Future of Internet is Exclusivity

Since we first encountered Internet 2.0, the contextual Internet or whatever we would call it, the fight has been on getting as much usage per user as possible. Facebook, GroupOn, Google search, any search, Instagram, histogram, fistogram whatever.
The overall dogma is that if we have user aka usage then we have an audience and at some point these schmucks will buy from our advertising lists/friends. And it works. For now. Slowing down. Overhead grows. It looks like TV? TV commercials? Yes.

The thing is, from an intellectual/psychological perspective we act as we belong to a group but we want personal/individual attendance. The ads don't know me, the networks either. They try O´so hard to get to know me, intrude my privacy (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc) and they hope they crunch it right so the ads in the right/top/bottom of my page is the right ones so they can show some good digits on the "penetration".

Some news for you.
This has been done and tried before.
It was called DM, Direct Marketing. How didi it go? Well they won over newspaper ads, radio and TV. Did we like it? No. But the old men that ran/run this DM they say "if the viewer connects with the ad it's not an ad, it's information".

KRWWWNG: No.

It's just a good ad. Not information. Basically it didn't work in the long run.

This is a new Ad Age. We still long for individual attendance and now we could get it as almost everything is digital come to media and information. And the ones that isn't can lean on the digital. So let us look at what "WE" want:

- In a world of limited resources we always want the best value for the best price

- In a world of complicated situations we need adjusted offers to our situation, not what the neighbour need, what I need.

If I can't get the best value on an individual basis I want the next best choice that I can afford, here is where it get complicated:

This means that the one that is offering me somethine needs to have a superb overview of the market and a unique insight to my needs aka situation. That is why consulting sales is growing but the cost of such consulting sales is staggering. The hit ratio is low and the margins are not even close to anonymous e-commerce. (won't go into why e-commerce is a different approach all together)

This leads to the next revelation. The future of Internet is Exclusivity.

We need to share what we need and what we can afford to get what we desire. But we need to trust the person/service that we share this with. Frankly, would you trust Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, GroupOn, SchmuckOn, MobileLocationShareOn or whatever with your deeper needs and monetary situation? I bet not.

Let's look at the fast growing market of Location Based Services. LBS. Is it growing fast in terms of users? Yes. Is it growing fast in terms of usage per user? Yes. Is it growing fast in terms of channeled deals per user? No.

Most of the players tend to explain this by the system of hand over; when a user get his or hers information from a LBS they go to the counter and buy and therefore the transaction is handed over to the transaction holders. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Cash.

There is an obvious gap. SO they try to invent mobile payments that works (none so far) and they try to convert LBS to actionable sales by coupons, bar codes, QR etc. Not working. So we can't bridge this because a) consumers don't trust LBS with their lifes b) there are few situations where I need a LBS to buy something and in a competitive environment there are low margins so offers are few and bad compared to all the things we need to buy. Just look at it, how many of your last 1000 buys was done through a coupon/offer??? 1? 2? 5?

It's pure shit.

We don't trust transaction holders with our needs and we don't use LBS for our fulfillment. Fact.

So mobile location as a transaction centric environment have no future. Even if 99% of all players in this field still believe this. I can excuse them as they lack knowledge, wants to believe and have few other alternatives.

What we need is to put trust in the hands of the consumer. Treatment by individual, pricing dependant on my private situation, my trust and my needs. So basically what we need is a virtual or real, unit that act as my digital representive when I trade, buy, shop or scan for help, assisted buying or similar.

This is some of the areas where we need totally new services:

- Banking. They treat us as dogs, either they pee on us or they lick up our arses. We need a unified individual approach based on trust; which means I get to pick from their smorgasbord and not the other way around.

- Insurance. Better than banks but they still try to fool us with their "offers". Get real and start giving us some value for money dependant on what I need and not what You need to sell this quarter, Noone trust You guys.

- Energy. Anyone that is anyoed with your electricity bill? I thought so. Want to change provider? I thought so. No difference between the providers? Right. So these people needs to understand trust as a concept. They are crooked, evil and mean based on their behavior. Why should we trust them? You tell me.

- Communications. Hahahahahahaa. Don't get me started. If you don't watch your back they'll fuck you, over and over again. Trusted sales are very far from reality today.

- Travels. Often in monopoly situations, never eager to negotiate. Take it or leave it. Saturated market. We are here to fulfill their lives and not the other way around. Would I trust an airline or a train travel provider with my personal situation? Not today. Maybe tomorrow if they take my needs seriously.

- Food. Supermarkets and brands. Wooha. If they can stab you in the back they will. Low price on steak this week? It means higher priced milk and bread to compensate. Need personal service? Fuck You. We are already understaffed, overprofitted and don't give a cent. Customer for life? Haah. YOu need our stuff so get in line.

