Spaulify

Could we love the idiot box again?

spaulify — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:28:37 +0000

There are approximately 100 million TVs in India connected with cable connection. What a massive distribution platform it is.

India is going to buy more DTH connections in the next 10 years than tablets with internet connections. Yet, it is so unexciting, because set top boxes are closed systems with no APIs that developers can build great things on.

Could set top boxes become like mobile phones? You buy the set top box from your favorite electronic company e.g Apple or Samsung directly, and ask the Airtel or Tata Sky to plug in their antenna. Wouldn’t it be awesome? It would be like carrier owned WAP service stoned to oblivion by App Store. All over again. Is this what iTV is? Possibly.

And this possibility excites me, particularly from the Indian context. TV is bigger than your phone and your tablet. TV is not a personal device. Add internet to it, via DTH, it becomes much more ‘value for money’ device for the Indian middle class and the lower middle class; as every member of the family can use it. Especially, if it could be a great education technology device. With internet, a developer platform, TV can finally become an interactive platform; essential to learning and development. And pay day for education content developers. Finally.

Why I hate Moodle?

spaulify — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:20:41 +0000

One of the greatest barriers to innovation in higher education is the lack of distribution platforms. Without which the cost of customer acquisition is high, vis-à-vis unwillingness on part of the VCs to fund education companies.

Many will argue that iPad is a great platform. Yes, it is. But where is the Facebook of education? The problem isn’t as much as the lack of early adopters in the education space as it is the humongous level of lack of seriousness on part of the open source communities as Moodle.

Let’s talk about Moodle.

190,000 sites in the world are powered by Moodle. They have close to 60 million users. Many great institutions in India like the IIMs and IITs use Moodle. Why? Primarily because colleges can’t afford hefty license fees.

The result is they have to cope up with absolute crap. Irony is they don’t even know.

My problems with Moodle:

1. UI sucks. (Educators, who are known for their lack of taste in aesthetics, also complain. Really!)
2. Not a SaaS platform.
3. No APIs. WTF? (Couldn’t they learn from WordPress?)

Only 3% of the LMS in the world have APIs. 3%! Are you kidding me? Three that I know of are: Haiku, Brainhoney and Litmos.

They have their own sets of problems. Not a very open API. Not as many users as Moodle.

Apart of these, there is one platform I can think of: Google Marketplace for Education. Which I am not sure, how helpful it is.

To those concerned about education technology, I have a sincere request. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Build a marketplace like AppStore or the one as WordPress has. Otherwise, education tech is going to suck big time.

Protected: The next big thing.

spaulify — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:08:30 +0000

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

Contextual Age: A case against Facebook.

spaulify — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 01:32:03 +0000

Facebook finds itself in a midst of discomforting news all around. But, I have been very confident about Facebook doing at least one more revolution after having conquered social. It knows more about me than any other computing company/system in the world which inherently gives it a leverage over others in building the first layer of intelligence into my phone, PC and change my life forever. Or so I thought until now. But Gimbal changes this equation. In fact it destroys Facebook’s leverage completely.

Gimbal is a contextual awareness platform developed by Qualcomm. It reads data from all the sensors on your phone, almost 22 of them in latest devices. Like Barometer, temperature and light sensors, accelerometer, gyroscope GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-fi RF signatures etc. These data are made available to developers through their SDK. Watch the video above to get a fair idea how it works and affects you.

Facebook is a slow learner. It learns about me when I “like” or post something. On the other hand, Gimbal is going to move with me like a shadow. It is going to read my actions- where I am, what I am eating, how is the weather to anticipate what I am going to do next. Moreover, not many people “like” stuff on Facebook as I do. As, a matter of fact, I have liked many things that I do not necessarily care about anymore. For instance, I liked KFC on Facebook long back. I don’t go to KFCs anymore. Facebook has no clue about my interest-cycles. On the other hand if I were using Gimbal, it could tell the Food apps or maps that I am really into steaks these days. Or what I am going to do at 5 p.m on a Saturday. The more I think about what Gimbal could do, the more I am enchanted by it’s power.

To make phones intelligent Facebook has to do things primarily to serve me better:

A. It has to know what I like.

B. It has to learn to read patterns.

I agree that right now Gimbal knows nothing about me. But isn’t that a matter of days, only? Facebook knows a lot about me, it doesn’t know all about me. Like I have stopped following Formula 1; and I am too tired to go and unlike from hundreds or thousands of pages that I have liked. I don’t think Facebook is going to have a large role to play in the contextual age. Which is kind of a bad news for Facebook and it’s shareholders. Now, you may argue that Facebook doesn’t have to be a contextual company, it’s a social company. But, I doubt whether leverage over social can be maintained for a long, long period. Primarily for two reasons:

A. Constant threats from the likes of Google+ and new startups. (Orkut, MySpace eh?)

B. The contextual age is going to bring new kinds of context-aware ads which is going to badly impact Facebook revenues.

I am sure Mark knows all about it and planning his move already. I wish him and his team all the best because I really, really love and care their company.

