Munich Blogs - English language
November 13, 2008
Jane - November 13, 2008 - 20:06
We're off to New York for the weekend tomorrow after I get back from a
Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance event Lynn and I are attending on Bob's behalf. Spent the past two days running in circles preparing and I sincerely hope we are able to hold our own. I've really been out of touch with this one particular project, but Bob brought us up to speed today and barring any questions out of left field, we ought to be okay. Fingers crossed!
Lisa and Mike will be with us on Friday night and we're going to a lovely little French place called
Gascogne which I read about on
Chowhound. Saturday, we're on our own and I suspect we'll do something ethnic. I'd like to go back to
Tia Pol in Chelsea, a great tapas joint we've been to in the past, but I'm open minded. Or we could just find some corner bar to inhabit - we love doing stuff like that!
Here's to the weekend!
FrankPr - November 13, 2008 - 10:14
Vorgestern hatte ich hier auf der TechEd EMEA in Barcelona meinen ersten Vortrag, in dem es das Thema "Web Services on Devices" (WSD) im Zusammenhang mit vernetzten, dienstorientierten Embedded-Geräten ging. Zum ersten Mal hatte ich dabei das Vergnügen, Stefan Hoppe von Beckhoff als Co-Speaker dabeizuhaben, und zum ersten Mal hatten wir im Rahmen unserer Demo eine echte Waschmaschine auf der Bühne, die mittels Vista Media Center über einen Beckhoff-Controller via SOAP angesteuert wurde:
Wir hatten Spaß dabei, das Publikum auch, und es gelang uns, mittels dieser Waschmaschine ein mit einem Tux verschmutztes T-Shirt reinzuwaschen und mit dem richtigen Logo zu versehen:
:-)
Auf der TechEd hier in Barcelona ist der neue IE Mobile 6 für Windows Mobile offiziell vorgestellt worden, auch das Windows Mobile-Team hat die Ankündigung auf dem Blog veröffentlicht.
Das ist ein großer Schritt vorwärts, das "echte" Internet auf Windows Mobile-Geräte zu bringen! :-)
Zu den Features gehören
- Rendering Engine des Desktop-IE 6 mit Verbesserungen aus IE7 und IE8
- JScript v. 5.7 aus dem IE 8 Beta
- Funktion als Mobil- oder als Desktop-Browser (2 Modi)
- Pan & Zoom
- Unterstützung für Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 (optional)
- bessere Performance
- Unterstützung für ASP.NET AJAX :-)
- u.v.m.
Der neue Browser wird allerdings nur im Zusammenhang mit ROM-Updates der Gerätehersteller verfügbar sein, da die Hardware-Anforderungen nicht von allen aktuellen Geräten erfüllt werden.
Entwickler können den neuen Browser schon heute testen, wir stellen entsprechende Emulator Images hier zum Download zur Verfügung. Ich werde auf dieses Thema auch in meinem Vortrag nächste Woche auf der Xtopia und dem Technical Summit eingehen.
November 12, 2008
Nokia's latest phone, the E63, appears to target the business segment of the mobile phone industry with just enough perks to interest non-business types alike. This new converged device can switch modes via the press of a button, from viewing corporate mail, appointments and intranet data, to viewing photos, personal email and text messages.
Users can capture and view photos (and videos) with the 2.0-megapixel CMOS camera and bright 320 x 240 pixel landscape display. Music lovers can enjoy tunes downloaded from the Nokia Music Store via a 3.5 mm audio jack, and the Ovi application lets users remotely access files from their PC, even when their computer is offline.
Featuring a full QWERTY thumb-board, the Nokia E63 will be available in ruby red or ultramarine blue. It is expected to begin shipping within weeks for around $250.
For full specs
click here.
See full article.
Related Entries:
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
Wal-Mart Bests T-Mobile on Google Phone By $30 - 29 October 2008
Microsoft Partners Up With LG - 03 November 2008
New Sony Phone Has Music on the Brain - 07 November 2008
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November 11, 2008
I think this is a great idea — a picture frame with a GSM radio so it can receive MMS.
Nokia announced the SU-7 Image Frame a few years ago, but the price of the frame was pretty steep and finding a reasonably priced way to keep the SIM in the frame alive wasn’t very easy. T-Mobile’s on the right path, with the frame at $100, but $10 per month service might still be high.
I doubt I’d ever use one of these, but I can see grandmothers around the world loving it, and looking forward to getting new photos and updates from their kids and grandkids.
How To Doom The Services Strategy To Failure:
By enabling better experiences with the services your customers already use, you’ll create a much more favorable impression of your brand than if you try and force them into closed and substandard services of your own.
I wrote that a couple of months ago in a post about some services Nokia had released as a part of their new internet services strategy. The basic gist was that one of the services — Nokia Email — didn’t work (though I later got it going) and a couple of others, Nokia Chat and Sync on Ovi, were too closed off to be of much use.
Last week, the company announced Nokia Friend View, “a location and micro-blogging service”. Think Twitter with a map display. Yet again, it’s sort of interesting, but instead of adding functionality on to the slightly popular Twitter service, it’s completely separate. In fact, it’s so walled off that it won’t even import your buddies from Nokia Chat.
But the bigger issue is, again, Nokia seems to assume that owners of its devices are only friends with other Nokia owners. As a friend of mine put it, it’s for viewing your “Nokia friends”, not all your friends. Based on all these experiences, all I can gather from Nokia’s service strategy is that it’s attempting to take the walled garden from operators and replace it with a walled garden from Nokia. But closing off those services — especially social services — to non-Nokia users will ensure they’ll fail.
One of the issues with Nokia Chat is that although it’s built on Jabber, it doesn’t exactly act like it. It won’t let users log in with their existing Jabber ID, they must get a Nokia-specific one, and a lot of the added extra bits, like the location functionality, is available only to other Nokia Chat users. It’s walled off, instead of being made available to share with people on other Jabber systems. Because, again, apparently if you own a Nokia, all your friends and anybody you’d want to talk to should own a compatible Nokia device. Friend View is similar in that it’s not interoperable with existing microblogging services, whether that’s simple cross-posting or deeper integration with something like Twitter, or by following standards like those being mulled over by the XMPP community.
What’s next, a voice calling service that only lets you connect to other Nokia handset owners?
Once more, with feeling: closed social services won’t fly. Even when you’ve got 40% market share. If you force users to choose between your closed service and the open service their friends are already using, you’re going to lose.
Jane - November 11, 2008 - 15:41
I'm having a real bout with melancholy this week. The weather is changing and it's getting dark really early and that doesn't help at all, but mostly I'm feeling bad for some of the more important people in my life who have suffered serious and real losses like losing parents and long standing relationships coming to an end. Having been through both experiences, I can empathize. I just want everyone to feel better and loved and secure, but the truth is that they have to go through their trials to get to the other side. Very tough.
There is some happy news on the horizon. We've got a nice trip to Munich coming up after Thanksgiving and we're looking forward to seeing our loved ones over there. We're staying with Lise and Richard and though I'm happy to be seeing them, the one I am most looking forward to seeing is their absolutely beautiful daughter, Stella! I'm also happy to be seeing the Plants and their boy Hugo, who is full of personality. I enjoyed seeing him in Bratislava and here this summer - he's a sweet child, full of happiness and light. Babies are good. It makes me sad that I couldn't give Chris a child. If only we'd gotten together eleven years ago when we first met. But neither of us was ready then - funny how things work, isn't it?
