...targeting coupons, offerings, recommendations within a few blocks of a user’s location...the rage is upon us...
One-third of all Google mobile searches is driven by “local intent” – the searches pertain to some aspect of the mobile user’s local environment or location. As mobile devices with geolocation capability continue to penetrate the consumer market, hyperlocal advertising is gaining momentum and increasing its share of the total ad revenue pie.
Google Mobile Ads introduced new hyperlocal advertising in late 2010. The feature called hyperlocal distance only charges advertisers when users click to visit the website or on the phone number shown in the ad.
uLocate Communications reinvented its mobile ad network, now called Where Ads, with a focus on hyper local ads resulting in dramatic increases in click-through rates and permitting ads to be sold at higher prices.
Facebook acquired (Jan 25, 2011) 8-month old stealth startup “Rel8tion” to boost hyperlocal mobile advertising for its 200M+ mobile users and help monetize its “Deals” geo-location service.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Google Android Road Map 2011
...In-app payment system, carrier billing, better Market app discovery, playing better at being social...aren't we all???
To be better able to compete with Apple, Google will introduce an in-app payment system so consumers can make purchases within an app, in addition to paying for the apps themselves most likely an expansion of Google Checkout.
In December 2010, Google introduced carrier billing with AT&T, so consumers could directly charge apps to their phone bill giving them another convenient way to pay. Google will expand this to other carriers around the world.
To facilitate app discovery in the Market, Google will continue to tune their Market ranking algorithm and use humans to weed out apps that do not meet their terms.
To better play in the mobile-social market, developers can access the Android address book which aggregates contact information from multiple sources. Google also acquired (Jan 27 2010) Fflick, a company with a sentiment analysis engine for making social video recommendations to users based on Twitter tweets and Facebook connections.
...from Chu's talk at Inside Social Apps
To be better able to compete with Apple, Google will introduce an in-app payment system so consumers can make purchases within an app, in addition to paying for the apps themselves most likely an expansion of Google Checkout.
In December 2010, Google introduced carrier billing with AT&T, so consumers could directly charge apps to their phone bill giving them another convenient way to pay. Google will expand this to other carriers around the world.
To facilitate app discovery in the Market, Google will continue to tune their Market ranking algorithm and use humans to weed out apps that do not meet their terms.
To better play in the mobile-social market, developers can access the Android address book which aggregates contact information from multiple sources. Google also acquired (Jan 27 2010) Fflick, a company with a sentiment analysis engine for making social video recommendations to users based on Twitter tweets and Facebook connections.
...from Chu's talk at Inside Social Apps
Monday, December 13, 2010
Cloud Security - SAP Labs
Yuecel Karabulut, with the awesome title of Chief Security Advisor and Head of Security Strategy, Central Technology Strategy, Office of the CTO at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, believes rigorous metrics and innovative uses of encryption are key to cloud security.
In the area of metrics, Karabulut, a former adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), advocated that software vendors supplement other security measures with a formal approach to the measurement of application attack surfaces. Reducing attack surfaces is even more important in cloud computing because of the rapidly evolving nature of the technology. Cloud security architectures, Karabulut argued, must be based on the assumption of constant change: “As new threats emerge, code considered secure today may not be secure tomorrow.”
Karabulut explained a method for measuring attack surfaces that he developed with other researchers at CMU. The method involves summing the damage potential-effort ratios (DER) of relevant resources. The relevant resources of an application include its channels, such as TCP ports; methods, such as API calls; and data, whether persistent, in memory, or in transit. The DER of a resource is the ratio of potential damage to the effort required to breach the resource.
Karabulut demonstrated a tool for calculating attack surfaces that he and colleagues at SAP developed as an extension to Eclipse, a popular open-source integrated development environment. The tool discovers application resources and combines that data with DER numbers to generate attack surface metrics for software components. While the discovery of resources is fully automated, the tool requires context specific configuration based on experience, judgment, and a threat modeling process. Karabulut believes the success of the tool, now in pilot at SAP, depends mostly on usability and the appropriate definition of usage scenarios.
Also important to cloud security, Karabulut argued, is the application of encryption to reduce the trust required for customers to adopt cloud computing. Karabulut pointed out that cloud vendors are now telling customers to trust them, forcing customers to either make that leap of faith or forego cloud computing. Arguing that encryption can overcome this impasse, he presented a scalable approach for encrypting data in the cloud. Combining attribute-based encryption (ABE) and symmetric cryptography, the model calls for a Message Warehousing Service (MWS) that securely makes content available to users whose exact identities are unknown to the content creator but who meet the requirements set forth by attributes attached to the content.