Microsoft’s big Monday announcement could be about Bing.

spaulify — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:09:26 +0000

This is new. This could pose a threat of great magnitude to Google’s search business.

The Facebook search which was so far just about searching
people, pages and apps is getting big. It now allows you to search for places (using Bing maps), restaurants etc. Facebook has a partnership with Bing as it is known. I think this partnership is getting to a new level. Which makes me suspect that the surprise that Microsoft is holding from us till Monday is the news about this deeper level of integration of Bing with Facebook.

If my assumptions are true it’d be great for both companies. Bing hasn’t done well. But on the back of Facebook, it’s growth could soar within a month. While on the other hand Facebook could secure another source of revenue as it is likely that MS will share its revenues. Something, Facebook could use to bring some relief to its shareholders.

Siri will rock your world, be patient.

spaulify — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:16:51 +0000

I have been fortunate enough to work on a thesis during my college days on the application of AI in aviation which got featured by Aviation Week, the largest magazine on Aviation in the world. So, even though I am not a techie, I have some idea about evolutionary computing.

Babies are cute, stupid and curious in the beginning. They learn new things every day. Over years, they become intelligent. And continue to become more intelligent as they grow old.

Artificial Intelligence is about building systems that can learn on their own, just as us, humans do. By all accounts Siri is a baby, a humble beginning. Nevertheless, it is the closest thing we have available in the consumer market to do what it has been developed for. People often compare it to Google voice which is a *huge* mistake as it is merely a voice command system sans AI.

In my humble opinion, it is myopic to mistake Siri as a failure. With time Siri will grow efficient enough to truly become your personal assistant.

Tablets for education.

spaulify — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:57:18 +0000

After Apple launched iPad and the Samsungs who copied it, things haven’t been the same again. The personal computer market has been redefined; sort of re-invented. However, these waves of gadgety-excellence broke long before they reached the Indian shores. Or have they? After HCL launched ME U1, now Micromax has brought to market an Android 4.0 ICS based 7-inch tablet acknowledging the presence of a large market in India – the school goers! The Indian middle-class family having recently bought a laptop is still wondering whether they need a tablet, if at all they are considering buying one. Turns out these tablets are really not meant for them, but for their kids.

Normally, a personal computer means a personal computer! Something you buy for yourself. But the Micromax Funtab – that’s what they’re calling it, you buy it for your CBSE-school going child. For an additional price of 800 bucks, you get a 4GB memory card pre-loaded with interactive course material meant for CBSE students just like you’d get in “HCL My Edu Tab K12” and “HCL My Edu Tab HE”. Along with the school tuition fees, so long you have been paying additional charges for interactive classroom-boards, audio-visual content etc. that the school used to teach your children. But then again were they interactive enough or personal?

Funtab has a price tag of Rs. 6499/- which is about Rs 1500 cheaper than the recently launch HCL ME U1 tab. It has a slightly faster processor- 1.2 GHz and twice in RAM memory- 1GB. While a Funtab user can get access to the 600 movies, 6000 songs and 400 Video clips and the latest games, apps and TV shows, HCL boasts of a 10,000-app strong ME app store. Only if the comparison were that simple!

HCL has a large presence in the school-education market. Apart from IT services, they’re also in the business of selling smart-boards, projectors, school ERP and customised educational content to the schools. They’re giving a fierce competition to the likes of Tata Interactive Systems, Educomp and NIIT who are also in the similar business. If you’re buying it for your child then why not buy it from the ones who are experienced in education? Although, it is hard to believe that the HCL would have this advantage over Micromax or other competitors in the long run.

Just like developers helped Apple grow like it has, Indian developers, especially the ones who are building interactive courseware or other educational apps is going to play a huge role in the personal-computing-in-education industry. The content that is played on the smart boards would now be played in your child’s hands. It will be more interactive and more fun. So, Micromax need not really worry about developing educational content. If encouraged, the developers will jump right into this opportunity.

Overall, it is good news for the parents who can’t afford iPads or Playbooks for their children. Now, they have a few options to choose from because until now the tablet market has been like an automobile industry with only BMWs (iPads) and Tata Nano (Akash Tablet) to offer! That didn’t work.

Klout made me a co-founder. In less than 2 seconds!

spaulify — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:27:02 +0000

One of the reasons I love Klout is because they give me perks, which may not be very valuable per se, but gives me a perspective about new things. Today I got a new perk, a chance to become a co-founder of Wahooly!

Wahooly is a cool startup that helps you become a co-founder of other start-ups just by promoting them on social-networks, testing their product/service and by giving them your feedback. Yes, you may get equity too! For start-ups, on the other hand, it is a great opportunity to employ an influential adopter base of technology journalists, bloggers etc; by giving away sweat equity. People, who will share feedback, test the product/service and also promote the startup on their networks thus helping it go viral. Few months back I wrote a post about India’s lack of an influential early-adopters’ society thereof the reason why India can’t build a consumer technology company that can scale as fast as Facebook or as Apple did. Nothing is more off the essence than initial traction for any start-up. Well, Wahooly could help bridge this gap between a great product/service and an influential early-adopter base.

