Adobe eyes on the Web

Adobe's new CEO zeroes in on Web

"We want to marry the power of the desktop with the Web," Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen says. Products aimed at that goal go on sale soon.  ABOUT SHANTANU NARAYEN • Age: 44. • Title: CEO of Adobe Systems. • Joined Adobe: 1998. • Previous positions: President and chief operating officer. • Grew up in: Hyderabad, India. • Degrees: Two in engineering, from Osmania University in India and Bowling Green State University; MBA from University of California, Berkeley. • Children: 2. • Dogs: 2. • Patents: Holds five in digital imaging.

Longtime Adobe Systems (ADBE) executive Shantanu Narayen on Dec. 1 became CEO of the software powerhouse. An engineer who had previously worked at Apple (AAPL) and Silicon Graphics (SGIC), he took over from mentor Bruce Chizen, who stepped down.

Narayen takes over as Adobe, best known for Photoshop photo software and Acrobat and PDF digital document tools, is shifting many of its wares from boxed software to online services.

Adobe, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on Dec. 13, is a Web powerhouse with its Adobe Reader and Flash software. Narayen spoke with USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham about Adobe's transition, and why he believes two new initiatives for 2008 — Adobe's Media Player and AIR, which connects desktop applications with the Web — have the potential to transform the $3 billion company.

Q: Let's start by talking about your background. I understand you grew up in India and are an engineer by training?

A: I have two engineering degrees and a business degree. I worked in the networking group at Apple and then joined Silicon Graphics. In 1995, everyone was doing start-ups. I wanted to help transfer analog photography to digital and co-founded a company called Pictra. We were a little ahead of our time and ended up partnering with Adobe. I joined Adobe in 1998, running the engineering technology group. Bruce started asking me to do more, and as he's grown, so have I.

Q: Do you still think of yourself as an engineer?

A: I've been running products and marketing since 2001, but building great products is my first love.

Q: Adobe is in an interesting place right now. The company is making a transition from boxed software to online, "cloud" computing. Can you talk about that?

A: We want to marry the power of the desktop with the Web.

Q: You're talking about AIR, Adobe's new desktop-meets-the-Internet application?

A: Yes. Look at what (Apple's) iTunes does, you never know when you're online or offline. For the user, it's a seamless experience. We want to overcome some of the barriers that exist with a browser, to let people access maps, recipes and sports scores, for instance, in an application that sits on your desktop.

Q: How does that work?

A: We have an example from eBay (EBAY) on our labs.adobe.com site. Offline, you get to specify what you're interested in — specific auctions — and they are constantly updated, without you having to go to eBay.com. The application has a richer, graphical look.

Q: When will AIR be available?

A: In the first quarter, along with the Adobe Media Player.

Q: This is your answer to Windows Media Player?

A: In a sense. It showcases our Flash video (tool) in DVD-like quality. Seventy percent of the video you see online today is Flash, and a number of our customers would like to be able to show Flash offline. They'd like to put branding in a player, so if you watch NBC's Heroes TV show, Heroes information and ads can be in the body of the player.

Q: How do you make money from these products?

A: To get the most out of them, companies will need to buy our software. If you look at the history of Adobe, we delivered PostScript, a technology platform, and monetized it through Illustrator (layout software) and Photoshop. We delivered PDF document technology and monetized it through Acrobat.

Q: Let's talk about cloud computing. Adobe now has Internet versions of Premiere Elements video-editing software on MTV.com and YouTube. A "lite" online version of Photoshop is coming next year. Why are you going in this direction?

A: This is a low-barrier way to try our software; it exposes people to try our products. We can do this now because broadband is better, and we've been able to re-engineer our products to work on a server.

Q: What Adobe software do you use on a daily basis?

A: Digital photography is one of my passions. I own a Sony Alpha digital camera and consider myself an advanced hobbyist. I spend time with Photoshop on image management and touchup. I like to use Creative Suite 3 to take multiple pictures and combine them into one. It's a lot of fun.

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Adobe introduces Ads in PDF Docs

Adobe, Yahoo partner to put advertisements in PDF documents

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Gmail.Microsoft.com

Read this interesting post by Lenssen......again I am pasting it as it is and stealing some page rank from him .....   :)

What If Gmail Had Been Designed   by Microsoft?

from Google Blogoscoped by Philipp Lenssen

Today I want to ponder the question: what if Microsoft, not Google, had created Gmail? What would be the differences in that web mail client for users today? What if we apply some of the same design rules that brought us Hotmail, for instance?

To start, here’s the current Gmail homepage after you log-in:

First of all, we need to rebrand the application name to something longer. Let’s call this Windows Live Gmail, and add some of the visual elements connected with Windows. Also, as in Hotmail, there needs to be less space for the email subjects to make place for a reading pane, which is full of verbose explanatory help text*:

*Not shown in the screenshot, we’ll also throw in a security measurement that will prevent you from clicking on links in emails, unless you discovered the switch to mark a mail as safe. Another security measurement we’ll add is that you won’t be able to log-in with just username anymore but are required to enter the full username@gmail.com. Furthermore, we will change the browser URL from http://gmail.microsoft.com to the more professional looking http://by114w.bay114.gmail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx?rru=home.

