Redefined Horizons Blog

Two recent magazine articles chronicle efforts to improve Wi-Fi for users. This is part of a trend to increase the amount of data we can send between all our computing devices.

The first article entitled “Stronger Signals” is in the March 2012 issue of Popular Science Magazine. It discussed a new standard by the Wi-FiAlliance that will allow cell-phones to automatically log into WiFi hot spots on their cell phones. This is important, because most Wi-Fi hot spots offer a connection that is 15 times as fast as the latest 4G networks from the cell phone companies. (As someone who often browses the net on their cell phone, I can personally testify to the difference in speed. Don’t even try to download large files on a cell phone connection.) If this new standard finds widespread acceptance, users cell phones will be able to ho-scotch between wireless networks in urban areas and connect to them automatically. Way cool. Some users may even subscribe to services from companies like Boingo, mentioned in the article, which serves users over400,000 hotspots in locations like malls and restaurants.

The article also discusses the recent decision of the FCC to allow Wi-Fi to broadcast in a different band of the radio wave spectrum. In the new band, dubbed Super Wi-Fi, the longer wavelengths will result in Wi-Fi spots with a range four (4) times as big as traditional Wi-Fi. (Apparently the Wi-Fi marketing folks aren’t thrilled with the name choice of Super Wi-Fi by the FCC.)

The second article is in the January 28, 2012 issue of the Economist Magazine. The science and technology section has an article entitled “Tripping the Light Fantastic” that describes technology that uses flickering lights to power an optical version of Wi-Fi that doesn’t use radio waves. This is good news in areas with crowded radio spectrum. Several companies have formed a new Li-Fi Consortium around the concept of optical Wi-Fi.

The article in the Economist explains how LED lights can be modified to serve as a Li-Fi router. How fast will this optical Wi-Fi be? The Li-Fi Consortium thinks it could acheive speeds of 10 gigabytes per second. That is fast enough to download a high-def video in 30 seconds.

See you later 4G. Wi-Fi here I come.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The February 4th, 2012 issue of the Economist Magazine had a couple of large article on Facebook and its IPO. In one of these articles, entitled “The Value of Friendship” the magazine commented on reasons why Facebook will continue to grow in number of users into the future.

One of these reasons, as identified in the article, is the rapid spread of internet connectivity. The article quotes the Boston Consulting Group, which say that 1.6 billion more people will be online in 2016 than in 2010. That is almost double the number of internet users in just 6 years. As more people have access to the internet, more people will have access to Facebook. Although this growth in internet users will benefit all social networks, the article claims it will benefit the most because the company has turned Facebook into a “social utility” that lets people do all sorts of things on the internet. This may be true, but I find Facebook’s attempts to set-up an alternate internet universe a bit annoying. I only visit the site to check on updates from friends and family that are heavy Facebook users, and use other sites on the net for other stuff. Most of these sites do it better than Facebook. (For example: I use flickr to post my photos.)

The second reason Facebook will continue to grow, according to the article, is the rise of the mobile phone. 425 million people already connect to Facebook on their mobile phones. The article states that most of Facebook’s future growth will come from the mobile web. That’s great news. Let’s take Facebook’s ugly page and cram it into a crappy mobile layout. That sound’s like a great user experience.

The article has some other interesting tidbits about Facebook, like its plans for taking on Google in internet search, that I hope to post about later.

The Sunburned Suveyor

I started work today on a book about the JTS Topology Suite. The book was discussed briefly on the JTS mailing list a few weeks back. I even sent a preliminary table of contents to the mailing list. I was subsequently contacted by a publisher of books on geospatial technology and I mentioned the JTS book as a potential title. They were very interested. We’ve tentatively agreed to write and publish a book on JTS. Hopefully we can get the book in print this year.

I don’t want to reveal a lot more details at this point, but I will tell you that I may be joined by a famous (in the geospatial world) co-author, which has me really honored and excited.

I know the book will be a lot of work, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m starting my research for the first chapter this week, and will start to put together the text, graphics, and code in a SVN repository I set-up at Assembla. I’ll keep my blog readers posted as things become more formal with the book publisher.

In the meantime, I’ll be paying closer attention to the discussions on the JTS mailing list. I’m sure I will learn a lot more about the library this year as I work on the book and hopefully interact with the readers. I’ve added a JTS channel to this blog, so you can subscribe to that channel if you want updates on my progress with the book.

