Tech St0p Mu53

After returning from gitex 2011 in Dubai I decided that I wanted to filter the purposes of my two tech blogs into something more streamlined. I didn’t even realise it but a large number of my posts were not even materialising simply because I couldnt decide whether to go with blogspot or tumblr. So I decided to separate them. The first thing was to make the blogspot blog my tech news and updates and thoughts blog. If you do head over to there you’ll notice that there’s a significant increase in post frequency.

Now what about my tumblr? What’s the future of this blog. The answer to that lies in my trip to gitex 2011 where I met the most amazing person I think I’ve ever come across. Richard Thieme; who spoke on the future of hacking. His talk was one that just blew apart several barriers in my brain. His talk revolved around several points of which the most exciting ones were,

• The incorrect perception of hacking within media groups. 
• The possibilities of hacking information to extract meaningful data. 
• The possibilities in hacking the human body.

The incorrect perception of hacking within media groups

There is an unfortunate attitude amongst the media that hacking must mean a person seated behind a computer screen and reading through lines of obscure code attempting to commit some malicious and evil data theft from some company. The reality is far from this definition however. The media’s definition of hacking is just one facet rather than an attempt to observe hacking as a whole. The simplest definition of hacking is to take something and use it for anything other than its intended purpose or to take something and use it to do something that wasn’t meant to be done with it. Taking bottle caps and balancing a laptop on top of them to allow the heat to be pushed out effectively is also a ‘hack’. 

The possibilities of hacking information to extract meaningful data

Data mining in a way but basically using data which seemingly has no connection to create a connection is also part of the future of hacking. Richard spoke of how at a certain university they were able to tell, based on mobiles messages being sent across the campus, whether the discussion going on was a political one. I can’t quite remember if it was through SMSs or IMs but same thing. Hack. Information.

The possibilities of hacking the human body

This was one of the things that just utterly blew my mind. I’ve heard of using tech to make blind people see but in his talk he spoke of an experiment where a person (the details are a little hazy now) had electro magnetic sensors inserted somewhere along his back and connected to the brain. As time went by the individual began to gain a new sensory perception: direction. He began to have an understanding of what his relative location might be since wherever he went he could feel in his brain a sense of where North was. But the most amazing bit was that when they were removed from his body he felt that he had lost a sense like we might feel if somehow our sense of touch was taken away from us. Experiments like this open up a world of possibilities. And in fact it was all of this combined that inspired me to redo the theme of this blog.

From now on I’m going to try and envision uses of technology in ways that seem implausible and beyond complex. In addition to that I want to try and write stories that seem fictional but in the future would be possible. Scenarios of algo-battles between AI units and nano bots maybe. Disclaimer. I am influenced heavily by the Halo book series. 

Well that’s about it. Look forward to entries. Not too often. But regular enough hopefully :)

While people like to go on and on about the social network’s faults and issues, one thing cannot be denied and that is that Facebook really did help connect the world together. It may have been in a more voyeuristic way than intended but it did the job.

For me I see the greatest evil that Facebook created on this planet was the social craze for startups. For some reason startups can no longer seem to see beyond the most obvious schemes of social being used to do something. There’s even social alarm clocks where you get a stranger to wake you up. Good idea actually. But a startup? Are you kidding me? Get a new definition for entrepreneur please because its one of those things that have zero business value.

For me I don’t see a financial bubble looming on the tech space but what I do see coming is hopefully the burst of the social bubble. I can’t wait for the day when investors look up from their desks and give a weary look to the so called entrepreneurs standing in front of them and say ‘why on earth does the world need another social photo sharing app?’

There are other problem to be solved beyond sharing your photos with the right privacy settings. For me what I think is that instead of recreating the wheel where if a company is missing a feature one imagines that creating the same product and adding the missing feature would equate to smart business the existing companies should have some sort of open day. An open day and a competition to see which people can add the best features to their product so they can either buy it, steal it or just plain employ the guy building the feature they like.