Last night saw the third birthday of the London branch of Mobile Monday, so congrats to Dan, Alex, Jo and Helen for keeping it going. I know all too well from my German activities that it’s demanding and time consuming, so to keep the London end refreshed and vibrant for that long is a great achievement.
The format of the evening was slightly different, with Tim Green of Mobile Entertainment magazine doing a polished chat show style interview with various people. Mike Short of O2 was as interesting and authoritative as ever, after which I did my bit talking about what a year it had been for AdMob (spectacular) with some great questions from the floor.
Next up we had Madhuban Kumar, who provides a kind of guru service to young companies, helping them to develop as well as raise finance. Very bright lady.
Finally, we had Bill Thompson, from the BBC’s excellent Digital Planet, who is a kind of hairy Stephen Fry’s younger brother - knowledgeable, amusing and deliberately provocative.
Half time entertainment was provided by the team over at Mobile Industry Review, doing a very ballsy live recording (if you see what I mean) of their video podcast. They’re also going to do a pre-Christmas free-prize-draw for lots of gadgety goodies, so get yourself a ticket and help a bunch of charities all at the same time.
Anyway, I had a great time, only slightly marred by having to leave early and miss out on speaking to lots of people I’d have liked to have caught up with. I’m sure that there will be a next time.
November 10, 2008
Apple may not have been the first manufacturer to integrate touch-screen technology to their handsets, but thanks in no small part to the success of the iPhone a whole wave of touch-screen models has since been unleashed.
Enter the Behold, Samsung's latest effort, (for T-Mobile) a slim touch screen design with multimedia features and full web browsing capabilities. The Behold will offer up a large 3.0-inch LCD color touch screen to display crisp, clear images and responsive contact-feedback technology called Haptics. A built-in accelerometer automatically switches the screen between portrait and landscape modes depending on how you hold the phone.
In addition to a virtual QWERTY touchpad, multiple messaging capabilities including text, multimedia messaging, instant messaging, email and Audio Postcards are supported.
A built-in 5.0-megapixel camera and camcorder (and flash) with auto-focus allows for high-resolution photos and videos. Internal GPS receiver uses TeleNav GPS Navigator for turn-by-turn driving directions with maps. Last but certainly not least, the Behold offers high-speed connectivity and a full HTML web browser for faster access to the Internet.
A microSD memory card slot stores of videos, images or music up to 16GB. The Behold for T-Mobile is available nation-wide today.
See full article.
Related Entries:
LG Targets Photographers with their Latest Phone - 13 October 2008
Wal-Mart Bests T-Mobile on Google Phone By $30 - 29 October 2008
Microsoft Partners Up With LG - 03 November 2008
New Sony Phone Has Music on the Brain - 07 November 2008
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Dear Apple, I will not here about whether you have the right to admit or expel you're selling to developers. I think you can have your point of reason, like a department Bender ball exercises store is not obligated to sell the products from a supplier as much as he wants or feels prepared. In any case, posts to reject applications, you could accuse of having the bar too low and have missed a lot of trash that dilutes the good work. But that to me, the moment of truth, as a user-I do not care.
It is true that the faltering pulse does not make you any good, The Bender ball gym fit and sweat workout and to admit, reject, and take back programs would not revert to reject demonstrates the clarity of concepts that seem to support and that has definitely contributed to the success of the App Store.
It seems that fathers of the church maquera in this case was not clear tenÃais doctrine, and polishing are on the march, something perhaps understandable in a global, innovative and disruptive, as he likes to say that my friend-Urian only takes three months off. The full article at www. ipodizados.com
November 08, 2008
Companies like Sony understand the simple logic in combining two of their areas of expertise into a single device. In this case their commitment to audio-playing technology fuses flawlessly with their cell phone units. Enter the W705, Sony's latest Walkman phone with Clear Bass, Clear Stereo, premium headphones, and Wi-Fi connectivity.
The handset features a large 2.4-inch screen in elegant and compact slider form and a 3.2-megapixel camera. The W705 also includes popular Walkman features such as the music recognition application: TrackID and SensMe, for matching any mood to the music. Shake control allows users to change tracks with the flick of the wrist. PlayNow Arena provides unique themes and wallpapers, ringtones, and DRM-free music tracks.
The Sony Ericsson W705 will be available in early 2009 in Luxury Silver and Passionate Red color options.
For full specs,
click here.
See full article.
Related Entries:
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
Wal-Mart Bests T-Mobile on Google Phone By $30 - 29 October 2008
Microsoft Partners Up With LG - 03 November 2008
New Sanyo Katana Comes to Sprint - 05 November 2008
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November 07, 2008
FrankPr - November 07, 2008 - 16:23
Der Imagine Cup bietet in diesem Jahr u.a. die Kategorien Embedded Development sowie Robotics & Algorithm. Klar, dass ich zu beidem etwas zu sagen habe, und so hat Silke heute zwei nette kurze Videos für Channel 8 gedreht, die das Ganze erläutern - s. hier für Embedded und hier für Robotics.
Also: mitmachen, Spaß haben und nach Kairo zur Endrunde fahren! :-)
Jane - November 07, 2008 - 11:27
I know, I know, I'm neglecting this thing again. Went to California and never checked back in again. I'm a bad blogger. My best offense is to blog every day - if I leave things go a few days, it's very hard to get back on track.
I'm blasting Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" right now. They played it during a lot of Barack Obama's campaign appearances and it's a song I've loved for a long time and now it has more significance than ever.
I've been completely emotional since Barack was elected on Tuesday night, alternating between complete euphoria that my country would actually look past color and elect the most amazing candidate we've had in my lifetime, and being completely choked up seeing and hearing the reactions of African-Americans. This is so huge. Seeing people who marched with Martin Luther King with tears streaming down their faces right after the election results were announced is unbelievably moving. I so wish my mother were here to see this. She was on board early, years ago, with Barack, and saw his potential and really talked him up. Hard for me and Lisa not to think of her on Election night as we sat watching the returns come in with the girls, Kerry and Justine, whose interest along with Lily and Jack's as well, thrilled me.
I got the nicest short note from my friend Pete in Munich - "Glad to see that the world can rely on Americans, and not just a few Americans." Boy, did that make me feel good because when I lived there I felt so much that I was being judged by a lot of Europeans because of my godawful Red State fellow citizens who followed Bush blindly. I kept explaining that where I came from the majority of people didn't think like that. I must have explained Blue State/Red State twenty times.
Michelle Obama got completely excoriated when months ago she remarked "For the first time in my adult life, I'm proud of my country" and I totally understood her and today feel the exact same way.
Lots more to post, but not a lot of time. Missed you!
November 05, 2008
Sprint hopes to maintain a competitive edge with its latest handset, the Sanyo Katana Eclipse X, which combines the One Click user interface with the thin/flip style of the Katana series.
One Click allows users to personalize their home screen and organize features such as text messaging, Google search, Sprint Navigation, email, favorite Web sites, music and call log.
