Simon at CHI 2010

The folks at IDG caught Simon and Andrea on tape earlier this week during CHI 2010 here in Atlanta. I’ve heard from multiple sources that the Socially Intelligent Machine Group rocked the boat during the demos on Monday.

Check it out for yourself:

The AT&T MicroCell Scam

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, so no blog posts from me since more than a month ago. But it’s time to get back on track, and I have a great topic to get me pumped up about writing again. It’s a rant (I’ve found that my best posts are rants).

I’ve been a happy owner of an iPhone for more than a year, and a fairly unhappy customer of AT&T Wireless for the same amount of time. One of the big problems with AT&T for me is that signal strength in my house is very poor. Dropped calls is something I am used to.

Fast forward to yesterday. I checked my mailbox and one of the letters I got was from AT&T. It was actually one of those glossy brochures filled with stock photography – you know, what they usually send you when trying to get you to sign-up for new services or products.

This time AT&T was promoting a product that I could really use – a 3G MicroCell. Main selling point: it increases signal strength at home. Cost: I don’t remember exactly, and it’s not too relevant. What’s important is that AT&T charges extra for this device, on top of the plan you already have.

All very well, but let’s get this story straight. AT&T owns a network of cell towers that is obviously not able to handle the load in some cases, and does a very poor job sending a strong signal to my house. I am a subscriber and pay around $170 a month for subpar service (iPhone family plan).

Now, AT&T is trying to sell me yet another product/service that wraps around their suboptimal cell coverage, so that I can finally use my cell phone at home reliably.

What’s wrong with this picture? This is like buying a brand new car and discovering that it starts intermittently in some parts of town. After talking to the manufacturer, you are told that there’s nothing they can do except sell you another device for $30/month that connects to your ignition system and addresses the problem for good. I am not the only one unhappy about this.

This MicroCell offers some other services, but their primary marketing message is “Five Bar Coverage in Your Home”, service mark.

AT&T should offer me this MicroCell for free. Watch out AT&T, there are many other players in this industry and I have a feeling they might eat your lunch one day if you are not careful. Too bad the telecom and airline industries share customer service expertise with each other.

TR35

Every year, the MIT Technology Review magazine publishes their list of top young innovators under 35. I always find the people and work profiled really inspiring, and every once in a while someone that I know is on the list.

But nothing tops this year’s. Andrea and her work on socially guided machine learning made the list. Not only that, but her robot Simon is on the cover of the magazine. This is super cool, very special.

Flipping through the magazine, and looking at the smiling faces of the “innovators under 35″, the thought of these people pulling all nighters and working really hard to meet deadlines doesn’t come to mind easily. But that’s very much how it works. I know it. Lots of hard work and dedication, no shortcuts.

What the Technology Review people don’t know is that Andrea has another little “robot” at home. It’s still “under development”. Just wait until they see him in action, it might just award Andrea another top prize.

Japanese Software: Mobile Edition

I read this NYTimes story about Japanese mobile phones not going global and couldn’t help but remember a post I wrote 2 years ago about Japanese software. Here’s a short quote from the NYTimes story, referring to handsets in Japan:

“Despite their advanced hardware, handsets here often have primitive, clunky interfaces, some participants said. Most handsets have no way to easily synchronize data with PCs as the iPhone and other smartphones do.”

Yes, it looks like not much has changed.

Microsoft and the Europeans

A while back Opera brought a complaint to the attention of antitrust regulators in Europe. The case had to do with Internet Explorer and how bundling IE with Windows gives Microsoft an unfair advantage in the browser market. That’s fairly old news.

This week, Microsoft made an offer to sell Windows in Europe without their own browser. That’s right, a version of Windows without any trace of Internet Explorer.

You’d think regulators would be satisfied with this offer, but no. According to this New York Times story, the European commission dismissed the offer, saying that “… the move would not further its goal of promoting browsers that compete with Internet Explorer”.

Not only that but “… the commission has indicated it may want Microsoft to distribute Windows with competing Web browsers preinstalled and then allow retailers and computer makers to decide from a “ballot screen” menu which browsers to install.”

