Tag/Word Cloud (Apr 2013)

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Every so often, I like to run a “tag or word cloud” against my Weblog (and Twitter). I then capture the output for future reference. This is a great, cool way of capturing a snapshot of topics that I write about at that point in time.

For Apr 2013, my Weblog’s word cloud looks as follows:

Weblog WordCloud Apr2013

(Tag cloud source: Tagxedo)

That said, it is good to understand the limitations of word clouds and that depending on the goal, there are better ways to visualize this kind of data — see Word clouds considered harmful.

ceo

Facebook buys Parse :-/

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Interesting — Facebook Buys Parse To Offer Mobile Development Tools As Its First Paid B2B Service (via TC).

First congrats to Parse, for the monetization event.

I have been a Parse.com fan for a while and even wrote a few months ago an article on using Parse on Android that was published at IBM DeveloperWorks.

Indeed, the Parse API is pretty cool — a very well thought out/organized API with platform/OS-specific bindings, and a very cool “cloud code”.

One of the things I liked about Parse was its independence from the “rest”. But this independence is now gone.

From the developer’s perspective, I have mix feelings about this acquisition — the only apps I want to run against or have dependencies to the Facebook back-end are Facebook apps, and nothing else. As a consequence, my use of Parse will not be limited mainly to such.

There is an alternative to Parse: Apigee, another back-end as a service/cloud API company I am a fan of. They have an API similar to Parse; not as sophisticated, but I believe it will get there. Apigee was a speaker at Android Dev Austin a few months back and I can see how Apigee will continue to evolve. As a matter of fact, this acquisition of Parse by Facebook is probably a good thing for Apigee. (Note to self: write an article on Apigee’s APIs).

ceo

V for Vendetta, C for Constitution

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v-for-vendetta

“…cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.”

Power and Terrorism leads to fear. Fear leads to government control. Government control leads to censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. Coercion and submission leads to deprivation of Rights.

I am not being paranoid. Just look at the World’s History; and history will repeat itself — it is the “human nature”.

Do not give up your Constitutional Rights…

God Bless America.

ceo

UcATX – Innovation in Communication Apps Architectures (Austin, TX) Meetup

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I am very excited to announce Austin’s first UcATX – Innovation in Communication Apps Architectures meetup, where we will be focusing on the future of Unified Communications, but from the Apps, APIs, Services and Architecture perspective, and related technologies including Mobile, WebRTC, SIP, IM and Cloud stacks/technologies. This a technical Meetup targeted at Developers and Engineers.

Seating is limited, please RSVP. Food and drinks will be available.

Thanks Shango and TeleStax for sponsoring our Meetup.

When: Apr 22, 2013
Time: 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: Shango offices – 3811 Bee Caves Road #101, Austin, TX

Agenda:

  • 5:30 pm: Networking, grab some drinks and food
  • 6:00 pm: Welcome and Introduction – Charter/focus
  • 6:15: Evin Hunt, Shango CTO | Topic: Intro to the *new* UC — abstracting Apps (and voice intelligence) from the underlying network
  • 7:00 pm: Thomas Quintana, TeleStax | Topic: HTML5 WebRTC and SIP over WebSockets
  • 7:45 – 8:00pm: Conclusion

Hope to see you there…

ceo

Android Dev Austin | March 2013 Meet up with Apigee

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Join us at our March 2013 Android Dev Austin Meet up with Apigee! Apigee, experts on all things “API”, is one of the coolest companies out there.

Seating is limited! Please RSVP: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4577513466

Topic: Making the Backend as easy as the Frontend: a look at BaaS.

Abstract:

Sure, Android makes it super-easy to build the front of your mobile app, but what happens when you need to plug it to a backend to load data, register users, connect to social services, etc. ? Does it have to be the same mess of PHP, MySQL, Rails and legacy code you had to deal with during the old days of the web? (Ah, the old days of the web… That was so long ago.)

Fear not! There is an alternative today, it’s called a Backend-as-a-Service.

Tim from Apigee will give us a tour of how BaaS platforms work, and how you can use them from any mobile app. He’ll conclude with a live demo of how to use one from an Android app, and show specific examples of how some apps on the Play Store use them.

Event Info:
* Event is free.
* When: March 4, 2013. Event starts at 6pm until 8pm.
* Location: Apigee offices | 1005 west 38th street, 3rd floor, Austin, TX.
* Drinks (yes, including Beer) & Pizza will be provided!

Seating is limited! Please RSVP: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4577513466

ceo

On Voice Apps (2013)

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Future of Mobile
Image Source: The Future of the Web and Mobile (Feb 2007)

For years I have been working on mobile and related software development. This has been a world of “data”-and consumer and enterprise applications and infrastructure, that for me started in 1999-2000 with CDPD, CDMA, then GSM, 2G, 3G, and today 4G and LTE from the network side, and from the device side Symbian OS, WinCE, Palm OS, RIM, WML, HTML Basic, J2ME, and into today’s iOS and Android (Smartphone and Tablets) as the main platforms for native apps and HTML5 webapps.