For another design iteration in our inbox, we will need to camouflage the checkboxes next to the messages by putting a mail icon on top of them. Also, we need to break up messages from conversation threads into their individual parts. Furthermore, this version of Gmail needs to change from context-aware text ads to context-unaware graphic banners, which we’ll require to carry at least one clip art. Gmail currently has a chat box which I don’t use and thus find annoying, so I think we can build on that and expand it to a more full-featured chat widget, replacing the labels box. We’ll also adjust the spam filter slightly to show a couple of more bulk mails in the inbox:

There’s still not enough banner space available though, so let’s add a top row for ads and move the rest a bit more down. Also, to go back to the real Microsoft spirit, the inbox will now carry a maximum of 2 MB of messages – that was the amount Hotmail offered when Gmail was released with 1 GB in April 2004. Also, Microsoft-style, the actual start page of this service will not be the inbox, but a “welcome” splash screen. Please imagine the ads blinking at this point:

Somehow, this still misses part of the Microsoft feeling – the current design is just too bright & light, and it doesn’t have enough glamor. I’ll darken the colors a bit and add some smooth shades. Also, admittedly, Hotmail is a bit slower than Google’s competing service, so we’ll add some “loading” messages. Usually there’s less focus on unclutteredness with the Redmond guys, so we’ll add some MSN news bits and “special offers” where space is left. Plus, to increase user lock-in, let’s get rid of the “sign out” link. I’m also putting less emphasis on search, moving the box to the bottom right and replacing it with a dog:

Voila, we’re done... that was easy! Your potential, their passion. Coming up tomorrow: “What if Microsoft had designed Windows Vista.” Stay tuned!

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

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How to program on Android

This is awesome post and hence i am copy paste the original post here as it is.....

So you saw the Android announcement and decided you wanted a piece of that US$10million in prize money huh? In the week since the SDK was released more than 4,300 people have joined the Android support forum posting more than 4,000 messages between them. Robert Scoble doesn't know a single developer playing with Android – perhaps Scoble doesn't hang around with many developers?

I wanted to give the SDK a good work-out so my application uses the GPS, the address book, and has a map.

The only way to judge an SDK is getting in there and writing an application that does something cool, so I'll take you through the development process for my first Android application: Where Are My Friends?

WamF shows how far away you are right now from all the people in your address book, plots you and them on a map, and draws lines between you and any friends nearby.

WamF is pretty simple but it makes use of some of the more interesting features of Android – Location Based Information (GPS etc), maps, the contacts manager, and the phone dialer. Total development time from hitting Download on the SDK page was about 14 hours (spread over two mornings and evenings). My Android development is in Windows with Eclipse using the plugin, so I will assume you're doing the same.

Before I get started here's a bit on my background. I've mentioned before that I'm a C# .NET desktop applications developer in my real life. It's been almost 10 years since I've done anything with Java and I've never done any mobile phone development. With Android I develop in Windows with Eclipse using the Android plugin.

Let's start by downloading Eclipse and unzipping it into a new folder. Then download the Android SDK and unzip that into another new folder. Open Eclipse and create a new workspace for Android development.

Install the Android Plugin by selecting Help > Software Updates > Find and Install..., and in the dialog box choose Search for new Features to install. Select New Remote Site and enter https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/. into the dialog box. Hit OK and accept all the prompts until it's installed. Restart Eclipse and you're almost ready to rock.

Select Window > Preferences... and select Android, then put the folder where you unzipped the SDK into the SDK Location text box. Hit Apply then OK and you're done.

The tutorial and exercises are useful. Do them.

Let's make sure everything's installed right by creating the Hello Android demo. The Android team have a detailed description of how to do this so I won't repeat it here. It's worth checking out the known bugs if you encounter any problems.

The Android documentation is excellent; after you've finished the Hello Android project run through the exercises. They're easy to follow and give a good idea of how a 'real' application fits together.

Design a UI, leveraging one of the sample projects

Onto business. Step one should always be UI design. Figure out what it is you want to tell the user and what actions they'll need then develop an interface that will make this as intuitive as possible. To keep things simple I'm going to base my new project on the NotePad project used in the tutorial exercises.

I'll start by changing the resource strings to change the name of the app, and modifying the menu options .

Use the Location Based Services to figure out where we are and request updates when we move

Possibly the most enticing of the Android features are the Location Based Services that give your application geographical context through Location Providers (GPS etc). Android includes a mock provider called 'gps' that marches back and forth through San Fransisco. Alternatively you can create your own mock providers in XML.

You use the LocationManager to find your current position.

locationManager = (LocationManager)getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE); Location location = locationManager.getCurrentLocation("gps");

Iterate over the address book pulling out names, locations, and phone numbers

A less publicized feature of Android is the ability to share content between applications. We're going to use this feature to populate our List with our contacts' names and their current distance from our phone so we create an updateList method that we call after we've gotten our current location.

