circle. Apps are deployed on appstores Customers vote with their downloads This motivates Operators like Verizon and 3 to integrate apps deeply into their network This is a good trend. It is good for Openness, for customers, for devices(differentiation) and also networks(they give services which their customers have demonstrated demand for) Image: http://sanlorenzolibrary.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/scales-of-justice.gif

Has O2 taken a backward step - blaming apps for network woes ..

2010-03-11T15:56:30Z

Historically, O2 has been trying to work with developers and of late, there has been some good outreach to developers but this appears to be a backward step .. Apps causing data bottlenecks, not iPhones claims O2 CTO. How do we interpret this? Are we going back to the days of 'blame the apps' or worse still - blame the developers? I hope not .. but am interested to know what exactly does this mean (blame the apps). Is it ALL apps? Is it specific apps? etc etc ..

AT&T Interactive, Verizon, Nokia, LG, Qualcomm, Infosys and others speaking at CTIA Mobile Web and apps ..

2010-03-10T20:38:17Z

AT&T Interactive, Verizon, Nokia, LG, Qualcomm, Infosys and others speaking at CTIA Mobile Web and apps .. Ajit Jaokar, President - futuretext - chairing Srinivas Mandyam, VP of Mobile Engineering - AT&T Interactive. Verizon Wireless Craig Cumberland, Director of Web Products and Technology- Nokia Tarang Shah, Senior Vice President of Startup Analysis and Technology Innovation - Bank of America Mike Lurye, Director of Product Marketing- Amdocs Interactive Noam Raffaelli, Vice President of Product Management- Qualcomm Chetan Sharma Consulting, President - Chetan Sharma Consulting Joe Lalley, Senior Director of Product Development for Global Digital Media - MTV Networks Gary Schwartz, President and CEO - Impact Mobile Dr. Taek Chung - LG Electronics Tim Haysom, Chief Marketing Officer- OMTP Deepak Swamy, Associate Vice President, Communications, Media and Entertainment Business- Infosys Technologys Limited Peggy Ann Salz msearchgroove and others .. see more at Mobile Web and Apps Still some space on the Applications showcase

Open Mobile Summit London - May 26 - 27

2010-03-10T16:35:08Z

Last year, it was great to speak at the Open Mobile Summit in London, and I am glad to see that it has now become a permanent feature of the London mobile events calendar. This year, again we have the Open Mobile Summit London - May 26 - 27 Finally, the agenda for the Open Mobile Summit London is live. Check it out here. Covering the whole ecosystem, the event will have line-up of 60+ speakers from across the ecosystem the event has both the seniority and the depth to cover such a rapidly changing and complex topic as Open Mobile. If you are attending, please contact me (ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com) and happy to meet up. Link to the conference is Open Mobile Summit London - May 26 - 27

CTIA mobile web and apps - application showcase

2010-03-10T15:15:58Z

I am chairing the Mobile Web and apps event at CTIA and there is a opportunity if you are Interested in putting your application(s) or services front and center at the Mobile Web and Apps event but have a limited budget as per below For only $995 qualified companies* receive: A 6ft. tabletop display/stand in the conference room 100 word description of your company and app(s) on the official website Company literature, sales cd or other approved promotional piece in the attendee bags Logo and link on our special Application Spotlight pre and post-show emails to all attendees and press. Company name and link on email to CTIA list of 25,000+ Company name and link on bi-weekly show newsletter to 5,000+ Price includes Free pass to Mobile Web And Apps ($395 value) which gives you access to the CTIA showfloor and all Keynotes. ONLY 4 SPOTS LEFT For more information, contact Larry Lockhart at Larry@nextvisionmedia.com * Qualified companies shall be determined by show management. Hours: Morning Coffee in the Exhibit Room 8:15-8:50 - All Breaks - Lunch 12:00-1:00- After show hours until 6:30

Smart mobs says about open mobile: It is not often one comes across a book which encourages an entire industry to reflect upon its essence and purpose ..

