By Robert Kempf
Yesterday I was reading a newspaper featuring an article on ChromeOS and its focus on cloud services – central information storage, accessible from everywhere, removing the need to have huge storage capabilities in your device, no need to store the same content on different devices, no synchronisation problems anymore, … We heard these arguments many times during the last 2 years and everyone appreciates that the cloud could make personal information management simpler than ever before. Looking out there it appears that a growing number of people trust cloud services and are not heisting to put their most private data out there.
However many still do not feeling uncomfortable with having all private content stored in a central place. It is not very clear what the data hosting party is allowed to do with our contents – whether these are securely stored only and won’t be exploited for research, personalized marketing or even other purpose we don’t even want to think of. I personally like the cloud idea, but would never use such a central storage for all my data. So where are the rules the hosting parties need to subscribe to? I haven’t seen them yet.
Interestingly enough there was another article on eBooks and users wondering that from one day to another an Ebook vanished from their devices without being notified – it was George Orwell’s “1984”. Did someone fear that people might read this book and create a dotted line to the cloud?
One might think of that, but the reason was simple – licensing issues ;-)
But still, we the users should know what’s going on on our devices and with our data and if anyone modifies or deletes our data we should be informed about that upfront.
For cloud services to reach their full potential and to reach a truly global audience this is a challenge that needs to be addressed.
So do we have everything under control still, or are others taking control?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
On the Road with GPS - 2009-08-04
By Magnus Ingelsten
Not until driving a car a long way do you realise what needs you may have for connecting with the outside world and access to multimedia content in order not to get bored to death or feel too isolated.
Yesterday I was driving from south of Sweden to the woods of Värmland (a Swedish midland county). So I drove a 1,000 kilometres. (And I got a terrible toothache due to an unreasonable amount of chewed chocolate, but that is another story.) Although, I had recently bought a TomTom XL, which have quite limited functionality despite it´s great navigation features so it couldn´t really suppress long hours of dull driving through an otherwise beautiful Swedish summer day. I know there are more expensive devices with some multimedia functionality such as MP3, jpg viewing, etc. And also I have my phone on the side.
After having gone through all TomTom features, the settings, speed camera warnings, points of interest, and selected different voices and symbols (now listening to Astrid and using a symbol looking like a Ferrari Spyder), I got insanely bored. (Yes I know. I Shouldn´t fiddle with the navigation while driving).
So, how about if my GPS in front could update me with selected news, reports, results, funny stories, e-book chapters, magazine articles etc, and Astrid would read them to me (as I probably shoudn´t read them on the screen when driving!) If this was a service on the internet I could subscribe and tick the wanted boxes and then when driving, I say to the GPS device (voice operated): “Read my media”. Then Astrid would respond: “Yes master, what would you like to hear?” If I said “Read Book” Astrid would continue to read “Stieg Larsons Millennium trilogy to me” or if I said (when bored) “Read Jokes” . And of course the GPS would use Bluetooth to access the service via my mobile which is in my pocket. This is what we call an E2E service. Hrrmm, maybe something we could develop at Teleca for somebody … Oops I shouldn´t perhaps have tipped everybody else off here...
Not until driving a car a long way do you realise what needs you may have for connecting with the outside world and access to multimedia content in order not to get bored to death or feel too isolated.
Yesterday I was driving from south of Sweden to the woods of Värmland (a Swedish midland county). So I drove a 1,000 kilometres. (And I got a terrible toothache due to an unreasonable amount of chewed chocolate, but that is another story.) Although, I had recently bought a TomTom XL, which have quite limited functionality despite it´s great navigation features so it couldn´t really suppress long hours of dull driving through an otherwise beautiful Swedish summer day. I know there are more expensive devices with some multimedia functionality such as MP3, jpg viewing, etc. And also I have my phone on the side.
After having gone through all TomTom features, the settings, speed camera warnings, points of interest, and selected different voices and symbols (now listening to Astrid and using a symbol looking like a Ferrari Spyder), I got insanely bored. (Yes I know. I Shouldn´t fiddle with the navigation while driving).
