déjà vu

When I was a kid, I could only think of computers through sci-fi tv serials on DD. Computers were portrayed as a person with all great wisdom. Whatever you ask it has all the answer.

Now when I think back, I wonder how simple interface we talk about but I could hardly see any around.

Last night a friend referred me a site Ikea.ca . There was a simple interface for automated chat assistant program "Anna". A simple Eliza like chat program, with a twist. What ever you talk about related to ikea, the other pages is automatically redirects it to that page. (Reminds me of our AI course assignment of GoSSIP, a similar chat bot for IIT-Madras with different learning modes but didn't redirect the user to those pages.)

I'm not sure how well "Anna" is programmed in comparison with ALICE or other similar program but I liked the way the technology has been used for better use.

"Anna" animation looks very primitive, I found a better animation demo at haptek.com

Later I saw a " 2D to 3D image transformation" demo from a single image done by research team in CMU.

There are good enough "Speech to text" technologies available.

I just had a wild dream, what if you combine all these and make a single powerful application.

• Speech-to-text
• Search(I'm feeling lucky ;-) )
• answer the question
• redirect user to relevant places
• Emote as per user interaction
• Talk 2 user (text to speech)

I guess every kid in this world would like to create his own skin(interface) depending on whom he thinks knows everything.

I Like it

Riya.com, a photo search company, has launched a new image search engine called Like.com

Riya.com have been putting lots of effort in photo search. I was just wondering how will they position themselves when they said "We aren't so much about searching for images as much as we are about searching with images."

With photo search I could visualize some of its applications in genealogy, social networking, dating and matrimonial sites. Photo search application could also be used by police and other similar organization.

There are many other image search engines but they all search on meta information attached with the image. Accuracy of the result depends how well that information is tagged. Like.com adds another dimension of image search which is a true example of searching with images.

As of now this is just limited to jewelery, handbags, shoes and watches search but as and when this expands to another categories this could be another mode of CPA based advertising.

I like their Riya's strategic move in the image search world. Very good work done.

Whats Next on Net

With Internet the world has shrunk.

People are making new applications to ease life of the user. System are getting more complex every day and end user expectation level is rising.

We have moved a long way from text based gopher to world of multimedia. Web 2.0 is the new buzz word you hear now. I'm seeing lots of interesting applications using this technology.

In a nutshell different phases of Internet evolution

1. Plain text based information sharing
2. Hypertext documents - interlinked documents
3. Use of simple graphics and colours : evolution of graphical browser.
4. Animation : world of flash and gif
5. Web 2.0 : web based application got simpler, lots of desktop application are morphing to work over web.

But whats next?

I guess now is the time for hypermedia. System will evolve to incorporate 3D world inside the box. Its just the time when someone make a interesting application using VRML and people will just jump into band wagon. This should not be standalone applications but the next generation application which will built over the previous stages. In my opinion all that is required are

• A simple 3D browser,
• Easy to design 3D world

Lets see who makes the first move.

A real estate site showing the 3D virtual tour of the location would be interesting ;-)

World Beyond

Let me narrate a scenario before I put forward my views.

In a jungle of infinitely long disjoint pipes and tunnels, there used to be many colonies of different creatures. The used to travel all across those pipes all their life. This pipe was all their world. One fine day somehow someone got and idea and said this to its fellow members that there is another world beyond this pipe. There exist another pipe just next to this. Everyone laughed. It was declared MAD and imprisoned. None was able to digest this idea.

In another scenario, the creature can move and visualise things in two dimensional plane and one of them proposed the idea of three dimension. Guess what? Same FATE with it also.

Now in our three dimensional world, where we live today the same things are observed every now and then when someone talk about  time-machine, time travel, space folding, tele-transportation etc

Its not easy to digest new ideas which we can't perceive with our senses. The tools which we develop are also limited to our senses perception.

Just because of our limitation of perception we can't not argue for non-existence of the world beyond but at the same time we just can't accept any such ideas though. I guess that's where the HEART rules over your MIND.

Things which we can't explain, even to ourselves, are in existence mostly because of our believes.

A New Venture Decision

There is only one thing which is sold in this world : DREAMS. Some try to sell good dreams other BAD Dreams(FEAR).

Its hard to sell Good dreams but FEARS are easily sold. Good dreams require somethings to realised which generates different level of interests in different people. But past experience of uncertainties, FEAR doesn't require much selling, people directly associate the FEAR with something with the PAST experience.

I often wonder how should one decide how should entrepreneur  make decision of new ventures?

If one  try to find out  whats the output of this new venture : Good dreams or Fear, it would be easier for him to estimate and plan accordingly. I guess that is the reason Insurance sector is booming and not so many people are interested in settling down in other Planets.

The other parameters which i think one should consider when deciding to launch a product.

1. Chaos Factor
2. Pain Intensity
3. Comfort desirability
4. Competition

Corealted learnings

Caesar-III, my favourite game, gives me lots of ideas to think over.

Just few days back we thought of playing it again. quickly we reached to 5th level. "Quaestor - Mediolanum". Without wasting my time we start building city. Too much hurry to listen to all those instructions. created the hi-fi infrastructure in minutes and with trade routes open and now started waiting for people to come. People were coming but city population was stagnant. Everywhere was shortage of people. Nothing was functioning properly. Result no development. Base reason : wolf were killing new people.

Next time, somehow i manage to control the wolf next time, and quickly build this Hi-Fi city again. All money lost. Got a loan...lost again. And now i have angry Caesar, not very well functioning city and enemies at door. Now I'm invaded by enemies and army of Caesar itself. How hard you try, you can hardly recover broken economy during war.

I tried this stage so many times. Thought a lot. and I concluded these.

• Identify the starting problems and have them in control in time. (referring to wolf)
• Use your resources wisely.(don't over spend)
• Provide facilities only when its needed. (don't build infrastructure which r required in later stage in very early stage). Why will a beggar do with Ferrari car?
• Avoid taking loans. You might get help sometime but not always. People cut your throat when Time is BAD.(referring to attack from Caesar itself)
• Start earning as soon as possible, its hard to earn money and easy to spend.(open profitable trade routes ASAP)
• Whatever it takes, survival is most important. You can recreate the empire only if you could survive. Defend well with your all possible invaders.
  

With these thought I restarted this game and not only completed this stage in few hours but also made a huge saving in my account with all ratings very high. Could build the great city which is profitable and self sustainable.

For an entrepreneur life is no different. these rules applies everywhere. context and roles might changes and only difference you have here is you don't have an option of replaying the same scenario again in same time frame and you can't control speed of time.

I feel so enlighten with these thoughts. Learning becomes so easy when co-related.

Biased vision

I had lot of thought about perception and vision. What I conclude is that we always see what we want to see. With time we learn to ignore things and our sense get biased to our opinions and thoughts.

With this biased vision or perception we fail to recognise Omens but realise that only when time has gone.

I'm not sure if we can unlearn all those tricks of ignorance.

But in other thoughts I feel that ignorance is also one of the great power we have. Perhaps we need not process/interpret all we see but should look for patterns or signals. I fee we should develop our sense for critical perception.

I"m still figuring out the way.