The Katana Eclipse X includes Sprint TV with live and on-demand programming, Sprint Music Store with full-length songs, Sprint Radio with more than 150 channels and a built-in MP3 player with microSD card slot supporting up to 8GB (256 MB card included).
Additional features include a built-in speakerphone, stereo Bluetooth technology, external music navigation controls and a 1.3-megapixel camera with 12x zoom and video camcorder.
The Sanyo Katana Eclipse X is available in Sprint retail channels and online for $99.99 with a two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate.
See full article.
Related Entries:
New Blackberry, RIM's First Flip Phone - 10 September 2008
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
Wal-Mart Bests T-Mobile on Google Phone By $30 - 29 October 2008
Microsoft Partners Up With LG - 03 November 2008
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AP - Madrid (AP) - until recently buoyant Spanish economy is in worse shape than expected and could not continue to register growth decelerating absolutely sometime in the coming months, said the Spanish economy minister in an interview published on Sunday.
November 04, 2008
mobiForge (nee dev.mobi) announced its DeviceAtlas mobile-device database some time ago, aiming to create the most comprehensive file of mobile device specs to help web developers craft mobile sites. The latest version of DeviceAtlas has a new feature, Data Explorer, that aggregates the device data in the system and provides an interface to explore and analyze it.
For example, you can look at the screen widths of devices in the database and find which are the most common, or find the number of devices that support a certain audio codec or particular J2ME JSR. Check out the link above for more details and a video that goes into some more depth about the capabilities.
This info’s free, too — all you need is to register a free developer account with DeviceAtlas. This is a great starting place to inform your mobile and mobile web development, helping you to navigate the fragmentation of devices and specs. It can also be combined with other sources of free data, like AdMob’s monthly metrics reports to get a good idea of the capabilities of devices people are using to surf the mobile web. Then, of course, once you’re up and running, you use some analytics on your site to sharpen your focus even more.
Fragmentation remains a hugely annoying problem for mobile developers, but it’s great to see more and more free data and services emerging to help mitigate the problem, even if it’s just a little bit.
One of my favorite mobile content sites, Mippin, announced a cool new social feature last week. You’re probably already familiar with how easy Mippin makes it to find and consume mobile content; its new social feature lets you discover new items through other users, and it even uses a nice “similarity meter” to display how similar your tastes and interests are to another user’s.
So if I go look at somebody, like, say, Whatleydude, Mippin will tell me we’ve got medium similarity, and then I can choose to follow him, or check out his shared stories or the sites he reads. Nifty, and a great way to discover new mobile content.
They also made this amusing video to explain it a bit more:
Good job to the team at Mippin, and I look forward to what they come up with next!
November 03, 2008
Microsoft isn't used to being number two and while Mac and Linux offer up a bit of competition in the operating system wars, the threat to Windows is much more heated in the mobile industry.
Microsoft and
LG Electronics today said they had signed a preliminary agreement on strategic collaboration in mobile technology in the hopes of Windows Mobile continuing to challenge the Symbian platform (Nokia's OS that is currently installed on some two-thirds of all smartphones).
As if Symbian wasn't enough to worry the very competitive Microsoft,
Research in Motion's Blackberry systems and
Apple's iPhone are also proving threatening. Even more forthcoming is news that several manufacturers are planning (or have already developed) smartphones based on Google's open-sourced Android software.
See full article.
Related Entries:
New Sidekick Revealed - 01 August 2008
New Blackberry, RIM's First Flip Phone - 10 September 2008
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
Wal-Mart Bests T-Mobile on Google Phone By $30 - 29 October 2008
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November 01, 2008
You know you're doing something right when manufacturers are lining up to make games for your new platform. In anticipation of the new G1 phone (from
T-Mobile) and
Google's open-ended Android operating System,
Electronic Arts, makers of such industry staples as the Madden football franchise, has unveiled a line of game titles tailored for Google phones.
Among the titles being developed are puzzle classics Tetris and Bejeweled followed by video Monopoly. Many developers have expressed interest in creating titles for the Android software due to its tilt recognition abilities.
T-Mobile began selling the G1 smartphone last week while the latest buzz says that
Motorola is believed to be rolling out Android-based handsets of its own.
See full article.
Related Entries:
New Sidekick Revealed - 01 August 2008
HTC S740 Released - 01 September 2008
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
Wal-Mart Bests T-Mobile on Google Phone By $30 - 29 October 2008
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October 30, 2008
Keine Keynote heute morgen, dafür eine der interessantesten Sessions der Veranstaltung: "The Future of the Device Mesh".
Inhalt des Vortrags: Live Mesh als ideale Technologie, um alle Arten von Geräten im persönlichen Bereich miteinander zu verbinden und transparent zu synchronisieren - Home Server, Laptops, Netbooks, Smartphones, Digital- und Videokameras, Drucker, Fernseher, digitale Bilderrahmen ... you name it. Das Live Framework stellt die zugrundeliegende Technologie mittels der Services und Kommunikationsschnittstellen (REST, RSS, POX etc.), die auf den Geräten passend implementiert werden können. (Das ist prinzipiell schon heute kein Problem.)
Die Demo im Rahmen der Präsentation verknüpfte einen Laptop im Heimnetzwerk mit einer NAS-Festplatte zur Datensicherung, einem Fotodrucker, einem drahtlosen digitalen Bilderrahmen und einer Digitalkamera mit Eye-Fi-Speicherkarte. Die mit der Kamera aufgenommenen Bilder werden drahtlos in einen mesh-synchronisierten Ordner übertragen und von dort automatisch auf den Bilderrrahmen und den Drucker übertragen sowie auf der Netzwerkfestplatte archiviert. Cool!
Als zusätzliches Goodie gab es eine Demo von Intels Remote Wake Technology im Zusammenhang mit Live Mesh: ein Rechner, der im Mesh angemeldet ist, kann in den Standby-Modus versetzt werden, ohne im Mesh offline zu gehen, da die Netzwerkkarte rudimentäre Funktionen ausführt und den Rechner durch Kommunikation mit einem speziellen Service wieder aufwecken kann. So kann aus dem Mesh mittels Remote Desktop auf einen Rechner zugegriffen werden, der bspw. zu Hause seit Tagen im Standby-Modus schläft und somit nur sehr wenig Energie verbraucht, aber genau dann wieder verfügbar wird, wenn man ihn braucht. Noch cooler!
Dies ist also eine perfekte Demonstration von "service-oriented devices", die zeigt, wie Dienste wie Live Mesh neue Szenarien ermöglichen, die bisher undenkbar waren - und zwar auf ziemlich einfache Weise. Die kommende Zeit wird in dieser Hinsicht seeehr spannend, und es wird interessant zu beobachten, welche Gerätehersteller Live Mesh in solchen oder anderen Szenarien in welcher Form unterstützen werden. Jetzt ist die Zeit, sich als OEM mit diesem Thema zu befassen. Microsoft wird die Dienste anbieten und ist an Feedback, Szenarien und Mitarbeit interessiert.
