Posts Tagged ‘Cloud’
The Power of Three
There was a time when building a technology product and its functionality was largely contained into itself – ing was an island was perfectly fine. This was true of both enterprise and consumer products. A Set Top Box (STB) had no need for interactive functionality least of all a “companion application”, or a Thermostat in the house was manually operated. The rise of smartphones, increasing connectedness have changed that. The paradigm has changed. When products are designed and developed – it is no longer just about the hardware & software of the product you are building – it is equally important to design interactivity with a smartphone or tablet application and tying the functionality of the product with cloud services. And as I outlined in one of my previous posts – my re-engagement with programming & development would be at the “intersection” of the three elements:
1. Technology Product2. Smartphone | Tablet Application3. Cloud Services
This is what I mean by the title – to deliver the best product experien
ce – the product strategy and planning has to be done keeping the three elements in mind – to bring together the Power of Three. The challenge I had was wh
ere to get started because each of these areas offers attractive options. I had to filter them – and the primary one was that I wanted to make sure that it did not impede or conflict with my day job. So when I started about three months ago I had to stick to products, technologies that are available to mostly anybody and available openly without requiring any NDA. And here are the choices I made:
1. To use a proxy for the ‘technology product’ – instead of choosing a STB or a Gateway (and I have tons of product management experience in both) – I chose an embedded Linux-based device or server – a Plug Computer. It supports an ARM version of Debian or Ubuntu. And for creating applications on the Plug – I chose to go with OSGi running on open source JVM.2. The choice for Smartphone or Tablet applications was fairly easy – I chose IOS. And I specifically wanted to focus on programming with the large real estate screen of the iPad. Down the line I may expand this to support two more options – Android Smartphones and GoogleTV…For Cloud Services – I have two choices Google App Engine or Amazon Web Services – but that the choice is still open…
Let me quickly talk about the application I have in mind though or rather what functionality I want to implement. I am going to write basic code on the Plug Computer that would support a network interface to collect data, diagnostics from the Plug by the IOS App. The code not the Plug would be (or is begin developed) using OSGi/JVM. I intend to incorporate addition to diagnostics, use the Plug to connect to some basic sensors such as Accelerometers or Zigbee Switches and using the network API to communicate the data/events gathered to both the IOS app and the Cloud. As I write this I have made good progress on the initial stuff so far and my subsequent posts would talk about them. But I do have a long way to go, and I am looking forward to it….
[Note: Attached a couple of sketches to illustrate my concepts using the great new Paper App for iPad.]
Cloud Gaming: OnLive [Emulating Netflix?]
Two things to consider, performance may not be in the extreme gaming segment, but just as HD Video Streaming over Internet is becoming possible, eventually Extreme Graphics gaming could take off. May be Netflix should consider buying them to complement their offering?
The MicroConsole is powered by Marvell Armada 1000, if OnLive takes off, this could be a boost for the $MRVL stock as well [Read Engadget Review here which talks about the Armada 1000: http://engt.co/hDElDq]
Amplify’d from www.businessweek.com
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/hzGirH
All Things CC: 