viernes, 7 de noviembre de 2008

The power of visual search

All the big search engines have an image retrieval feature, why?, because its fun to search images around the web and also because is an important business channel. If you want to buy a hat for example you could type the word hat and you will get a lot of links (webpages) where the word hat is embedded, maybe there are a lot of webpages that don't match with the type of result that you wanted, so if you want to buy a hat it will be very boring to read a lot of websites and you might change your opinion of buying a hat and you could end up buying a book something that you didn't want at the beginning, is in this scenery where the visual search comes to play an important role, why?, because you will see a lot of hats and you will click onto the image that has the hat that you are expecting to buy, if that image belongs to a website that sells hats, you will be tented to buy it, for that reason I do believe that visual search is a very powerful business channel.

The search engines with the most accurate images retrieval will be the winner in the monetization of this important feature. Google is working hard in that issue with its VisualRank [2,3].



lunes, 29 de septiembre de 2008

Is cloud computing a trap?

When I read this article on the web [1] (Richard Stallman said that cloud computing is a trap) I just said, woow!!!, I didn’t see that point.  Why?, because I am so on the cloud, I store all my data and use web’s apps every time.  I even argued with my colleagues and friends the need of an operating system designed for the cloud computing (I still think that companies could save a lot of money and computer resources if they could have a cloud computing OS that use all the power of all the computers of a company, because normally the employees use apps that run on servers, many tasks that do the servers could be done by lazy computers on the company’s net) and to be used for the common users,  I think that Google might be developing one and that makes sense, all their products are for the web, they already have hundreds of thousands of computers, this type of OS need to bootstrap and manage a few local tasks in the pc, the strong part of this possible new OS is the connection with the cloud and manage to use the huge power of the cloud to assign tasks to be performed there (like rendering a bunch of pictures to make a movie, lot of resources is needed for that specific task).

We need to access to our information everywhere and with any kind of devices, that’s true,  but is to risky to upload all our data on web servers owned by a specific corporation, that’s a trap,  what could happen if one of those companies go off?, who is the really owner of the information, the cloud computing company or the users?, and there are plenty of questions related to that issue. 

"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign," [1]. "One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said [Richard Stallman]. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software." [1]. Those sentences summarize the fact that is a trap and our digital footprint could be there forever.

UPDATE: I was thinking that Stallman has a lot of reasons to believe that cloud computing is a trap, but the information (data) has to be 'ubicuity', is there another model beside the cloud computing? . 



sábado, 3 de mayo de 2008

Is the war between Microsoft and Yahoo over??

Now that Microsoft has walked away from Yahoo, it'll probably try to buy a famous social network (it has already 1.6% in Facebook), it might buy verticals search engines and many apps. It'll get into the cloud computing business, mobile's arena and so on… in order to be active on the Web 2.0. Yahoo will try to survive (it has open its platform) and we all know that Google will be wining.

This really impressed me: “The software giant had wanted to do a deal to be able to compete with Google, which dominates the lucrative market for internet advertising…. This market was worth $40bn in 2007 and is predicted to double to $80bn by 2010. ” [1]

Definitively the money is there, on the Web's arena. I have been thinking about this: how long do people will still believe/trust in traditional mines?? (like the gold's mines, is there a mine that's worth $47.5bn??), I mean why they buy stocks there??, I understand that gold is used as a backup, but this might change because the new important mines are information's mines??, don't you think that??

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7382572.stm

lunes, 28 de abril de 2008

How will be the Web 3.0??

We’ve seen a lot of changes on the Web during the last 10+ years, I remembered my first queries on the net were ‘simple’, basically my question was, what’s on the net?. Then came a lot of great stuff on the Web like: better emails free services; chats; newspapers and TV channels were putting their news and stories on websites; the rise of the e-commerce; companies moving their business’ apps onto the Web, etc. Now there is so much of the West’s knowledge on the Web, for example Wikipedia.org is doing a great job it’s a starting point when I research a topic.

The net has like one billion of user and it’ll increase in one more billion in the following years and most of the new users will come from India and China which are countries and civilizations at the same time, that mean new features according to them. The Web is always changing/morphing, we heard/read words like web science, web intelligent, web semantic, cloud computing, China wide web, walking web, social networks, etc, all those words represent this wild, cool and open (at least for now) environment Web 2.0.


Mobility will be the future, the numbers of handsets will soon hit the 4 billions [3], and those devices are becoming little laptops, so the net will have to be ambiguous, must run on both environment with no differences, that mean the mobile Web experience is going to be the same as if you were surfing the net in a desktop.