I’ve criticized Microsoft in the past numerous times but this time I have to side with Redmond. In my opinion, the commission is stretching its power too much. Enough is enough.

I’ve disagreed with European antitrust regulators before. A while back, there was a draft law in favor of Apple opening up iTunes. I am all for openness. But we can’t forget that Apple built a wonderful end-to-end consumer platform and experience and it should be rewarded in the marketplace for doing so.

Facebook IPO: You Can Run But You Can’t Hide

Facebook takes a $200 million investment from a Russian investment group and sets up a conference call. One of the first questions is:

How does this affect Facebook’s approach with regard to an IPO?

And Zuckerberg answers:

We want to take money that will help us realize the long term vision of the company. For lots of startups the IPO is the end goal. That’s not the case for us, it’s a milestone along the way. It’s not something we see happening on the immediate horizon.

Why is it that Facebook keeps downplaying its IPO? It’s going to happen, there’s no hiding it. Employees want it. Investors need it. It’s almost like they are saying, “that IPO thing, oh that’s just for companies that want to cash out. It’s beneath us. We are different, we are here for the long haul”.

Come on. Maybe in the go-go days of the Internet, circa 2000, one could argue that the IPO was just a money making event. Not today. In fact, claiming that “for lots of startups the IPO is the end goal” is just plain inaccurate.

Google did the exact same thing years ago when it was a private company. It downplayed the IPO as much as possible, saying that it wasn’t the company’s focus, etc and we know what happened. And Google is probably a much better company because of its IPO.

The Twitter UI Is Broken

Like many people, I’ve been using Twitter more regularly over the last several months. I’ve always been interested (and a big believer) in technologies that promote social connectedness and Twitter certainly falls in this category.

I am finding that I get a lot of value from it when I follow my friends – it’s an excellent way to stay in touch. However, it’s becoming really apparent to me that the Twitter interface presented to us by applications such as Twitterrific and TweetDeck leave a lot to be desired, especially when you follow people who are heavy users and post several times a day.

Case in point: Robert Scoble. Here’s a guy who attends dozens of tech events a year and whose job revolves around communicating ideas and sending links around. I want to follow him, I find that his content is good. But all list-based Twitter clients make following someone like him really hard. Here’s what my TweetDeck app looked like this morning:

I like to see what Robert is up to, but this interface makes it really hard to read all of his tweets and follow all the links. Not to mention that someone like Robert overshadows all of my friend’s tweets, a problem that can be mitigated in TweetDeck through groups. But that’s just part of the story.

Twitter is powerful because it’s a universal messaging platform – it’s used in so many different ways by so many people. I would love to see (and hopefully contribute to) interfaces that are designed specifically for certain uses, such as following a small group of close friends, or see what powerful networkers like Robert Scoble are doing and sharing with the world. One-fits-all interfaces like what we have today, especially at the desktop level, dilute the user experience any way you look at it.

The Future Is Now

About a month ago I posted David Merrill’s video presentation at the TED conference. David was in the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab (he just graduated), whose director is Pattie Maes.

Pattie has been working on augmented interfaces and interactive environments for years, and thanks to a smart group of students and a confluence of cheap technologies becoming available, she’s beginning to realize many of her ideas.

And it’s very fun to watch. In this video, Pattie is center stage but the real star is Pranav Mistry, the graduate student who put the technology together.

Sit back and enjoy.

Startup Riot 2009

A few weeks ago I presented at Startup Riot, a relatively new start-up event in Atlanta. 50 companies were selected to give a 3 minute pitch.

Overall the event was well organized and it was great to be part of it. I met lots of new people and made some good connections.

Your Table Is Ready

Here’s a nice little service that just makes sense. If everyone now carries a mobile phone, why don’t restaurants just give you a call when your table is ready? Or send you an SMS?

That’s the business ReadyPing is in. I like it. It’s focused on solving one small problem well by recognizing that an opportunity for a better experience exists. $34.95 per month for restaurants.