Tune of The Times

When you hear of Amazon what do you usually think of? Place to buy Books, vacuum cleaner, diapers or laptops that can be shipped directly to your home. Plain vanilla, boring e-commerce...... however nothing could be farther from the truth. Amazon over the years has built itself into an obvious e-commerce behemoth which sells shoes to clothes to computers. But not so obviously Amazon has built a mind boggling technology capability with the ability to execute across hardware, software and consumer electronics platforms. 3 years ago, it would have been difficult to believe that Amazon would produce the biggest selling e-reader in history. But with Kindle, Amazon created a top of the line e-reader - a network device with the ability to download content using an always on data connection. It was unprecedented and showed how a network device of the future would behave. Similarly on the enterprise side of things, Amazon was a pioneer in offering commercial cloud c...

My Facebook newsfeed never looks the same, it is constantly changing and I am not talking about new posts getting added, it just keeps showing different posts ordered based on some weird Facebook logic. So slowly but surely I have stopped depending on Facebook posts, or tweets as information. People are often posting something, deleting it, editing it and so on. On top of that Facebook/Twitter keeps messing with the ordering and visibility of the posts...sometimes I see all posts by my friends, sometimes I don't. Just a single refresh could change the order and visibility of the posts. It is just not Facebook newsfeed that has this inconsistency problem,  I am the admin of the Picksie Fan page on Facebook - every 2 minutes the number of fans keep changing for no apparent reason without anyone added or removed. Similarly in Twitter, the number of twitter followers, number of tweets or the number of people I am following keeps changing so randomly that I have stopped ...

As I was reading about the happenings in Wisconsin, I started thinking about the role unions play in our current day economy as well as our society. The more I thought about it, more unconvinced I was about their role. And as if on cue,  I came across this excellent article which clarified my perspective. You could be a conservative or a liberal but there is no questioning the points the author makes. I come from the technology industry which prides itself for being nimble, highly productive, highly customer oriented and highly profitable. In spite of technology being a necessity for any industry, it also is highly volatile with technologies becoming obsolete in a matter of months instead of years.

I am thankful for AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) aka the technology behind web browsers' ability to load data dynamically without having to refresh. It has saved us from the thankless task of refreshing our browser endlessly to view any update. If it hadn't been for this technology, web applications would have permanently lagged behind native applications in terms of usability. And I will even go out on a limb and say that maybe even web 2.0 might not have been as robust had it not been for AJAX. However the evolution of AJAX and its omnipresence in web 2.0 has had a few unintended consequences. One of them is the broken scroll bar.

It's been almost 18 months since my last post on the future of technology. Some of my predictions have gained momentum like location based services while some like robotics and 3D gaming are moving rather slowly. Before I go back to the future let's do a quick recap of the past year. A few technology stories and trends that had everybody's attention..

" BCB or Blog->Comment->Blog is an idea I had about converting great comments on blog posts or articles into blog posts themselves. This brings great thoughts to the fore that otherwise would just stay stuck in the comments section."     Below is a comment on my original post "Is Google in Trouble??"  from Anonymous.. I get a similar sense at times. Partly because there doesn't seem to be a unified strategy at Google and they seem to be falling into "let's do everything" pattern. Juxtaposed to that is of course something that I do give them credit for: boldly trying different things, however that doesn't cue their "addiction" to ad revenue. Their primary and very much only source of revenue.

I have been playing around with the iPad for a while now, so naturally I started thinking about what its shortcomings were. I realized that probably the weakest link in the iPad is the ability to type on it effectively (yes, I have the keyboard dock..it is just not enough). This in turn hampers your ability to key in search terms, URLs in Safari, mails, tweet, comments in Facebook and so on. Touch interface is great but typing in iPad is not fun.

Are you happy with your Windows Desktop? How about your Nokia\Samsung\LG Phone? Are you happy with your washer\dryer\blender? Are you happy with the innumerable gadgets you have which are not made by Apple? Yeah, I am not either.

