-
General
When a 19th century romantic French writer by the name of Victor Hugo said “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come” he obviously could not envision Pakistani bureaucracy. Not only can it reduce an idea to nothing more than its meager skeletal remains squirming in its own vile, it too often does.
Come 2004, the IT bubble is about to burst in a military run, democratic, American influenced politically independent subcontinent country by the name of Pakistan. It is here in our story that along comes an idea. It is a simple idea yet revolutionary in every way, the idea to prepare this country for the…
Read more →
-
Events General
The past whole week I was really excited about going to the exhibition on 5th and 6th at expo center Lahore since the theme read “home expo and super car expo”. I was counting on seeing some innovative home solutions, fancy cars and a lot of appliances for both. As I entered the arena, an ear piercing heavy bike engine race greeted me. Oh wow nice, we have bikes here too… and lots of them, but let’s see if we have the actual products that are expected.
First cars!! Honda Launched its new City Aspire at the event. This attracted a lot of young crowd who wanted to check it…
Read more →
-
General
NOTE: This is a sponsored post
Football. The most popular sport in the world. That may be hard to believe, we being a die-hard cricket nation, but there are many amongst us who get their blood pumping whenever our favorite team kicks some balls (pun intended). There’s excitement in the air, and the airwaves for that matter, when Spanish rivals Real Madrid and Barcelona are about to have a face-off on the field. Manchester United or Chelsea? The answer could incite either jeers or cheers, depending on who you’re surrounded by. It feels like you belong to an exclusive club really, not to mention how convenient it is to…
Read more →
-
Coffee Session General
There are two main things that are currently causing out growth in ICT to stall. One is the lack of original ideas, so most of the entrepreneurs either copy what is already around internationally or locally (same ideas of online shopping, online bidding) we still have not hit the jackpot with someone creating some thing like instagram or drawsomething and being acquired by one of the big names.
The second issue always lamented by entrepreneurs is lack of any funding sources in Pakistan. Over the years we have seen efforts being made to create funds which would help but what ended happening that most of these funds either did…
Read more →
-
Coffee Session General
We all know about the 7 layers of the OSI model. This is the framework by which computer networks are defined. Starting with the physical layer, going through the transport layer and finally culminating in the application layer where end user applications reside. I believe that this should be redefined to include and additional layer – the Social Layer. From the current vantage point, the Social Layer lies right above the Application layer – hence it is served by the Application layer.
The 90s witnessed a boom in what is now referred to as web 1.0. This consisted of static applications hosted over the web. Static applications meant that…
Read more →
-
General Mobile Apps Software & I.T.
Pakistani IT industry has been progressing rapidly over the last few years. It is heartening to see that the industry players are innovating and working in different areas to establish their expertise.
Recently, TenPearls, one of the leading IT companies of Pakistan, launched “Carumba!”, a 3D car racing game for iPhone and iPad. Carumba! has been designed and developed by TenPearls’ innovation labs. Launched as a free game, Carumba! allows users to earn coins during the race, and redeem them to unlock other cars and tracks or to get additional nitro boosts. It has also been integrated with Apple’s Game Center.
The game has received very good response from…
Read more →
-
Events General
‘Rethinking Pakistan’ [and my expression goes LOL and I will explain why] was the theme of the conference which took place at margalla hills Islamabad on March 31st 2011 organized by TEDx, lets just summarize here what TEDx is; before we further dig into the “theme” and happenings of this conference.
TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) and ’x’ denotes the independently organized events under the TED umbrella, mission is “Ideas worth spreading” and this events basically brings together individuals, communities and organizations with the opportunity to excite dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level (geographically). The programs combine live presenters, performers and pre-recorded talks from some of the most brilliant…
Read more →
-
Announcements Events General
ICT R&D Fund aims to provide graduating students a chance to really make their final projects counts. I have always felt that students in their final year some times product excellent products which due to lack of any infrastructure and proper guidance plus funding just go in the Universities Libraries.
Seems ICT R & D fund is giving these students a chance to take their projects to the next level by acquiring funding, if you are a final year student doing a project all you need is to get this form filled and submitted through your head of department .
Last date for submission for forms is 31st…
Read more →
-
Coffee Session General
I wanted to discuss the Thiel Fellowship and sort of run the idea among our readership to figure out if it was justified or not. Bay Area hedge fund manager Peter Thiel started a Fellowship program in his name about a year ago trying to capitalize not on start ups, but the smart kids who may actually come up with the next billion dollar idea.
Let there be no mistake. Innovation solves problems. Bankers, lawyers and hot shot executives are good for only one thing: managing an existing infrastructure. It is the innovators who turn existing ideas on to their heads and enable breakthroughs. Considering the point above, it…
Read more →
Twitter
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Stumble
Reddit
Ok — all you Apple Computer fans / MS haters — all of you gather around and lets say this together: “Oh… I never thought they could!”
7:40 pm
MS didn’t “invent” this technology.. i know of 6 different university level research programs working on “Gesture interface design” and “multi-touch interface design” .. on top of that if you search multi-touch interface on youtube you will get a lot of demos. Since 1990′s a lot of interest has been in this field related to HCI.
BUT what is interesting is how MS has used the technology to produce a product out of it. Given that this product will be heavily used by big companies to display their products and interact with customers .. the average joe doesn’t really need a coffee table like this yet
(can we put a cup of coffee on this table?)
I think MS is doing a great thing its nice to see this product its refreshing but credit of the actual technology goes to other researchers and credit for making the WOW impressive product goes to MS..
Now, MS send me a demo product to test
7:47 pm
I was referring to inventing a product, not the tech — Building a better version of an existing product (ahem.. apple I’m looking at your iphone) is one thing — conceptualizing something entirely new is another.
The average joe doesn’t NEED a Supra to drive to work either, but they WANT it. That’s what makes luxury items successful.
10:34 pm
Have you seen Paycheck and Minority Report? and the recent Ufone ad? Now, thats what I call technology
2:09 am
hey that’s a brilliant cartoon too!
2:38 am
Steve! Wow, good to see you here.
Yes the Blue Monster concept is great and its good that you’re involved with Hugh on this — although I’d love to know how your specific roles with it.
Any advice a Microsoft veteran like yourself has for would-be entrepreneurs with regards to changing their own societies / countries for the better?
3:48 pm
Absolutely wicked tech!
I can see this, combined with photosynth change the world of computing and user interaction dramatically over the next couple of years.
9:47 pm
All they did was put it on a table and slap some branding on it. It’s been around for several years.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65
12:59 am
Wicked cool! Intelligent surfaces will surround us, to sense when we’re out of coffee creamer and send an impulse to the grocery store to order more, and make your to-do list for you. AWESOME!
2:30 pm
@Jason DeFillippo,
‘All they did’ was create a marketable product from fundamental knowledge from MIT and Jef Han (among others).
That pretty much covers 80% of the development.
9:53 am
Yes it is easy to always look at “inventing technology” as innovation. I think the bigger harder task, especially for a large company like MS, is to beat the corporate politics and get enough vision alignment among executives to create a whole new commercial product category.
1:45 pm
What MS has done is really not new. The idea is around since 80′s. Such work is not only being conducted at MIT but also at many other universities in USA and Canada. Dudney’s (UWO)2-dimensional world is a related concept of late 70′s. Important thing is what are the practical implications of this technology. It could be much more than what we can presently imagine!