Use the ContentResolver to return a query that provides access to data shared using Content Providers. Queries are returned as cursors that provide access to the underlying data tables. The data we're interested in is accessed using the People content provider.

Cursor c = getContentResolver().query(People.CONTENT_URI, null, null, null, null); startManagingCursor(c);

The Cursor is a managed way of controlling your position (Row) in the underlying table. We get access to the data by specifying the column that holds the information we're after. Rather than memorising the column index for each Content Provider we can use constants from the People class as a shortcut.

int coordIdx = c.getColumnIndex(People.NOTES); int phoneIdx = c.getColumnIndex(People.PhonesColumns.NUMBER); int nameIdx = c.getColumnIndex(People.NAME);

Now iterate over the table using the cursor storing the results in arrays. You'll note that we're pulling our contacts' location from the Notes field. In reality we'd want to figure this out based on their address using a geocoding lookup.

List listItems = new ArrayList();

c.first();
do {
String name = c.getString(nameIdx);
String coords = c.getString(coordIdx);
String phone = c.getString(phoneIdx);

... [ Process the lat/long from the coordinates ] ...
... [ Storing their location under variable loc ] ...

String distStr = String.valueOf(location.distanceTo(loc)/1000);
name = name + " (" + distStr + "km)";
listItems.add(name);

numbers.add("tel:" + phone);
} while(c.next());

Then we assign our list of strings to the array using an ArrayAdapter.

ArrayAdapter notes = new ArrayAdapter(this, R.layout.notes_row, items);
setListAdapter(notes);

Refresh our list when we move

Given the location sensitive nature of WamF it makes sense to update the display whenever we move. Do this by asking the LocationManager to trigger a new Intent when our location provider notices we've moved.

List providers = locationManager.getProviders();
LocationProvider provider = providers.get(0);
Intent intent = new Intent(LOCATION_CHANGED);
locationManager.requestUpdates(provider, minTime, minDistance, intent);

Intents in Android are like events in traditional event driven programming, so we're triggering a LOCATION_CHANGED event/intent every time we move by a minimum distance after a minimum time. The next step is to create an IntentReceiver (event handler), so create a new internal class that extends IntentReceiver and override the ReceiveIntent event to call our update method.

public class myIntentReceiver extends IntentReceiver {
@Override
public void onReceiveIntent(Context context, Intent intent) {
updateList();
}
}

We then have our activity listen for a LOCATION_CHANGED intent by registering the event handler and specifying the intent it should be listening for (LOCATION_CHANGED). Do this in the onCreate method or create a new menu option to start/stop the automatic updates.

filter = new IntentFilter(LOCATION_CHANGED);
receiver = new myIntentReceiver();
registerReceiver(receiver, filter);

Keep your phone running light by registering / unregistering the receiver when the activity Pauses and Resumes – there's no point in listening for location changes if we can't see the list.

Set up a map activity and create an overlay to show where you are in relation to your friends

Half of the fun in having location sensitive information is drawing it on a map. Create a new activity class to display a map centered on our current location with markers at our friends locations. While we're at it we can draw a line from our position to each of our friends.

The map control itself is called a MapView, but we can only use a MapView in a MapActivity, so we'll change the inheritance of this activity to MapActivity.

public class MyMapViewActivity extends MapActivity

To display the map we need to create a new MapView and set it as the content for our activity in the OnCreate method.

MapView mapView = new MapView(this);
setContentView(mapView);

This will make the MapView fill the entire screen, so use views like LinearLayout if we want to create a more complicated UI layout.

We'll want to get access to the OverlayController and MapController, so create global variables to store them and assign the references within the OnCreate method. We'll also be using the Location information, so get a reference to that too. With the references assigned set your map zoom and starting location using the MapController. When you're finished OnCreate should look something like this.

protected void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
super.onCreate(icicle);
MapView mapView = new MapView(this);
mapController = mapView.getController();
overlayController = mapView.createOverlayController();
locationManager = (LocationManager)getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE);
mapController.zoomTo(9);
setContentView(mMapView);
updateView();
}

updateView is where we do the work. Start by getting our current location and convert the Lat/Long to a map Point, then centre the map on our current location.

Double lat = location.getLatitude()*1E6;
Double lng = location.getLongitude()*1E6;
Point point = new Point(lat.intValue(), lng.intValue());
mapController.centerMapTo(point, false);

The only thing left to do on our map is draw markers and link them up with lines. To do this you need to create a new class that extends Overlay, and add this using the OverlayController.

MyLocationOverlay myLocationOverlay = new MyLocationOverlay();
overlayController.add(myLocationOverlay, true);

The work in the Overlay class is done by overriding the draw method.

protected class MyLocationOverlay extends Overlay {
@Override
public void draw(Canvas canvas, PixelCalculator calculator, boolean
shadow) {
... [ draw things here ] ...
}
}

I start by drawing a 'marker' on my current location. There doesn't seem to be support for 'traditional' Google Maps markers but you can achieve the same thing by drawing on the map canvas; I chose to draw small circles as markers. First you need to use the PixelCalculator to convert your Lat/Long points to screen coordinates, then create a Paint object to define the colours and settings for your brush. Then paint your markers.

int[] screenCoords = new int[2];
calculator.getPointXY(point, screenCoords);
RectF oval = new RectF(...);
Paint paint = new Paint();
paint.setARGB(200, 255, 0, 0);
canvas.drawOval(oval, paint);

I add my friends locations the same way as before, iterating over my address book grabbing names and locations. I filter out anyone too far away (say 10km) and draw markers, names (drawText), and joining lines (drawLine) to those nearby.

