Oded H. Breiner

CatchyLink - a URL shortener with a sense of humor

2011-11-06T15:06:00.000-08:00

A URL shortener that uses memorable word combinations instead of hashes.

CatchyLink is a URL shortener with a sense of humor!

What do all the following word combinations have in common? - Thankful Remarkable
Edge, Puzzled Obedient Pear, Flawless Lethal Oven or Bored Panoramic Nation ?

Well, they are randomly generated, they all started their way as an experiment and they were all created by CatchyLink.com.

When I was a youngster, I played a computer game that used random word combinations for naming players in
the game. What I noticed was, that this shuffling of words created a name that was very amusing and catchy.

This is how I got the idea for what began as an experiment and now can be used by everyone on the web. I was wondering whether such a combination can be used to make long URLs short and at the same time help me remember them. So I talked with some friends and together we came up with CatchyLink.com.

CatchyLink combines a random set of two adjectives and one noun to create a catchy and short link we can easily memorize. When we went on generating links, they came out rather amusing, often those random words were combined in an unusual way with really funny meanings. Once we shortened a link that came out like http://catchylink.com/RipeSaltyCook. It made us think, well… how does a ripe salty cook looks like and will it
ever try to cook itself?

So how does CatchyLink work?

That is rather easy. Let’s say you have the following long and hard to remember web-link:
http://finance.jaluba.com/financialservices/global/en/853290fnhurhu2h3u43h/3465563259565674rrbz7758457485hrfudhdffdf/Pages/industrial_insurance_solutions.aspx
CatchyLink.com may turn it into something like:
http://catchylink.com/RipeSaltyCook
Which is much shorter, easier to remember and kinda' amusing.

We believe that people who want to use shorter links on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ will love to use CatchyLink.com. Bloggers and people who want to remember their own links will find CatchyLink.com can help them spread the word, Podcasters will finally be able to speak out links easily and newspapers will have an alternative for QR codes.

We are working on a version with statistics for registered users, services for self-created catchy URLs and dedicated themes that will give people with certain interests (science, technology etc.) the ability to create CatchyLinks that are
unique and personal.

Try it yourself on: http://catchylink.com

Soda can Basketball: Recycling gamification

2011-09-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

At arcades and at town fares, people pay to throw darts or a ball at some targets. I suggest that recycle bins for soda cans should actually be game machines.

Design the garbage container as a big round pool, with a reversed cone base and a basketball rim in the middle, if you have an empty soda can, don't just throw it away: aim, shoot and score.

Potentially, in the future, the recycle bins can be electronic, count successful shots, reward you and even post the score to your facebook feed.

Location:Bugrashov,Tel Aviv,Israel

Free cellular communication

2011-08-29T09:10:00.001-07:00

There's a way to transfer data between two smartphones with apps that call and hangup each-other without answering. And with zero charge by the carriers.

Cellular roaming fees are scandalous. I'm sure, one day, our offsprings will be mind-boggled when we tell them that we paid more than a dollar to send a few bytes across countries.

The app I'm suggesting can also be used for free local texting.

The side that sends the data initiates the calls, a two second ring means "0", and a four second ring means "1". Notice that usually there's no charge when there is just a ring, if the receiving side doesn't answer.

The app that is receiving the rings notes each ring as a bit of a binary value. After a few dozen rings it converts the message to ASCII text and shows it to the user.

This way of communication might be slow, but a more efficient system can be engineered using more bits, 3 second, 5 second rings and so on.

Business class seats lottery

2011-08-26T00:27:00.001-07:00

Most flights I take, I see more than 50% of the business class seats vacant.
Traveling companies should have a lottery for passengers, while on board, for those vacant seats. They can also advertise it: "fly with us and you might get a free business class upgrade!".
This will not demotivate business travelers from actually buying fully priced business class seats in advance. Trust me, they will not bet their 10 hour flight which they frequent, business class travelers will pay close to anything to make their flight a little more comfortable, you would too, if you traveled 3 times a week and could deduct the cost from your taxes.

Amazon Kindroid predictions

2011-07-19T04:34:00.000-07:00

Amazon is going to release an Android powered Kindle tablet in the near future, below are some features I predict the "Kindroid" will have.

Whispernet
The cellular enabled version of the Kindroid will feature download of payed items over cellular without requiring any subscription or pre-payment.
Download of free items will cost something like 1 cent unless you download it over wifi.

Amazon Android app store
The Kindroid will boast Amazon's android app store as one of its main features. It will have android apps customized and approved specifically for the Kindroid's hardware. Bypassing Amazon's app store for installation of 3rd party applications directly, aka side-loading, will be impossible. Amazon wants to create the protected environment that is so successful and lucrative on iOS devices.

Media store
All of amazon's media offerings will be available via whispernet: music, movies and tv shows.

Amazon store
Want to buy shoes? an electronic device or some cat food? All will be available through a general store that will give a new meaning to "one-click shopping". Pick up your Kindroid, turn on the screen, click the "apparel" icon, select your shoes and click buy, the shoes will be delivered to your pre-set address.

UX
The home screen will have a search box that will search all the above stores at once.
It will have icons for apps, music, movies, groceries, clothes, electronics and so on, the perfect shopping portal for... well, everything. Clicking on any of these icons will show you past purchases of goods, purchased apps and digital content, right next to advertisements.