In this model, the cloud vendor has access only to metadata, not the encrypted content. The approach is scalable because it does not require specialized software on user devices, reduces loads on processors, and frees users from knowing the identities, and thus public keys, of those who require access, which is important in the dynamic world of cloud computing. Ultimately, this method gives users greater control over who is allowed to see their data. While the MWS approach is still under development, Karabulut said, it a good example of how encryption can solve the problem of cloud security by enabling the collaborative and message exchange scenarios necessary for the delivery of software as a service.
In the area of metrics, Karabulut, a former adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), advocated that software vendors supplement other security measures with a formal approach to the measurement of application attack surfaces. Reducing attack surfaces is even more important in cloud computing because of the rapidly evolving nature of the technology. Cloud security architectures, Karabulut argued, must be based on the assumption of constant change: “As new threats emerge, code considered secure today may not be secure tomorrow.”
Karabulut explained a method for measuring attack surfaces that he developed with other researchers at CMU. The method involves summing the damage potential-effort ratios (DER) of relevant resources. The relevant resources of an application include its channels, such as TCP ports; methods, such as API calls; and data, whether persistent, in memory, or in transit. The DER of a resource is the ratio of potential damage to the effort required to breach the resource.
Karabulut demonstrated a tool for calculating attack surfaces that he and colleagues at SAP developed as an extension to Eclipse, a popular open-source integrated development environment. The tool discovers application resources and combines that data with DER numbers to generate attack surface metrics for software components. While the discovery of resources is fully automated, the tool requires context specific configuration based on experience, judgment, and a threat modeling process. Karabulut believes the success of the tool, now in pilot at SAP, depends mostly on usability and the appropriate definition of usage scenarios.
Also important to cloud security, Karabulut argued, is the application of encryption to reduce the trust required for customers to adopt cloud computing. Karabulut pointed out that cloud vendors are now telling customers to trust them, forcing customers to either make that leap of faith or forego cloud computing. Arguing that encryption can overcome this impasse, he presented a scalable approach for encrypting data in the cloud. Combining attribute-based encryption (ABE) and symmetric cryptography, the model calls for a Message Warehousing Service (MWS) that securely makes content available to users whose exact identities are unknown to the content creator but who meet the requirements set forth by attributes attached to the content.
In this model, the cloud vendor has access only to metadata, not the encrypted content. The approach is scalable because it does not require specialized software on user devices, reduces loads on processors, and frees users from knowing the identities, and thus public keys, of those who require access, which is important in the dynamic world of cloud computing. Ultimately, this method gives users greater control over who is allowed to see their data. While the MWS approach is still under development, Karabulut said, it a good example of how encryption can solve the problem of cloud security by enabling the collaborative and message exchange scenarios necessary for the delivery of software as a service.
Friday, March 27, 2009
WEF Global Info Tech Report 2008-09 -"Network Readiness"
The World Economic Forum has released it's Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009, the eighth study conducted by the WEF in conjunction with the INSEAD business school and sponsored by Cisco Systems. The report gauges how 134 economies around the world are prepared to use ICT effectively.
Part 1 contains essays examining different topics related to mobility and ICT. These include mobile telephony and its imact on economic grouth and networked readiness; Internet ubiquity, mobile reality mining, and mobility of human talent and R&D flow.
It also contains an extensive global survey of "network readiness", which provides a useful snapshot of 134 economies' ICT strategies and achievements.
Part 1 contains essays examining different topics related to mobility and ICT. These include mobile telephony and its imact on economic grouth and networked readiness; Internet ubiquity, mobile reality mining, and mobility of human talent and R&D flow.
It also contains an extensive global survey of "network readiness", which provides a useful snapshot of 134 economies' ICT strategies and achievements.
Skype and Enterprise Markets
Global Insight from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC): March 2009
eBay's access-independent VoIP business, Skype, has announced the latest move to penetrate the enterprise voice market with the beta version of 'Skype for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for Business Users'. The service allows users to make low-cost calls over the global Skype VoIP system and receive calls directly from any of the 405 million Skype users without connecting to the PSTN and therefore at no cost to the customer. Enterprises can also buy numbers in over 20 countries to receive calls from local users at lower costs. The Skype application integrates with existing PBX hardware and facilitates call-handling functionality, such as routing and conferencing, statistics, phone menus and voicemail systems.
