Monday, 24 September 2007
Tuesday, 06 February 2007
Kiva
Like a lot of people in North America I came across kiva.org via a profile on Frontline on PBS (Frontline alone is worth a separate posting. Surely one of the world's best documentary teams).
Today I was reminded of them again as they sent out an update e-mail. The real promise of this new web is the power of peer-to-peer relationships. This is a great example of that promise. Lend money directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries and bypass the stifling bureaucracy of government controlled agencies.
Check them out and take on an entrepreneur.
Technorati Tags:
Development, Money, Environment
Friday, 05 January 2007
Detox time
It's January and it's detox time! It's bloody horrible. No wine just me whining. Every January I stop drinking for 28 days. It makes me feel better about the massive amounts of alcohol I drink the rest of the year ;-)
I highly recommend it but try not to be too religious about it or you'll never get started. I use these tablets but anything you find at your local over-priced health food store will do. Drink lots of water.
On the packet it says "Discontinue if adverse effects occur". You tell me if the whole experience isn't adverse!
Tuesday, 02 January 2007
Predictions for 2007...
'Tis the season for silly predictions so I thought I would add mine.
Technology
1. Mobile operators won't change this year. Why should they? They have a cash cow and until they are forced by competition they won't do anything. Things that will force them to change are the services from companies like JAJAH (I work for JAJAH) and Truphone.
2. Dual-Mode handsets will proliferate but nobody will be able to use them because everyone is still looking at this issue from a technical perspective. What I mean is that until the industry begins to coordinate and cooperate nothing much will happen. You might have a Nokia E61 with Truphone running on it but that's pretty much useless if you walk into a hotspot and Truphone doesn't have a roaming/authentication agreement with the hotspot operator. The strength of GSM is all in the roaming framework. Until this is replicated in the SIP/Wi-Fi world we won't really see the sheer disruptive power of this service combination. I'm not expecting it in 2007. As a result item 1 above will remain true.
3. Because of item #2 Femtocells might get a look in. Many people have been talking about these but I have to state for the record that it was my good friend Michael Kuhlmann who first touted such an idea about 3-4 years ago. I won't disclose the full details of his idea but it would make a lovely complement to JAJAH's service.
4. Some entity will make a move on Research in Motion. It could be Private Equity and it could be Nokia but this is a great company and it's turning into a nice little cash-generating beast and I think with the Pearl they are onto something.
5. Apple will announce the... integrated home entertainment system. You might have thought I was going to say iPhone but although I'm in the wireless world I don't really care that much about it. It doesn't ease any pain I have. I'm actually quite happy with the innovative products that Nokia keeps bringing to the market. What I want, no *need*, is an integrated home entertainment system. The full shabang. Internet access, TV, movies, photos, music... all from the one box and all with one remote. I have to be able to use this thing without taking a 3 year degree. There is only one company that can do it -- Apple. It should be called the Fuji.
The World
1. Bush! I have no hope whatsoever for the man. This year means that it's one year closer to the next presidential election. I'm not sure who said this but it remains true: "...the US Presidency is just too important to only allow Americans to vote. We all need to get a vote this time around."
2. Gordon Brown becomes the UK Prime Minister and announces a troop withdrawal from Iraq. Otherwise he doesn't stand much of a chance in the next UK elections.
3. Warmest year on record yet again? What d'ya think? Global warming, is it for real? What a bloody stupid question that is. Of course it's for real. I guess it won't be until Miami is under six feet of water that people will seriously start recycling their Pellegrino bottles. Do you think Al Gore will run?
4. Valverde wins the Tour in 2007 and Man. U win the Champions League.
5. I'll actually get my kitchen reno finished ;-)
Tuesday, 31 October 2006
It's all 2.0 in San Francisco
There's a lot going on in San Francisco next week. The place will be buzzing. On Monday there's the Mobile 2.0 one day event (I'm going to that). On Tuesday and Wednesday is the wVoIP event (I'm going to that). And on Tuesday through Thursday it's the big one, Web 2.0 (I'm not going to that).
I guess it's efficient that all three events are in the same city during the same week but James Enck has a point when he says that we need to think about the carbon footprint that the global conference industry creates and maybe apply some 2.0 technology to this 1.0 world.
Wednesday, 27 September 2006
Demo God!
I'll blog our product a bit later but here I want to highlight 3 products that I thought were excellent here at DEMO. These are my DEMO God Awards:
1. USBceLL: First of all it was a great presentation. Clean, simple, clear, on message. Next, it's a great product. Disposable batteries are one of the most toxic waste products of our consumer age (note to self -- change behaviour). USBceLL is a battery with a pop off top and USB plug. You simply plug the battery into any USB port and it recharges. Excellent.
2. Grand Central: A unified messaging centre. In my opinion unified messaging, as a business is dangerous. There have been many of these -- my particular favourite was Wildfire. However, if you use one of these systems and invest a lot of energy into it, you want to know that it's going to be around. That's the dilemma. Fantastic product, I signed up. Will they be around long enough? I really hope so.
3. Tao Group: Great rapid development environment for multiple processor architectures. Basically, develop your product once and deploy it to multiple devices from the same code base. Sounds like one of my earlier startups -- Bitmovers. However, these guys pulled it off.
