Wandering in Elysium

The importance of being Yahoo's Valentine

2008-02-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

The irony about writing on technology is that much like the subject itself, it becomes obsolete before you can say "Gordon Moore". Which is why analysing Microsoft's bid for Yahoo and the subsequent refusal is not exciting, now that we are a couple of weeks into it. But what would be really interesting to watch is Yahoo's flirtation with News Corp., considering the fact that it just passed on over $44 billion from the Redmond giant.

Is Jerry Yang simply holding out for a better price from Microsoft, considering how desperate Microsoft has shown itself to be in the race for the Web dollar? Or does he believe that a tie-up with the media behemoth can actually bail Yahoo! out of its impending financial crisis, given its relatively poor performance in online advertising sales vis-à-vis Google? (Even with all the commotion around it, Yahoo has been acquiring online ad companies to stay afloat.) The Wall Street Journal says that its owner News Corp could hand over MySpace and some other online properties to Yahoo for as much as 20% stake in the Web giant. This could keep Yahoo safe from a hostile bid from Microsoft, and also give it access to a wider user base, not the least of which would be the world's largest social networking site. Of course, monetising it would be a different story.

Looking from Microsoft's perspective, it just may be willing to raise the offer if Yahoo plays its cards right. But given the fact that it would have to finance even part of the current offer with debt, which would be a first in the company's history, it is highly unlikely to be much of an increase. Microsoft's stock did crash as soon as the offer was made, reflecting possible shareholder opinion that even the current offer is too much.

But even this willingness to borrow for the first time clearly indicates how serious Microsoft is to get Yahoo. Both the companies have been playing catch-up with Google in online advertising revenues, and neither have had much success yet. Even together, they may not be able to do this, given the complexities of integrating two large hi-tech companies and hit the ground running in probably the world's most dynamic industry. As one comment in a news site said, "Tie two rocks together and they still sink." Maybe. Depends on what you tie them with.

RSS agents and Instant Messaging bots

2007-09-16T05:46:00.000-07:00

It is hard enough to keep track of all the RSS feeds we have in our subscription list; knowing when they have been just updated would be helpful, but even more tough. Why not combine the power of RSS and Instant Messaging to give you an instant update? The idea is nothing new, and there are tons of services out there already.

Yahoo Alerts helps you pick different topics from a list, or even enter a custom RSS feed from third-party site, which can be delivered by email, Yahoo Messenger or text message. Some other websites that provide similar services are Imified, Rasasa, FeedCrier and ZapTXT.

You can use them to subscribe to RSS feeds (news, weather updates, sports score, etc.). As soon as the feed is updated, the bot would IM you the summary. It actually converts the pull based RSS into a push technology; you are updated as and when it happens. Of course, you can control the frequency and content of the updates through a web interface. What is really great is that some of them don't even require registration; just add a bot as your IM buddy list and you are done.

Imified, for instance, has a Blogger widget. You can add the Imified bot as a buddy on your IM, start a chat session and pull up sports score (from an RSS feed) or update your Blogger post; all of this from your instant messenger. Kind of like Twitter, which also has the same functionality. You can also create your own widgets and customise it to your requirements.

What is really great about using IM as a platform is that you can use your mobile phone's IM client to access the services anywhere, anytime. You are waiting for your bus, and in comes a new instant message : "Manchester United 2 : Liverpool 1 FT". No more expensive text messages, no more manual browsing!

More Bots

As you may know, Google Talk uses the Jabber protocol. Add eliza at swissjabber.org (in the usual email id format) as a contact in your Gmail account and you can start up a chat session with a bot.

There are also lot of Jabber bots that can provide weather, dictionary and mail notifications. (Jabber bots and IM Bots for Jabber). Please do leave a comment if you find other interesting services/bots.

Unlocking your iPhone - Legal or not?

2007-09-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

It has been some time since I put my last post. Six months, to be more accurate. And so much has happened in this time that I can't even begin to describe what. Google has bought over Doubleclick in a multi-billion dollar deal, the iPhone has finally come out (and promptly unlocked, I must add), Opera Mini 4 is in beta, millions of blogs have started since, and a lot many abandoned. Wow, and I haven't even scraped the surface yet.

Let us get back to the iPhone. I have said this once, and I will say it again - Apple is a master marketer. Their phone is not the first to have touch screen, nor is it the only smartphone with music capabilities by a long shot. Heck, it doesn't even have 3G. Still, you find thousands of people waiting in serpentine queues to get hold of the sleek black gadget. Pretty impressive for a commodity product, which is also tied to AT&T as the sole service provider. But then again, Apple has succeeded in setting up the iPhone as "the" product, and not a commodity after all.

Now to the whole unlocking the iPhone issue. Hacker groups across the world would have been working tirelessly to crack open the iPhone's lock to the AT&T network, ever since the product was unveiled late June. It is to Apple's credit that it took them so long to break open the lock; most hardware and software protection technologies have fallen in a few days' time. However, once the first method came in, others have followed pretty rapidly. Both hardware and software workarounds have been devised, independently confirmed by leading websites.

