Surface and Air

Are the days of the mouse in desktop computing over? Maybe not, but these probably are the last years of the mice. The introduction of Surface Computing by Microsoft (the talk started last year – this year we are seeing some real hardware and applications “surfacing”) and Macbook Air by Apple is pointing towards the trend of gesture based computing interfaces.

Gestures, in this context; are the swishes and twirls of your fingers on the interfacing surface that now correspond to intuitive actions on the computer. For example you can rotate a picture by using your index finger and thumb on the screen of a computer or the trackpad, or flip to the next page in a document by doing the exact same action if your computer were a book. Enlarging a photograph would be similar to holding two ends and stretching them.

 

What makes gestures possible in human-computer interfaces are multi-touch screens and touchpads. Multi-touch interfaces register multiple contacts at the same time, allowing you to do special gestures using two or more fingers.

The approach Apple and Microsoft are taking, not surprisingly, are different. Microsoft seems to be going after the Enterprise Market (its new love) while Apple has continued to keep focus on the personal computing market.

 

The Microsoft Surface Computing Platform is aimed at intuitive applications for a variety of industries like gaming, food and hospitality etc. The Surface can represent a roulette table in a casino without using real betting chips, or a dinner table that displays the menu card and you can order by selecting your choices. The applications for this technology obviously are many, and Microsoft is excited.

Apple on the other hand is perhaps taking a smarter approach. It has packed the gyroscope, multi-touch screen and all the good stuff into the smaller form-factor iPhone which was meant for early adapters (surprisingly many for iPhone) while it has kept MacBook Air as an intermediate between a full-blown multi-touch screen and a gesture based experience (its multi-touch touchpad).

Whatever be the case gesture based computing is here to stay, what is beyond the multi-touch user interfaces can be Wii like gestures in the air. But we will have to wait for that.

 

Here’s a video of Jeff Han who has been pivotal in introducing multi-touch …

Sub-prime of SecondLife

In the very near future, you may live in a virtual country, follow a virtual religion, study in a virtual college and take a job with a virtual company. Well, you will be paid virtual dollars as well. The interesting part is the virtual dollars can be converted to real world dollars (with a conversion rate).

I am sure many of you have heard of SecondLife but only a few (of my generation) may know what a thriving economy it is. To put yourself in perspective you may want to read about Ginko Financial the virtual bank that got dissolved or the SecondLife Millionaires.

I am no fan of online virtual worlds ( I am scared that I will get sucked in) but the economics of it make it a viable investment strategy, it may not be a bad idea (sometime in the near future) to have a mix of virtual world companies in your portfolio.

For now I am looking for some mortgage securitization experts who can help me create some mortage-backed securities of mortgages in SecondLife that can be sold to some real world investors. Mr. Pandit will you be interested?

Some of you may find the below video helpful, a quick primer on subprime:

Why I bought a Honda Civic Hybrid instead of a Toyota Prius

I did it! Finally! After months of mulling to buy a second car, I took the dive – the main reason being my wife getting a job and one car no longer enough. Of course I had hybrids in mind. Prius obviously was the more popular one – but I researched the Civic Hybrid intensely as well. Others in the race were BMW (a pre-owned one) and the Sonata. What a wide variety!!

BMW the gas guzzler was out soon, I rented a Sonata and soon realized that I certainly did not love the wobbly feeling.

That left me with the Prius and Civic Hybrid. I got geared up to buy one of these and spend $50 with FightingChance and got some useful details to get the best price. For those who haven’t heard of Fighting Chance, try them when you are buying a new car – the guy provides some excellent information that helps you strike a good deal.

The Prius was amazing but still a little too wobbly to drive, also the safety ratings aren’t as good as the Civic Hybrid. The Civic is a pleasure to drive although it is just the second best engineered hybrid (the Prius can run completely on electricity because of its special engineering). Also the demand for Prius makes it much more expensive (the premium above the already high MSRP price).

In the end when I bought a Civic Hybrid – I got a normal looking fantastic car (not conspicuous as Prius) at a bargain price because the Honda Dealers want to sell their hybrid more (I got it $50 below invoice price!). I feel safer in a Honda and it drives just superb! Also I saved at least $3500 compared to a equally equipped Prius. Not to mention the 0% Sales Tax (applies to all hybrids in CT) and $2000 Income Tax rebate!!

- A Happy Honda owner (my other car is an equally fantastic Honda CR-V)

Your personal computing farm

In the coming year(s) server virtualization, utility computing, GRID and other computing power consolidation technologies will be discussed and debated. Also, there will be substantial investments made by enterprises in these technologies. The business value proposed is increased utilization, significant reduction of hardware costs, dynamic load balancing between applications and the like.

Vendors like Cassatt, VMware, Platform etc. are providing innovative ways to consolidate and dice available computing power, in the end we can start looking at enterprise computing power as play dough that can be shaped per our requirements.

But, what happens to the 3 notebooks and a PC I have at home, or the several notebooks floating around in an airport? I wish there is an easy way to bring together personal computing power and bring similar benefits to our personal lives as promised to enterprise data-centers. For example, I wish I can aggregate or divide the computing power packed in my 3 notebooks and the PC in an uncomplicated way.

The breakthrough (if at all), I believe will have to come from the hardware vendors ( the Dells, Apples and the Acers of the world) by creating modular notebooks and personal hardware that will help bring computing power easily together in mini personal data-centers.

Imagine, when you reach back home from work – you take the CPU module off your laptop and plug it into your mini data-center, thus making additional computing power available to the Apple Mac that your spouse is using and the Sony Playstation your son is running a game on.

Are we there yet? What can be the challenges? Will Apple innovate or is this Dells sweet spot? Let me know your thoughts and comments.