tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68669498408738469052024-02-20T13:05:16.050-05:00Technology and LifeTechnology is ubiquitous....and is inseparable from today's life. Here's where I like to capture my random musings on technology events or news and how they may relate to our life. Your comments, thoughts are welcome!Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-53355781666871598452013-05-12T21:07:00.000-04:002013-05-12T21:07:10.983-04:00Spacewalk and Science Proficiency in the US : A Tale of Two Worlds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">T</span>o spin a
popular Charles Dickens opening line somewhat differently, "It is the best
of science, it is the worst of science".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">"<i>Rocket Science</i>" is a metaphor for
complex tasks that demands superiority in science and math. While the Russian
milestones starting with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight are no
less noteworthy and even though the ISS coalesced technical partnerships of a
broad coalition and not just the US, yet America's leading role in space
technology (i.e. "rocket science") is beyond question. It was the lead country to adopt a sustained
national space program with establishment of <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">NASA</a>. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTpIz1tPct3kPPen8toGfsIBHytZMgbIb06-YrtxL-5LLiscjhVvuFKV_l_ZKHjOXgZiv_5OYN82pbQE2KdpCRQJNrDcB-ZHmaRiDs93a6lqR9BdPMOMMavDpC02dqmHP7KOOVp357uJE/s1600/ISS+v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTpIz1tPct3kPPen8toGfsIBHytZMgbIb06-YrtxL-5LLiscjhVvuFKV_l_ZKHjOXgZiv_5OYN82pbQE2KdpCRQJNrDcB-ZHmaRiDs93a6lqR9BdPMOMMavDpC02dqmHP7KOOVp357uJE/s320/ISS+v2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The milestones have been
nothing short of spectacular - moon landing, Skylab, Mars missions, Cassini
Saturn mission, space station, reusable space shuttles, communication
satellites, GPS and on and on. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I am reminded of that excellence every time US astronauts aboard the space station do a space walk to replace Hubble telescopes' lens or</span><a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/12/iss-ammonia-spacewalk" target="_blank"> to fix the ammonia leak of thecooling system</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> as they </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22492521" target="_blank">did yesterday</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> - while orbiting the earth at 5 miles per second. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkuMgUZucHtsXbLRCLNekAlB2GrAIYdXJp3GszCIojIY5Sh0ULOZi83ThvPWbSse-SucQuK3orBzYFsYDzL5LbOMBETyx-SKjm6xK3UyRg5dJ3pMGauKsxt5f0zCCXDjLXL53PkxglQyw/s1600/Spacewalk+v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkuMgUZucHtsXbLRCLNekAlB2GrAIYdXJp3GszCIojIY5Sh0ULOZi83ThvPWbSse-SucQuK3orBzYFsYDzL5LbOMBETyx-SKjm6xK3UyRg5dJ3pMGauKsxt5f0zCCXDjLXL53PkxglQyw/s320/Spacewalk+v2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<b>But here is the paradox</b>... as of 2011, the same country with
so much to claim on real <i>rocket science</i>
only<span style="background-color: white;"> had a<a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG11-03_GloballyChallenged.pdf" target="_blank"> 32 percent proficiency
rate in math</a><span class="apple-converted-space"><a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG11-03_GloballyChallenged.pdf" target="_blank"> </a>among its high school
students.</span></span><br />
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<o:p> </o:p>While the <i>Curiosity</i>
rover crawls on real Martian soil looking for water, the humbling down-to-earth
2010 fact is that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?_r=0" target="_blank">US students scored 23rd in math and 31st in science </a>when compared
to 65 other top industrial countries. Curiously enough, there is <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/opinion/bennett-stem-education" target="_blank">very little uproar.</a></div>
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If the media is any
reflection of the collective psyche of the country, it seems we are more
fixated on reality TV, American Idol or the juvenile antics of our lawmakers trying
to satisfy their respective lobbies. </div>
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Encouragingly, there is a growing <a href="http://www.washingtonstem.org/Our-Impact/National#.UY_NOLWTjCY" target="_blank">awareness and movement</a> to
improve and expand STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics)
education in the US. I only hope the<a href="http://www.carolyndecristofano.com/2012/05/11/the-stem-education-movement-go-forth-carefully/" target="_blank"> momentum </a>builds fast enough to change the
course. As I noted in <a href="http://chirpotwit.blogspot.com/2011/02/technology-matters-and-so-do-science.html" target="_blank">an earlier blog</a>, science and technology have proven to be
the most important force of true progress in improving human life and
civilization. </div>
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Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-25066785340269651562013-03-31T22:19:00.000-04:002013-03-31T22:19:07.480-04:00Vending Machine - A Glittering Journey from Gum ball to Gold<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background: white;">On my first trip to the US, I was en route to Cincinnati via JFK airport. One of the few
things I still remember from the first of many JFK layovers was the ubiquity of
vending machines disgorging shiny red cans of coke. Little did I know then that
over the next few years, I would have many up-close
interactions with these coin-sucking, coffee-spouting machines during many late night hours at graduate school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">A vending machine of course
is hardly a subject for reflection on a technology blog. We take them for
granted and they come in handy - that's all. But the more I think of it, they actually
are an essential part of our urban life. They too have evolved with technology,
much like other gadgets such as TVs or phones. And, in a way, they reflect the tastes or
preference of society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white;">The History:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<a href="http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Vending-Machine.html#ixzz2NwlPRkNf" target="_blank">The notion of mechanized self-service is actually pretty old</a>. <span style="color: #333333;">The Greek
mathematician Hero seems to have gotten the ball rolling in 215BC, when he
invented a machine to vend holy water in an Egyptian temple at Alexandria. </span>In<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>1076 A.D.,
a coin-activated pencil dispenser was developed in China. In post industrial revolution
Europe, <a href="http://www.laptopsanytime.com/vend-lend-timeline.html" target="_blank">one of the earlier instances of vending machines</a> goes back to 1880 when
<span class="datematter"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;">commercial
coin-operated vending machines were introduced in London to dispense post
cards. Once ubiquitous gumball vending machines in the US were first introduced in
1907.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Since then, the basic
technology of vending machines remained somewhat same - mechanism to
test and check the coins (or paper bill) and then a mechanical or electric motor actuation of the feeder trays
to release the item. </span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><b>Fast forward to 21st Century: </b></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Machines in the 21st century are of course a little more
sophisticated. They may now come with touchscreen for selection, LCD display, and connectivity for credit card validation. Today, like
everything else, they too are increasingly fitted with wireless chipsets,
connected to the internet to transmit real-time transaction, enabling purchase through smartphones. In the age of
Internet of Things (IoT), 'remote vending' that permits vendors to remotely
scan and manage stock and to even change pricing on the fly may soon become the
norm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Supporting social preferences or even crisis mitigation:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlcq5cKhg4NcqlxMKWvQMu9-OLz4DZZiLo-ZAbE7iqThZLHcXWKXYN2MALT9dJIUKa5opiFqQJuJT5qvyOcWC0_K2QbOHoyEir1ECU3MLTLcHjUq6RtkZo4QWsZwoHo_dz5SIHo6TW1FQ/s1600/Pizza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlcq5cKhg4NcqlxMKWvQMu9-OLz4DZZiLo-ZAbE7iqThZLHcXWKXYN2MALT9dJIUKa5opiFqQJuJT5qvyOcWC0_K2QbOHoyEir1ECU3MLTLcHjUq6RtkZo4QWsZwoHo_dz5SIHo6TW1FQ/s200/Pizza.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">While Pepsi, Coke, Coffee and
snack vendors dominate today's vending
machines in the US, vending machines in some parts of Europe can serve up
Pizza. In Japan, the vending machine economy is probably more diverse than
anywhere else in the world serving everything from snacks and beverages to
clothes, electronics and even beer! And in some parts of the world ravaged by
AIDS, access to vending machines for condoms has actually become an effective
tool for both government and NGOs (Non Government Organizations) to fight the
spread of HIV.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx3f9jby9TOFgFRbMfJVNxzjuJa3moOpKLWYqvHAjgCLhMCPVuETr5UAoC26KbR7hNhXaOElvPj8EVccnC2K3Z_iAgjJLUXZHV1fMydKDN0ChwG7_eCn0t2Ydt36NQPioYrS09hOcSEVo/s1600/Beer.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx3f9jby9TOFgFRbMfJVNxzjuJa3moOpKLWYqvHAjgCLhMCPVuETr5UAoC26KbR7hNhXaOElvPj8EVccnC2K3Z_iAgjJLUXZHV1fMydKDN0ChwG7_eCn0t2Ydt36NQPioYrS09hOcSEVo/s200/Beer.png" width="138" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The age of Internet of Things (IoT) changes
everything:</span></b></div>
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Today in the US, <i>smart </i>vending machines are being equipped with connectivity
technology that not only enables purchase by smartphones, but can locate and
inform the nearest replenishing depot,
so machines are refilled before popular products run out. This just-in-time inventory management is
enabling automated kiosks for diverse businesses such as ticket sales and vending
of high value items such as electronics.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr92cKnLEK_yV2f59pfRNzOPK_cxLClB-sb_LfZxkA0s23Nn1dqdFh06FPtvrlCt6ULXXnpn4iTT113Ny5ghwH1gukQQLx2UJHCsy4LdhXS1MoTqoosE1bR065Pt6p4-_Pm7_eR90cDv8/s1600/BEV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr92cKnLEK_yV2f59pfRNzOPK_cxLClB-sb_LfZxkA0s23Nn1dqdFh06FPtvrlCt6ULXXnpn4iTT113Ny5ghwH1gukQQLx2UJHCsy4LdhXS1MoTqoosE1bR065Pt6p4-_Pm7_eR90cDv8/s200/BEV.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 13.6pt;"><b>Vending by Twitter:</b> One South African
beverage company <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2012/06/19/twitter-activated-vending-machine-launched-in-south-africa/" target="_blank">recently made news</a> by launching <a href="http://www.getelastic.com/meet-bev-the-twitter-activated-vending-machine/" target="_blank">Twitter-activated vending machines</a> as part of a promotion in Capetown. Consumers who send a tweet to vending
machines in select locations, while standing in front of it, receive free
samples of its local branded iced tea. </span><span style="color: #2f3236; line-height: 13.6pt;">The
IP-enabled, wirelessly connected 'smart' vending machine is programmed such
that all tweets with a certain hashtag are streamed to the machine. It then
checks every tweet's location and if it is within a certain proximity of
itself, it dispenses the beverage! What a deal!</span><b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2f3236;">Mother of all
vending machines:</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBWIZx6N6zfMrHqV-GcEVqyYhXs04U1jmtdL5Zv3A-Rh5YbBKxweC5NrO_O2m-CVfL4RgoIdZo1b5Pl4YvuG9Mxc187vGFqGnZTkfo10gPCWhwS6zvPMw-AW3lFKS71rCPtbWDlO1_uys/s1600/Gold.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBWIZx6N6zfMrHqV-GcEVqyYhXs04U1jmtdL5Zv3A-Rh5YbBKxweC5NrO_O2m-CVfL4RgoIdZo1b5Pl4YvuG9Mxc187vGFqGnZTkfo10gPCWhwS6zvPMw-AW3lFKS71rCPtbWDlO1_uys/s200/Gold.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #2f3236;">Let me end this blog with what I thought was the mother
of all vending machines! </span>The <span class="apple-converted-space">Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20005010-1.html?goback=%2Egde_145854_member_219079529" target="_blank">has reportedly </a></span><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20005010-1.html?goback=%2Egde_145854_member_219079529" target="_blank">installed the world's first <i>Connected</i> gold vending</a> machine in its lobby. The
<i>Gold To Go</i> machine from <a href="http://www.gold-to-go.com/" target="_blank">Ex Oriente Lux </a> serves
24-carat gold bars and coins in a nice gift box. But here is the kicker! The
buyers make menu choices via a 19-inch touch screen interface and the prices
get updated wirelessly every hour via a link to the company's online shop. The
inventory is monitored with RFID tags supported by a 24/7 security camera and an
ID scanner to prevent money laundering. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Just make sure you have a well funded
credit card before you try the bullion dispenser. Save the loose change for the good old coke machine ! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-9112736158215284352013-03-10T10:28:00.000-04:002013-03-10T11:40:18.079-04:00Why health care can get a boost from big data and cognitive computing <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Modern medicine does wonders when it comes to targeted healing
of our specific ailments - especially when it comes to mechanical malfunction
of a body part. Surgeons can go to very precise organs and fix or even replace
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While the health care system trains doctor to test, scan and
treat targeted ailments, every now and then, we come across anecdotes of
physicians not being able to think holistically to produce the correct
diagnosis. Today's diagnosis is often done by individual symptoms or test
results - not by connecting the dots of myriad other discrete symptoms or past
health history of the patient. In other words, even the best medical technology
is still ways off from treating the human body as a super-complex system.</div>
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A friend of mine has been seeing doctors for years with many
individual but apparently unrelated issues - backache, fatigue, recurring eye
redness and on and on. Every time she received "adequate" treatments
for the specific conditions but they all kept coming back. Not until she, at
the behest of another friend with similar history, researched and consulted
multiple experts could she find her real underlying degenerative chronic
auto-immune condition. </div>
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So what have big data and artificial intelligence got to do
with this? Could be a lot. </div>
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In an engineering conference for the automotive industry (where I
work), Rob High, CTO of IBM Watson
Solutions, made a case for 'big data' and cognitive computing in solving
complex problems including medical diagnostics. Integrating myriad medical data and past history in to a
cohesive medical diagnosis can be a computing challenge. Even if we ignore the
lack of holistic approach, modern health care in many ways
is becoming victim of its own rapid progress. According to Dr. High, new medical
information and discoveries now double every two years. Nearly, 80000 pages of
new medical information are created daily. Yet, a typical medical practitioner
hardly keeps in touch with a meager fraction of these new discoveries. An
average doctor, processes no more than 5% of this growing knowledge base and is
often miserably outdated. 81% of physicians don't even spare five hours per
month to keep up.</div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In 2011, IBM
demonstrated its own progress in artificial intelligence, data analytics and
cognitive computing when its Watson computer program bested Ken Jennings and
Brad Rutter - the all time best Jeopardy! champions in a three-day competition. What Watson demonstrated
was its capability to understand the clues and contexts hidden in an 'answer' and
then to analyze all relevant information and prior learning from its very large
