Showing posts with label touch screen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label touch screen. Show all posts

Monday, April 4, 2011

The Next Wave: a revolution or an evolution coming to the Internet?

The Next Wave: a revolution or an evolution coming to the Internet?

There is a revolution developing on the Internet a new wave of possibilities that will transform today’s methods into tomorrow’s new service access. Products like the IPAD2 are leading the way with touch screen navigation and ease of use: usability + access + Social Networks are the drivers bringing about new levels of change.
Within this vast environment – the Internet – being noticed, being located is essential.

Be part of it or be out of it! It’s going to be as important s having a website: having Web-Presence: an interconnected presence that is also instrumental in getting found on the Internet. This is essential for any business.

First business did not see a reason for a website, then when they had one; they were not aware of the requirement to be FOUND on the Internet. This is now being realised; with the huge growth of the SEO businesses on the Web proving this requirement. But things move fast and the next revolution is gathering a pace alongside awareness that they - businesses - everyone - need to get noticed on the Web.

 
The web will be moving en-mass, soon, towards integrated Social Networking in all things, even the BBC are adopting Social Networking news feeds and changing the old options of barrier pages requesting log –in notification before viewer comments or live video news can be added…. Such content obtainers simply go elsewhere to post their live news feeds and the ‘Beeb’ are getting wise to the fact…




The trends are plain to see and set by observations of the SEO industry that is built around the operations of Google and other search engines; focused on services to get their clients NOTICED and higher ranking on search engine results pages.
They all have a FACEBOOK strategy!
There are big changes ahead. Because the methods that people use to find items on the Internet is moving away from the current common practices of just typing in a descriptive keyword, many users of the Internet are fed up with multiple search engine results that do not reflect their request; whereas current and new and evolving Social Networks can be far more accurate: with recommendations and purchase goods and services that are validated by others. Of course a lot of this is going on now, but its going to increase with the introduction of new integrated Social Networking search systems.

Surprisingly there are huge numbers of websites; public, commercial, government and businesses that have little thought for or ideas about optimising their website so that material can be easily located by potential users. This is very important especially within an evolving and increasingly huge Internet where competitive elements and Spam sites do indeed take advantage of SEO techniques to put their message higher up the ‘pecking’ search order. Many websites advertise on Radio and TV but what is needed is an accurate method within the structure of the Internet itself.

Social Networking + better more accurate search methods + simpler access + easy build web-services and re-organising the Internet into ‘Clumps’ that exhibit new service sets of communities; communities of interest and activities are set to evolve….soon.  So it’s set to be more of an evolution as more users get frustrated with Spam and inaccurate results from their searches, they will migrate to alternatives, and such ideas can go viral, rapidly - never underestimate the power of friends recommendations. The more linked in with integrated sites that connect also with Social Networks the more chance that a move from a Google search to a ‘Facebook’ environment + search etc. will occur. And move beyond what we have today: converging or conflicting or merging into something new? This view is generating an expected new Internet investment bubble of new Social Networking ideas. 

Complexity levels are set to diminish. Complexity of any level stops user activity.

A few indicators showing a movement to convergence towards simplicity, better access and further social user empowerment:

BLEKKO - V -   GOOGLE

Better more accurate search results with BLEKKO.
The movement has huge momentum and convergence will generate new simple integrated networks that are very simple to use, and importantly to build: utilizing ‘Crowd Build Source’ operations to do it: people building relationships and common indexing to data and search results.

AMAZON – V – Independent Authors

Could independent authors break the monopoly by generating their own individual sales sites and link to emerging Social Network enterprise sites? Authors produce the content but currently get the least return, whilst publishers and sales sites get a huge percentage.

Government Web Silos - V - Citizen webs

People building up their own clusters of relevant data from government content; building better utility sites that obtain government feeds and statistics and feed these into citizen composed site’s that re-organise the data and services into more valuable and usable outputs. E.G. Crime location maps with citizens demanding extra police focus upon such areas.

BBC News –V – independent news feeds

It may not be validated by any authority, it may be less than perfect with camera shake etc, but frontline news from people at the centre of things happening and posting direct to Social Networks, cuts out mainstream news broadcasters, who may have lots of lost arguments about quality, independence and validity: the BBC policy is beginning to change as a result. And the public carry video cameras within their mobile phones, wherever they go; coverage that no news organisation can compete with.

Old democracy –V – New democracy political systems

They work for us, but politicians don't get this and set up their own power systems: citizen pressure groups online can change everything and make policy and issues become driven by the interconnected citizen networks; rather than a single change once every general election: evolution and changes on policy can be directed throughout a parliaments lifetime by constant contact and guidance from the Voice of The Electorate.

Corporate ASP.Net types of web-system build - V -  PHP – Drupal: to do it Free and with more Webwise interconnections.

Is there any need for top heavy proprietary software? When very complex systems can be joined up using far simpler tools? Is there any continuing need for a Windows platform full of bugs when they had years to fix them? No the future is Internet server side driven applications, everything to run on and through the Internet, using simplified plug in tools for free and common open source build platforms.