An important and interesting phenomenon is going on, in the early days of the Web, almost all of our relation with the net was anonymous, we didn’t care if we were chatting with unknown folks that was part of the fun, met new people, now that has changed radically, because we want to be connected with folks that we know, we want to play with our family and friends, we want to interact with them in the virtual worlds, almost all the net experience has become social, because of that social networks are so famous, they are becoming a new platform/layer on the net. We were used to know that apps were running on servers and those ones were implemented on operating systems, that might still an important platform, but what is changing is that now apps are running on social networks and those are on the clouds. This have a lot of issues, like who own the apps (the developer or the social network)?, what will happen if some apps is shut down on a social network?, who own the data?, etc. We’ll have to wait to see how those issues will be worked out.

Many stuff is being said about the future of the net: Web 3.0 might be the result of the mobile merging with the regular apps, with social networks, virtual worlds, games, etc ; or it might be an intelligent Web who will know us, will interpret our queries and give us exactly what we want (knowing our web's patters behavior, story, personal log, etc); or it might be the process of ordering all the Web and eliminate all the trash; or it might be the Web that will have to retrieve our entire past digital footprint, or...??

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7364901.stm
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7368387.stm
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7366403.stm

martes, 22 de abril de 2008

Día de la Tierra y reflexiones

Hoy 22 de abril se celebra el Día de la Tierra [1,2], nuestro HOGAR.
Cada día son más los problemas que tenemos: la presión demográfica y la pobreza; el consumo de energía e hidrocarburos que son los motores de nuestras civilizaciones industrializadas; el calentamiento global. Son problemas muy complicados porque cada día somos más complejos, nos hemos desarrollado bastante pero a la vez tenemos limitaciones. Cuando menciono limitaciones me refiero a la conquista del espacio, cada vez que investigo más en el tema veo que hay una infinidad de problemas que todavía nos falta investigar y resolver.

Desde la perspectiva de nuestro desarrollo tecnológico que ha sido impresionante desde la revolución industrial hasta el día de hoy, es fácil emocionarte y decir que estamos en camino a conquistar el espacio, pero en realidad, ¿estamos preparados?. Cuando leo que se esta optando por los biocombustibles para seguir impulsando el desarrollo económico y tecnológico, veo que parece que se esta perdiendo de vista nuestro desarrollo humano, es decir el sacar de la pobreza y dar educación a los millones de personas que co habitan en este mundo, si el precio del desarrollo económico y tecnológico son los biocombustibles, estamos optando por un camino erróneo, ya que la alimentación básica se esta volviendo más cara. Hoy creo que es un día para reflexionar, si bien somos una civilización inteligente que habita en este planeta, debemos pensar también en cuidarla y velar por el desarrollo de todos sus habitantes. Todavía no hemos descubierto otro planeta semejante a la Tierra y tampoco tenemos los recursos disponibles para conquistarlos, por ahora es nuestro único hogar.

[1]
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dia_de_la_Tierra
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

viernes, 18 de abril de 2008

Googlelization

I’ve been asking this question many times, are we in the process to become a Googlelization??, maybe those facts could answer.

This stuff is from here.

The Gartner researchers have estimated that Google technology can address 100 exabytes of data (an exabyte is equal to a billion gigabytes). “Their infrastructure has unprecedented scale,” said Hunter, “and what is even more impressive is their ability to connect vast quantities of information… Google is sitting on the biggest pile of information that has ever been collected in the world.”

Hunter stated, “We believe Google’s information security will be a political issue worldwide by the end of the year in 2010.”

“Google is disruptive and disruptive technologies produce big winners and big losers,” Hunter said, “One of the big losers is potentially traditional IT departments.”

What Gartner is arguing is that Google’s database and data center magic is creating a massive cultural movement and a competitive advantage that is going to sweep away businesses and industries and transform the technology world. In fact, Gartner sees Google becoming so large and powerful from a data storage and access standpoint that it is going to attract scrutiny - and potential regulations - from governments.

Nevertheless, Google is obviously on the leading edge many of the trends that are powering the next breaking waves in the technology industry, and the effects of these trends will fundamentally change the way corporate IT departments are organized, operated, and financed over the next decade.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=659

miércoles, 16 de abril de 2008

Israel and the VCs ...