So, how about if my GPS in front could update me with selected news, reports, results, funny stories, e-book chapters, magazine articles etc, and Astrid would read them to me (as I probably shoudn´t read them on the screen when driving!) If this was a service on the internet I could subscribe and tick the wanted boxes and then when driving, I say to the GPS device (voice operated): “Read my media”. Then Astrid would respond: “Yes master, what would you like to hear?” If I said “Read Book” Astrid would continue to read “Stieg Larsons Millennium trilogy to me” or if I said (when bored) “Read Jokes” . And of course the GPS would use Bluetooth to access the service via my mobile which is in my pocket. This is what we call an E2E service. Hrrmm, maybe something we could develop at Teleca for somebody … Oops I shouldn´t perhaps have tipped everybody else off here...
Friday, July 17, 2009
Making mobile TV simple
By Andrew Till
Ever been bored at the airport and wish you had a simple way to access content from your home or friends PC? If so then take a look at this innovative application from TVMOBiLi that I came across during my travels this week. TVMOBiLi is available as a free download and seems to run on all major operating systems found in the home today and utilizes the increasingly common UPnP and DLNA protocols for media sharing. While UPnP and DLNA are not new, setting up a DLNA server is remains a complex and time consuming activity which is beyond the scope of most consumers. This is why TVMOBiLi is compelling as it removes this complexity and makes life very simple for the average consumer.
Another clever aspect is that it effectively allows you to establish a “social network” of friends, family and/or colleagues for viewing and exchanging digital media in a very simplistic way and one of the best things is that it runs on your existing hardware.
The application itself allows you to view images and videos not only from a PC but also via a wireless gaming console such as PS3, X-Box or Wii on any television, share files and music from any source so long as it is connected within part of your TVMOBiLi “network group”. There is also a trial release for the iPhone with more mobile platforms rolling out soon.
Another nice aspect to the service is that it has an intelligent tracking system that is centralized on the web so that it always knows where your data is. The data is never transferred to a central server but streamed on request over a peer-to-peer network. In essence it is very similar to using Skype with a small host application, a central connection database and no mass data storage requirement making it a simple and easy service to use.
You can find the application at http://www.tvmobili.com/ - enjoy.
Ever been bored at the airport and wish you had a simple way to access content from your home or friends PC? If so then take a look at this innovative application from TVMOBiLi that I came across during my travels this week. TVMOBiLi is available as a free download and seems to run on all major operating systems found in the home today and utilizes the increasingly common UPnP and DLNA protocols for media sharing. While UPnP and DLNA are not new, setting up a DLNA server is remains a complex and time consuming activity which is beyond the scope of most consumers. This is why TVMOBiLi is compelling as it removes this complexity and makes life very simple for the average consumer.
Another clever aspect is that it effectively allows you to establish a “social network” of friends, family and/or colleagues for viewing and exchanging digital media in a very simplistic way and one of the best things is that it runs on your existing hardware.
The application itself allows you to view images and videos not only from a PC but also via a wireless gaming console such as PS3, X-Box or Wii on any television, share files and music from any source so long as it is connected within part of your TVMOBiLi “network group”. There is also a trial release for the iPhone with more mobile platforms rolling out soon.
Another nice aspect to the service is that it has an intelligent tracking system that is centralized on the web so that it always knows where your data is. The data is never transferred to a central server but streamed on request over a peer-to-peer network. In essence it is very similar to using Skype with a small host application, a central connection database and no mass data storage requirement making it a simple and easy service to use.
You can find the application at http://www.tvmobili.com/ - enjoy.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Polishing the Chrome
By Andrew Till
Another week and another new OS to throw in to the melting pot of the mobile industry. I am of course referring to the announcement of Google’s latest “bling” Chrome OS designed for the Netbook market. While details remain somewhat limited and the release dates appear to be more 2010 than 2009 it does raise a number of questions. Why does Google need another OS for the mobile segment, what does this mean for all those busily working on Android netbooks and what’s the key story for developers. Of course some of these questions will not be answered until we can get our hands on the SDK and source code but here are some initial thoughts.
