…for the medium business downwards, quite likely, here’s the current feeling:

Mary J Foley: With Wave, did Google jump the (Microsoft) shark?
Paul Thurrott: First Look - Google Wave 
Twitter: SharePoint and Google Wave

Features
For the SharePoint features I see most small and medium size companies using… (as a SharePoint consultant), Google Wave may well hit the spot. So how does it match up against SharePoint? Here are a few things I can’t confirm are in the “Google wave product”, but features that may be deal breakers for potential switchers:

1. Workflow (could be provided by extensions)
2. Metadata on Waves/Posts (to emulate content types)
3. Security – this is the big one, how to make someone a commenter but not a contributor to a wave? how to have the granularity of permissions levels?
4. Microsoft office integration – well if Google docs/spreadsheet etc are enough, then this will be an awesome addition.
5. Skinning/Branding – could be provided by a third party that wraps the Wave engine into a CMS/Wiki/Blogging platform.

Read on for some more devil’s advocate……

How to sell a cool Platform?
Many companies build awesome platforms that can be used for “anything” like SharePoint and like Wave. Unfortunately it is the concrete Products that you make with your platform that the platform ultimately gets judged by in public.

“…it’s pretty clear that Google Wave is the online giant’s social networking play, an attempt to wrestle away some usage share from services like Twitter and Facebook, obviously, but also with Microsoft’s surprisingly popular SharePoint” Paul Thurrott

Upside
I am pretty impressed at the Open source, Web standards, scalability and Federation Wave provides - It will succeed long term because of those things. If their Wave "Product" (concrete implementation) is good enough it will ramp up quickly in the short term also and pinch some people from Facebook and even Gmail. Its defo gonna hit mass appeal outside of business first, but will likely hit Facebook usage scale fairly quickly (if they replace Gmail’s engine with this).

Downside
As it’s strength is Web standards, there will be masses of free 3rd party plug-ins and extensions; Unfortunately I think by the time this is big (18mnths?) the world will be looking for something prettier with richer interaction. Anyone want to start a project making a Silverlight client?

Ideas
Gmail plugin – Invite the Gmaily User to have the wave interact with gmail in some way.
Itunes plugin – updates a wave of my most listened to Album and tracks each week/month.

more images after the break…

The idea here is that when writing long documents, the user can sit back and activate the eye tracking mode (a key on the keyboard). The web-camera in the top of the device could then continuously track your eye-level using red-eye tracking for exact position or facial recognition for more general position. In turn, the page, document, or general interface would then animate a 3d transform to better show the document from your angle. This would essentially warp the page shape if someone else was to look at it from above.

A few features I’ve thought about:

1. The transformation should be animated so as not to jerk around when you are talking to friends.
2. If the eye tracking can’t find you, it should animate returning to the normal (flat) view.
3. Maybe facial recognition could be used to only identify you, the user, so as not to find faces behind you or friends either side.
4. The “eye-tracking view” activation/deactivation key should not be warped or moved while activated…otherwise the user could get stuck!

Thinking about it, the keyboard keys could also transform, for those of us who find it hard to find the “F” key on a regular basis.

new tools for blogging on the new mac:

• Ecto
• Coda
• jQuery

Today’s Equation:

Secondlife + PS3 Home + (VirtualEarth * Crytek engine) + Cardspace =

Lets start with video-conferencing. At a high level, video conferencing simply provides a window into another place in the world through the internet. High-quality video and audio then provide a fairly emersive environment for people to talk, collaborate and socialise without needing to be physically next to one another.Video calls today are almost always ‘active’ experiences, where the call is initiated much like a phone call, with a specific purpose and requiring the immediate attention of the other callee(s).

So imagine if video conferencing could become a ‘passive’ experience in some way, where the video/audio connection to that other place in the world is constantly open, and so it now becomes your choice whether to passivley watch it, or actively interact with people on the otherside….

Lets explore an example; imagine if two coffee shops could have displays spanning a whole wall, each set up as digital window into the other, with sound and video mirrored both ways (similar to UNC’s inevitable “office of the future” concept above). Would this simply be another marketting gimmick to help Starbucks force more mocha-lattes into you, or could it actually have a use?

