Thoughts on systems, engineering, AI, technology and life.
Mobile adoption is still growing. A good example is Facebook with 1 Billion+ users and around 56% of its user-base being mobile-only users as of July 2016 (see source). Mobile adoption has matured — apps are not dying. Instead when you have the “late majority” / “laggards” part of the adoption curve adopting mobile as … Read more
An intelligent personal assistant is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual. Below are some quicklinks to @Amazon #Echo #Alexa developer resources: Creating Voice Experiences Using Alexa Skills Kit (Recorded Session) Voice Design 101 (Recorded Session) Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) Alexa Developer Forums Other: Amazon Echo (Wikipedia)
On Retail Stores vs. Amazon (May 2012) I wrote about the issue that local retail stores are facing with respect to Amazon’s prowess: Consumers visit a physical-local merchant/retail-store to see, try and feel a product, then compares prices online via their smartphone in real-time, then leaves the store. Many will go ahead an buy from … Read more
Something subtle but very important occurred yesterday. I am talking about Target’s decision to stop selling Amazon’s Kindle e-readers (hyperlink: USA Today). In the above article you can find one sentence that summarizes the struggle that Retailers have been facing: Target’s decision to phase out the Kindle is also occurring as the retailer, along with … Read more
Earlier this month Amazon not only pulled a number of eBooks from their online catalogs, but also deleted such eBooks from the Kindles of people who had purchased such eBooks. The reason: some kind of publishing/copyright debacle. But ironic it is that one of the eBooks in question was 1984, the classic dystopian novel that … Read more