Finally while I can not help but wonder about the timing with the official release of source code being some six months away. Was this in part driven by Intel’s recent moves to support the Atom/Moblin platform? Or the growing rumours regarding Apple launching its own netbook at next year’s CES. One can only guess. However it does suggest that the market for netbooks is heating up and 2010 is set to be a key year for this emerging segment.
Another week and another new OS to throw in to the melting pot of the mobile industry. I am of course referring to the announcement of Google’s latest “bling” Chrome OS designed for the Netbook market. While details remain somewhat limited and the release dates appear to be more 2010 than 2009 it does raise a number of questions. Why does Google need another OS for the mobile segment, what does this mean for all those busily working on Android netbooks and what’s the key story for developers. Of course some of these questions will not be answered until we can get our hands on the SDK and source code but here are some initial thoughts.
- To date no one has been able to produce a single OS that crosses all platforms and I include Apple in this statement.
- Android is designed for entry level netbooks down to mass market mobile phones. Chrome OS goes in the opposite direction and starts with netbooks and scales up to PCs. Notably support for x86 will be included from day one.
- Both Chrome OS and Android use Chrome as the browser and therefore we can expect strong commonality for gadgets and web services and hence there should be a common development environment for application developers that want to span the broad range of mobile and desktop devices.
- While Chrome OS is a separate project from Android it will, like Android, be an OSS project. Therefore we can also expect to see the community work to bring alignment to many common components that all devices will have such as the WiFi stacks for example.
- We can also reasonably expect a strong level of commonality for development tools.
Finally while I can not help but wonder about the timing with the official release of source code being some six months away. Was this in part driven by Intel’s recent moves to support the Atom/Moblin platform? Or the growing rumours regarding Apple launching its own netbook at next year’s CES. One can only guess. However it does suggest that the market for netbooks is heating up and 2010 is set to be a key year for this emerging segment.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Counting chickens after they are hatched
By Chandra Challagonda
During the recent times I have been frequently asked which mobile platform is going to take the major share, what is the best/popular mobile platform currently etc. My answer is usually just a friendly smile. I understand why people keep asking me these questions and I often ask myself. Whatever the predictions say, I think it is a bit too early to point in any certain direction and say anything.
The biggest mobile platform share holder in smart phones; Symbian took the bold step to go open source. Clearly this step is challenging as Symbian was not originally not designed for it and it will take significant amounts of hard work to complete the transition. That said Symbian is the one with a long term track record and still has the backing of the worlds No.1 handset vendor. Windows Mobile is challenging other platforms with the unification with enterprise applications, which makes sense as most of the organizations are using Microsoft Technologies for day to day work . Apple's iPhone has totally changed the perception of what mobile phones are with extremely good usability and App store concepts. I heard my friend saying that, his 6 year old daughter and 60 year old mother knows how to download from the App store! Android is getting more and more popular and the OHA has really helped in its popularity. The platform itself is very flexible which makes it easily adaptable to many needs.
For me it seems like every platform has its own strengths and weakness. I think still we need to wait and watch when the different kind of phones hit the market & consumers based on all these platforms. I personally would not under or over estimating anyone in this game and will keep watching it. As one of the English phrase goes, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch".
During the recent times I have been frequently asked which mobile platform is going to take the major share, what is the best/popular mobile platform currently etc. My answer is usually just a friendly smile. I understand why people keep asking me these questions and I often ask myself. Whatever the predictions say, I think it is a bit too early to point in any certain direction and say anything.
The biggest mobile platform share holder in smart phones; Symbian took the bold step to go open source. Clearly this step is challenging as Symbian was not originally not designed for it and it will take significant amounts of hard work to complete the transition. That said Symbian is the one with a long term track record and still has the backing of the worlds No.1 handset vendor. Windows Mobile is challenging other platforms with the unification with enterprise applications, which makes sense as most of the organizations are using Microsoft Technologies for day to day work . Apple's iPhone has totally changed the perception of what mobile phones are with extremely good usability and App store concepts. I heard my friend saying that, his 6 year old daughter and 60 year old mother knows how to download from the App store! Android is getting more and more popular and the OHA has really helped in its popularity. The platform itself is very flexible which makes it easily adaptable to many needs.