Systems Expo 2008
As the last years, Debian was offered a booth at last week's Systems expo here in
Munich again. However,
this year the Free Projects area was not organized by Rosa
Riebl from C&L publishing, but by
Wolfgang Drotschmann from
LinuxTag e.V.. This
made some things a
bit more difficult, e.g. we did not know our exact booth
number until a couple
of days before the expo and the small conference programme
was made up in an
ad-hoc fashion after the expo started, but in the end most
things worked out
fine in some way or the other. While the booth (a demo-point,
really) was as big (or rather small) as last year, there was
much more space
around the booth this year (something which seemed to apply
to all of Systems),
so things did not get too crowded even when a handful of
visitors approached
the booth at once. Also, the visibility was much improved
as our demo point
was visible by strolling visitors this year (last year, our
demo point was just
facing the wall).
As nobody else stepped up, I had to organize
the booth
again. Fewer people than last year were around; only Robert
Grimm, Arne
Wichmann, Franziska Lichtblau, Johannes Wiedersich, Andreas
Barth and I were
able to commit to staffing the booth; other people were busy
over the week or
moved away from Munich since last year, like Robert Lemmen
or Wolfgang Lonien.
Luckily, we still had the computer the GNOME project donated
to us last year,
and I took a TFT, keyboard and mouse from the university
along. This year, I
decided to not show up for the booth build-up the day before
Systems starts.
On the one hand, I had made the experience that there is not
much one can do
then anyway, and would have to put the computer/TFT into the
central locker
room overnight anyway. On the other hand, there was as
always a very low
attendence in the first few hours of the expo so building up
the booth in the
morning turned out to be no problem. The Credativ people again
provided us with
merchandise (due to some miscommunication on my part the
package had to arrive
directly at the expo, but in the end I was glad about this
as I had enough
trouble carrying the computer and TFT to the expo). This
year, thanks to
Credativ, we were able to provide some t-shirts for the
first time, something
quite some visitors had requested over the years. Besides
t-shirts, we had
some swirl stickers and the popular Debian keychains
provided by Joerg Jaspert
through Credativ.
In the end the booth mostly consisted of the computer
(demonstrating Lenny most
of the time) and some A4 sized Swirls I had printed out the
day before. From
Wednesday on we were able to provide Lenny Beta2 CDs as well
thanks to Johannes
Wiedersich who organized them. Initially, I asked ADR whether they would produce some
CDs for us again as
they did last year, but they did not bring the appropriate
hardware this time.
But thanks to Johannes we were still able to provide
interested visitors with
CDs through LSK. In the
end, we ran out of
most t-shirts at some point on Thursday and managed to sell
the two remaining
Lady shirts on Friday. All the other merchandise was gone
by the end of the
show as well so the way back was not that difficult, even
more so as Andreas
Barth helped me carry the computer to the subway and my car.
The days I was at Systems (first and last day) the
attendance was rather low, so
not that many interesting discussions happened. Almost
everybody who stepped by
knew Debian already and the majority was using it themselves
as well, at least
on their servers. Those people were also really quite
happy, we rarely heard
much critizism, even after asking people for some. The most
frequently asked
question was undoubtly "when will Lenny release?", followed
by "do you have that
cool
t-shirt in L or XL as well?". Overall it was a pretty
good experience,
albeit slightly stressful organizing it. In any case, this
was probably the
last time I had to do this as the Systems organizers
announced they will rethink
their concept and there will be no Systems 2009.
Serial blasts in Assam20 killed in serial blasts in AssamAssam, by the way, is in the upper northern area of India. it is a highly-contested, isolated region of India with huge natural resources. China has been trying to annex the area for decades and backs many of separatist groups agitating in the area with finances, weapons, and combat training.
Die letzte Session des heutigen Tages war mit Sicherheit eine der wichtigsten für mich auf dieser PDC, denn hier stellte Shabnam Erfani, Program Manager(in) im Windows Embedded-Team, zum ersten Mal Details zur nächsten "großen" Windows Embedded-Version vor, die nicht auf dem XP-Kernel basieren wird. Nachdem man sich mit der Planung einige Zeit gelassen und Fragen nach einem "Vista Embedded" immer ziemlich vage beantwortet hat, wird nun auch der Grund dafür klar: Windows Embedded "Quebec", wie der Codename lautet, wird nicht auf dem Vista-Kernel, sondern auf dem Kernel von Windows 7 aufsetzen (wie von Kevin Dallas auf der ESC offiziell verkündet), welches ja hier vor zwei Tagen zum ersten Mal öffentlich gezeigt wurde. Dies ist m.E. prinzipiell eine gute Nachricht, da man in 7 ja einiges für die Performance tut.
"Quebec" wird, anders als XP Embedded oder Windows Embedded Standard, nicht feingranular konfigurierbar sein (z.Zt. haben wir ca. 12000 Komponenten in WES, davon über 9000 Treiber), sondern aus einem sog. "Embedded Core" bestehen, der unteilbar ist, und aus zusätzlichen Feature Sets, die aus einzelnen Packages bestehen und die man je nach Funktionsbedarf hinzufügen kann. (Der Embedded Core macht Sinn, da man selbst mit XPe oder WES effektiv niemals unter eine bestimmte Mindestgröße für den Kernel kommt, aufgrund der Abhängigkeiten zwischen den Komponenten - mögen diese selbst auch noch so klein sein.)
Das Image wird auch nicht wie bisher mittels eines Target Designers zusammengestellt und dann während eines Build-Prozesses zusammenkopiert, sondern kann entweder auf dem Zielsystem mittels eines Wizards im Rahmen einer WinPE-basierten Installation angepasst werden (die Produkt-DVD wird WinPE-basiert und bootfähig sein), oder es kann mittels Offline-Tools eine Art Script für ein "unattended setup" erstellt werden, welches dann die vorstehend beschriebene Installation auf einem Zielsystem steuert, ohne Benutzereingriff. Die bisher übliche FBA-Phase entfällt also völlig.
Auch bzgl. Deployment und Wartung gibt es einige Neuerungen, ich denke, dass wir hierzu in Kürze detailliertere Beschreibungen durch das Produktteam selbst sehen werden - ich werde zu gegebener Zeit dann darauf hinweisen.
Heute gab es die dritte Morgen-Keynote, traditionell gestaltet durch Microsoft Research, in der ein Feuerwerk von innovativen Projekten vorgestellt wurde, an denen z.Zt. gearbeitet wird und die hoffentlich irgendwann einmal als Produkte auf dem Markt zu finden sein werden. Besonders beeindruckt haben mich
- eine neue Version des World Wide Telescope, die in Kürze verfügbar sein soll,
- eine Lernsoftware für Kinder, mit der Sieben- bis Zehnjährige auf grafische Art und Weise das Programmieren lernen sollen (kein Keyboard, nur der Xbox-Controller),
- Second Light, eine Weiterentwicklung von Microsoft Surface, bei der Information auf eine zweite Fläche über der Surface-Oberfläche projiziert werden kann, auch Interaktion mit dieser Fläche (z.B. ein Blatt Papier) ist möglich. Seeehr beeindruckend.
Danach gab es eine für mich sehr interessante Session zur Programmierung mit dem Live Framework, und war hochinteressant zu sehen, wie der Zugriff auf Geräte, Ordner und Kontakte im Live Mesh mittels REST, POX usw. direkt oder über ein zugehöriges .NET-API möglich ist. Eine Compact-Framework-Version des API existiert leider noch nicht, ich bin gespannt, wann und von wem der erste Wrapper kommt.