So the question is, would unlocking the iPhone be legal? If AT&T has not subsidised the cost of the handset from Apple to the subscriber, then surely this is between the user and Apple, isn't it? Or is it? What business is it of AT&T's to check what a user does with a phone she has bought from Apple? Seems like a pretty grey area even for the legal pundits, and as for me, I am still left wondering. However, if you go by common sense, what I do with hardware I have bought is nobody else's business, not even the company I bought it from. I could buy an iPhone and use it on AT&T network or choose not to, use it as a very expensive doorstop or simply put it in a blender and run the motor. Most product warranties would be void if you do any of the above three things, but wouldn't I still be legally entitled to do this? The US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has explicitly cleared unlocking phones as long as they are used for legally connecting to a network.

Apple would probably be forced to go after these unlocked iPhones as per their agreement with AT&T and they would probably have the law on their side if the unlocking is being done on a commercial basis (in which case the above DMCA protection might not hold). But what is to stop a hacker group from releasing software on the Net which anybody can download and run on their iPhones to get them unlocked? Would it be still piracy or abuse of Apple/AT&T's IP rights?

The legal muscle of two of America's biggest companies might thwart most outfits hoping to profit out of the whole unlocking debacle, but if you are smart enough to unlock your own iPhone, you just might get away with it. But don't take my word for it, decide for yourself.

Links:

Update: Apple has announced a $200 price cut on the iPhone, in less than 10 weeks of the launch. All tech devices get better, faster and cheaper with time, but this one is phenomenal! CNET article

You will be assimilated

2007-02-16T04:35:00.000-08:00

The Borg is perhaps as representative of the Star Trek series as much as Enterprise or Voyager is. Always on the prowl to make contact with new species and assimilate them into the Collective, the Borg is one of the most feared enemies of the Federation.

The Borg is unique. Unlike other species, the Borg do not fight for territory or power. They only need your technology. The purpose of their very existence is to find and assimilate alien technology to their own. Once a species is assimilated, all their technological expertise and cultural distinctiveness passes on to the Collective. The Borg drones are not individuals, they share a Collective mind or its cybernetic equivalent.

I can not help but wonder how much we live in a Borg-like state today, with a life more and more immersed in technology. A new breed of human beings who love technology and want to be surrounded by it, be it our Blackberrys or iPods, our smartphones or laptops. Cases abound of people addicted to the Web or their smartphones, losing all sense of time and reality when they are plugged in, much like the Borg drones. So the next time you feel the urgent craving to check your mail when you are holidaying in Hawaii, stop and recall the Borg hail.

Resistance is futile. Maybe it is true. Maybe we are being assimilated.

iPhone - Anything different?

2007-01-13T03:14:00.000-08:00

Amidst the usual fanfare and hype surrounding any Apple product launch, the iPhone seems destined to be the next star product from the company. Described by Steve Jobs as "magical" and "revolutionary", the iPhone is expected to change the landscape of technology once again.

But before we start drooling over it, a bit of reality wouldn't do any harm. The iPhone is a combination of the legendary iPod and a GSM phone. It also comes loaded with standard smartphone features, Bluetooth and PIM functionalities. The one thing that is sure to excite Apple loyals is the operating system it runs : OS X. Put in a sleek Apple-style cool interface and you have got the iPhone. The 4 GB model that would be released later this year comes at $499, and a 8 GB one would cost $599.

The iPhone has no usable feature that isn't available on other competing devices, so I can't see why they would call it magical and revolutionary. If you are talking about the capability to play MP3 and other digital audio formats on mobile phones, others have had it for years together. WiFi and Bluetooth are nothing new either.

Apple has, quite predictably, decided not to open up the iPhone to third party applications. Any new application that you would like to run on the iPhone would have to come from Apple, and that too, at a price. Most mobile platforms, including Symbian and Microsoft, allow third party software to be run on their systems. This encourages more developers to contribute software, which in turn attracts more users looking for greater variety of software. (Also known as the Network effect).As a result, the price of software on these platforms would be much lower than controlled platforms like Apple's, simply because of the demand supply equations.

iPhone applications would be costlier to develop as developers would have to pay out huge sums as royalties and license fees to Apple, and this would inflate cost to the end user. So anybody getting an iPhone is not only looking at the base price tag, but a much higher investment in terms of cost of additional software. The usual service charges associated with Apple would still stick, as even the battery comes built-in and you would have to go to Apple for servicing it.

With all the above, Apple doesn't seem to be looking to market the iPhone to the masses. But then again, Apple has never tried to be the mass-market company. Either way, it would be really interesting to see how the iPhone does in the already crowded market.

BBC, Wikipedia (Technical specifications)

Neuronet - The Matrix is here?

2006-12-30T03:12:00.000-08:00

The Matrix films have been ridiculed by many people to be an impossible scenario- with machines enslaving human beings and feeding off our body heat to keep us immersed in a virtual world. Well, they have not mastered us yet, but a recent announcement from the International Association of Virtual Reality Technologies could indicate the birth of a more Matrix-like Internet.