Calendar and email advertisements
There will be ads in your calendar, and in your mail, all tailored exactly for your needs. Your wife emailed you "we need cat food"? No problem, an advertisement will be waiting just for that. A calendar entry for "get some shoes"? You get the drift, privacy will be subject to interpretation.

Price
The Kindroid will be an amazing shopping device that will lock you up to Amazon's products, or at least make it so easy to shop at amazon that you wouldn't want to buy anywhere else. Amazon will subsidize it, a gaming console or razor blades model is definitely an option here. It will sell for something like
$249 and the purchase of all the goods and content will cover the losing selling price. One way that they can achieve this price point is by using a really cheap memory chip, something like 8GB or even somewhere around 4GB, remember that all of amazon's content can be streamed.

Making Google mad
Amazon is going to cutoff Google completely and strip every reminder of the G brand. No Google market, no Google books, music and movies etc. Why? because they want control, they would like to be the Apple of the android ecosystem and to monetize the hell out of this device. Even the the default search might be Bing, maybe to cover their selves against potential Microsoft software patent suits around android.

iOS 5 predictions

2011-06-05T00:54:00.000-07:00

Here are the features I predict Apple will reveal on 6.6.11 for iOS 5. What do you think?

Cloud storage API: 3rd party apps will have access to iCloud storage as if it was local on the user's device. This will allow app developers to write scalable cloud applications without knowing anything about LAMP, Hadoop, AWS or GAE.
Widgets: app icons will now have various possible sizes, constrained to combinations of multiple icons. For example, to make a search widget, you can define your icon by 3x1, meaning 3 icons across and one vertical icon. The widget will occupy the space of 3 icons horizontally on the home screen and will behave exactly like an application with transparent background.
Lock screen is bye bye: there was no reason to have the lock screen to begin with, turning on the screen or clicking the home button will take you directly to one of the screens, showing all the widgets that are there. To update the widgets, developers will need to queue up http calls on pre-set time intervals with a minimum of something like 5 minutes, the answer will have a maximum size of something like 50kB.
Sleep Sync: The entire data on the iPhone will be fully synced to iCloud when three conditions are satisfied: the phone is plugged in, the battery is fully charged and WiFi is available.
Sleep sync API: Developers will have access to the sleep sync API so an application like flickr could sync all your photos during the night.
Xcode for the iPad: This is more of a wet dream, but Apple is building on the iOS as their main operating system for the future, and to get the real hardcore users to move to it, they have to make an IDE available. The main reason I gave up on my iPad and gave it to my mom was the lack of a good IDE (plus she really liked it :-).
cloudTunes: the obvious iTunes in the cloud with a twist- all the music you bought from apple is freely hosted and accessible. Want anything else? 5$ a month to store any music you want and download anything from the iTunes store for free.

What do you think?

Financing a subway with underground real-estate

2011-05-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to finance a subway system with underground commercial real-estate?

Over here, in Tel-Aviv, we have a grave need for a subway train. A metro system can make life much easier and the city much cleaner.

An interesting calculation would find out how many meters of underground real-estate would the city need to give to the entrepreneur in order for the project to pay for itself. It can possibly be done two stations at a time to minimize risk.

Selling stock to citizens for further financing

Besides the rights to sell the tickets to the subway, and the real-estate, the entrepreneur can also sell some stock for the the entire system ahead of time. City property owners in strategic locations would jump on the stocks because they have a double interest in raising the value of their real-estate and earning from the new commercial area. They can even be given the rights of choosing where the stations will be located, increasing incentive.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Rome

How to work with programmers from India

2011-04-29T06:11:00.000-07:00

After working with a few programmers from India, and failing (googdesk). I recently developed an iPhone app with Felix Grimberg and I finally think we came up with the perfect formula. BTW, our app is the must have postponed texting application - txtot. So go get it!

Getting quotes

The easy part is getting quotes, just get on any of the freelancer sites (freelancer, guru, elance) and post your project. Don't skimp on promoting your project for a few dollars, you're gonna spend 10 times more on the project itself.
Be as specific as possible and don't be afraid of revealing your idea. It is worthless.

Choosing a programmer

You're going to get some replies, some of them will be pre-made templates that dish out the entire resume of the freelancer, Rank these lower.
Choose freelancers that have more specific skills.
Companies are preferable, if one of the programmers is not up to the task, they can move the item to a different one.

Payment terms

This is critical, it determines if they catch you by the balls or not.
Never pay everything in advance.
Try to pay like this:

10% in advance
30% after the mockup or the design document
60% when the project is completely done

At the worst case, pay no more than 70% before the entire project is done.

Managing tasks and bugs

This is the longest and hardest phase.
You can try to setup a google docs spreadsheet and share it with your freelancer or the offshore project manager, but this doesn't always work well, especially if you fill it with many bugs, all at the same time. And you will have many bugs, trust me.
Just pick the 3 most important bugs and send it to them via email, explaining the problem as simply and shortly as possible from a user perspective.

Finishing up

Just pay what's left. After everything's closed, the app approved on the appstore or the website up in the air.

I know this post might sound politically incorrect, but I'm just talking about my own experience and I'm trying to help both buyers and suppliers of software services from India.

A smartphone app for conversing in noisy places

2011-04-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Let's say you meet a person at a bar. Talking with them will be really hard right?

Local p2p noise canceling

Not necessarily.
A smartphone app can be developed that will make things much easier.

