Editor’s note: Is Apple going too far with its restrictions on developers? Alistair Goodman thinks so and explains why in this guest post. He is the CEO of 1020 Placecast, a location-based mobile advertising startup.
Apple’s recent behavior bears an increasing resemblance to carriers with respect to the walled garden they are creating around the iPhone. Restricting applications, restricting the use of location on the device, blocking Flash, and now potentially taking advertising in house—these moves are taken from the carrier’s playbook with the hope of locking out meaningful competition. Ironically, Apple may very well become the barrier to open innovation in mobile in much the same way as carriers have been before the iPhone came along.
What is clear from the announcement to developers last week about plans to deny some apps that deliver location-based advertising is that Apple intends to control the flow of marketing dollars on the iPhone. Less clear are their plans for sharing the wealth with the ecosystem—but if you look closely at acquisitions like Placebase, key hires and patent filings, what emerges is a potentially more ominous view of a company that can only compete in the direct advertising business head-to-head with Google by seizing control of location-based advertising.
Location is now widely understood to be the key to successful mobile advertising because where a consumer is in the physical world and at what the time they are there is such a strong predictor of consumer behavior and intent. “If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” says Apple. While they have yet to entirely exclude developers and ad networks from the equation, their broader strategy around location-based programs certainly has the potential to do just that.
Consider the following:
- Apple’s acquisition of Placebase was not just about replacing Google Maps (with their Pushpin product). Placebase also is an aggregator of location-based content like neighborhood boundaries, census data and business listings, just like Navteq. These are the initial building blocks of a platform that indicates points-of-interest to a consumer when they are on their iPhone in a specific location. (Apple, like Google, has not yet cracked the problem of “location intelligence” – but this is just a starting point… more on that later in this piece)
- Apple’s $275 million acquisition and staffing up at Quattro is a clear signal that they are ramping up mobile advertising sales to go head-to-head with Google. In Europe, for example, Apple has just hired former Microsoft sales manager Theo Theodorou to lead their sales effort, and Todd Tran, previously a senior executive at WPP’s Group M, to be general manager. Integrating Quattro into Apple gives it the ability to target audiences and deliver mobile ads, and provide the analytics to media buyers about the effectiveness of their programs.
- Apple has filed (and widely publicized) patent applications in location-based marketing which are clearly designed to stake a claim in the space. Several patents are particularly interesting indicators of their strategic intent. This one, Location-Based Services, is like Google Goggles, which enables visual search based on a picture, and covers a host of location-based use cases such as understanding the proximity of businesses to enable the ability to trigger messages via “…information corresponding to one or more relevant businesses in a vicinity of the determined current geographic location.” A second one covers proximity-based ads, and a third is quite specific, “Graphical User Interface with Location-Specific Interface Elements,” covers the ability to monetize mobile messaging by enabling consumers to make purchases based on promoted items nearby. (Note to both Apple and Google beginning to stake out their ground in the future patent war: you will likely need this patent and others as well which were actually issued years ago.)
So what is missing from Apple’s strategy? Location intelligence —meaning the ability to return content (and advertising) on a consumer’s iPhone that is always correct, and always relevant for where they are and when they are there. As others have noted, just because a phone has a GPS on it that can locate a user does not mean that what is returned to them is meaningful. Location intelligence is the problem of returning relevant information based on place and time. It is actually pretty complex—this is something that both Apple and Google are only discovering as they begin distributing their apps to millions of consumers. And doing it at scale—meaning always returning customized content and advertising to millions of consumers in real time—is an extraordinary challenge because it requires managing location data and content at a level of accuracy that today’s online search algorithms are just beginning to grasp.
Apple’s continued march down the path of the walled garden will become harder and harder as Google’s open Android ecosystem grows and the mobile ecosystem as a whole moves towards the more open Internet-like model. Meanwhile carriers will continue to use SMS to deliver location-based marketing across any open smartphone device or any feature phone. If Apple thinks the carriers are going to lie-down and settle for nothing from a new revenue stream in location-based advertising, they should think long and hard about the implications of this choice. Because as much as they are acting like the new carriers, they don’t actually own any wireless bandwidth or cell towers to carry all that data going to and from their phones.
Photo credit: Flickr/Paul Englefield.
