Who are you

Who am I,  this question has been my friend for a long time, i have alway got different answers for this question. When i was young answer was He-Man later pilot . Some time i was an awesome friend and sometime i was a lousy student. Different age group and different answers.  i can’t figure out exactly when, but i began to ponder deeper on this.

Your life is a search, you have to keep seeking.

Who am I.
Whatever the time but answer to this question was never satisfactory , alway like a thin disguise over something but what ? it was very hard to pinpoint it. However, in the hindsight i can see this  forced me to seek the answer.  i took unto books , meditation and often met with good genuine people. But the search continues.

Who am I.
There is a lot of philosophical content available, specially in upanishads which tends to answer this, Also some of the writers who influenced me Khalil Gibran, Radhakrishnan, J Krishnamurthy , Paulo Cohelo, Ayn Rand and a lot more. but all of it was pointing to a direction. i had to explore me, find out the answer. Every time i started looking at a direction i found it leads to somewhere but not towards me. it seemed path is really long and in that walk you lose focus. You start observing things around and suddenly you are lost again.

Who am I.
Recently something got me thinking again. You are what other perceive of you, wait a minute, no. You always see yourself from others perspective. i think most of the time its people around you who define you and give meaning to you , I don’t know.. is it true?

I think its your interaction with the world around that defines you continuously, not entirely but its part of the process. I am saying this because i don’t know the answer to the question. What will happen if you are all alone in the world ? how will you define yourself who are you then?  Rightnow you are a wonderful friend but you are a lousy son , you are spiritual or religious , you are kind or maybe you are an angry person , but whatever it is, its all related to your  interaction with the society, its how others see you and in turn how you see yourself . But is it right ? or its just one aspect of you.

Who am I.

A person’s truth is so simple, that most ignore it to concentrate on what they think are deeper truths.

What is the truth, i know the sun is truth so is ocean . But what about you. You are a great friend and at the sometime you are bad lover. You are honest but at the same time you lie. You see all these are based on your interactions with the people , scenarios and perspective. There are so many perspectives to every single situation and each one  is true in its own standing. However there is one true perspective that is yours, your brain has accepted it and its is your truth. But I see a problem with that , its just a perspective and it changes as well. Its the result of conditioning of your brain that depends on your upbringing and society you live in. The truth can be simply changed by the way you accept it.

Who am I.

I don’t know,  its me who is writing this, its me who is thinking this.

Who am I.

you are what you think you are…

Who am I.

and search continues…

 

 

Internet of Things

It has been a long time since i published anything here. Life can be very busy sometimes.

One thing i learned recently is that no matter what, you can always take time out for what you love. I was looking for some interesting topics to write. These days there are many buzzwords “3D Printing”, “wearable tech(google glass, fitbit etc)”, “Big Data”,  but one thing caught my interest “Internet of Things”.

Internet of Everything is a phenomenon which assumes that everything is connected in the world. parking meter, toll booths, gas stations pumps, your TV, washing machine, your cellphone, your home, You.. The Nature of connection is not well defined but mostly its done using Internet Protocol(IP) the one thats used to connect the internet.  So what does it mean and why there is so much hype surrounding it.

What does it mean

Lets take a look at what it actually means in common language. Think of it like this, Most of the things that you use in your everyday life work independently for example your fridge or washing machine or your bathtub. the problem with this is  that you need to monitor it yourself and make decision based on that. Imagine what  happens if these things are connected and they give you the data points.

 your bathtub alerts you when water is going to overflow and you can ask it to stop. Or your fridge tells you that you are running out of milk. Suppose in a restaurant the coffee mug tells waiter how much coffee is left in the one of customers Coffee mug and its time to refill. Have you noticed that i have used word “Tell” in context of machines and non living things. how do they tell ? They do it by passing information to you, maybe through an application. in order to pass this information they will need to have some kind of sensor or chip which accumulates this information and can automatically transfer it. This concept is “Internet of things”.

 In fact few years back i was working on a project which aimed to connect and control the electrical appliance of your home form an application running on a Tablet , it was done using smart plugs which can be controlled and turned on or off from the app. 

 Why it matters

Recent study shows that Internet of things will be boosting next wave of computing . McKinsey says that connecting small device to internet will add $2.7 trillion to $ 6.2 trillion a year to global economy. Well to me this sound outrageous but i sure cant deny the importance of connected device. There are some very compelling scenario which makes you believe the importance of it.