Andy and Berry meet at a noisy place.
They both launch the "noisekiller" app and bump their phones.
The phones recognize each other via WiFi.
When Andy talks on his smartphone's microphone, it records what he is saying and sends it over to Berry's phone.
Berry's phone subtracts what it hears around it from the recording that was sent to it.
Now Berry can hear what Andy is saying very well.

The originality content network

2011-04-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

I've just read that Eric Schmidt says that "Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003". With that in mind, and the comments that followed, I thought:
How much of that information is novel or new?
I bet very little.

The content system that only records novel information

Imagine you have a web application with an input box and a "submit" button.
You enter information into the input box and click "submit".
Then the application runs a Google search for what you entered and posts it only if it finds exactly zero results.

Your network gets:
Lots of original information.
Highest ranked Google results for every page in your content network.
Great advertisement property.

Maybe this should be done only for the title of the post. It needs some testing.

Bottles designed as drinking glasses

2011-01-31T10:51:00.001-08:00

What's wrong with this picture?

That's right, I'm using twice the glass I actually need to drink that black magic beverage.

Why am I pouring that coke from one glass to another? Just to drink it?

Why does soft beverage makers don't make the bottle look exactly like a drinking glass? With a removable cap?

It's not like they don't know how to... This glass and bottle are bearing the same brand!

I propose that corporations like coca-cola start making their bottles look like a drinking glass and add a good capping mechanism.
Then they will:
Help the environment.
Save money for dish-washing restaurants.
Save money on transportation costs if they make the glasses a perfect cylinder (more beverage in less space).

Ofcourse, they don't have to discontinue regular bottles just yet, wait for the demand.

Two problems can pop-up:
The cap might not be as strong.
The temperature might change faster if you have a large opening and more air exposure at the top.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Doktor-Karl-Lueger-Platz,Vienna,Austria

Cycling terms for better goverment

2011-01-16T01:46:00.001-08:00

What if government terms were shorter and recurring?

Current, 4 year or longer, continual government terms have these problems:
1. When someone in-charge realizes they made a mistake, they usually don't fix it because fixing is admitting (e.g. sub-prime bust).
2. Whoever in charge doesn't invest heavily in infrastructure because they will not be in charge when it's time to reap the fruits of their smart, long term decisions.

Lets say that every time a candidate is chosen for a certain government role, they are actually chosen for two short terms instead of a single long one.
The first term will be immediate, and the second one will be a few years into the future.

Like so:
2011 - Andrew (elected)
2012 - Benjamin (elected)
2013 - Chester (elected)
2014 - Dwight (elected)
2015 - Andrew (recycled)
2016 - Edgar (elected)
2017 - Benjamin (recycled)
2018 - Franklin (elected)
2019 - Chester (recycled)
2020 - George (elected)
2021 - Dwight (recycled)

This method might not work for the presidential role, but has a chance in other roles, like "head of the economy".

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:שירי אלתר,Tel Aviv,Israel

No more hurricanes

2011-01-02T01:33:00.001-08:00

A distributed weather prediction system using cellular phones

Wether prediction today, is done with the help of thousands of sensors and balloons (or more).

How much better and accurate will weather prediction get if we add millions or even a billion more sensors?

I guess a lot.

Imagine every new cellphone sold comes with a temperature, wind speed, air density and whichever other sensors are possible.

Big statistical modeling can take all these read points and try to identify patterns in reading and correlation with actual weather affects like tsunamis and hurricanes.

A small change in some remote location might affect your neighborhood, somewhat of butterfly effect predictor.

Weather prediction is a world pandemic so maybe we can even regulate mandatory sensors in every new cellphone sold. Maybe google can just include it in their x.x pastry API?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:בני אפרים,Tel Aviv,Israel

The difference between a news feed and an inbox

2010-11-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

Over the recent months, I've seen much confusion between the "news feed" and an "inbox".

I would like to write this down for everyone to prevent confusion in some cases.

The "news feed" aka "the wall" is supposed to relay information that might be useful but is not obligating.

Ignoring it or missing it shouldn't come with a punishment.

You can't show items that require actions on a newsfeed.

An inbox can show actionable items like "Contract with Siemens is about to expire according to sourcing-software".

The reason that an inbox can show this type, and a news feed can't, is that it has a read/unread/deleted status to each item.

These different statuses make the items manageable and insure that everything you receive is still there until you handle it.

That’s also exactly why news feeds are so convenient for non-obliging information.

Foldable eyeglasses PC

2010-07-20T02:55:00.000-07:00

A foldable clamshell personal computer / cellphone that can also be worn as virtual reality glasses.

The design has two retractable ear-handles that make it wearable like a pair of eyeglasses.

It has two touch screens to control and view content.

Limit the size of private ownership in companies that are not exporters

2010-07-01T04:02:00.000-07:00

One problem with capitalism is private companies getting to rich. Such companies become monopolies or cartels and damage competition and the openness of the market for new companies and initiatives.

An obvious solution would be to create a tax or a maximum size for a company or income for one person or company. The problem with this solution is that it scares of big companies from investing in the taxing country.

Limiting only natively local companies
What if we would only limit and tax the companies that are natively local and have to be that way?

Telecom providers for example are companies that provide a service for local customers only, they dont do allot to contribute to the GDP and the export surplus, and they won't go to invest elsewhere because there is always a local need for their service. Maybe there should even be a law that they must be owned by the public through stocks.

