Category: Bookmarks

Skyhook says: Who needs GPS? | News.blog | CNET News.com

Skyhook has developed a small application, a Firefox plug-in (hmm why?), that could make GPS devices redundant in metropolitan areas.

How does it work? Well Skyhook is maintaining a database that maps the identifiers (SSIDs) of access points to their physical location, basically “wardriving” around town with WiFi detectors .

So what’s the point? There are more WiFi devices out there, hey I have four, one desktop, two laptops and one iPAQ.

Unfortunately Skyhook’s small application Loki currently is Windows only (they do promise a Mac and Linux version), and the database is limited to major metropolitan areas in the US, by they do seem to be working on worldwide support

A service like Loki needs high quality and frequently updated information, it’s a daunting task, and I guess that it could be misused in some way.

Skyhook’s application addresses several issues with GPS. GPS, and the new European Galelio network, needs line of sight to several satellites to get a lock of the position, that often takes several minutes, and GPS doesn’t work indoors.

For the majority of location based applications, I do agree, we don’t need GPS. WiFi has tremendous penetration, and it keeps getting better. Sitting in my garden, I can actually see three networks.

All companies interested in providing location based services need to do now, is to set up an access point, or a simple device that only broadcasts WiFi access-point network identifiers (SSIDs).

The telcos has tried to provide location based services for ages, they have failed miserably, at least in Denmark. The Loki solution could deliver on the promise of location based services.

Reboot8: The Feedback Loop at Binary Bonsai

Yes I attended reboot last week, and it was great, even though a bit taxing.

Binary Bonsai is maintaining a “Reboot8 Feedback Loop”, maybe a good place to check for updates.

I agree 100+% with this comment:

This in particular was why Ben Hammersley’s talk on ‘Being a Renaissance Man’ was great. Not only is Ben of course fantastic at delivering his material, but he manages to drive home his points by tying everything into practical here-and-now applicability, and he does so during his entire talk, not waiting to drive his point home at the end where people have drifted off to the backchannel anyway.

Ben Hammersley’s address to wild cheers, was more like attending a great sports event. Ben had to jump violently to fix a bad connection to the projector, I’ve heard that was caused by some water in unsafe proximity to a PowerBook, but it really seemed like an integrated part of his show.

It was truly inspiring to hear Ben tell us, that there is no such thing as information overload, and that it’s a lame excuse, for not producing some world changing things, so we can have a new renaissance, no YOU’RE WEAK!!! Da Vinci would have killed for a PowerBook.

So now I’ve begun creating again, or rather “stealing from the best”, and it feels GREAT!

• Steal from the best
• View source
• Be passionate
• Kiss a girl (or a boy)?

2/4 so far, not bad…Still looking for the “best” and/or a girl ;-).

And guess what: “YOU’RE ALL INVITED TO JOIN THE FUN!!“.

Jeg rebooter baby, huskede jeg at gemme?

ps. The picture was “stolen” from svanes’ flickr photos.

Google Web Toolkit – Build AJAX apps in the Java language

I’ve just discovered the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). A toolkit that makes it possible to build AJAX applications in the Java language.

The concept is this. You develop, test and debug your application in Java using the GWT classes, you then have the GWT convert your Java code to JavaScript and HTML.

This is a great idea. Frankly I’ve always wondered how people managed to debug JavaScript code. Now I know…They don’t!

Hmm…Guess I might still become a Java developer…

The ultimate Web 2.0 metaphor: Legos | News.blog | CNET News.com

The CNET NEWS.COM site is filled with stories about the LEGO company these days, and it warms my heart, since I’ve had a life long “love affair” with the company.

LEGO has been a metaphor for component based software development, and object orientation, for a long, long time, at least here in Denmark. I find it remarkable how many pioneers, within the field of software object orientation, are of Danish descend. I believe this is, somewhat connected, to the fact, that we all played with LEGOs

Now, if only we could get standardised Web 2.0 components, that snap together like LEGO bricks.

This absolutely is not the case today, and the standardised component technologies like COM, .NET and Beans are so much easier to work with. Web 2.0 is a step back, in terms of “ease of interoperability”, but the emergence of home grown services, and so called mash-ups, where several services and components are combined, to create new services, has been no less than phenomenal, and has created a number of DIY toolset (APIs) for the web garage, the most well know is probably the Google Maps APIs.

The standardised web-service protocol stack (WS*), has failed to deliver the high-level services, that are being build right now under the label Web 2.0.

The WS* stack is a bit like having the interlocking, but not the component. And the Web 2.0 applications are largely the components, but with incompatible interlocking.

Eventually the Web 2.0 components will mature, and standards will emerge, and we’ll have the software equivalent of the interlocking genius of the LEGO brick.

But I’d say that the sacrifice of standards, at the “altar of innovation”, has been worth it, but that it’s time to “grow up”, and agree on some standards for “interlocking”.

When this happens, it will be remembered as the day, the “mash-up” industry was created. Web 3.0 anyone?