It’s hip2b2

A few weeks back Google released a new tool (as BETA) called Google Gears. Simply put it is a set of tools that allow store and serve application resources locally, store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database and run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness. Google also makes the API available to third party developers. Ah yes. It allows us to do stuff offline … Fairly simple right?

Well, this set of tools is more than just off-line functionality. This can potentially change the way people use software. Imagine being able to use an online web processor but be able to take your work offline? Imagine being able to modify presentation files while on the plane (with no Internet) and easily publish it for collaborate the first wift of Internet connectivity you get? The possibilities are limitless.

CNet has this little statement hidden in its article about Google Gears:

And for consumers and corporations, Google Gears knocks down a perceived barrier in competing with desktop applications. While users of Microsoft applications, such as the popular Office suite, can work in the software and access data stored on their computer at any time, Google’s Web-based applications, such as Gmail, require a user to be connected to the Internet. That will change now that Gears has arrived.

Yes! Less reason to buy standalone software. Fantastic!

I am just finishing a trip to the US. I was fortunate enough to visit one of the most popular places of computer lore … Silicon Valley. Out of our meager dwelling in Palo Alto, we were able to go around and visit new people, companies and places. The biggest names in information technology are just in this area the size (probably a bit smaller) of Metro Manila.

One interesting conversations was about the relationship of venture capital and the academe. It is very clear that part of Silicon Valley’s emergence as a global technology super-area was by virtue of being near such great schools such as Stanford, UCB (and many others) and access to capital. I commented on students in the valley area being very fortunate to around such an environment conducive to innovation (schools) and entrepreneurship (capital). However, a comment in the discussion was that students in the US are not that different from students in other countries (like the Philippines). In the US, a student takes up college and uses the same Linux, Java, PHP, C/C++, vi/emacs and other tools. Of course, there are probably better instructors and access to equipment in many cases. The same tools are being used by students in other countries. So what is the difference?

In this article by VentureBeat, it discusses the emergence of venture capital in Russia.

People in places like the Valley seem to take availability of angel and venture capital for granted, but every tech economy has a jump-start before it becomes self-sustaining.

Pioneering Silicon Valley venture capitalists, for example, got help from the U.S. government’s SBIC program in early 1960s. Other geographies were less lucky. In the last 20 years, other countries began catching up - Britain, Taiwan, India, Israel, China - but not Russia.

A few years ago, it became obvious that Russia’s tech economy was not going to start by itself. Not that the Russians aren’t able entrepreneurs when placed in a proper environment (Brin and Levchin, to name a couple), but in the absence of venture capital, who would build a startup knowing it might consume millions of dollars before even reaching the hope of breaking even?
Lack of success stories in tech and startup culture, coupled with Russia’s booming domestic market sucked all the capital into bricks-and-mortar businesses.

So a vicious circle had to be broken. Last year, Russian government set up a $600 million (RUB 15 billion to be exact) fund of venture funds. Russian Venture Company, as the fund is officially called (for legal reasons, it was structured as a business development company) promised to provide 49% of capital to venture firms that meet its criteria and which raise the remaining 51% of their funds from private sources. This money came with a few strings attached: A firm could capitalize only one fund from the government; funds were supposed to be from $40 million to $110 million in size (again, in Russian currency, RUB 1,2 to 3 billion); funds had to put 80% of funds in early stage companies; all funded companies had to be high-tech. And the tastiest bit: all returns made on government money above 5% or inflation, whichever is greater, go to investors and managers.

Lucky Russians! Seriously, lack of access to capital is a major problem in the Philippines. Aside from this, Filipinos tend to be a careful bunch. There are definitely investors in the Philippines. There are even some venture funds. These people have done a lot to increase access to capital. However, these funds typically expect returns quickly. Also potential Filipino entrepot, in general, tend to be risk adverse and do not really want to go out and setup ventures on their own. There are a number of great Filipino start-ups already. However, it would not hurt to have more right?

There are many other theories. Migs even blogged about starting up. I feel that this “lack of access to capital” is still the biggest stumbling block to building the next great Filipino start-up.

I do not normally write about local politics since it is out of topic. However, since this is my personal blog, I can write whatever I want right? So, If you (my readers) don’t like it please feel free to complain with a comment.

I just read this analysis article from Inquirer.net that talks about Philippine politics in the light of the latest elections. The author claims:

The Senate results are the outcome the Arroyo administration would rather not see and would like the rest of the nation to ignore to substantiate its claim that it had received a vote of confidence on the strength of local results.

