Earth View, a cool astronomy service

We discuss both mashups and location-based applications. This image shows the earth from a 1,000 kilometers above our campus. It will be dark or light depending upon the time of day.

It was generated using Earth Viewer, which can display various views of the Earth from various vantage points, for example, from the Sun or Moon. I used Geocoder to get our campus coordinates.

With the coming of low cost, location-aware cell phones and other portable devices, people predict that we will see a lot of location-based advertising. Can you think of other location-based applications? Can you think of applications you could build on top of Earth Viewer?

An excellent computer history course

We cover the history of technology and networks, and the University of Washington, UCSD and UC Berkeley offered an excellent course on the history of computing in fall 2006.

The course material is online, and includes short essays by the faculty, links to original material, and presentations by faculty and prestigious guest speakers, including many computing and networking pioneers.

Many of the presentations include photos of historic equipment and events. For example, the photo shown here was taken behind the scene of Doug Engelbart's historic 1968 demonstration of his work on personal and collaborative computing.

Note that the course material is organized using a wiki. It illustrates the use of a wiki as a simple, flexible platform for creating a Web site to support an ad-hoc project or organization.

Historic prototypes look old fashioned to us, like early cars or the Wright Brother's first plane. How will we see today's technology in the future? Is technology changing as fast today as in the past?

SlideShare.net, a service for making and hosting narrated slide show presentations

Intellectual property expert Larry Lessig became known for presentations built around narrated slide shows delivered as Flash files. This well-known presentation on US copyright law illustrates his style. Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani used the same technique in narrating a presentation on recording telephone calls during interviews.

Kaye and Figianni used SlideShare.net to convert a Keynote presentation into a Flash movie (PowerPoint also works). The presentations are also hosted at SlideShare.net, and the user can watch straight through, pause the presentation or skip forward or backward.

What do you think of the narrated slide show as a presentation format? What are its pros and cons? Are there topics you would like to present using this technique?

A terrific how-to on recording broadcast quality telephone interviews with Skype

We cover audio processing, and Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani have put together a terrific 22.5 minute presentation on recording interviews using Skype. You no longer need expensive equipment to make broadcast quality recordings of phone calls. A Mac or PC running Skype, a USB head set, a low-cost audio capture program, and this presentation are all you need. (Even if you are not recording telephone interviews, much of what they say applies to audio recording and processing in general).

For discussion of the presentation and more on audio recording and editing, see Kaye's Conversations Network forums.

Are there people you would be interested in interviewing?

A Web 2.0 book

Susan Kelley spotted Dive Into® Web 2.0, a book by Deitel & Associates. The book covers many of the same topics we do, and there is also an extensive online resource center -- you should check it out.

Like other publishers we have discussed, Deitel offers electronic and print versions of the book. You can read the HTML version free online or order a PDF file or a hard copy from on-demand publisher lulu.com. It will be interesting to see if they are able to keep the HTML and PDF versions synchronized.

This 81 page book is $19.95 in hard copy, $9.95 as a PDF file and the HTML version is free. Assuming you want a book, which version would you select at those prices? Would you like to read it on a portable device?

Google and the opening of the cellular network

We discuss the open architecture of the Internet, a "dumb" network, that connects smart devices. Users, not the network operators, decide what hardware to use and which applications to develop. As such, we see rapid innovation and massive investment. We have contrasted this with the cellular telephone network in which the network operators control the hardware and applications that are developed.

The cellular network is beginning to open. New spectrum is being auctioned off and Google is lobbying the to open the cellular network. They are dominant in desktop Internet services and advertising, and would like to exploit an open cellular network to dominate mobile Internet services and advertising.

During the last month, the New York times has published four articles on the opening of the cell network and Google's role in it.

• I, Robot: The Man Behind the Google Phone
• Google Enters the Wireless World
• Cellphone Straitjacket Is Inspiring a Rebellion
• Google Says It Will Bid for Wireless Spectrum

Individuals, organizations and the economy would benefit from an open cellular network, but do you worry that Google, if successful, may become too powerful?

