500 words into the future

We’re all used to applications that are at best frustrating, and at worst infuriating. They just don’t seem to do what we want, when we want it.

After all, there’s all that processing power inside our PCs and they just don’t seem to know that we’re in a hurry, or that we’re really after more in depth information. We’re standing on street corners with mobile phones trying to work out whether we have an overdraft on complex banking sites that insist on trying to sell us loans. Our GPSes don’t give us a quick and simple way of letting our friends know just when we’re going to arrive – or our business contacts why we’re going to be late for a meeting. And how do our machines and services cope with human scale transactions that can last days, or even weeks?

There’s a simple answer: it’s a failure of context.

We live our lives contextually, knowing just why we’re doing something, or just where. Software can’t “know” that, as it’s operating in isolation, locked away from the inputs and information that can contextualise the actions it’s completing. It’s a fault of the procedural model, where inputs drive outputs and nothing else matters.

But everything’s changing now, thanks to the cloud, and to service oriented programming models. Applications can now be event driven components, operating in a stateless environment, tied together in frameworks through workflow and messaging. Separated from presentation layers and with user interfaces that bring things together, they’re able to handle human scaled interactions, from all types of device. Tools like YQL and Yahoo! Pipes transform and combine data from multiple sources, bringing data to our applications without requiring complex query languages and expensive integration

That’s only part of the story needed to deliver contextual applications, and it’s actually a very small part. What we really need are tools to help us determine context and to make it available to our applications.

Over the last couple of years I’ve realised just what that context mediating tool is. It’s the smartphone. Whether it’s WinMo or Android or OS X or BlackBerry OS doesn’t matter – what matters is that it’s the one piece of our computing arsenal that knows where we are, what we’re likely to be doing (and who with). It knows the people we work and socialise with, the places we do it (and how frequently). It knows how to get there and how fast we’re getting there (and if we’re on the right route).

That’s why it was good to see RIM understanding the role of the smartphone at their recent Developer Conference. It’s tiny steps, but the announcement of an API based on the work done by recent acquisition Dash is very good news for anyone trying to solve the context problem.

Dash began life as a PND. Not just any old PND, but one where each connected device was a real-time probe into traffic conditions. The original Dash hardware even used user driving patterns to create maps in near real time (and when the new Mountain View junction on the 101 opened, Dash had it mapped and in its routing software within a couple of hours). The new Dash isn’t a navigation tool – it’s the old Dash’s secret sauce, the routing algorithms that use that sensor data to predict just when you’ll arrive at your destination.

With a world blanketed by BlackBerry sensors it’s easy to imagine context sensitive alarms. You need to be at a meeting by 10.30? If the traffic’s good, then you might get an extra ten minutes in bed. If it’s bad, well you’re up a little earlier than you initially planned. If the traffic gets hairy while you’re en route, then why not have your phone automatically text the contact in your next appointment to let them know that you’re running late – and also keep them updated with an ETA. There’s no breaking mobile phone laws, as it’s all automatic, driven by the context of your journey.

Bingo.

Dash isn’t the whole solution to the context problem, but it’s a good example of just how we can use an API that uses contextual information to change the way we do things, making things more human centric and a lot less stressful. As APIs start to mix personal informatics, using tools like Outlook 2010’s social connector to mine the information we have in our email and address books and in the social networks and services we use every day, with real time sensors giving applications access to the real world, we’re in for what could be the biggest effect IT has had on society yet.

This could well be fun – and extremely profitable for the companies that take advantage of context and what it can do for their users.

It could also make Big Brother look like an elementary school bully.

Let’s make it the first option. Human scale computing is an answer to so many different problems.

--Simon

Will Bing or Google make it easier to find out? We’re off to New York for some meetings and the annual Strategic News Service predictions event and I’m wondering what to pack: raincoat or down jacket? Trainers or boots? Remembering that Microsoft keeps telling us that Bing makes it easier to make decisions, I compared the weather reports on Bing and Google by typing ‘New York city weather’ into the search bar in my browser and flipping back between the two sets of results.

Google says cloudy, then rainy, then cloudy – but that’s just till Thursday. What about the weekend? Bing says it’s sunny today, then cloudy, then rainy, then cloudy – and it squeezes in cloudy on Friday as well. It also tells me where the forecast comes from someone called WDT; Google leaves me to assume I can trust Google so much that I don’t need to care where the forecast comes from.