I’ll leave you to ponder that one. Now lets take the idea a step further…

Lets imagine people use the coffee shop scenario in the most positive way, to sit down at a table and strike up a conversation with someone on another continent as casually as you might today. Or, lets say your college buddy moved to europe but you still keep up your friday afternoon coffee session with him, only sharing photos and stories are now a little more virtual (see Dynamo video above). I guess the driver here is that broadband, computers, cameras, screen-sizes and image compression have all now reached speeds and prices where we could see video-calls and this type interaction explode into everyday life in the very near future (12-18 months?).

So, the final part of this idle thought concerns virtual worlds. Last month (March) Sony announced PS3 Home, essentially a high quality virtual world accessable through the Playstation 3 console, for the self serving purpose of socializing and meeting to play games.

But how is this different to the slew of virtual worlds on the PC that haven’t hit mass market? A console gamer can be described as a more mainstream consumer than the average PC gamer. Because of this, the idea of a 3D virtual world for socializing is likely to gain more traction outside of the ‘geek’ domain, and therefore gain mainstream market potential as more ‘mainstream’ people and their families use it.

If Sony’s ‘Home’ was the only example of such virtual worlds, it would be easy to dimiss it as a geek’s fad or craze that would go no further. However, we only have to look at the traction of games like World of Warcraft and SecondLife, social-networking sites like MySpace, Friends-Reunited and Facebook and even the size of the online communities with other consoles like xbox360 and the Wii to see that a large market for these socially driven worlds has been rising for some time, and 3D representations of them are more-or-less an inevitable progression.

So it can be fairly easy to imagine a variety of these virtual worlds emerging, be them games, social spaces or hybrids; each allowing realistic customization of personal information, your personal avatar, but also the world environment. All of which becoming more realistic using ever advancing 3D game engines (CryEngine2, VirtualEarth).

Much like constantly having to set up the same information in MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr and Digg, this would cause an annoyance where your online world is continually more fragmented between different services or worlds requiring each user to synchronise personal data manually. So digital identity really needs to come of age (CardSpace, OpenID), either offering export/import options between these worlds (xml?), or allowing each world to be seamlessly accessible through a digital window (see Project Crotchet).

So, how do the real world and the virtual world avoid a complete dichotomy? after all, this would simply enforce the critic’s and technophobe’s growing criticism of virtual worlds being dangerous, offering no practical ‘use’ or perhaps influencing a new generation to sit in front of a screen and neglect learning important real world social skills.

The answer can perhaps come from video-conferencing. Lets imagine our coffee shop example is now twinned with a virtual coffeee shop in a virtual world, say Secondlife. Now, heavily disabled people can visit real-world coffee shops and interact, the screen bound teenager is more exposed to the real world, and the benefits of global community become enforced further.

What if microsoft’s VirtualEarth 3D became a virtual world? A carbon copy of the real world for your avatar to walk around, perhaps into a virtual coffee shop twinned with its real world counterpart?

/thoughts

So, all of the major players (incl MS) are now looking toward making touch devices that interact more like physical objects than computers; i.e. the traditional pen + paper, blackboard or fridge scenario.

Why is this happening? I think the quick answer is that hardware and software have come to the point where touch/pen/voice interactions are possible at the speed that consumers expect. But perhaps a more subjective answer would be that consumers have growing expectations of simplicity and speed when it comes to computers, and perhaps the market has started to show this, and maybe this is why we see hardware and software companies now clammering to react.A quick whistle stop of my thought process:

1. Both companies and individuals care about how long it takes to learn how to use a device or piece of software. Companies care about lost money, people care about lost time and frustration.
2. Direct manipulation devices (pen, touch, voice) offer much more immersive and direct metaphors for real life, and because of this, require less time to learn. They also remove the need for highly accurate motor control and the disconnect between mouse and screen that foil many children and first-time computer users.
3. Software and hardware companies make the most money by pitching based on how much the thing they are selling can save money/time.
4. Recently, the TabletPC has seen a rise in sales by large organisations - especially educational organisations, now the prices and software have started to hit a sweet spot.
5. Any HR person can tell you how much software/hardware training costs the company, any PC Support person can tell you how much money is wasted on people who don’t know how to use either properly. Anyone who has ever been in a meeting with a laptop can tell you that you invariably end up falling back onto paper/whiteboard and then spending more time typing up notes later.

In short, everyone (whether they know it or not) wants mobile computing in a variety of forms factors (phone, pda, B5, A4, tablet, projector).