Called the Neuronet, scheduled to go live in 2007, the network would provide a platform for virtual reality and gaming innovators around the world to develop applications for a second-generation network.

Virtual reality refers to computing systems which provide sensory feedback to the user to make her feel like she is actually in a different environment. For example, flight simulators are examples of virtual reality environments where a trainee pilot can learn the nuances of flight training before actually flying a multi-mllion dollary aircraft.

Although much cruder than the versions depcited in sci-fi movies like the Matrix, virtual reality is all set to grow in the coming years with quantum improvements in computing power and network bandwidth.

The Neuronet would be separate from the current Internet, the IAVRT announcement explains. Virtual reality programs like IBM's Second Life has become very popular among its members, where they can actually live out a virtual life.

3D designer Sven Johnson has questioned the "reality" of the virtual reality network, saying that it could be a "get-rich-quick" scam funded by domain name sales. (link)

Scam or not, it is only a matter of time before virtual reality environments become more possible and inviting to the masses. Even now, the chore of getting online, checking your mail and IMs, hanging around in a social networking site, etc. is considered by some to be "virtual reality". Where "real" ends and "virtual" begins is becoming a tougher question to answer.

CNET article

Opera Mini 3 - Mobile web unleashed

2006-12-02T01:59:00.000-08:00

Study after study proclaims the arrival of the Mobile Web, information on the go and being "always connected". The few who have actually explored the Web on our mobile devices would know better that things are not all that great right now. Clumsy browsers trying hard to fit Web pages on the small screen, slow download speeds and the worst of all, the exorbitant charges for data usage by mobile operators.

Opera Mini 3

Opera Software, the makers of the popular desktop Web browser, have announced the latest version of their browser for Mobile phones, Opera Mini 3. Opera Mini is a Java application that can be installed on most of today's smartphones or mobile devices supporting Java.

Unlike traditional mobile browsers like Opera's own Opera Mobile and Symbian browser, the Mini does not connect to the concerned web server directly. Instead, it connects to a proxy server that fetches the requested page and reformats the original HTML, Javascript and multimedia content into a format optimised for mobile phones. Thus, when you type www.yahoo.com in the address bar, the application relays it to the proxy. The proxy then fetches the Yahoo! homepage, strips it off all the bells and whistles, optimises for your specific device and sends it to the application. All the app has to do is take this and render on the screen, a much easier task when the heavy objects are taken off.

The killer utility

What makes Opera Mini so useful is that it cuts out the data consumption drastically, since the proxy has filtered out most of the unwanted content already, making the pages much lighter. Some reviews claim to have observed 70-80% reduction in the data consumption, which can be extremely useful considering the exorbitant charges levied by mobile operators. Thus, even if the webpage is not optimised for your mobile device, you can expect Mini to step in and do the dirty work for you.

The standard homepage of the browser carries a Google searchbox, and a customisable search engine containing sites like Wikipedia and Dictionary.com. RSS feeds are also supported, and so is photo blogging that helps you blog from your phone to the Opera Community server. The scroll feature is really user-friendly and keyboard shortcuts are really a breeze.

Mobile web proxies

If your phone doesn't support Java and you can't install Mini, you can still use other mobile web proxies to reduce your data usage. A good one is Google Mobile service, available at www.google.com/xhtml. Enter the site name or URL in the Google Mobile search box and click on the relevant link. Google Mobile uses a proxy server to interpret the target webpage into a format more suited for mobile devices, although you can't really compare it with the Mini's performance. But then again, that was not what it was designed to do. It is a search again, after all. For browsing on mobile devices however, I highly recommend getting the Mini. Goto operamini.com on your mobile and install the app. The Web is truly mobile now.

Gmail client on Java mobile

2006-11-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

Google released its mobile client for Gmail sometime back, but I never actually got around to testing it until now. After having used Gmail & Yahoo Mail on my mobile browser (Opera), I had quit the service as the data transfer charges were getting out of hand. This client does help out a lot in that regard and much more.

Installation

The installation of the software was pretty simple. Type in the download URL (gmail.com/app) in your mobile browser and you can dowload the client and have it installed on your phone under a minute. There is hardly any setting or configuration changes required, and you can use it out of the box. You will need to have Java support on your phone for the client to work. Most modern phones support Java, so that isn't really a problem. (Installation on my Nokia N70 was very easy and totally trouble-free.)

Functioning

Once the program is launched, you are prompted to enter your Gmail username and password to sign in. A fairly redundant warning appears saying the program will use the network to send and receive data. Once confirmed, your Gmail inbox loads almost instantly. You can select messages and read them as conversations, in true Gmail style. I have not found that feature useful enough to cheer about, but some of my friends are crazy about it.