Companies that do export and develop (like handset manufacturers) on the other-hand, should be allowed to grow and have private major stock owners.

To sum it up: companies that get their earning mainly from export should be allowed to have a single stockholder and companies that don't export and are mainly service providers or importers should be owned by the public.

Did Scott Adams try to create a new religion in "God's debris"?

2010-06-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

While reading God's Debris By Scott Adams I came to think that he might be trying to create a new religion.

It seems that the creator of Dilbert is obsessed with religion and how it controls humans, a feeling I can relate to. Many believe that religion and bible-like books are the effects of smart people trying to improve humanity with stories (give and you shall receive).

In the book, he makes a fairly believable connection between god and the big bang (hence, god's debris) to bridge the gap between religion and science and also between different religions (all religions are looking at the same thing from different viewpoints).

Some parts I was less enthusiastic about like the notion that evolution must appear in big jumps and does not, and so it might not be real. I don't think evolution must appear in big jumps, I think the opposite, many small changes lead to big changes over a long period of time. Wings appeared after years of jumping animals that jumped farther and farther thanks to bigger and bigger membranes under their arms and eventually became wings.

He adds touch of "How to win friends and influence people" when he write things like "Yes, that is the essence of being human. Any person you meet at a party will be interested in his own life above all other topics." to teach us some good.

All and all its written very well, and might actually change some people's minds and do good.

You can read the book for free here: http://nowscape.com/godsdebris.pdf

I'll probably read the sequel: The Religion War (couldn't find a free version)

Bomb Crater Theory of Desk Organisation applied to email

2010-06-08T12:21:00.001-07:00

Can the Bomb Crater Theory of Desk Organisation be applied to email management?

Just a thought.

Necklace cellphone

2010-06-06T00:23:00.000-07:00

No more " are you happy to see me? or is that your smartphone? "

I think it's time for a smaller, less intrusive, less- "are you happy to see me? or is that your smartphone?" bulging devices.

The quick-and-dirty sketch below depicts a wearable cellphone that is worn as a necklace. It uses voice commands and a tiny-winy touchscreen.

When you want to use the earphones, you rappel the device upwards which tightens the grip on your neck and frees up some wire so that the earphones can reach your ears. The sound is fed to the earphones by two conductive connections located in an optimal length location along the wires which the device clicks in to when the wires slide thorough it.

a close up:

The power of stories

2010-05-14T18:52:00.001-07:00

I am listening to "the black swan" where the power of narratives and their persistence in humanity's memory are mentioned quite a few times. This reminds me how much the means of delivering thoughts through stories are emphasized by both David Snowden and Igal Hamish. Then I suddenly realize that most of the ideas in this blog would have been immensely easier to explain and understand if the story of how I thought of them would be included.

From now on I'll try to add the story of origin to any new idea.

The idea of using lasers and reflective objects to see behind corners, for example, came to me when I was looking for my car in the parking lot. I looked at the tall turned off street light that was towering the cars. Then I wished I had its perspective, and I thought : "what if I could bounce a laser off of it to see from there?".

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:אהרונוביץ',Tel Aviv District,Israel

The Prime Directive solution to the Fermi Paradox

2010-05-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

This is not an original idea, the Prime Directive solution to the Fermi Paradox can be noted as the Zoo hypothesis. I'm just emphasizing what I think is the best reason for setting the Prime Directive.

Fermi Paradox

How come we've never been contacted by aliens? The universe is so big and old, that statistically, some civilization must have already developed the ability of star-travel.

Prime Directive

Never interfere with younger civilizations (from star trek).

The best reason for setting the Prime Directive

As far as I know, any contact between an advanced civilization and a native one in human history has always been disastrous to the native civilization (see: Chronology of colonialism).

The prospected visitors to earth have probably experienced these types of contacts within their planet before achieving interstellar travel. Hence, came to the conclusion that contacting less advanced civilizations can only hurt them.

Therefore, they set a rule (a "prime directive") to never contact less advanced civilizations.

Using lasers and reflective objects to gain urban warfare advantage

2010-05-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

Imagine a handheld device with an advanced laser imaging system. Multiple lasers will be shot form the device to a reflective object. The object will reflect the laser to an enemy which would not be see-able regularly because of no direct vision angle.

I presume that most surfaces are reflective in some way or another or we would not see them, the trick is to have a strong or "smart" enough laser to visualize the second reflected object.

Also, some of the light waves of the laser are reflected and some are diverted, it's a matter of reading the ones that got diverted and than reflected back.

Not sure this is optically possible...

The ultimate iPhone pizza app

2010-04-28T02:23:00.000-07:00

I would like to have a smartphone app for ordering pizza which will be so easy and fast that all you would do is launch it and wait for a phone call from the pizza shop.

This is how it would go down:
1. You find the link to the app on the home screen.
2. You launch it.
3. The app identifies your location.
4. The app gets your phone number.
5. The app sends them both to the nearest pizza shop.
6. The nearest pizza shop calls you and gives you their offer.
7. You say ok and wait for your pizza.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Automatically offer to sell the things you buy the moment you buy them - a better use case for blippy

2010-04-26T11:37:00.001-07:00

Blippy is a service which you can use to advertise what you buy. Every time you buy something, Blippy blips it (by monitoring your credit card) and sends it into your twitter stream.