Apple know this, they proved this somewhat by persuing different form factors with the iMac, iBook, AppleTV and the iPod, whilst other computer companies continue producing the same shape/size boxes.

So, Apple have patents for a version of multitouch technology, not as advanced as the PerceptivePixel (Jeff Han) offering (video above), but still with the same amount of ‘wow’ factor (to excuse me for using MS marketing words) So, what makes the most sense as the next move after the iPhone with regard to Multitouch?

Mac Pro
I think if Apple were to add this feature to their Mac Pro series, it would have to be accurate enough to support a stylus and pressure sensitivity for the Adobe suite and other creative packages, professionals will be annoyed by this otherwise. To date I am unaware of whether Apple’s patented multitouch includes pressure or this level of accuracy,

iMac
If they were to add multitouch to the iMac range, this would seem to make more sense, to get a proof of concept out there and get a media swarm around it. I think there are obvious ideal uses for multitouch for ‘normal’ users in things like cover-flow, iLife & media apps, e.g. iTunes, garageBand, iPhoto, Safari. These will show eloquently to the rest of the business where multitouch can be used the best, while buying Apple time to tweak their pro apps (if the technology can use pressure sensitivity).

iTablet
Wouldn’t every Mac fanboy love for this to happen? From a mobile computing perspective, it is inevitable - why might this make perfect sense for Apple to re-enter this market?
- Many companies have been rumoured to be making a ultra-compact laptop, none have executed this particularly well.
- The UMPC is a great idea but has been marketed and executed badly
- The TabletPC is a great idea but has largely also been marketed and executed badly

iPod
So this is already heavily rumoured to get the multitouch treatment this fall, so I will bend your ear in a different direction and continue slightly on the iTablet theme. Another 5 inches in both directions and this device would be ideal for eBooks and note-taking in school and in the office. It definitely would only require the cut down version of OSX to run a note-taker (simplified Onenote killer?) and an eBook reader. Add the same version of Safari running on the iPhone and you’ve got a perfect portable researching device similar to Star-Trek’s PADD.

eMac
What happened to the eMac? Apple are one of very few hardware manufacturers to have made sucessful dedicated educational hardware, and as TabletPC manufacturers know, education is a prime market for touch capable devices. Seeing as kids currently think Apple is cool becaue of the iPod, what better time to capture them again - this time at school?

/thoughts

Everyone is moaning about Digg not having a Picture section, so I thought I’d weigh-in on the feature request posts. Why Digg should do a debates section?

1. Comments on Digg are nearly always a debate; "I believe this, because…", " I think you’re wrong, because…"
2. Sometimes, people have very biased views because the only people with the opposite viewpoint are no good at backing up their point.
3. Some people hold a viewpoint which never changes purely because they surround themselves with people who agree with them (which is fairly normal for friends)
4. People don’t go looking for good justification for the opposite of what they think; if you are a lefty, how often do you go looking for well argued right-wing views? (my blog values)
5. Digg should encourage an unbiased debate, where people can submit good arguments for both sides of an argument.
6. By showing the best arguments for each side of any debate, everyone gets heard, and everyone can question and refine their views (which is probably good for the human race in general)
7. By submitting stories that back up or refute a question, the best, most thought-out arguments should rise to the top and become visible to everyone on the Home page [for debates].

Features I thought about
I had a good think about how this would work, and to keep it reliable and easy to use like everything else on Digg.com …

1. You can Digg a debate like any news story, allowing a front-page to be generated which shows the most popular every week [not like podcasts, which only show 'all-time' top podcasts].
2. The Home page should probably have the top 4 ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments. Arguments
3. In the details page (like the page where you comment on a News article), there will be no comments, but 2 full lists of articles submitted to back up each side of the debate.
4. The details page would give the ability to add a link to a ‘for’ or ‘against’ article and to Digg them also. I thought about comments, but if you are forced to blog about it, and then link to it, it should help the quality of the argument articles being submitted?
5. When you vote either YES or NO for a debate, you automatically Digg the debate itself. You can Digg the debate separately without voting also (if you haven’t made a choice yet).
6. When you vote, the Digg Button, pie chart and percentages all are updated without leaving the page (AJAX).
7. My screenshots are colored with the Digg colors. The pie chart wasn’t colored red for instance, because red can mean ‘wrong’ and we wouldn’t want to do a mind job on anyone to get them to vote.

