is the world flat…

i have been reading “the world is flat” by Thomas Friedman. The author talks about how the world has changed from columbus times when he thought world is round to his time when he concluded that the world is flat.

He divides world into three great eras of globalization. Initially the world was big and people or kingdoms or societies knew only a part of it or did not know how big is the world. According to them the world was very big , so big that they did not know most of the thing about it.

The first era began with (1492 – 1800) when Columbus found that world is round and it opened trade between new world and old world. The world became of medium size. Countries and government defined the world. Energy was most precious thing , be it manpower, horsepower, steam power etc. Whoever has most was the king.

Next was Globalization 2.0 (1800 – 2000) – The world shrank from medium to small size. Instead of countries The Companies took the centerstage and they defined the world. This era saw East India company taking over India. Industries and hardware were the most important things and they defined the world. It started with falling goods movement cost due to better roads and rail roads and ended with falling information movement costs due to better optical fibre network which laid the foundation of next era.

Globalization 3 (2000 onward) further shrank the world from small to tiny. Here individuals were at centerstage and they defined the world. Softwares were the most important things. And they allowed individuals to collaborate in such a way that they had equal resources and opportunities available to them and everybody had equal chance to succeed. In rest of the book he goes on to describe how it became possible.

He lists 10 forces that flattened the world – which basically revovles around advancement in softwares, software as a tool to helping in workflow, open source movement, standards, outsourcing, offshoring, Y2K, google and finally mobiles. He envisions a world where mobile will be your second identity and will be a the closest bridge between individual and technology. But is it still a level playing field for entrepreneurs who are eyeing mobile software development. I came across a blog post which discusses the issues around mobile development. This is a interesting read. Some are seeing the problem whereas others are seeing it as possible opportunity.

google sky…

as if google earth was not enough google has released google sky. Now you can not only look down from sky but also look up to sky. Urban dwellars are almost forgetting Sky and it will bring stars closer to computers if not life.

people are divided on its utility. They say it is good for students and general public and bad for astronomers who has access to better tools. Google will still be credited with bringing it to general masses if not for the elite. It continues to surprise as to the range of applications it is touching. We can hope to see google sea next in the series. Lesser mortals would be more happier if only it updates bangalore imagery on google earth. Lot has changed since bangalore found place on google earth.

some of the other places to get similar functionality stellarium, celestia and skyscout

read about it here in google earth blog. to know more details and features read it here. and why some dont like it.

San Jose Semaphore @adobe…

in computer science semaphores are constructs which are used to protect access to shared resources. Few centuries back Semaphores had a very different meaning. They were knows as optical telegraphs and were used to trasfer information by means of visual signals. Think of it as a series of relay towers each within visible range and operators conveying information using visual signals such as flags , mechanical arms with different position representing different things.Early messages would pass through 15 stations in 9 minutes, and speed varied with weather, and obviously it all would happen only from dawn to dusk. It was all before electric telegraphs which when introduces had to face resistance from it on the ground that any one can break the system by cutting the wire. Optical method regained its ground with the introduction of optical fibres which are backbone of todays communication infrastructure.

last year adobe has installed a semaphore atop its Almaden Tower which transmits a coded message.From SanJoseSemaphore – “When the Semaphore was launched on August 7, 2006, the challenge of decoding of its message was put to the public.  On August 14, 2007, the solution was announced, and the winning code-breaking team of Mark Snesrud and Bob Mayo was honored for being the first (and only) team to break the code. The solution:  For the past year, the San Jose semaphore has been broadcasting the full text of Thomas Pynchon’s 1966 novel, The Crying of Lot 49.”

read the complete analysis of the solution here, and how much pain the winning team took to crack it here. and here are other projects of the artist who created the semaphore.

adobe captivate in news and some resources …

an interview about Adobe Captivate 3. watch the video -

watch the demo created in Adobe Captivate explaining how to use Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver CS3. This extension is about offline blogging client. How easy it is to convert existing projects to AIR application !

collection of online tutorials to learn Adobe Captivate 2. Much of this is still valid for latest version so still very useful.

learn about new features of Adobe Captivate 3 here. This blog is updated weekly and great place to know about Adobe Captivate and some other applications like RoboHelp etc.

adobe Captivate exchange where few games created using adobe captivate has been uploaded recently. 

funpiper.com – express about your weekend…

after a whole lot of social networking sites which are center piece of web 2.0 phenomenon , here comes a dedicated place where you can discuss what you did on weekends and more what you plan to do on weekends. Weekends as they say too in their blog accounts for 29% of our life. So they are as important as anything else.

Here are the reasons I could think one would use this site for -

• first site where one could discuss about what to do on weekends. It might not become a global phenomenon but great place to find local information about the options available for weekends. Which means a very targeted place to find information and to advertise.
• there are dedicated travel websites but for weekends , no one writes there. The hotel sites normally offer booking for hotels only and they are not updated regulary. It would bring uptodate information.
• people are already blogging about what they did on weekends but we have to depend on mercy of search engines to give us the information. There is no common place. It fills that gap.
• if I am the one which own a resort or offer any such activity for weekends , this would be a great place to advertise considering the low budget I have for this and the audience I would find for my money.
• find answer to what I should do this weekend if there are enough ideas on this site.Right now there does not seems to be much participation but could become very useful if it catches up.

apple iPod in education

iPod is a great success story. It has changed the way people listened to music, specially in the times of internet where everything was supposedly free. It almost saved the music industry.

there are many other ways a iPod is used. One of them is in training and e learning (or m learning / iLearning..). Seeing the popularity of it among students it was not a bad idea to position it as a learning tool. See the apple education site and how iPod and related products fit into this category.

steve jobs – real and fake

ever since I read iCon which is unauthorised biography of steve jobs I was interested in what apple is doing, and what are the founders doing- the two steve – steve jobs and steve wozniak.

while steve jobs has always been in limelight, steve wozniak was living comparatively quite life. Recently one of house Woz lived in was remodelled and up for sale here . Steve jobs life is eventful with initial success, then struggles(ousted from apple, NEXT and initial pixar days) and then more spectacular successes(pixar, apple turnaround, iMac, iPod and probably iPhone). He has left his mark in personal computers, movies, music and now phone.

in the process of trying to know more of steve jobs I came across one of the blogs which was fake steve blog – http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ – which I added to my google reader and it has been since there. The blogger got into persona of steve jobs and described world as would have been seen by real Steve jobs himself. I used to follow it quite a bit and Yesterday there were some news artices disclosing the identity of the blogger behind it who turned out to be forbes editor.  In the news article here it was “Daniel Lyons. He invented the friggin’ Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Have you heard of it? Anyhoo, for the past 14 months “Fake Steve”, or FSJ, has been writing a fake blog that last month attracted 700,000 visitors including RSJ – Real Steve Jobs – and The Beastmaster himself, Bill Gates“.

and interview with the blogger – not sure whether this is real or fake .