Netizen

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

To Natural User Interface

3d Fantasy Yellow House made with 3D Studio Max

Technology Review: Microsoft's 3-D Strategy: Microsoft has joined the wave of companies betting that 3-D is the next big thing for computing. .... treating the device as a natural extension of how they interact with the world around them. ..... have people shopping and searching in 3-D as well. .... move computing from today's graphical user interfaces to the "natural user interface" ..... gesture and voice .... a natural interface frees up attention and concentration so that they can focus better on the task at hand .... processing high-definition, 3-D video in real time would strain the capabilities of most home computers today .... the average person views 3-D technology as something used on special occasions, not as a day-to-day technology

The graphical user interface itself was a huge jump. Before that you had to enter exotic commands into your machine. The natural user interface - or 3D computing - promises to be a similar big jump, comparatively a bigger jump.

Just like a big chunk of humanity never bothered with landlines and went straight to mobile phones, I can see the same thing happening with the natural user interface. The natural user interface could end up the majority of humanity's first introduction to the full fledged computing experience.

A computer is not a tool. Computing is an environment.

eMarketer: Email Still Tops Facebook for Keeping in Touch: 86% of survey respondents said they used email to share content, while just 49% said they used Facebook ..... ages 18 to 24, reverses the trend, with 76% sharing via Facebook, compared with 70% via email. .... Rather than focusing on sharing content they thought the recipients would find helpful or relevant (58%), most respondents cared more about what they thought was interesting or amusing (72%).

Technology Review: Craig Mundie's Cloud Vision: cloud computing--the trend shifting computer processing and storage away from desktop computers and onto distributed computers across the Internet. .... Traditional procedural programming languages tend to mask or in fact squeeze out the inherent parallelism in many problems just as a byproduct of the structure of the languages. How you get programs to be correct at larger and larger scales across this distributed concurrent environment is another problem. ...... "Look, I just expect to be able to listen to my music no matter what device I happen to pick up." .... what I call this composite platform, where you've got a balanced set of roles between what you expect the cloud to provide and what you expect the clients to provide themselves.

The 2010s Belong To New York City

In tech, the 2010s belong to New York City, the way the late 1990s belonged to Silicon Valley. New York City has a good start. The 2010s belong to the mobile web, or at least the first half clearly does. And the mobile web - unlike the big screen web, which itself is a pretty global phenomenon - is the most global of phenomena. And New York City is the most global of cities. NYC has a geographical advantage.

Did New York City Just Buy TechCrunch? I Think We Did
Microsoft-Oracle: Unlikely Alliance Against Android
Fred Wilson: A Tale Of Two Cities

That is not me discounting nanotech. Nanotechnology swept the Nobel prizes this year. That should tell you. If you could find the right nano startups to invest in right now, you could be looking at some astronomical returns in a decade, but it is not easy to pick winners. Much activity ends up being froth.

An IP Address For Your Heart

When it comes to web technology, this coming decade I think belongs to New York City.

Broadway show billboards at the corner of 7th ...

Image via Wikipedia
The Valley has matured. Let them build hardware and data centers. Let them do search. But then Google is a bi-coastal company. A lot of people don't realize the size of Google's presence in New York City. They have rented out an entire block. Some day I am going to go check it out.

This is not me discounting clean tech. It is my firm belief America could see a second industrial revolution based on clean tech. This is not me discounting biotech either. But then NYC could do nano, clean and bio as good as anyone else too. Thanks to the subway, we already are one of the lower carbon emission cities in the country. And we stand to benefit from Google Wind.

Offshoring The Wind Harvesting: Google Wind

A Sophisticated Like Button

ReadWriteWeb: I Like to Dislike! Facebook Introduces Comment Voting, Threads: now allows users to up- and down-vote other comments ..... comments are not only threaded, meaning each user can reply directly to another user, but more information is shown on each person, including their job and company, or network, and their comment record. The system also allows for up- and down-voting ..... Each comment begins with one point and a vote up or down raises or lowers that rating by a point. .... your comment stays at the top, so you can manage your comment and conversation ..... the move certainly encroaches on the territory of commenting systems like Disqus, Echo and Intense Debate. .... with more active posts rising to the top and negating the usual newest to oldest order. Allowing users to vote on posts and on individual comments could really alter the entire dynamic of Facebook.