Let's make a call

Now we know when we're close to our friends, what are we likely to want to do when we're close? Drop in! But we're polite so we'll call them first. Let's change our list item click function to call the friend we've clicked. We can do this by firing a DIAL_ACTION intent.

Intent i = new Intent();
i.setAction(DIAL_ACTION);
i.setData(new ContentURI(numbers.get(position)));
startActivity(i);

The phone dialer has registered an IntentReceiver filtered on DIAL_ACTION so it will react to this.

Android is an environment where the biggest limitation is your imagination

And that's it.

I've got a list of a dozen or so changes to make it a little more useful and a half dozen ideas for projects that might actually make it into the running for some of that prize money. My conclusion? Android is everything a development kit should be – an environment where the biggest limitation is what you can imagine.

[By Reto Meier | Original post | Comments]

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Link to Specific content from Gmail

Google has made their web-based email client Gmail more accessible in their recent update. Now, the URL on top will change with your actions – meaning that if you switch to a certain conversation thread, or you switch to a label, or you perform a search, you can then actually copy the address on top as a kind of permalink (oldtimers among us may still remember this kind of feature from websites of the 1990s!).

Here’s why this can be useful:

• Sometimes a conversation thread contains details for a certain event, an event which you now decide to add to e.g. Google Calendar. What’s easier than copying & pasting the conversation information into your event? Right, just linking to the Gmail thread from your calendar event is. (Your thread is password-protected with your Google account credentials of course, so you won’t create an additional privacy risk either – though I would probably not post such permalinks in public places, who knows what the permalink ID can be abused for with some hack!)
• You can now share searches with a friend, e.g. tell them “Check out the previous mail I sent you at http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/grab+coffee+at+starbucks ...”.
• You can now bookmark certain labels. In Firefox, you can also then create a shortcut for such a label bookmark. Say you bookmarked “http://mail.google.com/mail/#label/job” – right-click the bookmark and select properties; in the keyword field, enter “job”. Now, you can enter “job” in the Firefox address bar at any time to be taken straight to your Gmail job label/ folder and the conversations contained within it.

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Enclosing in a Google Circle

I was thinking about how much time I spent on Google products in a day and I was just stunned by finding that this Logo keep showing in my browser about 30% of the tabs opened  and about 80% of the time. And nobody is forcing me to do so. No penny spent. Also in all the workflows that Google provided has no hassles, they are straight, do only they designed to do and nothing else, have cleanlier user interface. I think we are all are using Google too much and its just starting.  as per John Bettelle an average searcher searches about 5-10 queries per day in a search engine and expert may be around 20-35. In that way we software engineers are way ahead as we on an average searches more then 50 queries per day. I uses google search not only for finding information but also as a calculator and dictionary for checking spelling.

Stumble upon good link on the same http://www.redherring.com/Home/23165

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Google Trends Pridectibility

Google Trends shows an interesting search popularity graph for the queries “turkey” (as in turkey the food, too) and “diet”:

On North-American Thanksgiving day, the searches for a traditional dish for the festivity peak. There’s still Xmas ahead with a second, milder peak for turkey queries... afterwards, searches for a diet are building up, peaking right after on New Year.

There’s an interesting other correlation... between depression and rain:

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Google is spreading

Wanted to write about all this but not enough time.....


Google draggable directions and Fast inter continental path Finding -

Google style of working, what do agile folks thinking.....-

Google is calling all developers for $10 Million Challenge -

Interesting Numbers about online Ads

That's interesting figures. Now the real question would be how will Google, Facebook, Yahoo divide the pie.

No GPhone, its Android

Google launches Android: The new mobile platform with collaboration in 34 top mobile and computing companies. That's How Google shows how much it abide by his "Do No Evil" funda and also working for providing best solutions to end user rather then thinking towards the monopolizing the business.A group of 34 companies that will create a package of free software that includes everything needed to run a cell phone: an open-source, Linux-based operating system, a Web browser, and a slew of applications, including maps, e-mail, and video-sharing and -viewing tools.

This also allows third party developers to develop new application for this platform and this gives the platform numerous growth potential. he Alliance includes some of the biggest names in tech, including chipmakers Intel (INTC) and Qualcomm (QCOM), handset maker Motorola (MOT), wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel (S), and e-commerce provider eBay (EBAY). Startups already are itching to contribute to the Alliance's efforts—and investors are eager to fund them. Unlike with other mobile-platform providers, developers working with Android pay no licensing or other fees. They also will be able to sell their applications through a Google-created online marketplace without sharing revenues with the search giant. Google will make money on the ads served through the phone's browser.