Back to the Future: How Apple is Becoming More Like a Carrier Every Day
Posted in Uncategorized on February 10, 2010 by mcxperi
Biopolis: The Science Factory – Proto Magazine – Massachusetts General Hospital
Posted in Uncategorized on February 10, 2010 by mcxperi
Two stick-figure-like sculptures cavort next to a sign that reads: BIOPOLIS. Shuttle buses, bearing the words “Biopolis: Beyond Infinity” and images of beakers and DNA strands, buzz among nine irregularly shaped glass and aluminum towers with faces angled toward one another. Designed by the Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, known for her dynamic, futuristic creations, each building bears a monumental name drawn from Greek mythology (Chromos, Helios, Proteos) or science (Genome, Matrix). Inside, the large lobbies resemble those of private banks or Philippe Starck hotels: gleaming marble floors, sleek reception desks and security guards with crackling walkie-talkies. Sky bridges and wide walkways connect the buildings, and the grounds are lush with palms, ferns and fountains.
Here, within view of Singapore’s central business district, a cadre of some 2,300 researchers from more than 50 countries have engineered peptide nanoparticles that can fight brain infections, discovered a way to minimize tissue damage after a heart attack, and generated a three-dimensional model of a crucial protein produced by the H1N1 swine flu virus, helping to determine the efficacy of drugs that target it—all this, and considerably more, in just the six years since Biopolis opened. To fuel this research, a Singapore government entity known as the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) offers everything a scientist’s heart could desire: 2 million square feet of space outfitted with flow cytometers, nuclear magnetic resonance instruments and X-ray crystallography equipment; a vast supply center; and the ability to draw from the nearly $10 billion set aside for scientific research and development between 2006 and 2010.
But there’s a catch, and some researchers say it’s major. In exchange for plum working conditions, scientists must satisfy a list of key performance indicators. Everyone agrees to write a specified number of papers and file a minimum number of patent applications by a stated deadline (requirements vary from person to person). Contracts last just three to five years, and if scientists don’t deliver, they’re asked to leave. Setting such conditions enables Singapore’s business-minded officials to get rid of what they see as dead weight and to churn out science on a strict, predetermined schedule.
Some observers, used to a system in which the results of scientific research are expected to be unexpected, contend that the highest-quality work can’t be hurried. They wonder how and whether a government can create in a few years what elsewhere has evolved over generations
Leap
Posted in Uncategorized on February 9, 2010 by mcxperiA science-fiction short film about a young man who accidently discovers that he can travel between two parallel worlds. He soon realizes that doing so has deadly consequences. Full Screen Viewing Recommended.
Set Aside 10% Of Your Work For Retirement, Not 10% Of Your Income – Early Retirement Blog
Posted in Uncategorized on February 9, 2010 by mcxperiWe’ve all heard the pitches and seen the graphs: if little Johnny saves just 10% of his income from age 22 until age 65, he will retire a multi-millionaire! By scrimping and saving his entire life, he will be able to kick back and enjoy like! What they don’t tell you is that little Johnny develops a heart condition from all those drive-thru lunches working frantically at his desk, trying to meet the next “can’t-miss” deadline (have you ever tried missing one on purpose? It’s fun). Consequently, by the time he had finally saved enough to retire in style, he wasn’t healthy enough to enjoy it. Poor little Johnny!
But This Doesn’t Have To Be You!
Poor little Johnny followed the conventional wisdom of saving 10% of his income year in and year out for retirement using such traditional retirement accounts as his 401k and even a Roth IRA. Now this is excellent advice, and I definitely recommend you save at least 10% of your income every year for retirement, although I think it should be more like 20-30% of your income just to be safe (some might disagree). Nobody is telling you not to save money, because compound interest is indeed the 8th wonder of the world.
But there’s a better way, or at least a complimentary way that, coupled with diligent savings, will help you reach your goal of early semi-retirement decades earlier than you would otherwise be able. It is not inconceivable you could reach the point of being financially capable of quitting the 9-5 world permanently within 5 years of implementing this plan. How? It’s simple: set aside 10% of your work efforts to income-generating side products in addition to saving the regular 10% of your income for retirement.
Tithe Your Earning Power To Compound Your Results
It is often said a person’s earning power, that is, the ability to earn an income, is by far the biggest asset anybody has. This is entirely true, but what this doesn’t tell you is that you can magnify your earning potential several times over working for yourself rather than somebody else. This means finding a low-maintenance side gig and banking the earnings. This is what Tim Ferriss refers to as a muse in his book The Four Hour Work Week. If you do it right, you can net an additional $15,000-20,000 per year per muse, each requiring only a few hours per week (or month, if you choose wisely) to maintain.
