I just updated to Wordpress 2.7 (from 2.5.1). Hooray… It was about time. The new Dashboard is very nice…
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Upgraded to Wordpress 2.7
Saturday, January 10th, 2009My New Book
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009On my new book, I explain how to build up great abs…
(OK, ok, I am joking, but my wife had a great hard laugh)
ceo
Russian Professor Predicts Fall of USA by 2010
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009Source: Datamation/Mike Elgan.
There is a Wall Street Journal article about the Russian academic Igor Panarin who predicts the U.S. will fall apart in 2010…
…and his theory goes like this:
“There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur,” he says. “One could rejoice in that process,” he adds, poker-faced. “But if we’re talking reasonably, it’s not the best scenario — for Russia.” Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.
With the US disintegrating and be split into 4 major regions like this:
And I say to Mr. Panarin, I think not! And even if the US gets into its worst scenario ever, it won’t be split into regions going to Russia, Canada, Mexico, China and Europe – that is the dumbest theory ever. Unless of course, the split is enforced by Aliens.
ceo
International Long Distance Calls Going Mobile
Sunday, December 28th, 2008Not only landlines are being replaced by mobile phones, but according to the Annual TeleGeography study of the international voice market, international long-distance calling is also moving to mobile handsets:
ceo
What can a business do to maximize its chances of survival?
Monday, November 24th, 2008From Re-inventing Management and Management Education (Irving Wladawsky-Berger):
What can a business do to maximize its chances of survival? Foremost is to embrace a culture of innovation. If the environment is going to change, you want to be among the first to anticipate the changes and start preparing for them. A commitment to innovation may not always help your business stay out of serious trouble, but having a good strategy and understanding of your options will help you transform the business and survive.
:
Re-inventing management is one of the most important responsibilities any company needs to undertake to maximize its chances of survival into this future. Re-inventing management education is one of the most important responsibilities of universities to help better prepare future managers for the kind of world they will encounter. These tough challenges will require us to open our minds to new ways of thinking. In the end, that is what innovation is all about.
I agree, re-inventing management can’t wait for academia; companies must identify, attract and nurture their next generation of leaders…
…Executives typically rise up in the organization by being very good operational managers. These management jobs are very tough and getting tougher. Being a good manager takes very hard work, attention to detail and organizational discipline.
The management executives at technology companies, and especially the CEO must not only be good at attention to details, organization and operations but also at technology vision and innovation, for short-term and long-term execution. For this, the CEO must have a great understanding of realistic/achievable short and long-term strategies, but also have a strong CTO who shares the attention to details, organization and operational skills but in addition is a strong technology/business visionary individual; at the end of the day, it is about maintaining competitive advantage and earnings with the help of technology innovation (as well as non-technology innovation).
Related to this see Business, Innovation and Survival (Irving Wladawsky-Berger)
ceo
The Public Review — Mobile Service Architecture 2; Developer Input is Needed
Friday, November 21st, 2008The Mobile Service Architecture 2 (JSR 249) is the specification that promises making Java ME-based handsets what many of us have been waiting for years: API robust and consistent.
The JSR 249 is now in Public Review phase, and it needs the input from the developer community…
MSA 2 Stack – Input Needed! – Click to Enlarge
Click the image to enlarge. Notice the yellow indicating the area that the Expert Group is asking for input from the developer community. Help the EG prioritize the APIs for the mid-device class (or standard platform); send an email to jsr-249-comments@jcp.org; tell them Enrique sent you… 
And as I’ve previous written about on MSA 2, the API is not complete, and the following JSRs that should be considered for inclusion:
- JSR 304: Mobile Telephony API version 2 -or- JSR 253 MTA version 1
- JSR 266: Unified Message Box Access API (UMBA-API)
- JSR 307: Network Mobility and Mobile Data API
Both the MTA and UMBA APIs are in limbo within the JCP, but the JCP should take them out of such limbo-state so the EG can incorporate! You see, while inter-vendor and JCP politics and legality stuff continues to slow things down, platforms such as Android and other continue to move forward.
Download the draft specification from http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=249.
This Public Review closes on 23 February 2009.
ceo
Obama’s NASA Dilemma
Thursday, November 20th, 2008Great article on Obama’s NASA Dilemma (The Technology Review).
“When president-elect Barack Obama takes office in January, he will be faced with a rare situation. Within his first 100 days, he will have to decide the fate of America’s space program.”
:
“As president, Obama will support the development of this vital new platform to ensure that the United States’ reliance on foreign space capabilities is limited to the minimum possible time period,” the document stated. “The [Orion] CEV will be the backbone of future missions, and is being designed with technology that is already proven and available.”
:
“In addition, investing in space exploration could help the next president deliver on promises of creating jobs in high-tech industries during the current economic crisis. “One way to look at the space program in these economic times is that it is a jobs program,” AIAA’s Bell says. “It would be bad to encourage people to go into science and technology and then get rid of one of the agencies that is the primary employer for those types of people.”
