Companies like SimpleGeo, SkyHook are providing the important plumbing we need to build new geo-aware apps, and are poised for stellar growth. Niche players now have an opportunity to tap into the geo-service landgrab and stake their claim. We are very much taking an active role in this phenomenon and look forward to exciting new capabilities.

Stay tuned,

Infinitely Meta Team
team@infinitelymeta.com

Is your app geo-aware? #friendspider #geofencing

It's not about HTC EVO vs. iPhone 4/3Gs

It's not about HTC Incredible vs iPhone 4/3Gs

I have a problem with the telecomm providers in the USA and how they go about building out their network infrastructure. Here's an exerpt from a Friendfeed conversation sparked by a Ping.fm post by @ChrisPirillo. I agreed with Chris' comment, but I'm sick and tired of the fanboi bashing in either camp.

My comment:

That's pretty much an apples to oranges comparison, and therefore I agree. It's a stupid comparison. I ditched my iPhone 3G on AT&T's crappy 3G network for HTC Incredible on Verizon's 3G EVDO network. I bet my Incredible gets better battery life than the EVO. I don't need (want) a 4G wimax (sucky tech) modem in addition to Sprint 3G CDMA tech crammed into a single device. No wonder the EVO is so big. How many radios does it have anyway? The EVO is an intermediate device that will be relevant until the *REAL* 4G LTE networks come online next year. I'll take Verizon 3G over 4G Wimax (especially for the price) any day (especially given 4G coverage vs. Verizon 3G. I'll also take the Snapdragon 1Ghz chip over my old iPhone 3G. There. That's my position and I'm sticking with it. Anyone want to buy my iPhone 3G?

The conversation thread: http://friendfeed.com/l0ckergn0me/a10d7582/people-want-me-to-compare-iphone-4-battery-with

BOTTOM LINE: I'm an UBER GEEK. I use whatever works best for me at any given point in time. Right now, Android on Verizon is making me a lot happier than iPhone on AT&T.

Right now, my iPad is working better than my old ASUS 1005HA netbook. I am using my iPad for more and more business purposes each and every day and I consider it to be an integral part of my workflow.

I have a Macbook hooked up to my 56" Samsung DLP HD set that I use for music streaming and watching Hulu and Youtube. I run a copy of Windows XP in VMware Fusion on this laptop. I keep all the books for my businesses on Quicken running inside XP on Mac OSX.

I have a Dell Vostro 3300 running Windows 7 with VMware Workstation 7.1 running an Ubuntu VM for active prototyping and development.

#suckitfanboys

The Atom and Ion processors are game changing chips helping to fuel this (r)evolution. I believe the Intel Atom, Moorestown, and Medfield processors will be as important, if not more important than the original Pentiums.

I've been hacking around with netbook class hardware for about 9 months and have a multitude of netbooks, nettops, and I just recently completed the buildout of 5 new Atom-based desktops that each cost $191. The Intel N280 chip that is powering the Asus Eee 1005HA that I'm typing this on is an amazing chip that only consumes 2.5 watts of power. Pretty cool to see my battery meter say "10 hours" of life left. This is also made possible with innovations in energy efficient backlit LED technology.

I see this as the beginning of a new wave of innovation in software, hardware, and computing in general. It opens the door for developers and engineers to rethink the traditional Human Computer Interaction (HCI) patterns. In the coming months and years, sw and hw platforms like ChromeOS, Windows 7, Atom, Ion, and Medfield will drive more pervasive computing models helping bring access to more and more people and an entire new class of small, powerful, smart, always-connected devices.

With announcements recently from Nokia about plans to use the forthcoming Intel Moorsetown and  Medfield processor line for its next line of smartphones and similar mobile devices, it's only a matter of time before the floodgates open to a whole new class of smart always-connected internet devices.

I'm very excited about using all this shiny new hw and sw tech to tackle some really hard problems.

- ∞ +

So what does this mean? It means that I've got a new arsenal of APIs, protocols, devices, browsers, and OSs to build the next gen HCI with.

I'm talking auto, home, mobile geekery. Embedded, wearable, you name it. Combine this with what's coming in the latter part of 2010 with the Intel Medfield line of 32nm Atom chips, and we are talking about some serious new classes of computing devices. Something in between the current generation of smartphones like the iPhone 3GS, HTC Hero/Ion and the size of my new 1005HA netbook. I'm with Arrington on this one. Screw software, I want to get into the HW biz and build cool new gadgets for specific use cases that are all in the $150 price range.

I just proved that you can build full featured Atom-based desktops for $191. If we can do that with today's generation of hw/sw, just think what will be possible with all this new crap.

That's why I'm so excited about things like Atom, Medfield, Wave, Android, Moblin, Jolicloud, Boxee, and now, Chrome OS.

Exciting times ahead I think . Onward.

Meeting this challenge required 4 near sleepless nights, working through the entire weekend and around the clock with a virtual team distributed around the globe.  While it was a pretty intense and tiring effort, we were able to put together an impressive demo showcase and I'm happy to report that the entire management team was quite pleased with our execution and delivery.

