Cool vid on the future of communication

Although the virtuality emphasis is a bit dated in our credit-crunched and post-Second Life year of 2009, but much of it is thought-provoking, especially if viewed as part of the continued development of the greentech, gentech and nanotech revolutions... more below.

Cognitive algorithms for forecasting future outcomes

Fascinating video about cognitive research at Microsoft, using large streams of data that are then analysed by "surprise algorithms" to send alerts based on sets of "learned" conditions that would "surprise" the user. Very very cool and though-provoking piece, although the interviewee is definitely looking a little nervous. Kudos to the guys over at MIT Technology Review for posting this!

Japan cosmetics defy consumer gloom

According to Bloomberg, the economic engine of growth in Japan (that is, the 30s-40s female consumer) is defying the credit crunch by buying cosmetics to keep itself ahead of the gloom and doom. Some of the best performers are the high-luxury end of the spectrum with some pots of the stuff going for a cool 1,000GBP for 40g.

Apparently, Guccis and high dining is out, expensive cosmetics are in. So bad news for the luxury groups who only recently pumped money into setting up glamorous and (now empty?) flagship stores in expensive downtown Ginza. More money for local cosmetics producers, hoping to sell on to the high-end department stores of Korea, China, Taiwan, and HK. Is this the start of protectionism/buy local as people cut back on the superfluous?

Full flash on smartphones by 2010, but what about the rest of us?

On Monday, at Barcelona's GSMA "mobile telephony of the future" Mobile World Congress, Adobe announced that its brand new latest version of video applications software Flash will be pre-loaded on most smartphones by 2010. As it is standard fare for viewing most animated PC websites, Adobe are rightly assuming that most smartphone owners will want to check the internet sites without hitches on their phones.

A lot of huffing and puffing over at bleeding-edge West Coast tech watering hole techcrunch.com about how terrible it is that the iPhone isn't in the smartphone list, but everyone knows that Apple is keeping a stranglehold on Flash in order to prop up its money-making walled garden called iTunes. The larger question that begs to be answered is: and what about all the non-smartphones that make up 88% of the total mobile phone market?

It is amazing that while Japan has FlashLite on most of its run-of-the-mill phones, and of course all of the Windows smartphones, the Western world is still mired in a with-us-or-against-us tussle by PC software players muscling in on the mobile action. In East Asia, mobile Flash websites are a dime a dozen, but you'd be lucky to get Flash to play inline on any website even on my slick Nokia N95 8GB here in the UK... When I try to check even the most basic of internet websites on my phone: if it senses even a sliver of Flash anywhere on the webpage, up comes the tiny blue question mark icon for "unknown object" sitting cosily in the centre of where the Flash animation should have been. Come on guys, why should I wait until 2010 for what you can get on the PC right now, and then only on one in ten phones worldwide?

Get real: Adobe is waiving its fees for license use to speed up Flash adoption - what are telcos and handset manufacturers waiting for? You could have one in three handsets worldwide with Flash by 2011, two in three by 2013. The future is now.

Gulf satellite services company is born

A new satellite company to serve the MENA region was announced just last Monday... Not sure how I missed this one. The company called SmartSat is a new $500m venture between a Jordanian and a Kuwaiti group, looking to capitalise on 350% estimated growth for the leased satellite market over the next 5 yrs. Their focus is on the Gulf and possibly Eastern Europe, according to the MD. They are to provide satellite services to the region, such as satellite TV, internet services, and - conceivably - infrastructure bandwidth to the larger telcos.

With the Gulf poised to see 250m mobile users by year-end, and unconventional powers such as Iran having become the largest mobile market in the Gulf region, the communications market in the area seems set for strong growth in the decade to come.

Japan bullet trains to be rolled out in UK in 2013

According to the Times online edition, a Japan-led consortium has just won a 7.5bn GBP contract to build the next generation of high-speed trains in the UK. Although some reinvestment will be done in local plants and businesses, the details of the deal are fairly unclear.

There seems to have been some serious "British jobs for British workers" trouble behind the scenes, but in terms of technology, reliability, energy-efficiency, as well as the fact that the Hitachi/Mitsubishi duo were successful exporting their trains to other countries such as for the Shanghai-Nanjing line in China, Made in Japan has won the day this time around.

As a commentator to the article pointed out, why not let the Japanese take over Network Rail and fix some of the blatant inefficiencies in the service that has bugged the UK for years? Unfortunately for the UK, the rail network in Japan benefits from (1) strong infrastructure investment in the boom years when Japan had all the money it needed (and probably more to do with pork-barrel politics than strategic policy), (2) very strong R&D development and manufacturing excellence, (3) conscientious and hardworking labour force where punctuality and polished service is a social given. Some of those things you can export (ie. #2), but social mores and colossal infrastructure projects? Doubtful the economic timing is going to help things.

