Prediction – Wireless Applications in 2012

As I previously discussed, most electronic devices today are network enabled; and many of which through wireless. Most new laptops today include a built-in wireless card, as do many personal digital assistants. I can’t remember the last time I visited an airport or hotel that didn’t have wireless access. Boingo now has over 100,000 wireless hotspots. This is Wifi 1.0 – the technology has taken root and is starting to gain serious momentum.

What will Wifi 2.0 look like? Well, assuming that wifi performance and acceptance trends continue as they have in the past, wifi in 2012 will be amazing. I spent some time brainstorming some of the applications that could develop in the coming years and illustrated it using the mind map below (created using mindmeister.com).

Web 2.0 - Mindmeister.com

Mindmeister.com is a web-based collaborative mind-mapping tool. Users can sign up for a free (advertisement sponsored) basic account that allows them to create, share, and collaboratively author mind-maps with others.

The user interface is simple and elegant, requiring no instructions. Users start by creating a new mind map. Clicking the “Add” button creates a new node. To edit the title of the node, click inside it and type the desired text. To create a child node, click on an existing node, and then click “Add”. Nodes can be rearranged on the screen by dragging them around with your mouse. I created this simple mind map in just a few minutes after signing up. Free accounts are limited to six maps, however you can export maps into several formats including: RTF, PDF, JPG, PNG, and GIF.



Paid subscriptions are also available which provide additional features, such as the ability to create unlimited maps, export maps in FreeMind and Mindjet Mindmanager formats, exporting maps to blogs, SSL encryption, all advertisement free.

There are other web-based mind-mapping tools out there, such as Gliffy, Bubble.us, Mindomo, Thinkature, and Mind42, but Mindmeister's user interface and the resulting end-product make it stand out from the crowd.

Prediction -- Wireless Technology

As an amateur radio operator, I’ve been playing around with wireless computing since the early 1990’s. Back then; the wifi equivalent was having a 300 baud packet connection into a HAM bulletin board. In 1997, the 802.11 specification was finalized, and the first mainstream wireless 2 megabit connectivity was born. Within just a couple of years, 802.11b was announced, which introduced a huge speed increase, up to 11Mbps. In 2003, 802.11g brought with it speeds of up to 54Mbps. Products based on the draft 802.11n specification have been available since 2006, which are capable of speeds up to 250Mbps. The 802.11n specification is due to be finalized in mid 2008. I put together the time-line and chart below to help illustrate the rapid performance increases and mark major wireless milestones.



In that ten-year span, the industry has been able to increase wireless speeds by a multiple of five, every two to three years. Products based on draft specifications are available soonest, and once the spec is fully ratified it becomes the defacto-standard for products on the shelves. It then takes several years to become broadly deployed in the mainstream. Given these trends I expect to see products capable of 500Mbps speeds, based upon draft standards to emerge by 2010, and to be fully ratified by 2012.

Pervasive Computing

For years a friend of mine and I have been discussing a nearing-future where wireless computing devices will be used for location-specific information sharing and services. We talked about things like having wifi in National Parks so visitors can access maps and information about landmarks and sights. At a recent trip to Busch Gardens we thought it would be neat if you could access a similar map, which shows visitors which rides have the longest line using a simple green, yellow, red indicator. And we also talked about using wifi to provide customers detailed product information while shopping.

Well, thanks to Apple and Starbucks, we’ll soon see a really good example of this type of service. Next month, iPhone users visiting Starbucks will be able to open an application that will show them which song is currently being played in the store. In addition, it will also allow users to immediately purchase and download it to their iPhone. Very cool!

Failed Prediction -- BioSoftware

Even with modern development languages, simple errors in source code can result in complete program failure during execution. Why is it that a simple syntax error can cause an application to entirely stop working? Wouldn’t it be nice if this cause / effect relationship was more equally proportioned? The notion of self-healing software has been around for a long time.