The guys at Blippy should make a search engine for all the products bought by their users.

For example, a prospective buyer would go into the search engine and search for "Harry Potter". The results would show:

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" book
(56 people own this - make an offer)
"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" DVD
(43 people own this - make an offer)

Once you click "make an offer" blippy will show you a text box to enter a price.

Then, an email will be sent to all users who have bought the book in the past:

Hi Danielle,
John would like to buy your "Harry Potter" book for 5$.
Click here to sell it to him.

Algorithms can decide when is the owner of an object more likely to sell a product based on past sales. e.g. send the email only to people who own a book for more than 2 months.

Self cleaning, treadmill-like carpet

2010-04-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

Imagine a carpet attached to a treadmill-like contraption, every time you would want to clean it, you can just press a button and the lower part of the carpet would reveal itself.

In the meantime, the dirty lower part will be automatically cleaned beneath with soap and mechanical brushes.

Or... you can just buy a Roomba

Predictive navigation prefetching

2010-04-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter how fast internet connections and server technologies get, there will always be bottlenecks. Either too many people are hitting a website or too many people in your neighborhood are downloading torrents.

A browser plugin that prefetches links or "next websites" on a page based on popularity can highly improve the browsing experience.

There are prefetching clients like fasterfox but they arbitrarily prefetch all links on a given page.

If such a plugin could monitor browsing habits and store them on a "suggestion" server. A service could do statistic calculations about what is the most likely link to be clicked or what website will the user go to next. This can improve the benefit of prefetching. In two words: Intent Crowdsourcing.

monetization
Such a plugin can make money for its creator in two ways:
1. selling statistics to websites and web marketers about which pages on the web lead to which pages, essentially a walkthrough or a path guide for the web.
2. Create a suggestion mechanism that will tell users "most users browsed to this page after reading this article", and selling ads in-between the suggestions.

undermining google
Potentially, this feature can undermine google. A big percentage of Internet searches are performed after some thought was sparked from a previous page. For example, you happen to read about the winter olympics and suddenly you think "let's go on a skiing vacation", you go to google and do a search for "vacation reservation".
This plugin with it's suggestion feature can make the searching part irrelevant. If enough people did that search, you could see the suggestion: "Today, 75 people who read this article searched for 'skiing vacation' on google and clicked on the Third result: snowventures.com".

Time control

2010-04-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Past is documentation
Present is propaganda
Future is statistics

inspired by 1984

Virtual privacy penitentiary

2010-04-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

Prison's goal is to separate criminals from society to protect people from them.

What if we could "protect without separate"?

What if instead of putting criminals behind bars we make them wear a "witness bracelet"? A hand worn electronic device that will record the wearers every move by GPS, every word they say via microphone and most things that they do with a video camera.

The convicted criminals will not be able to do any more crimes without being caught and the cost for the authorities will be much lower than a regular prison.

Monitoring doesn't have to be in real time, it can be retrospective, algorithmic or even saved as evidence only. The fact that everything that you do is recorded is intimidating enough as it is.

The key is that the punishment is loss of privacy instead of loss of freedom. This method doesn't have to be a substitute to incarceration, it can be an alternative, cheaper one, for less severe crimes.

Too much big brother?

Lighthose retina projector

2010-04-06T00:55:00.000-07:00

In the future we might not want to carry personal communication and prosumer devices.

Instead, a big lighthouse, very high in the middle of the metropolitan area will be able to read our lips from far away and project images, let's say a web page, on to our retinas.

Input will be done by lip-reading and output by far away projection of images straight into our eyes.

Dating apps ideas

2010-04-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

Matchmaker- a facebook app that allows people to be match makers and match their friends, legend says that if you match 3 couples you will go to heaven, posting it on your wall "Dana just matched 2 of her friends together, join matchmaker app to become a match maker yourself" is a very good incentive also.

Virtuapupp- an app that tells you to walk the digital pet dog from time to time like a tamaguchi, to actually walk it outdoors. it matches people by walking "dog" owners one to another using GPS and mating them, then the pupps mate and multiply. owners meet each other to get ahead in the game and get introduced to new romantic prospects.

Thats what allot of dog owners get a dog for anyway...

Using a shutter switch, iPhone can make video calls popular

2010-04-04T04:04:00.000-07:00

Before the iPhone came to light, very few people surfed the web using their mobile phones even though basic mobile browsers were existent. Today, the numbers are staggering. It's all about the UI and speed of the iPhone's browser, which many platforms are now just catching up too (android and blackberry).

Can the 4th iPhone do the same for video calls?

Video calling hasn't picked up speed even though it's around for more than 5 years, Nokia always was against this technology because their tests showed that no one is really using it.

If Apple will incorporate a front-facing camera, which rumors say they will, what would be their magic ingredient?

A camera shutter switch.
Moving from voice calling to video calling should be easy as flicking a switch. once a call is in progress, and both sides have a video-call capable iPhone, the shutter on the front-facing camera would light up. to "add video" all you will need to do is move the shutter switch and immediately the other side will see your face, then they will here a beep and will be encouraged to do the same when the light on their shutter would light up.

Plus a faster 4G network couldn't hurt...

A faster way for Google to encourage modeling of town buildings - Allow every user who models a building to advertise on its walls

2010-04-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

Google is trying to find the best way to ~~index~~ model to worlds buildings and architectural structures, it's all a part of their grand scheme to ~~dominate~~ index the world's information.

