Son went to see Wall-E today. Complete waste of time ...
All starts off very nice in a research lab, but soon Microsoft come in and buy him, henceforth known as Wall-XE to support their “A robot in every home” initiative (IBM missed out pronouncing that there will be “only need for one robot in the world”). Then a bunch of other folks create an Open Source version (Wall-FREE) but no-one is around to support it and there ends up 800 versions of it. Google released their own “Wall-G beta” funding it through its new advertising platform Robo-Words (which no-one ever reads of course and so goes down the pan… but despite being perpetually in beta it DOES read your Gmail and integrate with every appliance in your kitchen). It finishes by being released on Bit Torrent and now you just download and install the software to have your own.
Sorry for spoiling it for everyone.
* Please note i haven't seen it - my son is watching it right now... and it looks , really good!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Powerset does, FAST is
I haven't used Powerset much. I have used FAST a lot. I used their API fairly extensively. I could write a book about that (something i have considered - see my "previous life"), but i won't go into all that just now.
What i DID like when i used Powerset was the "factz" (in itself a slightly ironic spelling). You see FAST is all centred around Nouns - people, places, things, authors, books and so on. This works pretty good. (So for example) You search for Steven Livingtone and you get my books, my friends, my bookmarks, my relations and so on - nouns related to me - in facets.
However, what i liked about Powerset what the fact the use verbs in the facts. So again i search for Steven Livingstone (someone has to) and i maybe get "writes", "likes", "bookmarks" and so on - well something to that effect.
Unfortunately i'm not entirely sure how to get these factz appearing (you seem to need to do the search and then select something and even then it isn't always verbs), but i DO like the idea of making a search and combining the doing with the object.
"Steven Livingstone writes MSXML" and so on. One part powerset, one part fast.
I'm still looking into Powerset so things may become more obvious to me.
What i DID like when i used Powerset was the "factz" (in itself a slightly ironic spelling). You see FAST is all centred around Nouns - people, places, things, authors, books and so on. This works pretty good. (So for example) You search for Steven Livingtone and you get my books, my friends, my bookmarks, my relations and so on - nouns related to me - in facets.
However, what i liked about Powerset what the fact the use verbs in the facts. So again i search for Steven Livingstone (someone has to) and i maybe get "writes", "likes", "bookmarks" and so on - well something to that effect.
Unfortunately i'm not entirely sure how to get these factz appearing (you seem to need to do the search and then select something and even then it isn't always verbs), but i DO like the idea of making a search and combining the doing with the object.
"Steven Livingstone writes MSXML" and so on. One part powerset, one part fast.
I'm still looking into Powerset so things may become more obvious to me.
10 startups to watch
I read the list over at Technology Review and here's my take:
pinger.com
Nice idea - great idea in fact. Got an account but the software isn't available outside the US and Canada, but the number is (i would have thought it would have been the reverse!). As I am hopless at numbers and baring in mind when you are ON the mobile phone it's impossible to look up someone's number (you tried it?) - i am going to wait until i can use the software.
I tried their Outlook add-in, but it never seemed to do anything. Needs work.
qik.com
I just keep wandering why it took so long for Comvu to really push their offering.
Ushahidi.com
Another good idea which could be a platform for hyperlocal citizens jourlalism anywhere. Probably needs branded a bit but should be interesting to follow.
reQuall
Anything that helps me remember stuff is good - i like the idea but the interface was a little confusing and when i dialled the number it asked for for a pin- i gave it my mobile and added something but it then said "thanks for the comment for our support team". The UI was also a little confusing but will improve.
33Across
Tells you who is influential in the world. No idea how good it is. No signup i could see or way of registering interest which was slighlty ironic given its remit.
Peer39
I love anything semantic (but i bet it becomes the most overused word after Web 2.0 soon!). Advertising sure needs to get smarter and take in context. I'm not an advertiser so not sure how useful it is, but their list of publications looks a good read!
http://www.peer39.com/publications.html
Could be huge.
Mashery
Now this is interesting. It's not a million miles from something i am looking at just now (maybe a few thousand tho') and managed API's are important for enterprises. I'll be keeping my eye on these guys. Very interesting to see how mashups take a step inside the firewall!!
Great list. The other companies looked great too, but these are the ones that i could play around with and are closer to what i do.
pinger.com
Nice idea - great idea in fact. Got an account but the software isn't available outside the US and Canada, but the number is (i would have thought it would have been the reverse!). As I am hopless at numbers and baring in mind when you are ON the mobile phone it's impossible to look up someone's number (you tried it?) - i am going to wait until i can use the software.
I tried their Outlook add-in, but it never seemed to do anything. Needs work.
qik.com
I just keep wandering why it took so long for Comvu to really push their offering.
Ushahidi.com
Another good idea which could be a platform for hyperlocal citizens jourlalism anywhere. Probably needs branded a bit but should be interesting to follow.
reQuall
Anything that helps me remember stuff is good - i like the idea but the interface was a little confusing and when i dialled the number it asked for for a pin- i gave it my mobile and added something but it then said "thanks for the comment for our support team". The UI was also a little confusing but will improve.
33Across
Tells you who is influential in the world. No idea how good it is. No signup i could see or way of registering interest which was slighlty ironic given its remit.
Peer39
I love anything semantic (but i bet it becomes the most overused word after Web 2.0 soon!). Advertising sure needs to get smarter and take in context. I'm not an advertiser so not sure how useful it is, but their list of publications looks a good read!
http://www.peer39.com/publications.html
Could be huge.
Mashery
Now this is interesting. It's not a million miles from something i am looking at just now (maybe a few thousand tho') and managed API's are important for enterprises. I'll be keeping my eye on these guys. Very interesting to see how mashups take a step inside the firewall!!
Great list. The other companies looked great too, but these are the ones that i could play around with and are closer to what i do.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
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