Mobile and Social Networking

The world is shrinking ... into the mobile set. We are seeing an explosion of WiFi devices and palm sets which are now hooked on to the internet all the time.

Does this call for Web 3.0? Social networks are now becoming the next mode of delivery of content. Everyone is hooked on to either Facebook, MySpace, Linked In or Orkut. These are now becoming the modus operandi of the communication network.

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Like it or not, with the advent of APIs for these - currently spearheaded by Facebook and Google. Check out Google's opensocial API for these, we should soon see a merginig of the twain - mobile and social networking.

It is not surprising that Google is also interested in the mobile space therefore and now leads a consortium of mobile device manufacturers to rally around the operating system Android for such devices. Could this be the next wave?

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Watch out Apple and Microsoft - if the battle was earlier for the internet, today it is for the mobile device and social networking.

No more operating systems - Hypervisor

With the prevalence of the Virtual environment described in a previous post, it has become possible to have multiple separate "operating systems" like Windows, Linux etc. run on a underlying system called the hypervisor.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor

The Hypervisor is soon to become a necessity with more and more vendors interested in providing their version of the Hypervisor which will be the true operating system.

Think of a spyware free world soon where the operating systems and the software can be replaced at a wink. The virus attacks do not and cannot gain control of the underlying operating system since they do not have access to it. The word "virtual" suddenly got much more real.

Rube Goldberg

Although this blog is meant as a motivation to keep abreast of the modern day wonders thrown up periodically by technology. It is important to understand that we can let some Rube Goldberg creations.

For e.g. it is rumored that the Americans spent millions creating a pen which could write in Space. The Russians used a pencil instead!

It is important to keep a stable head and not lose yourself in all the geek stuff.

Open Source Wonders

The assembly line manufacturing of software components is becoming more a reality now with the advent of mature open source systems.

Aywhere from source control to IDEs to document generation and content delivery, open source has come a long way. While Linux is the master of the virtual networks and is pretty much the server which runs the show invisible to the end user, the desktop world still belongs to Windows and hence Microsoft. This may soon change with the advent of thin and light weight notebooks and internet based applications. This will cause a mini revolution where Ruby on Rails, PHP and the open source quick development and low cost applications and components will be key to a low cost delivery model.

Backing the trend is the heavy investment made by countries such as Brazil on open source. It is important to read the trend and develop a SAAS and Open Source strategy for any solution vendor in the market today.

These trends are sure to develop into mature models fo doing business in the next couple of years. The Iphone running Safari and Google maps, YouTube, Gmail is the taste of things to come.

iPhone wonders

Some time ago computer magazines in general had predicted the merging of technology and the concept that we would be carrying all we need on a cell phone. The iPhone comes pretty close to being just that.
My experiences with the iPhone have truly been exciting. It is as though the very edge of the frontiers of technology is welcoming and gives a warm feel. Apple worked its magic as usual just as it did with the iPod on the iPhone - ease of use, lovely feel and great features.
I do not need a Backberry or a GPS or a iPod anymore - they are all bundled in in some shape or form in the iPhone and then in addition the photos and the storage space at a neat 8 GB is just amazing.
Another futuristic technology available right now in the present.

Virtual World

The Virtual Labs, Virtual servers, Virtual desktops world has further made virtual the virtual world of information technology.

No longer do we need all those server racks and the environment mazes yesteryear.

Plug unplug a server. A server is nothing but a set of files whcih can be backed up as any other document or file folder. It is amazing what is happening. These technologies solve for us forever deployment problems and debugging issues. Simulating a particular environment is a breeze. Cost of infrastructure is now reduced and more can be done for less.

Truly a crystal ball vision come true.

Topic Maps

Ths is a blazing new idea. If anyone has an idea of mind maps, this is where topic maps lead you to in software. In combination with the semantic web and ontology related progressions, Topic Maps can be the next wave of application development.

The idea of being able to translate what you think to what you have is amazing. Think of this as WYTIWYG (What you think is what you get) - the concept is powerful enough to set me thinking of a whole different architectural pattern to allow inetllectual systems to develop.

These should allow us to envisage and depict a system in a whole range of mind maps and documents and the translation into a dynamic application should be effortless.