Tag Archives: Ideas

2012 and the mobile Internet

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A generation, according to one definition, last 18 years. The baby boomer generation, for example, has been historically applied to those who were born between 1946 and 1964 (in other interpretations, that time period combines the Baby Boomers with Generation Jones). Thus, if you follow the 18-year model, you end up with the following timeline:

  • 1946-1964 (encompassing the Baby boomers and Generation Jones)
  • 1964-1982 (encompassing Generation X)
  • 1982-2000 (encompassing Generation Y and some of the present “New Silent Generation”)
  • 2000-2018

I would like to pay particular attention to the generations 1964-1982 and 1982-2000. The former was marked by the solidification of television as a communication medium (at the expense of radio), the rise and levelling of the hippie subculture, the stagnation of the Cold War, and the rise of political terrorism. The latter, however, was marked by the introduction of computers and the Internet as a communication medium (at the expense of television), the rise and levelling of the punk and metal subcultures, the end of the Cold War, and the initial rise of religious fundamentalist terrorism.

Then I’d like to pay particular attention to what I call “pivot years”, or specific years within each of these timespans that marked the beginning of trends which continued (in much more evolved and entrenched states) into the next period. My initial placing of “pivot years” lies on each 12th year within each period. Thus:

  • 1958
  • 1976
  • 1994
  • 2012

I’m not prepared to comment on the eventual importance of 1958 to the following generation. However, I am prepared to comment on the importance of the following two dates:

  • 1976: Apple Computer was founded. (Microsoft was registered as a corporation to the state of New Mexico this same year)
  • 1994: Netscape was founded as “Mosaic Communications Corporation”. (The Yahoo! search engine was launched this same year by Jerry Yang and David Filo at Stanford University, and was incorporated as a business in 1995.)

Both companies have obviously played a preeminent role in the computing arena that continued, in an evolved form, into the following generations. While Apple was founded  during the latter age of hippies, it found its greatest exposure during the 1982-2000 generation (when computing and the Internet had first entered the home as niche consumer appliances), and it seems poised to play a lesser role in the 2000-2018 generation. Furthermore, Apple was part of the extremely competitive home computing market that surged from 1976 to 1984.

Meanwhile, while Netscape was founded during the 1982-2000 generation, its products (now under the Mozilla brand) have found an extensive and partially-commanding reach in the 2000-2018 generation (when computing and the Internet have become entrenched and ubiquitous). Furthermore, it was part of the extremely competitive free-for-alls which influenced the computing industry from 1994 to 2001, such as the Browser wars and the Dot-com bubble.

However, if 1976 and 1994 were the pivot years of their timespans, then what about 2012?

What does 2012 hold in store for computing and the Internet?

Personally, I think that it will involve the mobile smartphones and ubiquitous Internet-dependent devices which are so commonplace these days. However, like the previous pivot years, it could very likely involve the following:

  • the prior creation of a Web-dependent application that will make mobile or ubiquitous computing devices useful and stimulating to millions of people
  • establishment of a slew of companies which rely upon and monetize that medium, and the entry of older-generation companies which will cater to these companies
  • the gradual driving down of prices, rates and other financial hurdles (e.g., Internet rates) to record lows and the increasing of Internet capacity and reach to record widths and lengths due to the introduction of competitive prices and disruptive technologies.

This period of initial rat-race competition can last from 2012 to 2018, and may be dependent upon technologies and applications that will be created by as early as 2009 in their most rudimentary state.

What it will be, I have no idea. I can only hope that I will be employed by one of those companies.

Web Video forms

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Here’s an idea for creating easy web video widgets. It could likely use XUL and SVG.

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<?xml-stylesheet href=”chrome://global/skin” type=”text/css”?>

<window title=”XUL Video”
        xmlns:html=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml&#8221;
        xmlns=”http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul”&gt;
   <vbox align=”center”>
<video src=”width: 200px; height: 200px” src=”images/betty_boop.ogg” />
<button flex=”1″ image=”images/playbutton.jpg”
       onclick=”Play(‘myVideo’);” />
<groupbox>
  <caption label=”determined” />
   <progressmeter id=”my-progressmeter” mode=”determined” value=”10″ progressscrollbutton=”images/progressscrollbutton.jpg” />
  </groupbox>
<button image=”images/stopbutton.jpg”
       onclick=”Play(‘myVideo’);” />
</vbox>
</window>

Empire and the separation of powers

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Does separation of political powers curtail us from the imperialisms of the past states? Or is a further separation of powers necessary?

Reading the Wikipedia article on separation of powers, I take notice of the other branches of government that have been added to the systems of government in a few countries:

  • In both Costa Rica and Venezuela, the electoral and auditory branches
  • in Germany, the constitutional court and presidential electoral college
  • in Taiwan, the control (auditory) and civil examination branches

The goal of the separation of powers is to keep the direction of government policy from falling in the hands of a single individual (dictatorship or totalitarianism) or group (oligarchy).