Today I read a post from Robert Scoble where he said that there is a trend: (he’s noticing that) “…the further away a tech area is from Silicon Valley the less respect that area will get”. [1] I agree with him, you have to research more if you want to know what’s going on in different places away from the valley. Another issue is coming up from that, if you are not in the famous valley, how can you reach the VCs??. If you want to try out some idea to work in latin America, you will find the lack of a real platform to lift up an idea and become a success company (as far as I know there are some tech areas in Colombia and Brazil), that have to change in order to decentralize this issue. I made a research today about the tech world in Israel and found out they have a lot of VCs there, good for geeks and the economy there. This website has like 90 VCs [2] located in Israel, in the list is Sequoia Capital one of the VCs that help Google. To put it more interesting this issue I will put it this way: Israel have 7.22 millions of people [3] and that website [2] has like 90 VCs, so let divide 7 millions into 90 VCs, we got that they have one VC per 77777.77 habitants (if I’m wrong let me know it) , I guess that’s a perfect environment for the start-ups, for science and the economy. Latin America should go that way!!

[1] http://scobleizer.com/2008/04/15/
israel-a-country-too-far-from-mike-arringtons-house/

[2] http://www.science.co.il/Venture-Capital-Funds.asp
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel


viernes, 11 de abril de 2008

The decision to conquest the exoplanet Yecta (Fiction – chapter 1)

This post is the first one about how could be the conquest of new exoplanets, is complete science fiction (if its possible to call that), I made up everything. Why I am writing this type of post?, because I believe next century will be the space conquest.

We are a little more than half of the twenty-second century AD, to be more precise in 2157 (200 years after the start of the space’s conquest by the Soviets’ Sputnik in 1957). We have created a multi-civilization commission in order to organize the conquest of five habitable exoplanets for humans. These are called Yecta, Presina, Bacs, Trepid and Zapit, they were discovered in 2050, 2085, 2105, 2115 and 2130 respectively. The closest planet is at 300 light years which is Yecta with a mass twice the Earth and with 65% of its surface with water. It gravitates around a star that is half of our sun, but large enough to heat the planet, it’s located in the Retfer-508 galaxy. Yecta has a highly developed wildlife but there are not intelligent neither developed life than humans, what exist is an animal called Yectabulus which is the most intelligent and according to the research that has been done, it could develop in an intelligent and dominant creature if nothing or nobody intervene, but that is discarded, because humans are willing to colonize the planet and turn it into the second Earth. Why we want to go to another planet?, there are many answers, but the main ones are: we are without resources to feed and provide work for the more than 20 billion humans, problems with the climate and there is a latent fear of a global epidemic outbreak .

The coalition of all civilizations has reached the consensus that now we are one mega-civilization prepared to go to conquer planets, and make the step to immortality as a species and ensure that humanity will continue to grow. The coalition has already been working together in collect all technologies that every civilization has been developing over the last 100 years. It is amazing how some societies have develop very sophisticated technologies, such as in the computer field where the bits are represented at a sub-atomic level, and also being able to represent the data and make highly complex calculations through chemical concentrations (chemistry computing) that could be amorphous robots (gel type) with the ability to separate and become mini-robots and work independently, the Web and virtual reality have converged and have given us a new complex dimension; the robotic with artificial intelligence have achieved in build robots that continuously learn and make decisions and help us in a variety of tasks; nanotechnology; human hibernation; spacecraft flying at supersonic speeds doubling every minute.

It is 15:00 hours in the city of Brussels, the convention to define how is going to be this conquest that compete to all the humanity will begin.

jueves, 10 de abril de 2008

The robotic age

The robotic age is coming, they already exist in some industries, for instance the automobile industry uses robots and there are many examples. The big issue comes when we think about robots with artificial intelligence (AI) and that’s a real fact. The question could be, are we ready to live with them?.

‘A draft of the proposals said: "In the 21st Century humanity will coexist with the first alien intelligence we have ever come into contact with - robots. …"It will be an event rich in ethical, social and economic problems."‘ [1] For that reason the South Korean government is taking the first step by writing an ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa (Korean Robot Ethics Charter).