2010-03-09T20:44:21Z

Smartmobs writes about Open Mobile It is not often one comes across a book which encourages an entire industry to reflect upon its essence and purpose .. :) You can download the entire book in pdf format HERE

Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra on Government 2.0 - excellent talk

2010-03-09T10:05:24Z

Carnival of the mobilists 214 and 213

2010-03-08T05:23:05Z

Carnival of the mobilists No 214 is now live at the mobi thinking blog Some excellent contributions. Also, here is a link to Carnival of the mobilists no 213 at wipconnector which I forgot to post.

Dinosaurs Unleashed Oxford Street

2010-03-07T09:06:22Z

My son and I spent Saturday at this show. Its cool and especially if you have kids you will enjoy it. The 'life size' element in the heart of central london is cool! Some very nice innovations like 'Dinopaint' where you paint dinosaurs on the screen and it gets rendered on a real image on the floor and hunting for fossils. My son doing dinopaint as below

Mobile Cloud Computing: Issues and Risks from a Security Privacy Perspective: An analysis and a survey for my talk at secure cloud conference

2010-03-05T21:27:35Z

Hello all I am presenting a paper/speaking at the secure cloud conference on 'Mobile Cloud Computing: Issues and Risks from a Security Privacy Perspective' This event has some very interesting co-speakers including Enisa, US Federal Trade Commission, eBay, qualys, European commission, BT innovation, fujitsu, Verizon, NIST. So, should be a good event. I have covered mobile cloud computing before on this blog and I have some views on it as you know. However, I seek some feedback through this brief survey. The survey is subjective and you may answer any questions as you feel relevant. Of course all responses are anonymous and in return for your feedback, I will send you a copy of my presentation. You can email me your responses at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com..The survey is designed to be informative i.e. I hope you will learn from it. There is also a significant discussion on Identity and Cloud as you can see in the last question below For the sake of simplicity and to prevent being bogged down by definitions, I consider cloud computing as below: Cloud computing entails the availability of software, processing power and storage on an 'as needed' basis. Cloud computing reduces CAPEX investment. Its key characteristics include agility, reduced Cost, device independence, reliability (multiple redundant sites), scalability, security and reduced maintenance. Cloud computing applications can be broadly divided into: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) ex Amazon Web Services provides virtual servers with unique IP addresses and blocks of storage on demand; Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): Ex Google apps - A set of software and development tools hosted on the provider's servers. and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) : Ex web based email - in which the provider allows the customer only to use its applications. Mobile cloud computing could be defined as - the availability of cloud computing services in a mobile ecosystem. This incorporates many elements including consumer, enterprise, femtocells, transcoding, end to end security, home gateways and mobile broadband enabled services. Also since the terms 'mobile' and 'wireless' are used interchangeably, I consider Mobile - 'anywhere anytime' and wireless is 'without wires'. Thus mobile is 'wireless'. Hence, we are talking of 'Anywhere anytime secure data access' when we speak of Mobile Cloud Computing To set the stage; Enisa has an excellent paper on Cloud computing which you can read HERE The recent RSA conference had some interesting developments: White House Cybersecurity Plan Revealed 12 point comprehensive national cyber security initiative The Trusted Cloud computing initiative continues to evolve Identity is an important part of Cloud computing(both web and mobile) as we see in the last qs below

So, within the context above, my questions are:

a) Is 'mobile cloud computing' a distinct domain in itself? Or is it more about 'Web Cloud providers going mobile' b) Do mobile providers have any advantages over web providers (like Amazon)? c) What are the key issues and key advantages for mobile cloud computing? d) Will mobile cloud computing be about privacy in addition to security? e) What are the biggest privacy and security threats to mobile cloud computing g) Will providers use Mobile Cloud computing to ask payment for granular features(like access to voicemail) aka the Ryanair business model for Cloud computing! h) Will enterprises be the key drivers for Mobile Cloud Computing? i) Mobile Cloud computing can be implemented at many levels in the Telecoms stack: The Device/Platform, the Operator; The Mobile Web; Infrastructure; SIM. Any more potential ways in which mobile cloud computing can be implemented? And what are the pros and cons of the approaches? j) Which applications would be most likely to benefit from Mobile Cloud Computing? k) Would PCs/Sub netbooks and other 'non phone' devices covered by Mobile broadband be impacted by this trend and if so, how? l) Many providers use 'data backup' as a stepping stone to cloud services. Will these services evolve beyond the 'data backup' i.e. for instance will customers trust their backup providers with personalized information leading to other services j) How important is end to end security for Cloud computing? k) How important is the management of the client on diverse devices important for end to end cloud security? l) Is the Mobile Web a good client for Cloud computing? m) Will emerging markets adopt Cloud computing services? n) Will low spec devices (ex feature phones) benefit from 'thin client' cloud computing services? o) Identity and the Cloud ... This is a big development again covered a lot in the recent RSA conference I seek your views on how important is Identity to the entire Cloud / Mobile Cloud debate. One could say that: Identity is the security glue for the cloud and further with the idea of No Passwords in the Cloud as discussed in Patrick Harding's presentation (you can download the slides HERE - pdf) At the RSA conference, Patrick Harding of Ping Identity spoke about his company has learn about cloud computing in this session, "How the Cloud is Changing Federated Identity Requirements". A few of his observations: 1) Software is no longer build vs. buy. It now includes subscribe, which by definition is a shorter term relationship. 2) Cloud computing is an evolution of architecture. It arrives after Web services, which evolved from Web, client server, and mainframe. 3) Complexity of the identity layer is harder than ever for the simple reason that there are more apps per user than ever before. 4) Services are becoming any-to-any, where internal (employee) and external (customer) classifications don't matter nearly as much as before. Because of this firewalls are losing their usefulness. 5) Audit is no longer an afterthought. Auditors don't care how or where applications hosted, but hey do need their reports! This includes Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach, Bliley, and more. I agree with this overall mindset that Identity will be a key player in both Web and Mobile Cloud computing I also covered the same issue in a previous blog: Solving the minimum disclosure problem: The significance of Claims based Identity system So, my qs is: Do you agree with the above analysis for the role of Identity in Web and Mobile Cloud computing Welcome any ideas/thoughts on the above You can email me your responses at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com. All responses are confidential and I will email you a copy of my presentation as thanks

Mobile Monday Berlin

2010-03-04T20:35:22Z

Mobile Monday Berlin has an event on the 8th of March and the theme is the Big Picture in Mobile. The big picture covers in-depth keynotes about what has changed in larger trends and where the market stands both from a consumer and an industry perspective. I was hoping to speak at this event but could not make it. @Fee Beyer and her team have put in a lot of effort for this inaugural event for MoMo Berlin 2010 and it should be a great event. Link is Mobile Monday Berlin - The Big Picture

Solving the minimum disclosure problem: The significance of Claims based Identity system