The local results show that administration candidates won 73 out of 81 governors’ positions, 203 out of 219 congressional seats, and 109 out of 119 city mayorships. Those results are countered by the capture by the GO of key and politically strategic cities, most of all Manila, Makati and Naga cities.

The administration lost Manila with the defeat of Mayor Lito Atienza’s son, Ali, by Sen. Alfredo Lim as reelectionist Mayor Jejomar Binay scored a landslide win in Makati, the center of the opposition in Metro Manila. These two triumphs have broadened the opposition base in Metro Manila, reducing the electoral importance of a third key city, Quezon City, which returned Mayor Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte as mayor. These strategic shifts more than made up for the victory of administration candidates in the lesser cities of Metro Manila, where the opposition predictably retained control of San Juan, bailiwick of deposed President Joseph Estrada.

Even on the level of local and House elections, the poll results show the political map nationwide has been redrawn to indicate the weakened control by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on key local electorates. The erosion of this base does not warrant confidence that the President is secure from renewed impeachment attempts in the next Congress, or from urban unrest, given that both Manila and Makati are now in opposition hands.

I got pretty annoyed by this article because it is basically saying that GMA does not get her mandate because administration candidates did not win in Makati and Manila cities? That is strange because I believe that mayor Jejomar Binay and Fred Lim’s wins are testament to their good past performance as chief executives of their respective cities. Does this necessarily mean lack of trust in the presidency? Not necessarily right?

Another annoying statement is the implied definition of “key local electorates”. Key local electorates is implied to be Metro Manila cities. So other cities and provinces like Cebu, Bohol, Iloilo, Davao, Bacolod and many more are not as important? Ok. So let’s revive plans for the creation Independent Bisaya and Illonggo Republics. Since, they don’t matter anymore? Oh well…

There are a lot of major news events in the world. In the Philippines, we have just finished our national elections which came our relatively peacefully compared to a few years back. In the world, Microsoft dangles a bunch of patents in from on Linux. Lots to talk about. But today, I would rather talk about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. Here is the Slashdot article.

The One Laptop Per Child project became a reality Thursday in Uruguay, as the 160 children of school number 24 in the humble town of Cardal received their XO computers. The learning tools came directly from the hands of president Tabaré Vazquez. It has become a matter of national pride that Uruguay is the first country to realize the project’s goal. The target is that by 2009, every school-age child in Uruguay will have one, and an initial 15 million dollars have already been allocated to the project.

Yes, it is finally out! The OLPC made its debut. I personally believe that grass-root efforts such as quality mass education is one of the main keys to a nation’s success. There are a lot of people who argue that money is better spent on basic needs such as food, water and shelter. I agree that these must be address. But, at the same time, measures must be taken to ensure that these people have the opportunity to stand-up on their own. Education is one of these opportunity makers.

In the Slashdot discussion, we see that there is a thread on the merits of the Classmate PC versus the OLPC XO. The Classmate PC is essentially a laptop for children project that uses commodity hardware and software (MS Windows and Linux). This is opposed to the OLPC XO that utilities specially designed hardware and software. Which method comes out better still has to be proven.

Giving laptops to children is essentially not the same as giving laptops to adults. Will they be able to use it productively given that most adults can’t even use computers productively? Will learning really be enhanced or will computers become a new distraction? Will there be enough education material? Will there be enough instructors capable of maximizing this technology? I believe there are many open research opportunity here. What would be interesting is somebody doing research on the Uruguay experience.

Proposal

If only I could get my hands on a few of these units… I believe the University will be willing to purchase a few (as long as the volume is a few and not in the million unit mark). I think the department can initiate a program that aims to compare teaching strategies between OLPC XO-enabled classes and non-OLPC XO-enabled classes.

We can probably identify two public elementary schools nearby with similar performance. A class can be picked from each school to be our sample populations for this experiment. One will be enabled. The other will not. This should be very interesting as we can quantify the effects on using an OLPC XO during instruction. The study can possibly also be implemented at various levels aiming to determine which level is optimal for laptop assignment. Another study can also focus on the “other” issues that will probably arise such as own damage, security and storage, power consumption, non-education use and many others.

After I got my hands on an OLPC XO a few months back, I have been wondering in the Philippines government would enter such a program. I am still wondering now. For more discussions on the status of the OLPC in the Philippines, please visit this wiki.

For those of your in the Human Resources (particularly Recruitment) field, it is common knowledge that recruitment is hard. It is difficult in terms of finding the appropriate resources and screening them properly. To make matters even worst, it become increasingly complex when managing a large number of candidates. This is particularly true for call centers and other business process outsourcing shops. You guys will be pleased to know that there is finally an open source product that can possible help you with your candidate management.