There are more and of course this is a somewhat simplified version of life, but you get it. What You need is a way to convince yourself and the service provider that there is a trusted relationship. I believe it starts with taking control of Who we are at the marketplace.

That is why we don't trust LBS; mobile search, advertising, commercials and glossy offers. When They start to take Me seriouusly and I have the control over my own location, data and needs; then we have a conversation!

The future of Internet is Exclusivity. And it's not their choice.

BTW most marketeers are idiots and they will until they start educating themselves on the reality.

Ordered some smartphone

The world of commerce... you got to love it. I read an article of the Chinese Goophone, an iPhone copy (Swedish)running Android and the success it has selling globally. So I had to order one!

Went for a hunt and on DHgate I found one for $52 including shipping; sold!
Here it 12 days later.

Looking good?
Well, not really:- the Android version is unknown, the screen is reaaally bad, you can chose location on it but Sweden isn't listed though Hong Kong and Eastern Europe is. Wonder where they have their largest markets... It's basically crap but for that price...

Did I tell you it comes with a TV? Yup. And 12 inch pullout antenna too....

Why WifiSLAM can't solve The Apple Problem

I've read a few articles lately on the acquisition of WifiSLAM by Apple. For me it's a bittersweet event that I've been waiting for as I lead my previous startup Qubulus to the gates of the same company, presenting what still is the most beautiful API for indoor positioning based on Wifi radiomapping. As a bunch of people have pointed out -"it could have been You.."

:-)

Well, no. I came to realize shortly after the encounter with the Apple indoor tech team that a) radio wasn't their preference when it comes to indoor positioning accuracy b) they were not very good at what they were doing, only somewhat better than the competitors at Google and Sony(Ericsson).

A Swedish company, SenionLabs, was mentioned at the point in time to have conducted a demo at the exact same place as we picked and that there wasn't much of a difference in the user interface (ie the map) between the technologies. Which proves my point b, if you look at a map on a screen with demo scale, detail accuracy and best case a beta version of the tech and not under the hood... Then you are just like someone buying a car based on the color.
SenionLabs and WifiSLAM technologies are rather close in comparison but I'd say that it looks like the WifiSLAM architecture is way better on how to move from macro positioning (GSM/UMTS/etc) to local positioning (Wifi, BT) down to micro positioning by Sensors (Gyro, Acc, Magnetometer, Compass, light etc).
Which proves my a) statement, it was the use of sensors that they wanted, and bought.

Then I started to work on something new 14 months ago. I didn't believe anymore that Wifi would be the solution to ubiquitous smartphone positioning indoor, basically all players were making it extremely difficult to create a common solution. Apple turned off RSSI-readings for Wifi on iOS. Microsoft didn't even implement it on Windows mobile 7 or 8. The wild west behavior of producers of Android phones created a mess, Samsung created so many new models so fast they didn't implement Android and RSSI-reading in the same way throughout. No time for it. So you could say that the manufacturers killed Wifi as a good basis for indoor positioning, willingly or not.

What I started out with was the knowledge about the sensors in combination with all other components in a smartphone, how they "feel" the presence of RF-modules, battery charger, screen etc. I realized that in the existing structure that all smartphones are built; cramped, packed, overheating, antenna problem, huge screens pulling +50% of all power etc; is killing the sensor performance.

So even if you have almost "learning" algorithms (I can talk for days about the misconception of self teaching algorithms...) as WifiSLAM and SenionLabs, you can't get them to perform over time.
Simply put, they are there in a smartphone to react to real time issues and are not in any way kept in a way to perform over time and distance.

Now, 14 months later we are running a full scale startup with product development, Ulocs, with a brilliant team that combines research of sensor performance with user interaction analysis. I won't tell you How we do It and What we Use in terms of Solutions but I will tell you some of our findings.

Finding no 1. From a sensor technology environment smartphones sucks. And iPhones suck the most. Because of their design Freakshow. What do You think will happen if you put the antenna as a frame around the whole package with maybe the most advanced screen technology in the middle pulling the battery power faster than anything on the market? Correct, sensor disaster.

Finding no 2. Everyone is using different internal architecture but sensors are on the lowest priority when it comes to internal resources, space and isolation. I bet the design process of a new platform goes like this:

- "Dudes, we need a Bigger screen!"
- "Yeah, let's get a bigger screen! Anyone got a science fiction battery to go with it??"
- "No but we will have when we go into production; let's roll! Throw in 4 CPUs, 5 radios, lot's of memory and a killer design based on a metal frame around the whole thing!"
- "Dude, that's is aaawsome!!"
- "Wait, I think we need sensors too...?"
- "Uuuh, that's right, well put them somewhere, I don't care..."
;-)

Finding no 3. Everyone is using filters to read the sensors so the output to services and functionalities based on the sensor real time input is stabilized. First we thought these filters were adaptive and "smart". Shows they are not. So the filters are not adapting to the usage of the other parts of the phones platforms; meaning: shit in - shit out.