Do I care where my weather forecast comes from? Maybe. I trust the BBC Weather forecasts. Weather Underground seems pretty good. Aren’t they all the same anyway? Click on the extended forecast on Bing and there’s a table listing through to Sunday with three different forecasts. They all say it’s going to rain on Wednesday but Thursday might have rain (0%, 10% and 15% chance) and by Sunday the different predictions are so different that it’s 20% chance of snow, 30% chance of showers and 60% chance of whatever precipitation goes with the icon for sunny. Hmmm.

Can I see if the weather in New York is really that changeable? Well, I can flip the weather map from a standard temperature and icons map to a Doppler map for rain and a satellite map for cloud cover, scroll down to see an hour by hour forecast for today or look at average temperatures and inches of precipitation month by month.


Can’t I do that on any weather site? Probably; but I won't get the comparison of three different predictions on the extended forecasts, and what’s nice here is that I’m not leaving Bing to get the information – it’s coming to me.

Google gives me three links for extended forecasts: clicking through to one site gives me today’s weather on a busy page that I have to scroll down to see even a three-day forecast. Another site tries to show me a pop-up: I block those because they’re usually adverts. There’s a hugely busy site with ads and photos and toolbars and a warning for a tropical cyclone, meaning that the weather map is tiny and I'm still only getting the 5-day forecast I saw on Bing to start with until I scroll down twice, past the nearby airports and the historical temperatures and the ads for local tips on New York hotels…

There’s a lot more information on the dedicated weather sites than on Bing. Bing doesn't give me air quality reports or the weather for sporting events (Steelers vs Browns might be snowed under says the NFL) – or the phase of the moon or the highest and lowest temperatures in the state or a snow depth map. If I want to spend time browsing that kind of thing, I’ll absolutely go to a weather site. But if I want just a bit more information than the four-day forecast, I can get it without leaving Bing. Google promises to index information; Bing promises to help me make decisions. As Yahoo has found again and again, that’s actually what a lot of people want from a fairly large proportion of their searches. Presenting bite-sized chunks of instant information could be Bing’s secret weapon.

My next search? Where can I buy boots at Heathrow airport…
-Mary

Not surprisingly, the Microsoft Stores run on Windows. Over the last few months Apple has been switching from using Windows CE handhelds to modified iPod Touches for its EasyPay system in the Apple Store, where you don't have to walk up to a till to buy something.

The Microsoft Stores we visited on our recent road trip have a similar system, using a Microsoft Dynamics point of sale system running on Samsung Q1 UMPCs (although the Samsung branding is hidden by a cover with the Microsoft Store logo); instead of looking for a till, you look for someone in a colourful T shirt and tell them what you want to buy. They scan in the bar code, you swipe your credit card and sign on screen, they print the receipt and put your new Zune HD in a nifty vinyl bag with comfortable handles and a popper that you can re-use for grocery shopping.



That's the theory; how well does it work in practice? In Mission Viejo, about 5pm on a Friday afternoon, the shop had about 20 customers in and after we'd told five or six friendly staff who asked if they could help that we were just browsing, the Store employee we turned to walked us over to a UMPC perched on the end of a table. The size of the Samsungs mean they tend to be sitting on a surface rather than being carried around; the built-in kickstand means you can see what's happening. First time around what was happening was that they couldn't log in to the POS, so we walked to another one - but we didn't have the same problem with the second system, or with two other purchases in Scottsdale.

The staff were just as friendly in Scottsdale, and in a helpful rather than creepy way; when I picked up an Anytime Upgrade pack for Windows 7, the nearest red-shirt asked if I knew it was just a code and didn't come with a disc.



When I told him I was puzzled why it had a jewel case rather than just cardboard, which would be much easier to recycle, he said he'd wondered the same thing; "I'm new to retail," he told me, "so I asked at the weekly meeting". It turns out that cameraphones are so good now that you can now shoplift without leaving the shop: slit the packaging open with a blade, photograph the product code and put the box back on the shelf. I'm trying to imagine the average shop assistant at PC World displaying nearly as much interest in the sales process, but given that we spent half an hour in PC World today without being able to flag down anyone to talk to I suppose I might not have a basis for comparison…

-Mary

Ten years ago I went into a Microsoft Store.

It was a wide open modern space, with wooden floors and low tables showcasing Microsoft products.

Last week we visited the two new Microsoft Stores.

They were wide open modern spaces, with wooden floors and low tables showcasing Microsoft products.



Should we be surprised by the similarity? Not really, as there aren’t really that many different ways of selling hardware and software. It needs to be accessible, easy to demonstrate, and with enough space for a family to look at the hardware and software they’re buying. An Apple Store is much like a PC World, and a Microsoft Store is much like a Sony store.



