The hidden damages to Google

So the news about the damages awarded to Apple against Samsung by the court which has been considering their intellectual property dispute has hit the headlines.  Of course the journalists have to simplify the quite complex arguments and counter-arguments made by each party for the consumption of the masses.  However lets not believe that this is all about using rectangular screens and   touch sensitive control of a phone, which some in the media have portrayed.  You only have to look at the appearance, functionality and user interface design of smartphones (and not just from Samsung) before the iPhone was launched in 2007 and then afterwards.  There is no comparison.  And I do mean compare smartphones ... we are not talking here about simple feature phones or basic cellphones.  Smartphones were being marketed and sold before iPhone, but none of them had the radical differences of the iPhone in appearance, functionality and user interface design (user experience).   I was a professional gadget guru, and even I had to do a double-take when passing the displays in carrier's shop windows at times, to blink and see if they were offering Apple's phone or new competitors in since 2008.  

Lets consider appearance.  Before iPhone it was pretty easy to see the difference at a glance between for example, a Motorola (remember them?) and a Nokia, the latter having a very distinctive shape across a huge range of phones.  The other manufacturers didn't try to make their phones look like Nokia's in appearance.  They innovated their own distinct shapes and designs, placement of buttons, colours etc.  But post-2007, it seemed like everyone's smartphones were beginning to look like iPhone.  One big screen with a similar sized bezel/outline, the same basic shape (ok most were bulkier and thicker but that's only because they couldn't copy that too - few people want a bulky handset), even a single bigger home button in many cases and even buttons and controls placed in similar places around the sides!  Note that most didn't copy the use of materials such as metal and glass, instead replacing these with plastic, which allowed them to undercut on cost/price whilst looking (but not feeling) similar.

Now the functionality.  Before iPhone in 2007, the functions even on "smart" phones were quite limited.  Remember the 'baby internet' using WAP?  No - I never used that crippled attempt at browsing the net either!  Even getting a GPRS data connection was a chore and a worry.  There were very few in-built data plans, so people tended to have to count the cost of their data usage carefully or worry and not use it at all.  And as for seamless connection without user intervention to WiFi when in range - well that wasn't implemented by the existing players because they were afraid to upset their cell-network partners by taking expensive data traffic away from them.  (So actually its not just functionality but business model innovation too).  But after iPhone, it was suddenly much simpler to use data services on a phone - so functionality of the phone was enabled!   But remember, no-one then talked about apps on their phone ... they were another radical step towards the functionality explosion on mobiles.  Yes you could add 'programs' to your phone before mid-2007, but it wasn't easy and the available software was extremely limited.  Apple innovated and made the App store model usable by the masses, (importantly including app developers).

Finally the user interface design or user experience.  Before the iPhone it was all about a fixed plastic miniature keyboard, and awkward little up/down buttons or tiny finger 'joysticks' or a stylus.  (You imagine trying to do a rotate or pinch gesture with a stylus!).  There were inaccurate touch screens using resistive technologies on other devices but not phones.  The capacitive touchscreen on the iPhone changed the experience of smartphones forever.  But even if you discount this innovation, those who copied the touchscreen could have innovated their own behaviour for that touch screen interface.  The rubber banding of the scroll bars when they reach the top or bottom of a selection is one example.  You don't need that behaviour.  It's not essential to a smartphone.  Apple did it first. Others didn't have to copy it.  Notice now I say others ... hence the title of this article.  This is not just about  Samsung (and potentially other hardware manufacturers).  They are only indirectly responsible for the User Interface and how the 'system' works.  They made a choice to go with Android, Google's mobile operating system.  They chose to launch products which rely on Android software.  So who copied the features like rubber banding of on-screen scrollbars (together with an awful lot of other 'behaviour')?  The culprits are somewhat hidden.

The win by Apple in the courts, made simpler against Samsung by both the lawyers and the media, is actually also a more complex case against Google.  The damages awarded (after any appeals etc) are of little consequence in Samsung's case (but send a message to other manufacturers) and Apple will dwarf those amounts by paying Samsung to supply huge numbers of components for current and future mobile products.  Of far more significance to Apple is the damage this inflicts on Google because of Android.  Most of the serious competitors to iPhone use Android software now.  They will be worried.  There are other ways for hardware manufacturers to design the appearance of their phones.  But there are also many more ways that they and the operating systems software players could innovate the design of the functionality and user experience of future mobile devices.  This would benefit everyone.  Let's hope they do.