The Internet and urban migration in developing nations

We have discussed the digital divide between rich and poor nations and proposals for closing it. We have argued that closing the digital divide would improve the quality of rural life in developing nations, thereby reducing the impetus for migration from rural areas to urban slums.

A recent estimate holds that half of the world population now lives in urban areas, and the UN predicts that will grow to 59.9 % by 2030.



This will lead to increased crowding and the growth of megacities. For a description of one such megacity, Bombay, see this book by Suketu Mehta, or listen to this interview.

Do you believe the Internet could improve life in rural areas of developing nations? Do you believe that would cut migration to cities?

Running applications from flash drives

We have been able to use the limited-function computers in campus labs by running applications like Filezilla and GIMP from flash drives. Fred Langa has published a two part series on the topic: Part 1 and Part 2.

The articles review available flash drives, sources of portable software (like PortableApps), and operating concerns like security, privacy and backups.

Portable devices -- innovation and form factors

In discussing mobile and portable connectivity, we talked about competing device form factors and innovation. We have also discussed new devices which may influence future form factors and user interfaces: the One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) laptop, the Apple iPhone, and, most recently, Amazon's Kindle.

Each has hardware and user interface innovations that may become standard fare on future portable devices. For example, the Kindle and OLPC laptop have low power displays that are legible in daylight, and the iPhone has an elegant touch screen interface and can be programmed to automatically switch between displaying documents in landscape or portrait mode if it is rotated. The OLPC laptop automatically forms a mesh network with nearby machines; the Kindle is directly connected to Amazon via Sprint's cellular network; and the iPhone can move between WiFi and AT&T's cellular network. The list goes on.

They each deliver different functions. The Kindle is a book reader, period. The iPhone a phone, Internet browser, email client, camera, etc., and it is now open to third party developers. The OLPC laptop is a PC running Linux. It comes preloaded with applications and there are tools for what I hope will become a vibrant developer community. It was conceived of as a computer for school children in developing nations, but in many ways it is more attractive than a "serious" compact laptop like a Sony Vaio for a business traveler.

Each is physically different:

	iPhone	Kindle	OLPC
Height (in)	4.5	7.5	9.5
Width (in)	2.4	5.3	9
Depth (in)	.46	.7	1.25
Weight (oz)	4.8	10.3	51
Pixels/inch	183	167	200
Resolution	420x320	600x800	1200x900
Screen diag (in)	3.5	6	7.5

The iPhone is a smart phone with a bright and large enough screen to browse the Web and read email fairly comfortably. The Kindle is designed for easy reading, and the OLPC laptop's high resolution display may be even better.

Which form factor do you favor? Are you willing to carry around a 3 pound OLPC laptop? Is the iPhone screen large enough for your portable applications? Would you rather carry a Kindle or a paperback book and a magazine when you board a plane?

Portable devices -- the Kindle book reader

Over the years a number of vendors have marketed portable devices for reading books, magazines and other material, but none have caught on. The latest attempt is Amazon's Kindle. Kindle is both hardware -- the portable reader -- and a service. The service includes an online store with 90,000 books, magazine and blog subscription and free downloading using Sprint's cellular network. It also includes a backup copy of everything you buy or transfer to your Kindle in case it is lost or damaged. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the Kindle service is a "walled garden." It is like having a cell phone that can only call one number -- the Amazon book store. Furthermore, the cost of downloading and backup must be covered, so a subscription to a blog which is free on the Internet might cost $1 per month, and you must pay to put your own Word files or other documents on your Kindle. The charges cover the backup and downloading service.

Would you be willing to have a specialized book reader or would insist upon a portable device capable of other functions like listening to music, Web browsing and email? Would you want a portable device that was tied to a single vendor, Amazon?

Who needs the broadcast television networks?

The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times both ran recent stories on entertainment programs being produced for the Internet by successful, mainline TV producers and writers. They are attracted to the new medium by creative control and cost savings on distribution. You can check episodes of two of them at The Fantastic Two and Qarterlife.