The Sunburned Surveyor

I recently discovered a new blog by a fellow land surveyor. I haven’t read all of the blog posts in detail, but I plan on looking at them more closely. The blog, entitled The Surveyor’s Point, is written by Paul Goebel.

The Sunburned Surveyor

HP recently announced it was dumping personal computers as part of its business.  (The company also announced its plans to ditch tablets.) It also moved more aggressively into the software business with the acquisition of Autonomy.

The Economist Magazine has an article in its August 27, 2011 issue entitled “Aping IBM” that talked about the possible reasons behind HP’s decision. The article stated: “To grasp what HP has in mind, one has to understand the two main currents in the IT industry. First, nearly any new technology quickly becomes a commodity that is easily copied and hence not very profitable. This is why IT firms are always trying to move “up the stack” into software and services, where margins are higher. Second, the biggest IT firms typically control what is known as a “platform”: a digital foundation on which others build their products, such as Microsoft’s Windows. This allows them to capture a disproportionate share of the industry’s profits.”

The article also commented on the possible reasons why HP bought Autonomy: “Buying Autonomy also helps HP to move onto higher-margin terrain: the British firm’s operating margins exceed 40%. But the main reason HP paid a 64% premium for its shares seems to be that it believes that Autonomy’s technology could be turned into a platform to help companies make sense of their ever-growing pile of data. This includes not only “structured” data (payroll records, sales figures), but also the “unstructured” kind (documents, e-mails), which now makes up more than 80% of the information that flows through a typical company.

Such a platform would allow firms to do some nifty things. A retailer, for instance, might decide how much beer to stock based not just on previous sales records, but also on weather forecasts, party chatter on social media and schedules for sports matches.”

I understand why HP would be interested in building a platform. Any surveyor who’s dealt with the headaches of mixing surveying equipment and software from different vendors would understand that desire. I’d like to blog more in the future about what makes a technology platform, and about the conflict between technology platforms, consumer freedom, and open technology standards.

I don’t understand this: Why is it so hard to make money selling personal computers? Could it be a result of how easy it is to get a bogus patent for software? This would give software companies the advantage of overcharging for their products that hardware companies don’t have. Or is it because HP didn’t do a good job of selling their hardware with an appropriate business model? For example: If personal computers are a commodity, as the article implies, you have to offer something more. This could be great customer service, reliability, value, a bullet proof warranty, or something else that will attract consumers. What are the other personal computer makers failing at?

The Sunburned Surveyor

I just learned that during the State of the Map 2010, MapQuest announced their support for OpenStreetMap. The OpenStreetMap wiki indicates this is the first large online mapping service to embrace OpenStreetMap.

On a MapQuest blog post from December 16, 2010 the company announced the addition of the US open map site in partnership with OpenStreetMap. The US site was being added to 10 open sourced maps in Europe and Asia.

I’m still not clear on exactly how the partnership between OpenStreetMap and MapQuest works. What does each partner get out of the arrangement? How does this fit in and improve the MapQuest business model? The information in the blog post and on the OpenStreetMap wiki didn’t seem to have the answers to these questions.

The Sunburned Surveyor

I was slightly offended at a statement in the October 8, 2011 issue of The Economist Magazine. The statement was in an article entitled “A Helping Hand For Start-Ups”. This article talked about the best ways for governments to encourage the growth of small businesses that will create jobs. Here is the statement that caused me some heartburn: “In the past, policy has promoted start-ups and small businesses in general. Yet the vast majority of these firms are never likely to create original ideas or many new jobs.”

I can’t argue with the statistics about small businesses and job creation included in the article: “A new study published by the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, called “What do small businesses do?”, finds that: “While most aggregate employment growth may come from small (new) firms growing big, the vast majority of small (new) firms do not grow.” In 2004-08, 60% of all new firms studied did not add even one employee; 90% added fewer than five and 97% added fewer than ten.”

However, I don’t think that means small businesses that aren’t adding employees never generate good ideas. They may implement a good idea but not expand, or they may sell the rights to their idea, give their idea to others, or have their idea acquired by another company when the small business itself is sold. I’ll point out that the article didn’t contain any statistics to support the statement about a lack of good ideas.

I run a one-man side business. I may never hire another employee, given the legal, regulatory, and financial hurdles. However, I still plan on having, and implementing, some good ideas.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The October 8, 2011 issue of The Economist Magazine had an article that talked about the dramatic rise in pay walls for online newspaper content. These pay walls work by tracking how many times a user accesses an online news site. When a certain limit has been reached, the user is asked to pay for access to the site.

