Category Archives: Location Based Services

The Benefits of Broadband

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I’m finally there. I wasn’t sure exactly when I would take the leap … but I did a few weeks ago. It wasn’t without problems … but I’m glad that I made the move. I finally bought a Broadband card for my laptop, and service from Cingular/AT&T.

I have long been a user of wireless. I bought my first Xircom gear in ~1995, just prior to the Xircom management buyout that formed NetWave Wireless. I think that I spent ~$2000 for an access point and two cards! In 1997 as a Novell employee I began working with the folks at NetWave on potential applications of wireless networking … and this was all pre-802.11 standards! All of this culminated with the demonstration of my research at the 1998 Novell Brainshare where we covered the Salt Lake City Convention Center – the Salt Palace – and surrounding area (~5 city blocks) – with wireless Internet access. I’ve never gone back. I love Wifi … and it is great to see it everywhere. Well … almost everywhere.

This is the issue that I found. Wifi isn’t everywhere … or sometimes when you find it the cost is just too great. A month or so ago I found myself at the airport … for about two hours … and the Wifi access was $10 for the day. I thought about it, and chose to find out exactly how much the service costs these days. I had seen Phil Windley using broadband from Verizon, and he really seemed to like it. As a Cingular/AT&T customer, I figured that I would check out what they had to offer.

I visited the local Salt Lake City Cingular store, and the deal was a Sierra Wireless 2G/3G PCMCIA card for $50 (after the $100 rebate), and the service – with unlimited bandwidth – was $60/month. I was in. I bought the card and the service, and headed off to install and get things working. I will say that I didn’t expect what happened next.

When I went to install the card in my laptop I didn’t even think to check on new versions of drivers. I popped the CD into my drive and installed what they gave me with the card … v5.4.1 drivers. When I rebooted … and inserted the card … BLUESCREEN. Ugh … the drivers were crashing my laptop. I was able to boot into “Safe Mode”, but I then spent two days debugging and interacting with technical support to find out that the latest drivers were v6.2.10, and that there was a conflict with the McAfee firewall that I was using. That mess started on Friday, and by Monday I was recovered and up and running. And now? I’ll never look back!

I have done some speed tests, and fairly consistently get ~1.5mbps down, and ~300kbps up. Several times now I have been getting speeds even faster! It is amazing to me that for $60/month I am now able to get megabit speeds almost any where that I go.  Over the last week, I have found myself in several places where I had no Wifi access … and plugged in my card, and jumped on the net.  The unlimited bandwidth enables me to not even think about how often I use the card, and what I do when on-line.  The speed is good enough for me to run all of my standard business applications.

I’m sure that I’ll do more testing, and might have more feedback, however so far I am happy and impressed with what is possible.  Broadband is now bringing the Internet to you – at an affordable price – in even more locations than ever before.  I now have multiple levels of fall-back to stay connected and in communications.  I’ll have to see when I do my first blog post from a moving vehicle (not while I’m driving!), and also see how many different strange places I can blog from now.  It also gets me thinking about getting out my wearable computers again … I had some fun ideas for mobile games … hmmm …

My thoughts on Twitter … or ‘Opt-in Stalking’

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I do love communications technologies. Communications is the foundation of effective organizations … communities. There are so many ways that we are able to virtually extend the various communities in our lives. If you reflect back on society 200 years ago, you can see how communities of people were limited to physical locality. There was no effective means of staying in contact – in anything close to real-time – with anyone more than a few miles away. With this communications infrastructure, there was simply no way for global distributed communities to exist.

Now … flash forward to 2007. Twitter appears on the scene. We already have the Internet and cell phones. E-mail and Instant Messaging have been around for over a decade and are now completely entrenched in society. Instant Messaging has even bridged to cell phones where many of the phones in use can also login to the various Instant Messaging networks. Oh, and blogs of course are everywhere. I am now able to communicate and keep in touch with all of my global virtual communities. People who I have not seen in years … who are not physically close … are still “close friends” as we have stayed in touch via IM or now Skype. Of course we also read each others blogs.

I was very skeptical of Twitter as first … not sure if I liked the idea of it. But just like any other new communications technology, I quickly began to see a pattern that I liked. When Twitter is used with friends, we can begin to gain insights into their lives.  Phil Windley and I have talked about this, and we both seemed to notice a similar pattern … we are gaining new perspectives of friends and co-workers who are using Twitter to post short updates about their daily lives.  I learned that Phil Windley takes bike rides, and also works on his yard.  I found out that Phil Burns is into hiking up the mountains in the area, and also ran his first 5k.

When I began to look at Twitter in this new light … as a way to allows others to know what you are up to on a daily basis, this began to expand a new dimension in my relationship to my global virtual communities.  The messages that I am getting on Twitter are significantly different from the e-mails, IMs, and blog posts that I am reading … these twits are crude updates about what these people are doing at various moments during their day.  When I began to see this, I realized that what Twitter has created is a globally distributed “opt-in stalking” system!

Anyone can now create a simple way to be stalked … by almost any anonymous individual with access to the Internet.  Twitter allows the stalked a variety of simple ways to update the world with where they are … or where they aren’t!  Twitter also provides the new generation of stalker to monitor the goings on in any Twitterers life.  People twit that they are out at a club, or home watching TV.  They will twit about going on bike rides, and when they are at school.  Stalkers now know when people are not at their home … hmmm, time for a burglery?  They also know when they are out at some other public place … hmmm, time for a confrontational visit?

Don’t get me wrong … I’m actually a growing fan of Twitter … however I have started to see a lot of things that I like and don’t like about the service.  It’s great as it is … and there is a lot of room for improvement.  I’m actually working on an alternative system with some friends … we’re pushing to get a beta out the door by June 4th.  It will provide some similar functionality, but also some new enhancements that can provide some privacy and control over who hears what.

In any case … I am a big fan of this new form of communications … of having a new way to learn more about people who are virtually in my life.  I have long proposed Lemon’s Law of Effective Organizations:

The effectiveness of an organization is directly proportional to the quantity and quality of the communications within it.

Twitter is yet another form of communications that can contribute to the breadth of possible communications.  If you haven’t tried it yet, you ought to!

LearnKey Challenge Presentation – Wearable Computers, etc.

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For the last number of years I have had the privilege to present to high-school students from all over the state of Utah when they participate in a “Challenge” at the UVSC campus. The “Challenge” is allow the students to demonstrate their understanding of technology and computer skills. This used to be the “TestOut Challenge” but this year there is a new sponsor and so it’s the “LearnKey Challenge”. On Tuesday I got to do this again and had a blast.
Each year I’ve been asked to present on Wearable Computers and Virtual/Augmented/Mediated Reality. This is an area that I am really interested in as the man/machine interfaces continue to evolve … and computers and peripherals begin to become more embedded. I love to show the students the miniature computers and hardware, and to show them the hardware that I have collected over the years. I also love to shown them the videos of some of the advanced research going on around the world in these areas. If you want an idea, go and check out ARQuake and the Tinmith project, and the Mixed Reality Lab in Singapore, the HIT Lab at the U of Washington, or the work of Steve Mann at the U of Toronto.
The real reason that I love to give these presentations is to see if I can encourage and inspire some of these kids to think out of the box. I want them to get my enthusiasm about technology, and what is coming in the near future … to expose them to things that seem almost too far in the future … things they might not understand they could be involved with. Some of this work is pushing the limits of what we believe is possible … stuff of dreams. I want these kids to know they too can get involved and create the future … and play with some really cool computer stuff. This year they even recorded the presentations and put them all on-line … my Wearable & Mobile Computers is here! One warning … most of the initial presentation is about tech jobs, my experiences, what to expect, and what to consider to love your job.

It was fun to have so many of the student come up afterwards and ask questions … where to learn more … what degrees to pursue … where to go to school. Overall … they seemed to enjoy it, and I know that I did. If I made a difference with just one of these kids it’s all worth while.

Google wants MORE of your identity!

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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]

Microsoft Robotics

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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!

Microsoft Origami – first thoughts

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Well … it’s been fun watching the media uproar, and the debates over
the hype about the Microsoft Origami device. I has also been fun
to see the product announced and in the press.
It was fun since we at Agilix Labs had one here at our facility for quite
some time prior to the leaks. We’ve been tweaking our GoBinder
code to ensure that our Tablet PC applications work on this new device.

So what do I think about the UMPC/Origami device? I actually like
it! Yes, like many people are saying, this is a mini-Tablet PC
type of device. There is nothing earth shattering about it that I
know of right now, but I do want to buy one for my three year old
son. He has been using my HP Tablet PC for quite a while now, and
is becoming very adept at navigating the user interface, and easily
switching from mouse to stylus. I have really been thinking about
what I buy him to use … or do I give him my old laptop as I
upgrade? What about a PlayStation Portable? Oh … what about the $100 Laptop Project?

My laptop is too large for my son. The PSP? It’s still
$250.00 and doesn’t have half of the capabilities nor features.
The $100 Laptop? Way too limited in my opinion in that it lacks
the breadth of application support … and isn’t yet available. A Tablet PC? No … too expensive today.

In my opinion the key is going to be the price point of these new
Origami devices. When I can buy a device like this for the ~$600+
I have a hard time considering anything else. It runs a standard
operating system (and might even support Linux!) and brings the full
breadth of application support. It’ll run games, and provide
Internet connectivity. It’ll have Bluetooth and integrate with
cell phones.

I’m not saying that this product is going to kill the $100 Laptop
Project … that will always have it’s place. But in more
affluent societies where some extra money can be spent it seems to me
that the Origami is addressing a real market. This is the place
between the PDA/PSP types of devices, and the laptop/Tablet PCs.

So I’ll probably buy one for my son. Will I buy one? I
think that I might buy one for myself … just to experiment as a
platform for new applications. Religion aside, when Microsoft and
Intel (and Samsung, and ASUS, and …) get behind something they are
going to create a new market. I do believe that for software
developers, there is going to be a whole new generation of applications
for this platform.

The evolution of RSS

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It is very cool to see how RSS is being used for a wider range of
solutions than just blogging.  In experimenting with my iPod, I
have been studying the RSS enhancements that Apple has started to use,
and this article talks about a bunch of the enhancements that Microsoft
is experimenting with.

Where I have been thinking a lot lately is on new ways to use
RSS.  Since there are now so many news aggregator applications
that can consume RSS, it’s about time to think of new ways to create
feeds that are customized to the requestor.  And these would not
necessarily be the time-ordered “news” feeds … but maybe new forms of
reference material on demand.  What about educational content
being delivered on demand via RSS?  You simply subscribe to a
“feed” that begins to release content to you – posts or enclosures – on
a regular basis.  Your aggregator consumes the feed and presents
you with the content is more of a “chapter-order”.  At some point,
maybe there is even an extension that tells your aggregator that a feed
is now “dead” … or “finished”.

I’m thinking about how I might experiment with these Microsoft
extensions … in addition to some of the things I’m doing with my
iPod.  In the field of “identity management” I begin to think
about how I might want to give someone the ability to “subscribe” to
“me”.  I could easily do this via SSL, and then add
authentication.  People who I want to share with could then
subscribe to updates to my identity attributes.  Things like
sharing my GPS location could easily be done this way.  It’s fun
to see this whole area of technology get more and more mature.

Microsoft making RSS a two-way street.
Microsoft is creating extensions for the RSS syndication format to make
it multidirectional, a move that could allow RSS to be used to
synchronize information such as contacts and calendar entries across
different applications. [Computerworld News]

Microsoft Research and Mesh Networking

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I have been following the work that Microsoft is doing in their Windows Peer To Peer Networking. 
This is actually some very impressive technology that allows for a
distributed set of users to create peer-to-peer groups for exchanging
data and information.  I’m working on some applications (actually
plug-ins for GoBinder) that are going to exploit this
technology.  Microsoft has put together a Peer To Peer SDK allowing you to perform name-to-IP name resolution (PNRP
– a serverless DNS technology), along with graphing and grouping APIs
for the transfer of data between the peers.  It’s all very
impressive stuff … and is in all Windows XP SP2 machines … and will
be in all Vista machines.  The bottom line … this is going to
drastically alter how ad-hoc groups of users on Windows machines will
be able to locate each other, communicate, and collaborate.

Today, I found yet another amazing technology out of Microsoft Research. 
For years I have been tracking the “wireless mesh networking”
space.  This is where each node in a wireless network is a
repeater/relay for any other node that is within range.  With true
mesh technologies I can communicate with other users, even if they are
beyond the reach of my wireless signal, if there are one or more nodes
between us that are part of the “mesh” network.  Mesh networks are
the next big thing … even the cellular carriers are talking about
adding emergency mesh capabilities into cell phones.

What I found today is that Microsoft Research
has code available today that will allow you to experiment with some
pretty advanced mesh networking using your Windows XP machine! 
The Microsoft Research Networking Research Group has released their Mesh Networking software, and even an Mesh Networking Academic Resource Toolkit. 
I’ve started to go through the documentation, and so far this is a very
impressive solution.  They have embraced and extended some of the
standards that are currently being developed:

We implement ad-hoc routing and link quality measurement in a module that we
call the Mesh Connectivity Layer (MCL). Architecturally, MCL is a loadable
Microsoft Windows driver. It implements a virtual network adapter, so that to
the rest of the system the ad-hoc network appears as an additional (virtual)
network link. MCL routes using a modified version of DSR (an IETF protocol) that
we call Link Quality Source Routing (LQSR). We have modified DSR extensively to
improve its behavior, most significantly to support link quality metrics.

The MCL driver implements an interposition layer between layer 2 (the link
layer) and layer 3 (the network layer). To higher layer software, MCL appears to
be just another Ethernet link, albeit a virtual link. To lower layer software,
MCL appears to be just another protocol running over the physical link.

I am really impressed to see this work this far along.  I have
been waiting for years to see mesh networking hit the masses … and
this is now getting close.  I’m now going to upgrade some of my
wearable computers to Windows XP just to experiment with this!

Phil Windley’s CTO Breakfast

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This morning was the November/December CTO Breakfast that Phil Windley
put
together. The breakfast started with a question about hiring good
talent. One of the employees from Canyon Bridge
said they have been looking to hire some good engineers, and have been
finding that few can answer some very simple questions. The
example that they gave was about reversing the order of a linked list.

There was a lot of talk about how to alter the hiring process, and also what types of questions people ask: What do you do outside of work? What Open Source projects do you work on?
There was also a lot of talk about how to gather names. Examples
were leverage your existing employees to get the names of “known good”
co-workers. The problem with this approach is that you can
quickly run out of references.

The conversation went on for a long time before it finally went over to the CP80
issue. CP80 is the “Clean Port 80” initiative to create laws
which forbid certain types of content to be delivered over port 80 …
the standard port used by web browsers. It again becomes an
interesting way to attempt to legislate morality. In the end, it
will not be technically possible, but could give lawyers a way to go
after the producers of “unacceptable” content. Yeah …
“unacceptable” to who? ([tags: ])

The conversation at one point moved to downloading content from the
Internet, and the subject of Digital Rights Management (DRM). 
Several sites were mentioned where you could get free content –  Pandora (which is a very cool streaming site – part of the Music Genome Project), and one of my favorites Epitonic. ([tags: ])

There was a brief exploration of the whole area of Wikis and the
inability of the “average” user to use “yet another markup
language”.  I have to admit that it truly aggrevates me that the
various Wiki platforms have subtle differences … and most do not
provide WYSIWYG editors.  and we spent some time discussing the
fact that there is a not a really good – Open Source – AJAX/WYSIWYG
editor.  I mentioned the fact that my parents can use Microsoft
Word, but that having to learn a whole symbology wasn’t going to
happen.  It reminded me of a great Podcast by Robert Lefkowitz @ OSCON 2005 … I’ll have to blog about that one!  ([tags: ])

Phil Burnes through out comments about Flock … a very cool Mozilla-based project, I brought up a very cool article that a friend sent me from Make
Magazine … it was about Mologogo
… which is a very cool mash-up of Cellular phones with GPS and Google
Maps giving you a very cheap “real-time” geopositioning/geolocation
system.  We wrapped up on one of my favorite subjects … wearable
computers.  We didn’t spend a lot of time on it … I’ll have to
bring some of my toys to one of the next breakfasts!  ([tags: ])

On the way out, Phil brought up a good point.  His gatherings
bring together an incredible group of people with diverse interests and
experience.  It is the level of experience of some of the people
that really brings a great spin to the whole conversation.  We
ended up going almost 2.5 hours … and it was a great conversation the
whole time … and we could have gone longer!  I’ll look forward
to January!