What is really interesting about this tiny app is that it can provide you almost all Gmail features, as if you were using it on a PC. Major functions are available through the numeric keypad, and also through a menu if your prefer that instead. Besides standard email functions like reply and forward, you can also archive, mark as read or unread, report as spam or delete.

Google claims that this client is faster because it has built-in prefetch feature, which automatically loads links in background while you are still reading the first message. Preloading is not recommended if your phone company charges for every kilobyte downloaded, as you may waste money on messages you never actually read. For a flat rate data plan, it is simply great.

The Settings menu does not offer you much though. You can choose to be signed in always, or turn off the preload messages or use smaller fonts, and that is about it. Another thing the program lacks is a new mail notification feature, which I believe would come in the later versions. Also, you can not compose an email to a new email address, unless you have added it in your contacts list which is not all that great either. For a Version 1.0.0b launch however, I think the program comes off really nice.

Better than Gmail through mobile browser

One major advantage of this application over using Gmail on a mobile browser is that it can limit your data consumption to a great extent. Many phone companies charge for data usage (usually for every Kilobyte downloaded) and over a month, this can add up to a decent amount. By using built-in forms like the login prompt, the app reduces your data consumption, which would have otherwise cost you for every sign-in. The prefetch feature is simply great if your data plan is a flat charge one, as it really speeds up the mail functions many times.

This application should encourage more Gmail users to use the service on their mobile devices, widely considered to be the next phase in computing. I would love to see if Yahoo can come up with something similar, as my experience with Yahoo! Go has been less than satisfying. Considering the two companies are going neck to neck in so many areas, it wouldn't surprise me to see a similar app from Yahoo very shortly. (Read the Google - Yahoo rivalry)

Social search with Google Custom

2006-10-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

Speak search and Google comes to mind. There is a very good reason why that is so. They try to make all Web users search more and more using their engine, and they roll out newer and newer ways of doing that. The newest in line - Custom Search Engine for everyone.

Using Custom Search, built upon Google Co-op, anyone can make a personal search engine of their own, defining the sites they want to be searched. They can either limit the search to a few sites, or the entire Web, emphasising the defined sites. If your passion is astronomy or computer hardware, you can define the few sites you visit religiously and the searcher would get results from these few sites.

Strategically speaking, this move from Google is nothing short of brilliant. When everybody you know is digging or bookmarking on del.icio.us, Google could have probably beaten all of them to the game by bringing in social search in its own ingenious way. Let us examine how Google has done this.

Suppose you are very passionate about astronomy, and has been so for some time. Definitely, you would be an authority on the best sites on the subject and visit them regularly. When Google gets you to sign up for Custom Search on astronomy for your site, you would be defining them with your favourite astronomy sites, and more often than not, these would be sites with premium quality content.

You have essentially built an engine that searches the best sites on astronomy, and the definition of best is coming from you, a human being, who can recognise quality content much, much better than a computer program. Google has thus succeeded in coaxing you to sharing your judgement and reviewing skills, which combined with Google's automated technology brings up the best results on astronomy. Somebody who has used your Custom Search would find it giving more relevant results than the generic Google search, which even by Google's standards has not contained spam sites to a large extent. The site with the Custom Search thus gets more visitors searching on it and it is ideally a win-win situation for all concerned - Google, the Custom Search site and the users who search through it.

Google has always faced strong criticism because of the lack of human element in its search technology. The famous Googlebot and PageRank are, after all, only computer programs. Many people say that is an inherent weakness as they can be tricked by malicious webmasters who try to stay one step ahead of it. Yahoo!, on the other hand, had a better technique of human editors reviewing the pages in their directory, thereby providing quality content. But this model was simply not efficient enough to keep up with the tremendous pace that the Web is growing at. Any attempt to do it would be overwhelming, if not impossible.

Google might have jumped one more step ahead of Yahoo! by subtly bringing in the human element it has been so far lacking in their technology. With more and more Custom Search Engines springing around the Web, the quality of search results should also improve dramatically.

Get your own Google Custom Search

P.S: You can try a sample one at the bottom of this page.

Innovation for innovation's sake

2006-10-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

Innovation. The concept has been driving management principles for years together now that it has almost become a cliche. Entire industries have spawned in the last few years, with self-proclaimed creativity consultants and experts helping out corporations lacking the edge to beat the competition in the race for the most innovative product out there.

Many people equate innovation with business success and use them synonymously. It is almost as if innovation or the lack thereof alone can make or break a company. This innovation fever comes with its many cousins - lateral thinking, thinking out of the box and creativity. Of course, these should be, by no means, discouraged for only this vitality can churn out the next iPod or Post-it notes. But when a company gears itself for innovation and creativity alone and forgets how it affects the bottom line, you can know for sure it is headed for trouble. Innovation, for the sake of innovation, is simply not worth it.

The very concept of innovation, successful innovation that can affect your company's future, may not be what it seems. In a very insightful article on the topic, Carleen Hawn dissects the history of Apple and its corporate culture which teems with innovation and creativity. Hawn recalls how Apple almost single-handedly created the personal computer market, only to be taken over by IBM and its clones, powered by software from the then lesser-known Microsoft. What happened after that is history. Apple's decision of not to open up and license its operating system could have also considerably contributed to its low market share in the global personal computing market. As she puts its, technological innovation is what drives Apple, not business-driven. And that is the problem.