The demo showcase we built was delivered earlier today by Software AG CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich to German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a VIP press & media event at the CEBIT conference in Hanover, Germany.

Here are some pictures from the event. You can see one of demo pages we built being shown on a 60" Flat Panel touchscreen monitor that was used to "deliver" the demonstration.

Image source: http://www.softwareag.com/Corporate/Press/photos_artwork/events/pg_cebit_2009.asp

Now that this mini-project / event is over, I'm going to try and catch up on some much needed sleep. It was a privilege and honor to work with such dedicated colleagues around the globe, with a near impossible deadline, to pull this off.  Now I can add a new line to my list of accomplishments on my resulme: "Built a demo for the Terminator!"

Hasta la Vista baby!

Major props to KtecK Labs for the WordPress hackery.

PS - I'm going to start using my IRC channel more, so be sure to come stop by:

Server: irc.wyldryde.org

Channel: #infinitelymeta

Duane just crafted an excellent blog post recapping the challenges we faced, the experiences we had, and the lessons we learned. This is in support of his new O'Reilly book "Web2.0 Patterns". I highly suggest that anyone responsible for building systems, managing software projects and cross-organizational initiatives check it out:

Forensic Architecture and other lessons from SOA land.

Long live LICFROG!

Coffee, breakfast, and some light coding / app config. Then bailed for home, which is where I'm at right now. As it's a holiday weekend, where many our out squeezing in one last extended summer weekend, I'm pretty well tied up with the reality that are my unavoidable deliverables. I've got no problem spending my weekend this way, as I know I am working hard towards something much bigger. So with that, here's a list of what I've got on tap this Labor Day weekend.

What are you all doing? @infinitelymeta me on Twitter or *Like* this post on Friendfeed to get in on the conversation. That's where I tend to hang out on socnets these days.

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Brian's Uber List

1. New range/oven delivery for unit 2214 (one of my new tenants stove broke so I replaced it with this:
   
2. Put out For Rent sign for my soon to be available 1BR apartment in Eastlake, Seattle WA 98102. It rents for $1400 and is the entire lower floor of an historic Victorian home that was built in 1908. An excellent spacious unit with great lighting. Email eastlakeassociates at gmail if interested or call 206.328.3379 and leave a message.

   

3. Java/JSF/AJAX - I'm putting the final interfaces and code tweaks in place for a project that I've spend a quarter working on. Final interfaces in place, but still have 75+ line item bug list. Need to go code complete by Monday evening to begin FTP transfer of Development VMware image from one side of our network to an internal only host. Still have A LOT of work ahead of me to finish this project and go into team only beta next week with Public Beta (internal corp net) on Sept 8.
   
4. Landscaping & trim to prep for fall. Luckily, I really enjoy this task. Especially when my 5.5 yr old nephew Logan joins me. He makes some pretty good coin and he's a GREAT helper.
   
5. Working with my friend Thom, the Ichthyogenius on our latest project, Reef In A Box that we are looking to launch in the coming months.
6. Working on the YTranslate.us engine. Coding in PHP/mySQL/Python/etc. Toying with new SMS gateway (thanks to Mona' Friendfeed post).
7. Meeting with contractor on some fix-r-up-r projects for 3 of my apts in preparation for Fall/Winter.
8. Looking for electrician to install some motion-sensor aware lighting in my back alley and in between my building to deal with my unwanted-persons-on-my-property challenge.
9. Water changes & general maintenance on my 300 gallon reef tank.
10. Prep/meet with GC on new reef tank project. Wait till you see what I'm going to build. It's gonna pop!
11. Shade garden v2. Part of the landscaping stuff I suppose, but definitely worthy of mention.
12. Replace fire extinguisher in common area to be in compliance with recent Seattle City Fire Department inspection.

That's all I can remember for now.

9. I've had breakfast AND lunch with Scoble.

8. I once strapped a camera on my head and pretended to be iJustine.

7. I got better Gadgets than Nik Cubrilovoic.

6. I got .flv video clips of Mike, Shel, Nik, Loic, & Calley talking all sorts of nonsense on Qik.

5. http://federatedclouds.com

4. http://reefinabox.net

3. http://infinitelymeta.com

2. http://refriend.me

1. http://ytranslate.us

0. UPDATE: I had to unblock Jason McCabe Calacanis before I sent my @reply on Twitter.

- ∞ +

Today, Techcrunch broke the news that they alluded to over the weekend. Essentially, a partnership between Intel, HP, Yahoo!, and a few others to build a new cloud computing platform to allow developers and researchers to test the next generation computing model.

This is a very important development that holds promise for Infinitely Meta, and the engines that we want to build and deploy to the cloud. Our original plans were to leverage Amazon's AWS cloud and Google's App Engine (and related sites/services) as the deployment vehicle for our engines, but this new project may trump both Amazon and Google. Remember that we can't yet discount Microsoft, as they are also working on building their cloud under the Mesh umbrella.

As we continue to build our prototypes, we will likely deploy our engines to whatever cloud we feel will meet our needs. Most likely we will deploy our engines across all available clouds for the highest degree of fault tolerance and redundancy.

I find it VERY interesting that the last domain I registered was http://federatedclouds.com

<∞>