    The results of everyone going in the current direction

Just a few pointers for the reasons for change:

What about combination, cross platform search results: type in a search word / description and results come back from Google + Blekko + YouTube + Flicker + Facebook + PLUS OTHERS?
Why must I search each individual location for the same data content? Its time consuming.

Why do websites halt potential contributors in there tracks?
Yes, many websites put barriers up for sign-in, for contributors; the answer is to stop such inappropriate messages attempting to catalogue and verify users. With a more honest open, transparent and genuine I.D. based Internet (Facebook lead with this concept) such a need is diminished.
Websites that ask for sign ups when they could use the Facebook Ap-ID to just let people in, barriers, restrictions and other variations of need for ‘sign in’ input from potential contributors, makes 80% of potential contributors leave the site; and Email is becoming outdated and will increasingly be within Social Networks and that stops Spam-Mail.

Company’s pay Spam e-mailers to load up our inboxes with useless garbage, trying to sell; but annoying us because 99% are not applicable. So more and more people move onto networks that only interlink with known friends and already accepted favourites. E-mailers must evolve their marketing towards becoming much more useful and accurate.

FACEBOOK can identify their users by all sorts of groupings and search parameters: all from the users own self descriptive tags, this is very accurate for advertisers who will go in droves to Social Networks over Google Spammy searches.

IPAD2 Touch screen simplicity is replacing click mouse and keyboard navigation: The future navigation interface will be speech recognised instructions – voice command and A.I. techniques. But for now touch the screen environments will dominate and this means that websites - all websites need to upgrade to accommodate touch navigation – as well as mouse point and click.

These converging movements, mentioned and there are many many more reasons, that should indicate to businesses that its no longer good enough to have a website, and now its no longer good enough to simply try to obtain web-presence using SEO. To be able to sell to customers in the near future you will have to be within their locations offering real value as bad value will be quickly notified and such products, services and businesses will be out of business. Businesses have to get clients to come to them through new techniques and offering better services, rather than interuptive marketing methods that are really in the face SPAM.

On the horizon are new methods that interlink all these operations that will be bringing forth a better easier, faster accurate and really valid Internet. Soon!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

AI apple detection for self service checkouts

Checkout AI uses camera to tell your apples apart

Toshiba's research centre has developed Artificial Intelligence software that with the use of web cams can detect which type of apple is being scanned at a supermarket checkout.

Usually customers must search through on screen lists to select the apple type, but toshiba's software makes for a much speedier process.

An exciting new development that could lead to similar detection methods across a range of applications.

Friday, January 7, 2011

IPad Clones V Telcos will change WiFi connectivity towards more FREE


Public Access to the internet has always been the aim of Public DataWeb completely FREE this has not been an easy task as many established interests and certain ‘inertia to change’ attitudes have combined to frustrate the idea of free connectivity.
We cut down the objective and limited our focus to city centres after news reports that many cities had toyed with the idea of free access wireless and got involved in over-grandiose coverage systems. These apparently all failed due to the cost of the equipment providers installations and the resulting ‘less’ than the bandwidth speeds and coverage envisioned. PDWeb was a voice in a hurricane and was hardly heard as the big boys talked with city’s about bigger and bigger opportunities.

That was all a few years back and the idea of large scale geographic free WiFi is hardly talked about after so many burned fingers; only Boris Johnson the Mayor of London remains committed to the idea and who would contradict him as his idea of bicycles for London has taken off when many ridiculed it.

Picture of a rank of Barclays Bank sponsored bicycles established by London Mayor Boris Johnson – used by Public DataWeb Blog post to illustrate that Public Access WiFi can also be made available for Free in Central London with a little imagination!

With the current interest in mobile devises: the iPhone – iPad and its Chinese built clones like the iPed, IdeaPad U1, and the Eee Pad etc: it is predicted that huge volumes of these devises will be sold in the next 18 months. 




So how will the users connect when there out and about? There is no overarching connectivity in city centres for WiFi other than hot spots in some locations, cafes, shops, bars and so on. For the U.K. BT are claiming to provide free connections on the back of existing users modem & router installations teaming up with FRON for BT’s ‘Total Broadband’ but most users are residential.

Such operations are hardly the answer for city centres, with their messy time consuming log in procedures and certainly not free, needing to purchase Apps from an Appstore - as with all such services like mobile users on 3G contracts which does cover cities but its not free. Yes they say you get a free WiFi service but only if you’re a contracted (fee) paying customer – that’s NOT FREE.
Instant connect Free digital access is in a city’s self interest for commerce, tourism and as a general amenity. Visitors are going to prefer it to having to log in register and pay fees, especially international tourists.


The Ipad and its clones will change the connectivity market forever, the Telcos can’t have it thier own-way forever; signing up exclusive contracts fixed to hardware (Apple Ipad), when volumes of clone units flood the market seeking a competing connectivity paradigm; which just may be Free city centre WiFi – which is faster than GPS. Trends can change very quickly and a shift from Telco network dominance towards a device focused one will be good for all.

One city centre that has such a totally free WiFi service in the U.K is Aberdeen where a network of street hubs generate a WiFi Mesh with alternative touch screens for people without mobiles.

Soon in 2011 the first Chinese city’s are to install outdoor hubs (PARASOLS) to provide their citizens with totally FREE WiFi access.