To take the exact opposite of Apple, we need to look no further than Microsoft. Technological innovation has not been the company's strongpoint. But when it comes to business-models, Microsoft is second to none. Gates and co saw an opportunity to bundle their very first operating system (which wasn't designed by them, as a matter of fact) with IBM's PCs, thus getting access to a very large customer base, with virtually no investment in distribution. What is more, Microsoft got paid by IBM for every PC that shipped with MS-DOS. The growth from a startup started by a college dropout to the software colossus that it is now is not a freak incident, it was business strategy and execution at its best.

So the next time you hear another preacher touting innovation as the only thing that can keep you going, just remember this old but very relevant quote:

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two, and only two, basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business." - Peter F. Drucker

The jargon of technology

2006-10-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

Research from Nielsen/NetRatings, Britons using cutting edge technology are not as savvy when it comes to jargons, reports BBC.com. For example, 40% of online Brits receive news feeds, but are not familiar with the official term Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

Some more examples:

Only 57% of online Brits knew that acronym for instant messaging was IM.
75% did not know VOD stands for Video-on-Demand.
35% have heard about podcasting but didn't know what it meant.

That is all very well, but does any of these statistics matter? If people are already using technology but just don't call it by its popular name, does it mean they are any less technologically inclined? In a world where technology is obsolete the second after it is invented and only the ubergeeks can keep up, doing that would be next to impossible.

A rose by any other name...

I am pretty certain the findings would be applicable throughout most of the world, not many people who actually use technology would be aware of the different names it is known by. That is because there is no need to. That is because being able to use the technology for betterment of our lives is infinitely more important than keeping track in the acronym jungle. If you now how to use newsfeeds and read them daily, why bother with the "official name" of RSS anyway?

Link: BBC

Nokia N95 - Pushing technology further

2006-09-27T05:13:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be one of the millions of mobile phone owners who have just upgraded to the latest Nokia N-series 'multimedia devices', this article can be quite depressing. Yes, you have been just rendered obsolete.

Nokia has announced the latest member of the N-Series family, the mighty Nokia N95. The first Nokia phone to have integrated GPS functionality (with maps of over 100 countries), the N95 comes with a 5 Mega-Pixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. More notably, it has a 2.6 inch QVGA screen and runs the Symbian S60 OS. The device has a TV out feature and support for Universal Plug and Play technology facilitating connection with a compatible TV. Also supporting HSPDA and EDGE technologies for high-speed network connections, it also has integrated WLAN.

With 8 GB hard-drive that can carry almost all your favourite tracks, the device has built-in stereo speakers with 3D stereo effect and a standard 3.5 mm audio jack. This very well could be the nemesis of the new generation iPods.

A few posts back, I had written about the innovation wave and how I try to cope with it. I had just jumped from Nokia 6670 to the N-70 (not much of an upgrade anyway!) but technology just beats me to it. When Nokia terms their products 'high-performance multimedia devices' instead of just phones or even smartphones, I think they maybe right.

Get more details at the Nokia N95 site. For the more technologically inclined, the technical specifications are also available.

Free and legal music downloads from SpiralFrog

2006-08-30T04:18:00.000-07:00

In what could change the music industry since the launch of Apple's iTunes service, a startup company called SpiralFrog will offer music downloads for free. Supported by the vast catalogue of Universal Music which backs the service, this model hopes to make its revenue through advertisements. The users of the service will have to watch advertisements and the downloaded music will be copy protected to prevent being passed onto others. The advertisements will be a 90-second block which has to be watched before the content will be made available.

This move could be even more critical when the music and film industry is fighting a losing battle against piracy and illegal sharing through peer-to-peer networks. Almost every copy protection technology that has been employed recently has either landed the publisher in hot soup (Sony's DRM woes) or has been broken (FairUse4WM breaks Microsoft DRM).

Although not the first service of its kind to offer free content supported by advertising (Napster is already doing it and Kazaa is expected to follow suit shortly), SpiralFrog will offer actual music which can be stored on the user's computer, whereas Napster provides a streaming service, which can be heard only once. The likely option for Universal's cut would be a share of the advertising revenue generated through the service.Initially, the service will be available in the US and Canada, and may branch out to other regions depending on the success of the venture.

Web analytics revisited

2006-08-26T02:40:00.000-07:00

Just like research into customer behaviour is vital for all businesses, websites today cannot do without Web analytics. Simply put, Web Analytics is the collection and analysis of data on how users behave on a particular website. Web analytics can help you in deciding what users look for and see in a website, whether they are interested in staying on or decide to move on and so on.