Your muse doesn’t have to be in an area you’re particularly interested in, although that will certainly help keep you motivated. It doesn’t have to be something you want to turn into a full-time business someday, although that’s great, too (J.D. at Get Rich Slowly did it, and seems to be doing very well for himself as a result). It’s simply a matter of recognizing a good passive income opportunity when you see it, and taking action. As it turns out, taking action on an obviously slam-dunk idea is the hardest part for most people. That is why they continue grinding away at the 9-5 until they get their golden watch: they are all talk. But not you. You’re going to take action. For ever 10 hours you spend at work, you’re going to spend at least 1 hour building an alternative source of income (click here for 40+ alternative income ideas and resources). I chose creating not-really-passive online income using niche sites as my muse, but yours could be literally anything. Get out there an explore to find out what works for you.
It Adds Up Over Time
Let’s try a different sort of math, but one that is related to all those “if little Johnny saves X% of his salary every year he will have $Y at age 65.” Instead of saving 10% of his income, let’s assume he spends 10% of his working hours on side projects that generate an extra $1,000 per month by the end of the year, a number that is extremely doable if you work efficiently, although you will doubtless start out a bit slower as you learn the ropes of your chosen business. At the end of 5 years, you will be generating approximately $60,000 per year of extra income with a time investment of only 10-15 hours per week. What’s more, you could probably double or triple that number if you worked more (careful though, we don’t want to create another full-time job for ourselves) or invested a little money to help spur growth.
At this point, you can probably afford to tell your boss what he can do with himself. Or you can continue working for a few years, pocketing the extra cash flow or reinvesting it in your businesses until you feel ready to quit your job. The point is, it’s entirely up to you. And tithing just 10% of your working hours got you there in 5 years instead of 40. Now that’s what I call compound interest!
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“Out Hackin’” Culture and Innovation in the research lab
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2010 by mcxperiArticle by Zhiquan YeoWhat do a chisel, a speaker, tons of wire and many, many magnets have in common? Any guesses? No? Well, they all contribute to cutting edge and innovative interaction research. And how do those random pieces of equipment and material contribute to research? Well, read on and you’ll find out.
Now, research may sound dry and boring and completely nerdy, and I used to think that all PhDs were stuffy old gents in labcoats and bowties hunched over a table and muttering to themselves. Then, without warning, I stumbled headfirst into the research culture, and what did I find? These were some of the coolest folk in the world, doing what to me seemed like the best job in the world.
There are lots of different research areas, from the physical sciences, to the social sciences to computer science and all matter of areas in between. My research interests lie in cutting edge Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research, specifically in affective textual animations and novel interaction techniques. I work at 2 research labs, one at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and the other at Disney Research Pittsburgh (DRP). The 2 labs have similar, yet different cultures, but both produce tremendous amounts of innovation.
The lab at CMU works on projects related to user interfaces and interaction techniques. The lab has an academic slant, and the work primarily goes toward publications in major conferences and/or journals. Since its’ an academic lab, it has a slightly more relaxed culture, since conference deadlines are known well ahead of time (and because graduate students like to goof off). The lab also has a culture of “hacking”, not in the “break into computer systems” sense, but in using the stuff around us and building cool things.
This “hacking” culture leads to some very interesting ways of getting components that we need… You need a wire coil you say? Ok, hand me that chisel and hammer and I’ll break open this speaker and give it to you (See, I told you I’d tell you how we sued the chisel for research purposes). The best part is, everyone accepts that if you leave a tantalizing piece of electronic equipment in the general area, it’s going to get broken into and scavenged for parts. Since funding is tight in these bleak economic times, scavenging for parts makes perfect sense, and the hacker culture in the lab fits in perfectly. We scour surplus stores online to get electronic components, squeeze multiple circuit boards onto a single piece to save on fabrication costs, and build a lot of our own experiments from scratch. What may be surprising to most is that what looks like chaos in the lab is actually a finely tuned, research machine. There is a multitude of innovative research that comes out from the lab, and our faculty advisors are respected members of the HCI community. And yet, they let us grown up kids play with power tools, laser cutters and wreck mayhem in the lab, all in the name of good fun and serious research.
The lab at DRP on the other hand, is geared toward industrial research, and innovations go not only toward producing top-notch papers, but also could potentially make the company a lot of money. Thus, there is slightly more pressure to deliver results, but at the same time, the researchers are given a fairly wide berth in pursuing their own research interests. I’m involved in research on input technologies, and build circuits and sensor systems as part of my work. This is a far cry from my training in college, where I focused on software (I was trained as a computer scientist). But, the lab culture allows me to experiment and play around with new technology and equipment, all with the goal of developing the next generation of input technologies.
