Android – Meet the new kid on the block!
Google had captured the headlines once again when it announced its plans for Android, the new operating system for mobile phones. The company has already carved a niche for itself by doing things the "Google" way. The dominance of Google in the search engine fraternity is quite well pronounced and Google apps have already hit the internet by a storm. Probably, an unexplored avenue, Andriod is Google's answer to the next generation of mobile computing.
The core of Andriod comprises of an operating system, key applications, add-ons and plugins as well as middleware. So it basically forms a complete software stack for mobile devices. It is build upon the open Linux Kernel and adds a custom virtual machine to it, that facilitates optimization of hardware and memory resources. This additionally makes Android an "open" development framework in its true sense. The direct advantage that Android promises is extensibility, and the architecture can be extended to accomodate any future technologies as they continue to emerge.
Google Map API
A great website with superior content goes a long way to getting your business recognized. But if you want to convert that customer contact into a sale, some businesses require a customer to find the brick and mortar place of business. Other customers need to know where to bring items for repair, and others just ...
Attention Economy
The internet has transformed into a superfluous repository of information in the present era. Consequently, this information overload is causing a deficit or a scarcity of attention. Now if you are not quite familiar with the usage of the word “attention” in the context of this discussion, it simply refers to consumption of information.
Herbert Simon has quite elegantly pointed out that, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Thus, a need arises out of obvious causes to mine and efficiently allocate this information to its intended audience.
Attention and Economy may be two diverse terms but in the modern times is naturally amalgamating, with one becoming highly interdependent on the other. Let us consider an example to show you exactly how attention affects economy.
Should Google Earth be censored?
Should Google earth be censored? This question has been going around for quite a few years and now after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month, a petition has been submitted in the country’s high court by legal advocates to blur sensitive areas such as Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Google Earth.
According to the TIMES report, the petition says that Google Earth “aids terrorists in plotting attacks” and offers “absolutely no control to prevent misuse or limit access” of the services. Investigation to Mumbai terror attacks and interrogation of the only live terrorist reveal that the terrorists used GPS and other high tech tools to plot, execute and then monitor the attacks with ease.
This is not the first time when Google Earth has been asked to blur the satellite images of the sensitive areas. In 2005, Australian officials asked to remove the pictures of their only nuclear reactor Lucas Heights from Google Earth. In 2006, Bahrain officials barred Google Earth, and China too banned websites that sold unapproved images. Some countries like Holland have gone into an agreement to block or censor the sensitive areas especially their military bases. Some countries have even concealed their sensitive military bases by putting them underground. According to a USA Today report, some countries like India can detect when a satellite passes overhead and conduct sensitive military activities accordingly so that the satellites do not capture the images of these activities. Even in USA, google mappers and google street view photographers were banned from accessing Pentagon and other military bases.
Websites as Web Services
As we step forward into the next generation of computing, the internet is experiencing a major revolution in its domain. The web is slowly morphing from a Web 2.0 to a whole new Web 3.0. However, web 3.0 has still, a long way to go before it can be implemented for real.
“So what is the big deal?”
Web 2.0 had revolutionized the way in which websites present their content to users. Structured layouts, the use of layers in presenting information, the buzzwords that replaced flashy banners, sleazy elements, pop up(s) and so on. The message was loud and clear: if you wanted to increase your website traffic and do business, your design had to be “user friendly”.
Today, Web2.0 has achieved whatever it had set out to achieve. The user now see terabytes of information, laid out on a palate in a precise, structured and presentable manner. Well today, more or less this is what your perspective of the internet is. However, what does this information convey to its machine counterparts?
CLOUD COMPUTING: The Next Big Thing
Cloud computing or computing in the cloud is now one of the latest happening trends in the business world and the “next big thing” after Web 2.0. According to a 2008 paper published by IEEE Internet Computing "Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc." In other words, we can say that this is about increasing an organization’s or user’s capability by using different applications from some external servers without investing much on its own infrastructure and maintenance of local servers. Rather the organization/user pays for raw computing power. Here the word “cloud” is used as a metaphor for internet.
The basic architecture of this cloud computing is a massive network of interconnected servers where the web applications reside. The user accessing these applications need not be aware of the physical location of the application’s computer. This not only reduces the cost of installing licensed software at the end user’s computer but also saves the cost associated with deploying, maintaining and upgrading of different business technologies.
Intro to Umbraco
With a plethora of Content Management Systems available today, it becomes very difficult to choose form one of them. As a matter of fact, the CMS that you would choose would also depend on the architecture or the platform where you would deploy your project. Having discussed on the Joomla CMS which is based on PHP and MySql, it is now time to review the Umbraco CMS that is based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET technology. Well, this one is for the .NET fans. The entire source of the CMS has been written in C# and is available for the developers to download and modify for free. Yes, Umbraco is open source.
You do not require beforehand knowledge of Microsoft’s .NET framework or C# in particular, to get started with the Umbraco CMS. All you would need is Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) server, where you would host and deploy your website.