The idea of generating revenue only by the ads served and not by licensing will smart enough to keep Google a leader in the mobile game for coming years. Actually the revenue by ads idea has so mush potential that it can even provide the users all the hardware and software for free, if implemented in correct way.

Android and Open Handset Alliance will poses a great threat to Symbian and Windows mobile OS. Andy Rubin, head of the Android project at Google, hopes that within five years, "hundreds of millions" of Android-based phones will be sold per year. After five years of effort, Microsoft ships about 20 million phones based on Windows Mobile each year. And Microsoft already works with more than 160 operators and 48 handset makers and offers more than 18,000 applications for Windows Mobile.

So Again Google is here and Future is Open.

Hello World in Open Social.

Check thin new video about how to make applications in Open Social

Google launches OpenSocial. Mark?

That's why Google is different. That's why Google was not bothered when Microsoft bagged the FaceBook deal last week. Google with all his style and decorum and attitude, launches "OpenSocial", the Social Networking Platform that is not limited to orkut only but any social networking site site that supports OpenSocial can avail its features. That's big news and it also comes when every one was excited about Facebook and its social graph funda. As per the launching announcement

One of the most important benefits of OpenSocial is the vast distribution network that developers will have for their applications. The sites that have already committed to supporting OpenSocial -- Website Partner A, Website Partner B, Website Partner C, etc. –- represent an audience of well over 100 million users globally. Critical for time- and resource-strapped developers is being able to "learn once, write anywhere" -- learn the OpenSocial APIs once and then build applications that work with any OpenSocial-enabled websites.

Several developers, including Gadget Partner Z, Gadget Partner Y, Gadget Partner X, etc., have already built applications that use the OpenSocial APIs. Starting today, a developer sandbox is available at http://sandbox.orkut.com so developers can go in and start testing the OpenSocial APIs. The goal is to have developers build applications in the sandbox so they can deploy on Orkut and ultimately other OpenSocial sites.

The best thing about Open Social is that is in line with the Google philosophy "Do No evil" and hence every body has the chance to create the social network of their own type and features and have benefits of big already existing userabase starting from launch.

The APIs exposed by the Google are

The OpenSocial APIs give developers access to the data needed to build social applications: access to a user's profile, their friends, and the ability to let their friends know that activities have taken place. OpenSocial resources for developers and websites are available now at code.google.com/apis/opensocial.

Developers will have access to:
- Three JavaScript and Gdata APIs to access social functions
- A live developer sandbox on Orkut at sandbox.orkut.com

Websites will have access to:
- A tool to help OpenSocial-enable their websites
- A support forum for communicating with Google and other websites

All of these resources and the live developer sandbox are available now.

Developers already at work

Dozens of developers have helped test early iterations of the OpenSocial APIs and Google is grateful for the extensive feedback they have provided.

Links to these gadgets are available at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial.

I think its Googles another big idea after Search and Earth and this has potential to make the Google winner in social networking wa which is still not started yet.

Who will buy Facebook ?

Mark Zukerberg would be delighted after selling the 1.6% stake in facebook to Microsoft in USD 240 million. This lead to the estimation of facebook around USD 15 billion, which is huge amount. Now every body understand very well the future of social networking in coming years and hence web 2.0 development is also headed in
the direction guided by the rules of social networking. Imagine web after 10 years weher everybody(almost) has a web identity and all the transactions, admissions, intreactions, sharing would be done by social networking. This potential has alreday been dentified by Mark zukerberg and orkut couple of years back and hence created there gems.

Now big players in the game (MS, Yahoo, Google) are trying to acuire these new age entrprenuers dreams and convert them to revenue generating businesses. That's why when MS and Yahoo offered Mark USD 1 Billion some time back for buyout. Creator of FaceBook was smart enough to know the value of his assets and ideas and refuses. Now more then 100 thousand developer community has been build upon Facebook and people are really excited to use the new facebook applications.

Now the real question is, Who will buy Facebook? That's because not every one is as smart as Larry and Sergey (Mark?), who will save itself from big fish in the sea and dwell on its own in early years and then grown up with confidence. Google guys already set up the example and now we have to see weather Zukerberg has the that gut or increasing size of company force him to sell it out to biggies.

One major difference is that, Google came into business very silently and at that time nobody on biggies identified Google as possible threat, and also Google offered such high quality and that's why they created there own business. But here in case of Facebook its already been hyped much (as we saw in Web2.0 summit) and also such a service is need of the hour as broadband is ubiquitous and more and more peoples have started to spent more time on internet to collaborate with there friends. MS and Yahoo didn't want to loose a big share of possible business to a boy and also they didn't want to repeat there mistake again (The Google Fiasco - as seen by MS Guys).

Steve Ballmer , The Micorsoft Chairman, might estimate Google as a 3 year boy in the world but he very well understands the age of the Google and also when this kid growing really fast. Buck Up Mark! Do a Google.

Modest billion dollor Idea by Alex Linhares

I was reading through the blogs and just stumble upon this nice proposal for Adobe, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others who are interested. This guy (Alex Linhares ) has done lots of research and also has good understanding g if the what is going on the web currently and what can impact the future. Any one out there in biggies to grab this oppotunity!!!