While there is less of a hacking culture at the DRP lab, we still cobble together test circuits using whatever we have on hand (less ripping apart of stuff though). The culture at the DRP lab is also one which encourages testing and simulation first before building actual hardware, and encourages best practices in design and analysis of projects. I basically learnt how to use circuit simulators to test sensor systems (coupled with copious amounts of wiring diagrams), and how to best lay out a circuit board to avoid interference. These practices would serve one well when going into industry, where products need to be built to spec and reliably, lest it lead to the failure of a product and economic woe.
The culture in a research lab is very different from that of normal offices. The people in the labs are allowed free reign in deciding what they want to do (well, kind of), and have at their disposal a range of tools, parts and skills to help their innovations come to life. While the CMU and DRP labs may be different, the core values seem the same, which is to encourage an environment where researchers can come up with great ideas, and leave their mark on the world.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is some research that needs to be done (actually, more like a speaker that needs to be, uh, “repurposed”).
Zhiquan “ZQ” Yeo is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. He also does work with Disney Research Pittsburgh as a Research Associate. When not thinking about world domination with tiny robots, or designing new electronic projects, or doing some seriously bleeding edge research, ZQ can be found 3000 feet in the air, in a tiny airplane, bouncing through turbulence. He also has a not-updated-as-often-as-he-would-like blog/website at www.zhiquanyeo.com
Questions, comments and complaints (and offers of money) can be directed to zhiquan.yeo@gmail.com. Please direct all spam to /dev/null, or he will unleash an army of tiny robots
Great article by my great friend Zhiquan!
Unplugged: Goodbye cables, hello energy beams – tech – 08 February 2010 – New Scientist
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2010 by mcxperiThe third possibility for wireless power is magnetic induction – the most attractive option for beefy domestic applications. A fluctuating magnetic field emanating from one coil can induce an electric current in another coil close by, which is how many devices, like electric toothbrushes and even some cellphones, recharge drained batteries. The snag, however, has been that while efficiency is good at close contact, it can drop to zero at even a few millimetres from the transmitter.
Enter Karalis and his colleagues. It has long been known that such mechanical energy transfer is improved enormously if two objects resonate at the same frequency – it’s how an opera singer can smash a glass if she hits the right pitch. Karalis wondered whether the same idea could improve the efficiency of magnetic induction at greater distances.
The team’s set-up consisted of an inducting coil connected to a capacitor. The energy within this circuit oscillates rapidly between an electric field in the capacitor and a magnetic field in the coil. The frequency of this oscillation is controlled by the capacitor’s ability to store charge and the coil’s ability to produce a magnetic field. If the frequency in the energy-transmitter’s circuit is different from that of the receiver’s circuit, they are non-resonant. The result is that the magnetic field coming from the transmitter interferes destructively with the field building up in the receiver, constraining energy transfer. But if the transmitter and receiver are resonant, the team reasoned, the oscillating fields of their two coils would always be in sync, meaning the interference is constructive and the amount of energy transferred is boosted.
They tested their theory in 2007 with great success, transmitting 60 watts across 2 metres, with 40 per cent efficiency (Science, vol 317, p 83). The team has since founded a company called WiTricity to develop the idea. Last year, the firm used two square coils 30 centimetres across, one in the receiver and one in the transmitter, to power a 50-watt TV 0.5 metres from the power supply, with an impressive 70 per cent efficiency. “In some cases, the improvement in the efficiency due to resonance can be more than 100,000 times that of non-resonant induction,” says Karalis. Unlike laser-based line-of-sight energy transmission, a magnetic field is not focused and so can pass around or through obstacles between the transmitter and receiver.
Biological_clock_human.PNG (PNG Image, 1179×612 pixels) – Scaled (79%)
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2010 by mcxperi
Focusing 192 lasers on one little target – SFGate
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2010 by mcxperi
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported Thursday they have taken a major step toward harnessing the forces that power the sun in an effort to create unlimited energy on Earth.
In experiments at the lab’s National Ignition Facility, the scientists successfully fired an array of 192 laser beams at a helium-filled target no larger than a BB shot and instantly heated it to 6 million degrees Fahrenheit. The gas vanished in a tiny explosion.