But that separation of powers did not prevent the Roman Republic (separated between the senate, the executive and the Roman assemblies) from turning into the Roman Empire, nor did it prevent the early United States from moving ever-so-westward to California, stomping other, “lesser peoples” into either the ground or the reservations along the way, resulting in a U.S. empire that stretched “from sea to shining sea” (and then some more land on the other side of that other sea as well).

Yet, let’s face it. Both the Roman Republic and the United States were/are excessively dependent upon their militaries as defense mechanisms, even though the United States, since the end of WW2, uses its own military (and its accompanying goods) more as a “big switch” to shake at errant nations.

So what does it take for us to extricate the government from the use of armed force as a means of accomplishing foreign policy aspirations?

Should the separation of powers be further spread out among a greater number of branches, which can then be made much more accountable/responsive to the citizenry by periodic ballot?

Will such a further delegation of powers place a plug into the need for a military that mostly resides outside the government’s grasp?

Forms in web feeds

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I wonder if it will be possible to syndicate whole forms through RSS or Atom feeds, in which a whole form (i.e., an input form for your name, date and comment with a submit button) can be syndicated as a web feed.

That will be especially useful for posted comment feeds from whole blogs or single posts, such as this, only with a built-in reply form that you could use from within the feedreader rather than having to view the post’s original URL before commenting.

To be closer to home, this would be a web feed equivalent of the LiveJournal feature where you can reply to subscribed comments via an email form.

Live-streaming video in virtual worlds

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I think that the much-feared ubiquitous camera surveillance – particularly webcams – will have a role to play in the future of multitouch and augmented reality. It will allow for devices to “peek” into other, far-removed areas in real time via streaming video.

Also, I think that this sort of “peeking” can be currently implemented in such virtual world applications as Second Life and Kaneva. Avatars can open up “holes” that can stream a “virtual camera”‘s view of another sim to the avatar’s view.

This could be useful to determine if the user may want to know about the current setting and appeal of another sim before teleporting to it. In fact, it could also serve as a tool of teleportation between sims.

Of course, such “streaming,” if taken to extremes, could further wear down on the Grid that runs the sims.

On cloning: Is the individual self the final monopoly?

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I kinda find it hypocritical that those who espouse the “free information” slogan when it comes to discourse on intellectual property are also dead-set against the idea of RFID tags and other supposedly “privacy-endangering” technologies which are being produced for future commercial and non-commercial markets.

I mean sure, we’re talking about arms-oriented governments and money-oriented corporations who are pushing for these technologies, and its pretty scary to think that, within the next two decades, these technologies will become incorporated within both institutions as a means to “keep tabs” on their respective public.

But if we’re supposed to espouse the free sharing of information for everything else, shouldn’t we also freely share information about ourselves as well (its not like they’re holding back much on the social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook)?

In fact, if the sharing of personal information were to take a wiki form in the future, then should we be surprised if that information was used in, say, human cloning?

And how would human cloning – the creation of a multiple number of the same self – redefine our civilization? Or how will it redefine the way that governments and corporations relate to individuals?

It’s possible that multiple selves can be used to stock an entire bureaucracy, even though the selves may vary in personality, profession, mentality and/or wealth.

It’s also possible that a single face can be attached to many of the ills of a society, as has happened before with the attachment of social ills to ethnic groups and subcultures such as Jews or homosexuals. This could result in “facial violence.”

It’s even possible that the multiplication of faces through cloning could lead to the partial diffusion of ethnic or nationalist loyalties, as they would be supplanted by loyalties to the “self”, which would be effectively separated from the “individual.”

Indeed, it would complicate matters. But such possibilities are for the sci-fi writers to explore.

Related video:

Idea: Icons as typed symbols for programming on multitouch handhelds

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OK, as I’ve probably noted before, multitouch handhelds (or handhelds in general) aren’t built for serious text input. And I’ve written before that such limitations should not preclude the creation of programming environments from within the devices.

So since then, I’ve been thinking about what could be done for the creation of such environments which won’t require the serious text input that is common in older computing form factors (desktop, server, etc.). And I think I may have found another preliminary solution:

Replacement of text words with graphic symbols or icons.

This means that instead of typing text words by the letter or key in order to construct a single syntax, one could simply create a string of graphic symbols which are interpreted by the handheld to mean a string of words and text symbols.

Preferably, the symbols would be rendered in SVG so that they could contain the data that would be used by the runtime (the web browser?) for interpretation, while providing customization abilities to those who may want to create similar yet distinctive symbols in order to symbolize a level of critical intensity (say, a yellow star as opposed to a red star).