For example right now most of the data that is processed is static. what consumer thinks, Based on what factors he makes his decision, all this data is collected at some point of time and business decision are made on this. But with IOT (internet of things) you can get that data at real time. You have sensors which can detect the buying preference of consumers at realtime and you can change the price(increase or decrease) at same time. This can increase the odds of purchase. IOT can help in increasing efficiency , productivity and making more informed decisions.

To whom it matters

Well It seems that everyone wants a pie of this cake. Biggest of them are chip manufacturers and networking gear makers.  IOT essentially works with the help of small sensors which connect with internet, Giants like Intel and Cisco have already invested in IOT. Qualcomm has already started  promoting IOT with some of their solutions.  Apart from Chip manufactures next comes Big Data analytics companies which can make sense of this vast amount of real time data and finally consumers who will be using this technology to enhance their day to day activity. 

 The real question is will be it so successful as being claimed or it will be another technology wonder relegated to sidelines.

A problem of App abundance

Recently i observed a change in my behavior, I used to browse appstore everyday in my ipad but now i hardly open it. I have 214 apps is my ipad but my usage is limited to just 5 -6 apps. Most of the apps are only used once when i downloaded them. Now i don’t have drive or patience to checkout new apps or download them.

I wonder is it only me who is facing this kind “situation” or its a common growing feeling. Recent data shows that Apple has 750,000 apps in their app store, more or less same is true for Google play. Who has the gut to browse through this entire universe of applications. Imagine this number is growing everyday. I wonder what will happen to the classic argument “This os does not have enough apps”. you know i am talking about windows phone or most recently BlackBerry 10.  But who needs 1 million apps?

A recent study by Nielsen showed that average number of apps per smartphone are increasing but average amount of time people spent on using apps has not changed much. As i told i have about 214 apps in my ipad but i use only 5, i dont have time to use any more. does anyone have? its something like Facebook, you have 500 friends but you “actually” interact with 10- 15 friends, and that’s most a human being can handle.

Its true that in between some apps become a rage like DrawSomething or Angry birds(opps i said angry birds, its still a rage but i dont understand why). Every one downloads them and then they disappear.  Its interesting that earlier to have a successful application developer has to just come up with a good idea and implementation and rest was taken care by marketplace/appstore. That was the primary reason Indie developer become interested in Apple’s app store, and Apple owes some of its success to these developers. it gave Apple a huge headstart in SmartPhone race. But now its extremely difficult to get your application noticed/downloaded. A study shows that there are only 1000 application that have at least 50,000 users in United states, rest of them are far from mainstream.

The number of applications available in an OS is considered as a  hallmark of the success, but how relevant is it today? User don’t need these many application what they need is quality applications which fulfills their needs or  applications which creates a new need!  Right now its Application overload.

I guess in future we will see new App services coming up, which will serve you the application as per your need. Like a customized App Store in your device.  Or may be a search engine of applications.

Mobile Augmented Reality

One of the advantages of having a HighEnd phones is the good quality camera that comes with it. Although I am not an avid photographer but still camera capabilities are one of the important factors in hardware. I look  upto it when purchasing a phone. Actually this makes sense also, some of the high end smartphones have very good camera, almost in category of point and shoot . Nokia is still the world leader in camera and imaging technology for mobile phones(pun intended ).

So what else this phone camera can do for you, apart from taking picture of your dog catching the Frisbee and your girlfriend showing her new dress. Well it can show you a new way of looking at things. It can enhance your view of the things by adding a new layer of information on top of it. This technology is called Augmented reality.

example of Layar AR browser.

Augmented reality have been around from a long time, it was used in flight control system and other high end systems. But with the smartphones evolving rapidly, adding more processing muscle ,24/7 data connection and as i said high-end camera. The augmented reality was waiting to happen in Mobile world. Actually it makes sense as well, there are so many interesting and useful things that can be done using AR on mobile. From whatever experience i have on this, i am very impressed. if we talk about AR as technology it simply uses the Camera Preview and overlay lots of virtual information on top of it , creating a virtual and enhanced view of the reality. For example you are standing on a street and you see just shops and lots of people in that street , now you uses the AR app and point your camera phone to same street, Everything is still there but now you see which shops are having sale and which restaurant are offering discount, All this is information is overlayed in the camera preview, its like watching a magic globe.