memory and produce the most statistically relevant outcome. Clearly the same technology
has potential to lend a hand to develop more integrated medical diagnoses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">I am encouraged
that Cleveland Clinic is looking to apply this technology for its <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/technology/ibm-exploring-new-feats-for-watson.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">expert "diagnosticassistant'</a>. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I also hope
that someday, smart evidence-based (if not fully holistic) treatment as indicated by
</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsPc0h_mtM" target="_blank">this Youtube demo </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">about oncology treatment may become routine.</span></div>
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Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-44474896195655898502013-01-01T10:34:00.001-05:002013-01-01T11:25:36.502-05:00Happy New Year!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Another year bids us goodbye as we zoom in to 2013. </div>
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While
the world continues to stay mired in war, politics, religious fanaticism - the
world of technology and science continues to push its frontier ensuring that
progress will indeed be made. If 2011 was the year that made smartphones, tablets and social media a global
phenomenon, the biggest stories in 2012 were really about the basic
sciences. </div>
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In fact, the most memorable scientific milestones of 2012 happened in
space, far away from our home, in Mars, where NASA's 2-ton rover <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/06/tech/mars-rover-curiosity/index.html" target="_blank">Curiosity flawlessly landed on Mars</a> and became our explorer extraordinaire in the red planet. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s" target="_blank">Videos available in YouTube</a> show how technologically challenging and awesome a feat it was. I wish the popular media spent as much time on it as the dog-fight between Apple and Samsung.</div>
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<o:p> </o:p>I will also remember 2012 as the year of yet another feat
that combined science with man's indomitable spirit of adventure, when<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5951621/watch-the-video-of-the-space-jump-here" target="_blank">FelixBaumgartner jumped off the edge</a> of the space, from 127,000 feet of altitude breaking
both sound barrier and few world records
and providing vital information for NASA</span>'s space research. In some sense, this was the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/15/tech/innovation/space-jump-tech/index.html" target="_blank">mother of all reality-TVs,</a> where
precise calculations, space science, preparation, and sheer human grit all came
together.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And on October 10, a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>privately built
robotic<span class="apple-converted-space"> cargo capsule aboard the
unmanned Dragon spacecraft<a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/spacex-dragon-capsule-docks-with-space-station/" target="_blank"> </a></span><a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/spacex-dragon-capsule-docks-with-space-station/" target="_blank">arrived at the International Space Station</a> to make the first-ever commercial cargo delivery to
the orbiting lab 250 miles high up in the space. <span class="apple-converted-space">Even if it is only a small transition from public
to commercial enterprise, the event symbolically takes space exploration to a
new frontier.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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To me, iPad Mini,
Windows phone, launch of Lytro camera were all good news, but I am glad that
fundamental scientific progress continues to happen to build foundation for even
greater future technology.</div>
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We can't wrap up 2013 without the recent
visibility of the science of probability and uncertainty - as personified by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver" target="_blank">NateSilver</a> during the last US presidential election. <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Silver’s
prediction model — based on a weighting of the public polls available in each
swing state — continued to suggest that the incumbent was a strong favorite.
Silver achieved a rock star status and in the process made 2012 a memorable
year f</span>or statisticians, data geeks,
number-crunchers, and political junkies. </div>
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Looking forward to more progress and technology wonders in 2013 !<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-2776060267951991672012-12-27T23:33:00.002-05:002012-12-27T23:38:24.571-05:00Social Media and Social Etiquette<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is the decade of social media. </div>
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I was doing my usual scan of technology news. Sure enough, there was yet another new media app. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/26/samsung-unveils-chaton-2-0-gives-sneak-peeks-of-its-smart-tv-smart-hub-ahead-of-ces/" target="_blank">Samsung is releasing <i>ChatOn2.0</i> </a>as warm-up to <a href="http://www.cesweb.org/" target="_blank">CES 2013</a>. It's like a mother of all chat apps - you
can chat with up to five connected devices on a single account, you can do
group chats, <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">invite friends to conversations
from different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Weibo, mix multi-media in
your chat and on and on. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><br /></span></div>
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It seems niche <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-social-media-apps-in-the-world-2012-9?op=1" target="_blank">social networking app</a>s are popping up almost weekly, connecting us in our virtual world in myriad ways - keeping track of our friends, sharing our media, arranging a game, check-in to your place of interest, finding a date and on and on. <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">In other words, short of hugging your friend, you can pretty much connect to your friends in all possible ways without leaving your leaving room sofa. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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The beauty of these tools is that you can connect without really
being connected. Your Facebook settings are configured to send birthday wishes
to your friends while you are asleep. Before the clock strikes midnight on Dec
31, your pictures from Times Square will find its way to your friends so you
can celebrate the New Year together - no need to be really together!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Don't get me wrong. I
am a personal fan of social networking and continue to be excited about things
I could not have done without these tools. It is nice to be able to stay linked
to people across the globe who may share the same hobbies or went to same
school and be able to share ideas, location, media at the push of a button. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I can't help
wondering if the ease of our digital networking and sharing will someday take
over our human connections or sometimes make us forget our basic human traits.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was appalled and shocked last week to read about the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20842934" target="_blank">most brutal andhorrific rape of a woman in India</a>. I was appalled even more when I saw a picture of the woman from her hospital bed posted all over Facebook. Many of these people were
well-intentioned and wanted to share their outrage. Did anybody pause to think
about her privacy? Just because your smartphone can quietly take the picture
and your social media app can post it instantly, should you not still remain
concerned about some basic human protocol? </div>
</div>
Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-72924461137842301662012-04-07T13:25:00.001-04:002012-04-07T13:26:07.106-04:00Spectrum crunch – a new commodity problem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In a memo last week, Procter & Gamble told its 129,000 employees that they can no longer use the music-streaming site Pandora or the movie site Netflix at work.</span> Apparently, the motivation was not censorship but bandwidth management. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/06/tech/web/proctor-gamble-internet-ban/index.html" target="_blank">According to the memo</a>, the company’s web capacity was over-taxed by employees’ over-access of streaming content at work. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">As more and more consumers, schools, and businesses need Web access and data-rich content to function, infrastructure and carriers are struggling with the so-called bandwidth "spectrum crunch."</span> An educational site <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit/bandwidth_calculator/about" target="_blank">School 2.0 </a>offers a nice calculator to show how quickly your 2mbps DSL connection can choke under the pressure of multiple data streaming.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Whereas streaming audio can vary between 64kbps and 128kbps, video streaming can very easily consume a throughput of 1mbps or higher (e.g., Netflix’s top HD streaming is about 4800kbps or 4.8mbps).<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> The situation could get worse with </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">the growing diversity of applications such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #1a1a1a;">VoIP telephony, video conferencing, Skyping, streaming video, online gaming and any interactive apps needing constant exchange of data from the cloud or between peers. In fact, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">mobile, home and office data traffic is supposed to be doubling every year at least for the next 4 to 5 years.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvrDqZw1aomiBeHdpmF5-ufwqr5JkM8H4hVxZuigY6WJWj3WMDhQtnf89kc_QeWWB0agbTeKf0Lpag1G0Mq_6bNXuO_RK4mERmQAso45nFLHMhc202HvrWfDF_5Mo-OkzNcljN-Q16Gi0/s1600/scanomat2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvrDqZw1aomiBeHdpmF5-ufwqr5JkM8H4hVxZuigY6WJWj3WMDhQtnf89kc_QeWWB0agbTeKf0Lpag1G0Mq_6bNXuO_RK4mERmQAso45nFLHMhc202HvrWfDF_5Mo-OkzNcljN-Q16Gi0/s200/scanomat2.png" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Clearly, there is a gap between growing cloud computing and the availability of bandwidth to support and deliver the service. Think of it this way, suddenly a new system of on-demand beverage delivery is established where you do not have to stock cans of soda or bottles of juice or need coffee machines anymore. Instead you are asked to upgrade your home plumbing so that you can tap anything from the same faucet. Think of a scenario under this ‘cloud based beverage supply’ model where groceries stopped selling coke, tea or coffee. You are now completely dependent on this new high-tech plumbing. If your plumbing is not adequate, you have to wait for your soda because one of your family members is taking a shower and clogging the bandwidth with heavy-duty water streaming!!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our life is increasingly morphing with the assumption of 24/7 connectivity. The only thing worse than a day without electricity is a day without internet. Yet the plumbing infrastructure for home, office or mobile is clearly in a catch up mode. While the media is abuzz with cloud computing, smart home, smart grid and smart everything, many rural US homes are still without adequate connectivity. The mobile connections are still largely 2.5G to 3G. The broadband data-centric wireless LTE or 4G will continue to be a small slice of the market for a while. And it will be a much longer while, before they are affordable for the public. Are we having the proverbial cart of streaming content before the horse? <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-59485646882359371722012-03-04T14:29:00.010-05:002012-03-05T09:19:38.093-05:00The Final Frontier - Space exploration and technology innovation – part I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwpH47_x5_I81AxnaOQlKoyywk-dSkYaeiQIjaCIPgUlRCu1XAPVY7khJ3XLSh3pE_iFwIFUkGN5IGIF-aGQMOnEIjescLoT4oq06yEqRtK5j3mXmyfvUyscM9VkXQyoiNyap-Gti6KTo/s1600/Picture0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwpH47_x5_I81AxnaOQlKoyywk-dSkYaeiQIjaCIPgUlRCu1XAPVY7khJ3XLSh3pE_iFwIFUkGN5IGIF-aGQMOnEIjescLoT4oq06yEqRtK5j3mXmyfvUyscM9VkXQyoiNyap-Gti6KTo/s320/Picture0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">My recent posts have been more about technology in the context of mobile or personal computing, social media, communication, media and entertainment. I wanted to come back to my original intent, which is to discuss technology in the broader context of its impact on our society. And the more I think about it, Space exploration (the romantic ‘final frontier’), like nothing else,</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> has been one of the single biggest catalysts of technology innovation.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Arthur Clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. A<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/02/27/147351252/space-chronicles-why-exploring-space-still-matters" target="_blank"> recent NPR interview</a> by Neil deGrasse Tyson reminded me once again that nowhere is this magic demonstrated more than when an astronaut completes his or her spacewalk to fix the<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html" target="_blank"> ISS</a> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">or the Hubble telescope. Every time a space shuttle went into orbit, or a rover landed on Mars or someone completed yet another spacewalk, I couldn't stop marveling and wondering why that was not the biggest news on CNN or CBS or ABC that day </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">in place of comments by self-serving politicians!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Interestingly, p</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">assionate as Neil deGrasse Tyson was (while </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">promoting his new book <em>Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier) </em>about space exploration<span class="apple-converted-space">, he commented that </span>“the most compelling reason to do it is we are fading fast on the world stage of </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">economic strength”. </span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="line-height: 115%;">In other words, developing space technology has implications for a nation’s economic strength.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">A strong prevailing political position, however, has been that investments in NASA-based space research is a waste of tax payers’ dollars and it may as well be left to the proverbial market to champion the cause of space innovation. This argument often avoids or misses the point that by its nature, space exploration touches not just the spaceship technology but a host of areas like materials, communication, biology, health, miniaturization, extreme temperatures, defense technology and hence elevates and impacts a whole plethora of our national and societal concerns directly and many other unforeseen applications, leading to many direct and indirect economic and strategic benefits.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">National pride aside, this larger impact of space technology development is not lost on the global community. It's not a surprise that space exploration and related technology investment is a strategic part of all growing economic powers like <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/_getdocument.cfm?doc_id=6290" target="_blank">countries in European Union</a>, Israel or BRIC (<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/22/business/la-fi-0722-space-race-20110722/2" target="_blank">Brazil, Russia, India, China</a>).