Tucking back into my prince 2 books

It's been a long day, but I've finally sorted myself out. This time with a doable schedule, a doable timeframe... I can do this! Only three weeks to go now!

Why is foresight so top-heavy: towards the concept of IMS

Delving into the little I know about foresight/future studies, it does seem that there is a lot of predictions, future-gazing, possibility branching & rationalising, lots of high-level snr management stuff... but is that it? Is this foresight only to be applied to strategic analysis, or brainstorming for new policy definitions?

How much does innovation management come into this? How about innovation development at the task, product or project level? We have risk management and quality management, our six-sigmas and our QMSes but what about the other end of the equation. Some sort of systemisation of innovation into a process model where the inputs are current process models and foresight analysis, and the outputs are bottom-up-percolating innovation. Something like an IMS: innovation management system. I found this which is a semantic innovation management system, but not exactly what I was looking for.

The top level would be current strategic foresight work and macro market analysis, the middle level would be tactical innovation with probabilistic branching analysis and competitive analysis ie. management consulting but at the tactical level, and bottom level would be brainstorming for priority tasking in a PRINCE2-like environment. This could also work in an agile environment all the same. The IMS would base its discoveries' validity on a set of parameters called the "foresight KPIs", whether it is market share, sales, product turnover, no. of regions, no. of users, mindshare, social network nodes, latent brand strength, or other KPIs.

There would always be a place for top-down strategic analysis forecasting, possibility gazing on a macro scale which would encompass society changes, but what about the micro stuff? Definitely something to look into, but not that I know enough about this yet.

Interesting new development on interprobe telcoms

A fascinating article a few months old already, but interesting in that people over at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the States are developing a new telecommunications standard for probe-to-probe and probe internet communications. This new protocol called "DTN" is specifically designed for situations where there is no telco infrastructure and bad latency issues, such as outer space, underwater etc. Some tests have been carried out over the last few years, naturally in a military contingency context by people like Internet grandpa DARPA, but also with applications to the international space station in 2009 although the article doesn't mention when.

According to NASA's website, the goal is to get these up and running and tested by 2011. According to the multi-governmental Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems December newsletter, the first tests with the International Space Station using this protocol were successful last November, although from one well-defined, well-equipped station to another, this hardly proves much. The ground-based testing by DARPA looks good for now in controlled earth-based environments. The next two years promise much in terms of real-world applicability.

Hilarious: pure despair

I'm sorry but while I was trawling (desperately) to find something juicy in today's web 2.0 postings (beyond the kindle2 launch later today)... and this is what I find! A very appropriate, very Dilbert-like black humor all through. I mean, it is supposed to be Monday blues, right? Check it here: hilarious.

Cool MIT phone projector

Check this out: MIT are working on a mobile phone projector that returns information from the real environment. Checking ratings on books, food prices, people tags, and more. Check it here:

Avigdor, blatant anti-Japanese rant

Welcome Avigdor Lieberman to the pantheon of Israeli politics: roll over Barak, Netanyahu, Sharon, Peres (!) and all the other extremist focus group-leaning Israeli politicians, this guy has outdone you all. Not only to enforce the apartheid politics a-la-Red/Orange/Yellow alerts built on fear and alarmism, nor just to prove Zionist credentials by degrading Arab ethnicity as a given, but now to smear the Japanese?

His words on Jan 13, 2009 - "A real victory can be achieved only by breaking the will and motivation of Hamas to fight us, as was done to the Japanese in the last days of World War Two." noted in the Guardian today, and previously on Bloomberg among others.

Wow, that's nice. If Hamas were a top-5 industrial, naval and military powerhouse nation, like Japan was in early 20th century, maybe you'd have a point about WW2. Hamas hold onto the most impoverished slice of land facing the sea this side of Eurasia, without enough economic activity to warrant even rudimentary corruption or piracy like other more established failed states in the region. But if extremism is good enough for previous Israeli presidents and prime ministers, I'd bet that Netanyahu is on the way out, Avigdor on the way in, liberal Obama or not.

Netmusique/Electrique - always the best

Check these guys out over at Netmusique: the best electronica mixes I've heard recently. It's a change from CliqHop... that I'm now glued to 24x7!! Nuff said, back to work.

My first blog, now in London!

I felt I needed to update myself online, after a hiatus of a couple of months which have been tumultuous, to say the least. London, Tokyo, London, Tokyo. Now I'm settling into a new, more focused rhythm.

Just checking a new article on the FT on quantum computing for IT security and it struck me how long it had been since I was manipulating all those quantum mechanics equations. How little those equations had been used since then.

Should be studying more about Prince2, refining, updating, memorising all the stages in detail with all the items necessary. But it will be done, I've already gone through the material once, just need to drill down now.