Currently Android OS is the having most AR solutions/libraries available followed by Iphone and then windows phone 7, Recently Qualcomm released it AR sdk for Android phones and its a really big breakthrough in bringing mainstream developers to AR domain, This sdk allows you to create AR apps by creating your own image database online and then using AR api to get the match to these images. check out the domino example in this sdk its really cool. Another big player in AR is Layar it has famous iphone/android apps and its own layar player which developers can integrate into their own solutions.

Apart from really cool apps Gaming is another field where Mobile Augmented reality can play a big role. Allowing the user to interact with his environment and at the same time play the game. Again just imagine what can be achieved by the inventive use of AR on mobile phones, think a farmer is using AR in his mobile phone to analyze the soil quality and then deciding on fertilizers and crops. Actually helping him to earn his livelihood. But the bigger question is when the farmer will be able to afford a smartphone?

Amazing Amazon player!

Amazon recently announced Amazon Cloud Service which allows you to store your digital files/music files on their servers that can be accessed from the web via your computer or portable device. There are reports that indicate Google is launching its own music service.  so why the mad rush for this cloud based music service. why the big players are showing so much interest. these kinds of service are not new. They have been in the market for some time now. Even apple acquired LALA however they didn’t use it in any of their products.

Smartphones have become the PC’s of new era.The rapid growth of iphone and android in the smartphone market has increased the average data usage per person. Infact AT&T have to overhaul their network because they were not able to keep up with the intensive data usage of Iphone customers, and its the same reason most of the operators are moving away from unlimited data usage plan. The explosion of Androids and iphones and berries have paved the way for next disruption in mobile world.

One of the important Area where its going to really make an impact is the ability to provide online services to the users. Something like Amazon have done. You just signup and and you are ready to go. Purchase any song from amazon and you get 20gb of online space for free.

But someone may ask what is the big deal. its same as any other music service out there in market. Well the biggest difference is that its coming from Amazon.  Also this doesn’t require synching your device or copying your files onto each computer.  You can listen to your stored music via streaming using Amazon cloud player. Amazon has a complete infrastructure to support this kind of service. In fact they are the only company that come closest to the Apple in term of offering complete solution. They already have an app store for android, Online music service, a great product like kindle. And all this work with their excellent e-commerce backbone, i am yet to see an e-commerce site which is as good as amazon.

Coming back to the original point about online services. Their importance can be identified by the fact that even Google is ready to jump in this segment. The usage of mobile smart phones make this a perfect business opportunity for all the companies trying to grab a slice of  consumer spending. Imagine identifying what a person is listening at what time, what is his taste in music. Showing him the ads which are relevant to him and much more. I mean again the possibilities are endless.

Mobile in a Cloud !

Mobile world congress (MWC) one of the biggest gathering of who’s who of technical world  gave some wonderful insight into the future of the cutting edge technology.  There were many news like launching of android phones with NFC capabilities, facebook centric phone from HTC. But the biggest was Nokia ditching meego for windows phone 7.

This decision of using windows phone 7  by microsoft as the smartphone os for high end nokia device is almost industry changing. The biggest casualty is Meego , Intel (partner of Nokia in Meego) is sill reeling from this. Although Paul otelini (CEO of intel) has put a brave front and assured meego community about their commitment to the platform. However they have yet to find a partner for the hardware.  Nokia on other hand has an uphill task of customizing the wp7 to differentiate them selves from other hardware vendors. Even though Microsoft has agreed to provide them all the support for customization and integration.

The biggest factor which can make it or break it for Nokia is getting the support of developers for wp7. If they are able to get the support of even a fraction of the symbian developers, then they can be the third force (other two are Iphone and android) in the mobile world ecosystem. The support of developers is so essential that the success or failure of any platform depends on how fast the developers adopt it. Remember today people dont buy just a phone they buy  a device which can perform multiple function and mobile applications are a way to achieve this.

Talking about apps, its increasingly seen that currently the app store model followed by all the major vendors (apple, google) tie the customer to a particular device. Like if you are using an android phone then you cant use the apps purchased i on iphone/ipad. similarly even if you happen to have two android phone then you need to purchase  separate apps for them. But what is actually needed is one app multiple devices philosophy. User should purchase app only once and should be able to use it in multiple devices owned by them. How is it possible ? I  guess answer lies in cloud.

