Anywhere you look, the mobile revolution cannot be missed: The rapid rise of the mobile, smartphone shipments growing in leaps and bounds, the (ongoing) patent wars (See also: Apple's Patent Claims), and the quest for the next killer app. These and questions about 'what's next' and how do businesses catch this wave are on top of every individual and business' mind.
Surely, there's a lot going on everyday, and with innovation at it's peak, it's still not an easy road for making your millions out there. Well, the folks at VisionMobile, a leading telco eco-systems and handset maker analyst firm, has put together a great stack of information (in the presentation below), that is a must see for all strategists - to understand what. how and why the leaders in the market are where they are today.
Well, so Apple had a major victory of sorts over Samsung, as it won a court fight over claims of copying and infringing it's patents. While a lot has been written and analyzed about this, and analysts and the millions of iPhone and Android phone users have all types of views and opinions, it would sure be nice to know what these patents are all about.
Well, the folks at Thomson Reuters have put together a simple and wonderful infographic about this stuff and we thought, there's no better way to appreciate this!
The web is growing everyday, and so is the data - even more rapidly than ever (see left): More than 2 million searches on Google a minute, 48 hours of video upload on YouTube per minute, 47,000 app downloads on Apple per minute...
These are mind boggling numbers, and the rapid rise and penetration of mobiles on our planet has only accelerated this. But, if you take a moment and ponder, a lot of this has been made possible by one emergent technology: cloud computing.
Cloud Computing is huge, and there's a lot of hype about this, and there's a lot of work that's currently underway. Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the pioneers in this space, has been leading the pack in a number of ways through their Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) services.
So, how big is the Amazon Web Services Cloud? Just as interpreting, processing and even storing huge data is an interesting challenge, and require new tools and techniques. Likewise, thanks to Infographics - a visualization of information for convenient understanding, this can be a tad easier, thanks to the team of thecloudinfographic.com. Here's a nice infographic to understand the size of the AWS Cloud.
August 5, 2012. This date will be forever etched in the history of mankind for successfully commissioning NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover - a never before feat of space engineering. Even if you're not a regular space explorer, the marvel of sending the heaviest (so far) unmanned spacecraft to one of humankind's "favorite" planets, is no small feat.
You can find a plethora of stuff about this on the various news and technology forums and channels. We thought, as followers of great technology, it's only fair to take a bow to this marvel of space technology.
If you want a quick re-cap of the big, landing event, check this news video, but if you'd like to experience the fantastically animated vision of what Rover's going to be doing while it's out there, you got to watch this:
For most of us, glass is a pretty mundane object - we see it all around us, from the moment we wake up, to the moment we switch off for the night. But, for some others, it's their business. And, here's an interesting look at how glass (technology) is shaping up for the future!
There's a new dawn: on the web and in your hand - on the mobile, that is. The richness of the web and the experience on your shiny new mobile device are not just possible because of the superior hardware behind these things. Sure, that's important, but the hidden gems are HTML5 and CSS3. JavaScript, too, cause the richer, client-side experience is definitely enhanced with some smart (Java)scripting.So, you may not even know that you are already using this technology for some of the stuff you do in your daily life. But, for those in the tech-world, it may be of interest to find out what these technologies are all about. HTML5 is the next progression of HTML 4.x, and with the stage having been set for Web 2.0 in the past few years, it was but a matter of time, to upgrade this technology. HTML5 has a number of new capabilities: new tags, web forms and web sockets, geo-location, and much more. Though a bit dated (as of today), the following is a comprehensive introduction to HTML5.
Well, and if you've been through the above, then it's also very interesting to get to know how HTML5 and CSS3 are playing a key role in the mobile domain. Check this other great overview for building rich mobile apps with these technologies.
If you've not yet got onto the bandwagon to learn these technologies, then it's time you did - 'cause this is going to be new web technology stack. So, better get going, and create those great sites and apps.
Welcome to the future! It won't be long before you find people around you sporting these 'Start Trek' type snazzy spectacles. But, what's so special about these?
And, what is the future like? Well, this week saw the announcement of Google's Project Glass, as Google's calls it, is the company's prototype of a hands-free system that can pull up maps, directions, events notifications, and the locations of nearby friends right in a wearer's line of sight.
We already know that the mobile is fast taking center-stage in our lives. (See 'Is This How You'll Live - The Future of Life With Mobiles'). To get a glimpse into what these new generation of glasses - Google Goggles - (referred to as 'Augmented Reality Glasses', by some) check out this video by Google:
Cool? Probably. And, if you're wondering what possible use this could be, check out an interesting discussion here which lists Tourism, Real-estate and education, amongst many views on it. As for Google, they probably may just be happy to send out some ads and promos while you stroll down the street, looking for something. Rather, anything?!
