Things I want in 2011

New year brings freshness, excitement, energy and also expectations. Here are a handful of things I hope 2011 brings for me. These are not predictions by any means, just some wishful thinking on my part enroute to India.

Broadband Anywhere We pay for broadband access many times over. Wired broadband at home, 3G/4G for smart phones. And increasingly on device specific plans, monthly (as in ipad) or part of the device (as in kindle). If you own multiple connected devices, chances are you also are paying multiple carriers for same internet access sliced and diced differently. I hope in 2011 carriers come out with unlimited internet access plans with no restrictions that work everywhere, or any device of my choosing.

Digital wallet Our smart phones are becoming smarter with each revision. I hope in 2011 they take over our wallet. I recently lost my physical wallet and had to go through the pain of individually calling the various card providers and then waiting for a physical replacement to arrive in mail. I hope smart phones become smart enough to replace a physical wallet. Upcoming technologies like NFC, or Pay-by-sms are promising steps in that direction. Phones should be able to allow me to complete a transactions via a payment method of my choice (via secure pin, phrase, finger print recognition etc) and let me remote wipe it, if I were to loose a phone (and thus the digital wallet). This Idea can be extended to other physical cards typically carried in a wallet i.e. membership cards, passes etc. I hope in 2011 smart phones get rid of my wallet

Video on demand 2010 was a year where a myriad of devices struggled to get video on demand to our TV sets. I believe a large number of people are waiting for a true video solution in order to get rid of their cable/satelite TV. Google TV, Roku, Boxee, Apple TV are just a few players. They all are struggling to sign up enough content from the various content producers to make video on demand an viable alternative. I think technology is there and it is waiting for a business model/plan to make it work. I hope in 2011, the players in this space get together to give us a true video on demand, where I can watch what I want, when I want for an decent price - iTunes for Video.

Death of CD We all thought CD was dead. Apple even told us so [TBD]. But wait, why did I buy handfull of them just in a last few weeks ? Game Consoles rely heavily on CDs for their games to prevent piracy. Most of my games are kid oriented. kids and cds dont go togather, I am always worried about cds getting scratched and unplayable. I hope with Kinect, Move & Wii focusing on more kid oriented games, an kid friendly alternative to CD is developed in 2011. That will save me some yelling.

Try-before-you-buy-apps Not sure if apple realizes, but in my opinion the biggest obstecle to an even more widespeard use of apps is lack of “try before you buy”. I hope in 201l, the appstores come out with an innovative way to let us try apps, before we acutually purchase them. They can just hold charging the card for a day or so. I know, I would definitely buy a lot for apps, both for me and my kids if I could experience the functionality before making a commitment. Like dating before you pop the question ;)

What does the techie inside you want in 2011. Post your thoughts in comments :)

10 significant tech tends of 2010

As this year comes I started to wonder about the tech trends that have affected me personally. There are quite a few and I decided to pen 10 of them down. here they are in no particular order.

Cloud Sun had been saying for years network is the computer. Google continues to convince us of moving to cloud by “assembling” google documents as a credible alternative to office. But its only now that cloud is showing signs of coming of age. The rise of smart phones and apps has led to radical shift in the way software is architected. Instead of thinking of applications as client/server or as a 3 tier systems, we have started thinking of them as set of cloud based services that can be accessed from anywhere: web, smart phones, tablets, PCs etc. They continue to work when offline and magically sync back once online. dropbox evernote two apps I love the most and use regularly on various devices are perfect examples of such apps.

iPad I don’t own ipad yet but lust after one. Its a game changer. It is single handedly killing the netbooks. Ipad’s sucess has beeline of vendors touting their android netbooks. Msft will attempt to re-peddle its tablets too. Like iphone reinvented the smart phones, Ipad reinvented the tablets. It has encouraged us techies to think about form along with the function. also, if they complete its ok to drop the function in order to keep the form. This usualu goes against our engineering acumen, but iPad proves it by doing less than otehr tablets, but doing is extremely well. I am looking forward to see how the tablets evolve in 2011

Developers,Developers,Developers 2010 was a great year to be a developer. Success of apple app store and its reimplementation by almost every other platform is very exciting to an individual developer. It is nice to feel wanted for a change :) The app phenomenon can and will turn the life around for many a developers. We just need a strong passion, lots a caffeine and a strong belief (and may be a understanding spouse ;), almost all tools needed to be an app developer are very affordable or available for free. Also, social media makes a good product take off virally.

Andorid is rising up fast. It is showing a lot of promise. Almost every single manufacturer has an android offering or will shortly. Andorid is being used in almost every major consumer electronic appliance: phones, tablet, tvs, stbs etc. Android will surely become the “windows” of the consumer device market and thus it will become increasingly hard to avoid it. Android definitely provides healthy alternative to iOS. It will be interesting to see how the eternal open vs close battle plays out. I think technically they both are about the same and there is a place for both of them.