Eine interessante Session am gestrigen 2. Tag der PDC 2008 drehte sich um das Thema Silverlight für mobile Geräte. Neu war, dass Silverlight 2 zum ersten Mal im Einsatz auf Windows Mobile-Geräten gezeigt wurde. Die Features sind die gleichen wie bei der Desktop-Variante (kein "Silverlite" ;-), so dass es zur Entwicklung eigentlich nicht viel zu sagen gibt - Expression Blend, Visual Studio, fertig. Zu beachten wäre, dass sich der Designer natürlich über die kleinere verfügbare Bildschirmfläche Gedanken machen muss und der Entwickler darum, dass evtl. nicht alle Video-Codecs auf den mobilen Geräten verfügbar sind und dass die Performance etwas geringer ausfallen könnte...
SL2 Mobile wird irgendwann Anfang nächsten Jahres als Beta-Version öffentlich verfügbar sein. Die finale Version, über deren Fertigstellung noch keine Informationen vorliegen, wird auch die Symbian-Plattform (S60) unterstützen. In der Diskussion ist auch eine Erweiterung der relativ strikten Sandbox um Zugriffe auf Kamera, GPS und andere Gerätehardware sowie die Möglichkeit, SL2-Anwendungen "standalone" auszuführen, ohne einen Browser als Host zu benötigen. Es bleibt also eine Weile spannend.
Wer mehr dazu sehen möchte, sollte den entsprechenden Vortrag auf der TechEd in Barcelona oder noch besser auf der Xtopia oder dem Technical Summit in Berlin besuchen.
October 29, 2008
Simple economic theory states that buying and selling in volume is the key to lower prices and nowhere is this principle more clearly realized than in a recent announcement by Wal-Mart to start selling the T-Mobile G1 (Google phone) for $148.88 on Wednesday October 29 in roughly 550 of its stores for consumers who sign up for a two-year T-Mobile contract.
This is significant because T-Mobile itself is slated to drop the phone for $179 with the same contract.
Released for T-Mobile, the G1 is the first mobile device powered by Google's open-source Android software. It embeds a large touch screen similar, integrates a 3.0-megapixel camera with photo-sharing capability, and builds in a trackball and slide-out keyboard.
For full specs,
click here.
See full article.
Related Entries:
New Sidekick Revealed - 01 August 2008
HTC S740 Released - 01 September 2008
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
PRADA- More than just fashion - 22 October 2008
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Reuters - Lima (Reuters) - Workers at Cerro Verde, the third producer of copper in Peru, cancelled the plan to join a nationwide strike scheduled for Saturday, said on Thursday a trade union leader of the company.
Tags - popular: Melt it Off
As I wrote yesterday, the core runtime components of Microsoft Robotics Studio, the Concurrency and Coordination Runtime and the Decentralized Software Services, have been released as a separate toolkit now, as Rick Rashid, head of MSR, just announced officially during his PDC keynote, and can now be used in projects outside the field of robotics. This is really, really great stuff! Get it here.
I went to my local T-Mobile store to check out the G1 over the weekend. The G1 is a nice device with what appears to be great software, but overall I wasn’t that impressed from my 5 minutes with it. Here’s why:
- The G1 is chunky. It’s fairly thick, and it’s a bit bulky as well. Compared to my Nokia E71 or the iPhone my wife is eyeing, it looked and felt like a whale. The hinge mechanism that flips the screen up to expose the keyboard also looked slightly janky to me, raising some doubts about the G1’s durability and build quality.
- It wasn’t as fast at loading web pages as I expected. Whether that’s because of a slow 3G network or a slow browser, I’m not sure.
- The Android UI looks pretty nifty, but I think that many of its features will be lost in complexity on many users. In addition, I found the presence of both a trackball and a touchscreen a bit odd. You can get a very basic idea of the interface from WDSGlobal’s demo. The UI wasn’t particularly intuitive to me, and I think most users will face a pretty steep learning curve with it (as they do with most new platforms).
- One thing I thought was really cool was an app called Locale, which was one of the top 10 apps in the Android Developer Challenge. It’s a GPS app that allows you to create situations and conditions on your device that change its behavior. For instance, you can create an “At Work” situation, which based on your location, will silence your device automatically (or shut off Wi-Fi or forward calls) when you’re at work. Nifty stuff — and the sort of thing that should come standard on GPS devices IMO.
Like I said, these impressions were based on 5 minutes with the G1, and I’m looking to get a hold of one for a longer period of time to play with it some more. If you’ve got a G1, or have spent some time with one, chime in with your thoughts in the comments, as I’m really curious to see what other users think of the device and the software. And if you’re looking for an in-depth review, check out Phone Scoop’s lengthy review.
Just a reminder about our earlier offer of a couple of free passes to the Under the Radar Mobility event in Mountain View on November 12.
The organizers are looking for input on a panel in which execs from major US carriers and other big players in mobile will get grilled with your questions. To have a chance to win the tickets, in the comments below, share your thoughts on the question, “If you could ask the mobile giants anything, what would you want to know, or what would you say?” The responses will be used to help craft the session, and we’ll pick the two most thought-provoking responses to win a free pass to the event.
Just a quick note to say sorry from my end about the slow posting rate of late.
My main problem has been lots of travel in the last month and I’m afraid Blogging and exercise are the first two things that get jettisoned from my routine. First I had a little tour of South America and coming up I have the Mobile Marketing Association forums in San Diego and Macau. Hope to see you there if you’re attending - please come and find me if you have a few minutes.
This week also saw the death of my step-father, someone who I have known and been very fond of for most of my life. So off to England for the funeral and help organise all the stuff that needs to be done when someone dies. While it was both expected and really was the best thing for him - he’d been fighting cancer for the last 3 years and getting the worst of it - it’s still a shock when it finally happens. It also means that writing about mobiles and stuff doesn’t seem very important, although I promise it’s a temporary blip. Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Anyway, that’s my excuses. No idea about Carlo - he’s just a student. Probably too much time in the college bar, based on my own hazy memories 
October 28, 2008
Das Mittagessen ist vorüber, ich sitze gerade in einer Session über die Kerntechnologie des Microsoft Robotics Studio - CCR (Concurrency & Coordination Runtime) + DSS (Decentralized Software Services), vorgetragen von keinem geringeren als George Chrysanthakopoulos, dem Architekten der CCR (ich kenne wenige, die schneller über komplexe Themen reden können als er, btw. ;-) Beeindruckende Aussagen von Kunden wie Siemens oder Tyco, die ca. 500000 Nachrichten pro Sekunde zu verarbeiten haben, ohne sich dabei zu irren (Briefe bspw., die auf einem Laufband vorbeifliegen).
CCR/DSS werden in der Zukunft auch außerhalb des Robotics Studio Anwendung finden und verfügbar sein - Ankündigungen dazu werden in Kürze erwartet. (Mehr sollte ich hier nicht verraten...)
Nachtrag (14:35): Da George das mehr oder weniger offiziell verkündet hat, möchte ich es dann doch nicht verschweigen. CCR und DSS werden ab morgen als CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008 hier verfügbar sein, zu den gleichen Lizenzbedingungen wie das Robotics Studio selbst.