Some facts about robotic right now: Japan has 28% of the world market, USA 22%, Germany 18%, Italy 11%, South Korea 3% and 10% others. There are three categories: (1) Home/Service; (2) Silver/Life Care and (3) Security/Military. Now in (1) we have robots for cleaning like vacuum cleaning, pets (robots like dogs) for education and entertainment, in the next decade (2010 – 2015) (1) robots will coexist with humans. About (2) now exists ChairBot, RideBot, Silverbor and Subar for example, next decade will have robots that could give assisting to senior citizens for instance. There are three main trend of robot-developing technologies in Korea, first are the Humanoid/Android the goal is create a robot like the Bicentennial Man; second are the network robots like R2D2 (star wars) that could help in many activities; and third are the Nano/High-precision like the ones that work in the automobile industry or laboratories, the next step are the cooperatives that could make intelligent works for instance in the automobile industry. [2]

So why Korea is doing all this research, because “Korea will be able to serve as a test bed country for robots, just as with the IT electronics market”. [2] Another interesting fact is: “It is estimated that every household in Korea will have one robot by 2020” [2], so we are talking about millions of robots to sell, very lucrative business!!. “Why Korea wants to establish the robot ethics charter...Korea is headed towards an aging society with low birth rates: one possible solution is the use of robots. Various intelligent service robots, including robots to assist senior citizens, have been developed: ’Silver Mate’ robots will soon be seen. Social demand for robots is forecasted to increase…The social demand has created a need to enhance partnership between people and robots, and a need to consider ethical issues in Korea”.[2]

[1]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6425927.stm

[2]http://www.roboethics.org/icra07/contributions/slides/
Shim_icra%2007_ppt.pdf

miércoles, 9 de abril de 2008

Web and TV

The Web is already the platform for the TV, one good example is the BBC iPlayer, “With BBC iPlayer you can catch up with the programmes from the past seven days you've missed or want to watch again free of charge by playing them direct on the BBC iPlayer website or downloading them to your computer. As long as you are in the UK and connected..” [1] But this new service from the BBC is bringing an important issue about who should pay for extra network costs, this is really a hot issue because on-demand TV is the trend and the people are already using it (that’s the reason of a service). Something that is for sure is that internet service providers (ISPs) will have to upgrade their infrastructure if they want to still in the business because there are hidden costs for watching TV online. [2] One solution for the TV online is the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and is already developing.. “Broadcasters and content providers consider P2P as a future-proof, universal, and ubiquitous two-way (interactive) distribution mechanism. Initially, P2P will complement the existing distribution mechanisms such as satellite, cable and terrestrial networks, but ultimately it may supersede them. The P2P-Next Project extends the notion of a conventional media distribution network. It introduces a concept of on-demand, personalised, and social network. “[3] That’s a perfect solution because TV online is there for millions of users.

Another type of TV is fastcompany.tv, they have a different service it’s a Web exclusive channel and all the videos are oriented for the Internet, Robert Scoble is doing an amazing job there. [4]

The Web is morphing and creating new fields, we are going to start to use it more and more and new stuff will come up in the future. But not only you can see all what you get from the Web in computers and devices, now you can see all that stuff in a normal TV that’s using Nintendo Wii the BCC iPlayer is working with that too. [5]

[1] http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/about_iplayer/
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/04/
hidden_costs_of_watching_tv_on.html
[3] http://www.p2p-next.org/
[4] http://www.fastcompany.tv/
[5] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/04/
bbc_iplayer_on_wii.html

martes, 8 de abril de 2008

La decisión de conquistar el exoplaneta Yecta (Ficción - capítulo 1) / The decision to conquest the exoplanet Yecta (Fiction - chapter 1)

This post is in Spanish I will translate to English as soon as I can, because I want to be part of this world wide conversation (the default language is English). This post is the first one about how could be the conquest of new exoplanets, is complete science fiction (if its possible to call that), I made up everything. Why I am writing this type of post?, because I believe next century will be the space conquest.

Este post es el primero de una serie de escritos acerca de cómo podría ser la conquista de nuevos exoplanetas, es ciencia ficción (si es que se puede llamar así esto), todo es inventado. ¿Por qué escribo este tipo de post?, porque el próximo siglo va ser el de la conquista del espacio.

La decisión de conquistar el exoplaneta Yecta (capítulo 1)