A Modest (billion-dollar) proposal

Imagine the following scenario. A secretive meeting, years ago, when Apple´s Steve Jobs, the benevolent dictator, put in place a strategy to get into the music business. It included not only a gadget, but also an online store, iTunes. I have no idea how that meeting went, but one thing is for sure: many people afterwards must have been back-stabbing Jobs, and mentioning "the music business? We´re going to sell music? This guy has totally lost it."

Fact of the matter was, technology had forever changed the economics of the music business, and Jobs could see it.

Having said that, I´d like to make a modest, billion-dollar, proposal, to the likes of Adobe, Yahoo, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and whomever else might be up to the task.

Cui Bono?

Think about science publishing. I publish papers for a living. My first paper came out in Biological Cybernetics, a journal which cost, in 1998, over US$2000 for a one year subscription. I live scared to death of Profa. Deborah, who reviews my scientific output. And there are others like me in this world. Oh yes, many others.

The economics of science publishing is completely crazy for this day and age. Authors give enormous effort to bring their work to light, editors and journal and conference referees also put in enormous effort. All of that is unpaid, of course (or at least indirectly paid, in the hopes of tenure and/or prestige). But then, our masterpieces go to a journal, which obliges me to transfer copyright to the likes of Elsevier, or Springer, or someone else. Then some money starts to show up! According to wikipedia, Springer had sales exceeding €900 million in 2006, while Elsevier upped the ante to a pre-tax profit (in the REED annual report) to a staggering €1 billion (on €7.9 Billion turnover). But for those who brought out the scientific results, for those that bring the content, and the fact checking by referees and editors, all that work goes unpaid. The money goes to those who typeset it, then store it in a server, then print it out and mail it to libraries worldwide. And let´s not forget those which actually pay for the research, the public, as most research is government-financed. In the words of Michael Geist, a law professor:

Cancer patients seeking information on new treatments or parents searching for the latest on childhood development issues were often denied access to the research they indirectly fund through their taxes

How did we get here? A better question is how could it have been otherwise? In the last decades, how could a different industrial organization appear? Cui Bono?

Lowly (and busy) professors or universities were obviously not up to the risky and costly task of printing and mailing thousands of journals worldwide, every month. A few societies emerged, and, mostly funded by their membership, they were up to the task. So, in time, the business of science publishing emerged and eventually consolidated in the hands of a few players. And these few players could focus on typesetting, printing, mailing much better than the equation-loving professors or the prestige & money-seeking universities.

The other day I tried to download my own paper published in the journal " Artificial Intelligence", and I was asked to pay USD30.00 for it. That´s the price of a book, and I was the author of the thing in the first place!

Now, if you ask me, technology has forever changed the economics of the scientific publishing business, and it´s high time for someone like Jobs to step forward.

Adobe Buzzword is specially suited to do this. Most scientific publishers (Elsevier, Springer) and societies (IEEE, ACM, APA, APS, INFORMS) have just one or two typesetting styles for papers. I imagine a version of Buzzword which carries only the particular typesetting style(s) of the final published document, and researchers would already prepare those manuscripts ready for publication (there are glitches today, of course, like high-quality images and tables and equations--but hey, we´re talking about Adobe here!). A submit button would submit the papers for evaluation, either to a journal or a conference. Referees could make comments and annotation on the electronic manuscript itself, or even suggest minor rewritings of a part here and there. The process would be much smoother than even the most modern of online submission processes. And, since Adobe has flash, this means that they´re especially positioned to bring up future papers with movies, sounds, screencasts and whole simulations embedded. Wouldn´t that be rich? Doesn´t that beautifully fit with what´s stated in their page?

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information .


But Buzzword is just my favorite option (because it enables beautiful typesetting, is backed by a large, credible, player, works on any platform, and enables worldwide collaboration between authors, editors, referees). Other options could be desktop processors (MsWord, Pages, OpenOffice, etc). There would be a productivity gain by using something the likes of Buzzword, but using desktop processors wouldn´t affect the overall idea.

Now, why would the people in Adobe, Yahoo, SUN, IBM, Microsoft, Google, or others actually want to do a thing like that?

There are two reasons. The first one is goodwill, the second one is money.

Goodwill

I recently had a paper outright rejected in the IBM Systems Journal. In retrospect, I now see that it was a very bad call to submit there. I had mentioned that choice to the editor of a very prestigious scientific journal, and he responded by saying: "They´re going to hate it. They´re not in the business of publishing great original science for a long time now. That´s just a marketing thing; they´re in the business of trying to impress customers." I responded that I thought that they´d be open-minded; that the journal had had some great contributions in the past and I thought it was just great. I was, of course, wrong. They didn´t even look at the thing; they didn´t even bother to send back a message. After a quick check, I felt enormously stupid: all papers, or maybe not all but something way above 90%, come from IBM authors. The IBM Systems Journal, it seems to me, is now a branch of IBM´s marketing department. And while it may impress less sophisticated customers, it´s definitely a huge loss for IBM.