It was only a matter of time. I knew something like this was bound to happen. The like button was going to be more sophisticated. And it is getting there. The open graph just became more useful. Facebook comments just became more useful. Now it has become more possible to navigate updates that might collect hundreds of comments. This is called scaling.

The Facebook Blog: More Ways to Stay Secure: If you have any concerns about security of the computer you're using while accessing Facebook, we can text you a one-time password to use instead of your regular password. ..... Simply text "otp" to 32665 on your mobile phone (U.S. only), and you'll immediately receive a password that can be used only once and expires in 20 minutes. ..... the ability to sign out of Facebook remotely

Millions And Millions

Image representing Steven Carpenter as depicte...

Image via CrunchBaseSteven Carpenter

TC Teardown: 13 Ways To Get To $10 Million In Revenues (Part I)

cheap to start but expensive to achieve scale

TC Teardown: 13 Ways To Get To $10 Million In Revenues (Part II)

media, paid service, and physical commerce ..... search, gaming, social networks, and new media ..... marketplace, video, commerce, retail, subscription, music, lead generation, hardware and payments ..... Video ad rates are typically amongst the highest in online media ($15-$20 CPM) ..... audio ads are not actionable, and display ads often get ignored (music apps tend to stay open in a browser tab in the background). ..... we will see an explosion of innovative hardware companies over the next few years

Steven Carpenter has done a good job of demystifying here, perhaps too good a job. I think the money is in the mystery. A business is much more than the sum of its parts. And there is that creative part, the human element to the sauce. Each startup really is unique, although it is perfectly plausible for a Steven Carpenter to come along and box them up into a few swift categories.

"It can be done over and over again," Sam Walton said. He was talking about reinventing retailing, of course.

Offshoring The Wind Harvesting: Google Wind

Image via Wikipedia

Christian Science Monitor: Will Google wind power project harm wildlife? Depends on location.: The mid-Atlantic venture would position wind turbines at least 12 to 15 miles offshore, which means they would not be easily visible from land. ..... 6,000 megawatts .... equivalent to five nuclear power plants .... “It is so much better than each of the wind generators building their own transmission lines all over the seabed.”

Nokia did not start out a cellphone company. Nokia as a company has gone through many incarnations, in fact so many that its founders will not be able to recognize the Nokia of today. Google might have started out as a search engine, but these forays far and wide are welcome. This not only makes corporate sense, but this is also Google being a good citizen. This is Google turning Don't Be Evil into an active verb.

Wall Street Journal: Google’s Wind Project Got Lift From Vail Ski Trip: a planned giant wind farm designed to run 350 miles along the Eastern seaboard .... laying undersea cables to connect the wind turbines to electrical grids on land ..... 1,200 to 2,000 wind turbines

Google Earth. Google TV. Google Car. Google Wind. I say bring it on.

Google Blog: The wind cries transmission: offers a solid financial return ..... both good business and good for the environment ..... equivalent to 60% of the wind energy that was installed in the entire country last year ..... superhighway for clean energy. .... stronger and steadier winds offshore. .... Mid-Atlantic region ..... offers more than 60,000 MW of offshore wind potential in relatively shallow waters that extend miles out to sea. .....

Marissa Mayer: Location, Local

Over the years Marissa Mayer has been more visible than Google's two founders. She is a delight. She wears the rare top female engineer hat effortlessly, cheerfully. But this move is not just about one person, however visible, or one company, however big, even as big as Google.

Bloomberg: Google Executive Marissa Mayer Takes New Role in Location, Local Services: “Marissa has made an amazing contribution on search over the last decade, and we’re excited about her input in this new area in the decade ahead,” the company said.

Location is hot and heavy. Local is hot and heavy. Ends up most people don't travel. The local is important. The here and now is important. Guess what, the here and now is important also to those who do travel.