Estamos un poco más de la mitad del siglo XXII DC, para ser exactos en el 2157 (200 años después del inicio de la conquista del espacio por el Sputnik de los soviéticos en 1957). Se ha creado una comisión multi-civilización para poder organizar la conquista de cinco exoplanetas habitables para los seres humanos. Estos exoplanetas se llaman Yecta, Presina, Bacs, Trepid y Zapit, fueron descubiertos en 2050, 2085, 2105, 2115 y 2130 respectivamente. El planeta más cercano se encuentra a 300 años luz que es Yecta con una masa el doble que la Tierra y con el 65% de su superficie con agua. Gravita alrededor de una estrella que es la mitad de nuestro Sol, pero suficientemente grande como para calentar al planeta, se encuentra en la galaxia Retfer-508. Yecta tiene una fauna y flora muy desarrollada sin embargo no existe vida más inteligente ni desarrollada que los humanos, lo que existe es un animal llamado Yectabulus que es el más inteligente según las investigaciones hechas y probablemente sino hay intervención de ninguna clase en el futuro podría llegar a dejar de ser un animal y convertirse en una especie inteligente y dominante en ese planeta, pero eso esta descartado, ya que los humanos están dispuestos a colonizar el planeta y convertirla en la segunda Tierra. ¿Por qué queremos ir a otro planeta?, hay varias respuestas pero las principales son: estamos sin recursos para alimentar y dar trabajo a los más de 20 mil millones de humanos, problemas con el clima y existe el miedo latente que brote alguna epidemia mundial.

La coalición de todas las civilizaciones ha llegado al consenso que ahora somos una sola mega-civilización los Terrícolas y estamos preparados para ir a conquistar planetas, así daremos el paso a la inmortalidad como especie y asegurarnos que la humanidad siga creciendo. La coalición ya ha estado trabajando en juntar y anidar todas las tecnologías que cada civilización ha ido desarrollando a lo largo de estos últimos 100 años. Es sorprendente como algunas sociedades han llegado a desarrollar tecnologías tan sofisticadas, como la computación donde las cadenas de bits son representadas a nivel sub-atómico, además de poder representar la data y hacer cálculos muy complejos a través de concentraciones químicas (computación química) que pueden ser robots amorfos (tipo gel) con la capacidad de separase y convertirse en robots más chicos y trabajar independientemente, la Web y la realidad virtual ha convergido y nos ha dado una nueva dimensión muy compleja; la robótica más la inteligencia artificial ha logrado la creación de robots que continuamente aprenden y toman decisiones y nos ayudan en diversas tareas; la nanotecnología que esta en todo lado; la hibernación humana; naves espaciales que vuelan a velocidades supersónicas duplicándose incrementalmente cada minuto.


Son las 15:00 horas en la ciudad de Bruselas y se va a dar inicio a la convención para definir como se va a realizar esta conquista que compete a toda la humanidad.

viernes, 4 de abril de 2008

Cloud Computing and Information's Mines

“The World’s primary compute is or could be Google’s cloud, its a network made of hundreds of thousands, or by some estimates one million, cheap servers, each not much more powerful than the PCs we have in our homes.. A move towards clouds signals a fundamental shift in how we handle information. At the most basic level, it's the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity a century ago when farms and businesses shut down their own generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities.” [1]

As you can see we are in the path to change the way we interact with information, humankind is in constantly move (traveling around the world), we need to access to our information in every place, we have laptops, mobiles as devices to access information, but where do we store our files, calendar, apps, etc ??, it can be saved in the devices, but if I want to backup all my information, how and where do I put it ??. Its clearly that the answer is in the big cloud, almost like the matrix it can do all that stuff, so where do we go next??, that’s a very good question, I think that we are in an early stage about the cloud computing, people have to get use to have their information in the cloud and trust the way we do with electricity. The cloud will be there for hundreds of years, the next step is to manage the way we put our digital footprint on the net and be able to retrieve all that digital footprint the we as humankind left. Another thought that come to me about the cloud is the huge information that it has/have, every cloud could be seen as a mine, digging all those mines will be a very challenging task, in the future those clouds will have all our information recorded.

“Humanity emits the data, and a handful of companies—the likes of Google, Yahoo!..., or Amazon.com …—transform the info into insights, services, and, ultimately, revenue … Yahoo Research Chief Prabhakar Raghavan, "there are only five computers on earth." He lists Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon. Few others, he says, can turn electricity into computing power with comparable efficiency. ”[1]

Very interesting the way those companies use the information to gain revenue, that’s that way this information economy works out, making profit from the services and the information that we put in the Internet. I can see many application that could be developed using web intelligence, is just amazing how we are getting more and more connected between us and the mass information that we generate every second.

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm


martes, 18 de marzo de 2008

The birth of a new science - The Web Science

For all of us that follow the Web environment, this news is great. What are the implications??, there are many, now we (human beings) will study something that we make every second, is our own material made by millions of persons with different thoughts, this is like a new mine (information mine) that we will going to dig up maybe for ever, is an endless resource, and the best thing is that we are the contributors of it. In the official web site said “The Web is the largest human information construct in history. The Web is transforming society. In order to...” [1] the answer is in our research.