... for download here. Happy evaluating!
October 27, 2008
It seems like all we hear about of late is economic turmoil and falling business profits. Apparently there is some truth behind the ideal that Americans will go without food before going without their cell phone as
Verizon announced today that earnings rose 31 percent in the third quarter.
The telecom company credits its acquisition of Alltel as beneficial as it made
Verizon the largest U.S. carrier, surpassing
AT&T.
Verizon's third-quarter profit raised to $1.67 billion (59 cents a share) from $1.27 billion, or 44 cents a share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Verizon added 1.5 million new subscribers in third quarter alone. This in addition to some 600,000 subscribers it gained through the acquisition of Rural Cellular and ended the quarter with a whopping 70.8 million customers.
See full article.
Related Entries:
New Sidekick Revealed - 01 August 2008
HTC S740 Released - 01 September 2008
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
PRADA- More than just fashion - 22 October 2008
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October 24, 2008
When can sales be booming but financial outlook sliding? The answer is when you're
Apple and the
iPhone G3 is your brainchild.
This week the company reported stellar iPhone sales and a better-than-expected profit margin through its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. So what's the problem? Though profitable, investors are quick to note that the company's revenue for the most recent period fell shy of expectations. Worse still is that Apple's own forecast for the upcoming holiday sales period was modest at best and recent updates to the
iPod line have had little effect in lifting slumping sales of the music player.
Given the reluctance of investors it's no surprise that Apple's stock has fallen to the tune of being down 54 percent for the year. While the
iPod may be fizzling out, the
iPhone has done its best to keep Apple cruising. In a rare trend, iPhone sales fell short of Wall Street's expectations, even as profit beat estimates.
See full article.
Related Entries:
New Sidekick Revealed - 01 August 2008
HTC S740 Released - 01 September 2008
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
PRADA- More than just fashion - 22 October 2008
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October 22, 2008
When you think
Prada, overpriced Italian fashion may be the first thing that comes to mind but LG is about to change all that.
The
PRADA Phone by LG (KE850) is a breakthrough in an industry known for innovation. The PRADA Phone by LG introduces the world's first advanced touch interface which eliminates the need for a conventional keypad An extra wide LCD screen maximizes visual impact, allowing the user to benefit from several key features of the phone, including a 2 megapixel camera featuring Schneider-Kreuznach lens, video player and document viewer capacity.
Glowing icons on the face of the phone disappear when not in use and an ultra thin (12 mm) design allows for an array of additional multimedia functions, including an MP3 player and a music multitasking function for messaging in slim form. It also boasts an external memory slot, allowing the user to increase memory capacity for images, music and film clips.
For more info,
click here.
See full article.
Related Entries:
New Sidekick Revealed - 01 August 2008
HTC S740 Released - 01 September 2008
a-GPS Hits AT&T - 17 September 2008
Motorola Q11 Smartphone Coming Soon - 08 October 2008
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If you’ve been living under a stone recently, you may not have noticed that we’re in the midst of a financial crisis. A bank seems to go bust every day, doom abounds and it’s probably the worst time to try to raise capital via VCs since the dawn of history.
It’s particularly gratifying then to be associated with not one, but two, companies who have spat in the face of Ms Recession, tweaked the beard of Mr Gloom and announced pretty substantial investments in the last few days.
AdMob is the one stealing all the headlines today, with everyone covering it from the venerable New York Times and Wall Street Journal to the thrusting young upstarts at GigaOm and VentureBeat. A fine job by AdMob’s marketing team (Nicole and Jason especially) and PR agencies.
I don’t really have much to add, other than to say it’s an amazing achievement by a brilliant team of people from top to bottom. It’s particularly gratifying that Sequoia Capital, our original investors have chosen to lead the round again. This is very, very rare as they almost always stick to early stage investments and the times they have done this kind of thing can be counted on the fingers of one hand - of a man who lost two fingers in a fight with Mr Gloom. As Jim Goetz, a Sequoia partner and who sits on our Board, says:
“They have some of the same qualities that we saw in Google, Yahoo!, YouTube and Apple, including their exceptional team and powerful technology platform.”
Praise indeed.
The other announcement was made by the UK company, TagText, which I invested in a while back and who have just announced a GBP 1 million round.
I’ve long believed that kids (sadly, by that I mean anyone under 25) have wanted richer messaging. SMS is great, but limited. MMS is far too hard to use from a creative point of view. It’s like starting with a blank canvass, when what you want is to join up some dots. Plus MMS has limited possibilities when it comes to interaction with the PC.
TagText solves this problem by providing a easy-to-use template-driven avatar platform, which works across mobile, but also PC IM and in social networks.
Congrats to the management team, Nick Hancock and Ben Scott-Robinson, veterans on the UK mobile scene. I’m not sure the avatar above quite does justice to my distinguished features, but I can’t have everything. I’ll watch from afar and hope they prosper. I have high hopes.
Now, back to work at the day job….
Interesting article in Slate arguing that if you look at movie earnings per screen the quality of a movie as expressed by normalised movie reviews (e.g. Rotten Tomatoes score) does make a significant difference to takings.
I've always treated movie quality from an investment perspective as a bit of a black box - no use trying to second guess the consumer. So I wonder if Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic scores are robust enough to tie a commercial bonus to it and therefore reward quality. This is something I've seen in distribution agreements for games, where an 80%+ score is even more vital, but not in films so far. Hmm.
October 18, 2008
...and I can't believe how screwed up that particular asylum is. I can't tell who is more disjointed from reality: the patients hopped up on cheap opitates OR the medical staff. And then, finally, this morning they give me my diagnosis...of course it is not the same doctor who saw me the morning before who "promised" he would see me later in the private room I was never given. Oh no, I'd never seen this guy before and the first thing he wanted to do was to cut open the canadian, maybe to see if we really are filled with maple syrup and frolickng beavers.
Er, no. Let's not.
When I get home I do a little research on gallstones and they're not the death sentence Dr. Mengele-Masala was leading me to believe. I prolly always had them but my recent inactivity due to my compressed disc added to the dehydration of my fever exasperated the condition.
So I'm going to wait. Eat less fat, more veggies, and less Diet Pepsi.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
October 17, 2008
I can't believe this. The cold I had turned out to be just a little more serious than just a high fever with gastric distress. I woke up this morning after a fitful couple hour of sleep to the delightful sensation of someone stabbing me in the stomach, over and over and over. Serious-grade pain. Take me to the hospital NOW pain.
A couple of my students take me to the emergency ward where I writhe on a hospital gurney for an hour or so until they find the right cocktail of pain killers. An ultrasound later and the most likely diagnosis is presented to me.
Gall stones.
But there are no more rooms available so 16 hours later, I'm still sitting here in an empty emergency ward, getting no sleep whatsoever. My doctor comes in at around 9:00am to give the decision whether or not surgery is justified...just another six hours to go.
Woo woo.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
The final event to tell you about today is the Under the Radar Mobility conference in Mountain View, Silicon Valley, on November 12. UTR picks a number of exciting startups, who pitch their products to a panel of judges and 400 attendees. They’ve announced the first batch of presenting companies, with more to follow, and it looks like there will definitely be some cool stuff on display. You can see more about the companies and read some insights from speakers on the UTR blog.