And of course as technology and innovation moves on, the best ways to do standard things and implement common features emerge.  Those shouldn't be barred from being used on all devices in a particular category across all vendors.  But the answer is to acknowledge who innovated and protected that idea first, and licence the technology from them, not blatantly copy and try to get away with it until you end up in court.  There is an example of this involving the very same players.  Google innovated brilliantly with their online mapping.  Apple, recognising this, licensed Google Maps to use as a very early app on iPhone!  Is it now hardly surprising that in their next mobile operating system release that they will replace Google Maps with their own solution?!  But it isn't copying the idea.  It uses different (vector) graphics technology which has advantages when scaling the map view especially with labels and when an online connection is lost.  This is lawful innovation.

Doing the iPhone was risky, especially for a player who was a completely new entrant in the smartphone market.  Being so radical with appearance, functionality and the user experience was risky.  (I remember the nay-sayers at the time pronouncing how the touch screen keyboard would be too difficult and lots of other criticisms).  It might not have been successful, but it was, and now others strive to emulate it.  Success from risky innovation should be rewarded, not just in the marketplace but by recognition of competitors should they wish to build on it, through licensing or other agreements.  Then perhaps some of the massive amounts used for litigation could be redirected towards further R&D innovation.

Consumer Cloud storage misses the point!

There is so much about the Cloud in the computing press at the moment ... it's one of the buzz words of the moment. I still prefer to think of it as distributed networked computing resources, but I admit that 'cloud' is simpler to say!  In the consumer marketplace, we are now seeing offerings of Microsoft's SkyDrive, DropBox, Apple's iCloud and most recently Google Drive.  Google grabbed headlines on the BBC Technology news website by offering free storage and a headline of 16Tb; though reading further you find that free allocations are of course limited to 5Gb, with 16Tb coming in at $800!  But all these offerings bar one emphasise storage even in their name alone (with terms like drive and box).

I don't say that emphasising storage in the cloud is missing the point from my computer scientist purist view that distributed resources should include processing as well as storage.  I say it is missing the point because the race to offer the biggest storage capacity in the cloud is to make the same mistake as choosing a PC by the detailed technology specifications.  Sure Apple's iCloud does offer storage but their strategy for offering the service across device types (computer, iPhone, iPad) is not storage but that old chestnut (discussed in my previous post as well), the user experience.  Consumers need a simple view of how distributed resources on the Internet can just work and make their lives easier.  Providing a secure trusted means for media, documents, online personal information and other data to just be available across all their devices is increasingly useful for people.  If iCloud makes the user experience of Apple's products better, then it will have succeeded.  It's not about selling storage.  Just like the point of my previous post about convergence and compromise, user experience drives the position the Cupertino company takes.

Trust is one thing that people are concerned about in the cloud.  Consumers should be aware of potential differences in the rationale for different providers to offer them "free" cloud resources.   The terms and conditions in the small print may well reveal differences in the motives of different players.  If your main business is search and advertising for example, the chance to store and access consumer data will probably offer different value to you than if your main business is selling consumer electronics or software and services!

The fall '11 device technology landscape

Being somewhat busier these days, my posts here tend to have bigger gaps between them .. but they will still happen! And they may be a little longer when they do.

As summer disappears and the leaves begin falling, more froth is bubbling on the technology landscape as many await the next move by mobile device leader Apple. Yes the next generation iPhone is coming and my 3GS is due for replacement so I await with interest. It's likely that this time the range of iPhones will be increased by a choice of high-end and less expensive models in order to broaden market appeal. The storage capacity of a lower priced model could certainly be smaller, given the imminent simultaneous launch of iCloud and the storage/streaming/download features it supports. The latter will also open the door for a couple of innovations, through its instant app-sync across devices facility.

The first is that when Apple decide the time is right to introduce NFC (Near Field Comms) to their devices, this will likely support multiple features/services, and not just the small-value contactl-less purchasing that most commentators talk about. I expect the sensing and proximity aspects of NFC to feature in a number of distinctive ways. The seconds is in the mapping space and especially how people locate and track other people and things that they care about, in a secure and privacy-aware way.

Away from Cupertino, what else is happening? Well RIM have continued to see BlackBerry sales drop sharply and are shedding jobs ... not good for the major corporate smartphone supplier. Its 200,000 PlayBook tablet sales have also disappointed investors. Travelling by train a lot recently, I see many employees juggling the corporate BlackBerry and their personal device of choice (Android or iPhone). This is an unsustainable behavioural situation and I believe that change will continue to happen in favour of the consumer/personal devices, especially as IT managers, CTOs and employees become more aware of the way that corporate security policies can be automatically and securely deployed remotely to protect company data while leaving the users happier and more productive with an experience/device they enjoy using.

