One device too many

Have you noticed the number of electronic devices you have? Digital music player (One, or more depending on how many iPod’s you bought!), a digital camera, a mobile phone, USB based data storage device (again multiple depending on how many you bought along with your various other purchases) are the minimum you will find cluttered around. And there are those other semi-portable devices like your laptop, analog television, digital television, and the good old desktop, all of which, theoretically, are easy to move.

Not forgetting the seperate power cords, head phones, USB cables, carry cases and so on that came along with each one of these devices and other stuff that we bought for them like those CD’s, DVD’s, Floppies etc. it is no wonder there are times when you wonder if you really need all of them?

How i wish i had one single device, that would enable me to do all i want to, with out having to carry around all the stuff, that i presently have to. This being the holiday shopping season, i scoured the aisles for a device that is truly multi-functional as well as mobile, but could not find anything.

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Will there ever be a succesful e-Book Reader?

Amazon is debuting a new e-book display device branded kindle on Monday. (Though there are lot of web links on this, the one on Newsweek is in-depth.)  e-book readers are available for a long time now, both as software or as a hardware, Sony’s device being the latest to have some traction. Not too many of them have been succesful.

What would be the differentiating factor for a really succesful book reading device? i-podization is the answer.  Even though there were digital music players before ipod, why was it such a success? I think there are two significant answers. The Social statement that a buyer made, and the utility of the device itself.

It was an elegant device that looked cool to be seen using. But even a great design would still be not so succesful if not for the utility part of it. An ipod could play all the digital music a user already had and it also facilitated buying new music at very low prices. Most of the music publishers agreed to be on iTunes which catered to the tastes of every one.

In that sense, kindle would be a success, if most of the publishers are on board with it. Also, it should allow reading pdf format files since this is the defacto format of most existing e-books. As an end user i also should have the option of connecting it to my laptop or computer and copy existing e-books which implies it should have USB connectivity. Wi-fi connectivity is not equally important, since users already have an existing mode of connectivity to the internet from where they can connect to the Internet.

On the design side of the equation, form factor is extremely important. A typical book reader may read in any of the following places. Toilet (Don’t snigger, the number of people who read sitting in the toilet is very high. Just dont ask them what they read. Every one to their taste!), Dining table, Standing / sitting during public transportation commute and bed. So the reader has to be small enough to be easily handled. It also has to be light weight since it will be carried around and it has to be atleast water resistant. The other factor that would be important is the  readability of the screen. It should be able to display regular books as well as comics and screen visibility in open air should be quite good. One final thing would be the ease with which i can move around the book. If i have a design equivalent of an ipod scroll wheel, i would say it is perfect.

Will the kindle be all this? I am interested to see.

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The law of unintended consequences…

This article was published by the newyork times today .

A classic case of the law of unintended consequences playing its part. World is complex and all most all modern systems are entangled in a web of diverse parts pulling in different directions. The underlying assumption that is expected to make the system work with out a hitch is the invisible hand of market where each player is solely interested in their own betterment.

It is virtually impossible to think of all the various possibilities when ever a new action is taken by a business or a new idea is investigated by a professional. In this case, when the securitization of all those home mortgages was being done, evidently the implications on the legality of foreclosures was not studied enough. When the court applied its mind to the issue, it found that when a security is converted into a CDO, transfer of mortgage ownership rights was not legal. If this ruling is held valid, then there will be a huge number of borrowers who will be able to challenge the foreclosures of their homes. The result may be a further depression of the already, down in the dumps, mortgage security market. There may be immediate calls for a legal remedy, but a retrospectively effective law will only be a partisan way of handling the issue.

Every organization has huge risk management apparatus and one of the first things any risk assessor will learn is that total risk elimination is never really possible, not with the financial constraints that exist for any organization. So the next best way is to manage risk so that it is minimized and accept the residual risk. Usually organizations handle residual risk through insurance.

However as with most boom periods, during housing market boom, risk assessment took a lower priority compared to the returns expected from the business. We have all seen the result.

The point here is, such an unintended consequence, should only set a higher bar for analysis of future financial product ideas, not as a red-herring to ban them, nor should another law be made to cover this eventuality as an after thought.

The very nature of the system is chaotic and such unintended consequences do occur. These are the very set of eventualities that will balance the system by weeding out the week and unhealthy. Ultimately society as a whole will benefit.

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Death of Email?

Slate is running an article titled death of e-mail. This is a rambling piece of disorganized thought that deserved a place in the rejected bin. While the initial paragraphs describe the premise as imminent, later the author takes a complete U-turn to reject it. Even after i re-read it, (which i did solely for the purpose of this blog comment, me being interested in the effect of technology on society), i could not fathom author’s arguments.

A cardinal mistake any observer should avoid is, to make a long term prediction based on the acceptance or usage pattern of a new technology or service by early adopters. Check out this article on diffusion of innovation. The other relevant element in broad acceptance of a new technology is mentioned in this article.