UTR’s organizers have extended us a $100 discount offer to share with MH readers, and they’re also offering 2 free tickets to give away. The last session of the UTR conference will bring together execs from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and other big companies in mobile for a candid conversation about the industry, and the organizers are looking for some input on questions and topics to ask them about.
So, in the comments below, share your thoughts on the question, “If you could ask the mobile giants anything, what would you want to know, or what would you say?” The responses will be used to help craft the session, and we’ll pick the two most thought-provoking responses to win a free pass to the event. Even if you can’t make it to Mountain View on November 12, feel free to respond and pose a question!
October 16, 2008
India is a land of extremes, being sick is just another confirmation of this. The fever hits you like a freight train, rising like a rocket, and you are lying on a pool if your own sweat as the dreams of the grotesque fly through your pickled brain. The ague and body aches leave you as weak as a new born foal, shaky in body and uncertain in sanity.
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October 15, 2008
AP - New York (AP) - The popular site Facebook social contacts have a new look, reflecting changes in the way its members communicate with each other and share pictures and reports on their lives.
Reuters - New York (Reuters) - Shares of United States cut its losses on Thursday after a report that showed an unexpected rise in pending sales of homes , Which raised expectations of a stabilisation in the housing market.
Here's a fun video about chip multi-threading, explained through cooking:
The Story
For those of you who don't speak German: Ingo, the hero of this movie, wants to cook German roulades. He uses his hands as registers, while his table serves as a level 1 cache. The instruction cache is his brain, where the recipe resides. Soon, he reaches the point at which it says: "Pour red wine into the pan". There's no red wine in the registers, no wine in the L1 cache, so he needs to ask his memory subsystem: "Hooooney, would you mind bringing me a bottle of Merlot from the basement, pleaaaase?"
While "honey", the memory subsystem, is busy bringing wine, Ingo explains that at this point, there's no difference whether he stirs the dish at 1.4 GHz, or at 4.5 GHz (this is the piece where his stirring gets frantic). Actually, he'd rather use his precious time to do other useful things with what he has in L1 cache already, for example cook dumplings, or prepare dessert. That would indeed help a lot in getting dinner ready sooner, even while waiting for "honey" to bring some wine.
And that is the whole point of chip multi-threading.
Now, imagine 8 Ingos, each with two hands (think pipelines) and doing 4 dishes per hand (read: threads). What a feast!
CMT Cooking Going Viral
I first saw Ingo giving this presentation in February, during Sun Germany's Partner University event. It was hilarious, the whole room was laughing and we knew he needed to do it again. So, with the help of a few people, Ingo and Ulrike created this fun video.
They posted it on YouTube in July and we featured it on one episode of the HELDENFunk podcast for German system admins. Soon, Ingo reached a few hundred downloads and we thought: "Cool, we have a new fun video to share!"
Then, Alex Wunschel, aka the "Podpimp", one of the more well-known podcasters in Germany and a listener of the HELDENFunk podcast, twittered about Ingo's memory subsystem called "Schatz!" (the German equivalent of "honey"). That was even cooler.
Then, Thomas Knüwer saw Alex' Tweet, and blogged about it. On the "Handelsblatt" blog. Think something like "Fortune" Magazine in German. And he got 14 comments. Gulp.
The result: Ingo's views skyrocketed, soon he was in the thousands, and last time I checked, he had more than 13,500 views, for a 3.5 minute video about chip multi-threading and a memory subsystem called "honey". Nice!
Today, Alec and I chatted about Ingo's video and apparently, he liked it very much. Well, I guess Ingo can start counting again. This time, english speaking viewers, too. Have fun!
Would you like Ingo to dub his video in English? Or do you prefer the German version? Just drop a comment below!
October 13, 2008
Obama win by win in the net, and it has succeeded in large part thanks to a team that seems more a start-up company or born and Web 2.0, that a group of experts in political marketing.
In the news - top sites: Luxury Condos in LA
Four million blogs in 2004, we went to a whopping 133 million at present. But if it's easy to create, not what is keeping them both: a mere 1.1% of them are updated at least once a week. These are data of the latest report from Technorati.
Current Alert - information: Los Angeles Condos
October 12, 2008
I'm astonished to see that I haven't blogged for so long. Sorry to my readers, it's been some very busy times lately, and I hope I can write more in the coming weeks. I also owe an apology to the people that pointed out a bug with my ZFS replicator script and cron(1M), I'll look into it and make it my next post.
Barcamp at Sun in Munich
Yesterday, I attended Barcamp Munich 2008 which was sponsored by Sun (among other cool sponsors) and so it took place in the Sun Munich offices.
I was surprised to see that both sessions I proposed were accepted, plus one about Open Source Software at Sun that my colleague Stefan proposed with some support by me.
You can find a list of sessions for Saturday and Sunday on the web and it pays off to check back regularly, as the wiki is filling up with more and more collateral information around each track.
So, here's a roundup of session descriptions, slides and other links and materials for those of you who attended my sessions or could not attend, in chronological order.
Enterprise 2.0 - From Co-Workers to Co-Creators
This session was similar to the talk I did at Webkongress Erlangen a few months ago.
We had about 20 people in the room and quite a fruitful discussion on how to motivate employees to use new tools, how to guide employee behaviour and the challenges of opening up a company and making it more transparent.
Feel free to glance through my Enterprise 2.0 slides or read an earlier blog entry on a related subject. Also, check out Peter Reiser's blog, he has a number of great articles from behind the scenes of our SunSpace collaboration project.
Open Source Software at Sun
Stefan Schneider proposed a session about great software products that are available from Sun for free, as open source. We went through his list from least well-known to most popular.
Obviously, MySQL, StarOffice and OpenSolaris were at the end, but the more interesting software products were those that made the attendees go "Oh, I didn't know that!". One example of this category was Lightning, a rich calendar client.
Stefan recently posted his slides into the Sun Startups blog, thanks, Stefan!
The Future of Technology in 10, 20, 30 Years and More
This was a spontaneous talk that I offered after having seen the Barcamp Munich wishlist where people asked for a session on future technology developments, their effects on society and how one can cope with it.
I took some slides from a couple of earlier talks I did a while ago on similar topics and updated it for the occasion. The updated "Future of Technology" slidedeck is in German, but if enough people are interested, I can provide a translated version as well.
We started by looking at Moore's Law as an indicator of technology development. In "The Age of Spiritual Machines", Ray Kurzweil, a well-known futurist, pointed out that this law also holds for technology prior to integrated circuits, all the way down to Charles Babbage's difference engine of the 19th century.
With that in mind, we can confidently extend Moore's Law into the future, knowing that even if traditional chip technology ceases to deliver on Moore's Law, other technologies will pick up and help us achieve even higher amounts of computing power per amount of money/space/energy. Again, Kurzweil points out that if we compare the amount of computational power that one can purchase for $1000 for a given year with the complexity of all neurons of a brain and their connections to neighbouring neurons at their typical firing frequency, then the 2020s will be an interesting decade.
Key technologies of the future will be: Genetics and Biotechnology, Robotics and Nanotechnology.