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px; text-indent: -57px;">While </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px; text-indent: -52px;">Silicon Valley is rightfully perceived today as the hub of new technology, a </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px; text-indent: -52px;">case can be effectively made that NASA and all its centers have been the hub or catalyst </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -52px;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">that touches all major technology frontiers like electronics, computers, software, transportation, alternate propulsion, batteries, industrial automation, health and medicine, among others.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -62px;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">One could argue that </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">the range of technologies that the space program has catalyzed (some of which may not have passed market feasibility at that time and hence was rightfully considered an inefficient investment) has acted as the incubator of a broad technology capability that has made the US a technologically sophisticated and developed society.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Now, to be fair, contrary to popular belief, NASA or JPL did not invent MRI, Velcro or Tang. But <a href="http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2011/index.html" target="_blank">many other ideas</a></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> – both software and hardware – came off work done for the space program, particularly in medical diagnostics, materials, mapping, imaging, information technology and communication. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>Here are some common examples of these "Collateral Benefits"</b> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEb7o6VJXJUVBvobfG8OLJZvlCXUOy-Ih2bsDgXuliB_SB6j058sQU7p0fzZLrc81GNNx2RvADFRJNijD2s4nlvxLeL1iCpnX6ohPqkYUthRIP5Y6032RgwztOMUl4sgq4V3USBHDv-Fo/s1600/Picture1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEb7o6VJXJUVBvobfG8OLJZvlCXUOy-Ih2bsDgXuliB_SB6j058sQU7p0fzZLrc81GNNx2RvADFRJNijD2s4nlvxLeL1iCpnX6ohPqkYUthRIP5Y6032RgwztOMUl4sgq4V3USBHDv-Fo/s400/Picture1.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">LIDAR</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Light detection and ranging) based imaging to ensure safe landing on hazardous Mars surface developed at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) is now deployed widely in high end cars for collision avoidance saving lives. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-top: 0pt; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-top: 0pt; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWgjg50Oswxd_ZbQ417FgDAVyMN0Y5zlpgd1LWzziNH70SIu0M56uL_AXHNwtwpsKpovzY07L4ltPAUxLbdnFBWZhSOFY1iLDl1DXhwg7e7763V8MALYxv67U4AsO5VFgbTSUsywye8k/s1600/Picture2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWgjg50Oswxd_ZbQ417FgDAVyMN0Y5zlpgd1LWzziNH70SIu0M56uL_AXHNwtwpsKpovzY07L4ltPAUxLbdnFBWZhSOFY1iLDl1DXhwg7e7763V8MALYxv67U4AsO5VFgbTSUsywye8k/s400/Picture2.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><div style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-top: 0pt; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Fly by Wire</b>: Developed as part of mission to the Moon, NASA’s fly-by-wire electronic guidance system is increasingly used now by the new state of the art commercial planes like Boeing’s new </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dreamliner</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-DXnpp2K0Ec0bjH0-xcGiWocR1QFU1orwIOauhvtenqKdpMByBdYD5ogrC2BAgyqvO_r1SQFP0yet0-wdNQdV8GAb_9sxUDJyxGcedp4tNFioM1kWUkPOkK2KfFLh_sH2Tqw0ViR9UA/s1600/Picture3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-DXnpp2K0Ec0bjH0-xcGiWocR1QFU1orwIOauhvtenqKdpMByBdYD5ogrC2BAgyqvO_r1SQFP0yet0-wdNQdV8GAb_9sxUDJyxGcedp4tNFioM1kWUkPOkK2KfFLh_sH2Tqw0ViR9UA/s400/Picture3.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><div style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-top: 0pt; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>3D terrain rendering</b> technology, commercialized by TerraMetrics as the TruEarth satellite imagery powers Google Earth and Google Maps. </span></div><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMP5koeGG9E7joSWNafU-Syw71Uuxa7YOQsNaelOMvxL0yuGJfrG24E6WhoYwiscjomk7zZIKxAwSzVCojsbfvI8mAhWr1yKoXBrUZayifrbTdI9Kipn7Dwt7f9I0F4TGmCs_ZN_BYj9w/s1600/Picture4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMP5koeGG9E7joSWNafU-Syw71Uuxa7YOQsNaelOMvxL0yuGJfrG24E6WhoYwiscjomk7zZIKxAwSzVCojsbfvI8mAhWr1yKoXBrUZayifrbTdI9Kipn7Dwt7f9I0F4TGmCs_ZN_BYj9w/s1600/Picture4.jpg" /></span></a></div><div style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-top: 0pt; unicode-bidi: embed; word-break: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Teflon-coated fiberglass developed in the 1970s as a new fabric for astronaut spacesuits has been used as a permanent roofing material for buildings and stadiums (like Atlanta’s Georgia dome’s fiber glass roof shown on left). </span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Many such innovations are on record, for which long term economic and quality-of-life impact are not hard to compute.</span><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;">According to Tyson</span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">, the expenditure of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to NASA's entire 50-year running budget. Even though Tyson has a point here, dollar-based statistics often can be tricky – depending on what point one wants to make. But it is not a stretch to show that inefficient or otherwise, US investment in space research, like nothing else, has created innovations that are today saving lives, enabling medical services unthinkable before, running software, improving large scale agriculture, enhancing satellite communications, driving new defense technologies, not to mention the direct benefits of the knowledge of space and international pride, prestige and technology leadership.</span></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-85335543176397940742012-03-01T07:16:00.002-05:002012-03-01T22:29:28.542-05:00Much ado about Google's integrated privacy policy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Google’s much publicized <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/updating-our-privacy-policies-and-terms.html" target="_blank">new privacy policy</a> kicks in today. Reactions from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/29/tech/web/protect-privacy-google/index.html?iref=allsearch" target="_blank">online news</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/google-privacy-policy-changes_n_1310506.html" target="_blank">portals</a> and <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/how-remove-your-google-search-history-googles-new-privacy-policy-takes-effect" target="_blank">related sites</a> are varied – although the tone of unease and concern cannot be missed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">To Google, it’s </span><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/05/4238100/google-privacy-move-is-about-helping.html" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">all about better data analytics and business efficiency</a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">. First, in place of many separate privacy policies and fine prints (assuming you read them), you have to read one. Second, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">by linking information about your online movements, interests and preferences - gleaned from Gmail, YouTube, Google search, Maps, Google can synthesize more complete individual profiles and hence serve up more targeted ads and more customized content.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">To be fair, the new policy </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">is not about collecting new or more information. But it is about centralizing or merging all your trail from otherwise disconnected Google products. It is about building a more comprehensive profile by linking data crumbs from everywhere - YouTube, Gmail, Blogger, Google TV, Google+ and particularly from the history of surfing based on Goggle.com searches. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Clearly this demonstrates the tension between better integration of consumers’ information (and hence better business value of the data) and underlying un-ease about more organized monitoring of our online behavior. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">And it raises a good question, e.g., is an immediate in-your-face targeted ad for weight-loss products a value or a violation of your privacy when you’re only making a discrete search for weight-loss solutions and/or listening to a motivational YouTube link on diet management?<span style="color: #333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-73622875913999510902012-02-26T09:42:00.005-05:002012-03-05T09:42:05.387-05:00Data Mining the Social Media – The New Gold Rush<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Our mobile connectivity, social media and hunger for apps have opened up the Pandora’s box of privacy breaches and their potential abuse. Not a week goes by when we don’t hear yet another story involving a breach by not just small app makers but giants like <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225380456599176.html" target="_blank">Google</a>,</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203441704577068400622644374.html" target="_blank">Facebook</a></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> or Apple. Government is weighing in, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/22/technology/bill_of_rights_privacy/" target="_blank">announcing a proposal for “Privacy Bill of Rights”</a> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">or winning <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577239650306276074.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_tech" target="_blank">agreements with mobile leaders</a> to enforce do-not-track or other privacy protection options.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Interestingly however, a <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/14/facebook-website-personalization/" target="_blank">recent study</a> shows that <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">users aren’t that concerned </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">with privacy implications. For instance, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 10pt;">according to a <a href="http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/12/20/shoppers-sharing-facebook-data-online-retailers" target="_blank">new study by Sociable Labs</a>, more than half of the consumers (56%) regularly grant online retailers permission to use their Facebook data that range from access to basic profile like gender and name to details like birthday, product preferences and authorization to post status updates on Facebook walls.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Access to such data is proving to be a gold mine for the eCommerce industry. Online monitoring of Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Youtube is a new emerging tool for anyone fishing for trends with your personal data. </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The story is particularly<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/stocks/2011-05-03-wall-street-traders-mine-tweets_n.htm" target="_blank"> interesting with Twitter</a>. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">The chatter of millions of tweets is increasingly viewed as a potential indicator of society’s mood. In fact, some wall street funds and traders are text mining and analyzing the words in tweets as serious “crowd sourced” market intelligence. </span>A 2010 <a href="http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/16074.html" target="_blank">study by Indiana University</a> found strong correlation between the collective public mood and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At a company specific level, a <a href="http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Study_Stock_prices_linked_to_companies_Facebook_li_7693.aspx" target="_blank">similar study</a> by Pace University</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> found that the popularity of product brands, as measured by Facebook “Likes” or Twitter followers, can be a lead indicator of their individual stock performance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">Next time you tweet, remember that many web analytics firms are collectively trawling and monitoring your stream too. </span></span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Retailers and advertisers are jumping into this fray as well. They are quickly finding out that experience shared in social networks about any product also has the potential to predict what consumers or their network buddies could potentially buy. Isn't this a great opportunity to influence future purchase decision through <i>targeted ads!!</i> Knowing what people like or want, as evident from their tweets or Facebook wall “likes”, can also help retailers better manage their supply chain. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">In the past such information was proprietary and only available from transactional data through companies such as Visa or Mastercard.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">But, thanks to consumers’ sharing their opinions and personal data, often complete with where they are,</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">a new gold rush for market analytics and targeted ads has just begun.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Walmart, for example, has set up a digital analytics division <a href="http://www.walmartlabs.com/" target="_blank">@WalmartLabs </a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">which <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/18/walmartlabs-crowdsources-retailers-product-selection-with-new-get-on-the-shelf-contest/" target="_blank">reportedly uses crowdsourcing techniques</a> to determine which items the company should stock based on its tracking of popular social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and Google+. </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Where do we go from here? Will there be new applications of social media mining for common good? Or will it evolve to be primarily a tool for tracking and advertising? Will there be consumer backlash? Or will consumers’ unwillingness to share personal details always be over-ridden by the instant gratification of getting the next discount or the coupon? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Please comment here or simply share your thought by blowing in a new tweet to the cyber-space!</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-85817346753310757532012-02-19T22:49:00.003-05:002012-03-05T09:42:34.100-05:00Does Internet limit our deeper thinking abilities?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In a recent conference, one fellow attendee, who happened to run a navigation software business, was lamenting how in-car navigation and PNDs (Personal Navigation Device) have atrophied our sense of direction and location. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">He clearly has a point, but isn’t that true of all new technology? When human society transitioned to locomotive train and then to cars, we had to sacrifice our horse riding skills in favor of driving. When technology makes old skills useless, it often also requires us to learn new skills. The acute sense of space and direction of a traveler of pre-cartography days got replaced by our ability to decipher complex visual information of a map. And then the map reading skills got replaced by the new device-savvy awareness of running navigation apps. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We give up certain skills but perhaps become smarter in some other ways as we adopt new technology. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">While this premise of technology 'taketh some skill and giveth some skill' may often be true, clearly there are trade-offs. The point is eloquently highlighted in the context of the Internet by a 2010 book by <a href="http://www.theshallowsbook.com/nicholascarr/Nicholas_Carrs_The_Shallows.html" target="_blank">Nicholas Carr – “The Shallows” </a>– where he builds on his 2008 article titled <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/" target="_blank">“IsGoogle making us stupid”</a>. Delving in to recent developments in neuro-science, he makes a case that the internet, while generous in its access to dynamic knowledge, encourages “rapid, distracted sampling” of information potentially atrophying our capacity for contemplation and deep reflection. In contrast, the age old printed book, with all its limitations, serves to focus our attention, potentially promoting sustained creative thought. The internet while democratizing our instant access to knowledge has also added to our sense of distraction as we nibble at news, blogs, podcasts, videos while surfing from link to link to get quick answers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. Carr ultimately wonders if our over-exposure to online content is re-wiring our brains, making us shallow, addicted to quick bites of information, freeing us from the need to devote sustained attention to thinking as we constantly dip in and out of online content. Along with our power to get any content right away comes the inherent distraction that Carr argues may be changing our capacity to focus. The distraction is further accentuated by the fact that a single web page contains many different chunks of media – texts, audio, video, widgets, hyperlinks, advertisements – creating a “cacophony of stimuli”. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In a world of abundant content, ubiquitous connectivity and dynamic access, distraction is perhaps inevitable as we have the easy luxury of navigating content with the flash of a click. But how this influences the style and depth of our thinking and adds to our cognitive load is the crux of Carr’s concern. Reading print material in many ways is a linear process allowing more stable attention, unlike the navigation of networked, dynamic content, peppered with hyperlinks, widgets and advertisements, which according to Carr constantly adds an element of being “distracted from distraction by distraction” (using the words from T.S.Elliot’s first of “Four Quartet”). Add to this the fact that our brains are not wired for multi-tasking (see my blog <a href="http://chirpotwit.blogspot.com/2011/03/efficient-multi-tasking-myth-that-does.html" target="_blank">“Efficient Multitasking – the myth..” March27, 2011</a>) and the challenge of fast cyber-hopping to our cognition and our capacity for deep thinking gets even bigger. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In today’s world of fast tweets, real time analysis and instant gratification, Carr’s concerns deserve attention as we grapple with the fire hose of everyday information. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Or, perhaps on a lighter note, all these may just be part of our evolution and at some time in the deep future, our brains will re-wire the neural connections, handle our online information without losing our capacity for deeper dive and focused contemplation. After all, as Carr himself quotes the 17<sup>th</sup> century Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega, some of the same concerns existed 400 years back too about proliferation of printed books - <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“So many books – so much confusion<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">All around us an ocean of print<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And most of it covered in froth”<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-81892733244751499542012-02-18T16:39:00.005-05:002012-03-05T09:43:00.175-05:00Next Wave of Social Media - Will They be more Privacy Friendly?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">Facebook is the biggest marketplace in the world where people gather, chat, share their personal data, play games and where advertisers have access to close to a billion people on the earth. Whatever may have been the original intent or business plan, Facebook sure has become a dream-come-true for marketers, merchandisers and whoever else needs instant reach to a huge volume of consumers and their tastes, preferences and habits. It’s not a surprise that the impending public launch of this social networking platform is promising to be the biggest IPO ever – bigger than even the giants like Google, Apple and Amazon. It’s all about the lure of the biggest marketplace…..</span></strong><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></strong></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">So everybody wins. To the grandma keeping in touch with her far-flung grand-kids or to the boomer who just linked up with his or her high-school friends, to the high-school teen sharing the latest vacation pictures, Facebook is priceless; to the marketers it is a gold mine, and to the company shareholders, the $100Bn valuation may only be the beginning. <o:p></o:p></span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></strong></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">The insane money-making potential aside, will Facebook be able to extend its innovation to something bigger or should we be looking elsewhere for the next wave in Social media? <o:p></o:p></span></strong></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></strong></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">With our pervasive GPS tools, we all are increasingly fascinated by the location-based connections – not just with people but with places we visit and with things we do, </span></strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We want to know where our friends are, if any of them is in the neighborhood and what's around us (without having to mess with any unwieldy paper maps). We want to <i>geo-tag</i> everything, <i>geo-fence</i> some of our connections and play <i>geo-caching</i> games… (I suggest Wikipedia if these were not in your current vocabulary!) </span><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">There are even GPS dating apps – for your romantic networking, e.g., <i>SmartDating</i> app whose ‘People near me’ feature pulls up all the users (potential dates?) that are in your area! If SoLoMo (Social-Local-Mobile) is the new paradigm, will Facebook be still the reigning king or will it be up to the Twitters, Foursquares, Instagrams of the world to claim the next stake?<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></strong></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Whatever is the next wave, one thing is sure, social media will always need and thrive on our <i>personal data</i>. And that always brings up the dark side of our dependence and exuberance with social media. Should we be <a href="http://azstarnet.com/business/local/smartphone-apps-raising-privacy-worries/article_c2a3b6bd-19c3-5287-a18f-02bdea8c807b.html#ixzz1mlYAHSYz">concerned with the recent disclosures</a> </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">that Twitter and other social networking companies are reaching into people's smartphones and retrieving their personal contact information without getting explicit permission? Twitter acknowledged that its <i>"Find Friends"</i> feature on smartphones (Android and iPhone) was merrily sending phone number and emails found in the address book to its back-office without clearly alerting the consumer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Stories like this have a familiar ring … Every now and then a report of privacy breach leaks out, the company concerned apologizes, calls it a mistake and everybody moves on until the next story leaks out. Google, Apple, Facebook – all have been there. It all goes back to the premise that, benefits aside, all social media apps and platforms are a gold mine for marketers – where there are too many consumers ready to be tracked and lured. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Social media apps have brought people together, added many conveniences in our daily life and made the world a better place in many senses and I look forward to seeing continued innovation. We all however need to be aware of that its commercial value lies in reaching out to its captive base of the users and in knowing their tastes, preferences and whereabouts. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">May be, someday we all will ride out the hype-cycle of social media, or be just fatigued by our own over-exposure, find the sweet-spot of moderation and re-learn the pleasure self-reflection in our privacy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Until then, Happy Tweeting. Look forward to you next Face-book update</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-51783445996481233902011-12-10T12:52:00.006-05:002012-03-05T09:43:23.773-05:00Carrier IQ - Wake-up call or simply an evolutionary milepost in mobile tech?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Recent<a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/mobile/231903096"> media noise</a> around Carrier IQ software once again highlights the tension between personal data tracking/analysis and its potential benefits to consumers and/or service providers. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What reinforces the sense of scare though is not necessarily the technology or the software itself but the semi-stealth nature of its deployment and<a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rootkit"> implications of its abuse</a> in the wrong hands. It is the after-the-fact discovery of such data collection that enhances our imagery of Big Brother. <br />
<br />
For average consumers, privacy often <i>seems</i> to be less sacrosanct and more a commodity with a price. Don’t we often end up signing off our privacy rights every-time we launch a phone or tablet app to find a favorite restaurant or to check-in to our favorite social network or to navigate through our weekend drive to a different city? In fact, I was surprised, if not shocked, to get a glimpse of the extent to which the <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/cellular-customer-data/">US phone companies already track</a> and keep our everyday call logs, text messages, IP addresses surfed - all tagged with time and location stamp. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While the bigger question of how an Orwellian government or other rogue authority might abuse such easy and detailed exposure of its citizen’s private data is an open issue that society has to eventually deal with, what probably is more relevant today is how best the business honestly neutralizes the nefarious side of personal data collection by transparent opt-ins and clear demonstration of value. In the end, in a truly open and civic society, it may just be an issue of rightly framing the V<i>alue Proposition</i> – what or when data is collected, how it is used and what is offered to the consumer in return, i.e. what perks or rewards am I trading-in for my privacy – a mature and honest quid-pro-quo.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The truth is that with continuous growth in cloud computing, back-office analytics, GPS-enabled location knowledge and 24/7 online connectivity, the envelope of the technology and its seeming intrusion on our location, communication and surfing habits will only grow. Transparency, an equitable value proposition and adequate legal protection are the three tracks on which this train must run. </div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-76356177866834395082011-04-23T16:05:00.003-04:002012-03-05T09:43:40.729-05:00Commoditization of Face Recognition Technology – Is there a dark cloud lurking behind?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I continue to be intrigued by the notion of a public camera looking at an individual and matching up his or her personal information for whatever purpose. So I wanted to do a little follow up on my last blog. Just like the Brazilian world cup soccer initiative, facial recognition algorithms have already been applied successfully to many public security applications. .<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The question is what happens when it becomes part of everyday technology, commoditized into apps that are available universally to all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Think of the movie <span class="yshortcuts"><i><span style="color: black;">Minority Report</span></i></span><i>, </i>the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, where c<span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span">ameras captured and read Tom Cruise's face, and then customized ads for his character pop up. </span><em><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;"><a href="http://www.immersivelabs.com/">Immersive Labs</a>, </span></em><em><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">a <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> startup, recently introduced its smart billboard technology that combines video analytics with multiple data sources such as </span></em><span class="yshortcuts"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; color: black; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">Twitter</span></span><em><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;"> or Foursquare information to select the most suitable ad to display to the consumer nearby</span></em><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">. The software seemingly understands the geometry of faces enough to determine the gender and approximate age range of the face looking at the webcam of the billboard – not exactly the more prying technology shown in Minority Report, but certainly a step in that direction.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">The advertising billboards of the future will promote a product by analyzing the audience to display items that the viewer is more likely to buy. The concept is not new. </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Last year <span class="yshortcuts"><span style="color: black;">NEC Corp</span></span>. demonstrated its <a href="http://www.nec.com/global/solutions/digitalsignage/">interactive digital signage</a> solution, now popular in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. A built-in camera captures an image of anyone looking at the signage. The system then compares it to more than 10,000 stored patterns to determine the gender and approximate age. Finally it displays an image<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1897935855"> </a><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"><a href="http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/technology&id=7786911">that is most likely to appeal</a> to the audience.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.digitalsignalcorp.com/">Digital Signal Corp. </a> seemingly wants to move further in that direction using 3D <span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span">long-range facial recognition. The <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> based start up’s laser radar system can provide a range of biometric data which, among other things, can tell you whether someone appears to be particularly nervous or tense. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/19/digital-signal-is-watching-you-startup-promises-exciting-and-creepy-new-advance-in-video-surveillance">A recent article</a> nicely summarized my emotions - the technology is both “<i>exciting and creepy</i>”. </span></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">10% of digital signage by 2020 is expected to have facial identification technology to <a href="http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/11/is-minority-report-becoming-reality/?iid=EL">provide personalized advertisement</a>. The day may be close when you’ll walk into a restaurant, the host will greet you by name and suggest a menu that will appeal to your palate; or you may be greeted with a sign announcing the price and location of items you may be most interested in as you walk into a department store. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I don’t want to add an Orwellian twist to such free market innovations, but I certainly bristle at the thought of a prying billboard camera that scans my face every time I stand in front of it and searches through a database of my personal information to create an ad that I simply won’t be able to ignore. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">The nagging thought in my mind is not about the technology but about a scenario when the technology is available to the masses. </span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A recent start-up <a href="http://www.viewdle.com/">Viewdle</a> <span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span">is bringing a cool little addition to your Android phone. You shoot your friends and family, it recognizes faces (after you teach it who's who), then automatically tags photos for </span><span class="yshortcuts"><span style="color: black;">Facebook</span></span><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span">. Perfect for Facebook users!</span></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Your smartphones will now be able to do <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1897935881">these sim</a></span></span><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.androidcentral.com/viewdle-tags-facebook-pics-ar">ple face recognition calculatio</a>ns in real time, compare faces to images previously stored and identified. The company’s website </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span">features a video of five women walking towards your camera when labels pop up to identify them and post their Facebook comments in real time.</span></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="yshortcuts"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1897935886">Google</a></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/04/14/google.goggles/index.html?iid=EL"> Goggles is an exciting little app</a> for object recognition. What would be the implications of a possible mash-up facial recognition technology with Goggles? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">There are some interesting use cases <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/google-face-recognition-app-in-development-2011-03">as reported here</a> . You meet someone, say in a conference, that you can’t remember the name of. You simply take a quiet flash-free photo, upload it into your device and let an app find out any tags associated with the photo, essentially launching a search engine to find name and any other details available on the web. Really cool!</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But what about that person in the bar shooting your photo incognito to search your profile in a web database with less honorable motives? What about that stalker who can secretly take a photo in the street and then pull up all your information tagged to your pictures in cyberspace? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I am sure a company like Google, with its demonstrated <a href="http://www.google.org/">effort to do public good</a>, intends to make sure there is no abuse of people’s privacy from the use of its tools. But things go wrong, as evidenced in Google’s settlement with FTC over <span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span">released email contacts associated with the launch of Google Buzz. In a similar vein, Pandora internet radio<a href="http://security.cbronline.com/news/us-investigates-mobile-apps-for-privacy-breach-060411"> was served with a subpoena</a> as part of a Federal grand jury <a href="http://ivebeenmugged.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/04/pandora-subpoena-apps.html">investigation</a> of personal data collection through its popular Android and Iphone app. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Google also got into trouble for seemingly collecting private information with its Street View data collection.</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Clearly leaks happen when it comes to personal information – with or without malicious intent. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="yiv1535708172apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span"> </span></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/04/apple-location-tracking.html">Recent reports</a> that <span class="yshortcuts"><span style="color: black;">iPhone</span></span> and <span class="yshortcuts"><span style="color: black;">iPad</span></span> are regularly recording the device position and storing it in a hidden unencrypted file will do little to assuage consumers’ concerns about their personal data being used or potentially abused. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/22/google-responds-to-smartphone-location-tracking-uproar-says-android-is-opt-in/"> A similar situation exists</a> for Android phones as well. Technically, these are all opt-in, yet the story <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADSecond">followed in WSJ</a> indicates that the data <span class="yiv1535708172apple-style-span">contained a unique identifier tied to an individual’s phone (but not to the user’s name) and is not totally anonymous.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Don’t get me wrong. I am sure all the kinks will be ironed out and all these possibilities will eventually be more about convenience and quality of life and less about surveillance or loss of personal data. As I indicated in an earlier blog, technology after all has overwhelmingly been the biggest driver of human progress. Despite the nuclear disasters in <span class="yshortcuts"><span style="color: black;">Three Mile Island</span></span> (US -1979), Chernobyl (Ukraine - 1986) and Fukushima Daiichi (March 2011), today over 440 <span class="yshortcuts"><span style="color: black;">nuclear power plants</span></span> worldwide are running safely to <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf01.html">generate 14% of global electricity</a>. The benefits of nuclear fission technology decisively out-weighs the pitfalls. </span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="yiv1535708172msonormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So, I hope, will be the case with all the commercial recognition techniques. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: serif, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-66000706576638586532011-04-19T23:18:00.004-04:002012-03-05T09:44:03.218-05:00RoboCop, Facial Recognition and the Leap of Innovation from Fantasy to Reality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi95Jl6NbbE6nH7m9CyHlDudIl7O9WJfNtRnsys8v135gU-ZaL1PYipM8IZJ2tAT6AynHZ60kNJ5KGO4cYFoHLOFtJ9tlyGJlykA_0Gwp2ovN_PfEEEUbQtJFpYvwCCpPjBSrmZ5CGo8T4/s1600/Robocop.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi95Jl6NbbE6nH7m9CyHlDudIl7O9WJfNtRnsys8v135gU-ZaL1PYipM8IZJ2tAT6AynHZ60kNJ5KGO4cYFoHLOFtJ9tlyGJlykA_0Gwp2ovN_PfEEEUbQtJFpYvwCCpPjBSrmZ5CGo8T4/s200/Robocop.png" width="91" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Last week, <a href="http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/robocop-glasses-can-identify-outlaws/6878/">road testing of a high tech mobile facial recognition system</a> by Brazil police evoked the memories of the 1987 movie Robocop from journalists and bloggers all over the globe. The parallel to the high-tech helmet worn by Robocop Alex Murphy was unavoidable. The system the Brazilian police are planning to use during the 2014 World cup soccer tournament combines a high power camera equipped with face recognition technology connected via wireless link to a back-office computer. Face recognition algorithms are being perfected for many years now, have been used by police, airport security systems and many other surveillance systems. The Brazilian application is an interesting mobile version of a similar system. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">The police will have sunglasses with cameras that can scan 400 faces per second. The camera has a wireless link to a database that can cross-check 46,000 points on the face with 13 million mug shots of known criminals to find a match. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">Physicist and futurologist Michio Kaku <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/03/25/science.fiction.kaku/index.html?hpt=Sbin">in a recent CNN interview</a> suggests that we take cues from Sci-Fi to get a sense of the future. “Physics makes science-fiction happen” was his prescient comment as he sprinkled examples from Matrix, Predator, Blade Runner and Star Trek to paint a notion of the world twenty, fifty or hundred years from now.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">He definitely has a point. Kaku’s real hero Einstein once said “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions”. The same imagination that motivates creators of sci-fi novels or movies can morph into reality in the hands of scientists and engineers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEXZxVLiu13TSO4jxmYkq9Rj0aCjrZPwAZEmnZW-3c70WLRdv7gl2teuCcEOQjwdC1taPfAcAvdIgbrM6dJLtW22ggLz0ZI41QbEOH7axQHYhyphenhyphenmR0zDIUwsdP4l4guNhcKwhDaVZY2Mz4/s1600/Nautilus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEXZxVLiu13TSO4jxmYkq9Rj0aCjrZPwAZEmnZW-3c70WLRdv7gl2teuCcEOQjwdC1taPfAcAvdIgbrM6dJLtW22ggLz0ZI41QbEOH7axQHYhyphenhyphenmR0zDIUwsdP4l4guNhcKwhDaVZY2Mz4/s200/Nautilus.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Examples are many. While the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Plongeur">notion of a submarine existed</a> in the 19<sup>th</sup> century, Jules Verne in his 1870 novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the sea” first imagined a submarine named<i> Nautilus</i> that could stay and travel under water for many days, driven by an ultra-quiet engine that runs on processed fuel. A little under a century later, the world’s first long-distance nuclear submarine <i>USS Nautilus</i> made its maiden voyage in 1954. Verne’s 1865 novel “From the Earth to the Moon” presaged a close parallel of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1HDYZpmkwPIMkdnBjl6OtolFtlnHp-CfkJwx3Ckcvrk55Sn8fli9b5qsr6z7PLmv1OR0wBV96uP0nU59SVoGJDLNBhBONDF13dNjGdg8teWk8A-pgxR_6_LKrEvZgm56PyNsKcKRfb8I/s1600/TNG+Apple.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1HDYZpmkwPIMkdnBjl6OtolFtlnHp-CfkJwx3Ckcvrk55Sn8fli9b5qsr6z7PLmv1OR0wBV96uP0nU59SVoGJDLNBhBONDF13dNjGdg8teWk8A-pgxR_6_LKrEvZgm56PyNsKcKRfb8I/s320/TNG+Apple.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And, long before Steve Jobs envisioned the iPad, Gene Roddenberry already created his own celluloid </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">version in Star Trek – the Next Generation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So next time you discount those odd gizmos in a late night Sci Fi movie, think again, right there may be an </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">idea for the next big invention </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">!</span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-5729459572944399872011-04-16T18:09:00.005-04:002012-03-05T09:44:29.887-05:00Web 2.0, Social Media and Neologism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Language has always been a dynamic repository of words, expressions and metaphors. So addition of new words to the lexicon is not a novel concept. But when it comes to technology, it is not just the way we do things that is changing at a maddening speed, it is also the words we use and the lingo we speak that is morphing at an ever accelerating speed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisytwJNUtk0F2dcxFrFf3dC-d_6T2Y1jFLFT4JQoJAGcQPKNMWksBlC_om0DmBRphVNo3UuqMgP0SfeRTirBwAosk95-7PnTuKmBK4Kr7MTg7ADlERh8eSNYFmVOx7Hcf_CgVs1LTtbUE/s1600/OMG.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisytwJNUtk0F2dcxFrFf3dC-d_6T2Y1jFLFT4JQoJAGcQPKNMWksBlC_om0DmBRphVNo3UuqMgP0SfeRTirBwAosk95-7PnTuKmBK4Kr7MTg7ADlERh8eSNYFmVOx7Hcf_CgVs1LTtbUE/s200/OMG.png" width="200" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Even though it may make the sticklers of proper English bristle, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) just <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrF2WBFvZYQ">added brand new entries</a> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> like <a href="http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/293068">OMG</a></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">, <a href="http://mashable.com/2011/03/24/oed-omg-lol/">LOL</a> and FYI that so far existed only in chat rooms and the texting world</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">. <span class="apple-style-span">So don’t be puzzled when they show up next in your favorite newspaper article along with expressions like <i>BFF</i> (Best Friends Forever), <i>IMHO </i>(In my humble opinion) or TMI (Too much information). </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsN9hhej8-Mfr5Tj_l-CQ_BRlqBfstXQTl-S28Ab88YQoPSEedFidghBxPs91HFgAc-iB0sBGp8pESSp838fNdP4f8Gqx-4h8cJ3FU677lQWFP8KWD3F_rFqEkEP4Q8BcDqIX8MAFojvc/s1600/OMG2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="50" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsN9hhej8-Mfr5Tj_l-CQ_BRlqBfstXQTl-S28Ab88YQoPSEedFidghBxPs91HFgAc-iB0sBGp8pESSp838fNdP4f8Gqx-4h8cJ3FU677lQWFP8KWD3F_rFqEkEP4Q8BcDqIX8MAFojvc/s400/OMG2.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Words that did not exist even a decade ago now touch us like never before, when we talk about spam, blog, cloud computing, phishing, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing">crowdsourcing</a>, e-books, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging">geotagging</a>, GPS, <a href="http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/walled_garden.html">walled garden</a>, Netlingo.com even had a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3OdcaAz_nw">Youtube video</a> to explain the “Walled Garden” phenomenon. So next time you and I talk, I won’t be raising my curious eye-brows as you sprinkle the conversation with words like “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scareware">scareware</a>” (malicious computer program), “<a href="http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/index2.html">Cyberbullying</a>”, “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickjacking">Clickjacking</a>” (manipulating a user’s activity by concealing hyperlinks).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Social Media and the Lexical Meme:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Since the days of Myspace, social media continues to unleash a torrent of new words. In addition to defining the avian meaning (i.e., chirping), Dictionary.com now formally defines <i>Twitter</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> as “a website where people can post short messages”. Twitter, in its turn has spawned many new derivatives like Tweet, Tweetup, Hashtags - all included in a </span><a href="http://support.twitter.com/entries/166337-the-twitter-glossary">dedicated glossary page</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The truth is, lexically speaking, the phrase “catching up with technology” is assuming a whole new meaning. As I was writing this blog, I came across several words that seemingly are part of the everyday parlance of social media. Some are more intuitive, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblog">moblog</a> (<span class="apple-style-span">blog published from a mobile device</span><span class="apple-style-span">), others are less so but perfectly meaningful like </span><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft">copy-left</a></i> (the legal framework to balance the flaws of copyright), <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1888114230"> </a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commons">c<i>reative commons</i> </a>or <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_story">digital story</a></i>. A good reference for the un-initiated may be found <a href="http://www.socialbrite.org/sharing-center/glossary/">in this socialbrite.org page</a>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2A3qReYDJ9pC5EtTMCgIMNA7ddiFVnTfrVa8WGAGICNCTBmWOxa5gVzgZRFAaaJ6l1JkKvzhGGHm3-1mOFaCRa604OhPh8Kn7WFG7Yv8cywyb13PnKU8NpZxyg0jbx422dTiBqpqjkA/s1600/Digg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="107" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2A3qReYDJ9pC5EtTMCgIMNA7ddiFVnTfrVa8WGAGICNCTBmWOxa5gVzgZRFAaaJ6l1JkKvzhGGHm3-1mOFaCRa604OhPh8Kn7WFG7Yv8cywyb13PnKU8NpZxyg0jbx422dTiBqpqjkA/s200/Digg.png" width="200" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">While Twitter and Facebook are household terms understood globally, you may come across a few other terms like “Digg Me” or “Disqus”, tagged below the next blog you will read. </span><span class="apple-converted-space">Digg </span><span class="apple-style-span">is a social news site that lets people discover and share content. Users submit links and stories and the community votes them up or down. Users can <b><i>“digg”</i></b> stories they like or <b><i>“bury”</i></b> the ones they don’t.