My Tech Day

Some Thoughts on Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T02:03:00.004-04:00

It was fitting that I learned of Steve Jobs' death while I was at the Silicon Alley Insider 100 party tonight on the trading floor of the NYSE. There, amidst banks of phones and screens where billions of dollars are traded each day, a very large subset of NYC geeks who matter were all looking at monitors that announced the news of Apples founder and expressed their sadness to each other about the

Apple Ups the Ante with OS 4

2010-04-08T15:47:00.003-04:00

Apple held a news conference today to announce several enhancements to the iPhone operating system. This fourth generation of the OS will include:Multitasking: One of the biggest gripes about the iPhone is that it only allows access to one application at a time. Now if developers integrate the new APIs several applications run at once. In addition if you’re using an application like AOL Radio or

My Initial Thoughts on the iPad

2010-04-06T12:14:00.011-04:00

I got my hands on an iPad yesterday morning. I had originally pre-reserved one but ended up on a family ski trip over the weekend so a friend picked it up for me.My 9-year-old son enthusiastically opened the box. After admiring sleek design for a few minutes he summed it up thus: “It doesn’t have a camera and it doesn’t have a phone.” I had to explain to him the rationale of buying a first

Software Helps Parents Monitor/Control SMS Usage

2010-03-23T03:18:00.004-04:00

I saw two companies at the Showstoppers event in Las Vegas tonight that are trying to make sending SMSes on mobile phones safer. TextArrest prevents teens from sending text messages while driving, and Smobile helps parents monitors the child's text messages for inappropriate content. Texting is big in the US. Nearly 161 million Americans have sent text messages on their mobile phone, and among

Mobile Bar Codes are Here

2010-02-09T15:06:00.004-05:00

This morning while on Metro North I found my self staring at a big poster of semi-naked Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker. Since I’m an unemasculated male the first thing I noticed of course was Decker’s curvaceous body, but then the geek side of me kicked in and I noticed the 2D barcode next to her. Of course I knew what to do. I took a picture of the barcode with my cell phone’

The iPad Unveiled -- My Thoughts

2010-01-27T16:06:00.010-05:00

For those of you who are into mobile and technology, today was the momentous day when Apple unveiled its iPad tablet device। A group of us at AOL's NYC office gathered in a conference room to watch the event live and experience the moment together on Justin।tv (There were 114K concurrent viewers which is about as much as MSNBC on a good day).I am not going to go over the iPad feature by feature,

Twitter Makes Me Smarter

2009-02-26T22:57:00.003-05:00

Even though I've been aware of Twitter for the past 2 years, I've been using it in earnest only in the past couple of weeks. As I've tweeted and followed people something amazing has happened -- I've become smarter.One way really smart people succeed (I'm conceited enough to consider myself somewhat smart) is that they surround themselves with smarter people. The smart person, even one who is an

The Big Whopper Flameout

2009-01-08T22:20:00.004-05:00

It started with so much promise and ended with a flame-out. Burger King had a cool idea in its new Whopper Sacrifice campaign: a) install an application on your Facebook page b) sacrifice/remove 10 of your friends from your social graph c) get a coupon for a free whopper. The strategy shows that Burger King (or at least its ad agency) totally gets Web 2.0. In fact I would even call the execution

No More Talking/Texting While Driving

2008-10-14T11:54:00.003-04:00

Agence France Press reports that a Canadian company, Aegis Mobility, has created new technology called DriveAssist that intercepts phone calls and text messages while a person is driving. DriveAssist uses GPS and other technologies to detect if the person is moving at a speed which indicates he is in a car. Many jurisdictions like New York and Connecticut forbid talking on a cell phone while

Obama Advertises in a Video Game

2008-10-14T11:08:00.006-04:00

Campaign ads for presidential candidate Sen. Barak Obama are appearing in the the video game Burnout Paradise.Roadside billboard advertising in the real world is nothing new. Images stay with us as we cruise down the ashphalt highway. I think the impact is even greater in a video game because players are more engaged with what they are seeing on screen.Obviously there are people at the Obama

No 3G For Me!