If you like the mockups and want to make them better, put a comment on this article, and I’ll send the photoshop files. The UI concepts are pretty alpha, although I’ve tried to make them as uncluttered as possible, any suggestions welcome.

Today’s Equation:

SharpCast + Microsoft HomeServer + Orb Networks =

Imagine everything you have on your computer is backed up, automatically. You set it up once, and your files are backed up to your home server in your closet, and then onto remote storage supplied by a company selling raw storage in a storage facility. This is something that MS Home server will allow you to do when it ships this year.

Imagine that when you share a file or folder within Windows (or other OS) you have the ability to share it with friends over the internet by simply granting them permission in the normal sharing and security type way (rt-click a file or folder, sharing and security). This is something that is possible within MS Vista today after setting up the security center correctly (and will be improved when IPV6 roles out worldwide).

Imagine that through the same kind of sharing window, you can decide which files and folders are set up to sync with your mobile phone and/or other devices. For example, I want ‘c:/Pictures/photos’ on my computer to sync with all of my device’s ‘photos’ folders; I simply right-click the folder and select ’sync with all devices’. The next time my PDA or phone goes online, it contacts my computer* through the internet, and syncs all of the photos. This now happens both ways, so when I take a photo on my phone, it is stored in ‘photos’ on the phone and then gets pushed to my computer and all of the other mobile devices I chose. That way, when I get back into the house, the photo is already there on my computer. This is something that is possible for pictures using SharpCast today (although it’s not built into windows so you have to install their app on the computer and mobile devices).

*or home server, or remote storage server, depending on which is contactable

Imagine, now that you can see the potential here, that any folder or file, photos or word doc can be synced with other devices you own, but also with other devices other people own, simply by right-clicking a file or folder. i.e “sync with gary’s pda” . Obviously all of the devices would need a nice level of transport security (IPv6, SSL) and some authentication (Windows CardSpace?). It would obviously be ideal to be able to set up these synchronizations from the mobile devices and other computers too. Sharing with groups of friends could utilize a variety of technologies allowing group permissions, take your pick from: windows users, active directory, Rialto, msn groups?

So, how far away is this?

Well, all of the technologies are there but need to put together, some integration into the operating system would be nice also, instead of having to run a proprietary program (a daemon and some shell integration?). Something like this, being easy and obvious to use, could also create an interesting business model for your ISP to become company which does all communications and storage as well (virgin media anyone?).

I won’t mention DRM on this one…..

Today’s Equation:

Microsoft VirtualEarth + Photosynth + Vexel Inc + Seadragon =

Errrr……equals Microsoft?! The first two are Microsoft, the last two were acquired by them.

Seadragon were acquired by MS for their technology which allows for incremental streaming of images. So when you are zoomed out of an image, you have only streamed the low res parts, and as you zoom in, more and more detail of the section you can see is streamed to you.

Photosynth is a MS’ Live Labs project, which saw Seadragon and Washington Uni’s photo tourism project come together to create something really cool. From a bunch of photos taken around a similar area/building/tourist-spot, it uses some math to work out where all of the photos were taken in 3D space by identifying common ‘unique features’. All of this data then gets fed into a cool 3D environment in which you can move around photo-to-photo as if you were at the scene where they were taken.

Virtual earth is MS’ answer to Google Earth. It’s a web application (runs in the browser), like Photosynth, which follows their emerging strategy of making everything web-based from now on so they can improve it easily and get people hooked. What’s interesting about Virtual Earth is not that it does terrain, 3D views or route finding; it’s that it combines Vexel Inc’s acquired technology to extrapolate 3D mesh and texture data from video footage. This makes MS’ 3D textured world much more realistic than Google’s with the video images pasted on the buildings, but also infinitely more scalable“ as they can just keep flying planes with a video camera over cities to collect this 3D data.

Equals?

Imagine a website where you can upload your holiday touristy images (errrr Flickr?). As you upload them you type in where they were taken, perhaps being more specific by giving rough a longitude and latitude (a drop down small version of VirtualEarth). Maybe you flag certain photos that aren’t too personal as ‘public’. Now, MS has all these photos and enough raw data information to join the dots to integrate your photos directly into VirtualEarth itself; using Washington Uni’s feature finder to find photos in the database close to yours, using Vexel’s tech to help paste the photos as textures over the buildings in virtual Earth.

Imagine if the photos you uploaded as ‘public’ everyone could see? Microsoft wouldn’t need to fly another plane over New York, as long as there are tourists taking photos, VirtualEarth would be up-to-date!