After investing a lot of money, effort and time into building traffic to a website, it is really important to check your return on investment, and web analytics tools helps in doing that. Web analytics solutions can tell you which pages are the most popular on your site, what content users find more appealing and where they skip off to other destinations. They can also tell you which pages referred users to your site or what keywords in search engines led them to you.

Such kind of information is vital for webmasters and marketers because it helps them in tailoring their site content and design to cater to the needs of the users. When users find more relevant content during their next visit, they are sure to stick on. Besides, the solution can also tell you where users leave off, hinting at where your content or design needs modification to make them stay on.

There are lots of web analytics solutions in the market and depending on the features and benefits offered, the prices range from free to several thousands of dollars. I have been using Google Analytics (formerly Urchin) for sometime now, and I find it extremely useful, not to mention, it is free as well. Google Analytics has just been released for free sign-ups from the invitation-only mode and I would recommend getting an account to get started. It is extremely simple to use and gives you more information than most of us bloggers would need.

Web analytics solutions are not something that you can use just for the fun of it, it is something that is critical to measuring user behaviour metrics on your website. Anybody serious about developing a website as an online business or even as a hobby should definitely take a look into them. By creating more compelling content and improved design, you offer a better reason for users to visit your site again, which is a critical factor in deciding the success of the website.

How fast is your computer?

2006-08-19T05:44:00.000-07:00

No matter who you are or what you do, people are always complaining about how slow their computers are. We groan about how much time it takes for that spreadsheet to load or how jittery the graphics in that new videogame is. And that is after spending loads of money to get that blazing fast new processor and motherboard. When it comes to giga-hertz and giga-bytes, It seems we are simply obsessed with speed. Faster is always better.

That is why somebody who would say that all that processing power is maybe too much for us strikes you as somewhat odd. I have a friend who says just that. He thinks that we are simply being forced to upgrade to newer and faster hardware because of the evil nexus that exists between hardware vendors and software companies.

He might have a good case though. The latest operating system won't run with hardware that is now in the market, you would have to wait two more months for that to happen. Indeed, it might very well be the case that clueless consumers are being forced to upgrade to software that is by no means better, but definitely expensive and requires nothing less than a supercomputer to run on. But then, we have great visionaries like Bill Gates who made a software empire make statements like 640 K should be sufficient for anyone. Maybe he is seeing the glass half-empty. (To be fair to Mr. Gates, the authenticity of that quote has not been established beyond doubt.)

Consider what we have seen in the last decade in personal computing. To be more specific and really to the point, let us take computer games. Would you really believe that someone who was playing Dave in 1995 can play Halo 2 or FIFA 2006 now? (If you have actually played through all those games, you would get my point more easily.)

This revolution in the industry didn't happen because we sat tight with what we had. No, we decided to push the limits. When software was too demanding on the hardware, we made faster hardware. When we got better hardware, we wrote better code to take full advantage of its capabilities. This virtuous cycle is what drives innovation and indeed, the entire industry. It is not that we never seem to have enough, we just shouldn't. Maybe our obsession with speed isn't accidental, it very well could have been hardwired into us. So the next time you are wondering why that document is taking too long to open, you might be actually fueling innovation.

YouOS Web Operating System

2006-07-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

Seriously speaking, the title of this article is a bit misleading. YouOS is more like a bunch of useful apps put together that distantly resembles an operating system like Windows or Linux. Indeed, the application works on your browser, which itself requires another operating system to run. However, the idea is to have a virtual desktop that you can access from a Web enabled device, from anywhere around the world.

The system is in alpha testing, and what is more, it even comes with your own little shell for all that command-typing wizards out there. And as can be expected, 'ls' and 'mkdir' is about as advanced it gets. But what really impresses me is the idea behind it.

To actually have an operating system that runs on the Web is quite intriguing, something like even more personalised computing for people who are always on the go. We inevitably comes across a paradox in this situation though - how can you access an operating system that runs on the Web because don't you already require a Web browser to access the site? Hmm.

The idea is not that new, actually. In these very columns, I had toured another similar application - Goowy. It also had its own desktop, text editors and stuff and also a very attractive email system. What makes YouOS different is that it is done using AJAX instead of Flash, as Goowy is. Not that being done in AJAX itself merits more credit, it is just that I find the whole AJAX thing very interesting.

YouOS gives you the ability to write your own app for the system, and if you think that is not your cup of tea, you can install other apps from a nice little collection that you can browse within the system. You even get virtual sticky notes that you can set as reminders.

For sometime now, the idea of the Web based Operating System has been doing the rounds on the Web. Once we get around the paradox we mentioned before, maybe we will get to a real Web OS. Something like where the software for starting up the computer itself is received from a remote server, and all the usual operating system routines like IO, File and memory management is done by a remote service. I don't know if something like that exists already, forgive my ignorance if it does. Are the giants of the Web listening?

The Instant Messaging battle

2006-06-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

Consider this - how would it be if you could send an email only to another user on the same domain? Or you could call a subscriber on the same telephone network alone? Not many would welcome the idea, but that is how it is now with Instant Messaging.