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="apple-style-span"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The word I personally love most is “MASHUP”. It shows up in multiple contexts – in music, in software development. M<i>ashup songs </i>are a popular trend<i> </i>that fuse two known songs in to a new composite remix. Here’s a popular one -<a href="http://remix.vg/taio-cruz-vs-keha-we-r-dynamite-stelmix-vs-stonebridge-10-definitive-mashup-9208/"> We R Dynamite – a mashup</a> of Taio Cruz and Ke$ha’s Dynamite and We R who we R. For application development<span class="apple-style-span">, <i>mashup techniques</i> combine data from multiple sources to create a new integrated app. An early mashup example is the apartment hunting tool that took data from sources such as <a href="http://www.craigslist.org/">Craigslist</a> and combined them with mapping or photo database (e.g., Google maps and Street view) to <a href="http://housingmaps.com/">create a new app</a> with visualizations of the data</span><span class="apple-style-span">. <a href="http://www.zillow.com/">Zillow</a> mashed up data from other real estate web sites and combined it with Google Map or MS Virtual Earth to create real estate applications displayed to the user on a map. With standardized APIs, possibilities are limitless, when it comes to innovating new value simply by mashing up existing apps. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is an app for that –</span></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDtERbjGxmLdKDwqRrkKHR1g4n4oGNu9WXJuqxe6XHuXzAQTKRm9U9EwHbLr_cDbg6gVHFbcv3tt9RrXAXYJvf7LWxYe5jEKU-Y86E19wCjkCuZBvgcOfHcVYRi2HlcMpoNgudbYmpUmE/s1600/app.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDtERbjGxmLdKDwqRrkKHR1g4n4oGNu9WXJuqxe6XHuXzAQTKRm9U9EwHbLr_cDbg6gVHFbcv3tt9RrXAXYJvf7LWxYe5jEKU-Y86E19wCjkCuZBvgcOfHcVYRi2HlcMpoNgudbYmpUmE/s200/app.gif" width="134" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></b> </span><o:p></o:p>As always is the case now – no matter what subject we might be talking about, there is possibly <i>an app for that…</i>. There is a $0.99 iPhone app to tell you all about the new acronyms for the web. So if you’re a parent of a teen who wants to make sense of a text someone might be passing to your youngster or vice versa,<a href="http://www.netlingo.com/iphone/index.php"> here is your education</a>. </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Of course there will never be a dictionary to keep a live record of all the new social code words that are popping every day. Netlingo.com has a<a href="http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php"> real time compiling of such a list</a>. To make sense of any code words in unwanted texts or spams, and to know when not to touch those mails or texts, <a href="http://www.netlingo.com/top50/acronyms-for-parents.php">here is a good reference for parents</a>. <span class="apple-style-span"> A word of caution – while many of the acronyms are innocuous, several carry inappropriate connotations. Hopefully they will help you raise the red flag when you see one. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="apple-style-span">That's all for today. </span><b><i>10Q for your attention. BBFN</i></b>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><br />
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</div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-34800693503218368132011-03-27T13:22:00.004-04:002012-03-05T09:45:19.444-05:00Efficient Multi-tasking – The Myth that does not seem to go away<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The other day at work I walked to someone’s office for a pre-appointed meeting. I was on time, warmly welcomed and gestured to take a seat. Soon enough I realized that the speaker-phone on the desk was on and there was a live call that my host was intermittently joining and muting. Regardless, our discussion slowly started. Soon, I noticed that he was also checking his blackberry calendar from time to time. Our meeting continued with an occasional spaced-out look from my host as he tried to keep an ear to the ongoing call. Some times, he made a few disjointed comments to the unseen participants of the call, <i>efficiently </i>muting it back. Suddenly, distracted by some supposedly “hot” email chime, he began texting to someone. At this point, I had it. I politely suggested that I might have come at a wrong time and perhaps we could reschedule. “Oh no, no…”, he was superbly gracious. “Your time is important, so let’s continue and finish the conversation now. Don’t worry about the call or the SMS. I am a pretty good multi-tasker”….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It is time to seriously challenge the “coolness” and glory of such multi-tasking in today’s culture. Look at the well known <a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html">2009 Stanford University study</a> by Clifford Nass involving several self-declared super-multi-tasker youngsters. These kids were at the leading edge of simultaneous IM conversation, texting, emailing, social networking while doing everything else and claimed to have full cognitive control. However, when given a series of mental tasks like puzzles and memory games, these chronic multi-taskers consistently under-performed relative to low or non-multi-taskers. Check out <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/interviews/nass.html#5">this PBS interview of Dr. Nass</a> on his research. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So what’s at play here..? The multitude of web and information technology has made multi-tasking both easy and endemic. But every time we switch from one task to another, there is a “switching cost” of time, as we turn off one part of the brain and turn on another. Second, human brain functions by relating data, picture or information in front of us. As we switch from task to task, images or data from all other tasks tend to clog the brain, impeding any analytical effort that needs only selective data from that mess. Multi-taskers’ rationale is that they do five things at once because they don’t have time to do them one at a time. Turns out, they might be more efficient if they actually did things one after another.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="apple-style-span">Even for a computer with a single core micro-processor, multitasking</span><span class="apple-style-span"> involves time-sharing with only one task active at a time. Typically, these tasks are rotated through many times a second, with a miniscule but finite ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_switch">Context switching</a>’, </span><span class="apple-style-span">time lost in between. However, with</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> multi-core processor </span><span class="apple-style-span">computers, each core can perform a separate task simultaneously.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">For those more geekily inclined, there is a nice <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000022.html">2001 blog piece by Joel Spolsky</a> that gives a simple example from a programming point of view to establish that:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">1. even without any task switching costs, sequential processing gets you results faster <i>on average</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">2. the longer it takes to task switch, the bigger the penalty you pay for multitasking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">To elaborate the concept, let me borrow a graph from project management paradigm (<span class="apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/09/the-multi-tasking-myth.html">cited in codinghorror.com</a>) </span> from <span class="apple-style-span">Gerald Weinberg’s “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932633226/codinghorror-20">Quality Software Management –Systems Thinking</a>” </span><span class="apple-style-span">that conceptualizes the relative time share between a software project and the wasted time in context switching as more projects are added to the workload. Be sure to check a similar <a href="http://www.highway12ventures.com/2011/03/08/focus-filter-and-forget/">blog titled Twitter Curve</a> by George Mulhern. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuyTHR04H9k2hPYJSUasupgZb2x_ZHeoOFrLTKBlcBvD-MiNWdXIYv7gPOsgndoqp2PRo4UxWwYNBDExu1odjNmtw7dt3bb6Vq9rMEX7Ul92cbpsIs2SLcWKjET67e2SbenNPdN5-Qcck/s1600/ContextSwitch.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuyTHR04H9k2hPYJSUasupgZb2x_ZHeoOFrLTKBlcBvD-MiNWdXIYv7gPOsgndoqp2PRo4UxWwYNBDExu1odjNmtw7dt3bb6Vq9rMEX7Ul92cbpsIs2SLcWKjET67e2SbenNPdN5-Qcck/s320/ContextSwitch.png" width="320" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The point, however is NOT to avoid or shun these fantastic tools that human mind is innovating.<a href="http://chirpotwit.blogspot.com/2011_02_06_archive.html"> I love Twitter, Linked-in, Facebook, texting and SMS</a>. The point is that our comfort and expertise notwithstanding, we often take a myopic view and believe that we can text, email, phone and think at the same time without sacrificing the quality of any of these. The going paradigm often is that we can IM, watch a movie and do homework or solve problems without degrading the quality of the solving process. Overwhelmingly, studies indicate that we really can’t, at least not without degradation in terms of time, quality or ability to think effectively.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Technically speaking, it is possible that after thousands (perhaps millions) of years of such multi-tasking, the human brain might evolve itself to a multi-core processor to bridge the gap of context switching between individual tasks. (Those who are not convinced of Darwinian science of course won’t even have such hopes; the only possibility for them might be to petition the Creator to go back to the drawing board and re-design the human brain for multi-core processing).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Let me end today with another <a href="http://www.management-issues.com/2011/3/16/opinion/are-you-trapped-on-the-technology-treadmill.asp">blog article by Myra White</a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> where she mentions psychologist Csikszentmihalyi’s work to underline that some of our most meaningful and creative moments happen when we’re so absorbed in the task at hand that we become one with the task and lose track of everything else. Many of the Aha or the Eureka events and innovation happen during these very moments. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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</div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-17472709306463636792011-03-20T12:17:00.003-04:002012-03-05T09:45:37.806-05:002011 Tsunami – Technology, Warning System and Japanese Perseverance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The double whammy of earthquake and tsunami in Northern Japan was a sobering reminder of how tiny we humans still are in the hands of the forces of nature. The live videos of furious water mowing down and engulfing buildings, trucks, cars and neighborhoods as if they were little debris seemed like a trailer from a disaster movie. The ruinous aftermath notwithstanding, I can’t help thinking what would have happened had this occurred in any other coastal or island country…like Haiti, Fiji or Madagascar.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Over the years, Japan has built perhaps </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26513/">the most advanced earthquake warning system</a>, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">deploying thousands of seismographic sensors across the whole country and setting up a quick broadcast system using a one-to-many version of text messaging called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast">SMS-CB</a> (short message service – cell broadcast). </span></span></span></span></div><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now a quick</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> segue to earthquake101……. An earthquake typically has two types of tremors – less destructive but faster P-waves and slightly slower but damaging shear or S-waves. The speed difference between the two, received from thousands of ground sensors, allowed Japan to assess location and severity sending warnings within seconds, not only to citizens, but also to public infrastructure to initiate emergency procedures. For instance, the residents of Tokyo, which was 373 km from the epicenter, had a valuable 80 seconds to take life-saving steps to safety. Other areas of Japan, especially Northern Japan, perhaps had shorter windows, but still a valuable few seconds to react. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Interestingly, here in California, researchers at Stanford University are pursuing a <a href="http://qcn.stanford.edu/about/">crowd-sourcing technology</a> – Quake-Catcher Network – aggregating data from volunteer laptop accelerometers to detect quakes. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">.....The Japan disaster is also a test case to gauge the progress of tsunami prediction technology since the Asian tsunami of 2004. Clearly the series of sensors spread across the Pacific and the Indian ocean floor (<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/">http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov</a>/</span>) and the complicated codes to process all the data from them are paying off. <span class="apple-style-span">The local tsunami warning in Japan <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/35090/?a=f">came three minutes after the quake struck while the one from the regional Pacific Tsunami Warning Center came within nine minutes</a> . As a result, r</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">esidents of the hardest-hit areas in Northern Japan had 15 minutes of warning</span>, saving many lives, yet not soon enough for tens of thousands of missing. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The response time may not still be at its desired best, yet it’s a lot of progress since 2004.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Technology aside, I cannot help being amazed at how exemplary and powerful the innate head-bowing Japanese politeness could be at this devastating time as I see the pictures of Sendai residents waiting in a mile-long rainy queue outside a food store. </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The power of national discipline over social chaos could not have been more apparent. The contrast indeed was striking, given the pictures of mayhem and marauding that often accompanies disaster and misery. The ongoing nuclear mess notwithstanding, this is one country that will surely rebuild once again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-53605463878338790542011-03-06T11:18:00.003-05:002012-03-05T09:47:59.037-05:00Identity Peddling – the Newborn Stepchild of Web Technology<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My marketing professor in business school always said that the true market size of any consumer group is “one” – meaning every individual has unique tastes that defies bundling them into pre-designed segments. So targeting and catering to that unique person is the holy grail of all advertisers. Classified newspaper ads, mail solicitations, telemarketing have all been looking for the same ultimate prize for decades. And now the friendly web has unleashed a new secret weapon …….</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Back in the nineties, it seemed cool when Netscape introduced <i>“cookies”</i> in their browsers so you don’t have to remember passwords, site preferences or the individual contents of your shopping cart. But back then, advertisers cared little about online marketing and we were free to roam and surf without having to worry about who’s stalking us and following our trail in cyberspace. But good old times are always short lived.