Newspapers’ gonna be an extinct species. Really.

spaulify — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:10:09 +0000

From the movie, Charlie Wilson’s War

Charlie Wilson: Let’s see what’s on the wires.

Charlie Wilson’s secretary: Why can’t you wait for newspapers like everybody else?

Charlie Wilson: ‘Cause I think it’s productive to know today’s news today. And it makes me one day smarter than you, which I enjoy as well.

This blog just started as a tweet I posted this morning, “The primary problem with newspapers is that they are ridiculously late.”

I sleep at around 12 am and wake up by 4 am. The newspapers get delivered to my door at around 7 am. The reason I am no longer a great fan of newspapers is that I would have already read most of the news, the ones that I would read anyways, hours before, sometime even days before the newspapers reach me. This has made me think deeply about whether I should continue to subscribe newspapers or not. I agree that it is too early to say “No”. But are we far from that day where there would be no newspapers, at least in some circles? I guess not.

The reasons why I think it will happen soon are quite well known:

1) Tablet & Smartphone proliferation.

2) Falling costs of wireless and broadband connections.

But a few things need to change first.

The core competency of news companies is content. Additionally they have to take care of the distribution and sales of advertisement space. This is going to change, news companies of the future will only have to worry about producing great content. So, how is this transition going to take place? This is how I think, it will play out eventually:

1) Paper: Your phone/iPad is the new paper.

2) Distribution: Facebook is the new news delivery van and instead of one newspaper delivery boy you’re going to have many- your Facebook friends.

3) Advertisements: Needless to say that the advertisements that are going to be delivered on your screen is going to be highly contextual and targeted based on your interests, e-mails you exchange and the searches you make on Google, Siri. News companies need not bother about selling ad spaces. Instead, they will work with ad networks like Facebook, Google AdSense, iAds, InMobi etc.

4) App Developer: This is where the big opportunity lies for a new kind of industry to develop. Right now, the news companies are developing their own applications for iOS/Android, which kind of gives me a feeling of, “Na..aah!!”. Why? Because I love Flipboard. I want a similar kind of experience that is consistent with all news I read online from whatever source be it.

So what is this new kind of company going to do? I guess this what they will do:

a) Build Flipboard like interface for the end user.

b) Build easy publishing tools for the news companies.

c) Analytics for the news companies.

d) Integration with Facebook Social App.

e) Integration with ad networks.

f) Integration with payment gateways etc.

Most likely, this new kind of industry will be of enterprise product companies. They will build a huge part of the application that is going to be used by consumers just as e-banking or mobile banking applications built by enterprise software companies are used by the customers of the bank. When will this happen? It’s hard to predict, but I hope soon. I really don’t want to be one day stupider than Charlie Wilson, if he were alive!

Grahak jaag gaya!

spaulify — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 15:48:09 +0000

I’ve been a customer of Airtel for a long time. I use Airtel DTH and Airtel Broadband services. I was adequately satisfied with their services until two months back. Why wouldn’t I be? I mean they have only a few issues. Like I’d never request for PC Secure- a paid antivirus service, but they would activate it anyways. But what the hell? How would they take care of their share prices otherwise? They have a moral duty to make profits to make the Indian economy running as we have a moral duty to pay them for services that we don’t subscribe. However, the dissatisfaction grew over the past two months.
I use internet heavily to surf, blog, watch videos and upload my personal projects to my Amazon server. The 1 mbps connection that I had subscribed initially was not adequate enough for my usage hence I made a service request to the Airtel customer care to change my plan to a 4 mbps one. And for the next 2 months, I would be damned to hell.
I got a confirmation call from the Airtel customer care assuring me that my plan has been approved and I should get speed upto 4 mbps beginning from my next billing cycle. The cycle started and I did not get what I was assured. I called the customer care to complain about it. I was given a service request number. Within two days the issue was resolved and I was getting incredible download speed. 4 Mbps! I was so rich. Only for a while.
Within 12 days I started getting reduced speed. When I called the customer care to check out, I was told, that my plan had not been migrated due to some unknown technical reasons. I was given a request number. AGAIN. Few days later, the issue was resolved. I was happy. ONLY FOR A WHILE.
They would reduce my speed, I’d complain and they’d restore it. This went for 2 months. A rational and a patient customer as the rest of the nation I only asked them when I could hope the issue to be resolved. Every time they would promise that somebody will call me up from their technical team. So far I’ve got only 1 call.
Finally, I warned them that if they do not get back to me as they promise, I would file a consumer complaint in court. They apologized and promised me again that this time they would get back to me. As usual, they have not.
Finally I’ve asked help from VakilSearch. I sincerely think that if I do not take this matter up, not only I’d let myself down, but also I’d let down thousands of other customers in this nation. It is not just about money and the quality of service. I have not been given the due respect as a customer. I feel that I must fight for my respect and respect of thousands of other customers.