More recently, I have been deeply involved with Voice as an App.

Evolution of Mobile

Mobile has truly gone through a period of tremendous evolution and growth. Mobile is about convenience and easy access (to others and to information). The mobile Smartphone is a social artifact. And while today I believe that mobile has peaked in general (a topic for another blog), mobile has entered the phase of continuous stable growth that won’t stop — its essence will just transform into different form-factors and new interactions — all about improving the mobile context and thus the experience (usefulness).

Voice has always been a fundamental piece or feature of the mobile phone, and it will always be. But in the world or era of “data”, voice has been treated as “legacy stuff”, separate and driven by its own experience, drivers, and infrastructure. Voice just works, but separate, under Operator control.

As a side note, for years, many of us have been talking about convergence with respect to mobile; an example of this is a piece I wrote back in 2007 titled the Future of the Web and Mobile that covered the expected evolution of mobile from my point of view — this was written 6 months before the iPhone was first released; looking back is pretty much on target.

The early part of the 2000 decade saw technologies, concepts and lessons-learned from Europe (Nokia), Canada (RIM), Asia and USA (Palm, MSFT, others), but their impact remained pretty much closed as well as localized to the respective regions (mainly due to Operator control). Then the years 2005-2008 were the fundamental years of transformation, and openness away from Operator control and into the Ecosystem, first in the USA (thanks to Apple and Google) which then impacted the rest of the world in big ways, into what Mobile is today. Throughout that same time-period we have been talking about the convergence with voice, but this in my opinion has never really happened. I am talking about bringing voice convergence to the next level — from the device into the App-level.

On Voice Apps

Voice is by default a multi-platform application. But the future points to voice as a dominant “mobile app”. The consumer world is massively becoming mobile, and the enterprise world will be eliminating the traditional office phones in favor of mobile. Interestingly, the effects of BYOD also impact Voice apps as well.

Even though the technologies for creating voice apps have been around for a while, today we are still kind stuck in a different world when it comes to voice: a 100+ year old world of closed voice-networks, arbitrage, peering, FCC and PSTNs regulations and other. There is a lot of history on how we got there, but for folks that come from the world of “data”, like I do, it all looks like quite a mess. Thankfully, it is an “old world” that is slowly evolving (while in the process, crashing) with the new world. I am right in the middle of this world today. One day, all of this will be completely freed from such legacy world, thanks to open IP networks, mobile, the Web, the Cloud and new business models.

Voice is slowly but surely moving into becoming a “data app” — Voice as an app or an app feature. Voice will continue to be the Smartphones *main* feature (or app). Primarily standalone. But primarily standalone with many flavors or choices beyond the “core voice support” provided by the Network Operator (for example, Google Voice). These are SIP and WebRTC clients that you can download and use, point-to-point or via the old PSTN.

Google Voice
Google Voice. Image Source: The Next Web website

Cloud-services companies such as Plivo and Twilio are helping with this evolution to provide Voice as an app or app-feature.

Because of the current state of “voice” as an app, depending on the “app layer” you are at, the moment you want to open your voice app to complete calls to any phone out there (that is, the PSTN), you will immediately “crash” into the legacy world of voice. This is a hardcore world of telephone numbers, activations and inventories, origination and termination and routing, agreements, and fees and regulations. To effectively deal with all of this you either have to implement all of this directly (costly), or you can use solutions on the cloud, such as the services-and Marketplace provided by Shango (my company) and its partners.

From the design perspective, designing mobile apps with voice functionality does require a different way of thinking from designing traditional mobile apps and web apps. The inclusion of voice as an interaction mode does require re-thinking of your application as a multi-modal app. And because voice apps is about communication, the whole thing can quickly turn into including or not other kinds of communication such as IM, SMS, video, and group-communications (conferencing), and other.

Conclusion

The mobile device, the Smartphone, is a social artifact — it has always been. Voice has always been the fundamental feature on these highly personal devices. But we have always been treating voice “as its own separate function”. Voice is changing. Voice as an app or app-feature is coming, and is coming fast. BYOD has an impact on Voice apps that must be taken into consideration.

We are at a very interesting crosspoint where the old legacy voice world is moving into the new world of “data” and Cloud-based services and apps. The Cloud service providers to help create, manage and support such voice apps are out there, the Smartphones provide the support for native SIP stacks and libraries to write and/or include voice functionality into your app, WebRTC is coming, and you can download your own SIP clients/apps to use as well.

The future is clear: open IP networks, Mobile and Cloud-service providers are and will play an important role in the evolution of voice communications, voice as an app and the future of “Mobile”.

ceo