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pretty soon <i><a href="http://www.opentracker.net/article/third-party-cookies-vs-first-party-cookies">third party cookies</a></i> began to be placed when you visited a site and, in place of helping you remember past surfing info, these text files were designed to be sent back to build a database of your browsing interests. Interestingly, law is yet to catch up and so there is no legal protection against such surveillance. Naturally there is a growing field of legit entrepreneurs that now build databases of consumers like you and me, track our online destination and behaviors and sell them to anyone willing to pay the price. These identity peddlers are increasingly fueling a potentially not-so-holy alliance between the internet and advertisers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A quick google search revealed many incarnations of these little stealth spies that we are all exposed to… <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_cookie">Zombie cookies</a></i>, <i><a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/flash-cookies-whats-new-with-online-privacy/2299">Flash cookies</a></i>, <i><a href="http://antivirus.about.com/b/2009/09/21/class-action-suit-stops-facebook-beacons.htm">Beacons</a></i> and on and on. Unlike their original ancestor (the Netscape Navigator cookie), these can hold lot more data, are hard to get rid of and are often hard to find. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As one of the sites suggested, I did a little “YoutTube Test” for Flash cookies. Go to YouTube, launch a music video, check its volume setting, change it. Delete all cookies in browser control setting. Close the browser. Re-open the browser, launch the same video, check the volume setting. Notice that it retains your new setting and did not return to the default setting. That’s your Flash cookie helping you out. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was intrigued by a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575393173432219064.html">recent study</a> that showed that more intrusive versions of these little text files are now rampant, often scanning in real time almost anything you may be doing on a web page – like clicking a link or typing a domain name - and deploying advanced analytics to estimate your location (zip code), shopping interests, income bracket, medical status, family info, age, gender, and so on. And then the data, supposedly anonymously, are sold in auctions or stock-market like exchanges. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not surprisingly the sites most loaded with such stealth trackers are sites like online Encyclopedia Britannica’s Merriam-Webster.com or Dictionary.com that people visit to research a topic of their interest.<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703940904575395073512989404.html"> The WSJ study</a> for instance found that a tracking file from a healthcare ad firm Healthline Networks Inc. snoops on you when you go there and if you are researching topics such as anorexia or eating disorders, you may suddenly be seeing ads from appropriate pharmaceutical firms in your web pages !! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Web technology has brought the world together, created social media that’s now innate to <a href="http://chirpotwit.blogspot.com/2011_02_06_archive.html">how the world operates</a>. Good faith sharing (and occasional narcissistic exhibitionism!) is fundamental to the Facebook generation. Such mass marketization of our personal life hits directly at that openness and hence can be un-settling, especially if you have a condition you want to keep private. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">So next time you surf the web, be aware that the intimacy between you and your browser page is no longer a closed-door affair. The breadcrumbs you leave are constantly picked up by scavengers who are then peddling them back to anyone willing to pay and anyone who may have something to gain by knowing your identity, habits, interests, and personal pursuits. And more importantly remember that there are no legal limits to how that data can be used. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">By the way, all major browsers such as Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari have been stepping up pledging to add additional protection similar to FTC’s “No Calling List” for telemarketers. But ultimately your protection is your responsibility. After all, there may be a little conflict of interest, e.g., limits set by Exploerer may have impact on Bing’s search-based ad business. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">And all the social media and Facebook users may have a little extra caution to exercise. Facebook has been in the middle of several privacy breaches in recent months putting in question its promise of keeping its members’ profile data secure. Last October, several media (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304772804575558484075236968.html">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370969,00.asp">PC Magazine</a>,<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2010/10/facebook_games_privacy_breach.html"> Washington Post</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/facebook-privacy-breach-settings_n_766468.html#s159330&title=Change_What_Information">The Huffington Post</a>)</span> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">reported on ten most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users’ IDs to other companies. While Facebook seems have to taken the corrective steps, the incident showed yet another hole through which you are constantly pried upon by many businesses, some legal and some perhaps not so legal, some benign and some perhaps not so benign. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Just be aware.</span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-46772387494087552752011-02-26T17:50:00.003-05:002012-03-05T09:48:19.798-05:00Technology Matters and so do the science and math behind it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was watching a video-cast about this year’s <a href="http://www.campus-party.org/What_is_it.html"><i>Campus Party</i> </a>event in Sau Paolo – a gathering of young minds largely from computers, engineering and internet - that come together in a party-like environment to learn, share and show their innovations, new hardware, devices and applications in games, entertainment, communications and many others. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9386666.stm">What an event!</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The story was not found on the front page. The front page talked about Libya, governor-union duel in Wisconsin, protests in middle-east, soaring oil price. Yet it was no less significant. Who knows if some future Turing, Tesla, Edison, Bell, or Jobs was not hiding in that crowd. The unique gathering was all about digital technology and sharing new ideas in an entertaining atmosphere. I could not help thinking <span class="apple-style-span">that technology (digital or otherwise) is probably the most potent force that has given us tools to continuously shape and re-shape our life since our cave days and pushed societies that incubated them to the next rung in the ladder of civilization.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arts, business, trading, travel, sports, medicine are all examples of activities human have engaged in since the beginning of history. Throughout history, ruling classes ruled and waged wars, trading class managed business, farmers grew food, teachers taught the existing body of knowledge and so on. But it is really the scientists and technologists who quietly expanded our knowledge to improve how we do all those better, how we build, how we travel, how we understand the human body and its maladies, how we communicate, how we entertain and everything else in between. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">Pursuit of science and technology is arguably the single most powerful human endeavor that has contributed to human</span><span class="apple-style-span"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">progress since the days we discovered fire and invented wheels. The societies that supported their inventors and scientists usually made bigger leaps and conversely, those that suppressed science regressed. The societies in Europe thrived when they mentored the likes of Da Vinci and Newton. And they regressed when scientists like Galileo were chastised because they discovered new physical laws that challenged existing beliefs whose perpetuation was deemed critical for preserving the religious or political establishments of the time.</span><span class="apple-style-span"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">More I think about it, science and technology have always been the key transformative force of our civilization. While philosophy, arts and morality have their rightful place in our progress, milestones of human history are often marked by aqueducts, windmills, steam engines, electricity, automobiles, transistors, robotics, genetics and of course the internet – all outcomes of physical sciences. </span><span class="apple-style-span">Today the quality of our life continues to benefit from innovations that make faster chips, better computers, more efficient transportation, better surgical technology, more efficient communication and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By innovation, I mean new ways of doing things. Just to clarify, while designing mortgage based derivative or other financial tricks may be considered innovation in some sense, and may benefit certain businesses in the short-term, that’s not what I am talking about. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And more often than not, pursuit of science and mathematics catalyzed all these inventions. Steam engine that pushed England in to the modern industrial economy was invented because James Watt and Joseph Black at University of Glasgow knew enough about the science of heat transfer. Steam locomotives and steam powered ships then revolutionized transportation and international trade completely reshaping life – thanks largely to the knowledge of mechanics and the science of thermodynamics and metallurgy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While lifestyle choices and occasional pastoral edicts against drinking are definite contributors, the largest impact on increasing life expectancy from mid-forties in early twenties century to almost low eighties now come from breakthroughs in bio-technology and genetics powered by Darwinian science.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And hence, technology matters, more than ever, and so does the pursuit of science and mathematics that’s often behind the technology. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take Google for example. A whole new web of economic activity now revolves around Google. (There is even a knock-off in China named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu">Baidu</a> that is prospering equally well there.) But it all started because two kids, one from Russia and one from Michigan, US – who trained themselves in mathematics, science and logic ended up working together to build a very smart search engine that could crawl the entire web to provide information far superior than any existing tools. (It was only much later that the company that they formed landed on the <a href="http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4564568_google-make-money.html">sweet spot of search-based advertisin</a>g that opened the flood gates of multi-billon dollar revenues.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similarly, if we cut through all the hype and buzz around Mark Zukerberg’s billion-dollar social media phenomenon, we see that luck, timing and business savvy aside, Facebook came to life not just because Zuckerberg dreamed it up but also because he is deeply passionate about programming, loved software application since his middle school, is a mathematical thinker and actually could build the algorithm behind the application. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">It takes a scientific and technology-literate mind to take an existing technology and make it better or find a new applcation. When Nintendo created Wii’s motion sensitive controllers for games, it opened the door for a whole slew of applications for gesture controlled devices. Take for instance Johny Lee a student at CMU who applied his knowledge of electronics and imagination to modify the Wii box to add head tracking functions. Only in a couple of years, Xbox Kinect 360 can now respond to players movements automatically and in 3D. And now robotics engineers and students in universities are <a href="http://www.blogger.com/(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9406884.stm)">tinkering with rescue robots</a> that use the same technology to maneuver in rescue situations. </span> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is largely the passionate practitioner of technology who develops and comes out with new ways of doing things that take the human society forward while politicians make their crafty moves to retain power, priests dole out their cool aid so people continue to look backward and traders stay busy to buy and sell to make that extra buck as they have been doing for thousands of years. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But nothing in life is unmixed. <span class="apple-style-span">There is a dark side of science and technology for which they should share no blame. </span>After all, science and technology are agnostic of human intentions. The same technology that enables space exploration is also used for destructive missiles that warring groups use against each other. The knowledge of bio-technology that has enhanced our health-span and improved quality of life of millions has also led to ammunitions of bio-warfare for the benefit of power-hungry governments, armies and fanatics. But that’s a discussion for another day. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The point remains that the vast majority of improvements and positive disruptions in human life come largely through progress and inventions powered by science and technology.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-66119615446888408832011-02-16T22:51:00.003-05:002012-03-05T09:48:38.807-05:00Language, Artificial Intelligence and WATSON - the new super-computer Jeopardy Champion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">This week’s Jeopardy IBM challenge pitted two human super-champions (Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter) against a custom-designed IBM super-computer named <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watson</i>. The game was intended to showcase machine capability not just for fast hard-core calculation but also for softer but equally complex skills like language processing. Thanks to the publicity in several media channels, I managed to catch the second and third game of the three-day series. Curiously enough, I found myself in an Us-and-Them mode, rooting for the human players (who of course lost thoroughly to the machine). </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">It has been 42 years since Stanley Kubrick introduced the fictional super-computer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">HAL </i>in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2001 Space Odyssey</i> that was perfected to a human-like complexity to display emotion and language processing ability well beyond its artificial intelligence. The ongoing quest to develop a real-life HAL remains an evolving goal, although IBM seems to make that goal one of its promotional targets, while providing some entertainment to us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">First was the introduction of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deep Blue</i> in 1996 to play chess against grand master Gary Kasparov. There was, however little human about Deep Blue, its chess moves still came from brute force computation of established rules. Even that achievement remains embroiled in controversy. Kasparov, who lost complained of unfair human intervention by IBM to reprogram the machine during game. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Introduction of Watson on Jeopardy’s stage has passed without any such controversy. The human competitors seemed to gracefully accept its lightning speed and its agility with the buzzer. In fact one of them added the following sub-text to the final jeopardy response “I for one welcome our new computer overlord” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Over and beyond our cognitive abilities, language with its puns, metaphors, analogies, double meanings represents a core human attribute. One that gives expression to our personality, attitude and perhaps to more abstract concepts like our consciousness. In fact, voice and language abilities are often used to give human characteristics to animals or other natural objects in art, literature, movies. Computer scientists have even defined a “Turing Test” (named after Alan Turing) to judge a machine’s intelligence by testing its natural language or conversational abilities. An electronic system is said to have <i>passed the Turing Test</i> if its conversation is indistinguishable from that of humans.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">With its stacks of ninety servers and instantaneous ability to process text of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">answer</i>, Watson's victory was not much in question. More significant part of the game probably was the few rare clues where Watson faltered. One example was a clue on what Shengen treaty opened up (I’m paraphrasing) – Watson’s response “Passport” was related but not quite the correct contextual one – “National Border”. Probably the real-life machine still has some work cut out to pass the Turing test !<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