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Android – Google approach to mobility

 Google has come up with a new OS for mobile phones. This is exciting news.

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Speciality cuisine, with Soda!

Have you ever tried cuisine of different geographies? It is one of the best ways to experience new cultures. My only grievance about most of the restaurants, that serve cuisine specific to a particular part of the world, is that they tend to, a) Cosmopolitanise speciality cuisine, b) Do not make an effort to educate patrons on the cuisine itself.

I have tried mexican, cuban, italian, greek, persian, afghani, moghlai, south indian, chinese, bhutanese, thai, and ethiopian cuisine till date and i find the same tendency among all restaurants. A very simple example. Invariably one of the options to drink is soda! Don’t any of these cuisine have their own variety in drinks?

It is very rare, for cuisine specific drinks to be even offered, as a part of the menu.

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American Gangster: Trite

They say real life inspires drama. American Gangster too claims to be fiction inspired by fact. The problem with the movie lies in the process of dramatization. It seems like the script writer and director picked up a book, like this one for instance, and went about making the movie. Which is a surprise since Ridley Scott & Steven Zaillian are pro’s. People, who would author the book earlier mentioned, rather than use it to make movies.

The movie faithfully follows all the conventions of Gangster movies, most inspired by the greatest of all such movies, The Godfather & ofcourse GodFather Part II . A silent protagonist given to sudden outbursts of temper, family life around thanksgiving get-together ‘s, youngsters in the family following the tradition and corrupt police officers. We have seen all that earlier, even the parallel sequences in the climax.

The only truly unique sequence i found, is the one where Denzil Washington asks Russel Crowe about the million he could have kept but did not.

There is a quality of earnestness that shows through, in the production values and performances. But, there is no fresh perspective that is brought out. That is the problem with the movie, there isn’t any thing new which would give it its own soul.

Trite is the word that springs to mind.

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Net Neutrality is non-negotiable

The debate on net neutrality is intermittent at best. This is surprising, because there is no conclusive regulation on this extremely important aspect of our lives. There are many talking points used by interested parties debating Net Neutrality. Freedom of expression, and Intellectual property, are discussed often. Though both these are important in the context of internet, they are not of the greatest relevance, in the debate of net neutrality.

The Internet has been revolutionary in more ways than one, and the rate of innovation on the internet has been nothing short of spectacular. In the span of a decade, internet has moved from being predominantly a text based medium to being a audio-visual medium. Whole industry categories are re-defined (think music, newspapers, television, movies, insurance (remember term life policy costs before the internet?) etc.) thanks to the innovations created in this medium.

Are the end users / consumers benefiting from these innovations? Undoubtedly. Why were all these innovations possible? Only because the internet does not discriminate between a startup, small business or a large business. Who ever has an innovative product or service, is highly customer centric and competitive in pricing wins. The Internet has created an all new distribution channel that no single business / firm / organization owns, there by ensuring competition. This is possible only because you as the end user can log on to the internet and choose which website you want to visit. The ISP / telco doesn’t have any say in this.  You can choose where you want to compare shop and where you want to spend your money.

But imagine an Internet where, your ISP chooses which sites are accessible to you, after you pay for internet connectivity. With their efforts at promoting a tiered internet, Telco’s are essentially trying to do that. Considerations like Intellectual property are used to promote their argument for a tiered internet.

How do the Telco’s make their money currently? At present, Telco’s will charge content providers (basically any one with an internet presence), for providing connectivity to the internet. Along with the content providers, Telco’s also charge the content consumers for connectivity to the internet. In both these cases, costs are based on the capacity of the internet links consumed. Not on the kind of traffic that is used to populate this capacity.

Telco’s already differentiate internet access product offerings based on the content a consumer wants to access. However it is upto the consumer to determine the kind of a product they want. So if you are a bandwidth hog, you will have to pay more to enjoy greater bandwidth.

With any form of tiered internet, telco’s will have huge leverage over both content providers as well as content consumers. How will the Telco’s leverage this power? in many ways. They can create differentiated product offerings for text based internet, voice based internet and video based internet for you as the consumer as well as the content producer. There could be different charges for accessing sites in different geographies, Time periods etc. To put it in a nut shell, Telco’s will have enormous differentiated pricing power not only with respect to the content providers but also with respect to the content consumers.

One of the most important points made by the Telco’s is with respect to better service that will result. Of all the arguments made, this is the most specious. The moment, fractured pricing, based on yet to be defined set of parameters is brought in, it will lead to service disruptions. You may have heard of this great new service provided by a site. You wont be able to access it because of there can be any number of content regulation agreements between various ISP’s and hosting service providers, that wont allow this site on your computer. In essence Telco’s will start monopolizing the distribution channel and will have power to promote partisan interests.

In summary, tiered internet will lead to, not only more complicated pricing for consumers and content providers, but, also no guarantee’s for the service received by the consumers or to the content providers. Most importantly tiered internet will radically reduce the internet based innovation that has been revolutionizing the world, since Telcos will be an additional and potentially partisan hurdle.

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