Tablet PC Thoughts

Tonight I read through the following filing that I found on the SCO web site. It is "SCO’S MEMORANDUM in Support of its Motion for Partial Summary Judgment on its First, Second, and Fifth Causes of Action and for Summary Judgment on Novell’s First Counterclaim"

Wow!

In this filing, there is testimony from a whole list of Novell executives - who actually negotiated the deal with SCO - who all testify that they *did* sell the Copyrights to SCO. When I read through this, I can only sit here thinking about what the current Novell management team was thinking ... and what they will ever be able to pull out to refute this evidence.

In addition, this filing contains testimony by a reporter who states that Chris Stone told her he was going to announce that Novell never sold the Copyrights with full intention to damage the SCO stock price, and impact shareholders. Amazing if this is true ... to think that an executive would do this and believe that he could get away with it.

Although all of the press wants people to believe this is all over ... it seems that there is still a lot of life left in the SCO lawsuits.

Amazing ... but I guess that anything goes in this day and age. The Alibi Network ... a professional organization that will cover for you and create an alibi for anything! You need a "virtual buddy" to answer calls for you, or make them? You need a phone number of the "hotel" that you are staying at where they will answer and say anything that you want? You need to fake where you are calling from? Read their FAQ and they even give an example real-life alibi.

What truly is an indicator of the level of integrity in our society is that these guys are in business, and probably doing very well. It floors me to see the direction that so many people would choose to take in their life. Stunning.

Nice . .. we are getting closer and closer to neural implants to augment the operation of the brain. These first ones are oriented towards memory. I wonder when we'll be able to get additional memory added via this technology. Anyone for a memory upgrade ... for their brain?

The Memory Hacker. USC's Center for Neural Engineering researchers have developed a chip that can communicate with brain cells, a first step toward an implantable machine that could restore memories in people with brain damage or help them make new ones.

... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

I can only imagine ... in a world like ours ... when we'll see the 100lb. Chihuahua being walked (dragged?) by its master. Or maybe it'll be the miniature Great Dane? Now that we are discovering the inner working of the genome, I can only imagine the business opportunities that will come to mind. Genetically modified pets are only a short time away!

What Makes Little Dogs Small? Researchers Identify Gene Involved In Dog Size. Science Daily Apr 6 2007 6:54AM GMT [Moreover Technologies - Genetics news]

Ok ... this is one place where I like Local.Live.com even more than Google Maps ... again! I was long a user of Google Maps, however they didn't allow me to mark-up the maps and add my own annotations. Yes ... I could hack code, but c'mon ... Local.Live.com has had the ability for a long time.

Well FINALLY, Google adds the ability to annotate and more through their new My Maps features ... BUT ... I MUST create an account and be tracked by Google in order to use the features!! What the heck? I can't just hack out a quick annotated map for a friend or family without providing information to Google about who I am and having them permanently note my interest in some specific point on earth?

Once again ... the average person has NO idea they are now going to have even more records kept of every place they have marked or annotated, and when they did it. Google continues to gather even more information about you ... who you are ... what you do ... where you do. Amazing. I'll stick with Local.Live.com.

Google makes mashups easy, even for me. The search giant's new My Maps feature lets anyone create customizable maps with photos and video, regardless of technical know-how.
Photos: Google maps out mashups [CNET News.com]

It really impresses me as we continue to make advances in the reproduction of human senses or capabilities in silicon and software. What really caught my eye about this article was thinking about the fact that the accuracy of the model can be measured not only by it's success at mirroring human-like abilities ... but that it also makes errors in a way that is similar to humans.

Once the models are solid enough, then they will be able to learn from the errors in humans ... and potentially due to shear quantity, scale, or speed exceed our human abilities. Closer and closer to the Singularity we move each day ...

Computer Model Behaves Like Humans On Visual Categorization Task. In a new MIT study, a computer model designed to mimic the way the brain itself processes visual information performs as well as humans do on rapid categorization tasks.

The model even tends to make similar errors as humans, possibly because it s... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

After reading this post, I went out and played with ZoomInfo ... it's got some very interesting features. You are able to search using various keywords, names, etc. and it seems to come up with some pretty impressive results. Looking for a business in a particular market? Looking for people in a particular role in a market? Give it a try ... there are some really interesting results.

First Semantic Search Engine?. Business search company ZoomInfo announced today the launch of what it's calling the first-ever semantic search engine.

The site works by applying tags to information that distinguish between key concepts, such as a person, an industry, or a compa... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

I just found out today that tomorrow is the deadline for deposits for the First Annual Utah Geek Cruise! Of course its open to anyone that wants to go ... and it's an amazing deal ... September 2nd ... 7 nights starting at $455.00! There was a group of us that wanted to take a nice cruise, and my girlfriend found the amazing deal.

Its a Royal Caribbean Cruise ... Southern Caribbean route, going from Puerto Rico, to Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and then back to Puerto Rico. There are lots of things to do, and everything is included except for airfare (right now the roundtrip from SLC to Puerto Rico is ~$465!!), alcohol, and shore excursions. There are a bunch of us geeks going to be on the trip - and yes there is a wireless Internet available - and we'll have two days at sea to hang on the ship and have a lot of great conversations. When on the islands, there are a lot of shore excursions available, including visiting some caves, scuba, snorkling, lots of pirate stuff, etc. This shore excursion document outlines all of the various activities.

So from SLC, the whole deal is less than $1000 per person for a full 7 night cruise! For anyone that has never done a cruise ... this is an incredible deal on a really nice cruise line. Read the details ... if you want to join us, the contact information is on the brochure!

Ok ... after another few weeks of work, we just threw out a new version of our NuMe website! Go and check it out ... what is fun is that it is actually gaining some real momentum. Our videoWrapplet is now finding itself onto webpages all over the planet ... it's fun to see many of the places it's showing up!

Our biggest hit is the Smashing Pumpkins MySpace page, where they are using it to show off their latest videos. We're now on numerous other MySpace pages (like this one from the UK ... I love the video he posted called "Spiders on Drugs"), also Blogger.com blogs, and even more sites in South America and Europe. It's fun to see the Google Analytics, and to also see some of the uses of the videoWrapplet ... a conspiracy web site, a Japanese tech/audio site, Argentinian TV sites and cooking videos and Tech sites, a German Club site, and too many others to link to. Well ... you can always check them out on the NuMe site. We now have a videoWrapplet detail page that shows all of the top playlists, and the recently updated playlists.

One facinating thing that I caught yesterday, was that we had a user Jim from Mexico grab our videoWrapplet and load it up with videos. The first videos are Smashing Pumpkins videos, leading me to believe that he found it through their site. He then added several other videos from other artists. The best part is that he then went to YouTube and signed up so that he could upload his own home-made videos and put them into the playlist! So our videoWrapplet actually caused someone to create a YouTube account ... just so that they could use our videoWrapplet. Many people would argue that proves we ought to be hosting the videos ... but what I like to see is that the value they perceive in our videoWrapplet caused them to leap the hurdle and create a YouTube account!

Anyhow ... I'm having fun with this, and am about to release a new version ... with some small tweaks. But I also have a fully skinnable version in testing, and it also supports transparent backgrounds. We're also adding a full set of preferences. I'm also thinking that it will be easy to open up the skinning to anyone with some pretty basic skills ... :-)

Stay tuned ... the video experiments continue ...

On our NuMe website, the user rufinorosado posted an amazing video to their NuMe videoWrapplet playlist ... this is too cool. The video is by a group called Graffiti Research Labs and they have set up a giant video projector pointing at the side of a building, and then integrating a laser pointer tracking system to allow people to draw giant virtual graffiti on the side of the building using a hand-held laser!

I've added the video to my Inevitable videoWrapplet playlist with the title LASER Graffiti by Graffiti Research Labs ... you have GOT to check this out ... I want one!

It seems that someone is thinking ahead . .. to the future where robots and machines might have to make choices about what to do with the "legacy biologicals" roaming the planet. One robot to another "But remember ... they were nice to us in our infancy ... don't we want to stop the humans from becoming extinct?"

Robotic age poses ethical dilemma. The Robot Ethics Charter, an ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by South Korea.

"The government plans to set ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots as robots are expected to de... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

You have to watch the video to really see how impressive this is. I've added the video to my Inevitable videoWrapplet playlist ... it's the presentation that Jeff Han gave at the TED conference of his 'multi-touch interface'. This is the stuff of Minority Report ... but being demonstrated as reality. Read the article ... check out the video ... this is an impressive product.

I keep thinking that I want this on my laptop, or Tablet PC!

TED: Jeff Han, A Year Later. Catapulted to geek stardom literally overnight at this high tech confab in 2006, inventor of mind-blowing touchscreen technology gives Wired News a glimpse into life as an entrepreneur and his new company, Perceptive Pixel. Kim Zetter reports from Monterey. [Wired News: Top Stories]

My favorite project talked about this article is one where the blurred letters and numbers - called captcha images - are replaced by the image of a dog or cat ... with you having to properly identify which it is. It turns out that this is a hard problem to solve ... today ... for machines.

Microsoft's research labs offer freebies. Many projects at TechFest are simply research concepts that will never come to market, but some are being made publicly available.
Images: From pets to panoramas at TechFest [CNET News.com]

[tags: captcha microsoft research]

As the work in the research labs continue, it was only a meeter of time before the technology begins to enter into commodity markets. I do have to wonder if the quality and capabilities will meet peoples expectations, however it is only going to improve with time.

I keep thinking of other applications for this product ... who will do the first TV Remote Control based on this? Just think about changing channels ... :-)

Connecting Your Brain to the Game. Emotiv Systems has announced that video-game makers are able to buy Emotiv's electro-encephalograph (EEG) caps and software developer's tool kits so that they can build games that, they claim, can use the electrical signals from a player's brain to c... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

I think it was Ray Kurzweil that said during a presentation at Stanford that the US Patent System was in for some problems. I believe that he had some charts that showed the near exponential growth of the number of patents being filed ... and talked about the fact that reviewing and looking for possible overlap and duplication was going to grow to be near impossible ... unless we end up employing the majority of the US citizens! Well ... looks like things are heating up!

What is cool is that they are actually exploring some new and innovative ways to deal with the review of patents ...

The U.S. Patent Office Wants You. A plan to help overburdened patent examiners solicits online advice from outside sources (read: you), calling on Slashdot's founder for a system to rank user comments. Plus: China blocks LiveJournal. In 27B Stroke 6. [Wired News: Top Stories]

I've been working on my videoWrapplet some more, and just added a few new features, and fixed some bugs. I'm really restructuring the internals of the code to prepare for some of the bigger features ... more flexible playlists, and preferences.

With the new version the videos will automatically advance to the next video if they can (the Flex video player events are pretty hosed!), and I've also added a video info button next to each title to see, and copy, the URL of the video. All of this to make it easier to put videos into your playlist. And yes ... I'm working on a way to do a one-click add of a video into your playlist ... stay tuned!

Also ... Scott has been jamming on the home page of NuMe to show the users who are getting the top plays, and who have recently updated their playlist!

I saw this article, and imediately read through it ... it's #5 that I agree with the most. The reason that I have a laptop *and* a Tablet PC is the screen. The screen size and resolution that is included on most convertibles is still just too low for me. I heard that the Gateway was a full 14", but then the resolution is still only 1280 x 768 pixels ... too small for what I am used to. I'll look forward to seeing what Dell does in this space ... but I want pixels!

As for the value of a Tablet PC ... I love the Tablet PC for notetaking. It is still the most amazing computer to take into presentations or conferences, or when walking around having to take notes and sketch diagrams of things. For these purposes, the Tablet PC beats out the laptop any day.

Eight reasons tablet PCs have missed the mainstream. Tablet PCs haven't caught on with consumers and remain a niche market for certain users, such as medical personnel and insurance adjusters. Cost and technology problems are among the reasons, according to analysts.

[Computerworld Mobile/Wireless News]

No ... it's can't be! <sarcasm>There is no way that I can believe for a second that the earth is at all warmed by the sun! Although I haven't yet seen Al Gore's movie, I've heard it's all full of hard evidence that Global Warming is caused by us humans. How could it be otherwise?</sarcasm>

Uh ... wow. This scientist is probably going to come under a lot of attack from folks about this ... but he's saying that maybe ... just maybe ... there are bigger forces at work than us humans. Imagine that.

Sun May Be Warming Both Earth and Mars. [Slashdot]

A few years back I attended a conference at Stanford and watched a presentation by some of the folks at Numenta. It was very impressive, and discussed the architecture of the hierarchical temporal memory (HTM) system. There were several other presenters that discussed the learning of how the brain stores patterns, and does pattern matching.

What I really like is the thinking that dovetails with other articles and books that I have read, and how the brain - from childhood - constructs a model of the universe, and we the interact with the world using that model as a base reference for predictions and "next moves."

Numenta has now released their Numenta Research Release. It is now at the stages for researchers to begin to look at and experiment. Of course it's not just download and run ... in Jeff's own words:

We have found that it takes some developers months to get familiar with the concepts, and maybe a year to get commercially useful results. It also is possible that your first attempts at using HTM will be valuable for learning, but not valuable for commercial applications. The learning curve is similar to the learning curve for writing computer software. It takes anywhere from several months to a year to become proficient in writing computer software; HTMs have similar complexity.

The best part that I like about these theories and examples of possible brain models, is that we can learn a lot about ourselves from these. How we work. If the brain creates a model, and that is then used to interact with the world, then that model begins to define the limits of our interactions. The funny part, is that most people fail to distinguish that it is simply a model ... not the "truth", and not fixed. And so quite often their own model of the universe constrains their behaviors and actions, limiting what they can do. I took a number of courses from Landmark Education that focus on this specific area ... learning to distinguish that model, and to then learn to evolve and update that model. It is amazing experience each time I distinguish something new about how flawed my model of the universe is.

Even with the understandable doubts expressed by the author of this article ... I am impressed with Jeff and his work, and believe that he is on the right track.

Quest for the Thinking Machine. Jeff Hawkins created the Palm Pilot and the Treo. Now he says he's got the ultimate invention: software that mimics the human brain. By Evan Ratliff from Wired magazine. [Wired News: Top Stories]

Ok folks . .. time for Apollo Camp! I'm going to be heading out there to participate, and some of our G3 team members from mediaFORGE are going to be there with me. If you aren't yet familiar with Apollo, you ought to be. I'm very impressed with what Adobe is doing, and we are fully committed to Flash, Flex, and Apollo development.

Apollo, IMHO, is going to truly alter web applications beyond what Ajax has done ... and I've been working with Ajax for quite some time. My issues with Ajax are that the most popular web properties on the Internet will not allow you to embed Ajax in their pages ... but they'll allow Flash! Apollo now adds to that since it allows the Flash applications to be "installed from the web" ... so now cross-platform applications can be created and distributed through embedded web objects.

I'm really looking forward to this evening ... and if you're there, we might even demo some of the projects that we've been working on!

I know that some people are going to say that this is old news, but today I came across some very cool software from Microsoft ... the Microsoft Robotics Studeo. Where the heck have I been? For all of my life I have loved the interaction between computers and the outside world. I remember writing my first code that controlled a floppy disk drive, and it was fun to use keyboard commands to control the heads ... stepping them back and forth and returning them to track 0.

I came across this offering from Microsoft while looking for information about White Box Robotics back in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm going to be taking a vacation back to Pittsburgh this summer, and am lining up various things to do. I want to stop over and check out what White Box is doing, as they are looking pretty impressive on the level of research and development that they are doing for "home" robotics.

White Box Robotics was founded in 2001 by Thomas Burick to fulfill the vision of changing the world one robot at a time.

We remain committed to the ongoing development of the PC-BOT, a new class of networked mobile robots that delivers exceptional value and ease of use. This achieved by leveraging mature PC technologies, adopting open standards and creating a plug and play environment that allows just about anyone to build exciting PC-based robots.

The White Box Robotics laboratory is based in Pittsburgh PA and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Frontline Robotics Inc. Thomas continues to pursue his vision as the company's Chief Robotics Officer and now is part of a new enlarged team of multi-disciplinary and highly experienced engineers. This team delivers the depth and breadth to catapult this technology into the rapidly emerging market for personal, commercial and security robotic applications.

What I really like about this is that there are a number of vendors all working together to create some standards for the platforms. The Microsoft Robotics Studeo press release lists an impressive group of companies and researchers in the robotics field.

I'm reading ... and I think I'm going to download this for my new laptop tonight! Cool to see robotics making some good jumps!

I have been a long believer that the mass media - television and radio - are still poised to be the dominant powers of the Internet ... if they can let go of their fear of the Internet. Their current position reminds me of the stories of the railroads way back when ... ignoring and afraid of the airlines. If the railroads had recognized that they were in the transportation business ... they could have had it all!

It seems that still to this day, TV and Radio are all around us, constantly pushing their content at us, and - sadly or not - the masses still flock to it. Millions of people across the country are scheduling their lives around their "favorite" TV show that they can't get enough of. Even the news draws millions of people to learn more about all of the events that occurred around the nation, and in their local area, they they *must* know about.

With this huge audience, this medium is still, IMHO, the most untapped mechanism to get people to the Internet. It is the *only* way that you can impact so many people - at nearly the same instant - with some message or meme. TV was the original way that people or companies were "slashdotted" ... when something runs on TV there might be hundreds of thousands of immediate responses.

This article demonstrates a powerful TV brand utilizing it's communications vehicle to move people to a new medium on the Internet ... and to go beyond the "reality" TV of today, and into virtual worlds. MTV is now creating a television program, that is then being used to drive people into their online virtual world. This, to me, is a prime example of good marketing ... using the power and reach that you have through TV to then create awareness and drive the people to your web properties. Nice!

MTV launches 'Virtual Hills' based on There.com platform. Blog: MTV Networks on Monday announced the launch of Virtual Hills, a new custom virtual world created using the There.com platform,... [CNET News.com]

When I got my new Nokia E70, one of the things that really disappointed me was the different way that e-mails were sent from the text messaging. No matter what I did, I was unable to figure out how to send an e-mail using the "basic" SMS text message. Instead, I was forced to use the "multimedia message" ... which I quickly found out was being charged to me per message, even though I was just sending simple text. :-(

So why do I really care about this? Well ... I have formed the habit of using SMS text to e-mail as a way to send reminders to myself that I later will find in my e-mail inbox! If I am out and about, and away from my computer, I can quickly jot a message on my phone and e-mail it to myself. When I get back in front of my laptop there are my reminders sitting in my inbox! Also ... I'm working on a cool SMS text messaging site that I have had under construction for years now ... and I am sending messages to it also ... for purposes to be announced soon. :-)

With my older Nokia phone, I could easily send a basic SMS text message, and specify an e-mail address ... the phone handled dispatching a properly formatted message to the SMS e-mail gateway at Cingular and everything worked. With the E70, although I am able to add e-mail addresses to my contacts, when sending a basic SMS text message, I am unable to pick an e-mail address to send to! Instead ... I have had to use the costly "multimedia message" format, and then I get a pick list of numbers and e-mail addresses to send to.

Tonight, while experimenting more with my phone I realized something ... that I could reply to a e-mail that was sent to my phone as a "basic" SMS text. If I could do that, then I figured that there must be a way to properly format a basic SMS text to send as e-mail. By searching Google, and remembering some obscure settings, I finally figured it out. So for anyone interested here it is:

To send a SMS text message to an e-mail address on the Cingular network:

• Address the message To: "0000000000" (ten zeros)
• Write the text with the format "{e-mail address}({subject}) {body of e-mail}

Now the exact format has to be followed. An example would be:

joe@somedomain.com(This came from my phone) I figured this out!

The key points in this are that the e-mail address and subject are separated from the body of the message by a space! Do not put a space after the e-mail address ... it must be the e-mail address, then the subject - in parenthesis - with NO space between them. Then a space before the body of the e-mail message. If you want to, you can leave out the subject and the parenthesis, and just get a message with no subject.

Now I do have to admit that I am still very disappointed with Nokia, in that I can not find how to get the e-mail address from a contact to appear in the text message ... so I end up having to type this EVERY time. But the cost of these messages is included in my plan ... so it's worth the extra effort!

For the last while, I have been aware of the Firefox v2.x release. What has really surprised me is that the Firefox Update check has never told me to go and get it!

Just today ... for the last time . .. I launched Firefox, and then went to the "Help -> Check for Updates ..." menu. The dialog that appeared stated "No Updates Found. There are no new updates available. Firefox may check periodically for new updates." What? No notice at all that there is a whole new generation of the browser?

As a general marketing rule, it seems to me that you always make sure to let the customer know about products that you want them to use! I can't believe that Firefox would not tell me that v2.x is now out there and available to download.

P.S. If people want to tell me about the difference between an Upgrade and an Update ... or that v1.5.x is a different product from v2.0.x ... I don't want to hear it. This is all about marketing and getting the word out. For the general population that doesn't follow the tech news, Firefox would benefit the most from making these blatant announcements!

I love to read about new technologies like this ... something truly futuristic ... a "viscous gel" in a vest that is fluid until struck or impacted ... then it turns to a hardened material. Afterwards ... it returns to a gel. Bullet-proof vests that morph ... very cool!

Prison Guards Saved by Syrup. A new viscous gel that hardens on impact could make bulky, conspicuous body armor a thing of the past. By Vince Beiser from Wired magazine. [Wired News: Top Stories]

Nice ... I like it. It's a portable keyboard like no other. Simply sit it down and turn it on ... there are serial and Bluetooth versions. For those who want a full size keyboard for their mobile devices ... this is a very cool solution!

Review: A virtual keyboard for any surface. I-Tech virtual laser keyboard uses infrared and laser technology to project an outline of a full keyboard onto any surface. [Computerworld Breaking News]

This is an awesome blog post about many of the key terms, areas of research, and conversations that are going on around the world related to the coming future. Anyone interested in the future ought to read through this list of key terms, and the associated links, and come up to speed on what the great minds around the planet are thinking of.

This list of terms and links will take you on a great journey through some amazing theories and discussions ... this is the type of thinking that I live for. For those who don't want to read it all ... we're in for a wild ride!

Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux. George P. Dvorsky has created a list of the most fundamental and crucial terms that re-define the human condition and should be known by any expert generalist.

They include Accelerating Change, Anthropic Principle, Artificial General Intelligence,... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

When I read an article like this one, it really causes me to stop and think. This article is talking about the discussions being held about the legality of combining animal and human material. What makes me stop and think is that the discussion is not about if it is now possible!

It's now completely possible ... and so now just a matter of time. What will the resulting creatures be called ... when someone takes it all the way?

Animal-human hybrid cloning deferred. Controversial proposals to make embryos by merging human and animal material remain on hold following a decision on Thursday by the UK regulator of embryo research.
The researchers want to use cow or rabbit eggs as a short cut to making cloned em... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

Once again we are reminded that "privacy" is simply a case of obfuscation. We have "privacy" only because it is too difficult to sense certain things. We have the "privacy of our own homes" only becuase others can not see what goes on "behind closed doors."

This article is demonstrating that even that level of privacy is slowly eroding. With the newest version of this product, different military and police agencies can actually "see" through walls. Now obviously this is something that will be very costly as a product ... but with the rapid evolution of technology, how long until you or I will be able to purchase a device like this? 10 years? 5 years? 3 years? It is inevitable that we will have our own personal versions of this before too long ...

Company with a camera that sees through walls gets $14 million. Blog: Camero, a company out of Israel that has developed a camera that can "see" things through solid walls, has raised $14 million,... [CNET News.com]

Well, it's already turning into a bummer. It appears that the iPhone is going to be locked down against 3rd party applications. What a loss. I was really looking forward to some sort of developer angle here ... but it seems that Apple is going to lock things up tightly when it comes to applications for the iPhone. From this article:

But it’s not like the walled garden has gone away. “You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

In addition, I'm hearing more and more that they are locking the phone tight to the Cingular network ... not allowing you to change to alternate networks. David Isenberg comments on the same issues in his blog post: Apple blows it. I agree with him completely ... I'm shocked at the complete lock-in that Apple is creating around the iPhone. Bummer.

For the last six months I've been working with mediaFORGE here in Salt Lake City, Utah as CTO. It's been a fun place to work as we have been combining some interesting back-end technologies for doing viral marketing analytics. As we began to work with Internet Videos, we started to think about some new ways to embed more than just one video within a portion of web page real estate.

As we were developing some other solutions for our customers, I worked with one of my developers to create a basic video player that we call our videoWrapplet. This little Flash application can be embedded in almost any web page, and provides a simple way to maintain a playlist of videos, and embed them into your home page, blog, Myspace page, or other website. What is fun is that you can create your account through this widget, and then login, edit your playlist, and get the HTML codes to embed in your page through the widget also. You can add any .flv flash video into your playlist, and so we support videos from a wide range of sites - YouTube, Google, Myspace, etc. You can also resize the player to be any size you want down to 200 pixels wide, and up to a full page width.

We also created a web site called cinemaFORGE where you can check out the videoWrapplet, and also where we aggregate some of the analytics about what videos people are playing in the videoWrapplet. We're about to add some analytics on the popular playlists also.

To get your videoWrapplet for your page simply click the "login" button on the videoWrapplet to the right, and then click the "Create an Account" button ... you'll pick a username, password, and provide an e-mail address and that's it! Once you confirm the e-mail address you can then login through the Wrapplet and begin to populate the playlist with your own videos. While logged in you can click the "Put this on your page..." bar and it will open revealing the codes to embed in your page.

I figure that some folks will think of some cool things they can do with this, and I was hoping to see someone use this to embed their vidcasts into their blog page. I'm about to do exactly that. If you check it out, and think of some cool ideas that you would like to see, then please visit our forums ... they are linked to by the graphic at the bottom of the player. We have a lot of ideas on where we want to take this ... I want to hear some of your ideas!

Ok ... it's cool. So far I like what I have read, except for a couple of things ... which I expected.

1. The price. Wow ... that is a lot of money for a phone. I know that it is more than a phone, but ouch. I'm also a little cautious about the cost of the cellular plans also. I already use Cingular and the data plans are not the most aggressive. The interesting part is that I already know they are going to sell as many as they can make. Steve Jobs knows how to market.
2. The storage. This really caught me off-guard. Only a 4GB and 8GB version? I have become so used to my 80GB Video iPod that I can't even imagine going back to only 8GB. I really enjoy taking such a huge portion of my music collection - along with several videos and numerous podcasts - everywhere that I go. I would really have to reset how I use my iPod if I was going to drop back to only 8GB. Maybe I shift to using my phone ... oops, I mean iPhone (trademark Cisco Systems) ... for all of the podcasts, but still keep my Video iPod for my music, etc.
3. Touch Screen. As usual, Steve has outdone himself as the iPhone appears to have even further enhanced the user interface. I have always liked touch-pads and touch interfaces, and hearing about some of the new multi-finger aspects really impressed me. It has me thinking about how natural some of this is going to become.
   
4. Application Support. I'm also impressed with this aspect ... it appears that this is OS-X and has support for the Apple Widgets. If there is truly compatibility with the standard development environment for Widgets this is going to really open up development for the phones. In addition, if Apple has truly opened up the iPhone and it's APIs, then things are going to get fun. When I last looked at some of the API limitations, I was unable to write an application that could access the camera, and even the text/SMS interfaces. I'm hoping that Apple will break through these barriers.
5. Battery Design. I had heard about the two-battery design, and it makes complete sense. Cool idea. Now if I use my iPhone for music too much ... I don't kill the battery for my phone. Nice.

I stopped by the Apple store here in Salt Lake City today. They said they have no idea when they will see one. It'll be interesting to see when the iPhone begins to show up everywhere. I'm sure that it won't be too long. It's already the thing to be seen using ...

This weekend I spent some time with some friends that are into podcast and vidcasting. As we discussed the huge explosion in Internet video content, I started to think about some of the implications. I actually think that the growth of video content is about to drive even more audio content.

My reasoning is that video is simply more difficult to consume than audio! I can listen to audio almost anywhere, anytime. I can listen while driving, working, skiing, etc. Video on the other hand is a much more demanding sensory experience. It requires that I commit far more attention to it, and I can't do it when driving, skiing ... well ... any time that I have to be present to things that might kill me. :-)

As I thought more about this, I realized that two things might emerge. The first will be more attention being paid to the audio tracks being done for video content. This will involve careful production of videos that can be listened to ... audio only. The second thing will be new generations of multimedia players - like the iPod - that allow you to turn off the video when "listening only" to a video. So when I go skiing, I can listen to a video without burning up my batteries displaying content that I'm not even watching!

My request to Apple ... please give me an option to turn off the video display on my iPod when I want to ... so that I can listen when I can't watch!

Wow ... what a quick reaction ... but not quite enough, in my opinion. Linden Research quickly announced the release of the Second Life client into Open Source. I actually love the name of this blog post by phoenix linden ... Embracing the Inevitable. It announces the release of their client software into Open Source, and where to go and get it. There is an issue though ... they are still holding onto the control of the virtual world by not releasing the server software ... yet. As David Kirkpatrick at Fortune reports:

While this initial step will open up what is essentially the user's window into Second Life for modification, it will leave Linden Lab in control of the proprietary software code for all Second Life's backend services - the server software that makes the world exist. However, executives say that the company's eventual intention is to release an open source version of that software as well, once it has improved security and other core functions. They say they have been preparing for the open source move for about three years.

Yes ... this is not enough to provide a free and open platform for virtual existence. I do see where this is a prudent business move to create even more of a lock on the entire market though. Linden seems to now be pushing to create de-facto standards of their client APIs and protocols by creating a group of developers who write to this environment.

My worry is if it took them three years to get the client out to Open Source, how long will it take them to get the server software out?

I believe that the pressure is mounting as other well-funded companies continue to explore the space ... as this quote from IBM demonstrates:

IBM Vice President for Technical Strategy Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a close student of Second Life, heard about the impending move toward open source from a Linden employee. "They have the right thought," he says, "which is that open source things work with the marketplace. But this is a field in its infancy that will be very competitive. Linden Lab might end up with a huge leadership position in a certain class of tools for virtual worlds, but those might not be the right tools for, let's say, a surgeon learning a new procedure in an immersive online environment. Second Life can be wildly successful, but so can others."

I do not think that IBM and others are sitting still. Neither am I. I'm heading over to download the APIs reference materials now ... :-)

P.S. I just thought of an interesting "client" to create for Second Life. What if there was an "augmented reality" client that was created that would overlay the Second Life world onto the real world? Maybe create someplace in the desert - like at Burning Man - that would allow you to have GPS tracking on yourself, and then wearing augmented reality goggles you would be seeing some portion of the Second Life world? As you wandered around the desert, your view would be augmented with the terrian of Second Life, and the other people wandering around in reality would be overlayed with their graphical avatar. Hmmmm ...

It's really not a question of if. It will happen. It's just a matter of when.

Second Life is gaining more and more attention, and more and more users. As I write this there are now 2.3 million user accounts, with 20,000+ users now on-line. It's really impressive ... but another lock-in application. Once you join and begin to pay ... you are captive forever. This is obviously a good deal for Linden Research, Inc. - the owners of Second Life - but not the way that the Internet likes to evolve and develop.

For those not yet familiar, Second Life is a very impressive virtual world. The kind of place that was forecasted and imagined by authors for decades ... the kind of place described in Snow Crash. In Second Life you can create an avitar ... a character ... to represent you in the virtual world. You can wander through a wide range of virtual land, buildings, boats, businesses, and fantasy objects. If you want to, you can purchase virtual property, and "own a home."

The problem is that it is all a huge lock-in right now. You are limited to their servers, their designs, their tools, and their rules. Oh ... and you pay their rates. Want to buy some land? Here is how to buy land in Second Life. Want to buy a private island? Here is how to buy a private island in Second Life. Wait! What is going on here! These rates are even higher than my real-world property taxes!

So what can I do about it? Nothing. Right now, there simply is not a Open Source Second Life solution. Let's call this Third Life. (Of course that domain name is already taken ...) What has to emerge is the Open Source platform that I can download and install on my own hardware and bandwidth. Where I can set the rules, and define how things work. Of course, as my server would only represent some small parcel of land, I would have to work agreements with others to create portals to travel between my land, and other peoples land. So maybe several of my friends and I might join our servers together to create a larger landmass.

There are even some other interesting ideas that could emerge from this ... such as using a commercial for-pay service like Second Life as the "connector" between private servers. What if there was an apartment building in Second Life, and when your character comes to the door of my apartment in Second Life, I actually have the option to connect my server to the other side of that door? So entering that portal transports you from Second Life to my private server. To me, this is the inevitable future for virtual worlds ... one that is open and interconnected, freely allowing people to pay to use "hosted virtual worlds" like Second Life, or to choose the option of hosting their own.

Their are two possible solutions for this to occur ... one is for Second Life to open their platform - and source code - to the world to use. The other is for the next generation of virtual worlds to emerge from the Open Source community. I hear rumblings of Second Life/Linden Research and what they might do, however it appears to be to push the business model and "open standard" more than Open Source. Of course, there are other people like Glyn Moody who also see Why We Need a Open Source Second Life. Even Ben King at The Register articulates the value of Open Source Second Life in his article Open sourcing Second Life.

The most impressive Open Source solution that I am now seeing is Croquet. Croquet is being developed by some brilliant minds, and is already out there and working. I'm about to install the lastest versions and begin to experiment, however much of the core is in place. As the networking layers solidify, we'll see how quickly you and I can get our own Croquet servers up and running, and begin to link them together via portals.

What is interesting is that I am beginning to see a parallel between this, and the beginnings of the World Wide Web. Instead of Web Servers, we have Croquet Servers. Instead of hyperlinks, there is now the world of TPostcards. And unlike the World Wide Web ... the client and server are the same.

I can't wait ... and I know it will occur. It's all just when ...