Microsoft have begun to show people what Windows 8 will look like. Something tells me that many Windows users are not yet ready for another new operating system upgrade, they just want their existing PCs to work better like the smiley "I'm a PC" folk shown in Microsoft's recent TV advertisements. (Note that the Redmond company never used to have to advertise PCs a while ago!) And for those that do yearn to embrace the next Windows experience, they may be a little surprised to find that it may not be so happy to run some of the software they traditionally rely on. They may also be wary of the latest layer of user interface to be slapped on top of the system. But that is all in the future.

Samsung are having a hard time in the courts, with rulings in increasing numbers of countries that they cannot sell their Galaxy Tab models which not only compete with iPad but also look so similar in most design aspects that lots of non-geeks could be confused. HTC and other Android system smartphone makers must be still reeling slightly from how Google appeared to get into bed with Motorola last month, and looking for additional alliance options for mobile operating systems, either by partnering or acquisition in order to mitigate risk. However there aren't too many competitive options out there. You might expect the LinkedIn profiles of a few ex WebOS designers to be updated with new employment details soon.

Finally for this time, Intel has announced more about their roadmaps including extra support for even lower power processors that PC manufacturers may use to attempt to compete with the MacBook Air which continues to sell in huge numbers. Intel have also announced support for OpenCL in such processor families coming soon which should increase further the performance of future lightweight Air models. Then, like their bigger notebook siblings, they will be able to ship out some general processing tasks to the GPU (graphics processing unit) when it is not busy painting pixels on the screen.

More of a roundup and opinions of it soon!

Google, Motorola, HP & Autonomy

OK so it's been a while since the last post ... I've been pretty busy enjoying a new role at the TSB, but I couldn't ignore the recent corporate announcements...

So Google buys Motorola Mobile, acquires alot of patents, and says that its Android eco-system for third party hardware partnerships is intact, well maybe for now, but it will be interesting to see how long so called partners like LG, Samsung and HTC feel that they are as equal as Motorola, and stick with Android or cross the bridge to Microsoft and do deals like Nokia have already done. Even the patents Google has bought are not in the important areas of innovative user interface or hardware/software integration (which can be used to defend innovation in the marketplace). Instead they are in the areas of radio and network technology which like Nokia's portfolio can really only be used to extract royalties from others who use those technologies in their products. In 2007, Apple reinvented the phone and changed the mobile industry for good. This week, Google has changed the marketplace again, by effectively dis-incentivising a whole set of traditional mobile phone hardware vendors from having Android as part of their mobile strategy.

And then HP gives up its PC and mobile device businesses. This effectively wipes the traditional lineage of PC vendors (Apollo, DEC, Compaq, and Palm) off the map forever. HP have taken action to stop the haemorrhaging caused by selling large volumes of barely profit-making devices. You might think this is so that they can switch focus from PCs of the past to mobile computing devices of the future. However, with $100m being written off to pay distributors that are resorting to giving away HP tablet products in order to shift inventory, HP have also announced that they are killing off their mobile devices too, to focus on software and printers. They have also been spending by acquiring innovative firm Autonomy, although how HP's remaining hardware will benefit from this is yet to be explained. The ex-Palm employees must feel the most hit upon, having had their distinctive hardware and WebOS system software destroyed, the latter having been strangled by poor quality hardware that no-one wanted to buy. The PC landscape changed today.

The Privacy thing again...

Quite a lot has been happening in the privacy debate recently. There was the froth about Apple iOS and Google Android based mobile phones tracking users' every moves. Well of course the smart device in your pocket knows where you are and stores it internally from time to time. Anyone who has either owned one of the early standalone GPS units (and knows how long it took to get a decent accurate reading) or who understands the idea of 'assisted-GPS' will realise that more information is required than simple GPS from Satellites to instantly show you your location on a map on your smartphone. People also need to understand how much of their movements are tracked in all sorts of ways in the modern age (ATM machines, CCTV, credit card payments, etc.) in addition to their mobile phones.

Of course there is a debate to be had about how this information is stored, where it is used and who can get access to it. But users have to understand that in order to benefit from technology they have to give something up too. And most people won't worry about this; they have nothing to hide and their location information is not leaked to anyone, and certainly not to anyone they would be concerned about. But some US senators seem to be having a good time asking representatives of Google and Apple to explain themselves. I suppose it's an easy way to look as if they are attempting to protect the people who elected them.