2008-08-25T12:54:00.005-04:00

Riding the Metro-North train into New York City one morning I spied a fellow commuter reading the New York Times. My attention was drawn to an AT&T Wireless ad for the iPhone. "Half the Price. Twice the Speed!," it proclaimed. Yeah right, I said to myself as I turned my attention back to the screen of my Jesus phone that was still struggling to download a page over 3G even though I had full bars.

AOL Mobile Search Grabs a Silver

2008-08-14T14:34:00.003-04:00

The folks at mocoNews.net awarded AOL Mobile Search a Silver medal today in a faceoff against other search engines for the query term "Olympics". Google and Yahoo tied for Gold and MSN got a bronze. The key differentiator seems to be that Google and Yahoo show medal results and ranking while AOL doesn't. On the other hand AOL showed Olympic themed ringtones which we get source from Thumplay. I

Instinct vs iPhone

2008-07-28T18:04:00.008-04:00

The folks at Sprint, desparate to compete against AT&T, are touting the benefits of Samsung's Instinct phone. Their new marketing campaign "Insticnt More for Less. iPhone Less for More" is not very original but sums their stance of why the Instinct is better than the iPhone. To wit, they've created a pretty slick web page with compelling flash videos comparing the two devices. In the Instinct,

ChaCha says Obama is a Muslim

2008-07-15T11:16:00.008-04:00

Is Obama a Muslim? The folks at Cha Cha certainly thing so. That's the question I SMS'd to the human powered search engine.Here's the answer I received (and the web page it pointed me to): "He is a muslim, but he tries to conceal it. Thanks for using ChaCha!"Let's ignore all the political implications contained with in the response and concentrate just on the technical/business aspects. This

The iPhone's Killer App -- Social Networking

2008-07-15T01:25:00.004-04:00

After standing in line for more than 8 hours over the course of two days I finally was able to get my hands on an iPhone last Saturday. Even though I saw an extensive presentation at WWDC I must say that as a replacement owner I'm extremely underwhelmed from a hardware perspective.Sure the new iPhone has 3G speed and a GPS chip, but surfing iPhone optimized sites over the EDGE network wasn't too

iPhone for $199 on July 11

2008-06-09T14:45:00.002-04:00

The new iPhone 3G will sell for $199. The 8MB version will be in Black and the 16B in Silver$199 all around the world. Will be available on July 11.

It's a small world afterall

2008-06-09T14:39:00.002-04:00

iPhone is available in 70 countries. They showed a map with "It's a small world afterall"Crowd cheers when their country goes red.

GPS Announced

2008-06-09T14:38:00.000-04:00

Jobs announces GPS support for the iPhone 3G

Head 2 Head Test

2008-06-09T14:33:00.002-04:00

The head 2 head test shows 3G downloads in 21 seconds and Edge took 59 seconds. Shows that 3G is 2.8x faster. WiFi takes 17 secCompared against Nokia and the Treo ("Full page on iPhone. Something considerably less.")Jobs is now showing e-mail attachments 3G version takes 5 sec and 18 sec on iPhone. WiFi is 3 sec.

iPhone 3G is ANNOUNCED

2008-06-09T14:32:00.003-04:00

3G iPhone is announced!ThinnerPlastic backFlush headphone jackImproved audioBetter Camera

Next challenges

2008-06-09T14:30:00.001-04:00

Jobs is laying out what the next challenges are:3GEnterprise SupportThird Party ApplicationBeing able to sell in more countries. Making it more affordable (56% say its expensive

iPhone's First Birthday

2008-06-09T14:28:00.002-04:00

Jobs says this is personal to him. Shows pictures from New York launch"This is the phone that have changed phones forever."90% customer satisfaction98% are browsing94% are e-mailing6 million iPhones have been sold.