"I am going out on a limb here as I am not a professional investor nor do I have any educational background relating to stock markets. These opinions are solely based on my experience as an individual investor (Stocks only, no shorts, nor funky investments) dealing with relatively small amounts of money. Correct me, if you think I am wrong, by leaving your comments" Most people in the financial industry religiously believe in the efficient market hypotheses and the fairness of the market based on available information. This myth is the basis for millions of individual investors' investments. Most individual investors who actively trade using online brokerages such as ETrade or Scotttrade are under the impression that the market is rational by nature and acts rationally to any new information.

I have this sense that Google is running out of gas.. No, I don't mean money because I think google is flush with cash and will be, at least in the near future. I mean it from a strategic sense. A few of Google's apparent missteps or misadventures are starting to bother me..

Over the last couple of days, we had around 10-12 inches of snow which I had to shovel. And our driveway is around 40 yards by 10 yards. I had to shovel almost 8 inches a week back. So obviously, I just have

Couple of weeks back, Google did what even the world's powerful governments don't have the balls to do. They stood up to the Great Wall of China. And to say that Google did not have a big enough presence in China is complete BS - companies with much smaller amounts to lose in China do not dare to do so. So this is a call to action to all American companies doing business in China and other countries with authoritarian regimes.

Apple tablet anyone? How about a MS/HP Tablet? Déjà vu ???? The tablet rumor mills are turning and pundits are trying to predict if the devices will succeed or fall flat like last time - for starters read this .

I was reading a blog post by Kevin Kelly recently - The triumph of the default . It's a very interesting read about how Defaults are a big and important part of our everyday lives. Be it new products, the web, using a car we are always leveraging Defaults to simplify our life. Without Defaults we would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices a system presents. Defaults give us the ability to use something effectively while learning to gain the flexibility the product promises. This thought brought me to a related concept that is a constant in this age of short attention spans, blogs and shiny gadgets - The Honeymoon Period.

I have, like most of you, been watching the whole health care reform drama unfold right in front of us.. Be it Sarah Palin's famous 'death panel' pronouncement or Paul Krugman's insistence that the public option will save us all, it has been entertaining and frightening at the same time. Entertaining for the passion displayed by both Democrats \GOP and frightening for the lack of direction even when confronted with one of the biggest challenges this country has ever faced.

I recently bought a GPS at Amazon.com and had a great experience shopping online, however found the whole payment process wanting on user experience and security. And to compound it there are at least 7 sites I have my card details saved in, which really makes me nervous.

I am sure many of you have tried to gaze into the technology crystal ball to find out what the next big thing is that's going to change our world. Just like the Internet did, social networking did, iPhone did. Some of these might not be even new products, websites or services, it could be a new way of using an existing technology for e.g. micropayment for news content.

I was really fascinated by the Dos Equis ads that has been on the national network recently. Reading more about the ad, I learned that this edition is the second installment of a very successful ad campaign launched in 2007.

Have you watched Lebron make plays? Have you seen Kobe just force the Lakers to a win? If not, try catching them during the playoffs. It will give you a glimpse of what makes them great players and much more. Some of my observations I am responsible for what happens - They take front and center responsibility for everything that happens in the court. They pickup slack for a bad team day, get team members involved and help the coach carry out plays. Kobe was held to 5-for-24 in Game 3 with Utah. He came in Game 4 and decimated Utah with 38 points with a 16-for-24 game.

"The first 100 days" - the new age milestone for a president which will be diced and sliced by the press, the american people and the entire international community. People (including me) will lap up anything and everything - from the number of gray hairs Obama has collected in the first 100 days to the promises he kept (or broke depending on your political leaning). First and foremost - full disclosure - Although I did not vote for Obama (because I cannot) I was one of his early supporters. I followed the election (starting with the Democratic primaries) just like a mortgage broker followed subprime borrowers in the pre depression days.