Location based services will increasingly become popular. Rise of the “checkin” based services like 4square, gowalla, facebook places, and location tracking apps like latitude and loopt are constantlt evolving. Slowly these apps will become commercialized with vendors offering e-coupons or other forms of incentives. This combined with social element, local content providers and crowd sourced reviewes/recommendation will make location based apps increasingly popular. I think gps enabled mobile devices & location based apps form a very symbiotic relationship and if traditional gps providers don’t do something soon, everybody else will eat their lunch.

HTML5 is a crowned prince of the internet, its just waiting for flash to die before it can take its rightful place on the net. Flash is being kept alive by the community to differentiate themselves from the iOS (so they can have an extra checkbox). Its been proven again and again that there is some truth to Steve’s rant. Mobile devices are defining the landscape of tomm, they need battery life and reliability (no bosd). Any technology that can provide that will be the king, and others will die off. HTML5 is a step in that direction. Its still premature to write a flash eulogy. I just hope in 2011 html5 becomes the platform on which web development is based on.

Family Gaming is another welcome development of 2010. Microsoft & Sony one upped nintendo by releasing kinect & move. They both seem to be family oriented gaming platform with a large variety of “E” rated games. They are definitely fun to play with. I think they will make parties more interesting and may be will bring back the family game night :)

3D TVs tried to make a big splash this year, riding on the avatar wave. They still might have a ways to go. I personally don’t seem to be interested in watching regular TV fare in 3d. It might have some potential in games. 3D Kinect game does sound very appealing to me

Google TV made a big splash with some marquee manufactures behind it. The major networks were quick to pull the rug. Video still remains a tough nut to crack, thus there is still time where apple/google tvs, or services like roku/boxee become mainstream.

Sun being acquired by oracle might have a major implications on tech industry. Oracle is slowing either closing down or significantly altering the open source technology landscape that blossomed under Sun. There already have been lawsuits flying with oracle & google for use of Java as part of android platform. I just hope these technologies continue to thrive elsewhere and continue to fuel the tech startup industry

These are a few things that caught my attention in 2010, I am looking fwd to what 2011 will bring to us. Its really a exciting time to be part if the tech industry

Is Ad-Blocking unethical ?

I Hate Ads. Both on TV and online. There are 5 main reason I hate online ads.

1. Ads slow my browsing experience. Significant number online ads are use rich media (google text ads are notable exception) and thus take up a significant bandwidth on an page. Its unacceptable to me that ads slow my browsing experience, even more when I am browsing for text (like news sites or blogs), or researching something online. See Venturebeat study.

2. Ads are a battery drain Its been proven that flash drains battery a lot faster. Significant number of non text ads are in flash, and I don’t want them draining my precious battery. See Ars Technica study.

3. Ads are a bandwidth hog. We now live in era of tiered mobile data plan. We tether our computers to our smart phones, browsing via our mobile data plans. I want to maximize my browsing experience by seeing the content I am interested in, and do not want ads taking a bite out of our data plans.

4. Ads compromise my privacy. Quite a few ads plant tracking cookies. I hate being tracked online, as much as you would if you were tracked in real life. see this article

5. Ads profile me. Most ads I see are totally irrelevant, or profile me. They tend to be just white noise that I would rather not have. Look at this Wall Street Journal study.

All first tier web browsers have very effective ad blocking plugins (chome, firefox, safari ). These plugins are smart enough to prevent the browsers from downloading the section of the websites that looks like an “ad”, they use variety of heuristics to do this - they look at the size of the image, the source of the image, placement of the image etc to determine that. By blocking Ads they promise a faster, more secure online browsing experience, a longer battery life and saving on the data plan. All this for free. Also the ad blocking plugins preserve the site layout, and thus they do not compromise the content. I use ad blocks on all my browsers. It is the usually the first plugin I install. In fact, I don’t even upgrade to a newer version of the browser if the ad blockers are not available.

While the venture capital industry is crediting with fueling the tech startups, the Ad industry is truly responsible for keeping them alive. Most startups depend heavily on Ads as a revenue source. I do understand the online rule : If you do not pay for your product, you ARE the product. And I do not want to pay for stuff. So per the law I need to give up my privacy and let the site productize me, or I compromise my browsing experience by viewing ads. Hence my ethical dilemma. I don’t want to pay of stuff online. I don’t want to watch ads (which indirectly pay for my online stuff). This means I essentially want to consume my online services for free. Is this analogous to shop lifting ? Am I being unethical by blocking ads and disallowing the potential revenue the site could have made ?

I think the ad industry needs to innovate. They need to make sure that the ads are not a nuisance.