Significance: Skype is working to convert its massive user base into paying customers with some success, increasing revenues by 44% over 2008 to US$526 million, although this is notably barely US$1.30 per user. The number of users has in fact grown more quickly, up 47% year-on-year (y/y) to 405.3 million. The enterprise market is a key source of valuable customers who are willing to pay for communications services and make high use of international calls while being price-sensitive. There has been some reticence from enterprises with regards to VoIP, largely over an historical perception of reliability issues as it relies on a non-managed internet connection and peer-to-peer capabilities. However, this move will help Skype to tap into the enterprise marketplace, leveraging legacy equipment and ensuring the maintenance of legacy system capabilities.
eBay's access-independent VoIP business, Skype, has announced the latest move to penetrate the enterprise voice market with the beta version of 'Skype for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for Business Users'. The service allows users to make low-cost calls over the global Skype VoIP system and receive calls directly from any of the 405 million Skype users without connecting to the PSTN and therefore at no cost to the customer. Enterprises can also buy numbers in over 20 countries to receive calls from local users at lower costs. The Skype application integrates with existing PBX hardware and facilitates call-handling functionality, such as routing and conferencing, statistics, phone menus and voicemail systems.
Significance: Skype is working to convert its massive user base into paying customers with some success, increasing revenues by 44% over 2008 to US$526 million, although this is notably barely US$1.30 per user. The number of users has in fact grown more quickly, up 47% year-on-year (y/y) to 405.3 million. The enterprise market is a key source of valuable customers who are willing to pay for communications services and make high use of international calls while being price-sensitive. There has been some reticence from enterprises with regards to VoIP, largely over an historical perception of reliability issues as it relies on a non-managed internet connection and peer-to-peer capabilities. However, this move will help Skype to tap into the enterprise marketplace, leveraging legacy equipment and ensuring the maintenance of legacy system capabilities.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
An Update to 3D TV
From Physics.org:
Researchers at the University of Tokyo and Hitachi recently demonstrated TransCAIP, a three-dimensional (3D) TV system that captures a live scene in real time and reproduces it on an autostereoscopic display. In addition to providing 3D images, TransCAIP offers interactive control, enabling users to adjust viewing parameters such as cropping a scene and reproducing an appropriate amount of depth.
The system captures a live scene using 64 video cameras connected via Ethernet cables to a single PC, which converts input from all the video cameras into images for the display. Each camera has a built-in HTTP server, which sends motion JPEG sequences to the PC. "The greatest advantage of our system is to provide interactive control of the viewing parameters," says University of Tokyo Ph.D. student Yuichi Taguchi. "The interactive control is essential for reproducing a dynamic 3D scene with desirable conditions, which depend on the contents of the scene, the viewer's preference, and the display specifications."
The PC converts the 64 images into an integral photography image made from 60 views, which correspond to the viewing directions of the display. The process, called field conversion, is implemented in real time and requires only a few hundred milliseconds per frame. Like other autostereoscopic displays, TransCAIP does not require viewers to wear special glasses. Instead, the display reproduces various viewpoint images, which allows viewers to see a different image in each eye.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo and Hitachi recently demonstrated TransCAIP, a three-dimensional (3D) TV system that captures a live scene in real time and reproduces it on an autostereoscopic display. In addition to providing 3D images, TransCAIP offers interactive control, enabling users to adjust viewing parameters such as cropping a scene and reproducing an appropriate amount of depth.
The system captures a live scene using 64 video cameras connected via Ethernet cables to a single PC, which converts input from all the video cameras into images for the display. Each camera has a built-in HTTP server, which sends motion JPEG sequences to the PC. "The greatest advantage of our system is to provide interactive control of the viewing parameters," says University of Tokyo Ph.D. student Yuichi Taguchi. "The interactive control is essential for reproducing a dynamic 3D scene with desirable conditions, which depend on the contents of the scene, the viewer's preference, and the display specifications."
The PC converts the 64 images into an integral photography image made from 60 views, which correspond to the viewing directions of the display. The process, called field conversion, is implemented in real time and requires only a few hundred milliseconds per frame. Like other autostereoscopic displays, TransCAIP does not require viewers to wear special glasses. Instead, the display reproduces various viewpoint images, which allows viewers to see a different image in each eye.
Google and Semantic Search
Google has added semantic search to its Web search engine, which will enable it to identify associations and concepts related to a query, thus improving the list of related search terms Google displays next to the results. "For example, if you search for 'principles of physics,' the algorithms understand that 'angular momentum,' 'special relativity,' 'big bang,' and 'quantum mechanic' are related terms that could help you find what you need," according to Google's Ori Allon and Ken Wilder.
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