Then in the UK recently we have had examples of how privacy afforded by secret court injunctions has been shown as farcical when 70,000 people have twittered online about something which national newspapers have been barred from printing to their readers. It demonstrates nicely how the legal system and current legislation is outdated in all sorts of ways, due to the changes that new technology and the Internet has brought about. This will continue to get worse as more cases of irrelevance happen in law. It's a part of the social change which is happening in society and which is leaving the established old laws of the land behind.

Catchup from hiatus!

Hi all. This blog has been quiet for over a month and a half due to some professional commitments of the author, but I hope to put this right from now as I return to comment on aspects of the tech scene. There are some interesting activities going on in the world of the leading companies ... Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft for example. I'll cover most of these in some separate articles. Anyway those of you reading this in the UK, I hope you have been enjoying the early dry and warm summer weather. This is bound to change now that the England Test Cricket season is beginning!

Tech Industry overview 2011

As 2011 revs up into full steam, I'm taking a look at various sections of the tech industry. In January the year began with the once amazing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas but it took place with barely more than a whimper. Facebook continues to lead the pack in the social networking arena, with Apple having failed to tie it's Ping music network into the social giant at the back end of last year. News Corp more recently has launched The Daily, a news service designed solely for online consumption via mobile devices such as Apple's iPad. It is hoping that people will pay for up to the minute news services which are provided by paid professional journalists - we will know by the end of the year whether its hopes are realised. Meanwhile AOL has bought the Huffington Post, taking the opposite view to Murdoch that free web based news content will prevail.

A day or so after an astonishing internal memo by Nokia's CEO was leaked in which he likened the company to a burning ship and catalogued major corporate in-house failures, the company announces a tie-up with Microsoft and its Windows Phone operating system. This virtually signals the end for the old leader Symbian and perhaps Nokia's latest Meego operating system too, as both companies try to catch up with Apple and Google in the mobile devices space. They have a lot of ground to make up and I am very sceptical that they can make it. HP's buyout of Palm has seen it describe a new push in the same marketplace with the inherited WebOS system but they similarly have a huge challenge ahead.

Google is now leading the pack in terms of Android devices sold but Apple remains the leader in terms of money-making in that market. Being a profit-leader is not just a good business statistic. it also gives them a huge cash reserve which is key to strategic purchasing power of components for the next generation of mobile devices. This in turn means that the highest quality devices can be marketed at lower purchase prices which helps drive sales in the longer term.

And meanwhile, on the streets of Cairo, yet another previously dictator-controlled country is suddenly teetering on the brink of overthrow, as people attempt to claim some form of democracy. It is indicative of the Internet's support of people-power that the first clamp down reaction of the incumbent Egyptian regime was to try and cut off the Internet and prevent the mobile social networking being employed by the people organising the protests. And Egypt will not be the last. Gradually over decades, we will see many other dictatorships around the world fall, as technology not only enables people to act on mass with a global voice, but also shows many of them for the first time the freedoms that those in other countries enjoy, and which they then aspire to for themselves.

The rest of 2011 will see some more players in the tech industry merge or otherwise disappear as the strengths of the leading players' platforms increase. Google will continue to suffer the challenge of a continually fragmenting Android system across so many device manufacturers as each of them attempts to differentiate their products. Apple will announce and ship updates to its iPad and iPhone, probably introducing a 'nano' version of the latter to compete at the lower end of the smartphone market. Their high end mobile device replacements will incorporate near field technology to facilitate payments as they take on the banks in the next phase of the iTunes account based eco-system. I see parallels from how the network operators in the mobile phone business have seen their power and value-add services diminish since the original iPhone arrived, appearing in the banking sector as they become bit shifters in the same way as the network providers.

Apple will also want to eventually condense the separate recently launched CDMA iPhone (and later iPad) for Verizon in the USA and other CDMA operators globally into a single worldwide phone which just works anywhere on anyone's network. I think the company is well aware that the international data roaming charges cartel between operators is the single biggest obstacle for users getting the great iOS device experience when travelling overseas. A new open-SIM approach which the operators are already fighting will also be on the Cupertino company's agenda.

The success of iPad shipments in its first full year was absolutely astounding for a new class of product, surpassing the statistics of the previous launches of DVD players, VCRs and other consumer devices, and I think surprising even Apple. The take-up of the iPad in major corporates with hardly any encouragement has also surprised many. This has the potential to really ignite the consumerisation of IT in organisations longer term.