I dunno. Just please. Stop the social startup craze already

Adnan Issadeen (@kiriappeee) has shared a Tweet with you:

“gopiharan: @kiriappeee Yeah, but I feel it’s better to go for a settlement; considering that a trial ‘may’ affect Android ?” —http://twitter.com/gopiharan/status/109792258202677248

This tweet was in response to a tweet I sent out earlier voicing my negativity towards the US courts attempting to force Oracle and Google into a settlement over the java licensing deal. I wasn’t very happy with this decision. Not cool imo. Not one bit cool.

So on to my response. I agree. A real trial may affect Android and Android has many devs and a large user base etc etc. So what? I think Oracle’s claim in a previous court document, “damning facts are still facts”, is very appropriate here.

Google and the open BS

Anyone who wants to believe that Google plays the open card for something greater than marketing convenience hasn’t looked at any of their past stuff enough. I won’t go into details because that’s not the point of this post but I will give a hint; gmail, and Google docs. Figure it out.

Now the point here is that just because Google says they are open should not be a reason for anyone to rally behind them in support. The same goes for any company because no matter how open you are you need to follow a certain set of rules and guidelines. You can’t walk over someone else’s property saying “just being open”. You need to respect that. And Google doesn’t.

Fact - Google willfully and knowingly infringed on the java patents and bypassed licensing completely. Proof? An auto save of an email being sent out detailing the licensing options for Google and Android declared that all other options available are crap. “Java is there but we need to license or we can forge ahead and risk making some enemies along the way”. Wow. Way to go (those weren’t exact words but that is the summarized version”. In fact Google tried to get this evidence thrown out of court but was denied. Regardless of whether it was thrown our or not the point remains that Google infringed knowingly. Open BS.

Fact - Google has already broken the terms of using Linux and therefore would need the approval of every Linux kernel contributor to get the valid license again. No one has taken Google to court on this yet but again, they haven’t played by the rules

Fact - Andy rubin worked under the team developing the real time patent at Apple. He was a junior and didn’t invent the framework but there is considerable proof to say that he took that ip and incorporated it into Android. Apple hasn’t filed against Google yet but they did use this argument against HTC in a current case to stop HTC from selling Android devices in the US.

Conclusion - what Google has done with Android isn’t open and doesn’t deserve sympathy. It deserves to be taken to court and even if Android needs to be rewritten so be it. Failure to do so would result in a precedence where from now on if a platform has gained significant traction it becomes immune to any debilitating judgement against it that may be caused due to patents, licensing and even copyrights. That’s terrible. Period.

Final arguments -

A. Google’s user base is large but not loyal. Amongst the geek community yes there are the fan boys who keep saying I can root my Droid. But reality is that beyond that and the tech blogs most people aren’t loyal to Android. Heck. Consumers aren’t loyal to iOS either. They are loyal to iPhone.. HTC.. Samsung.. Acer. Anything happening to Android won’t make the brands go away. There’ll be another OS and more devices to satisfy the consumer need. (varied lower cost devices with a single experience. Android fails on the latter)

B. Google hasn’t done its part to protect the developers or the device manufacturers from patent lawsuits caused by their negligence. Developers are prone to patent lawsuits over OS functions like in the case of lodsys. Even if Google decides to step in between and fight for its developers the fact remains that Apple immediately jumped in way back then, pulled back and returned with much stronger arguments to be allowed to represent the developers in the lawsuit against lodsys. Google’s response? .

C. Handset manufacturers are fighting lawsuit after lawsuit. Not because of technology for the most part but because of the OS. What has Google really done here? Have they stepped in to protect manufacturers like HTC? No. Fight your own battles. For a fact Motorola Mobility doesn’t have real patents to protect Android. It’s been discussed enough so feel free to Google the news.

My point. Although Android may seem like a great service by being free for all, I think Microsoft made a very valid point the day it said, Android only appears to be free but comes with many hidden costs.