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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Talking about cool infographs

... what to say about this one: the impact of computers on the environment. You think being virtual is being green? Think again!

state of web development 2010

These results of a professional web survey amongst developers and designers gives an interesting overview of technologies, techniques, philosophies and practices in web development. One of the reasons is that this survey claims to measure what developers and designers are actually doing, not what they are supposedly interested in when you read industry news or blogs.

Not really objective of course but very nicely presented in this infographic:

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

How to be invisible in cyberspace

I know, it seems more and more unlikely, but they do exist, these people that you cannot trace on the web. I've been wondering about an old friend and his whereabouts but if I Google him, I draw a blank. Actually, there is 1 hit that could possibly be him but I don't have any information to concur that he really is.

Wired had a cover story about shedding your identity in a digital age in its December 2009 issue. About how you really-really-really have to work very hard if you want to become untraceable. I can't imagine my friend has disappeared so completely because he doesn't want to be found. Or maybe he has? But just NOT being part of any social network, any professional network or even popping up in a Google query remains bizarre.

Let's just hope it doesn't mean something is really wrong. Let's just assume it's a generational thing and he's just not ... online.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Internet of Things

Interesting read recently, The Internet of Things offered by McKinsey Quarterly. We all know the Internet of Things as a concept. Here, the authors design new business models, improved business processes and reduced costs and risks, resulting from new networks based on objects equipped with sensors and communication abilities.

Some of it is pure futurism, other stuff actually already exists: precision farming equipment that can spray extra fertilizer on patches of fields that need it (based on data from the ground and from satellite). Or Japanese billboards that peer at passers-by, assessing their profiles and adjusting the commercial messages. Car rentals being organised automatically. Initiatives in the fields of Health or Energy.

The point is that this Internet of Things has great promise  but there are a lot of challenges that need to be tackled before these systems wil become widespread. Legal liability frameworks for the bad decisions of automated systems, for one! Lower costs for sensors and actuators. Data security.

Imagine an ash-cloud passing over then ...
With thanks to McKinseyQuarterly.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

sorrow floats

Just finished the latest John Irving, my favourite author. Last night in Twisted River. If you are an avid John Irving reader you come to appreciate, even expect, all of his recurring 'themes', the stuff that becomes as cosy and familiar as a blanket. The bears. The accidents. The wrestling. The amputations. The impressive women. The way of offhandedly announcing someone's demise chapters and chapters beforehand or starting chapters abruptly killing someone off. Never agressive, despite what might happen to the characters. Never cruel but for the cruelty of life itself.

This morning , the phrase 'Sorrow floats' popped up in my head. Maybe because I was feeling sad. I was thinking about my mom.She died now almost a year and a half ago and it feels as if life is racing by so fast there is no time to mourn. As if it still has to hit me.In 'The Hotel New Hampshire' Sorrow is a  labradaor who dies but keeps popping up in the book. Sorrow floats is a metaphore for the sorrow you cannot get rid off, the sad things that can happen in life and are inherent to it.

So yes, sorrow floats.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Why, that's a cool newspaper you've got there

These developments always make me smile. We announce the Death of Newspapers (or rather: most newspapers do that themselves) but when we've got a fine new communication tool, someone suddenly feels the need to take that tool, in this case Twitter, and build a .... newspaper app.

Check out Paper.li, aiming at taking your Twitter feeds and aggregating them in some kind of newspaper look & feel. I'm not sure I follow that completely, I don't get a 'wow! newspaper' feel when I look at it but the idea is nice. The 'newspaper feel' 's actually more visual when you click on one of the proposed feeds in this alpha version.

For those of you who are not sure what the .li domain stands for: it's not Lithuania but Liechtenstein. Yes, even in Liechtenstein, there is Internet. Maybe even tax-free Internet. They even have a portal site.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

What if our kids look for something new?

Why would our kids want more of the same thing?

Imagine being a 14 to 17 year old today. You are of the so-called Internet generation. You have never known anything else. A digital camera is a camera (are there other camera's?). Internet is like electricity: always there. Schoolwork is done on the Web (if you can't Google it, it doesn't exist: my son needed information on the 1953 flouding disaster and was surprised that he couldn't find much on Google ...).

So I say: it's about time they change their ways. They are doing what we are doing, that's pretty uncool. Having parents on iTunes buying the latest songs: how mainstream is that? I remember a discussion I once had a couple of years ago where I predicted the end of the Messenger era (then really exploding), not because of the advent of new and better communication technologies but because ... it would have become old-fashioned, something that had always been around. Not cool at all.


My own son has kicked off his laptop a couple of weeks ago. Before that, he had already stopped MSN ages ago, was no longer interested in Netlog. All 'more of the same'. Games, yes. A renewed interest in PS. Watching stupid programs on tv but also the occasional National Geographic channel.

He hates touchscreens by the way: he's definitely not the only one. When Gartner predicts most kids wil be using touchscreen pc's by 2015, that's a grown-up's point of view. They will have to. There won't be any other choice (unless they collectively decline to buy)

Our other son wants to buy a record player. Records are cool.

Imagine them rediscovering books. Real ones. Newspapers when they are older. Using the Web for what they have learned it to be: a tool in your daily life. Not a must-always-be-on kinda thing that we are all so crazy about just because we still know what it used to be like before. When no-one had mobiles. When pc's @ home were a far away ambition, let alone having laptops.

So what if our kids look for something new? It might very well be something old.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

iPad creates media avalanche


From iPads in blenders to iPad price elasticity to iPad's downfall (who needs proprietary apps when there is The Cloud?) to Tweets' sentiment analysis to the OS duel between tablets, slates and pads, ...

Not to mention local newspapers and news broadcasts.

Meanwhile Apple has sold 300.000+ on the first day. A well orchestrated campaign, as usual. And don't we all at least want to check it out?