My take is that the Space Program is important, as it creates jobs, and expertise and knowledge in science, math and engineering, in operations and other areas, which are all extremely important skills for our future, and which are skills that are applicable beyond the space program itself… A good example close to the readers of this blog is the “deep space Internet” (Disruption-Tolerant Networking) test, a “new” network protocol that was recently tested:
“(DTN is a) …software protocol, which must be able to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space, was designed in partnership with Vint Cerf, a vice president at Internet search giant Google.”
I’m sure some of that innovation on (wireless) network robustness and reliability will be applicable to our own wireless networks here on Earth…
ceo
About Artists and Painters and Ibsen Espada
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Left: Ibsen Espada, Right: CofresÃ. Source Houston Press
I really believe “artist” is the one of the most difficult jobs in the whole world; and only the best can survive as true artists. People don’t buy paintings all the time, and painters are affected by hard economic times too; people don’t buy art when times are not so good.
The life of an artist is quite different from the life of developer, and at times can be quite glamorous; I’ve seen it, and it is quite amazing (as compared to the life of a developer, ha!), but getting there is very hard, and it is much harder to stay at such level over long periods of time…
So I’ve a great respect for artists who dedicate their life to art…
This is why I’ve a great respect for my first cousin, Ibsen Espada, who is an artist/painter. I’ve seen him in ups and downs, inspired and not inspired. I’ve seen him shine at painting exhibitions (openings nights are awesome), and when times are not so good. I love his art, and I’ve some of his pieces at home. He is an abstract painter.
Ibsen at his Studio
Below is an article about him from 2004 that I found on the Web (Houston Press):
For many artists, opportunity knocks once or twice. For Ibsen Espada, it banged incessantly. The part-time dog catcher was asleep with a hangover on a Saturday morning, in his ramshackle White Oak painting studio, when somebody began pounding on the door. Naked, Espada climbed out of bed, leaving behind a woman he’d met mambo-dancing the previous night, and groggily peeked outside. He saw a face that few struggling Houston artists had ever glimpsed on their doorsteps: the well-coiffed visage of Susie Kalil, guest curator for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Read the rest of the article at No Virgins, No Velvet (Houston Press).
This next painting I like a whole lot:
Welded Dancers
The following two paintings of Ibsen I found for sale at eBay:
ceo
(I totally believe that creating and delivering beautiful software to be an art)
On Mobile Web Development — Develop mobile widgets with Yahoo! Blueprint
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
I’ve written an article/tutorial on mobile web/widget development using Yahoo! Blueprint; see Develop mobile widgets with Yahoo! Blueprint (IBM developerWorks). The article shows how to develop a Weather widget using the Blueprint XML markup and infrastructure, PHP for server integration, and the consumption of Yahoo! services on the web.
Developing mobile applications can be a daunting task. With hundreds of handsets to develop against and support, mobile application development can be time consuming and costly.
With Blueprint, you can author a mobile application one time that can be targeted at mobile devices with a browser (or devices that support the Blueprint platform), allowing you to potentially reach thousands of users. In this tutorial you will see how to develop a weather mobile widget using the Yahoo! Blueprint platform.
This tutorial is for developers interested in learning how to develop mobile widget-based applications using the Yahoo! Blueprint platform. While this tutorial is for entry-level developers, general knowledge about Web applications, mobile applications, XML, and PHP is desirable, but not essential.
The article is dedicated to the memory of Heidi Carson:
This tutorial is dedicated to the memory of Heidi Carson. She was the editor of IBM developerWorks (dW) Wireless and Web development zones. I used to write about mobile and wireless for her; many years ago Heidi gave me the opportunity to write for dW. And she was friendly, kind, and always willing to help through the process. As I learned that she has left us, I’m saddened. But a part of her can be found in each of my previous articles at dW.
ceo
This week is 2008 Texas Wireless Summit ==> $200 Discount for Friends of MobileMonday
Monday, October 13th, 2008This week is the 2008 Texas Wireless Summit.
OCTOBER 14-16, 2008
AUSTIN, TEXAS USA
www.twsummit.com
Friends of MobileMonday get $200 discount.
REGISTER NOW at http://www.twsummit.com/register/ to attend and use discount code TWS08200D to get the $200 discount.
Speakers include:
- Michael Bayle, Senior Director, Global Mobile Advertising, Yahoo! Inc
- Arun Bhikshesvaran, Vice President Strategy & CTO North America, Ericsson Inc.
- John Donovan, Chief Technology Officer, AT&T
- Dr. Brian L. Evans, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
- Anthony (Tony) A. Lewis, Vice President of Open Development, Verizon Wireless
- Mark Louison, President, Nokia Inc.