For me it seems like every platform has its own strengths and weakness. I think still we need to wait and watch when the different kind of phones hit the market & consumers based on all these platforms. I personally would not under or over estimating anyone in this game and will keep watching it. As one of the English phrase goes, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch".
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thoughts on the modern testing approach
By Andry Plastov
Modern approaches to testing frequently imply antagonism between advocates of Scrum and CMM(I) processes. In my opinion, though, the question of drawbacks and merits is less interesting than combining these processes, i.e. providing the opportunity to create a symbiosis of both Scrum and CMM(I).
What are the particularities of Scrum and CMM(I)? The particular characteristic of Scrum is intensive cooperation and communication in groups, adaptive project management, frequent interim releases and, correspondently, frequently repeated test execution. For CMM(I) it is characteristic that releases come up in considerable time periods, the process is strictly documented and takes much more work input, and it’s less flexible as a result.
Is symbiosis between these processes possible after all? If we take an insight into these processes, we can see that one of them comprises the elements of the other and vice versa. Ex., long periods between releases go well with using Scrum within these intervals, whereas the necessity to manage the requirements and the configurative control are the integral parts of a good Agile project.
Besides, in the current projects it often happens that one project is added to the other one in spiral. Eg., when the test team increases or when new teams join on other sites working in different time zones but within one project, there evolves the necessity to change the process towards CMM(I). At the same time a reduction of the team makes expenditures of the resources for CMM(I) inexpedient and inevitably makes us turn towards the Scrum approach. The delay of the final release leads to the delay of the beginning of the test cycle and, correspondently, to prolongation of the product output; the demand to be on time requires frequent testing at the early stages; besides, the possibility to work out the test plan using raw versions of requirements is the key moment for using a Scrum approach.
An indisputable merit of symbiosis of Agile and CMM(I) is unsurpassed flexibility, which enables adjustments to the process and specifics of the project quickly, to support a good balance between the spend on quality and the cost of the end product. Test execution at the early stages of functional readiness helps to equalize workload of the engineers, to lessen overhead and to reduce the time, needed to put the product on the market.
In my opinion, the modern approach to testing not only can, but should be based on the balanced combination of Scrum and CMM(I) processes
Modern approaches to testing frequently imply antagonism between advocates of Scrum and CMM(I) processes. In my opinion, though, the question of drawbacks and merits is less interesting than combining these processes, i.e. providing the opportunity to create a symbiosis of both Scrum and CMM(I).
What are the particularities of Scrum and CMM(I)? The particular characteristic of Scrum is intensive cooperation and communication in groups, adaptive project management, frequent interim releases and, correspondently, frequently repeated test execution. For CMM(I) it is characteristic that releases come up in considerable time periods, the process is strictly documented and takes much more work input, and it’s less flexible as a result.
Is symbiosis between these processes possible after all? If we take an insight into these processes, we can see that one of them comprises the elements of the other and vice versa. Ex., long periods between releases go well with using Scrum within these intervals, whereas the necessity to manage the requirements and the configurative control are the integral parts of a good Agile project.
Besides, in the current projects it often happens that one project is added to the other one in spiral. Eg., when the test team increases or when new teams join on other sites working in different time zones but within one project, there evolves the necessity to change the process towards CMM(I). At the same time a reduction of the team makes expenditures of the resources for CMM(I) inexpedient and inevitably makes us turn towards the Scrum approach. The delay of the final release leads to the delay of the beginning of the test cycle and, correspondently, to prolongation of the product output; the demand to be on time requires frequent testing at the early stages; besides, the possibility to work out the test plan using raw versions of requirements is the key moment for using a Scrum approach.
An indisputable merit of symbiosis of Agile and CMM(I) is unsurpassed flexibility, which enables adjustments to the process and specifics of the project quickly, to support a good balance between the spend on quality and the cost of the end product. Test execution at the early stages of functional readiness helps to equalize workload of the engineers, to lessen overhead and to reduce the time, needed to put the product on the market.