And in the Summer of this year we are promised the next major revision of Apple's computer operating system, OSX (Lion), in which they will begin the transition of many old style computing ideas to the iOS-like mobile computing approaches. I believe the iPad is an embryonic symbol of how computer hardware will almost disappear in the decades to come, as people just get on and do stuff, working with information and media in far more natural ways than the stepping stone technology of the mouse gave us. As mobile networking speeds increase and devices are increasingly sharing information and media between each other, it is likely that Apple will considerably enhance their cloud-based services using infrastructure which is already built.

I doubt very much that 2011 will be boring technological year!

The Smartphone licensing race

So Windows Phone 7 (WP7) is now out there on some handsets attempting to compete with the increasing raft of phones running various versions of Google's Android operating system and Apple's iPhone with its iOS. There is a difference however. Phone manufacturers using WP7 or Android have to license that operating system from Microsoft or Google.

They have to decide in the first place which phone models to bring to market with which features and then which system to licence on top of it. While there is a huge marketing budget behind Microsoft's push for WP7, the manufacturers do not have a bottomless pit when it comes to releasing new models of handset. With the increasing competition in the marketplace, Android and WP7 will be vying with each other in the handset producers' minds. And then once they have made their choice of system for a handset, then they have to decide what version of that system software to release on it. There is already significant fragmentation of Android software versions out there across different devices, and WP7 will likely go the same way once later versions appear to support more features. Because some of these features depend on hardware, not all devices will be able to run or upgrade to all versions.

Apple do not have this problem of licensing iOS on iPhone. They can also more easily plan and control the evolution of the hardware and software features on their devices. Handset producers do not have the option of having iOS on their devices and so when choices have to be made for new handsets, it is one of WP7 or Android that will lose out. As the turf wars begin in the future smartphone market, Apple may end up benefitting from the competition between the other two. This benefit is additional to their ability to provide a simpler user experience and higher build quality from the in-house design and integration of hardware and software, and their superior model for developers to earn money from apps.

The Google/Android slayer?

It wasn't so long ago that the hype in the smartphone market was on Google, its Android mobile operating system, and a range of Google phone handsets. Well it seems like the latter was a relative flash in the pan. It seems from this article as if Google has sold its last smartphone in its homeland USA, and that the remainder will be carrier-branded phones in some other countries of the world. This seems to be a step backwards for the search giant, a sign which its rival in that space Apple will have noticed. The latter's iPhone 4 is still selling like hot cakes as fast as they can be manufactured in an increasing number of geographies, despite some froth and bubble in the media about antennas.

So for Google, if it's not phone hardware that they are going to take over the world with, what of the Android weaponry? Well, there is another problem showing in the numbers associated with app development on the platform. Android will only be successful if there are quality apps available that rival competitors systems such as iOS. Unfortunately, what the numbers show is that the unprotected, insecure, laissez-faire approach of Android is actually putting off developers from writing new apps, since they can increasingly be pirated and any royalty or developer fee cancelled out. This is particularly a problem since Android specifically appeals to the hobbiest, experimenter, techy-minded market of users, who are more likely to try out hacks than pro or non-tech savvy consumers who just want quality apps that just work. There have also been stories recently of Android apps accessing and passing on user data to third parties. However since the Android app store is relatively unregulated, no-one is going to do anything to protect users against this type of hidden privacy violation. And for the same reason, there is still the possibility that a rather nasty virus or similarly infected app could appear in the Android marketplace and have a devastating effect for Android users. Google may be exiting the hardware market but its name is still very much associated with the system on an increasing number of carriers' handsets, with all the responsibility that goes with that.

Why iPhone 4 will stay ahead...

So Apple has revealed the iPhone 4, the fourth incarnation of the device that reinvented the phone. It pushes them further ahead of the competition. They will continue to be even harder to beat. This article deals with some of the reasons why.

The usual pundits are already simply comparing iPhone 4's megabytes, megapixels, and battery minutes with other devices. They miss the point as usual; it's about the complete experience and quality of both hardware and software, and most importantly how they fit together. And they will do the same with FaceTime, Apple's name for the new open standard they are publishing for video calls. They will compare it with other video chat software, again missing the point ... it's about how simple Apple have made it for people to use and the total experience it gives them. If you watch the heart-string pulling FaceTime video Apple have made, there is more time given to showing the faces and feelings of the people using the service than given to video of the service on the phone itself. This is very deliberate and significant.