We watched a fascinating video about Molecular Visualizations of DNA (here's a longer, more complete version) that made us witnesses of DNA being replicated, right before our eyes, at a molecular level. It's amazing to see how mechanical this process looks, almost like industrial robots grinding away on ribbons of DNA, cutting pieces, replicating them, then splicing them back in. In the near future, we will see personalized medicine, based on our own DNA, and optimized for our individual needs as well as novel applications of biotechnology for clean energy, new materials and the assembly of early molecular machines.
Robotics are another fascinating area of technology and we're seeing more and more robots enter our day to day life. Industrial and military robots may be an "old hat", but did you know that today, millions of households are already using robots to vacuum their floory, mow their lawns or perform other routine work? And we will see many more robots in the future, I'm sure. Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that my Roomba robot indeed saves a lot of precious time while fulfilling my natural geeky desire for cool gadgetry.
Finally, Nanotechnology will open up a new category of advanced technology that will affect all aspects of human life, the environment and the world. We watched a vision of a future nanofactory that fits onto a common desk and is capable of manufacturing an advanced laptop with 100 hours of battery life and a billion CPUs. But nanotechnology can do much more: Highly efficient solar cells, clean water, lightweight spacecrafts, nanobots that clean up your bloodstream, more advanced versions of your organs, brain implants and extensions, virtual reality that is indistinguishable from real reality and much more.
Check out the Foresight Institute's introduction to nanotechnology for more information about this fascinating topic, including a free PDF download of K. Eric Drexler's book "Engines of Creation". Real engineers will probably want to take a look at his textbook "Nanosystems Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation"
One controversial topic when discussing the future is the Technological Singularity. This is the point in time, where artificial intelligence becomes powerful enough to create new technology on its own, thereby accelerating the advancement of technology without human intervention. A discussion of this topic can be found in Kurzweil's newest book "The Singularity is Near".
Another great way to think about the future is to read Stefan Pernar's sci-fi thriller "Jame5 - A Tale of Good and Evil". This book starts in the best Michael Crichton style and then becomes a deep and thoughtful discussion around the philosophy of the future, when mankind confronts the powers of strong AI. You can buy the book or just download the PDF for free. Highly recommended.
One of my favourite citations is said to be an old chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."
Many thanks to all the people that I met during, or attended my sessions at, Barcamp Munich 2008, it was a most interesting event.
Edit (Oct., 13th): Meanwhile, a few blog reactions are rolling in: Dirk wrote a nice summary on the Enterprise 2.0 session (in German) while Ralph summarized the Future technology session (German as well). I found them through Markus' Barcamp Munich 2008 session meta entry. Thanks to all! Also, Stefan has posted his slides from the open source talk, see above.
Edit (Oct. 14th): Here are some more notes from Stefan Freimark (in German). Thank you!
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the House of Representatives from the United States, Nancy Pelosi, said he hopes that negotiators can achieve an agreement on Saturday to the financial rescue plan by 700,000 million dollars, according to legislators, it is necessary to prevent an economic collapse.
Trackbacks - in demand: Online Degree
Reuters - Caracas (Reuters) - The Caracas Stock Exchange rebounded a 2.66 percent on Friday, pushed by a rise in the shares of the Sivensa steel, which this week announced a reduction of debt of one of its subsidiaries.
Current Alert - information: Phoenix Ancient Art
If we can get on and geolocalizar Panoramio photos, WOICE is another start-up Spanish that in this case allows us to geo echoes our own, that is, to associate any information we can count out loud so geolocalizada. As they tell us, intends to bring to light all those stories and pieces of information that can not be found in guidebooks.
And it's not for less, because we can raise our own or record online geolocalizada echoes of the form, which limits for each of our echoes is 10 minutes, but we can create our own rides, which is simply an audio guide in which grouped a series of echoes related. Moreover, in the same rides, then we can add or remove the echoes necessary.
But like any social network where they share content, in addition to having our own public profiles, WOICE also has user groups, we can create and / or join together to share skips, walks and discussion threads. Likewise, we can listen, embedded in Web sites, download mp3, bookmark, rate and review every eco published.
The license for each echo will be determined by the account settings for each user, the default copyright license, being able to choose one of the Creative Commons licenses.
To create an echo, we must first note the exact point on the map where we want to link our economy, then enter the data from our echo, including language and labels, and finally proceed to upload or record our online echo. If you already have two or more echoes created, we can create our own rides, which is a playlist of echoes for us to be more clear.
The visual aspect is completely clear, simple and relaxing, but the negative point in what we have not yet all the phrases translated into Spanish, and WOICE which supports both the Spanish and English.
If users find it useful to the social network and we use it well, it will be interesting to find stories related to specific sites, where most customers later in available for iPhone and Symbian.
Link | WOICE
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October 09, 2008
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October 07, 2008
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October 06, 2008
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October 04, 2008
i have a guy come in early morning and stick electrodes onto my lower back. he's a nice enough guy but is really, really soft-spoken.
for twenty minutes, my lumbar muscles tense rhythmically.
it's not unpleasant but it does mean i have to get up a the god-awful time of 6:30 in the morning.
"Vanish with no guile
And I will not pay
But the soul can wait
The soul can wait..."
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September 28, 2008
September 26, 2008
Eine Demokratie ist krank, wenn es eine absolute Mehrheit gibt. Eine gesunde
Demokratie hat mehrere starke Parteien und schwache Parteien (ohne
übermäßig zu zersplittern), die nur zusammen eine Regierung
bilden können. Nur so ist ein Pluralismus gewährleistet, und dass
der Normalbürger mit seinem Wahlverhalten noch Einfluss üben kann,
und nicht die "Parteioberen" alleine entscheiden was passiert.
Sein Wahlverhalten sollte man an diese Situation anpassen, und mit
beispielsweise den Freien Wählern steht ja inzwischen eine sehr
ähnlich orientierte Partei flächendeckend als Alternative zur Union
zu verfügung. Wer etwas offener für neue Ansätze und Reformen
ist, der ist aber nach wie vor besser bei den Grünen aufgehoben.
Kleine Parteien wie die ÖDP - so sympathisch sie auch sein mögen -
werden bei dieser Wahl vermutlich keine Chance haben, diesen eine Stimme zu
geben ist eher kontraproduktiv, und erreicht eigentlich nur das nominelle
Ergebniss der anderen Parteien zu reduzieren und die Wahlbeteiligung zu
verbessern. Solange aber eine andere Partei nicht gerade eben unter die 5
%-Marke rutscht ändert sich nichts am Ergebnis (d.h. das wäre eine
Stimme für "Hauptsache nicht Die Linke")
Für die Demokratie in Bayern wäre ein Ergebnis wie CSU 40%, SPD 20%,
Grüne 12%, Freie Wähler 11%, FDP 10%, Sonstige zusammen 7% ganz
realistisch und wünschenswert.
Dazu brächten wir nur ein paar mehr Wähler für die kleinen
Parteien. Sucht euch eine aus, es ist für jeden etwas dabei!
[Disclaimer: Ich bin Mitglied bei den Grünen in Bayern.]
September 25, 2008
Jane - September 25, 2008 - 20:38
It's Thursday night and there's another Nor'easter ripping up the Coast so Chris' flight is delayed again and I am feeling low. Let's just hope he gets home tonight. We miss him.
Interesting article in Slate