MobileMe

2008-06-09T14:22:00.003-04:00

Phil Schiller is demonstrating MobileMe (www.me.com) but the site is still redirecting to www.snappville.com This doesn't seem like it was supposed to happen like this. BTW it's not free (well it will be for 60 days) $99/year.mac is being replaced by MobileMe.20 GB of space.

MobileMe

2008-06-09T14:13:00.002-04:00

Phil Schiller is speaking about MobileMe. It is push e-mail, contacts, and calendar without Exchange Server. The information is stored in the cloud. The mobileme account stands in the middle and pushes/pulls from/to devices. Me.comNew e-mail and calendar product that competes with other e-mail/calendaring informationThere is a gallery section that syncs with iPhone's pictures.This new product

iPhone 2.0 Not till July

2008-06-09T14:08:00.002-04:00

The new software will not be available until early July. This includes the App Developers sets price70% of revNo credit card or hostingFairplay DRMIf you want to give it away for free you can do it without any charge for applIf it is 10MB< then you can doanload on cellular, WiFi or iTunes. If over 10 MB then only WiFi or iTunes.Enterprise can distribute apps only for their enterprise that will

Jobs is Back

2008-06-09T14:05:00.002-04:00

Says that Search on Contacts, iWork Documents, and now supports all MS Word documents.Bulk delete and move, saving picture attachments, teenage controls, scientific calculator. Language support. Asian language. You can draw character on the iPhone and have it be recognized.

Notifications

2008-06-09T14:01:00.003-04:00

One aspect that was not in the SDK was the ability to have an IM message come up when the application is not running. Apple says the wrong method is to run in background because battery drains and because it takes up CPU resources. Apple Push Notification Service establish one persistent serviceBadgesCustom Alert Sound (the AOL sound)Custom textual alerts (like SMS) with buttons to automatically

Apple Stock Price

2008-06-09T14:00:00.001-04:00

The crowd here is loving the demos but Wall Street isn't happy. Apple's stock price has dropped during the keynote. This may be due to the NASDAQ being down by 37 points

Demos -- Digital Legends Entertainment

2008-06-09T13:57:00.002-04:00

Developer from Barcelona started only 2 weeks. Believe that the iPhone is a gaming device. Believes that the iPhone App store is the only method of bringing games directly to the market.

When will the App Store be live

2008-06-09T13:54:00.002-04:00

A lot of the demonstrators are saying that their apps will be available when the App store launches "weeks from now" This seem to indicate that the store won't be available today. We'll have to see....

Demos -- Modality

2008-06-09T13:51:00.002-04:00

Dr. S., Mark Williams. Med school students use flash cards to learn the body parts. This publisher as digitized anatomical pictures and linked it to Quiz. I don't know if I want students to learn while they're waiting for their latte.

Demos -- MLB.com

2008-06-09T13:48:00.002-04:00

Jeremy Schoenherr shows MLB @ Bat. Shows live baseball game coverage. Realtime video highlights. The iPhone's video picture quality is really sharp and the baseball games look great.It's going to be in the App Store. (They didn't say free so I imagine that it will cost something).

Demos -- Solo Developer

2008-06-09T13:45:00.002-04:00

This developer is a solo guy in the insurance industry. He's created a bunch of virtual instruments. This stuff is really fun. They've done a really good job. The crowd really loves it.

Demos -- Pangea

2008-06-09T13:42:00.003-04:00

Brian Greenstone shows games that have been ported from OS X to the iPhone. Shows game, iNigmo that requires intensive CPU usage. Looks great. The game will be available for $9.99 These games are really going to take a bite out of Nintendo.

Demos -- Associated Press

2008-06-09T13:39:00.002-04:00

Building native application for the iPhone. Benjamin Morse is demonstrating "The Mobile News Network" The location API allows local news content to be brought up automatically. The stories are cached. Photos can be seen and video from the news network can be watched. If there is breaking news, users can send pictures and news stories directly from their iPhone. The mobile news network will be

Demos -- Typepad

2008-06-09T13:36:00.002-04:00

Michael Sippey is showing TypePad. Photoblogging is one of their most popular features. You can create a post or take a photo for a blog. Previously taken pictures can also be posted to blogs. (Right now I am only able to transfer pictures to my blog by mailing it to PhotoBucket). This is much more integrated. The blog is actually seen on the Safari. Will be free on the Apple iStore.