The pundits will be looking to see what Google do with Android and what others offer in the same space. Actually it will be very difficult for even huge companies such as Microsoft and Google to copy iPhone 4. One of the reasons that few people recognise is that Apple are unique in making both the hardware and the software. Google don't make phones ... they rely on HTC, Motorola and others to do this for Android. Microsoft will also rely on many other big corporations to make hardware for WinMo 7 phones when they eventually launch it. Even if two large corporates do true partnership deals, they cannot achieve the same degree of integration as a single company. And players like Google and HTC are not true partnerships, rather simply contracting customer/suppliers. Moreover, a single large corporation cannot achieve the same efficiency and innovation level as a much smaller company that behaves more like a startup.

The problems of building the hardware and software in different companies is not simply organisational and due to poor inter-company communication. It is also about the two organisations having different end-goals, vision, business models and culture. Even branding is a problem ... neither company would want or agree to be invisible to the end user. If a third party makes an app on top of this two-party device then that is 3 splash screens the user has to endure before they can do anything useful! That is not an experience to die for. Neither are the inevitable inconsistencies that creep into the user interface.

Fusing in-house designed software and hardware does produce a better product with a better user experience. This is the difference between iPhone 4 and the competitors that will try to rival it in the coming months. RIM's market share is falling, Android's is growing along with Apple's. However the Android market is fragmenting with so many different phones, system versions, capabilities and specifications. It's not just simplicity in the user experience that most consumers appreciate but also simplicity in the choice of type of device. It's very hard for the man/woman in the street to understand the difference between the various Android phones... they understand much more that there is an iPhone out there; the Apple product portfolio is also very simple. The competition face a very steep hill climb in 2010/11.

CES & SuperPhones

Well with all this snow about, and airports at a standstill over here the last few days, I am pretty glad I wasn't heading over to CES in Vegas this year, as so many of us Gadget Guys are prone to do. Anyway there are plenty of reports on the web to read from the comfort of my own chair.

So Google have coined the Super Phone term as they launch their Nexus One, hot on the heels of Motorola's Droid phone and indeed all the pretenders to the iPhone throne have had to become a bit more super than the 'Smart Phones' that preceded them. Remember how after the iPhone launch, we were led to believe that any phone with a touchscreen interface (recall the LG Prada for example!) would actually compete. It has taken the two years (that Steve Jobs predicted it was ahead on stage when the iPhone was launched) for the competitors to really become super enough... finally they have understood that it is not just the device and how it's designed but also the software and the apps store ease of deployment that is so important too.

But even with the current crop of super phones, no-one else has really innovated and re-defined the market. Yes they have implemented app stores and touch screen interfaces, and yes they have introduced cheaper alternatives to iPhone, but I'm still waiting to see what really new approach or innovation someone will come up with. We may need to wait until January 27th for Apple to come up with another game-changing device!

Does free mean altruism?

I am a Google user. This blog is one example. I also have Gmail, use Google Sites and of course Search. And Google PowerMeter is great. And it's all free! Well of course it means I accept some advertising component but free in the sense of paying. But I am also an Apple user. The MacBook Pro I am typing this on is one example. I also pay for MobileMe services which give me Mail, Websites and data syncing. It's a bit like how I sometimes watch commercial (ad-funded) TV, but I prefer the quality of BBC channels. Advertising pays for a lot but often the best or premium content is paid for by the user directly.

Google don't offer their services for free out of altruism, they do it to further the advertising platform that they use which is a legitimate business model. And just like with the TV, it is good that there are non-"free" alternatives in the marketplace, providing that they are actually delivering quality, and quality that is higher than the ad-funded competition. I am a great supporter of the BBC, but the fact that there are commercial ad-funded competitor channels only helps to maintain the quality the BBC strives for. Microsoft have provided lower quality paid alternatives (Vista, WinMobile, Zune) than Apple; Google are providing good quality free alternatives (Chrome OS, Android, etc.). The competition will be good for innovation, the marketplace and the consumer. I look forward to 2010!

Energy monitoring...

So on the UK news today there was again a mention of the Government mandating the introduction of smart meters to all 26 million homes in Britain by 2020, costing £8 billion. This seems to crop up in the news every so often. The idea is that if people know more about what energy they are using at the time they may reduce consumption. I have been using the AlertMe Energy system for a few weeks now and it gives a similar type of information about electricity usage. It also interfaces with Google PowerMeter which provides some useful statistics and graphs over time. These allow for comparisons with previous usage.

I have to say that it is interesting to see where the electricity goes and how the consumption varies both with our domestic routine and the outside temperature. We heat the house by gas but the electric pumps seem to make a difference to the consumption. Colder days do result in a higher level of electricity usage. I tend to agree that having more realtime information can impact on behaviour. In the future, more automation in the home and more efficient devices will allow consumption to be optimised according to people's behaviour.