In January, 1994, Alan Kay was interviewed by Kevin Kelly and Steven Levy for Wired magazine. During the interview Kay stated “I was thinking about ecological computing. When I was working with computers in the late '60s, all of the computer power on Earth could fit into a bacterium. The bacterium is only 1/500th of a mammalian cell, and we have 10 trillion of those cells in our bodies. Nothing that we have fashioned directly is even close to that in power. Pretty soon we're going to have to grow software, and we should start learning how to do that. We should have software that won't break when something is wrong with it. As a friend of mine once said, if you try to make a Boeing 747 six inches longer, you have a problem; but a baby gets six inches longer 10 or more times during its life, and you never have to take it down for maintenance."

Much work has been done trying to implement Alan’s ideas. For example, Kevin Fulk and Dr. Blake Ives did a good Biological Computing survey in November, 2002. They talk about DNA Chips which have been available since 1996, and the first automated DNA Computer released in 2003. They predicted genetic “programs and robots” 5 or more years from now, and hybrids and engineered life forms in the distant future.

Also in November, 2002, Selvin George, David Evans, and Lance Davidson wrote a paper published by ACM titled A Biologically Inspired Programming Model for Self-Healing Systems in which they discuss their approach to mimic basic cell processes within software.

Stelios Sidiroglou, et al took another approach, where they attempt to Build a Reactive Immune System for Software Services (Usenix ’05).

Unfortunately, we haven’t quite figured out how to grow software – but it’s definitely worth trying!

Web 2.0 - First Look at Animoto

Animoto is one of the neatest Web 2.0 innovations I’ve seen in a while. It allows users to quickly create music videos with a professional look and edgy feel. Signing up for a free account takes about a minute. The video creation process begins by uploading your photos to their site. For my test video I uploaded over 20 photos, which went quickly. The web-based user interface is very elegant and provides the user with constant feedback indicating the progress made.



The next step is to upload your music, or alternatively you can select a track from Animoto’s library of indie rock, electronica, or hip hop. After you settle on a track, the magic begins. Animoto analyizes your photo’s and music, and renders a unique video, with all kinds of racy effects in perfect synch to the music. Animoto currently supports sharing videos by allowing users to send email links to friends, or automatically posting videos directly to most major blogging platforms. It can also provide the raw html code that can be embedded into any website. Animoto is currently in beta, and they say that feature enhancements are coming soon, such as the ability to download video’s directly to your harddrive. Free accounts allow users to create 30 second videos, and for only $30 year, users can enjoy unlimited full-length video production.

Web 2.0 - Animoto Test Video

Test video produced in about 5 mins

Web 2.0 - Diigo

For me, conducting research on the Internet has always involved hours of searching, taking notes, and keeping track of sources. To make my research time more productive, I’ve experimented with many tools that claim to streamline this process. Most recently, I signed up for a free account from Diigo.com. Diigo is an innovative website tagging system, which allows users to “take their notes” directly on any website.

The signup process is quick and painless, requiring only a username, email address, and password. Submitting the request generates an automated email with an activation link, which when clicked completes the enrollment process.

Clicking the activation link takes the user to the installation page. Diigo supports all of the mainstream web browsers including Firfox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, and Flock. Installation involves simply dragging the “diigolet” (applet) for your appropriate browser onto your bookmarks bar, which creates a Diigolet entry. That’s it, installation complete.

In order to test the installation, I used a friend’s blog as an example, http://steve-chadwick.blogspot.com. Once at the test site, clicking the Diigolet entry on the bookmarks bar brings up the applet (shown at the top of the page in the image below).



The first feature to explore is bookmark/share. When clicked, it allows the user to create a bookmark to the site, including annotations, and also allows the user to mark the bookmark as private, public, or it can be shared to user-selected/created groups.

If you select text on the page, and then click highlight, the text will be highlighted, just as expected. The highlights are persistent, meaning if you revisit the site afterwards, the highlighting will remain.

Clicking the Comments button will bring up a list of all shared Diigo annotations, organized by type. Clicking About This Page will bring up a Diigo compiled popularity report.

Clicking on More >> My Bookmarks brings up an organized list of all bookmarked pages. From here, users can manage their account, create groups, and even send annotated bookmarks directly to their blog. Diigo currently supports WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, Typepad, Movable Type, Windows Live Spaces, and Drupal.



Diigo is an excellent research tool for individuals, and probably even more valuable for groups who share research interests. Diigo’s collaboration features enables Web 2.0-like functionality for any website.