“This is a multi-disciplinary effort to study the web and try to guide its future… Sir Tim explained that there were now more web pages than there are neurons in the human brain, yet the shape and growth of the web were still not properly understood” [2]

Is the beginning of a new science that will help a lot to understand us.

[1] http://webscience.org/

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7299875.stm


martes, 5 de febrero de 2008

Image Search Engine in third place!!

My friend Javier Montoya [1] (he has a MSc in Computer Science and his field is image recognition) and me suspected that image search was already a trend, but that was an assumption based in our observations and requirements, today we read that Google Image Search is the third engine most popular [2]. This corroborate that vertical search engines could be a serious competence for the classical engines, you could say that this image search engine is just another feature in Google engine, thats truth but the fact that is the third one most used means that is already an important type of query and I’m convinced that the merge of image retrieval and web intelligence could make a really useful and powerful tool that has many interesting features, is just the beginning of a new era??.

[1] http://www.lis.ic.unicamp.br/~jmontoya/

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7226100.stm

lunes, 4 de febrero de 2008

Yahoo in the middle??

After read some articles about the Microsoft move, its obvious that is a big issue especially for Google that is concerned (Microsoft is worry too in a different way). Google has a point when it said that Internet openness and innovation are very important for the users. About the openness its important to develop web-apps (web-services) with the industry standards in order to avoid monopolies approaches and use the best, innovation on the other hand is the core of the Internet’s success and growth, they also have another point when they addressed: “Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?”[1]. But the Internet is a complete different platform than the operating system (OS), this runs on many servers (most of them use Linux) that are distributed around the world, this mean that the information / knowledge (data) is in many servers and not in a unique computer, which makes the Internet a perfect environment for innovations. With that type of environment like cloud computing (users can store information and use apps in a complete online environment), could be the next default step for users and Google might be developing now some OS for that (they are already building an OS for mobiles), maybe Microsoft is afraid about that possibility. At the middle of this issue is Yahoo because it has useful apps and millions of users, but I think that it cannot develop a new OS that could run on a cloud computing environment (that’s Microsoft possible one concern now) and also it cannot eat more slices from the advertising cake that Google eat up more and more (75 percent [2]). So that puts Yahoo in the middle of both companies.

[1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/yahoo-and-future-of-internet.html

[2] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/
02-03Statement.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7225599.stm

[4] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/
how-google-could-keep-yahoo-from-microsoft/index.html?ref=technology

[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/technology/
04yahoo.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

viernes, 1 de febrero de 2008

Microsoft and Yahoo merge??

When I read that Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo for 44.6 USD billions, I just said WOW!!. I don't think that Yahoo is worth that, especially now that its shares are down and they could not make a real competence to Google last year (2007), the company is clear losing territory on the Web arena, while Google is still growing and making a lot of money. For me is obvious that Microsoft has realized that there is some king of Googlelization going on, that's a threat for them, but the point is that Google has figure out long time ago (maybe since its beginnings) that software has become a service and should be free in some cases. This paradigm works complete different because the product must be on the Web, friendly and very useful, it must give value to the users' information and those things has been Google's goals. Another threat for Microsoft, Yahoo and also Google are the vertical search engines that are going to be more popular, those engines will have more web intelligence (Web 3.0) algorithms, so the user experience will be complete different, I mean the websites are going to be more intelligence and the merge between the Web and the virtual worlds will definitely change the way we perceive the Internet. About Microsoft and Yahoo they will have to work together in putting the Office suite online, that's basically the main product of Microsoft and Google is developing that, actually they have already a suite online, on the other hand Yahoo has Flickr that has many users and has become an example of how users interact with the applications and also has a huge image database, the challenge that both companies have are enormous, they must eat up more slices from the advertising huge cake and put more software as services, they might have to re-design their business model.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7222114.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7222199.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/technology/
01cnd-subyahoo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin


miércoles, 30 de enero de 2008

Start the path to become modern economies

A country must develop its own technology so that it could be sold in the world, that's exactly how the rich countries make money and for that the people receive high wages and everybody seems to win. The lack of tech and resources in poor countries is a problem, but despite that there are smart folks that could make something interesting if somebody give them money and resources. I believe that venture capitals could help the developing nations a lot in starting the path to become modern economies, they don't need to invent something new, they could develop technologies that could improve their life style, etc, and their tech products (for example software) could be sold in the same country at the beginnig, is just a thought!!.

jueves, 24 de enero de 2008

Googlelization??