… is a candidate management module created by HR (Human Resources) people for other HR people. This product is based on actual, day-to-day recruitment needs and captures information that is important for pooling and searching.

Novare Technologies has released a candidate management module for SugarCRM and has released it under a dual-license (proprietary and GPL). You can download it from the following links: HR: Candidate Management Module (Full)
HR: Candidate Management Module (GPL). As usual, you comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

Full Disclosure: I am currently connected with the company that developed this candidate management module. However, I am not directly involved in its development.

Where does one draw the line between government regulation and plain meddling? Yuga has this post about some of the NTC’s plans to force websites and blog to register with them. I have been trying to dig for the original Manila Times article but could not find it. So if somebody has a copy please don’t hesitate to send me one.

The National Telecommunication Commission plans to classify Web sites and other data posted on the Internet as a value added service that needs to registered with the government.

In the preliminary hearing of a draft memorandum circular on value added services, Edgardo Cabarrios, NTC director for common carrier and authorization department, said contents of Web sites such as Yahoo could be classified as a value added service in so far as its delivery is concerned.“Telecom is delivery of content. When content is delivered it becomes a telecom service,” Cabarrios said.

This statement is purposely ambiguous. However, It is pretty clear that they want websites to register. By mentioning Yahoo, I guess they even want foreign sites to register. So does that mean ALL websites? Including sites under the sovereignty of another nation? If they claim to only require Philippines sites to register how about sites that are hosted abroad? Where do those lie? How about foreign sites talking about Filipino content? Are these covered too? Don’t tell me they require all websites in the ENTIRE WORLD to register with them? Can they even do it? What will they do if those sites don’t? Will they now implement something like the Great Firewall of China?

If they have so much time on their hands can they please focus on better spectrum management, standardization of carrier interfaces (We are mixing EU, US and a whole lot of other standards. I believe we are pretty dyslexic in this respect) and many other things that are already their responsibility that need more attention. This definitely needs some clarification.

Looks like the battle for the future development platform of choice is really spilling into the open source realm. First, we see SUN releasing Java as open source after a long decision making process. Then SUN makes another move by released the entire J2ME platform as GPL and also releasing an an open source J2EE stack. This is on top of OpenSolaris which was released earlier as Open Source. With distributions like NexentaOS, a complete SUN stack from operating system to runtime environments to SDKs to applications are now available as open source.

Now, Adobe is releasing its Flex SDK as open source.

Adobe revealed plans today to release the source code of the Flex SDK and compiler under the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Flex—a cross-platform compatible framework for developing interactive Flash applications with XML and ActionScript—allows developers to construct Flash programs using idioms that are less overtly media-oriented and better suited for conventional software development.

Availability of the source code, which will make it possible for independent developers to modify and improve Flex, could potentially cause a community of third-party contributors to emerge around the platform. Source code availability will also make it easier for third parties to incorporate Flex support into existing development tools or build new tools based on Flex components.

Adobe Flex is a key ingredient in its Apollo virtual machine. Apart from Flex, all other components of Apollo already use open standards and open source components. This new development will make the entire stack more open. So looks like both SUN and Adobe are betting that to rule this space ones platform must be open source. I wonder if Microsoft will soon follow suit? As for Adobe, the only piece missing is an open source runtime.

Here is another interesting move by Philippines’ second largest mobile network operators, Globe. Together with with Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), which is responsible for tax collection in the country, they have introduced a new service called PAYBIR.

PAYBIR is a project initiated by BIR to support its Tax Collection Drive. Through the PAYBIR service, taxpayers may now pay their tax of P10,000 and below by a simple text message. The PAYBIR Project was forged in partnership with Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) as the Accredited Agent Bank and Globe Telecom acting as taxpayer agent. Globe utilizes its G-Cash facility to make tax payments on behalf of its subscribers.

How does it work?