2010-03-04T11:52:48Z

I first saw this initiative at Kim Cameron's Identity blog where he talks of Microsoft's announcement at the RSA conference about Minimal Disclosure, End to End trust and Claims based Identity system. The service has been implemented in Germany in partnership with Fraunhofer FOKUS - who are good friends (I have been invited to speak at FOKUS events for a few years now and I highly recommend it for some cutting edge thinking). The initiative is significant since it is addresses a problem which we are facing increasingly but are not addressing adequately. There are two scenarios: Firstly, we are all users of online services. Each of these services want us to provide our credentials. Thus, users are giving up their credentials at many places which is a problem (password protection, phishing etc). On the other extreme, many services are 'free' and in return, they want us to provide personal information for behavioural targeting, which is also a problem in the long term. Claims based Identity systems and the principles of minimum disclosure potentially provide a third way and hence they are significant. The overall goal is: to enable citizens to use their electronic identity cards as the basis for accessing online services with minimal disclosure of information for both Cloud services and offline services. Read Write Web/Kaliya Hamlin also cover the same announcement when they say that: Anonymity and verified Identity are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Customers have to balance between these two elements. The verified Identity is easier. In many cases, customers need to also maintain anonymity and there are many cases where the verified Identity is not needed. It seems like the two ends of this spectrum can't go together. You can't be anonymous and verify yourself by sharing all of the details on a credential from a government issuer who has asserted they have checked these things are true. Microsoft demonstrated today how you can achieve anonymity and identity verification together at the same time, giving you verified anonymity. This technology (that relies on some pretty complex cryptography) lets you prove things without giving away too much information about yourself. For example: • Proving you are over 21 without giving away your actual birth date • Proving you live in a certain congressional district and are a registered voter but not having to give away your name or address • Proving you are a kid at a middle school in San Jose without giving away which school or which grade you attend Behind this goal is the vision of Claims based Identity model. We are moving away from rigid, closed identity systems to a more open Identity system where the concepts of authentication and authorization are unified. This shifts the focus to the user who present claims that indicate who they are and what they want to do in order to gain access to services. The move is slowly gaining momentum especially in a world dominated by Cloud based services. The claims-based model has three components : the relying party, which needs the claim to decide what it is going to do; the identity provider, which provides the claim; and the user, who decides what if any information they want to provide. Claims can contain static information such as birth date, relationship-based information such as group membership or derived claims that make general assertions such as the user is over 21 years of age. There are also meta-claims about how information was verified, such as in-person registration, or how it was issued. The model also incorporates a Veto power for claims instead of domains implicitly trusting one another. Other systems like SAML2 and WS-Trust address some of these goals but not holistically as a usable system. In this scenario, as has happened with the German government, the government could play a role in the providing trusted services for the Cloud. The government already provides some form of identifier(such as a passport). But passports and other mechanisms are not readily usable for more mundane services (like borrowing a book, registering in a course or renting a video). Thus, the claims based model ensures that the provider (ex hospital) is not in the business of authenticating the credentials To encourage broad community evaluation and input, Microsoft announced it is providing core portions of the U-Prove intellectual property under the Open Specification Promise, as well as releasing open source software development kits in C# and Java editions. In a cloud computing world, we are likely to see this requirement in increasing number of cases and it is also relevant for governments Definitely one to watch Image source : wadewegner.com

Two star review of Avatar by Guardian journalist: But does anyone care for old media reviews any more?

2010-03-03T20:01:01Z

Seeing Avataar this weekend yet again, I googled for a review and was amazed to find this two star review of Avatar by a guardian journo The Titanic director's monstrously-hyped creation does look fantastic but, in trying to cover all the bases with militarist sci-fi, vacuous eco-waffle and an intra-species love story, it's too baggy and Be that as it may, Avatar tries to have it both ways, to be preachy and a thrill-ride at the same time. I can't in all honesty say it pulls it off - it's baggy, longwinded and, for all the light-speed imagery, just not quick on its feet. Cameron used to be the tautest film-maker around, but he just got slack. Qs is: Does anyone care for Old media reviews? Did this review in one of UK's major publications make a difference to the sales/popularity of the movie? Today, with social media, we have so many choices. There are so many reviews on YouTube and people 'review' films by twitter from within the cinema as they watch it! So, who cares for pompous old media critics? Such critics would love us to think that some obscure movie which only critics like is 'good' This of course gives the critics a sense of importance .. But with social media, I don't think anyone cares for them any more since there is too much choice. And other than 'Andrew Pulver is the films editor of the Guardian.' I dont see any other credentials for the critic! And for that matter, what exactly makes a movie 'Baggy'?(a word he uses twice) ha ha! But WTF .. Like I said, who cares!

The BBC is looking for your favourite blogs

2010-03-03T19:35:44Z

Got this in from MIR The BBC is looking for the best of the blogosphere - submit your suggestions on Twitter The BBC World Service is looking for the most interesting blogs from around the world and is asking for suggestions. People can Tweet their suggestions to @bbc_blogworld or with #blogworld on Twitter or they can email super.power@bbc.co.uk. Blogworld is a part of the BBC's Superpower season which highlights the power of the internet. The Blogworld blog will be regularly updated with the best recommendations. In addition the BBC World Service and World News teams will be airing short TV and Radio slots in multiple languages talking to some of the featured bloggers. Of course I would be most happy if you can nominate OpenGardens :)