Chrome plated NetBooks?

Today Google showed off its new Chrome Operating System for PCs. It also announced that it would be open-sourced to allow developers to partner in its development. This free browser-based system is to be targeted at new NetBook computers, the successful cut-down, underpowered and lightweight laptop PCs. Features of Chrome include fast startup times, no client applications (only web apps), automatic syncing and encryption of users' data.

The more important aspect for the industry is how Chrome will impact on Microsoft's domination of PC systems. Senior executives of the Redmond based giant have recently stated that their strategy is to raise the price of NetBooks by the licensing of Windows 7 on them. Chrome could torpedo this strategy. If the user experience including responsiveness of the browser tabbed applications in Chrome is good enough, this could be a very dangerous time for Microsoft, who need Windows 7 to be a success after the Vista disaster. The licensing model for mobile device operating systems is failing; they can't afford the desktop/NetBook market to fail too.

The androids are coming...

The androids are coming ... ok so I have blogged about robots before ... this time I am talking about the Google mobile device operating system! The mobile industry has always been sceptical of success for new entrants ... this was true but wrong in the case of Apple with their iPhone. Will it also be the case for Google with Android?

Well first you need a brand. With its integrated hardware and software approach, Apple specifies and and very carefully controls the brand. Whatever carriers partner with Apple and whichever geography they operate in, the iPhone brand and marketing is very strong and totally controlled. Google has one of the most recognised brands on the planet; so much so in fact that it has become the verb for web searching in our dictionaries. With Android however, Google's brand is practically invisible. Outside of the mobile industry, for the ordinary man or woman in the street, they have a much bigger chance of saying they have heard of iPhone than Android. Android phones have virtually no obvious Google branding. Further, because it is an open free-for-all approach, every Android phone's user interface can look very different, and so far this is the case. As more and more manufacturers bring out Android phones, more and more unfamiliar variations appear. This makes things unrecognisable for users and more complex for third party application developers.

Secondly for success penetrating the mobile market, you need a successful business model. There are three typical approaches. The integrated model which has been a success for RIM with the BlackBerry and Apple for the iPhone (and iPod), the Open model such as Linux and Android, and in between the licensing model used by Windows, and until recently Symbian. The latter has now been taken over by Nokia and is being made open-source. While the Open and Licensing models have worked very well in the computer server and desktop market, they have struggled in the mobile market, where the performance/power balance, interaction through the user interface and integration between hardware and software are all more critical. In fact due to the flexibility of open Android, it is more likely to take share from Windows Mobile than from RIM and Apple.

Google's Android will certainly appear on more phones by the middle of next year. Whether their approaches with brand and business model will mean that Android phones appear in many people's pockets remains to be seen. Android might just become the Linux PC equivalent on mobile devices; an open, flexible, system which appeals to hobbyists and hackers. It could make the mainstream too ... but it will have to change or buck the trend to do so.

Danger in the Cloud?

There is a fair amount of debate amongst computer folk about Cloud Computing. This is where data and increasingly applications run on servers in the Internet 'cloud' rather than the device of the user. The approach is championed by players such as Google and Amazon etc. But other more traditional players are also not to be left out. Both Apple and Microsoft have flirted with the cloud approach too. Apple have their MobileMe offering which even has an icon of a white cloud on a blue background! This provides a store in the cloud for users' data which can be synced between devices as well as other features. In early 2008, Microsoft bought an innovative company called Danger who ran a product called Sidekick. Sidekick stores its users' data in the cloud. On the 2nd October, SideKick users on T-Mobile's network could not access their online services nor their data. Even after service was restored four days later, they still had not access to their data and were later told by Microsoft/Danger that the data had been lost. This is the real danger for cloud-based systems.

There are degrees of cloud computing ... it doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation ... particularly in the case of mobile devices, which generally need charging or other basic processes from time to time. Some less than full cloud computing approaches don't remove all of the users' control of their data but simply automate the use of the cloud as a resource. Apple's approach for example is that all data on an iPhone or iPod is backed up on the user's local PC when it is charged and synced to that device, even though the active use of the device transfers the data to their MobileMe cloud. In this way, if the Microsoft's Danger/Sidekick problem happened at MobileMe, users would at least be able to restore data from their most recent local backup. Microsoft also have a cloud based service called MyPhone for Windows Mobile users. This also only backs up data to the cloud and not a local device.