The Systems Journal (and their R&D journal) used to be a fountain of goodwill for IBM. Scientists took pride in publishing there, and hordes of researchers (not customers) browsed it and studied it carefully. It was a fountain of goodwill--with a direct route to IBM´s bottom line: it attracted the best scientists to IBM. Now that it´s in the hands of marketing, you can hardly find any serious scientist considering it as a potential outlet. If I were in IBM, I´d be fighting to change things around. But I´m not there, I can speak the truth as I see it, and I can just submit somewhere else. The BELL LABS Technical Journal also seems to be meeting the same "marketing department" fate. Don´t expect to see nobel prizes coming from these journals any time soon.

When these journals didn´t belong to marketing, they brought, at least to this observer, a huge amount of goodwill and good publicity for their respective companies. The HR department must have loved choosing among the best PhDs dying to get into IBM. Sad to mention, I doubt that the best PhDs are now begging to work on these companies anymore.

Yet, IBM could change things around. As could Adobe, SUN, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and many others. What I feel they should do is establish a platform for online paper submission, review, and publication. This platform should be made openly available for all scientific societies, for free. From the prestigious journal "Cognitive Science" to the Asia-Pacific Medical Education Conference, this platform should be free (to societies, journals, and conferences) and the papers published online should be freely accessible to all, no login, no paywall, nothing in the way. Copyright should remain in the hands of authors. Gradually, one after another, journals and conferences would jump ship, as the platform gained credibility and respectability.

Now here´s the kicker. It´s not only about goodwill. There´s money to be made.

Money

One crucial point is for the platform to be freely accessible to all. But you can do that, and still block the googlebot, the yahoobot, and all others "bots", but your own. Let´s say, for instance, that Microsoft does something of the sort. In some years time, not only it gets the goodwill of graduate students who are studying papers published by science.microsoft.org (as opposed to hey-sucker-pay-thirty-bucks-for-your-own-paper-Elsevier), but also the way to search for such information would be only through that website. As we all know, advertising is moving online: according to a recent study, the last year saw "$24 billion spent on internet advertising and $450 billion spent on all advertising ". Soon we´ll reach US$100 Billion/year in advertising on the web. And imagine having a privileged position in the eyeballs of graduate-educated people, from medicine to science to economics to business to engineering to history.

I hope someone will pull something like this off. Maybe for the goodwill. Or maybe for the money.

Many companies could pull it off, but some seem specially suited to the task. My favorite would be Adobe--with buzzword and AIR and flash and pdfs, that´s definitely my choice. Google might want to do it just to preempt some other company from blocking the googlebot to get its hands on valuable scientific research. Microsoft, the Dracula of the day, certainly needs the goodwill, and it could help it to hang on to the MS-Word lock in. Maybe Amazon would find this interesting--fits nicely with their web storage and search dreams. Yahoo would have the same reason as Google.

I don´t see Apple doing it. I think it could actually hurt their market value, as investors might think that they would be over-stretching, ever expanding into new markets.

I don´t see IBM or SUN doing it either; in fact, if anyone in a board meeting ever proposed this, I can only see the exact same back-stabbing that must have gone through, years ago, in Apple: "Science-publishing? This guy has totally lost it. This is IBM, and that´s not the business we´re in." They´re to busy handling their own internal office politics, who´s getting promotion and pay packages. Innovation is hardly coming in from there (though both have been embracing open-source to a certain degree).

One thing is for sure. The open-access to research movement is getting momentum everyday. It´s time to sell that Elsevier stock.

Just a final note. If any player is willing to do this, use an org domain name. Don´t name it "Microsoft Science". That won´t work with intelligent, independent scientists. Use a domain name such as science.yahoo.org, science.adobe.org, and name it as "Open science", "World of Science", anything... but please don´t try to push your name too far. Let it grow slowly.

And just in case someone wants to pull this off, and is actually wondering... I´m right here.

Now Google Health - A reason to smile

As I always speculate that Google might launch as many product as many types of services exists....and my speculation is now a reality with Google Health. Google will launch its Health service. Below are some screen shots of the product from official Google blog.

There are two tabs to be seen in Google Health: Profiles and Medical Contacts. The profiles tab has several sub-sections, including “Services and health guide,” “Conditions & symptoms,” “Medications,” “Age, sex, height...” and “Family history.”
A privacy policy at the bottom disclaims that “Any information you enter will remain private. Google will not share it with anyone without your permission.”

This “Conditions & symptoms” dialog includes an auto-completion feature, just like other input boxes in Google Health. You enter “head”, and Google suggests “Head and Neck Angioedema”, “Head Injury”, “Head Pain” and more.

The “Services and health guide” section reads: “Get the most out of Google Health - If your medical providers or pharmacy offer secure downloading of medical records, you can find and add your records to a profile. You can also browse for websites that connect securely to Google Health and provide services for managing your health care.”
Under the headline “Google health guide” this explanation follows: “When you add some information to your profile, Google Health will search trusted medical sources and create a health guide targeted for you. ... Google Health will check for relevant updates to your guide whenever you add new information to the profile.” You can use the health guide, Google writes, to learn about drug interactions, treatments, tests and preventive measures.
A side box warns, “Be sure to discuss questions about your medical care with your doctor or medical provider before making changes,” and a footnote reads, “Built in collaboration with www.safe-med.com”.