The best solution they have thought of until now is to have a competition, not very ingenuous, isn't it?

What google should do is allow every user who models a building to advertise on its walls within google goggles. Building walls, basically, are just a type of advertising real-estate like websites and tv-commercial time. this way, would be advertisers and "land-grabbers" will get into a modeling frenzy, exactly like what happens when any new real-estate like market opens up (see domain names).

They could make a crowdsourcing voting app to filter out building spammers and provide the advertisers only a percentage of the income from ads, exactly like they do with adsense.

QR code game idea for snack food makers

2010-04-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

Doritos, and most other snack food makers deliver these small cardboard or plastic chips illustrated with nice colors and symbols, kids collect these and play all sorts of games with them (pokemon?).

They should take these to the next level. Have them marked by special QR codes that symbolyze diiferent qualities desired by would be super-heroes. these super heroes will be characters representing the kids themselves using a facebook app.

Every time a kid finds a new QR code inside a doritos bag, he will rush to take a picture of it with his frito-lay iPhone app and find out what new ability his super-hero character can have. The kids will also have fight matches between the characters of their friends in their facebook apps, showing the results on their walls.

facebook should cancel that age 13 restriction first...

the cashless society

2010-03-14T05:16:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to be cashless for a few years now, at one point i even managed to put my cards inside my phone, under my battery cover. when having too little cards was impossible i bought a silicone cover for my phone and put the cards there. You can have an "sos" bill under your phone's battery cover too.

The reason i'm so hyped about the cashless society is because of the social implications. If cash is cancelled by law, crime will reduce significantly, stolen stuff will be alot harder to sell, including illegal stuff like drugs.

The technical solution imo is an rfid chip inside the phone, it does not need battery and visa is already working on making an rfid card to be put inside a micro-sd card.

The possibility of an uncontrollable internet

2010-03-03T04:03:00.000-08:00

The internet as we know it today is at great risk.

One day, the internet might be censored, controlled and heavy regulated and monetized.
This will ruin its sense of democratization.

We need to start thinking of a new kind of internet, an internet that is uncontrollable, an internet that is distributed and at the hands of the users.

My idea is to integrate some existing technologies like p2p, bittorrent and web browsers and to create some new ones to accomplish the goal of the distributed and uncontrolled internet.

We might even be able to create an internet that can move information from device to device using wifi and bluetooth and be network independent, an internet that will be compiled solely of end users and devices. When I will want to access some content, I will ask for it using my device, the request can roam from my device the others' without even using the cell network or any kind of carrier. It will just jump from one device to the next until it finds what I looked for.

Imagine that all content on the web will be accessible via a p2p network, exactly the way we can download music files today, we can also download html files and any other kind of content.

The internet can become a p2p network, and then it will really be free, and open.

Research areas

Censorship and control today
What are censorships today.

Web browsers
Many web rendering engines are available, including geko and webkit, they will have to be the face of the uncontrollable internet, but get their content through some of the new tools like p2p networks.

P2P networks
These networks have the potential of making internet content distributed between personal clients like smartphones and PCs. Visualization: http://mg8.org/processing/bt.html

Wireless client to client Mesh networks
To make the new internet operation and regulation free there is a need to allow user devices like smartphones to interact with each other without any need of serevers that can be controlled by businesses and goverments.

Open source licenses
Which licenses are avilable to make this idea ligeal?

a more complete essay: An uncontrollable internet

About sourcing software

2010-02-18T03:36:00.001-08:00

old thinking = do what you do best, outsource the rest
new thinking = do what you do best, open source the rest

Business Functions list

2010-01-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

Human Resources
Sales
Marketing
Research and Development
Production
Operations
Customer Service
Finance
Account management
Administration
IT
Management
Innovation
Business intelligence
Benchmarking
Logistics
Distribution

proposed business software provider strategy

2010-01-07T06:28:00.000-08:00

Our strategy should be one line, like : "maintain world's business data" or "map the world's business processes".

and then break it down to a few sub goals, like:

provide easy way to map a business processes for any organization with minimum cost
provide access to thousands of business processes
allow businesses to share their business processes
use only non-proprietary software to diminish dependency
don't plan to far ahead

Then break it down to practical steps like:

Create an easy platform for managing business processes
Create businesses processes together with partners
Create integrations to the cloud for the most common software solutions (especially ours)
Create mobile versions of all of our software
Use web standards like html5
Provide API's to all of our customer's information

lightest laptops table: grams per inch

2009-10-10T23:45:00.000-07:00

a table of the lightest laptops available, calculated by grams per screen size (in inches).

requirements:

can run windows 7
has wifi
manufactured by a known, trusted company
available
screen resolution of at list 1024X768 pixels

laptop	weight (grams)	screen size (inch)	grams/inch
apple macbook air	1360	13.3	102.26
sony vaio p	600	8	75
lenovo x301	1330	13.3	100
lenovo x200s	1100	12.1	90.91
sony vaio x	680	11.1	61.26

sony vaio x has the best grams/inch ratio.

note: here in Israel, we use inches only for screen sizes of electronics. and because i like using grams, conversions are not absolutely accurate. but as you can see from the differences, they are enough.