I wrote in a previous post that Google is having more competence from the vertical search engines, that's perfect because the end-users have better access to specific information. About Google, this company has many services (that's the new paradigm, software as a service), and that's exactly the trend, Microsoft has a big challenge there!!. Today I read that Google will have a health service [1], they are thinking in solve the problem of health information [2], this is a big issue because we are not talking about credit cards information, this is especial data that is owned only by the end-users, I believe that's important to have an efficient way to manage and store that type of data, but the question is who own that data??, for me is the property of the end-users, its a good idea but we have to watch out what business model will appear, I mean do you really like the idea of receive ads about some health problem that you have or will have (there comes the Web 3.0, web intelligence)??. As I say Google has many services and with that they are really helping in organizing the world information I think that's perfect, but certain information is extremely delicate, so with all that I am thinking that we are in the process of becoming a Googlelization (the word comes from civilization), we are depending more in them (Google's algorithms and servers).

[1] http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-01-23-n83.html
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/technology/
14healthnet.html?_r=1&em&ex=1187236800&en=66c63ffcdb8643a8&ei=
5087%0A&oref=slogin

[3] http://financials-advisor.blogspot.com/2007/12/googlelization.html

miércoles, 23 de enero de 2008

Facebook & MySQL

Its hard to believe that Facebook maybe is 15 billion worth, that's a lot of money for a relative new Web 2.0 company especially now that the US is in a slow down economic situation, but real numbers are hard to get when there's a bubble, I'm not an expert in web's bubble, but from the transaction between Sun and MySQL database engine for 1 billion, I can figure out that there is a bubble over there. Why is there to much difference??, MySQL is used by a lot of companies (thousands) while Facebook is a social network, the only answers that I have come up so far are that there is a Web 2.0 bubble now and that MySQL is not known by the end-user and Facebook is famous becuase is a front-user application, that could be two answers, for me is clear that MySQL is worth more than 1 billion, maybe I am wrong??

Vertical Search Engines & Web 3.0

Its really hard to make predictions on how the online scenery will be in the near future now that we have the word Web 2.0, that mean new web technologies, most of them related with the user web interface, web-sites are more friendly and the end-user can interact with the site (for example Ajax). My predictions are that more people are going to start to use vertical search engines (for example image or video search engines) because those engines are specific and they all have novel algorithms, with all this the first prediction is that Google will have more competence those articles can corroborate that [1,2]. The second prediction is that we are going to have more intelligence web-sites, that can be known as Web 3.0.

Here is a list of different search engines:

http://www.exalead.com
http://www.mahalo.com
http://www.quintura.com
http://www.search.wikia.com
http://www.ask.com
etc.....

[1] http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/vertical_search.php
[2] http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/
googles-search-share-slackens-nielsen/
story.aspx?guid=%7BD8576427-26FF-4F34-9910-88A0BA58E9D8%7D

martes, 22 de enero de 2008

India & Knowledge Revolution

In this post I will think out loud about India and the Peruvian currently situation, the reason is that I see India as an example for the developing countries (third world economies), because with all their huge problems they always (government) try to be in this knowledge economy (they see that as the knowledge revolution [1]). I haven't make a complete research about the Peruvian situation (in that issue), but just make you this question, are we (Peru) trying to fit in this new economy??. I can say from my (personal) observations, that it seems that this is not an important issue in Peru (to bad to be real). We have grown like more than 7% last year (2007) that is good of course, there are local companies that are performing great, but I still don't see a technological neither a science environment, just try to know how many Peruvian papers have been published in international events (by universities), I think that maybe 20 papers are a lot, so how can I think that we are doing something in that issue??.

Going back to the India issue, they made the green revolution to be more productivity and now they are thinking (and they will do) in reduce the gap between "scientific know-how and free-level-do how"[1]. That's just an amazing step in put the scientific knowledge in hands of regular people, so that they could apply in many fields and that must be done using the IT, and we all know that India best brand is the IT issue, good luck!!!

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7202545.stm

jueves, 10 de enero de 2008

About India & Tata Group

I think that a country must have its own technology in order to be competitive and be part of this knowledge economy. Chindia (India & China) is doing a good job in that issue. In this post I'll think out loud about India, we know that this country is doing an amazing effort in eradicating the poverty and is a great example of how technology can contribute to develop and take out a lot of people from the poverty. India almost since its independence began to work in having science as a tool to develop the country, this article [1] entitled “Science ’can lift India’s poor’ ” indicates how science could make a real impact in poor countries, they have (India) made a blueprint for prosperity, done by Dr Abdul kalam (the previous India's president). When I read that article [1] I thought that it was a good and very interesting one, so I sent it to my friends of the Peruvian Computer Society (SPC) [2] and they liked very much too, because is truth (Peru needs urgently to put science as a priority, I wonder why they (politician) haven't make it already??, I mean a real one that could be done).