Instant Messaging is a must-have tool in a world that runs on real-time. If you can't communicate now, better forget it. But all the big operators that provide IM services right now - MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Gmail prefer to use proprietary standards and that means communicating within their own network and only that. So, even if you are a regular Yahoo! IM user but has a friend on MSN, one of you two would have to register with the other's service to communicate. Had the operators been charging for new registrations, you wouldn't quite fancy that option, would you?

Metcalfe's law (also referred to as the Network Effect) states that value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of users. What it essentially conveys is that the more the number of people using the same system, the better for everyone. You wouldn't need different softwares, different protocols and all the difficulties that come with them. Then why are they all still separate?

Of course there are numerous apps out there that can work with the different services, but still they are all running on different systems, and no standard has yet been defined. On the other hand, take IRC(Internet Relay Chat). Although now made obsolete by the more interactive and graphical substitutes offered by MSN, Yahoo and the like, IRC is an open system. Any user with an IRC client can connect to the server, and chat - it is as simple as that. It supports one of the basic tenets of the Internet that its founders dreamt of - accessibility. The more modern versions of IM do not. And that is a big problem.

If only the big IM services would just sit together and agree on a common standard, one which would work transparently and all the users in a single database, just imagine the value of the network as proposed by Metcalfe's law.

P.S: There are practical difficulties, of course, of uniting all these user bases into a single one, like overlapping usernames and database considerations, but technology has come so far, can't we work something out?

Picasa - A cool photo management software

2006-05-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

Picasa, the software that is available as a part of Google Pack, is a great piece of software for your image management requirements. As like all other Google services, it comes for free.

For starters, Picasa gives a simple point and click interface which requires minimal effort to master. You can lighten dark shots, apply color balance, crop and cut, zoom in or out. Other effects like sepia, black and white are also available, along with a red-eye removal feature. It can search for images on your hard drive, maintain a library that is easy to manage and find images effortlessly. It can save the finished images to the hard disk or burn it to a CD or DVD or upload it to the Net.

Give Picasa a try and you will not look at your photographs the same way again. Download now, it's free!

The new mobile web

2006-05-25T06:48:00.000-07:00

Accessing Internet and email on your mobile device is nothing new. However, from last week, businesses have been buying up .mobi domain names, which will indicate that the site is designed specifically for mobile devices, and therefore optimising performance in terms of speed and accessibility. The Internet regulatory authority ICANN had approved the concept almost a year back, but the domain names are available only recently.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, have shown clear dislike for the idea. In his argument, he has stated that the new top-level domain names (TLD) will fragment the web. Instead, he says, the content should be made smart to recognise what kind of device it is being viewed on, mobile or not.

The opposing group, the ones who are supporting .mobi domains are saying that the .mobi domains are intended to serve as a trust mark, which will assure users that the site will work on their mobile phone.

Source: BBC

The new managers of technology

2006-05-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

The importance of Technology Management as a course in business schools around the world have been growing over the years. Now there is even more good reason for that.

Deloitte, the management consultants, in their report titled "Eye to the Future — How Technology, Media and Telecommunications Advances Could Change the Way We Live in 2010", have concluded that technical skills will become crucial in plotting your way up the corporate ladder. As managers work in an increasingly complex world filled with complicated technology, their skill to make informed decisions will depend on their ability to understand the technology and how it will affect their business. The more technology oriented you are, the more your chances of making it big.

The report also looked into the issue of mobile and remote working and concluded that the number of employees with always-on mobile email is forecast to rise from the current millions to at least tens of millions by 2010.

The report states that by 2008, 41 million corporate employees globally may spend at least one day a week teleworking, and 100 million will work from home at least one day a month.

Source: ZDNet.co.uk

Riding the technology wave - Nokia 6670

2006-05-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

I am a techno freak, and I love gadgets - the newer, the better. Fortunately, I don't go by my desires everytime I see the new Blackberry or the Nokia N Series and that has kept me from going broke. Most of the features of the gadgets won't be either supported by my operator, or will cost me an arm and a leg for it. Instead, I try and ride the innovation wave. That way, I can stay just ahead of being totally obsolete and not end up paying a fortune for it. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

That is why I got myself a Nokia 6670. I did quite some research on it before the purchase, both online and offline, and my experience with it is simply excellent. It has all the basic features that I need and I am quite satisfied with it. I opted for the model because I didn't want to spend a lot of money on an object that I could lose easily, get stolen easily or let go and break even more easily. But I didn't want to end up with a stone-age cell phone either. And I think I have succeeded in timing my purchase just right so that I can get my next gadget (not 'phone', your next 'phone' may not be a 'phone'. Says who? Says Nokia!) My point: The price may stagnate at the current level, giving no incentive to wait any longer and your phone's life is just enough to take you to the next wave.

Quantum encryption - The new security frontier

2006-04-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

What has Werner Heisenberg got to do with computer security? A lot, actually. Quantum encryption technology is maturing fast enough to replace the current encryption technologies employed in today's digital systems, and the best thing about this is that, it is theoretically unbreakable. The final frontier in security may not be too far.