A roadtrip across the South West US took us between LA and Arizona, and we took the opportunity to check out Microsoft's new retail venture. After all, we'd done something similar for the first couple of Apple stores, so it only seemed fair.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the original microsoftSF in San Francisco’s Metreon complex and the two new stores in Mission Viejo and Scottsdale is the hardware. Microsoft is now selling PCs, not just software and peripherals. That’s because in the last ten years, the computer has become the experience – and the PC experience hasn’t been the best.

That’s changing, with new hardware and new software, and also with what Microsoft is using its stores to pioneer – its own install images. If you buy a PC in a Microsoft Store it’ll have the same basic software image, whether it’s HP, Lenovo, or Sony. That means there’s no crapware clogging up the bootpath, no applications asking for registrations (and for cash) when you start up for the first time. It’s why most IT professionals don’t even bother to run the default installs on their home PCs, they just install a clean OS from scratch.

Microsoft has finally realised just how much damage bundled software is doing to the PC ecosystem – and to its own image. It’s impossible for Microsoft to force OEMs to stop installing crapware (after all, it’s a revenue stream for those companies), and if it did, the combined anti-trust forces of the world would come down on Redmond like the proverbial ton of bricks. There is a simple answer – led by example. Showing consumers just how much simpler and easier a boot is on a clean image, especially on common PCs sold in many different outlets, stands a greater chance of changing OEM behaviours than any other means.

That clean image approach is also why Microsoft handed out several thousand laptops to attendees of its Professional Developers Conference. Getting clean, well configured hardware in the hands of engineers will help develop a clean boot culture.



The Microsoft stores aren’t about selling PCs and software – they’re about changing perceptions. And if consumers get a better PC as a result, that’s all to the good.

--Simon

What's an OS for? Thanks to Rupert Murdoch, Google has spent most of the time it probably wanted to be talking about Chrome discussing the value of paid content on the Web; but that's actually an awful lot of what Chrome is really for. It's a big fancy browser on custom-built hardware, which is another answer to the question I asked Google's VP of engineering (and ex-Microsoft general manager in charge of evangelising Windows as a platform) Vic Gundotra at the Google IO developer conference this year: when Google does its own OS, how will it deal with drivers and peripherals? Do what Apple does and lock down the hardware so you have hardly any drivers to worry about and stick a Web server in everything else so you can use inefficient but ubiquitous Web protocols instead.

At the time he told me the question was at least 14 years old (which makes me think we really should have a good answer by now), quoted Marc Andreesson in his Netscape days, saying he thought Windows would become nothing more than a set of poorly debugged device drivers and then challenged the assumption that "peripherals will always require native device drivers". He has a digital photo frame that he logs into on the Web, and one of the smart power meters Google is working on (power consumption is indexable data that Google can aggregate and extract value from just like Web sites); "even with peripherals," he told me, "their connectivity to the Internet is where their value derives." I'm not certain about that; with the speed of our DSL, I'd rather have my photos go onto a photo frame from our network drive than from Flickr - but it would certainly be easier to read our electric meter over the Internet while we're away. So does that mean you can wave aside the driver question after 14 years? Only if you want your devices to cost more.

You have to have smarts at one end of the connection; if they're not in the OS, they have to be in the peripheral. You can't have thin client at both ends. Every peripheral that you can't treat as external storage (cameras, media players) is going to have to have an embedded OS of its own to run the Web server for the driver-less OS to talk to. Smarter devices can go online and sync to the driver-less OS as peers - perhaps through a Google service? The rest of the ecosystem can do a little more work, and Google can do a lot less.

Talking of who's doing the work, I've seen some speculation about whether hardware OEMs will want to make low-end Chrome notebooks. (Google calls them 'slightly bigger than a netbook'; so just call it a notebook! They may have SSDs instead of hard drives; so does the ThinkPad we're toting and it's a notebook.) Certainly, the success of netbooks took the shine off Dell's profits this year and PC makers have been quick to push 10 and 11" netbooks with graphics acceleration like Ion and usable keyboards instead of 7" margin killers. With no premium hardware, would getting the OS for free be enough to tempt them back after the way Linux netbooks came flooding back as returns? How about less than free?

Remember that while Chrome OS will be open source, it will be open source in the same way Android is; the apps like Google Maps, with its turn-by-turn directions aren't. Google controls those and makes enough money from them that it can offer a share of ad revenue to manufacturers; if HP made a Chrome OS device, they'd make money on all your searches. Venture capitalist Bill Gurley nailed this when he christened it "less than free". To compete, other OS manufacturers would have to not only drop their licence fee but pay the hardware manufacturer. The followup question is how much of that a company with a seven to one share of the search market (compared to Bing) can do without incurring an anti-trust investigation.
-Mary