Futurist

October 24th, 2007

The future of Touchscreen

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Phones/PDA that comes with a touchscreen usually comes with a stylus. As such, the user interface for such touchscreen devices assume you always work with a stylus. It requires at least two hand to use which means you cannot use it while walking (usually carrying a bag) or driving.

There are devices that does not require a stylus but the user interface for them aren’t much better.

Perhaps because of the past experience with touchscreen PDA, I really don’t like touchscreen devices. This is why I stick to a non-touchscreen phone, because it forces the designer to not assume you will use it with a stylus and therefore, generally more user friendly.

So iPhones comes really as a breath of fresh air when it comes to touchscreen – it is simple and easy to use.

Now the really cool thing is the multi-touch capability which you can *zomg* zoom pictures but I dont think we have fully explore the capability of multi-touch. In the next few years, we will see more ways we will use the technology.

But what I think would be really interesting comes from a friend who complained that it is pretty dangerous to use the iPhone while driving.

I like to see a screen that can form curvature on the surface so you can “feel” the button on the display.

Now, that would be really cool and useful. Anyone knows such technology?

September 16th, 2007

Wired Nextfest

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This is going to be a very long post based on the 250 photos and a dozen of Youtube clips I just uploaded.



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August 25th, 2007

AT&T 1993 “You Will” Ads

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This is amazing!

August 12th, 2007

TrendMap 2007

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20070804-trends-3.png

Meng Weng send me the above trendmap that he created for his new venture. Pretty cool stuff :-)

August 7th, 2005

The Next Ten Years

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The next ten years in network is going to be 10x more exciting than the last ten we have. We had our first billion internet users finally after nearly three decade but over the next ten years, we going to add another (or two) billion more easily.

What’s significant is the additional billion users will not be geeks but just ordinary user. Yep, geeks like us will be outnumbered! And to them, Internet is just a tool, like a phone and the uses of Internet is far more important then the technology driving it. We already seeing more attention have been given to the applications (bittorrent, skype, blogs) and less into the core networking technology (ipv6, ipsec) in the last couple of years.

Yet the core networking technology is more important than ever despite the lack of attention especially the core Internet is facing sever problems.
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February 3rd, 2005

New technologies, new lens

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Be afraid said Businessweek (via VoIP Watch)

The big mistake many people make with new technologies, from personal computers to the World Wide Web and, most likely, VOIP, is to compare them with existing ways of doing things, and then–big surprise!–they don’t measure up. Yet already, more than 22 million people, plus 70,000 more every day, think Skype is more than good enough, and no doubt it will get better. What’s more, it offers much more than POTS–such as the ability to know if someone’s available before you call and set up conference calls with a click. Let the so-called experts argue over how many years away the tipping point is. I and 22 million other people already know it’s here.

How true. The greatest mistake most people make is looking at disruptive technologies with the same old lens.

Just a couple of weeks ago, one friend was arguing that WiFi VoIP isn’t ready for mass adoption – it still has many problems like power (handset battery life), WLAN authentication, seamless session handover across base stations, etc etc. You know what? In the famous words of Bill Gates – “it doesn’t matter!”.

It is not how well it compares to the existing technologies; Neither is it about how many problem the new technologies has. It is question if it is good enough and you don’t argue with numbers.

November 8th, 2004

Who is going to build a Stupid Network?

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I posted the following on a Stupid Network discussion over at Isen’s blog.


On the industry aspect, the role of a pure ISP (ie, the middleman that provides IP connectivity only by procuring infrastructure from a telco) is already dead by 1996 to 1997 when the telco woke up to the idea of Internet.

Pure ISPs started disappearing, either moving up layer (like AOL) or down the layer to build infrastructure. They are been squeeze by both side afterall, with a cost squeezed by telcos and revenue squeezed by telcos.

Will such business model comes back? Maybe it will come back as a provider who can roam across multiple infrastructure (2.5G, 3G, Wifi, cable, DSL etc) but not likely in the near future given the FCC policy direction US has taken to drive infrastructure growth by removing “open access” requirements.

So the question is not who is going to build a dumb network – the telcos is; The question is how to convience the telcos that building a dumb network is in their best (business) interest.

September 12th, 2004

How to think like Leonardo…

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How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci (via Dewayne-Net):

In business, it’s important to employ ambidextrous employees — people who have business and technology skills. For they can imagine the future. If you don’t employ multi-talented professionals, you lose out on business oportunities that cannot be imagined by the linear worker.

Yep, how true! It is no longer suffice for an engineer to be just an engineer and MBA to be just an MBA. Over years, I notice innovation is a often a 1+1. Take two old unrelated but established concepts, put them together and bingo, you got innovation! (e.g. Auction House + Internet = EBay!)

ps: Oh yes, it was a pleasant surprise to come across Tom Peters’ blog!! Yes!

September 9th, 2004

Busan Day 2 – Emerging Spam

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Yesterday, the speakers have more or less covered almost all the current antispam techniques, I wonder if I should repeat them again for my talk today which will probably makes it pretty boring. Or should I do something else and make it interesting…so I did the latter :-)

Since my session is ‘Emerging Technologies’, I decided to turn my talk to ‘Emerging Spam’.

Business communications technologies has constantly evolvoing, from Postal Mail to Telegraph to Telephone to Fax to today Email. By historical trends, we should not expect Email to be the end of this evolution1.

And if we look at generic problem of “spam” (ie. bulk unsolicated commerical communication) it has also followed the communication evolution too. From Junk Mails to Junk Fax to Junk Voice Mail to Email Spam, we can also expect spams to exists in new form of communication technologies.
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August 31st, 2004

Ericsson closing down THE Bluetooth unit

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Does this means the Bluetooth is dying? (via isen.blog)

Ericsson is pulling the plug on its technology licensing unit, the wholly-owned subsidiary which invented Bluetooth wireless technology and became the driving force behind the company’s Bluetooth initiative.

Or does that means they give up collecting royalty for Bluetooth and therefore, drive more adoption of Bluetooth?

I think we haven’t see end of Bluetooth yet. It might just be that Ericsson realized it does not makes enough money on quarter of a penny royalty. On the other hand, Bluetooth does has its limitation, particularly speed. As an RS232/IR replacement, it is probably suffice but not good enough.

I remember I was on a panel with Vint Cerf last month when he rumbled the difficulty of shuffling our video cable among us. I responsed him with a single word: Ultra-Wide Band. At 400mbps wireless means it is capable of replacing even our DVI cable.