So users have to be wary of vendors who place all of their data and its backups in the all powerful cloud which of course also offers many benefits for sharing and accessibility from anywhere etc. And users would also do well to understand that not all Cloud services are the same in respect of how much control they are left with for their own data.

Google's wave of innovation continues...

Google's latest service offering aims to bring together the concepts of Instant Messaging (IM), email, media sharing, search and twitter-like interactions in what it calls Google Wave. The interface looks complex but actually those who have used it say that it is very simple to navigate and indeed it is extremely configurable. Still an early beta, it has a long way to develop into a full application, but again it demonstrates the innovation and attempts of the organisation to bundle its successful search capabilities with information and communication facilities into one application.

Certainly in the future, people will need applications and services which bring together and simplify their online world. Bringing virtual world and real world together will require abstractions and simplifications that allow individuals to manage and get the maximum benefit from new technologies. This is an early attempt to bring some of the existing online concepts together. We will see if it becomes a tidal wave that sweeps away other established services. One thing is for sure, interventions in the marketplace like this will spur innovation and that can only be a good thing.

Future of Privacy

I had the privilege to provide the keynote opening speech yesterday at the CCTV User Group Conference in Manchester, UK. I touched on the idea of future privacy, since this is often a concern for people who are involved in security roles, of which CCTV is one component. Google may have made more of a headline recently with their street-view photography exercise amongst those people who felt it intruded on their privacy, but the number and placement of CCTV cameras which have seen explosive growth in recent years has probably meant that people are tracked far more as they go about their lives. This is the early embryonic stage of the technology digital bubble where sensors and cameras of various types are deployed in huge numbers in the environment such that information can be constantly provided and exchanged about what people are doing and where.

In the future, privacy will be more about selecting and managing how much information you give about yourself and to whom. Choosing not to give away information may say more about you than doing so to some limited degree. Increasingly the digital bubble that surrounds people will allow this sharing and interaction to be done automatically on your behalf and according to the rules that you have set. Choosing to give out information may be incentivised and provide you with benefits of some sort, in an analogous way to how accepting advertising today can result in "free" access to media or information.

Cameras will continue to be deployed in ever-increasing numbers, and instead of being connected in closed private circuits, many will be Internet linked and available to large numbers of people. Software already allows auto-analysis of what such cameras see and this will improve immeasurably in performance and quality. Eventually, many of us will be able to record our whole lives as media streams and software then will allow us to find interesting excerpts at will, quickly and easily. Virtualisation will allow the replay to be carried out from any desired perspective. Memories will be more vivid and easier to share. Maybe I will get to speak at the "Life Recording User Group" conference!

Up in the clouds ?

There is a lot of talk about cloud computing at the moment.  This is where storage and processing is located remotely in the network and communication channels are so fast that devices and their users can store stuff in the cloud and use processing capability in the cloud which does not need to be available locally.  Google are great exponents of this; in fact the Blogger system I am using here is to some extent an example of the cloud.  Almost all players are beginning to offer these cloud services, especially in a business context, where the idea of outsourcing and cost reduction are second nature.  Apple for example is flirting with the cloud idea with MobileMe and the recently announced iWork.com initiative.   

But is there something inherent for consumer, non business individuals, ordinary people about the idea of regarding ownership and safety with local physical location?  I'm thinking of how some people prefer to keep their money in a box under the bed rather than in a bank.  Would my parents feel safer having their personal keepsake photographs on a computer they can look at anytime rather than on an internet connected site/server/disk?   Probably.  Are we still in an age where largely it is large businesses that can afford the fast pipes that give thin client performance to the cloud a reasonable experience.  Possibly.  Is the cloud going to be more important for everyone in the next decade and beyond?   Definitely!  

Freedom & Privacy...

Today's news has thrown up two stories that I want to use to illustrate the duality of the Internet for freedom and privacy.   On the one hand there was the story about how the blogosphere and similar Internet tools are giving some people a voice when previously they were suppressed (in this case about Egyptian women having freedoms otherwise denied to them in the real world).  This type of story crops up more and more and will continue to do so in the future. 

The second story was the one about complaints to Google about the privacy invasions a few people have felt in the UK now that street level photographs have been enabled for this country.  The same story did of course come up before when Google switched on street level photography for other countries.  

People simply haven't got used to the trade-offs associated with Internet technology yet. It will take time.  The benefits will outweigh what is given up but it will be a while before many people realise.  The world has been revolutionised by the Net; some people simply haven't caught up with it yet!  People are generally happier with evolution!