- Yoram Solomon, Senior Director, Worldwide Standards and Technology Strategy, CTO Office Wireless Terminals, Texas Instruments
The Texas Wireless Summit is the premier conference for industry leaders to discuss and plan for the business models and disruptive technologies that will define the future of the wireless industry. Now in its fifth year, the Summit is hosted by the Austin Wireless Alliance with the support of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group at The University of Texas at Austin.
This year’s Summit has been designed to facilitate networking and interactive discussions that will stimulate your thinking and provide you with key insights on the future of the wireless industry. The theme of this year’s Summit is “Open” and keynote presentations and panel discussions on the topic will address the shift that the industry is experiencing towards open networks, platforms and operating systems, applications, and new open business models. In addition, 2008 Texas Wireless Summit will address the critical political and regulatory environment that underpins many of the opportunities and challenges that the industry will face as a result of this shift.
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Also for the Second Year – the Texas Wireless Summit is proud to present the Wireless Seed Stage Forum (WSF). This exclusive funding event will be held on Tuesday, October 14. The WSF requires separate registration and is open to qualified startup companies and investors only. Please visit the WSF website at http://www.seedstageforum.com for more information.
ceo
One click to effective (mobile) interactions
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008I argue that for mobile interactions such as (smart/2D) barcodes and NFC to really takeoff, they must be “one click away”…
OK, no surprise there.
But what I really mean is that cellphones should have an explicitly designed and easy to reach “interaction” key/button to initiate the desired interactions… Perhaps a key-button to activate NFC and/or the camera. Users can easily activate and search or do appropriate action based on the type of interaction.
The “interaction” key/button… to effective mobile interactions.
ceo
SXSW 2009 Interactive Panel Picker
Friday, August 29th, 2008
Today is the last day to cast your vote for next year’s SXSW Interactive sessions… The mobile and wireless sessions are looking great. This year I am part of the advisory board for mobile and wireless, but sorry, I take no bribes… 
Go check out the session and cast your vote!
ceo
Technology Review: 10 Emerging Technologies 2008
Friday, August 15th, 2008Technology Review has published a Special Reports on the 10 Emerging Technologies for 2008:
- Modeling Surprise — Combining massive quantities of data, insights into human psychology, and machine learning can help manage surprising events, says Eric Horvitz.
- Probabilistic Chips — Krishna Palem thinks a little uncertainty in chips could extend battery life in mobile devices–and maybe the duration of Moore’s Law, too.
- NanoRadio — Alex Zettl’s tiny radios, built from nanotubes, could improve everything from cell phones to medical diagnostics.
- Wireless Power — Physicist Marin Soljacic is working toward a world of wireless electricity.
- Atomic Magnetometers — John Kitching’s tiny magnetic-field sensors will take MRI where it’s never gone before.
- Offline Web Applications — Adobe’s Kevin Lynch believes that computing applications will become more powerful when they take advantage of the browser and the desktop.
- Graphene Transistors — A new form of carbon being pioneered by Walter de Heer of Georgia Tech could lead to speedy, compact computer processors.
- Connectomics — Jeff Lichtman hopes to elucidate brain development and disease with new technologies that illuminate the web of neural circuits.
- Reality Mining — Sandy Pentland is using data gathered by cell phones to learn about human behavior.
- Cellulolytic Enzymes — Frances Arnold is designing better enzymes for making biofuels from cellulose.
Two of the emerging technologies listed have direct implications on future mobile software and applications: 1) offline web applications, and 2) Reality Mining.
What they call Reality Mining is an area of great interest to me, as it deals with taking into consideration user’s mobile context (and related behavioral analytics) to bring a better user experience, to bring the right information that matters and when it matters the most, to bring more value to both the end-user and the business-side of the equation:
Reality mining, he says, “is all about paying attention to patterns in life and using that information to help [with] things like setting privacy patterns, sharing things with people, notifying people–basically, to help you live your life.”
See the video on Reality Mining, where Alex (Sandy) Pentland, director of the Human Dynamics Group at MIT, describes “a future in which cell phones log data about their owners’ behavior, data that can be used to strengthen social networks, generate recommendations, help track diseases, and monitor personal health”.
As the tagline for this blog reads: Mobility is (about) People, their Interactions and their Data.
ceo
About Interactive Ruby Tutorial (and Scratch and teaching programming to children)
Monday, August 11th, 2008Is Ruby the new BASIC?
For those looking to learn about Ruby, the Interactive Ruby Tutorial is a great way to get a quick introduction. This interactive tutorial would also be great for children wanting to learn about programming. MIT’s Scratch is another interesting tool to teach children about programming.
ceo
Candid Cameraphone
Sunday, August 10th, 2008A day like today, on 1948 (ABC) “Candid Camera” original run made its TV debut. But original title was “Candid Microphone.” Is “Candid Cameraphone” next? That would make sense: from microphone (audio) to camera (video/audio) to anywhere-and-anytime-(mobile)-camera… Hm, maybe there is an idea right there…
ceo