It will be really interesting if its possible to store all your apps online and run it from there, these apps will be platform independent and will run on some kind of browser based environment.  User can access them form there laptop, tablet ,phone or any device. It should be noted that most of the successful apps work online only. there is even a term for it, its called appification of internet. Internet being accessed from the apps .  Coming back to cloud apps. amazon has started to work on it soon they are going to launch android app store which is supposed to work on this kind of model. They have successfully done this with there kindle devices where the content has been disintegrated from the device.

This cloud app model is also of interest for service providers, As in current environment service provider are just acting as pipeline for data and call, however they are itching to have more control over the apps and get a slice of the earnings. It present a perfect opportunity for them to regain control over the customer.

while finishing just wanted to mention one news, the ovi store for nokia symbian phones grew by 139% over an year . This news came after nokia decided to adopt a new smart phone OS form its one time competitor . Ironic isnt it?

NFC near field communication

Recently two things in news really attracted me. One was google showing its second phone nexus S with near field communications capabilities and another one was ISIS a mobile commerce network jointly promoted by Verizon, AT&T and T Mobile. Now what does this mean and how these news are connected.

For the uninitiated NFC is very similar to RFID technology or radio frequency identification tags, basically RFID are intelligent bar codes that can talk to a network system. Many manufacturers use the tags to track the location of each product they make from the time it’s made until it’s pulled off the shelf and tossed in a shopping cart. Outside the realm of retail merchandise, RFID tags are tracking vehicles, airline passengers,  pets etc. NFC is more polished version of RFID, the main difference is RFID tags can only send/relay information but NFC chips can send and receive information both, and along with cell phones they can be used for for lot of activities which can make life simpler and more interesting.

Nokia 6131 the first phone to have NFC capabilities

So how is this so important. Even though NFC has been around for some time. Recent announcement by Google about second Nexus smartphone , where they  prominently announced about its NFC support and the ISIS(http://www.paywithisis.com) a network supported by Verizon, AT&T and T Mobile focused solely on mobile commerce  throws some very interesting ideas.

The major US network operators are building an infrastructure for mobile commerce and investing heavily on it. But why ?               Well this gives them a opportunity to create new market as well as first mover advantage when traditional ways of  revenue generation are getting shrink ed. This also reiterates the fact the smartphone are going to play a dominant role in the day to day functioning of a human being. These smart phone are evolving very fast and soon they will grow up to some sort of convergence device which takes care of multiple functionality, we are already seeing that for ex, your smartphone works as gps device, it lets you browse  the internet, there are phones which are capable of showing 3d inages and lots of other uses.

With the ISIS and NFC capable phones user can use the phone as credit card/Debit card make transaction on the go it will remove the need to carry the plastic money as well as real money. Imagine buying stuff in supermarket and then u dont need to stand in queue for payment, as soon as you walk out of store it will be charged to your account.  Paying for the fuel in gas station just by waving the phone. The possibilities are endless.

waiting for an exciting  future…..

Games Unlimited

I was never a serious gamer , but i do spend 10 to 15 mins of my day playing some game on my phone or other portable device (ipad etc) Whats interesting is how these Phones have emerged as a platform for games . It will not be late before these devices especially touch screen will surpass the gaming consoles.

The success of a mobile phone is identified by how many apps are there in appstore supported by it. Most of these popular apps are games.

Apple with its vast array of games and recently launched game center , Android with its own army of games apps. And windows phone 7 having xbox live are major players.  Every one seems to be focussing on social/multiplayer/online aspects of these games. This makes a logical sense most of these device comes with a data plan having 3G or 4G connection so why not use the internet connectivity and promote games who connect the players on the move. Imagine a person sitting in airport playing with someone working in his kitchen and another one working in his office.

I like the last option, playing while working in office, it does help specially after post lunch time.  But the big question is who will succeed in this race for ultimate gaming phone. before coming to conclusion let see about the dynamics of this playing field, what really makes it tick.

The one thing which creates a demarcation is Touch vs non Touch devices, another the operating system and third the processor speed. Then comes the User experience which is most important. based on all these parameters I see Iphone and windows 7 as having an edge. Android still lacks in this field, Apple is no doubt the market leader, and win7 has Xbox live integration.