Enablers, designers and manufacturers

2009-10-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

Some companies are enablers, some design and some just manufacture. which one would you like to be?

examples:
Enabler: IBM
Designer: Apple
Manufacturer: Asus

location based thinking prevents innovation

2009-10-04T03:01:00.000-07:00

I just got an email:

Subject: Development environment
Hi Oded,
I want to create a page on Wiki about “How to improve environment performance” – do you have any recommendation where to create it?

You see... location based thinking prevented this person from creating a knowledge item, he wouldn't create the page before he knew where to put it.

In "analog" life we don't operate that way, first we take a page, jot down some things, and only then we have to decide where to put it, if at all... it can also just be put on a pile on the desk.

So, this was my answer:

Hi,
The thing about the wiki is that the location doesn’t matter, just create the page on the main page and we will link to it later when we find a logical place…

This person's wiki has an incredible "bug/feature" in it, which denotes that every page should have a "parent" page.

How many knowledge items got scrapped because their proponents didn't know "where" to put them?

The real solution is to have a wiki that doesn't have that incredible bug. But if you must use such software, just create a "new pages pool" which is to contain any page which doesn't have a destination (which is what i did).

Is firefox's “awesome bar" google's biggest threat?

2009-07-30T03:42:00.000-07:00

Is firefox's “awesome bar" google's biggest threat? i'm so used to it, and loving it, that i'm guesstimating it reduced my searches by 10%-20%.
I bet it's one of the reasons why google is trying to push chrome so hard.
Microsoft should try to develop and improve on an “awesome bar" for internet explorer, it will probably dent google search a lot more than bing.

Quick platforms

2009-07-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

It's all about quick platforms in this day and age.
The first company that creates a platform wins.
So make it early and usable.
Examples:

google search
microsoft windows (first widely available)
iphone app store
google book project

web 3.0, the semantic web is here

2009-05-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

Google adds microformat:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-adds-microformat-parsin.html

Web integration in mobile is key

2009-02-21T02:39:00.000-08:00

In the coming months, the key for making a successful mobile handset will be in how deeply integrated is it's software with online services.

Right now, the promising leaders are:

Wiki elevator pitch

2009-01-06T01:44:00.000-08:00

Think of a wiki as an infinitely extensible whiteboard that many people can edit and share with the ability to undo changes.
How many times have you stumbled upon a term or an acronym which you had no idea what it meant?
Our company can benefit greatly from having a global wiki. Think of a central space where anyone can post his knowledge and new things that he learnt, a space where anyone can read and learn useful information.
Have you added any articles yet?

macworld and apple stocks

2009-01-04T00:50:00.000-08:00

Can you read the numbers?

macworld? - Date - Close - Volume

days before and after - January 24, 2008 - 135.6 - 68069000
days before and after - January 23, 2008 - 139.07 - 17008800
days before and after - January 22, 2008 - 155.64 - 69530400
2008 macworld - January 18, 2008 - 161.36 - 57983700
2008 macworld - January 17, 2008 - 160.89 - 61237600
2008 macworld - January 16, 2008 - 159.64 - 77804500
2008 macworld - January 15, 2008 - 169.04 - 81723300
2008 macworld - January 14, 2008 - 178.78 - 36688700
days before and after - January 11, 2008 - 172.69 - 43219400
days before and after - January 10, 2008 - 178.02 - 52015700
days before and after - January 9, 2008 - 179.4 - 63762300

days before and after - January 18, 2007 - 89.07 - 79688000
days before and after - January 17, 2007 - 94.95 - 44892100
days before and after - January 16, 2007 - 97.1 - 42947000
2007 macworld - January 12, 2007 - 94.62 - 45876200
2007 macworld - January 11, 2007 - 95.8 - 50330300
2007 macworld - January 10, 2007 - 97 - 98946900
2007 macworld - January 9, 2007 - 92.57 - 18471000
2007 macworld - January 8, 2007 - 85.47 - 28089100
days before and after - January 5, 2007 - 85.05 - 29335400
days before and after - January 4, 2007 - 85.66 - 30032100
days before and after - January 3, 2007 - 83.8 - 43223900

days before and after - January 19, 2006 - 79.04 - 60161500
days before and after - January 18, 2006 - 82.49 - 32437300
days before and after - January 17, 2006 - 84.71 - 28904800
2006 macworld - January 13, 2006 - 85.59 - 27444200
2006 macworld - January 12, 2006 - 84.29 - 45465000
2006 macworld - January 11, 2006 - 83.9 - 52882100
2006 macworld - January 10, 2006 - 80.86 - 80925900
2006 macworld - January 9, 2006 - 76.05 - 23939300
days before and after - January 6, 2006 - 76.3 - 25060700
days before and after - January 5, 2006 - 74.38 - 15808700
days before and after - January 4, 2006 - 74.97 - 21956400

days before and after - January 20, 2005 - 35.23 - 32271400
days before and after - January 19, 2005 - 34.94 - 26515200
days before and after - January 18, 2005 - 35.32 - 35759200
2005 macworld - January 14, 2005 - 35.1 - 62749400
2005 macworld - January 13, 2005 - 34.9 - 12163000
2005 macworld - January 12, 2005 - 32.73 - 56857000
2005 macworld - January 11, 2005 - 32.28 - 92592600
2005 macworld - January 10, 2005 - 34.48 - 61209600
days before and after - January 7, 2005 - 34.62 - 79150800
days before and after - January 6, 2005 - 32.28 - 25002000
days before and after January 5, 2005 32.25 24158800

My reading trends

2008-12-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

cellphone - speaker = cellphone + lanyard earphones

2008-12-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

Can you imagine a cellular phone without a speaker?