How dramatic is the rise of newspaper pay walls? Is it yet an epidemic? The article provides some interesting statistics:

1. More than 100 newspapers are using Press+, an online payment system developed in part by a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
2. MediaNews, a newspaper group, put up 2 pay walls in 2010. It has erected 23 so far in 2011.

Why the increase in pay walls? The article mentions two (2) reasons:

1. Systems like Press+ or Google’s One Pass make it easier for companies to build pay walls and collect money from readers.
2. Newspaper advertising dollars in print and online have crashed.

Does this mean that pay walls are here to stay? Not so fast. The article concludes by saying: “Fewer than half of the newspaper’s print subscribers have so far signed up for unrestricted free access to the website. Other newspapers report similar proportions. That suggests the game is not over.”

I pay for a subscription to my local newspaper, but rarely visit its web site. I can’t ever see myself paying to access its online content. (Maybe this is because its web site is so ugly?) Maybe my mind would change if I bought a tablet computer, but I think it will be a tough sell. I hope I can release all of the media content produced by Redefined Horizons under a Creative Commons license, supported by a few loyal advertisers and reader donations.

You might want to check out these blog posts from www.paidcontent.org to learn more:

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-google-pitches-a-flexible-paid-content-system-one-pass/

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-with-googles-one-pass-two-more-newspaper-chains-join-the-paywall-brigad/

The Sunburned Surveyor

Redefined Horizons is primarily a media company. For that reason, I’m interested in changes to traditional media businesses like the recording industry or book publishing. The October 22, 2011 issue of the Economist Magazine has an article entitled “A New, Improved Hit Machine” that talked about the changes in the way record companies sign new artists. In the good old days, many recording companies were “discovering base talent and turning it into gold”. Now, by contrast, most major record labels expect bands to “have built a self-sustaining, if modest, business before they sign a contract.”

This means its harder to get signed to a record label than it used to be. A band has to already possess some measure of success before this can happen. Is it that important to get signed to a major record label? Perhaps not. At least, that is what the payoff suggests. The article suggests a typical record label contract pays out just $120,000 to $240,000 to most bands. As bands get better at using the internet and other tools to promote and distribute their music record labels may find themselves less and less important to music producers and music consumers.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The October 22, 2011 issue of the Economist Magazine had an article entitled “The Dismal Scoop on Groupon”. The article offered a few insights on Groupon that I thought were worth noting. (I’ve never used Groupon myself.)

The first insight explains why Groupon is open to copycat competition. The article states: “Groupon created a new market. This is a boon to consumers, but confers no lasting “first-mover” advantage on Groupon. Its business model is unpatentable and simple to replicate, so there are already more than 20 copycats.”

This means the company has the first in the market lead, but copycat companies that do a better job with the same business model will offer stiff competition to the company.

The second insight is the importance of geography to the way Groupon works. The article states: “Groupon aspires to be global, but the markets it serves are intensely local. Internet selling is best suited to “experience goods”. These are goods and services the quality of which you cannot judge until you experience them, such as haircuts and Thai meals, so there is no advantage in having a bricks-and-mortar shop for people to browse in. (In North America 83% of Groupon’s deals fall into this category.) The trouble with experience goods is that generally you cannot separate manufacture from delivery: you cannot cook a meal in Guangzhou and eat it in New York.”

I’d never heard the term “experience goods” before. It made me wonder what other types of goods and services were inherently “local”. At any rate, it sounds like geography is really important to the Groupon business model. There has got to be room for some GIS analysis that would allow Groupon to improve on its operation.

The third insight is that Groupon’s system can be abused by the businesses that offer discounts through the service. The article states: “A final woe: the Groupon model is open to abuse. Nicole Peters, an avid online shopper, describes how she bought a massage via one of Groupon’s rivals. The day before the appointment, the massage firm e-mailed her to say it had gone bust. Ms Peters also bought a voucher for several pairs of men’s underpants. When she logged onto the supplier’s website, there were only huge pairs or bright pink ones available. She says she will never shop this way again. Groupon’s webpage includes a guide to avoiding arguments with merchants, which suggests such tiffs are common.”

This makes me cautious about using a service like Groupon, and goes to show how important community management is to a business model based to a certain extent on trust, like the Groupon business model is.

The Sunburned Surveyor