The scientists said that result marked the most important advance yet in more than 10 years of work at the $3.5 billion facility.
They are seeking two major goals:
– To create in miniature the explosions of thermonuclear weapons in order to validate the computer codes that test the safety and reliability of America’s nuclear stockpile.
– To show that the immensely powerful lasers can achieve safe fusion reactions that could be scaled up for the eventual production of unlimited and clean energy, a dream nuclear scientists have been pursuing for more than five decades.
Working toward ‘ignition’
The successful experiments by a team of 35 physicists, led by ignition facility scientists Siegfried H. Glenzer and L. Jeffrey Atherton, were described Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science. In coming months the team will start a new round of experiments seeking finally to achieve what they call “ignition” – a true thermonuclear reaction inside the laboratory’s tiny targets.
“We’re confident of our ability to start seeking ignition this summer,” Atherton said in an interview. “And we’re optimistic that at some point soon we’ll achieve it.”
To achieve that thermonuclear reaction, the scientists will attempt to use the lasers’ immensely powerful beams to reach temperatures of more than 200 million degrees Fahrenheit and pressures millions of times greater than Earth’s atmosphere – conditions found only in the interior of the sun and stars.
The beryllium target will be filled with deuterium and tritium – the isotopes of hydrogen – frozen into a crystal at 424 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and blasted by the lasers in a billionth of a second. The target will be held inside a tiny gold cylinder called a hohlraum, about the size of a pencil eraser.
If those experiments succeed, the hydrogen isotopes would be crushed instantly and explode inward until they fuse and yield vastly more energy than the laser beams had pumped into them.
Woah, it’s exciting to think that we might be finally close to obtaining practical fusion power!
News Clips: Was Chinese wrongly taught for 30 years?
Posted in Uncategorized on February 7, 2010 by mcxperiA fresh controversy over second language policy has erupted with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s remarks that the Government had proceeded on the wrong assumptions for 30 years. Did it really go wrong? If so, how can it be rectified? Insight traces the twists and turns of a policy that has led to much weeping and gnashing of teeth among students, parents and teachers.
By Clarissa Oon & Kor Kian Beng——-
FOR Chinese Singaporeans who had struggled with their mother tongue in school, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s recent remarks that bilingual education had proceeded on the wrong assumptions for 30 years were a breath of fresh air.One of those who felt vindicated was Mr Andrew Koh, 43, who studied at an English-stream mission school.
It was there where he developed ‘a phobia of the Chinese language, no thanks to the rigid way it was taught’, says Mr Koh. ‘I am sure we all feel vindicated by MM Lee’s acknowledgement and now know that it is not because we are intellectually inferior.’
Back in the 1970s, Chinese was taught in much the same way to all students – whether they came from English-speaking backgrounds with little exposure to Mandarin, or lived and breathed the language in traditional Chinese-medium schools that still existed then.
This meant that Mr Koh and his schoolmates at St Andrew’s Primary and Secondary schools had to memorise unfamiliar words and passages ‘with lots of ‘ting xie’ (spelling tests) thrown in’.
‘It was a torture and very pressurising as it was pure memory work with no context to learning the language,’ recalls Mr Koh, a director and general manager at Canon Singapore.
In Mr Lee’s view, the problem of how to teach Chinese as a second language was effectively fixed – somewhat – only in 2004, through a modular system customising the teaching of primary school Chinese to different language abilities.
Most of today’s Chinese teachers are bilingual – compared to their Chinese-educated predecessors – and better able to engage their young charges. But the policy is still ‘not completely right’ and must be fine-tuned, Mr Lee said last week at the opening of a centre to upgrade Chinese-language teaching.
Hence, the newly launched Singapore Centre for Chinese Language (SCCL) must explore ways to make learning Chinese fun for students, he said. This is because fewer children these days have a Mandarin-speaking home environment to fall back on. Official figures show that three out of five children entering Primary 1 this year come from English-speaking homes.
For Mr Koh, unimaginative teaching turned him off Chinese – though fortunately not for life. Five years ago, he took a Chinese refresher course at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce which ‘opened his eyes to the rich historical heritage and beauty of the Chinese language’.
If only it had been taught differently when he was in school, says the man who barely scraped through his O-level Chinese examination.
How Differential Gear works (BEST Tutorial)
Posted in Uncategorized on February 6, 2010 by mcxperiA very informative video demonstrating the concept of a differential gear. Why don’t they make educational videos like that anymore?