In my opinion, the modern approach to testing not only can, but should be based on the balanced combination of Scrum and CMM(I) processes
Monday, June 22, 2009
Open Mobile Summit London 2009 – Openly Transparent
By Andrew Till
Last week I continued my world tour of trade shows and events with a visit to the Open Mobile Summit in London. Now a week has passed and I’ve had time to reflect on some of the key themes and highlights from the conference.
There is a widely held belief that Mobile Data is about to explode. Now I know you have heard this before but with the combination of powerful HTML browsers, faster CPUs and flat rate data tariffs things really seem to be moving and both T-Mobile and Orange talked about some impressive growth in this area. Especially with consumers who seem to be tweeting, blogging and generally getting addicted to mobile social networking in the same way they are on the desktop.
A lot of time was also spent discussing the benefits of HTML 5.0. Now this is a very compelling development for mobile and promises to take web application development a big step forwards. However will it offer the utopia of a single mobile development environment in the way it was discussed at the conference. I for one remain sceptical but I do see it as being a key development for 2010.
Another key these was Apps Stores and let’s face it, everybody want one. If the show was a good reflection of the industry then expect an Apps store to be top of everyone’s Christmas list this year. Handset vendors and operators alike were keen to outline what they are doing in this area. However, perhaps one interesting twist was the call for the OMTP to create a common standard. Now a common framework for apps stores with open operator APIs available to developers would be a compelling development and would help to contain fragmentation in this area.
There was also a strong debate about are we open, as it we really want people to play and change the code, or are we transparent, do we want to let people see what we are doing, in the mobile industry. Only time will tell what the real answer to this question is but one thing is clear there is a real momentum around open source in mobile then is not slowing down. Based on the evidence of the show as the industry fully understood how to get the best from open source the answer would have to be no. But, there are clear and positive signs that the industry is becoming more comfortable with open source and that it will play a strong role not only in handset platforms but in service delivery and none handset mobile devices as well.
So all in all a very good show and one worth attending. Perhaps not amazing revelations but clearly a lot of confirmation about the momentum of the trends that are going to shape the mobile space over the next few years.
Last week I continued my world tour of trade shows and events with a visit to the Open Mobile Summit in London. Now a week has passed and I’ve had time to reflect on some of the key themes and highlights from the conference.
There is a widely held belief that Mobile Data is about to explode. Now I know you have heard this before but with the combination of powerful HTML browsers, faster CPUs and flat rate data tariffs things really seem to be moving and both T-Mobile and Orange talked about some impressive growth in this area. Especially with consumers who seem to be tweeting, blogging and generally getting addicted to mobile social networking in the same way they are on the desktop.
A lot of time was also spent discussing the benefits of HTML 5.0. Now this is a very compelling development for mobile and promises to take web application development a big step forwards. However will it offer the utopia of a single mobile development environment in the way it was discussed at the conference. I for one remain sceptical but I do see it as being a key development for 2010.
Another key these was Apps Stores and let’s face it, everybody want one. If the show was a good reflection of the industry then expect an Apps store to be top of everyone’s Christmas list this year. Handset vendors and operators alike were keen to outline what they are doing in this area. However, perhaps one interesting twist was the call for the OMTP to create a common standard. Now a common framework for apps stores with open operator APIs available to developers would be a compelling development and would help to contain fragmentation in this area.
There was also a strong debate about are we open, as it we really want people to play and change the code, or are we transparent, do we want to let people see what we are doing, in the mobile industry. Only time will tell what the real answer to this question is but one thing is clear there is a real momentum around open source in mobile then is not slowing down. Based on the evidence of the show as the industry fully understood how to get the best from open source the answer would have to be no. But, there are clear and positive signs that the industry is becoming more comfortable with open source and that it will play a strong role not only in handset platforms but in service delivery and none handset mobile devices as well.
So all in all a very good show and one worth attending. Perhaps not amazing revelations but clearly a lot of confirmation about the momentum of the trends that are going to shape the mobile space over the next few years.
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