1. They are not heavy (the ads should not increase the bandwidth usage/download time by say 5 to 10% of the actual content).
2. They don't use technologies that are detrimental (flash).
3. They should not track me, if I don't want to.

I think Ad industry is taking a right step with Open data alliance. Hopefully they will figure out a way so I can live with ads, and do not feel like a shop lifter when I am browsing.

A non gamers perspective on the Gaming consoles

Recently I got xbox360 kinect bundle. It was the appeal of Kinect that drove me to buy xbox. I also own ps3 and wii even though I am not a gamer. I have only played family games. Recently quite a few of my non-gamer friends have asked me about how these consoles differ, hence this post.

Wii has established itself firmly as an non-gamer console of choice. It probably has the largest collection of the Family Friendly “E” rated games. Wii also has a extremely low learning curve. It allows grandparents to play side by side with their grandkids and have fun! It is a great way to have a fun filled family night. *Wii Fit * is a must have, It puts fun back in the exercise. It actually makes you want to do exercise.

Few things that I did not like about Wii are that it does not do HD. I have a big screen HD TV, and I hated seeing crappy graphics on it, so Wii has been relegated to the basement “play room”, where my kids can enjoy it with their buddies on an older CRT. We have two Wii controls which get shared during group play dates. It usually becomes hassle to keep reminding kind to use the wrist band. and we have had our fair share of wii remote becoming a projectile tossed around the room.

PS3 has been a premier gaming console. I have not bought the new move so my review is of console only. I essentially got PS3 because of things it could do outside of gaming. I was looking for a cheap bluray player last year and PS3 was the cheapest and best bluray player. It is wifi ready, connects to internet, and does does DLNA. It comes with sufficient storage. We use it to view movies over net, watch dvds (it upconverts), bluray and to share pics/home videos via DLNA. PS3 does great hi-def and is 3D ready. Being able to watch online movies on big screen via ps3 is huge as most Bollywood movies are available online and I don’t have to run around to try to rent it.

Unfortunately PS3 is not casual gamer friendly, maybe move will change that, but having a physical control to gesture with, is just projectile waiting to smash your TV.

Xbox w/ Kinect Xbox with Kinect is a game changer. Its the newest kid on the block, thus, there are are just a few games. Xbox/Kinect has all the signs of being the console that rules the causal gaming and your coffee table will be the collateral damage. Kinect makes you move your whole body, making you jump, kick, wave, dodge and gesture with your hands, giving you a full body exercise. You will ache in places you never knew existed. Its very intuitive to use and is fast and amazingly good. It also makes a great party gadget, guests can joining and leave seamlessly. No controller to exchange. It is also a lot of fun to just to watch people play. Old and young play it alike. Couch potatoes will also have an urge to stand up and join in.

Although, Xbox does Hidef, it can’t play bluray disks. Also, for some inexplicable reason, MSFT changes monthly fee for online access (via xbox live). For me it means I cannot use netflix, facebook and other online features. Xbox doesnt have a browser, so cannont watch stuff online (like you can with PS3). You are stuck whats supported by xbox live and have to pay for it. I have not tried DLNA, but it seems to be limited to MSFT Media center.

My dream console would have been PS3 with Kinect. Sigh. Kinect will definitely dethrone Wii. Nintendo stopped innovating after Wii, and they will have to pay dearly for it. Kinect has enough appeal and geekry for it to rule the roost in my household. PS3 will still be there for its bluray and online/DLNA capabilities.

These are a few things I am thankful for

Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to think about the things around us that we usually take for granted. It gives us a moment to pause and acknowledge their impact on our daily lives. Here are a few techie things I am thankful for.

I am first an foremost thankful for innovators & entrepreneurs for continuing to fuel the immense growth in the tech industry. It feels great to be part of the tech revolution.

I am also thankful to the open source community. They continue to amaze me by continuing to evolve open source alternatives, and keeping them at par and in many cases ahead of the closed propriety system. hats off to them

I am also thankful to Social movement. Twitter helps me feel the pulse of stuff around me and facebook helps me find and keep in touch with friends and family. I could'nt image a day without either of these.

I am also thankful to Apple & “app” phenomenon fueled by the iOS devices. Rise of the “apps” has in a true sense democratized the market and eliminated the entry barrier. It puts a normal individual developers on the equal footing with a large corporation. Our apps are placed side by side and thus can now compete on features rather than the marketing/supply chain/big company infrastructure.

Finally I am thankful to apple to give us techies the wares to lust about. We had been given utilitarians pcs, phones that we used because we had to and not because we wanted to. By putting design at par with with tech has given rise to the a beautiful lust worthy gadgetry. The rest of the market is following quickly. and as they say mimicry is the best form of admiration!