For more insight into the background of TV production and what is motivating these successful men to move their talents from television to the Internet, see the companion LA Times article Are Corporate Suits Ruining TV?". (You can guess the answer to that question).

Watch a couple episodes from one or both of these programs. How do they compare to TV? How do you think they could be improved?

Will open WiMax disrupt the closed cellular networks?

As we have seen, WiFi and 3rd generation cellular networks are the primary options for mobile and portable connectivity today. But, WiFi covers only limited areas (though there are millions of them), and cell networks are closed to innovation and focused on a business model of selling voice and other expensive services rather than pure Internet connectivity.

One day, Google and others may force the cellular networks to open up, but it will be a struggle. Another possibility is that a new standard, WiMax, will provide viable wireless Internet access.

We have spoken of WiMax earlier, and the WiMax leader at this time seems to be Clearwire Communication led by industry veteran Craig McCaw. You can read of McCaw, Clearwire, and their possibly foundering negotiations to combine WiMax networks with Sprint in this Wall Street Journal article.

If WiMax sounds promising, you can follow standards and industry progress in blogs written by Glenn Fleishman and Steve Stroh both of whom know a lot about wireless technology and business. Fleishman has just written a positive review of Clearwire's test deployment of pre-standard mobile WiMax in its home city of Seattle.

Do you plan to subscribe to either Stroh's or Fleishman's blog? What industry blogs do you subscribe to?

New notes on mashups and rating, identity and reputation

I posted three new class notes with assignments today. Two are on mashups between Blogger blogs and Talkr, a nifty text-to-speech service. Talkr essentially converts your blog into an audio podcast using a one-line API. Users also have the option of listening to rather than reading individual posts.

The other new note is on rating, identity and reputation. It gives several examples, and the accompanying assignment has the students add a rating widget from Outbrain.com to their blogs.

The notes and accompanying assignments are listed under Applications in this list of notes and assignments.

Can Google open the celllular network?

As we have seen, the cellular network is closed. On the Internet, anyone can deploy an application, but most cellular operators control applications. This problem was highlighted by John O’Rourke, general manager of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile business, who pointed out that it had taken Microsoft more than half a decade to get to its current level -- doing business with 160 mobile operators in 55 countries. Even Microsoft has to negotiate with mobile operators one at a time.

Mr. O'Rourke was quoted in a New York Times article on Google's plan to provide open-source telephone software and application development tools. They have formed a coalition to develop and promote this software. The coalition, called The Open Handset Alliance, includes a number of large telephone manufacturers and network operators, but others, like Apple, Verizon and AT&T are noticeably missing.

Columnist Robert Cringely predicts that Google will go further and become a cellular operator by bidding in the FCC auction of 700 MHz spectrum which will be freed up by the switch to digital television broadcast. If that happens, he expects them to offer free, ad-supported cell phone service.

Given the Apple iPhone and Google's plans, what do you expect your cell phone and service to be like in five years?

Using a wiki for a presentation

Raquel Mireles built a presentation for another class on a wiki. She included videos (stored on Youtube, a Web service) as well as links and notes.

How does using a wiki for a presentation compare to using Powerpoint? How does it compare to using a specialized online presentation service like Thinkfree Show or Zoho Show?

Terrorists use Google Earth

The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades fires rockets into Israeli cities. In this video, al-Aqsa's commander in Gaza shows how he uses Google Earth to search for targets inside of Israel. He states "We obtain the details from Google Earth and we check them against our maps of the city center and sensitive areas."

Do you think any Internet applications or information should be banned? If so, can they be as a practical matter?

Update 7/11/2016

An Israeli organization, Shurat Hadin, has filed a $1 billion suit against Facebook on behalf of the families of four people who were stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist. They say Facebook violates the US Anti-Terrorism Act by allowing militant groups such as Hamas a platform for spreading violence. This was not the first such case and it raises difficult questions of freedom of speech.