The “Allergies” tab. The “Add an Allergy” box suggests “e.g. penicillin.”

You can add a procedure or surgery on this page. As an example, Google provides “appendectomy.”

The “Test results” section. You can add e.g. “cholesterol LDL”.

The “Add an immunication” interface does not allow free-style text input, but restricts you to a selection box instead. Available entries include “Diphtheria, tetanus toxoids, acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP)” or “Hepatitis A vaccine.”

The “Age, sex, height...” page collects various personal information such as date of birth, gender, ethnicity, blood type, weight, or smoking habits. One of the questions asked is, “Do you drink alcoholic beverages?” Another question is, “Have you smoked more than 20 cigarettes in your lifetime?” Google explains that they ask for your date of birth to “keep your age up to date and show the most relevant guidance.”

The “Family history” dialog lets you add a relative and their respective conditions. The selection box includes entries like “Husband”, “Wife”, “Mother”, “Father”, “Son”, and Google provides the condition example “diabetes.

Microsoft would be on Buying Spree

This is what Microsoft Chairman Steve Ballmer said in the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Fransisco.

What are you interested in that Microsoft currently isn't doing?
"We'll probably buy 20 companies a year for the next five years. Most of them will be footnotes - we're talking about acquisitions of $50m, $100m, $200m. Those are good acquisitions and are important to us, and it's of strategic value. There aren't many things in the $6bn to $15bn price range, you're talking about a handful of things. In the meantime we'll probably buy a lot of companies from $50m to $1bn, so we'll continue to buy a lot of stuff. Email steveb@microsoft.com if you something to sell!"

Now Microsoft has started it again but this time MS is imitating Google by targeting only small ones. Yahoo hasn't declared the acquisitions strategy officially, but he is also in queue.

New Definition of information.

Google Riddle : Its Simpsons

The Following Riddle posts on Google Blogoscoped and many Google followers like me solved it quickly with Google Docs. Actually it can't be solved by MS Excel and that's the main point behind posting this Puzzle by Philipp Lenssen. You can't add more then three rules in MS Excel Conditional Formatting and that's what google wants to highlight.

3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,3,0,4,4,4,3,4,3,4,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,3,4,4,4,0,4,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,0,2,2,0,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,2,2,2,0,1,2,2,1,2,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,4,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,4,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,4,4,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3,3,4,2,4,3,3,3,3,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,2,1,1,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,2,3,3,4,4,3,3,3,4,4,3,3,3,3,3,4,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,2,3,3,2,4,3,3,3,4,0,0,2,2,4,3,4,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,2,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,2,1,1,1,1,2,4,2,2,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,2,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,1,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,2,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,4,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,4,4,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,0,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,3,3,4,0,0,0,0,2,1,1,1,1,1,2,0,0,2,4,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,3,4,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,4,3,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,4,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,3,3,3,3
3,3,3,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,4,3,3,3,3
3,3,4,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,2,4,3,3
3,3,4,2,1,1,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,1,1,2,4,3
3,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,2,1,1,2,4
3,4,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,2,2,1,1,1,2
3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,0,0,0,0,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2
3,4,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,2,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2

Do Yahoo! Yahoo again?

I have just read the Jerry Yang's blog about the strategic changes which Yahoo will incorporate soon. This ends the much (or little...) speculation about "What is yahoo doing?". It was nice to read the "founder's" insight about the company and its plans for attempting revival of the internet giant(?). Jerry sounds reincarnated and also wrote about from ending up some services to narrowing down the 3 points agenda, rather trying to hit all over approach. Jerry's 3 point agenda on which company would concentrate in coming years are:

1. To concentrate on the Yahoo services which are the starting point of yahoo access such as mail, search etc. On this front Yahoo has large user base already(even it is diminishing every second and switching to Google).
2. To aggressively invest on Panama and increase the revenue from online ads. (Again there already Google sits at first place with AdSense but Yahoo is on 2nd place.)
3. To create the Platform for developers and publishers for creating application/gadgets for yahoo user base.

I think with this strategy in place and Jerry as a leader Yahoo can compensate some of its losses but not all because the Google ghost is there for all. Google's "Do no evil" motto sometimes paradoxes itself as it does lots of losses for other giants and they are now forced to think for their survival in the Web 2.0 world.

What about minternet!!!

As the world turning to mobile devices connected to internet i thought internet needs to be redefined and thus coined the term "minternet". Obviously its Mobile Internet and should be used all over in place of internet/web wherever mobile devices talked about.

I think Minternet should be consist of the contents which recides only on mobile devices and shared with others over the network. the contents need not be loaded on to big servers or PC's. As the new age mobile applications are allowing the users to post directly on web through mobile and handheld computers. But there is data which is only residing on the users phone and just like currently sms's presents....

So be ready as minternet might be the coming years new buzzword :)