1. Register for the service. Text REG <4-digit M-PIN>/<mother ’s Maiden Name>/<first Name>/<last Name>/<address>/<telephone No. with area code> to 2882. You only have to do this once.
2. Fill out the correct BIR Tax Return Form
3. Make sure you have enough G-cash credit. Just go to any Authorized G-Cash Outlet which accepts cash-in transactions. Show the required identification to frontliner. Give the frontliner the cash plus the processing fee. The outlet will send the G-Cash to your mobile phone number directly.
4. Pay your tax of P10,000 and below using G-Cash. PAYBIR <amount> <mpin> <form Type> <tax Type> <return Period> <tin> <tpbc> <rdo> <tpname> send to 2882.
5. Indicate on the lower portion of your tax return the G-Cash trace number
6. Go to your nearest Revenue District Office (RDO) to file your tax return. A designated BIR officer shall be assigned to accept your tax return
7. Keep a copy of the tax return for future reference. You may also print a copy of the payment confirmation return from this website www.bir.gov.ph the day after you pay using G-Cash

This is a pretty convenient service. Having to go to the bank to pay taxes is a real hassle. Not a lot of people have Internet access to benefit from Internet banking. This is definitely something that would make things easier. However, it would have been even cooler if there where a way of also filing the tax return online.

Evil note: Of course, I can sense some possible scams that may emerge. Similar to pasaload scams, it is possible for a third party to spoof a notification message from the BIR and pretend to be re-request a transaction. Then the evil third party can get the user’s MPIN. Oh no!

In the past few weeks, we have seen a lot of activities in the WiMAX space. A lot of countries are signifying their intent on launching WiMAX networks [1][2][3][4][5][6]. A lot of these are even on track to launching WiMAX this year. Even the big manufacturers like Intel and Nokia are releasing WiMAX gear soon. This is the period of BIG WiMAX announcements.

However, there is also a growing amount of skepticism too. The biggest one to day is Ericsson deciding to snub WiMAX. Here is an article describing WiMAX as the next Iridium (AP source).

Don’t bet on it, says Zweig. “Just as did the Iridium community before it, the WiMAX community is failing to take into account how established technologies will evolve and improve over time.” Motorola’s Iridium venture “failed to take into account the competitive environment in which Iridium would be operating. By the time Iridium could launch, conventional cellular would have captured almost all of its [Iridium’s] potential market,” she explained.

“Iridium’s biggest competitor was GSM,” she continued. “GSM terrestrial coverage was expanding while the prices of services and devices were declining. In the case of Wi-MAX, its biggest competitors are mobile and landline broadband providers who are investing in faster networks and ever improving coverage.” Mobile handset and device prices, she added, are declining to below what WiMAX will be able to offer.”

However, WiMAX operators can actually prevent its unsightly demise by learning from Iridium’s mistakes. First of all, WiMAX providers should not price themselves out of the market. If the industry believes that WiMAX is a potential competitor to cellular data (WiFi, EV-DO, LTE, HSPDA, …) then it should come up with competitive pricing. Another thing WiMAX operators can do is open new markets. Iridium was trying to target a market that was already starting to be addressed by GSM. WiMAX should takes things a step further a look beyond its competitors. Right now, they are trying to do a same ole same ole me too offering.

So let us try to divide the world in to sides.

Looks like the world is drifting towards fence sitters. This is probably because they are convinced that their current technology directions are sound. However, they will play all cards to ensure that they do not miss out in a major break. Besides, LTE and WiMAX are so technologically similar that this looks more like a political game than a technology one.

While doing a bit of reading on WiMesh networks, I bumped into a lot of literature about another form of wireless ad-hoc network called a Wireless Ad-hoc Sensor Network. People have been studying sensor management for quite sometime now. There is even an ACM publication dedicated to wireless sensor studies.

These types of networks will have many of the characteristics of our previously featured ad-hoc wireless mesh networks such as being wireless, ad-hoc, distributed and connected. The most common uses of wireless sensor networks are commonly used for a whole multitude of applications such as telemetry for both military and civilian applications. The ability to easily distribute, collect data and manage sensors open up numerous possibilities for grown in this space [1]. However, they are not necessarily mobile, multi-hop and multi-channel. Most of these sensors have fixed positions after they are deployed and discovered. Data is typically not routed between the nodes themselves but directly to a central collector. Since, majority of the applications are network telemetry, this does not require a lot of bandwidth and thus does not require a whole lot of channels.

A quick way to get started with wireless sensor networks would be look the freely available tools. The most popular operating system and simulators for these types of networks are provided by TinyOS and TOSSIM.

TinyOS is an open-source operating system designed for wireless embedded sensor networks. It features a component-based architecture which enables rapid innovation and implementation while minimizing code size as required by the severe memory constraints inherent in sensor networks.

An Intel Mote - remote sensor

If you really want to try it on “real” hardware you can get one of these motes from vendors like Intel. Definitely an interesting field of research and its seems that there are a lot of resources available.

References:
[1] Römer, Kay; Friedemann Mattern (December 2004). “The Design Space of Wireless Sensor Networks”. IEEE Wireless Communications 11 (6): 54-61.