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Regardless of those rare faux paus, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watson</i> definitely represents a milestone for computational progress at processing natural language and parsing convoluted statements often with multiple meanings. We sure are making progress to the day when we may have <i>“Turing Test” compliant</i> appliances, cars and droids that would interact more “humanly” with us. </span></span></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-73679384352951499472011-02-13T22:38:00.003-05:002012-03-05T09:48:59.523-05:00Can two turkeys make an Eagle? The curious alliance between Microsoft and Nokia….<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">All technology news columns today headlined the alliance between Microsoft & Nokia – the two old giants, respectively in software and hardware who so far individually failed to make a dent in the hot and raging US smartphone market.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">The tweet from a Google executive, as reported in Wall Street Journal (Feb 12, 2001) was pretty clear – “Two turkeys do not make an eagle”. Interesting comment, but perhaps a little too early.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Those using a smartphone (i.e. those portable computers that run nifty apps and also doubles as a phone) know that the market here in US is largely a “Trio-poly” – dominated by iPhone, Blackberry and Google with its band of phone makers running Android operating system. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Nokia is a dominant phone maker in he rest of the globe with its own OS – Symbian. These Symbian phones still have the biggest market share outside the US. In fact in many developing countries, Nokia is synonymous with mobile phone, just like Xerox was once synonymous with photocopy. Yet Nokia’s smartphones did not quite click in the US and its eco-system of apps, based on Symbian never quite caught on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Microsoft had a similar story from the software side. As this tech dinosaur continues to have a thriving cash cow in its continuous re-incarnations of Windows OS, its forays in to successful hardware so far is limited to Xbox gaming system. Its repeated attempts at music player (Zune) and phones so far did not quite pan out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Enter Stephen Elop, the new Nokia CEO, freshly harvested in to Nokia from Microsoft who promptly goes in to action, quickly pushes Nokia in to bed with his previous employer. In the process, Nokia is also sidelining, not just Symbian but MeeGo, the budding open OS it was sponsoring specifically for smarphones. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">On paper, the alliance is complementary and hence should be promising. One lacks a successful hardware platform and the other needs an OS that could pull it in to the upper echelons of smartphone market. Success or failure, the unfolding story would certainly be a sure-shot entry in to the case-studies that business schools love to teach in their strategy courses. </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-90419286236322547402011-02-12T14:31:00.006-05:002012-03-05T09:49:20.589-05:00Social Networking and Political Revolution<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZm5WGBiss3_sR3fZQnJHEh76m5Us3eUwXUxL16lINymN_PDRUnFPkHRsrv9-KdUd-2d9XR_25qr0Y3Si0VVVdajJmjldPcjLSM9SUJu4eHqPUhscMZPQQXmpcvV2xWGhg3U9b_Kcv5I/s1600/FacebookEgypt.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZm5WGBiss3_sR3fZQnJHEh76m5Us3eUwXUxL16lINymN_PDRUnFPkHRsrv9-KdUd-2d9XR_25qr0Y3Si0VVVdajJmjldPcjLSM9SUJu4eHqPUhscMZPQQXmpcvV2xWGhg3U9b_Kcv5I/s320/FacebookEgypt.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Long before Mark Zukerberg became TIME’s Man of the Year, James Buck, a UC_Berkeley journalism student was arrested in Mahalla, Egypt, on April 10, 2008 while covering an anti-government protest there. On his way to the police station, James sent a one-word twit to his friends from his cell phone – “Arrested” … His fellow Twitteres spread the word; within hours the University and the government of the USA were alerted… diplomatic actions were set in motion and Mr. Buck was released.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As president Obama said yesterday “Wheel of history turned at a blinding pace” over the last two weeks in Egypt, and social networking had more than a fair share. </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yesterday, when CNN asked Wael Ghonim (now famous activist and Google employee): "First Tunisia, now Egypt. What's next?" Ghonim's intriguing response was "Ask Facebook."</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">From a small start-up phenomenon, social networking technology has blossomed in to a force way beyond its fad-appeal. True, people continue to demonstrate an unstoppable obsession of reporting round-the-clock snippets of their daily life, profound and not-so-profound private details continue to clog the Facebook walls, yet fundamentally there is something at work… something that is very basic and human. Ultimately all the new social networking tools cater to a more innate genetic trait – the urge to connect, to communicate, to congregate, to share – both sorrow and success, to be in touch, to support and be supported and yes, to gossip and to show-off. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKAyHrWROlhju99fxhQtEyg4VYwY_E_V1rsH42jLDu2aFgljV-QmICOonysRx134YIpL2AAp4LPRtizJggdaCXs07D-qEMWLCzOz3RPJsqSvcIJ94_dUnFFu5sqOqlgtB4GlKB86YpXDg/s1600/Combo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKAyHrWROlhju99fxhQtEyg4VYwY_E_V1rsH42jLDu2aFgljV-QmICOonysRx134YIpL2AAp4LPRtizJggdaCXs07D-qEMWLCzOz3RPJsqSvcIJ94_dUnFFu5sqOqlgtB4GlKB86YpXDg/s200/Combo.png" width="163" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We had the same need when we were hunter-gatherers and congregated around the cave-fire at the end of the day. That’s why the big tree in the village square was always the place where everyone met and made big decisions, shared all the local news and gossip, where the young got advice from the elders.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Twitter and Facebook (and their predecessors like MySpace) are raging because they enable the same community network under the village tree, albeit virtually and bring people together around the same ancient human urge. They are addressing a need hard-coded in our DNA.</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">Not surprisingly perhaps, just this past week, we learnt Twitter as a business is being valued at a whopping $8Bn-$10Bn. This is for a company that had a 2010 revenue of only $45M and estimates its 2011 revenue to be around $100M. Facebook with its 600M members already has a valuation of $50Bn. And it is no where near its IPO. Hype or bubble? Could very well be… But meanwhile the role Twitter played in Egypt back in 2008, and the association both of them already have with the Egyptian revolution and one its more famous Facer Wale Ghonim is nothing short of historic.</span></div><br />
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</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Welcome to political engineering with social technology !! Happy Twittering.</span></span><br />
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</div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-52719126603168625802011-02-10T21:47:00.002-05:002012-03-05T09:49:41.612-05:00The new Smartphone economy & its "Blue Book"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">If PCs became the symbol of the beginning of information age in nineties, then phones, particularly smartphones have certainly come to define today’s networked life. This time, it is also a global phenomenon – enabling the school children play games, amateur traders buy or sell their stocks, farmers in remote rural areas get weather news to plan their crops and on and on. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In India, where I grew up, landlines used to be a relatively premium utility. The past decade has changed that completely as land lines gave way to cell towers. Mobile phone is now the ubiquitous symbol of connectivity across the whole land, available to people of all walks of life – the rich minority and the poor majority. As an Indian friend of mine reminded me recently that to a large swath of working class in India – the central aspiration was to secure basic food (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roti</i>), clothes (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kapda</i>) and shelter (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mokaan</i>). Apparently these three aspirations are now upgraded to add a fourth one – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roti</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kapda</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mokaan</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mobile</i> !!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Here in Michigan, where I’ve been living for the last 19 years, automobiles defined the life and culture of most of the state. As the local auto industry went through its rough patches, the falling residual value of used cars, as published in Kelly’s Blue Book were closely followed as a barometer of the industry’s health. While reading an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, I was therefore thoroughly amused by a reference to “Blue Book” to describe a new budding market of used smartphones – one more reminder of how Smartphones are being entwined in to our life and economy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">According to the article, 344727 old or used iPhones were sold on Ebay in 2010. This secondary market continues to thrive as more and more consumers go online to buy or sell through firms like Gazelle and NextWorth – so much so that the journal produced a “Blue Book” rating (Gazelle.com) of the residual value of some of the well known brands as follows – iPhone 4 retains 60% of its original value, whereas Droid X holds only 42% and 4G EVO holds 44%. Blackberry Bold 9650 in comparison holds only 27% !! Apparently consumers can also trade their devices to get store credit in retail store like Best Buy. Just like the car industry, implications for the phone industry could be significant… high resale values could further enhance brand, as it does for automobiles with above average trade-in values. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Welcome to smartphone economy !!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-5046888803688801372010-03-13T11:26:00.005-05:002012-03-05T07:05:30.568-05:00Our Evolving Connected World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFtj09T-nk3mk_3x1C1C_UApqlaAsi1kcqaX-H-BdaQNRjcr4fV2Kh9BaRu284pQqkE8F1PPUIkoWIK6i5riVtRLIr3RNbohyWmKedOEfnyCVXzEr2fbUrKihZPhu_GgRg1VnzyjNu5I/s1600-h/connected_globe.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448162216026399746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFtj09T-nk3mk_3x1C1C_UApqlaAsi1kcqaX-H-BdaQNRjcr4fV2Kh9BaRu284pQqkE8F1PPUIkoWIK6i5riVtRLIr3RNbohyWmKedOEfnyCVXzEr2fbUrKihZPhu_GgRg1VnzyjNu5I/s320/connected_globe.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 175px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 175px;" /></a><br />
<div>This week, the holy grail of an “All connected world” for ‘any content, any time’ seems closer with few announcements, respectively from Silicon Valley and Washington. </div><br />
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On Tuesday, Cisco released its new router – ‘CRS-3’ that the company is touting as the gateway to a new era of Internet capable of streaming of digital copies of all the movies ever made in about four minute or facilitating a video call with every person in China at the same time. </div><br />
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<div>In terms of numbers, the new system could enable routing of whopping 322 terabits per second. Of course routers don’t deliver data to consumers, wireless networks, DSL lines and cables do. None the less, this does appear a big leap towards managing the broadband traffic for future years, assuming pipes exists to stream the content to consumer’s PCs, netbooks or smartphones.<br />
That’s where the second announcement of the week comes in to play. </div><br />
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This Friday, several news channels including New York Times (<a href="http://nyti.ms/dewLA5">http://nyti.ms/dewLA5</a>) reported that FCC is proposing an ambitious 10-year plan to reconstruct the nation’s media infrastructure by establishing high-speed Internet as the country’s dominant communication network.</div><br />
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As is the case, US lags behind several nations especially several Scandinavian countries and South Korea, with respect to availability of broadband pipe to its citizen. As the NY Times reported, about a third of Americans have no access to high-speed Internet service, cannot afford it or choose not to have it. FCC’s plan includes an initiative called “100 Squared”, i.e., equipping 100 million households with broad-band access at 100 megabits per second by the end of this decade. The average subscriber now reportedly receives speeds only up to 3 or 4 MBPS. </div><br />
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The plan is indeed consistent with the view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries. Reason enough for network and TV operators to be less enthusiastic about the plan. </div></div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866949840873846905.post-31766014879824378022010-03-07T21:43:00.002-05:002012-03-04T23:21:00.671-05:00iPhone on wheels?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">High tech community and silicon valley have often derided the car industry as archaic and slow in adopting technology. Remember the famous quote (perhaps incorrectly attributed to Bill Gates) that "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that get 1,000 to the gallon"?<br />
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Calling automotive manufatureres "conservative" when it comes to new technology is not totally without justification. However, recent events around the massive Toyota recalls may just remind us that there's more that rides on cars than just another electronic device. If my iPhone or netbook malfunctions, it surely is an inconvenience. But when the electronics in my car malfunctions, fatality may very well be part of the equation, as demonstarted by several cases of 'runaway' Toyotas. And several other car manufacturers have had their own share of hard consequences of breach of reliability. And so history has taught the industry to be more careful and conservative.<br />
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So when my high tech friends fret and wonder why the car can not just become an iPhone on wheels, we may just ask ourselves if the media will be as forgiving if the iPhone on wheels suddenly malfunctions.<br />
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Of course, that's not and should not be an excuse to decelerate the integration of our digital lives in to cars. But that just highlights the challenge faced by car industry.</div>Partha Goswamihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11384461946092672539noreply@blogger.com0