Why Voice? Voice doesn’t make sense in so many areas, particularly in the office cube or even the home office. Key to a company’s success in this area will be understanding where this is best used, but more importantly, where people are most comfortable with using it.

After using Vista for several Months now, I would like to share my findings of where it’s much improved Voice recognition will be useful. Microsoft have already hinted that the next OS after Vista codenamed ‘Vienna’ will significantly build on voice recognition in Vista. So, the general theme with all of these scenarios is that voice only works and will only be used when the user is happy for other people to hear what commands/information are being said. If you are even slightly concerned that what you are saying shouldn’t be overheard, you will revert to keyboard or a pen. Also, if you are around other people doing the same thing, it will look less weird that you are talking to the computer. Therefore many of these are scenarios are already social by nature.

1: Home Automation

I have dabbled with automating lights/heating (using X10 and Insteon). There are a whole bunch of companies making easy-to-install hardware, but more importantly, plugin software into Vista MediaCenter to control devices through your big screen. For the record, this makes a lot of sense, as the TV is largely based in the Living room, where people spend a lot of time and can therefore easily be described as a ‘hub’ room in the house, an ideal space for access to control it.

Uses: so who doesn’t want to be able to walk into a room and say ‘theatre’, and the lights dim, Â the TV and DVD player turn on and the large screen displays the dominos website alongside the DVD menu ready to order?

2: Media Control

This is quite simple, play, pause, volume control. Again, you’ve got the guys around, the level of the volume is hardly confidential.

3: Web Services

Eh? I hear you shout. Well, I will not explain what a web-service is in the programming sense of the word, but I think everyone is more or less aware that you can go to a variety of websites to get weather information for your area. So imagine waking up and asking “Google, what is the weather” or “yahoo, what are the Intel stocks prices” or “New York Times, what’s the top technology news”….. and the computer will read back the information gained from a web-service or rss feed. Maybe, if the voice system is clever enough (and not weighed down by MPAA imposed DRM architecture) you could simply ask “outlook, show me my latest email [on my primary screen]” .

Security

One thing to note; Voice in all of these situations should be complimentary to a remote, keyboard or traditional switch. Voice should always be a complimentary service, not the only one available, for security/safety reasons, but also as the technology advances, fail-safes for functionality are important - you don’t want to lose the ability to turn off the kettle when the computer crashes, nor do you want it to carry on boiling and blow up. So what if it goes wrong, or doesn’t understand your voice?

There are already guidelines for the US and the EU on what computerized systems are allowed to control and standards for reliability and safety, rest assured knowing that if Windows (or 3^rd party software) wants to provide services, they will have to pass strict tests, and for hardware manufacturers -Â provide mechanical fail-safes. But this doesn’t stop us devs/hobbyists blowing ourselves up!

As for the semi-recent ‘exploit’ where Vista’s voice recognition apparently can be used to format the hard disc, this is utter crap and FUD, mainly because in order to do anything requiring such security the user is prompted for Administrator access (UAC) which cannot be interacted with by voice.

What to expect

Simple voice actions are already built into Windows Vista, like ‘open windows media player’ and ‘Start, search, search input, mydiarydotdoc’. Microsoft will likely make this a lot more user friendly and not bound to a screen in future versions. Making the voice experience not bound to the screen will be important for a couple of reasons; firstly, it will be a huge hit for people with Accessibility issues, and secondly a bigger hit for consumers who are clamouring for the star-trek computer experience.

As with Bluetooth headsets, the voice activated computer is a struggle between technology being available and society accepting and adopting it, where it makes sense. Further down the road, although ‘dictation’ is currently a little alien to most people used to keyboard entry, I believe people will slowly change to use these features as they become easier to use. The new generation of computer savvy kids that have grown up through huge technology changes will increase the pace of adoption of these new technologies as they are bred with less resistance to change.

I have also been playing with Vista’s media center with democracy player and tvrss to download video for free in a sky-like fashion. Democracy player beats iTunes because it downloads feed based shows/podcasts via torrent as well as traditional http downloads that you do from websites. Anyways, i’ve subscribed to a whole bunch of shows this way including “the oc” and “heroes”. It’s kinda nice just turning on media centre and seeing what’s been downloaded for me…

random links
me.dium - an interesting attempt at making browsing a social experience.