The coming years belong to the smartphone, and there location is the starting point of the experience. And what is location about but local bars and eateries and the like?

Microsoft-Oracle: Unlikely Alliance Against Android

Image by Oracle_Photos_Screenshots via FlickrPutting My Money On Larry Ellison
Microsoft: Android Cry Baby

Larry Ellison never saw the free browser as a threat. The browser allowed people to access his database software directly from the web. The web interface was good. And it is not like he is about to get into the smartphone market, unless he is just trying to help out his best friend Steve Jobs, but that would be taking friendship a little too far. Maybe the smartphone is yet another way for people to access database software. I think that should be the thought.

JavaWorld: Last Google Glassfish Post: defeat Microsoft everywhere, they are reeling .....Android momentum will stall, unless Google engages with Oracle around Java, never has their interests more closely aligned, and the fight over mobile Java is a secondary still to enterprise java, for everyone other than Microsoft, so why fight among family, which is what is going on with the lawsuit around Android, but it can change, and both companies definitely need to reach out to each other, and stop giving Microsoft breathing room to stay alive

How long before Google and Oracle can no longer stay out of each other's ways? Great Recession fueled cheap money is making it possible for a lot of the behemoths to borrow and buy, looks like.

This is partly Larry Ellison making it loud and clear that he just bought Sun and so Java is now his stuff. But there is so much suing going on, people who stay skeptical of software patents seem to be making much sense right about now. It is so easy to step on each other's feet with software.

Obviously I have not gone to the technical bottom of these legal wranglings but I think at some level it is obvious all the tall companies are not going the innovation and the market forces route. Instead they are suing each other. Maybe that is what consolidation means. But one wishes the word still were innovation.

This mess is not looking good, not good at all. The smartphone needs to explode. It should not be snuffed out. The smartphone is a paradigm shift just like the PC was a paradigm shift. The smartphone is a bigger paradigm shift than the PC was. The big players of the PC era should not think of the smartphone as an afterthought. The smartphone is about to become the center of the computing universe.

I hope all the lawsuits cancel each other out and the companies get back to work.

Google and Oracle talking would be a good idea. Let's jaw, not war.

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Will Android come out black and blue after Oracle deal with Big Blue? Plus more Oracle vs. HP: In the previous episode of the Oracle-Google fight, Google last week had asked a judge to throw out Oracle’s lawsuit, filed in August, which alleges that Android is infringing on patents related to Java. That’s not the case, Google said, as expected, and also called Oracle hypocritical. In the latest related development, Oracle and rival IBM yesterday announced that they had reached an agreement that would shift Big Blue’s Java development from the Apache Harmony platform to OpenJDK, which is Oracle’s platform. Because the Android OS is based on Java built on the Apache platform, InfoWorld says the Oracle-IBM deal could undermine Android and force Google to throw resources at Apache.

Appolicious: The smartphone wars enter the courtroom: Motorola last week shot across Apple’s bow with three patent infringement suits .... the growing patent infringement derby. ..... Motorola has accused Apple of violating 18 patents. Motorola claims that Apple has infringed on its patents with the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and some Mac computers. ..... “revenge time” for Motorola, the inventor of mobile phones, which has taken a drubbing at the hands of latecomer Apple ..... Horacio Gutiérrez, Microsoft’s chief intellectual property lawyer, as saying the spate of actions is a result of the collision of the cellphone and computing worlds. .... “Apple faces a lawsuit from Nokia over its iPhone technology and has taken legal action of its own against the Finnish cellphone maker. Apple is also part of a wider legal challenge to Google’s Android smartphone operating system, having filed a lawsuit against handset maker HTC over its use of the software. That echoes Microsoft’s action against Motorola over its use of Android software and Oracle’s action against Google over the alleged use of its Java technology in Android.” ... the thicket of lawsuits could slow the development of the smartphone business
Windows Phone 7 offers nothing wonderful to consumers: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 should prove to be about as appealing to consumers as, say, John Deere sports cars.