We will go back to what Heisenberg has got to do with all of this. Werner Heisenberg, in 1927, discovered a very interesting property of elementary particles. Based on his experiments, he concluded that it was impossible to accurately measure the position and momentum of an elementary particle simultaneously. The key word is 'accurately'; you can predict either one accurately, but the other one would lend itself only with a degree of uncertainty. [Uncertainty principle]

Coming back to the normal world, current encryption technologies almost invariable use keys - public key encryption is the most preferred. However improbable breaking this security system may seem, with enough computing power on a parallel-processing system, it is possible to compromise the security by the classic "brute-force" attack.

Quantum encryption is immune to this because the photonic stream which carries the data is ruled by the Uncertianty principle and anyone trying to intercept the stream will alter the state of the photons in a way that it will be detected. Thus, in theory, it is impenetrable and can be proven mathematically.

Quantum encryption and NIST breakthrough

IBM joins the hardware encryption club

2006-04-10T23:53:00.000-07:00

Let us face it. The world we live in is not a very secure one. You are not safe, nor is your precious data. Everyone, from multinational corporations to ordinary citizens doing their banking on the Net is paranoid when it comes to data security. And maybe it is this paranoia that is getting the big computer makers out there to build more and more hardware with built-in security. Soon after Intel's announcement of LaGrande technology that integrates encryption into the central processing functions, IBM is following suit with its SecureBlue system.

According to CNN, IBM researchers are of the opinion that as long as the CPU, essentially the brain of the computer and the encryption engine are two different systems, hackers can get in between the two and cause enough harm or steal whatever data he needs. Intel's implementation uses something known as a Trust Platform Module (TPM) and Apple's new Intel-based PCs are rumoured to carry these (Read more).

Hardware security, then again, is only as good as the chip designers have made it. Unlike software which can be upgraded for bug fixes or updated to include more features and tighter security, hardware implementation is something only the designers know about and is essentially a black box. If we believe that it is truly secure, our security is only as strong as that belief.

One interesting point noted in the article is the comment of Bruce Schneier, founder of Counterpane Internet Security Inc., on the new security system: "Security is a chain and it's as strong as its weakest link. They're talking about taking a very strong link and making it a little bit stronger, at best. Maybe."

DRM and hardware security

2006-04-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

Did you just get a new Mac with an Intel chip inside or are you planning to get one soon? If so, you might find this article interesting.

I don't know a lot about how TPM (Trusted Platform Module) technology works, but if this article is even half right, you may think twice before getting that Mac.

The one thing in the article that caught my attention was the reference to the EFF's (Electronic Frontier Foundation) analysis of the Trusted Computing initiative, in which a significant portion of security implementations are based on hardware. (Read more about it here.)
It opens a very fundamental question - is hardware security really secure? Just consider the following hypothetical situations :

1. The hardware version has implementation errors - This is something very serious because it basically means you will have to throw out your whole hardware to ensure that it is secure. If the software had bugs or glitches, you can always replace it with an upgrade or a completely different system, much like changing the firmware of your cellphone. You would never even know this until you come up with something like what Intel faced with the Pentium FDIV bug. (And it wasn't pretty.)

2. The hardware vendor intentionally creates backdoors - This is an unlikely scenario, but far more dangerous than the previous one. While the former possibility would arise only when discovered by somebody accidentally and then find ways to misuse it, this option gives the vendor known pathways into the system. The possibilities of abuse are endless and I wouldn't even want to imagine what the vendor could do with such a kind of privilege.

I am no Mac expert and I wouldn't know RISC from CISC, but if the article is pointing to something really fishy, I would rather stay with my PC for now.

Apple in DRM soup

2006-03-28T18:56:00.000-08:00

Digital Rights Management (DRM) laws are still very much in their infancy today. This may be partly because laws just can't seem to keep pace with technology and partly because technology itself is in a state of constant flux. Apple's experience in France is a case in point.

The French Government has proposed a law that would force Apple to open up content from its online music store iTunes so that they can be played on any digital music player. Currently, songs downloaded from iTunes plays only on Apple's own hugely successful music player iPod.

The law would require DRM developers to reveal details of their technology to rivals that wish to build compatible systems. Apple uses FairPlay DRM in its iTune store and iPod players. The law could wreck Apple's current system since it can not control music on players other than iPod. Apple has reacted to the government's move by terming it "state-sponsored piracy".

Experst feel that Apple would be better off withdrawing the iTunes service from the French market completely than give in to the pressure and suffer. If Apple executives had been thinking of this strategy, their worries would have been compounded by news that Denmark will soon be following France in implementing similar legislation. If more countries decide that Apple is locking in customers by abusing its dominant position in the market and follow suit, the entire digital rights managment issue will come under intense scrutiny and companies and customers will soon be needing a universal yardstick to measure what is acceptable and what is not. Shutting down operations in every country that implements the legislation just doesn't seem to be a viable option for Apple right now.