Demos -- Loopt

2008-06-09T13:33:00.002-04:00

Sam Altman will demo Loopt for the iPhone. Using Loopt you can see where your friends are on a map in real time. It's being shown on Google maps. By tapping a user the person's detail comes up and you're shown a journal of all of their travels which are tagged with geo-location. Loopt will be free on the iPhone at launch.

Demos -- Ebay

2008-06-09T13:30:00.003-04:00

Ken Sun from Ebay shows auctions on the iPhone. They started developing 5 weeks ago. Can search for an item, get details, and included WebKit so that it incorporates seller's HTML information. Have incorporated film strip viewer so that the photos look as they're supposed to on the iPhone.

Demos -- Sega Super Monkey Ball

2008-06-09T13:27:00.002-04:00

Companies are now going to demonstrate the work they've done with SDK.Ethan Einhorn will display Super Monkey Ball on iPhone. This was shown in March. 110 stages with all 4 monkeys. The tilt control allows for acceleration and deceleration. The game will be distributed through the app store. The game will be available at launch of the app store for $9.99

Canned Praise

2008-06-09T13:25:00.002-04:00

The VP is reading out testimonials from developers (like Disney and InfoWorld) I wonder would they ever read something that wasn't praiseworthy.There are lots of digs at RIM. Afterall that is the company that Apple is going after on the business side and consumer side.

Interface Builder Demo

2008-06-09T13:21:00.003-04:00

The Apple VP is showing the Interface builder. The tool as pre-formated function controls and layout controls so that it is WYSIWYG.Loaded up into simulator. The VP has now built an application that allows you to see which of your contacts are nearby.

iPhone SDK

2008-06-09T13:15:00.002-04:00

The SDK is being shown by an Apple VP. (he's also dressed in black)Opening up native API that Apple uses.The APIs are shared with OS X. The same kernal is shared. The same source code is shared. Core services layer with SQLite, Location based services are powered through this. Media OpenGL ES for 3D graphicsCocoa Touch. Object oriented framework. There are also tools availableXCode to write and

Steve Jobs Live

2008-06-09T13:13:00.001-04:00

It's my first time seeing Jobs live. My impressions are that he looks and sounds older than I imagined him to be. He is very casually dressed in the classic black turtleneck and jeans with sneakers. But he seems really revved up.

iPhone 2.0

2008-06-09T13:08:00.002-04:00

New software and there is a developer program. 95 days ago it was announced. They have 250,000 developers download. 25,000 have asked to be in the paid program. 4,000 were admitted. 2.0 has 3 parts. a) Enterprise, b) SDK and c) New features. The 2.0 software has enterprise support. Push e-mail, contacts, remote wiping, directory look-up. Secure VPM built in from Cisco. They have had beta program

It's started

2008-06-09T13:07:00.001-04:00

Steve Jobs has started speaking. He says that they are sold out with more than 5,200 engineers attending. There are three parts to apple: 1) Mac 2) Music and 3) iPhoneThe focus this morning is going to be on the iPhone. Phil Schiller is going to speak on iPhone.New version of OS X called snow leapard

In the House

2008-06-09T13:02:00.002-04:00

I've just been seated in the Jobs Keynote. I've managed to push myself through the crowd of thousands so that I'm in the front of the room five rows in. An excellent spot for pictures. I hope that the iPhone camera performs. The loud speakers are playing Jerry Lee Lewis -- Great Balls of Fire. It's a carnival atmosphere.