Instead, it will have lanyard earphones which stick from the top and can be used for:
1. standard talking
2. no hands talking (just increase the volume)
3. listening to music (just pull the lanyard out and separate the earphones)

a quick mockup->

Refrigerator camera

2008-12-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

I know that one day, all of our groceries will have some kind of RFID and our refrigerator will order our food for us when it runs out.

But until then...

What about putting cameras inside our refrigerators and allowing some retailers to watch it and order the food for us?
The cameras and networking can be given for free in the exchange for the right to push some taste-related advertising.
I see you like instant macaroni, would you like some cheese with that?

Kinda big brother, but controllable...

Bill Gates is still thinking "files"

2008-12-25T05:44:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates is still thinking "files" which is dead off target (imho). The world is going towards moving all data to databases (like wikis, blogs, google docs), files are becoming a thing of the past.

Check out this video at about minute 19:20 :
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9875

Access for the cloud

2008-12-17T23:30:00.001-08:00

The next killer-app for the cloud will be a Microsoft Access-like application the will run fully on the cloud.

It's the weight, STUPID!

2008-12-02T03:58:00.000-08:00

I'm very pleased that Apple has brought plenty competition with its iPhone 3G.
But I'm still amazed that all the iPhone wannabe's (HTC G1, BB storm, Nokia N97) haven't got the most basic thing right - the weight!
One of the iPhone's greatest achievements is packing all that tech into such a light-weight form factor.
The one who wants to beat the iPhone, has to pack better specs including a lighter weight.

HTC Android G1 - 5.6 ounces = 158.757329 grams
Black Berry storm - 5.46 ounces = 154.788396 grams
Nokia N97 - 5.2 ounces = 147.41752 grams
iPhone 3G - 4.7 ounces = 133.242759 grams

Too many sharing services

2008-11-25T01:23:00.000-08:00

Lets say you just finished reading an interesting blog post. Now you want to tell the world about it.
Usually, you will have about 5-10 "bla-bla this".
Here's an example...

"Digg This! * Sphinn It! * Save to del.icio.us * Submit to Propeller * Google Bookmark This * Stumble It!"

Well, That's a nuisance, and what I think we should have is a protocol for post sharing and I'm not talking about the likes of addthis.com.

I'm talking about a solution that will be quick and non disruptive of my blog reading. Something like the "share" button on google reader. Maybe a link that will require you to choose your sharing platform only once and from then on, it'll be just a fast one click process.

(I know about bookmarlets, but they are so "local machine" oriented, I use many PC's and devices for reading blogs.)

The Grandson Paradox

2008-11-24T11:30:00.000-08:00

You probably heard about the Grandfather Paradox, which sparked my idea of the Grandson Paradox.
In short, the Grandfather Paradox suggests this never-ending loop:
1. You travel back in time and kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother...
2. You will not be born...
3. You will not travel back in time...
4. You will not kill your grandfather...
5. You will be born
6. Go back to step 1.

The Grandson paradox which I thought of about ten years ago suggests this experiment:
1. Go to your back yard
2. Bury a note that says: "This is for the descended of "your name" that will encounter a time machine." Please come back to the date "date of note burial" and show yourself.
3. Swear to yourself that you will pass the existence and purpose of that note to your kids and their kids.
4. Expect to see a time machine...

What do you think? is it a paradox? or just a philosophical question?

Live press

2008-11-24T11:19:00.002-08:00

Future news sites will have an IRC like window that will show the news live as documented by reporters on site.

Drop SAT's

2008-11-24T11:19:00.001-08:00

I think that SAT's can be easily replaced by an academic analysis exam.
Each test, compile a questionaire about a new academic exam. It might be a great non biased way of assesing success in school.
Which is the goal of SAT exams.

Productivity 2.0: How the New Rules of Work Are Changing the Game

2008-10-13T04:57:00.000-07:00

For years, books and articles and blogs on productivity have been showing us how to be more productive: crank out the tasks, multi-task, work faster, be organized.

In short, they’ve taught us to be a good part of a corporation that wants more out of us. But that’s old-school productivity, or Productivity 1.0

read...

App store ban list

2008-09-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to make up a list of all banned apps from the Apple app store for iPhone and iPod touch.
For 4 reasons:

Help developers predict as early as possible if their app will be banned, since Apple will only consider your app at the final stage and won't give any detailed specifications.
Educate consumers about which functions not to expect from their iPhone any time soon.
Educate competing platforms developers about their advantage over the iPhone.
Make Apple understand that they are doing the same mistake they did with the Mac about 20 years ago (yeah right).

Please help building the list by adding comments. (appname - [link|reason] - (date))

Podcaster - duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes - 2008-Sep-09
NetShare - unknown reason - 2008-Aug-01
Murderdrome - contravening Apple's content guidelines - 2008-Aug-26
MailWrangler - duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail - 2008-Sep-21
Slasher - content could be considered “objectionable” - 2008-Aug-08

more in your comments...

Top 100 blogs for development managers

2008-09-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.noop.nl/2008/09/top-100-blogs-for-development-managers-q3-2008.html

Start

2008-08-21T02:58:00.000-07:00

Wassup world ?!