It can get a bit unnerving for some these days, with the eerie silence around the technologies in the enterprise space. All we hear of these days is, Cloud, Mobile and Social Computing (i.e the Social Enterprise) . While it's true that these are exciting and disruptive technologies, we thought we'd take a break and focus on what else is happening out there.
It seems that a lot of innovation is currently focused on these aforementioned areas, and the patent wars are only adding fuel to the competitive fire. Post the acquisition of Sun by Oracle in 2010, there was a certain lag in the progress of the Java technologies. Much had been written about what will the future of Java be, and how Oracle's approach was likely to shape out. If you looked closely, maybe this apprehension also was beginning to seemingly show up in the open source space too. (And, that's not surprising since a lot of open source stuff is also Java-based).
The next release of Java came a good 18-odd months post the acquisition, and developers probably still asked what the future of Java was going to be. This question still remains unanswered to a large extent, and maybe it's the lack of forthcoming news on the Java front (see TechVibes for a comprehensive dashboard of many of the tech news, reflecting the apparent sluggish pace of innovation in the J&OSS space), or the mere fact that the cloud and mobile technologies are just overshadowing Java at the moment.
What is interesting is that this new generation of technologies, all leveraging the Internet as it's core infrastructure, are powered in many cases by non-Java technologies, or atleast different approaches. So, one may like to think that the 'next generation' enterprise or business will be powered more by these but it's hard to say if that's how things will pan out. Oracle - and Java - may have had a bit of a late start in these new, emerging technologies, but they are trying to forge ahead, and clearly so, in the enterprise space.
JavaOne, the premier Java conference, last year (2011) was attended and watched by many in anticipation of whether it throws any light on the future of Java: how it's going to be evolving. While we take this opportunity to step aside from the hype around Cloud-Mobile-Social, it is probably worthwhile to ponder a bit on what the folks are working on, and what's coming up in the near, foreseeable future, even as the conference teams are busy working out the agenda for this year.
In a nutshell, what's coming up on the roadmap: - JDK 7, for Windows and other OS - JDK 8 (by 2014) - NetBeans 7+ - Java EE 7 - Building for the Cloud, and other spec upgrades like JMS 2.0 - JavaFX 2.0/3.0 and - Java ME...
None of these seem greatly disruptive and probably lack the excitement that the likes of Spring seems to be playing towards (more on this in a later post), and it'd be nice to hear what the larger developer community feels about this roadmap. We'd like to get your comments and views on what do you think 'Java' should/shouldn't focus on, and also, if you agree or disagree with the whole promise of the cloud-mobile-social technology revolution.
As for us, we hope that the pace of innovation picks up, and they find a way to create the robust platforms - engineered for what is no doubt an exciting next generation!
Technology - in the Information Technology sense - is exciting, to say the least. Things happen, literally, every instant. And, many have the potential to change our lives, in ways we may not imagine.
Find interesting articles and posts about design, architecture, SOA, Big Data, Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and how these, together with a richer and responsive Web are changing the world... This is one place where the technically inclined will find something of interest, to keep up with all that's happening around.
Go on. Explore and apply. Technology is our passion - and it can be yours too!
There's a new dawn: on the web and in your hand - on the mobile, that is. The richness of the web and the experience on your shiny new mobile device are not just possible because of the superior hardware behind these things. Sure, that's important, but the hidden gems are HTML5 and CSS3. JavaScript, too, cause the richer, client-side experience is definitely enhanced with some smart (Java)scripting.So, you may not even know that you are already using this technology for some of the stuff you do in your daily life. But, for those in the tech-world, it may be of interest to find out what these technologies are all about. HTML5 is the next progression of HTML 4.x, and with the stage having been set for Web 2.0 in the past few years, it was but a matter of time, to upgrade this technology. HTML5 has a number of new capabilities: new tags, web forms and web sockets, geo-location, and much more. Though a bit dated (as of today), the following is a comprehensive introduction to HTML5. 
Welcome to the future! It won't be long before you find people around you sporting these 'Start Trek' type snazzy spectacles. But, what's so special about these?
It can get a bit unnerving for some these days, with the eerie silence around the technologies in the enterprise space. All we hear of these days is, Cloud, Mobile and Social Computing (i.e the Social Enterprise) . While it's true that these are exciting and disruptive technologies, we thought we'd take a break and focus on what else is happening out there.