Waiting for Mr. Jobs

2008-06-09T12:32:00.000-04:00

I'm at the Apple WWDC conference in San Francisco. The conference is taking place at the Moscone Center West. When I walked in this morning we were herded to a waiting area where they served some pastries and Odwallah. Then they let us upstairs 100 people at a time. We're now waiting outside the hall to be let in. The event was supposed to start at 10 am but I don't see how it will given the huge

Mobile Polling the Democratic Debate

2008-02-26T23:57:00.003-05:00

After tonight's Democratic debate between Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama, MSNBC asked viewers to vote via SMS as to who won the contest. This type of polling is near and dear to my heart because the dot-com era company I co-founded, Informano Networks/Recency Data, was the very first to do something like this in 2000 during the debates between Al Gore and George Bush.Unlike our foray several

Net Neutrality Lesgislation Introduced

2008-02-19T00:58:00.005-05:00

Just before Valentine's Day a new bill was introduced in Congress to ensure Internet Neutrality. The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR5353), proposes to allow consumers and businesses "to send, receive, access, and use the lawful applications, content, and services of their choice on broadband networks" using their selection of devices. The bill also mandates "that content providers

Bigger is Better, But You'll have to wait

2008-02-15T16:41:00.002-05:00

The folks at Apple brought the big screen touch phone to the market, but the other mobile manufactures won't have much of an answer until later this year. See Mobile's Barcelona Hangover.That's going to present a problem for the number of cell phones predicted to be sold this year. The article states that analysts expect 57%-59% of handset sales to be for replacement/upgrade purposes because the

It's Search Stupid

2008-02-15T16:26:00.003-05:00

There are more cell phone in the world than there are computers. So how come practically nobody accesses the Internet on the mobile phone? That's the conundrum facing mobile insiders on every continent.One reason is that with its small screen size and low bandwidth using the Internet on the phone is a pain. Apple's iPhone is changing the experience, but one panelist at the World Mobile Conference

The Video's Playing. Does Anybody Care?

2007-05-07T22:43:00.003-04:00

Monday's New York Times had a number of articles about the state of video on the Internet especially on mobile devices. Too bad they were scattered through the Business section because together the stories provide a snapshot of where the industry is.For instance I learned that although there are 208 million wireless customers in the United States only 656,000 downloaded videos. The faves:1.

The Google Way

2007-04-27T12:23:00.000-04:00

My 4-year-old daughter sings this song: "Love is something when you give it away you end up getting more."Google gives away love in a big way. It gives away its news feed. It gives away the ability to create custom search engines (Google CO-OP), it gives away the ability to monetize the creation through AdSense. And it ends up getting more -- more money when people click on the ads. Maps, video

Meeting Spammers, Mobile Vaporware and AdSense Millionaires

2007-04-12T17:59:00.000-04:00

For the past couple of days I've been attending the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York. (An amazing fact they're from South Norwalk. Who knew there was intelligent life there near my train station.) It's a place where large search engines, ad networks, advertisers, and publishers come together to learn about making more money. Interestingly I also saw quite a few companies like

NBC Sports Launches Trivia Games

2007-04-10T11:07:00.000-04:00

NBC Sports has launched a set of sports trivia games produced by Bunchball. There’s one for golf and one for NHL hockey. Being a Canadian I decided to try my hand at the hockey game.The flash-powered game let’s you play alone or with another user. I played mine against someone logging in from Manila who went to school in Boston. The flash module incorporates chatting and Skype so you can actually

No Pasting But Where's the Beef?

2007-04-10T10:28:00.000-04:00

Gigya announced its new product WildFire that supposedly makes it easier for content providers to distribute widgets and other social syndication content. The premise is that instead of users cutting and pasting HTML code or Javascript onto their blog or webpage they can post content directly from the site of a WildFire enabled site.The idea I suppose is appealing if you believe that in order to

Renting Online Beats Going to Blockbuster

2007-04-08T23:03:00.000-04:00

The other night I was bored. My wife was working on a grant proposal and there was nothing on TV. I felt like watching a movie, but wasn’t up to getting in the car and going to Blockbuster. Instead I decided to try renting a movie on the Internet. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve downloaded pirated TV programs before through services like BitTorrent. In fact I watched whole seasons of TV shows