Recently there have been news about Sony PSP phone , it will be interesting to see how Sony comes up with this, If its an android phone then how many game titles will be available and how will be the performance. I think the future is bright for mobile games and its time for Nintendo’s and Sony’s to have a new look at their strategy, sony has already started!

Low cost Smartphone !!

Smart phone make people look smart, adds a little bit of seriousness to the character .
But still these smart phones are out of reach for most of the people. Agreed in some countries you can get it for a fraction of price with a contract but these contracts bounds you to heavy data charges which are recurring. For the asian market where the contract system does not work these phones can cost you a lot. For example an iPhone ( unlocked) will set you back by around 650 USD. That’s a lot of money.
But there is a huge market which needs to be catered and there is a big business opportunity lying in there. How about a touchscreen phone with android latest version having 3G ( 4G will be better) , 5 megapixel camera , serve as a wireless router. And all this in around 180 USD (Rs 8000) . Well is it possible , I guess yes.
If you are targeting your product for mass market ( think billion plus people) and have some way of generating revenue even after selling the phone , like online ads or advertisement thru SMS.
Then it’s certainly a possibility , infact Chinese telecom major Huawei has launched such a phone having android froyo, 528 MHz processor, capacitve touch screen(3.2 inch) and all this in 156 USD. Best thing it’s Unlocked. They call it IDEOS series.
The point is if you cut down the margin but aim for numbers then it’s certainly a possibility ,throw in some kind of Advertisement or other form of revenue generation then Voila you have a winner.

When you don’t have an operator contract then how do u show the Ads or another form of revenue generation activity which is dependent on carrier. Well why don’t OEM tie-up directly with big product companies like walmart ( for US) or TATA in India. Launch a phone which will be branded as walmart or Tata and offer some kind of service which target specific to these.
Like with a walmart phone you can do shopping easily, get some additional reward points and also get some upto date information for their products/new launches. This way everyone have a win win situation.
This also helps the OEM to increase their market share from top of the pyramid to base, where bulk of market lies.

IPad and everything else

Last year Steve Jobs pulled out another device from Apple’s stable ,since then whole word has been waiting for it from apple which has been in rumor from last 10 years. Finally on April 3rd 2010 Ipad was launched in US, fortunately I was there and brought the device. Since then has been using the Ipad regularly and I got to say that its quite nice, like every one else i too had doubts like its a bigger ipod touch and there is nothing new or fascinating about it, but I was wrong.

We have been hearing about tablet device for quite sometime, with android proving to be a suitable platform for this kind of formfactor too,a lot of companies tried to enter this market everyone hoping for first mover advantage. Since this was a new segment of market which did not existed previously so obviously there are a lot of opportunity and money to be made from it. But what was disturbing that whoever launched a tablet (HP, dell etc) could not justify its uniqueness and give a solid reason for the customers to buy it. In fact many believed that this is a niche product catering only to technical enthusiast and doesn’t have appeal for the mass market. But Apple proved everyone wrong, they not only produced a device which is attractive and unique but also made sure that it delivers in the mass market. And it looks like they have hit the bulls eye.

Let me tell you what exactly differentiate the ipad from rest of its competition. Its not one single app or technology its combination of excellent moultitouch, gorgeous hi-def sceen, long battery life and who can forget the app store. The app store and its thousands of app seriously give apple an edge over its competition, speaking of apps I have to mention iBook , which you can use to buy books from an online store , it was a smart move from apple they entered e-book reader with this one, taking direct shot at amazon’s kindle. Ipad offering both a color e-reader and a multitouch tablet.

IPad’s success is visible by the high market demand. Recently a market research showed that 30% of people who were interested in notebook bought an Ipad. On its international launch people are lining up to the store to get their hands on it. Apple has provided and excellent option for the auxiliary mobile device that can be used along with the laptop/desktop , But what makes Ipad tick where others have failed.

As I mentioned earlier Ipad combines an excellent touch screen with faster performance , thanks to their own chip, which is optimized for low power consumption. But App store is what that really makes a difference , user buying an ipad has immediate access to tens of thousands of app which makes ipad very productive , this with both wifi and 3g connectivity gives them  lot of options. with arrival of ipad the fight in consumer mobile device segment has gone more interesting..