You think you are a customer ? Think again

We all think of ourselves as customers of the various websites. We almost feel initialed to a free or a freemium model for sites we use. We all assume that ad-supported model works and it should be pay for usage of the sites.

As online usage continues to grow, so does the competition for online ad dollars. Thus the sites are increasingly trying to make ads more “effective” and “attractive” for the “Ad buyers”. The way this is being done is by making ads more relevant and appealing to the web surfers in hopes to get more clicks. The way these websites can make the ads more relevant to the users are by sharing the information about the users with the advertisers. this is done via cookies. WSJ recently had an interesting article about how some of well known sites use 100s of cookies each to track the browsing habits of its users.

Lets quickly review the definitions of a product and customer.

Product:  something that is marketed or sold as a commodity
customer:  one that purchases a commodity or service

This brings us to the topic of this blog post. From the website's perspective the customers are the companies that are buying ads on its sites. The product is the data that they are selling - our personal data, our profile.

In order to complete in the market place, they need to improve their product. They improve it by coming up with new and innovating ideas of collecting increasingly more and more personal data. Facebook makes an very interesting case study.

Just think about the things facebook has added over the years. We think we are the customers of facebook and these new features are added to serve us. Once we see the real customers, we see that these are pretty amazing and well thought attempts to improve the product. The very popular like button, the facebook connect, now defunct facebook beacon, share via facebook, and now facebook messages. using our personal profiles they already know where we live, went to school, work, what what we like, who we communicate with, and now what we communictae about. This will create an unparallel product for the real customer

Too much social is not a good thing

I do agree, the three things that are doing to define the coming years are : social, location and mobile commerce. Increasingly we will look to our social graph for recommendations on restaurants to eat at, movie to see, or next electronic gadget to buy. Vendors will try to lure us by customized coupons pushed to our mobile phones based on our profile, and we will buy stuff or pay our bills by our phones.

Having said that, I still think that we are not a throughbred social animal. Agreed society is a big part of life, but we are not ready for it to become our life. Me for one am not willing to give up my privacy. Also, I refuse to create multiple “avatars”/profiles of myself to please the different vendors in order to get a deal, or to present a favorable image to impress my professional colleagues.

I do believe in power of social and location powering the mobile commerce to herald the next generation of web. I hope it is done right by respecting our online privacy. The trend that I find most troubling is Give me your passwd and we will import your friends etc to our site

Increasingly I run into sites online, or apps on my mobile phone and try to lure me into giving them my userid/passwd of of my existing accounts. They claim to do that to import my friends and contact information to help jumpstart my experience on their site/application. I get the dilemma these sites are in. A normal user uses may be 4-5 sites at most on a regular basis. Most users do not have a time or a need for yet another site to be part of their daily online experience. Thus, its a huge uphill battle for the startups & importing data is a huge help. I get this.

What irks me the most is the blatant way in which they ask us for our passwords. To me its like Maitre d’ asking me to hand over all my credit card statements so he/she can suggest the best dish for me. Today most online portals that I use, contain a ton of information about me, the list of friends is a very small portion of it. I do not want to give them access to everything. Plus, unless I immediately change my password, there is nothing for them from snooping around in future. e.g I Use a ton of Google services, gmail,gtalk, google voice, google checkout, google documents, google adsense, blogspot, youtube, appengine. They all share the same password. If I give a new site my Google password, and hope they will import my Google friend list and without snooping around with everything else, now or till such time that I change my password, I am being very naive. Storage is cheap, data about users is gold mine. I am sure they want to get as much information as they can. Even if they are pure in their intensions, I cant trust the folks who actually coded or handle the data, almost everything is outsourced throughout the world, one on knows anymore where the data end up today or in future

I do believe in power of linking social networks from different sites. These startups do fill a niche. But I don’t want to give them “keys to the kingdom”. I wont trust them anymore than I would a guy on the street asking me for my Google passwd. I would give them access to data, on my terms . Things that will make me comfortable are:

1. I do not want to reveal my password to a site wishing to import data. Instead I should be able to tell google to give a onetime access to just the
   data I want to be made available to that site nothing more.
2. If I have given a access for a certain duration, I should be able to revoke that permission at any time.
3. Every time any external site does access my data based on these permission that should be logged and I should be notified, if I so choose.
4. I should be able to preview the access I have given the data that was shared any time in future.

Some of the above have been addressed by technologies such as SSO, OAuth etc. Google does support OAuth. But I find sites (including Google) to be seriously lacking at reporting. They don’t allow us to pick and choose what we want to share or notify us of what was accessed. I really don’t feel in much control when I share stuff using what is implemented.

I really hope as “social” takes the center stage and as new and upcoming sites encourage us to share more data, some of the technologies do come to our rescue and keep us in control.