New York Times: Oracle and I.B.M. Agree to Java Pact: The accord covers the Java software typically used in everything from data centers to Web programs. But it does not extend to the set of smaller Java tools used in cellphones and other mobile devices. .... Oracle’s dispute with Google casts shadows over Java’s future in general. For example, Google, Mr. Lea said, has more people working on OpenJDK projects than Oracle, and the lawsuit restricts communications between the litigating parties. .... “By far the most eyes are still on the Android issue,” Mr. Lea said. “Oracle and Google have to start communicating with each other.”

Smart Cars Should Talk To Each Other

Image via WikipediaRobert Scoble's Not Google Car
Self Driving Google Car

Never mind that this might materialize towards the end of the decade and not any time soon, but I had an idea. Cars that drive themselves are not good enough. They should be able to talk to each other. You should be able to set your journey and have your car talk to other cars to form trains along the highway. So if you are programming your car to take you on a 10 hour ride on the freeway, other cars also going the same length and your car should be able to form a train in the middle lane, perhaps 10 cars per train. And of course this would be an intelligent train. It would be seeing the non train cars and keeping watch on them. The train will do what it takes to avoid accidents, up to and including breaking up. And if only all those cars are 100% electric, we will have solved a major, major problem. 100% electric cars by the end of the decade is not that ambitious.

Software just got wheels. Or perhaps it is the other way round.

You know what would be even better? 100% electric bullet trains that move at perhaps 500 miles per hour. Or even 300. Trains are way more efficient than cars. If you could have such train service that connect all major cities, and have metro trains inside all cities, that still leaves room for 100% electric taxi cabs. And rental cars. And even cars. But I think the heavy lifting should be for trains.

How about people work to design smart trains? What would be your idea of a smart train?

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Etsy, GroupOn, Zynga

Image representing Zynga as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase
Steven Carpenter

On Etsy

While eBay saw its marketplace growth stagnate at just over $1 billion a quarter, I see several areas Etsy must optimize just to pass $100 million in business

On GroupOn

No other startup has gone more quickly from launch to $1 billion+ in valuation except YouTube (12 months), which Groupon achieved in 16 months .... Groupon is achieving considerable revenue growth across all measures: more customers, higher deal prices, and rapidly expanding markets. ..... makes its model highly attractive (hence, every week seems to bring new copycats). .... Groupon gets more of its traffic from Facebook than any other site, including Google ...... the company does not hold any physical inventory and its customer acquisition costs are so low. ..... Groupon has raised a total of $171 million to-date, employs more than 200 people, and serves 52 markets. Its next biggest competitor, LivingSocial, has raised $49 million, employs about 50 people, and serves 14 markets. .... Groupon is far ahead. The data suggests that Groupon is not yet feeling the impact of all the new entrants. ..... There is no reason to believe that this concept couldn’t be extended to virtually any category or service provider.

On Zynga

Like YouTube, Twitter, and Groupon, social gaming pioneer, Zynga is a member of the “fastest from founding to $1B valuation” club, having earned its membership in just 19 months. .... over half of Facebook users are playing Zynga’s games .... Farmville alone now attracts over 100 million unique users per month, just 10 months after it launched. ..... PayPal said last week that Zynga is now its 2nd largest customer by volume ..... “Zynga Nation” ...... the beneficiary of a once-in-a-decade tectonic shift in the Internet landscape. ..... Zynga accounts for 31% of all active applications on Facebook, more than 2 times Facebook’s own apps ..... The company also continues to sit on a warchest of its largely unspent $219 million in venture capital that it was able to raise because of its rapid success. ..... Zynga’s incredible hockey stick growth of the past 2 years appears to have come to an end .... Games are the No. 1 application in the Apple App Store. Collectively mobile games are a $3B+ a year business

These three companies, especially Zynga and GroupOn, have grown very, very rapidly. Their rise has been dizzying. I have a feeling we will see more and more rapid rise companies. So when I ask, which is the next Zynga, I am not necessarily talking of the social gaming space. Actually, I am not. I am asking, what could be that next space that will create that next rapid rise company?