Before I start to think out loud about Tata, I'll like to talk about Bollywood (my friends think that I am crazy because I see Bollywood's movies), some of those movies are really cool, the songs, dances and all that stuff, I think they make it perfect, Its a complete different type of movies, I think that are very human, and for me if I want to know more about this amazing country (civilization), I have to see those movies (Bollywood is one of many cinema industry in India) to understand their culture. Its a big industry, but here in all Latin America is not famous at all. Now comes the Tata issue, reading about this group [3] I found that it has 98 operating companies in seven business sectors and that their revenues in 2006-07 is the equivalent of about 3.2% of the country's GDP, just wooow!!!. Before I read the business profile I knew that it was big and of course I was aware of Tata Consultancy Services [4], it is the world's first organisation to achieve an enterprise-wide Maturity Level 5 on quality improvement models (CMMI), that speaks by itself. So its basically a leading group in the world and comes from India. What I like very much about this group is that they believe that innovations is the key to success. Today I read that they have achieve to build the cheapest car in the world [5], nice example of how a business group can change many lifes, I mean this car could be affordable by many people, those that have motorcycle would be able to buy this car, and with that we are talking about improving the quality of life of many people. Of course there is a profitable business behind that, but at the same time is a social issue, I mean they have made a car for India!!.


[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6340201.stm
[2] http://listas.spc.org.pe/pipermail/spc-socios/2007-February/000158.html
[3] http://www.tata.com/0_about_us/group_profile.htm
[4] http://www.tata.com/tcs/index.htm
[5] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7180396.stm

lunes, 7 de enero de 2008

Wikia Search comes alive

Today Wikia Search comes alive [1], this is a project that had been announced months ago, so it's not new at all. It's based in the Wiki paradigm (a wiki is software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily [2]), so it'll be feed by the users (sounds really cool!!). Behind this new search engine is a different approach, the transparency [3], that will be very interesting, because it'll not have any patented stuff (black box for the users, I am in favor of the patented stuff too), and we can all contribute with our knowledge and experience, Jimmy Wales said that this project will "completely controlled by the community of users. So it's going to be similar to any wiki except people will be able to participate in the creation of search results" [3], but behind this cool project is a profitable business too, it needs to be like that to be alive in this competitive environment, and the model will be the same as Google, the advertising ("We're planning to have an advertising supported model"[3]). Google has proven that with the Googleship (partnership) they make tons of money, so it's probably that Wikia will make millions too with the help of us (the users), very smart. I am starting to think that maybe Google's search empire (I love Google) is ending because there are more and more search engines coming alive, lets think about that!!.

[1] http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7174587.stm

sábado, 5 de enero de 2008

Nanotechnology Industry (a new one)

In this post I will like to make emphasis in this new nanotechnology industry, first of all what it is?, the wikipedia said "... refers broadly to a field of applied science and technology whose unifying theme is the control of matter on the atomic and molecular scale, normally 1 to 100 nanometers, and the fabrication of devices within that size range." [1] It is a very multidisciplinary field and the one that I like most is robotics. It came up in concepts by the end of the fifties (physicist Richard Feynman) and the term was coined in 1974 by Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi. So this is another example how current modern technology was already in theory (papers) by the middle of the previous century (XX), and here come my opinion, the rich and developed countries are like that not because some God wanted is because they work hard, investigate, they are always trying new stuff, and of course those initiatives become industries and they make tons of money with that, I wonder why that is not a pattern in other countries (for example Peru)??. I found this '...by 2015 nanotechnology will play a crucial role in $1 trillion worth of products, "which would require two million workers." '[2], see what I mean, a lot of money and jobs will come for that XXI's product, and my prediction is that this industry will be as big as the Web, because it will be every where, we are going to use intelligent clothing it will turn warm if the weather is cold or the other way, we will have molecular robots inside our body fixing what ever they can and there are more and more examples. I read that now venture capitals are investing and that the platform for develop this XXI's product is already building, yes!!! another industry that will improve our life and of course is part of the knowledge economy. Do we want to see how this industry grows or do we want to be part of it??, I will like to develop software for those nano robots, what about you??.

References:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology
[2]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/business/smallbusiness/
20edge.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin