Discovery Channel Launches iPhone Application

August 19, 2009 By

Readers of the Open Gardens blog will know that I am a fan of the Discovery Channel and documentaries/wildlife movies have long featured on the Open Gardens blog, for example Inspiration for the recession.. Ray Mears, Kim Wolhuter etc ..

So when the Discovery Channel contacted me about their new iPhone application, I was happy to feature it here.

As per their media release

Bringing fans greater access to their favorite programs, the Discovery

Channel App features a robust collection of video clips from the

network’s most popular shows including: Emmy®-nominated MYTHBUSTERS

and MAN VS.WILD as well as DIRTY JOBS, TIME WARP, DEADLIEST CATCH,

CASH CAB and SHARK WEEK.

For more information, please visit

www.discoverycommunications.com

I hope you like it as well. Any comments welcome.

discovery channel iPhone app.jpg

Filed Under: Uncategorized

One Web Day – September 22nd 2009

August 19, 2009 By

As per every year, we are supporting the One Web Day initiative on September 22nd. One Web Day was started by Susan Crawford - and I have had the pleasure of knowing Susan when we both spoke at Kevin Werbach’s event Supernova last year. Susan has gone on to bigger things like being on the Obama administration as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, but I know she is still very much involved with the One Web Day initiative, which is great for all of us.

So, once again we support this seminal event and ask you to do the same in any way you can. Please see the One Web Day site and a video from Susan below to see why this day is so important.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Fraunhofer FOKUS IMS workshop – Berlin – November 11-12

August 19, 2009 By

fokus 2009.jpg

It is always a pleasure to be invited to speak at the Fraunhofer FOKUS IMS workshop in Berlin organised by Dr Thomas Magedanz, Niklas Blum and team at Fraunhofer FOKUS. From the previous times I have spoken at this event – I can say that it is one of the must attend events in my yearly calendar for it’s technical excellence, Operator participation and also the lively social events which they organise every year!

This year, the event is goes beyond IMS and also covers many interesting topics for

NGMN (“Next Generation (Mobile) Networks)

The event and workshop details are Fraunhofer FOKUS IMS event and you can register HERE event contact at

ims-event@fokus.fraunhofer.de

Don’t miss this event and if you are attending please email me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com if you want to meet up.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

LTE forum 2009 at Lisbon on 08th Oct 2009

August 19, 2009 By

LTE forum 2009.JPG

The LTE forum 2009 takes place at Lisbon on 08th Oct 2009

This should be a great event with participation from Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, NEC and Nokia Siemens Networks and CBE, a leading Portuguese Telecommunications company. The conference features 3 main areas: LTE Deployment, LTE Business Models and LTE Performance expectations

The keynote is from the CEO of Portugal Telecom, Mr. Zeinal Bava, about the importance of Next Generation Mobile Technology and the position of the Portugal Telecom group.

12 organizations are endorsing the LTE Forum 2009, including the Wi-Fi Alliance, the UMTS-Forum and the SIP Forum.

The website is lteforum 2009 – Lisbon

The registration is HERE

Online Fee 290€ until (incl.) 28.08.2009

Early-Bird Discount until (incl.) 18.09.2009 390€

Normal Price after 18.09.2009 Conference 490€

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The first ever Mobile application stores event ..

August 18, 2009 By

Mobile application stores event CTIA.JPG

Mobile application stores are a huge phenomenon and I am pleased to announce the first ever Mobile Application Stores(appstores) event which I am chairing at CTIA on Oct 8 2009

We have a great list of speakers including

George Linardos – Nokia; Inigo Lopez – Microsoft; Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi – LG; lja Laurs – GetJar;

Jouko Ahvenainen – Grow VC International; Tim Haysom – OMTP; Sena Gbeckor-Kove – imKon;

Mike Merrill – Smartphones Technologies; William Volk and Chetan Sharma

I hope you can attend it. There are some unique elements including a discussion on cross pollination of ideas across appstores, VC perspective etc

The link again is Mobile Application Stores(appstores) event at CTIA on Oct 8 2009

NOTE – you can buy a pass to attend this event only i.e. even if you are not attending the CTIA for all the days, you can attend this event for one day (see the site for registration details)

Registration Fee – $295.00 – Early Bird – $245.00

Filed Under: Uncategorized

This is very cool – Billion dollar gram ..

August 15, 2009 By

billion dollar gram.JPG

Many thanks to Raul Landa @EigenAuction for this .. see The billion dollar gram blog for the context and then click the link to see the actual diagram ..

By the way, this is a cool blog to follow and I await the forthcoming book Information is beautiful in 2010

Filed Under: Uncategorized

In support of the hardworking people of the NHS .. Let politicians criticise the NHS when they put their own lives at risk!

August 14, 2009 By

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NHS – no matter how flawed it is sad that Tories attack the NHS when the men and women of the NHS will be on the frontline of the swine flu epidemic this winter.

There are many hardworking men and women at the NHS ..this attack by the Tories is uncalled for ..

The swine flu will test our country’s resources .. and will put NHS men and women in the frontline at risk to their lives .. let us support them .. Truly we don’t need this from politicians like Daniel Hannan who try for short term gains !

Let politicians criticise the NHS when they put their own lives at risk!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Web OS from a user/mobile standpoint – A gedankenexperiment .. – How would the WebOS look like to a user?

August 12, 2009 By

The Web OS is a hot topic and there is a lot of material out there – some of it more than ten years old ex studies at Berkeley on Web OS from 1996 onwards leading to papers like WebOS: Operating System Services forWide Area Applications(pdf)

Only now, with initiatives like Google Chrome OS – are we seeing the ideas of Web OS incorporated into products

The vision behind a Web OS is more than ‘An operating system for netbooks’ as in the case of Chrome or an ‘Operating System for the Cloud’ as in the case of Microsoft Azure.

If we view the ideas of a Web OS in a ubiquitous environment(and especially to mobile), the impact could be very interesting – and functionally more than the OS itself.

As a gedankenexperiment

What exactly would a web OS look like to an end user? (from a mobile standpoint)

and

What can they do which they currently cannot do.

My take is as follows: From a purist perspective ..

Ex: I (Ajit) meet you(John)

Then I can use my credentials(user name and password) if needed to ‘log on’ to your phone .. in a true WEB OS scenario

Of course, it has some limitations i.e. a phone is a personal device etc .. but in a purist scenario – that’s how the world would look (and the same principle applies to logging on to a TV).

I think it’s a hard concept for people to grasp .. and I am not even sure if the above is a good interpretation

We often talk of the individual elements that enable this scenario – but not of the meaning / services that the Web OS could enable (i.e. simple use cases to explain user benefits)

Enablers of the Web OS could include applications which migrate across hardware platforms, the user’s Identity and data are agnostic of any platform, context aware apps etc etc

But these are the building blocks ..

What would the user see? What can they do which they currently cannot?

Some ideas below:

1) On one hand, we could view Web OS as a natural evolution of the web (offline/local/cache) – which is already happening with HTML5 but it will need more of an encapsulating /security layer to make it happen. Alternately you could treat it as a kind of JVM(conceptually) for the web

But in any case, the best argument I could come up with is as follows: -

a) One of the most important evolutions of the Web is to make it local

b) But we could go beyond just making the Web local(HTML5 already does that)

c) Specifically, If Identity and context become agnostic – then services will be nomadic and personalised.

d) Ironically, they will also need a client footprint and a local client framework which makes the Web local

2) Another definition is : The web OS is the execution environment for cloud applications, where data processing and storage is handled centrally enabling access through any conected device and network…. In this discussion, ‘local’ could mean : To personalize it, To adjust to the device in use, To adjust to the location, To adjust to the profile or to adjust to the service used

3) Adapted from comments from AJ Wright

This takes us into the realm of Mobile Peer to Peer but the ideas need a Web OS

From the side of personal information, this could look like a single calendar that can be opened or shared via a “Share Event” like function. The people who recieve the shared event need to only authenticate themselves against the contact list of the sharer, and then within their calendar they would see the event and all of its associated media. Any updates or changes to that event would be automatically pushed as the user is connected to the calendar on the item level, not necessarly only the user or category level.

More ideas welcome on the wider meaning of the Web OS and it’s impact on mobility

Filed Under: ARTICLES, ARTICLES OPEN SYSTEMS, BEST OF OPEN GARDENS, CLOUD COMPUTING, INNOVATION

Carnival of the mobilists – No 186 – at all about iPhone and my post gets post of the week

August 12, 2009 By

Carnival of the mobilists – No 186 – at all about iPhone blog and my post gets post of the week. It am happy aboiut this particular post(Is Europe losing its competitive edge in mobile? Innovation and the mobile wealth of nations). Although I have won the post of the week before, it is a peer recognition for content exclellence and I am always happy to get it. Have a look at the carnival from the link above for some excellent content – and for the first time we have Chris Messina – which is great to see!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Data and Privacy in Web 2.0 series – Privacy implications of Smart Grids and the Cloud

August 12, 2009 By

As per my post: Data and Privacy in Web 2.0 series – Privacy implications of Smart Grids and the Cloud – the webcast is tomorrow

Webcast Live Date & Time: 9:00am AUG 13 2009 United Kingdom – London

Duration: 45 mins

Filed Under: INNOVATION
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