Update 8/15/2011

Maajid Nawaz, presents a vivid picture of the use of the Internet by radical Islamists in his Ted Talk A global culture to fight extremism. Nawaz feels that extremists -- whether Islamists or white power advocates -- make better use of the Internet than democracy advocates. He speaks with authority, having used the Internet as a propagandist and recruiter for the global Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir for 13 years, including five years in an Egyptian prison for attempting to overthrow the government. He describes the use of the Net by extremists, asks why they have succeeded across borders and goes on to argue for a countervailing, grassroots, youth-led movement to advocate for a democratic culture.

Update 2/3/2020

Who imagined the capability of an iPhone 25 years ago? Slaughterbots, a short (7m 47s), dystopian science fiction video projecting advances in pattern recognition, miniaturization of technology and online data:

An early WiMAX deployment

We have talked about mobile and portable connectivity. The two choices today in the US are WiFi hotspots and third generation cellular service, but WiMAX service is just beginning and may become competitive.

Clearwire just led off with early WiMAX deployment in their 44 local markets. With their PC card in a laptop, one will have portable (not mobile) connectivity for $59.99 a month for speeds of up to 1.5 megabits per second down and 256 kilobits up. (Mobile WiMAX will be available when the standard is soldified).

How do those speeds compare to what you have at home today? Who might be interested in this service?

The Internet is the platform -- a Cringley quote

We have talked about the evolution of application development platforms from the batch operating systems of the 1950s to the Internet today. (See this note and this chapter). Does this quote from a column by Robert Cringley ring true?

The importance of all our digital stuff along with our fear of losing it will shift us more and more toward central backup and storage. And once you have your life sitting on some company's server, are you going to move it on a whim? No, and that means there will be a LOT of money to be made providing these services. Storage and automated backup and probably some form of netboot with a fresh OS image every time is the future of computing whether we're talking about desktops or notebooks or mobile phones.

What are the pros and cons of keeping your digital material on the Internet? If you get a fresh OS image every time you reboot, is it likely to come from Microsoft?

Politcal pressure yields a tiny step toward an open wireless network

Apple has opened the iPhone to third party developers, but a problem remains. The iPhone is restricted to the AT&T network in the US and O2 in Great Britain. Cell phone manufacturers and network operators offer bundles in which the phone price is reduced in return for a long contract and high monthly bills.

This sort of bundling restricts the marketplace and consumer choice, but it is not inevitable. Some nations, for example, Singapore and France, require manufacturers to offer open versions of their phones.

We are starting to see some political reaction to the heavy handed lobbying of the cell companies in the US. In the face of threatened legislation, Verizon and AT&T have loosened some restrictions in their cell phone contracts. That is a small step in the right direction -- toward open, competitive, end-to-end Internet connectivity over wireless networks.

How would the Internet and market be changed if, for example, Dell PCs could only connect to the Internet through one ISP and Hewlett Packard PCs through another ISP?

A step toward an open wireless network: Apple opens the iPhone

When Apple released the iPhone, Steve Jobs claimed third party applications might damage the phone and even the AT&T network, so they were blocked. Apple has reversed that decision, and will now provide a software development kit in support of third party developers.

This is a step forward. The iPhone hardware and touch screen user interface are new to the marketplace and well designed. Consumers will benefit and our expectation levels will rise. Historically, Apple third party developers are enthusiastic and innovative, and Apple will learn from them.

Like the PC, the iPhone now seems to be a smart platform on the edge of the Internet. As we have seen, Internet applications, content, hardware, and even helpful users are all at the edge of the network. This has facilitated explosive growth, innovation and investment since everyone is free to participate.

Crescent Heights -- the future of television?

Proctor and Gamble, which makes Tide laundry soap and pioneered radio and television soap operas, has an Internet soap opera called Crescent Heights. The three minute episodes are designed to be seen on a mobile device or a computer, and there are no commercials. The Tide logo appears at the end of an episode and, as you see in this screen shot, the characters use it for their wash. The key advertising value is in a set of forums where members can discuss the characters, the story, and household topics like stain removal and washing. The discussion site mentions Tide products and has a Tide logo.

You can read more on Crescent Heights and the business proposition here.