Such usage of SVG (or, if you prefer, PNG) icons as a replacement for text could also be enhanced (and, hopefully, understood) with animated icons and even sound-embedding in the icons.

Now…what applications could be created with this that isn’t already creatable with a desktop computer?

I’m still thinking about that…

Places and islands: the third social networking tier

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First you had profiles, then you had groups. Most social networks on the WWW are centered around these two components of the user experience. Multimedia posted through the user’s account are seen and reviewed by other users via their accounts, and the better, more pertinent ones are featured within multimedia “pools” maintained by groups, which are user-created, user-sustained mini-communities which are devoted to a particular subject or demographic.

However, the most bleeding-edge concept in social networking is the “place” or “island”, which are user- or group-created pseudogeographical positions which are fixed to a specific “area” of the world within the network.

As stated, these may be created by either single users or by whole groups, and could even serve more than one group during the lifetime of the “place”.

At current, the social network which has best incorporated the concept of “places”, and has probably marketed it to the furthest extents in recent years, is Second Life. The closest WWW-based equivalent to the social networking “place” is Wikipedia’s articles, which are designed to appeal to a specific subject within the online encyclopedia, but can be maintained and sustained by more than one group (or “WikiProject”) which all have vested interests in the contents thereof.

Thus, can the “places” idea be successfully brought to the WWW-based social networks of present? What kind of political arrangements could evolve out of the addition of a new tier to the social networking mores of MySpace, Tribe.net, Facebook or LiveJournal?

Finally, what technological advancements could accompany the development of “places” within these social networks? Could newer applications of the ubiquitous RSS feed (which is already used extensively for both personal and group productions) find a niche to fill in the “places” idea?

EDIT.

A few ideas for RSS updates+Places:

  • Events
  • Additions, edits and cleanups (for those who are interested in the construction and maintenance of the place)
    • New rooms
    • New exhibitions
  • Scheduled reboots? (Hopefully not; SL tends to have alot of those, and you can be logged out at any time without prior notice)

On desktop GUIs for multiple monitors

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OK, this one *will* be short.

I think that I’ve heard a criticism on Digg of the user interface of Mac OS X when it comes to multiple displays. In fact, I think that neither OS X nor Windows are built or created for the multiple-display interface.

For one, both interfaces possess “bars” which span the length of the screen: OS X has the “Apple menu“, while Windows has the “Taskbar.”

IMO, these items, by drawing the mouse icon to the area within the single screen, simply reinforce the single-screen metaphor, while providing no functional space or capacity to the next screen.

Another GUI element that discourages one from effectively using more than one display for a GUI is the application window. It, like the above menubars, spans the length of the screen and has to be dragged from one screen to another if it is being used in a multidisplay.

The fact that all of the visible contents of the application are inside of the window doesn’t help, either. Tabs within windows (especially in most modern web browsers), while allowing one to navigate more than one document without having to close the window, also reinforce the window’s single-purposed feel and look.

The dock might be an answer – maybe a top and bottom dock that don’t span the length of the screen and perform specific functions for the UI – but it is also a very old metaphor, dating from the late 1980’s.

Hopefully, a new GUI element will come in the future that will redefine how we view our user interfaces with an expansion of our displays.

On Kosovo, self-determination, and the deflation of nationhood

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This post will be short.

Kosovo, as I’m sure many of you who are reading this have heard, has declared independence from Serbia, as was expected since around 1999. The Serbs, both resident within Kosovo and resident within Serbia proper, are angry and protesting, while the ethnic Albanian majority of residents have celebrated the coming diplomatic recognition.

I may be a bit biased toward the pro-independence side, since political self-determination is something which I wholeheartedly support, wherever it may be. But I can also agree with the sentiment that Kosovo’s secession will set a precedent that could lead to an increase of the UN’s membership.

The biggest reason why I think that the Kosovo issue is overblown, however, is because of how most sovereign countries are now interdependent, to various degrees, upon each other.

The European Union, while not being the best example or model of the supranation, is probably the best example of this interdependence across borders. The EU’s member states are very wired for cross-border communication, very accessible for cross-border transportation, and very sensitive for cross-border socio-political developments. Thus, those who often cross borders as part of their occupation don’t have to worry that much about border guards or currency exchange rates.

Of course, this setting is not easily duplicable for other supranational organizations, such as the African Union, which spans the second largest continent on Earth, has its highest concentration of transport connectivity in the most southerly regions, and is far behind other regions in terms of communication infrastructure.

And of course, the EU is not a complete panacea for inter-member disputes. Farm subsidies have to be increased regularly in order to prop up competing agricultural markets, for example.

But overall, I doubt that the Serb minority has that much to fear from the Albanian majority. Besides, when the border guards are dismissed when both countries enter into the EU, I doubt that the nationhood of Kosovo or Serbia will matter that much in the greater scheme of things.