A lot of the action is moving to the mobile web space.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Grrls In Tech Wednesday: Facebook Writer

His events mailing list is the best thing Charlie O'Donnell ever did, I think. This video below is from when Charlie was young. Word is he was pretty awesome back in the days.

So today I open up my email from being on Charlie's list, and one event pops out more than any other.

Wednesday, October 13th

6:30PM Girls in Tech NYC presents a Live Interview with David Kirkpatrick, Author of The Facebook Effect

Like with all of the best events on Charlie's list, this one was full too. So I wrote to the organizer. Felicia Moeis wrote back. I got to sign up. I get to show up.

This was my pitch to her.

Would really like to come to your event Wednesday. Promise to blog about it. http://technbiz.blogspot.com/ You will get exposure.

Women Are Better
To Make Sense Of The Facebook Movie

Women Are Better

Girls In Tech: Is it really the end of men?: Everyday I sit in my office with “the boys,” a group of incredibly talented, hardworking male engineers .... I was shocked when one of them turned to me and said, “apparently I am outdated, inefficient and soon to be obsolete.” .... while men do in fact make up most of the presidents, prime ministers, CEOs of major corporations, and so forth, men also make up most of the prisoners, homeless people and casualties of war as well..... today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men, which means it’s likely that throughout the history of the world 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced ..... Those that were successful in differentiating themselves were aggressive risk takers ..... society associates women with being lovable; more empathetic, better consensus-seekers and lateral thinkers,bringing a superior moral sensibility to the cutthroat business world. Men are called risk takers, competitive, aggressive, shallow. ...... Given the choice between someone who tells me what to do and someone who asks my opinion, I would choose the latter. ..... modern, post-industrial society no longer favors the risk takers. ..... For both mental retardation and genius, as you go from mild to medium to extreme, the number of males versus females grows larger. ..... Want to think men are better than women? Then look at the top, the heroes, the inventors, the philanthropists, and so on. Want to think women are better than men? Then look at the bottom, the criminals, the junkies, the losers. ...... only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, but women also only make up 7% of the people who are killed on the job ...... women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. .... I still want to see more women in technology, as Fortune 500 CEOs and holding political office.

Women have so far to go globally to achieve equality, let alone dominance, that this talk is amusing to me. I hope the thesis is right. Female leadership is not a bad idea. It will be good for men too.

Equality is a political concept, it is not biology, not genetics. A post-industrial, knowledge based society will be equal. I hope so. Women have always had brains. Now they have the opportunity to use it. That's all.

This small news of small, slow progress could end up being fodder to defensive men. Got to watch out.