In this case, the Internet lets the advertiser produce and distribute their own content rather than sponsoring a show produced by someone else and distributed by a cable or broadcast network. Would this cut cost? Is this a rough, early glimpse at the future of television?

As mobile and home connectivity improve, how will a program like Crescent Heights improve? Would you be willing to watch a football game sponsored by Budweiser on the Internet? Do you think people would be more likely to purchase Tide soap after watching Crescent Heights and looking at the online forums?

The value of Internet services

Every post on this blog is a testimony to the leveraging of Internet services. I am able to create the posts in a few minutes using the Blogger editor, and creating and configuring the blog took only a few hours. Furthermore, the footer of each post has a link to a text-to-speech service at Talkr.com which can read the post aloud. Again, creating this composite application or "mashup" took only a short time.

Writing a program to create a blog with text and optional speech would have been impossible when I first started out as an assembly language programmer. A few years ago, it might have taken years to create a site with the features of this blog -- designing and creating Web pages, writing server-side code, acquiring and integrating a text-to-speech package, etc. Today it takes a few hours. As levels of abstraction rise, infrastructure improves, and the Internet "ecosystem" proliferates, programmer productivity will increase still faster.

Public and private infrastructure has clear value. The US Interstate Highway System is a valuable asset that increases economic productivity. Equipment, buildings, and other assets owned by organizations also make them more productive. We have also spoken of the value of open source contributions, the gross contributed product, to the world economy.

What is the value of an Internet service? What is the value and economic contribution of, say, Google Maps? Is there a line on the Google balance sheet that states a value for Google Maps? What is the value to the world economy of all the Web sites that leverage Google Maps?

Individual firms could begin to answer such questions today -- how do they show Internet services on their books? How much revenue do those services generate? We will have to leave the task of estimating their value at the national or global level to future economists.

Challenges to Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office applications are ubiquitous, but they are being challenged on two fronts: the Open Office application suite and network-based suites from companies like Thinkfree.com, Zoho.com, and Google.

Open Office has been maturing for years, and it got a recent boost when IBM released a version with their own user interface. (Since Open Office is open source software, IBM or others can modify it).

As Nicholas Carr points out, Microsoft is responding by extending Office to use the Internet.

You can see a video on the advantages of online suites here, and a comparison of nine Office competitors here.

What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Office versus Open Office or an online suite for a student? For a small company? For a university? A large enterprise?

If you were running Microsoft, how would you respond to these challenges?

Looking to the future -- do technology trends tend to favor one approach over the others?

The cellular network is broken -- two examples

As we discuss, the Internet was designed to be an end-to-end, dumb network. The large ISPs would like to break that principle in order to give higher priority to certain users and applications, and, as we have seen, the cell phone network is even more restricted.

Developers cannot create and use cell phone applications without permission from cell phone carriers. We had a graphic example of this recently when Verizon would not permit an abortion rights organization to use their text messaging service. They later reversed the decision, but this illustrates how badly broken the cell phone network is.

Along the same lines, a software upgrade to Apple's iPhone renders phones with third party applications installed inoperable. This was not inadvertent. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said it was done to protect carrier networks and to make sure the phone was not damaged.

His first reason -- protecting the network -- was what AT&T claimed before the 1968 Carterphone decision that allowed people to connect equipment to their network as long as it did no harm. His second reason -- protecting the phone from damage -- is exactly what he has done -- turned them into worthless "bricks."

People are working on an open cell phone, and perhaps Wimax will lead to open network access one day.

Off shoring -- who are the big winners?

We talk about off shoring and its impact on individual careers, organizations and national economies. A UC Irvine study analyzed the iPod, asking where the 451 parts that go into it are made and who makes them. IPods are assembled in Asia by companies you have probably never heard of, but Apple is the big winner. Most value is added by companies with brand names that conceive of products and do user-interface and engineering design, marketing, distribution and sales. Those involved in manufacturing and assembly add less value.

UC Berkeley professor Hal Varian discusses the report in this New York Times article. (This is a very good article, but I would not mention and link to it while the Times charged a subscription fee).

Do you think US firms will have the same advantage as Apple does today in the future? Why?