Will Sci Fi inspire the next generation?

When I was growing up I became interested in computers and tech in general for two main reasons, computer games on the Intellivision and C64 and secondly, Science Fiction TV, shows such as Star Trek The Next Generation and then DS9 and Voyager. Along with Babylon 5, Space Above and Beyond I cut my teeth on Sci Fi. These shows made me want to know more about space, computers and technology in general.

But what is there for the next generation of young people, what will be their impetus to want to explore technology and the greater universe? We have had some wonderful shows such as Battlestar Gallactica, but after 4 seasons that has come to an end, and although Caprica is just around the corner, it is unlikely to have the same 'space' content.

Recently the Sci Fi Channel in the US changed it's name to SyFy to reflect its move away from shows related just to Science Fiction.

Looking back at the majority of Space based shows, Space is controlled the Military or a galactic style Government with a strong Military presence. This unfortunately, disappoints me as I would love to be able travel in space, but I'm not willing to join a military service for the privilege.

So what will inspire the next generation to push forward?

Scales of Blog

Within the blogging universe, the scale of blogging is getting smaller and smaller as time progresses.

For centeries we have had Autobiographies, I like to think of these as Mega-blogging.

We have run of the mill Blogs hosted by a number of companies including Blogger. The proliferation of Blogs has brought about a number of blog search engines including Technorati and Google Blog Search.

Micro-blogging allows people to send brief messages and updates such as Facebook.

Nano-blogging allows even briefer updates with Twitter only allowing 150 characters per post.

I haven't seen one yet, but correct me if I am wrong. I want to see Pico-blogging. On my Pico-blogging there will be no words, just emoticons (somewhat different than Decepticons). By selecting the Emoticon that best matches your mood, you can update all your friends and family on how you feel at any given time.

I can see the iPhone App, with pages of emoticons with perhaps your most common 16 emotions easily accessible.

I would also like to see Mood Rings make a comeback, but this time with wifi that automatically updates your emoticon status throughout that day.

The someone can develop an emoticon search so you can search for all people who happen to 'Somewhat happy but with a hint of trepidation'. We could move this into research and find out which cities or countries have the happiest, sadest or loneliest people.

Who knows, Google or Microsoft might buy you out for a couple of billion for this : )

Will Microsoft Word need to change?

On Tuesday, Canadian Company i4i, won a permanent injunction against Microsoft Word 2007. The trial lawyers McKool Smith said in their statement: “Today's permanent injunction prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML”.

The injunction means Microsoft has 60 days to comply, but will Microsoft really stop selling Word in the US? You would be crazy to think so. What this story helps highlight, are the many problems with the US Patent Law and in how lawsuits can be brought about by plaintiffs.

I4i is a Toronto based company, Microsoft is based in Redmond, Washington, yet the lawsuit was filed and the trial took place in Texas. Why? Well the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has been ‘friendly’ to patent suits in the pasts, specifically suits of a software nature.

This patent is about ‘Custom XML’. For those who do not know, XML (Extensible Markup Language) is open standard language used by a large number of applications to store data electronically including Microsoft Office, Open Office and many more. Through the use of XML and by defining an XML Schema, a company can use XML to define data in any way they wish.

Then what’s ‘Custom XML’? Well you wouldn’t be alone in thinking all XML is custom because it is up to the developers to define it anyway they wish. Microsoft however also provides a feature within the ‘Developers’ section of Word, to add your own ‘Custom XML’ allowing developers to extend the functionality of Word even further.

Although the statements do not specifically define ‘custom XML’ I believe it is this developer ability allowing end users to add their own XML to Word that is the area in question. Like most complex software, end-users only has about 10-15% of the features available. This feature is one of those use by a small percentage of the Word 2007 user base and as such could easily be removed via a patch. But for some advanced users and especially business who use Microsoft products extensively throughout their organisation, this feature can help a companies efficiency by ensuring their data is correctly defined and available from within all Microsoft Apps.

So where to from here? In a recent interview with Buzz Out Loud, the Chairman of i4i stated that they haven’t even looked at the other products using XML such as Open Office which immediate cues up a line from Jerry Mcguire. Microsoft is likely to appeal, and will appeal in a court ‘friendlier’ to them and if the ruling stands, will likely need to enter into a licensing agreement with i4i around this feature.

Google Caffeine - When should the tweaking stop?

Google Caffeine has recently been made available to the public as a new Beta search engine. Based on experience, that means it will stay in beta for about 4 years.

After experimenting with the new search engine, one (being me) begins to question if the tweaking being performed by Google is really worth the effort? Performing side by side searches of the existing Google and the new Caffeine, resulted in extremely similar search results on the initial page, but a number of different results on subsequent pages.

My search for ‘Plane Crash Kokoda’ resulted in about 16,000 results in 0.16 seconds in Caffeine, and 12,000 results in 0.17 seconds in Google. Scanning through the results, both should News results but the headings were different with Caffeine showing results from 5 hours ago instead of 11 hours ago for Google.

As for websites listed, 9 of the first 10 results were the same however entry 5 in Google was entry 8 in Caffeine. What was interesting in the results from this search was the second page. Google returned entries mostly hosted by news sites, while Caffeine showed more results about Kokoda itself. Obviously, there have been some changes to the algorithms being employed at the two sites, but are the change worth it?

People who make their money from SEO will obviously be taking a keen look at the modified search engine, hoping and praying they retain or improve their position in the result set. But as an end user is my experience or my desire for information going to be sated by the new engine? With so much information, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Leading on from this, with such market dominance, is Google actually good for knowledge? I was recently involved in a discussion about the future of technology including looking at some of the negative side effects of technology. One high on the list was ‘Googlisation’, where everyone is seeing the same results and looking at the same set of web pages, irrespective of how beneficial the result were themselves. There was also discussion around the amount of time spent on the web which lead to ‘Google Guts’ but that’s for another time.

With only a few main players in the search space the results may not be the best, but until something comes along that can guarantee ‘quality’ results, we are left at the mercy of those who will ‘Do no evil’.