The Atlantic: Hannah Rosin: The End of Men: Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? ..... Men in ancient Greece tied off their left testicle in an effort to produce male heirs ...... “Did male dominance exist? Of course it existed. But it seems to be gone now. And the era of the firstborn son is totally gone.” ..... for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed...... As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success ..... Postgenocide Rwanda elected to heal itself by becoming the first country with a majority of women in parliament. ..... what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women? ..... the wreckage of the Great Recession, in which three-quarters of the 8 million jobs lost were lost by men. The worst-hit industries were overwhelmingly male and deeply identified with macho: construction, manufacturing, high finance ..... . Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two are occupied primarily by women ..... social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus ..... Last year, Iceland elected Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of state, who campaigned explicitly against the male elite she claimed had destroyed the nation’s banking system, and who vowed to end the “age of testosterone.” ...... in the long view, the modern economy is becoming a place where women hold the cards. ..... at the bachelors’ ball, the men, self-conscious about their diminished status, stand stiffly, their hands by their sides, as the women twirl away. ...... What are the four kinds of paternal authority? Moral, emotional, social, and physical. “But you ain’t none of those in that house. All you are is a paycheck, and now you ain’t even that. And if you try to exercise your authority, she’ll call 911. How does that make you feel? You’re supposed to be the authority, and she says, ‘Get out of the house, bitch.’ She’s calling you ‘bitch’!” ...... He writes on the board: $85,000. “This is her salary.” Then: $12,000. “This is your salary. Who’s the damn man? Who’s the man now?” A murmur rises. “That’s right. She’s the man.” ...... men seem “fixed in cultural aspic.” ..... About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast. A white-collar economy values raw intellectual horsepower, which men and women have in equal amounts. ..... Prominent female CEOs, past and present, are so rare that they count as minor celebrities ..... the term mommy track is slowly morphing into the gender-neutral flex time ....... In lab studies that simulate negotiations, men and women are just about equally assertive and competitive ..... the relationship between testosterone and excessive risk, and wondering if groups of men, in some basic hormonal way, spur each other to make reckless decisions. ...... men and markets on the side of the irrational and overemotional, and women on the side of the cool and levelheaded. ....... sensitive leadership and social intelligence, including better reading of facial expressions and body language ....... Firms that had women in top positions performed better, and this was especially true if the firm pursued what the researchers called an “innovation intensive strategy,” in which, they argued, “creativity and collaboration may be especially important”—an apt description of the future economy. ....... Firms that had women in top positions performed better, and this was especially true if the firm pursued what the researchers called an “innovation intensive strategy,” in which, they argued, “creativity and collaboration may be especially important”—an apt description of the future economy ..... America’s colleges and professional schools, where a quiet revolution is under way ..... men are now more likely than women to hold only a high-school diploma ..... they are just failing to adapt.” ....... the “open secret” that private schools “are discriminating in admissions in order to maintain what they regard as an appropriate gender balance.” ...... “Maybe these boys are genetically like canaries in a coal mine, absorbing so many toxins and bad things in the environment that their DNA is shifting. Maybe they’re like those frogs—they’re more vulnerable or something, so they’ve gotten deformed.” ...... schools, like the economy, now value the self-control, focus, and verbal aptitude that seem to come more easily to young girls. ...... s how much power women have” when they’re not bound by marriage. .... “The family changes over the past four decades have been bad for men and bad for kids, but it’s not clear they are bad for women” ...... marriage has disappeared because women are setting the terms—and setting them too high for the men around them to reach ...... Japan is in a national panic over the rise of the “herbivores,” the cohort of young men who are rejecting the hard-drinking salaryman life of their fathers and are instead gardening, organizing dessert parties, acting cartoonishly feminine, and declining to have sex. The generational young-women counterparts are known in Japan as the “carnivores,” or sometimes the “hunters.” ...... This often-unemployed, romantically challenged loser can show up as a perpetual adolescent ..... Rates of violence committed by middle-aged women have skyrocketed since the 1980s

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Wide Eyes: Local Natives

(Via Fred Wilson)

Stuxnet And The Confounded Mullahs

Image via Wikipedia

New Scientist: Stuxnet: the online front line: Stuxnet, the computer worm running rampant in Iran's nuclear facilities ..... a few lines of malicious computer code can trip electricity grids, burn out power-station generators, pollute water supplies and sabotage gas pipelines. ....... Where regular worms merely infect computer systems, stuxnet can reach out into the physical world. It uses vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows to give an attacker remote control of the specialised factory-floor computers used to control industrial processes. ..... The worm can allow attackers to run motors so fast they burn out, to turn off alarms and safety cut-offs, open effluent valves and activate pumps - in other words, carry out industrial sabotage and skulduggery on a massive scale.

Unless we have some high tech mullahs in Iran, my guess is they are one confounded crowd. As to the origins of stuxnet, your guess is as good as mine. It is possible this has been the work of the Pentagon, like the Iranian regime has been claiming, possibly even the work of Israel, but I doubt that. Biblical references in malicious code do not prove the worm is Israel's work. It is very possible some teenager cowboys, either in Israel or America, and as much likely elsewhere, took it upto themselves to tickle the Iranian regime a little.

Whoever might be behind this, and we might not even know, very likely, this stunt has rattled the mullahs like threats of economic sanctions have not so far.

When they start arresting "spies" is when you know they got it all wrong. That is a symptom of being confounded. Obviously you do not have to be inside of Iran to pull this stunt. That is the whole point of cyber attacks.

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

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