Posts Tagged “technology”
Ross • 31st Jan 2010 • Thinking • computers, computing, development, dharavi, economy, slums, technology, work
I am interested in the potential of boosting wages in slums by setting up IT centres so that locals can work via Mechanical Turk, and similar services. Although these jobs pay below UK minimum wage, it would be multiples of a typical slum-dweller’s income. It appears that this is not a new idea. Some firms have gone a stage further and distributed this work by mobile phone, broadening reach. However the benefit of a single location is that you don’t rely on the worker having a phone, and that you could combine work with education and IT literacy classes.
Ross • 9th Nov 2009 • Living, Thinking • advertising, agencies, consulting, creative, crowdsourcing, new media, social media, technology
As a legacy of my work with MTM London, I am very interested in how technology can change business models. Crowdsourcing seems very in at the moment. Some of the developments I have been following include:
All of these are Nathan Barley creative ventures. Can/does crowdsourcing work as well in other sectors? I am aware, of course, of Wikinvest and Knol, but I am not sure they are in the same category.
Ross • 6th Oct 2009 • Learning, Living, Thinking • computing, economics, grid computing, ideas, internet, market, marketplace, technology
I think of a number of ideas about new concepts, products and companies every day. The overwhelming majority of these ideas are terrible. However, occasionally I think of something worth developing further. My first step is to check to see if I got there too late. A couple of quick Google searches and normally I will have proved that there are indeed no new things under the sun.
This morning I thought: “What if, instead of donating your surplus computing capacity (idle processor time, storage or bandwidth) to a project like Seti@home, you could set a price for that capacity and trade it on a global marketplace? You could enter your input prices, which would mainly reflect your power/energy costs, and then the market would allocate computing tasks in an efficient manner.”
I followed it up further and I am far from the first person to have this idea, it seems.
- The GridEcon Research Project exploring “a marketplace for computing resources” (PDF)
- “Compute Power Market: Towards a Market-Orientated Grid” (PDF)
- Zimory, a (live?) German system
I am not annoyed that I didn’t get there first – in retrospect, it’s an obvious idea. I would, however, have been annoyed if I had put time into this idea before realising that others were working on it. In this way, the internet saves me years of thinking time.
Ross • 3rd Oct 2009 • Thinking • android, blogging, browsers, google, internet, iphone, optimism, software, technology, ubuntu, wordpress
I am constantly amazed by the concept of Open Source software. Not because it’s free (in either sense) as a one-time download, but because it constantly gets better, typically at no extra charge.
My joy at living in a world where people who are better at technology than I am distribute to me the fruits of their superior knowledge and hard labour, continually, at no extra cost, is hard to describe.
I log into Wordpress, and somebody just improved their plugin. I pick up an Android phone and it works better than it did yesterday. My browser just got better. My operating system just improved. My search engine gives me more options today.
To me, open source is the answer to that depressing feeling of taking something new and shiny, and having the bliss gradually wear off. Open source software is for future-orientated optimists. Okay, so my Android handset is not yet an iPhone, but one day it will be better.
Ross • 16th Jul 2009 • Thinking • business, computers, innovation, software, technology
My take on Microsoft’s future strategy, now Google is planning to launch its own OS:
- MS revenues stable in the short-term, as installed Windows base still high
- Google is continuing a broad strategic shift, from being the providers of an excellent, innovative search product to being providers of a platform who actually don’t innovate as much as they like to think
- The ‘providers of a platform who actually don’t innovate as much as they like to think’ business is/was MS’s home territory. As such, Google’s entry represents a significant threat
- However, MS has more to offer as a firm that provides ‘excellent products’ - Exchange/Office and Xbox being the two best examples
- Although it will be painful, MS should be prepared for the inevitable loss of platform dominance and concentrate entirely on backing great products in its core area(s) of expertise: business productivity and communication (note that Android phone and iPhones have adopted Exchange, and that Google now licences ActiveSync) and home entertainment (Windows Media Centre beats Apple TV hands down, and I can’t see Google Launching a G-Box)
Long term, I think MS needs to start behaving like a more standard, mature company. That means better dividends, surrendering of legacy markets and ruthless focus. This may eventually mean a split between the business apps firm and the home media entertainment firm.
Ross • 3rd Jun 2009 • Learning, Thinking • air france, aviation, flying, technology
While new technologies such as GPS satellite tracking could have provided a more accurate minute-by-minute update on the planes location, not all planes are equipped, and there is no requirement for them to be. Flight Wisdom
That a four year old plane doesn’t have GPS when most four year old executive saloons do strikes me as odd.
Ross • 6th May 2009 • Thinking • books, reading, technology
I heard Jeff Bezos discussing the Kindle on Newsnight the other night. Bezos is the archetypal web entrepreneur, spouting the typical web-era creed: ‘newer is better’, ‘most people don’t understand’, ‘the future is upon us’ and ‘this will be huge’. The Kindle, however, just looked like a big white brick.
I would like to use a Kindle, to see what it feels like to use. I am sure I would be impressed by the display – apparently the matt, still appearance makes it look unlike any LCD you’ve seen before. That’s cool. I hope it holds its high contrast in sunlight though – many displays don’t.
Obviously, Bezos wants to hype this device, but to ignore the drawbacks is moronic. What are those draw backs? Well, I think they’d include:
- Dependence on battery power. Okay, so it’s efficient, and it lasts a long time. But it does need charging occasionally, and when it’s not charged, you’re not able to read anything. I’d like to see a solar panel on the back of the device.
- Robustness of the device. I read in the bath, on the beach and laying in parks, among other places. I prop books on kitchen worktops, over the stove. Occasionally, I read in drizzle and rain. I read while planes I’m travelling on take off and land. Would I do this with a Kindle?
- Resale and lending. Part of the pleasure I get from books is in recommending and lending the ones I like to others. I sell books I don’t like. Maybe they’ll work for somebody else. Can’t do that on Kindle.
- Loss and breakage. It’s hard to break a book. Short of dropping it totally in the bath, or ocean, they’re robust. But more to the point, if you break a book, you’ve lost about £5, on average. Break a Kindle and you’re in for a few hundred quid. Plus – who steals other people’s books?
I think Kindle will find its niche – perhaps for technical manuals for the mechanic servicing 30 types of car. For the average reader, I’m not so sure. After the inital buzz, won’t you miss the unbreakable book?
Sometimes low-tech works. I think books are a case in point. After all, if the wonder that is email hasn’t yet created the paperless office, what hope has Kindle of ridding us of paper we hold more dear?