I believe it's a kudos to the WifiSLAM team on this too that found this out +2,5 years ago. They started to read the raw data output from the phone and created their filters and analytical algorithms based on that. Still they had to pull the old binary map trick to get any kind of micro accuracy going so that proves their problem with basing some smart stuff on mistreated sensors sending raw data. And now it's Apples problem.

Basically, as long as you design a smartphone platform the way Apple is, you can't get any good accuracy based on sensors without binary maps. To get binary maps you need to have the indoor map of a facility that you want to provide your users with indoor positioning. So Apple have what we can see as pretty bad sensors, lousy architecture for sensors and a need for binary maps to pull it together.
Bad boy, you are going to get punished...

It still means that you have a huge advantage over radio mapping from Wifi. That takes a lot more work on site even if you get better accuracy. And anyone that suggests that installing beacons, well they are focused on office spaces and not public areas, malls, airports or any other commercial space because of the huge maintenance that brings.

If you really want to have great micro positioning based on sensors? Then I suggest you work out your filters and architecture. Who you wanna call? Ulocs.

Btw, based on knowledge about teams that get acquired by Apple when they have superior code over Apple; I'm 90% sure the WifiSLAM will end up in the dungeons under Infinity loop...

Constant change and New Years Eve

There is something funny but a bit sad with celebrating a New Year. Funny that we hold on to a cyclic calendar and try to maintain some illusion of stability by having the traditions we have. Any Sci-fi fan could see that we get rid of the calendar months and year and just keep a straight number of the day instead so that we can start using the days as a limited resource instead of thinking that the day we just spent on meaningless things will come back next year, it won't. That is just an illusion we create to grasp our losses.

That is the sad part.

This of course goes hand in hand with the mental instability of religiousness; mind you that I'm not opposing or banning any religious act, I'm just saying that it's a tiny deranged illusion of something else to hold on to when you can't handle the truth yourself.
Mentally ill people have a tendency to throw themselves into religious depths as a way to handle their thoughts and deviated minds. They find the insane stories we have built into religions very familiar but often frightening as they turn to something that can't be seen as their best way to recover. Instead of trusting the doctors and medication which would normally be the best way to actually treat the illness.

Constant change.

One of the toughest things to deal with is constant change. But change is unavoidable as the minutes tick tock  on through eternity. Everything changes always and forever and not being able to handle that can throw deep shadows into your mind and create abnormal creatures as religions, holidays and New Years. There is no NEW Year. It's just another row of days in front of us. For me personally I started a new journey in my life 552 days ago. First I didn't realize it but that day was very important for me. Not the month or that year it happened. It was that day.

The road forward from that day hasn't been easy as it's put a test to my mind and body but I haven't doubted that there was a substantial need for change plus that the results have been fantastic both on my physical recovery, professional results, monetary growth and productivity on multiple new areas as well as improving old ones.

So hereby I declare 552 to soon be ended, long live 553!

And of course I will fall into the trap of celebrating New Years Eve as well; don't break the circle ;-)

I'm not sure I approve of this

Anyone in the ICT startup industry can agree on that a Me-too startup sucks. Either your a really early into a segment/vertical/functionality or you are the best, even better if you are both. The "Me-too's" are just trying  to become valid for a) investments b) acquisitions c)exits d)mediapromotions and that is just... bad.

I've met so many startups the last couple of years that is into ride sharing. Haven't they done their homework? Can there be +3 in every country? How to stick out in a jungle of choices?

Then I got this new info that Ants is out there. Well that wouldn't be the first time my name is on the agenda but this time it's bad, really bad. Because it's a ride sharing service app provider. I don't like.
Because they are using my name on something anyone can do.
I don't like.

So let us get down on this one; what is ride sharing about?

It's about hooking up with people that needs to fill the seats in their car to cut costs of driving and that is neat.
But it's very difficult to do in a competent way. You need to mix both social with smartphone reach (ie folks need to have the app and on) and intelligent algorithms to calculate who can benefit the most from getting into a ride that might just be a fraction of a ride for the driver and then calculate the cost and bill it instantly to the passenger while riding plus that you need to have ratings on the driver (don't want to dwell on that subject as I suck as a driver..) and mix that into a seamless service. I don't think that 9 out of 10 in this niche is good at that package.

That is fouling everything and it means that the whole idea of ride share gets into problem. It's not simple to repair damage done after using a service that has stood you up, raped you or even worse...

So let's pretend that it is a perfect world.

Then this would be assured by authorities so that we have legal protection and quality assurance, insurances and lot's of examples on how good it is. Lord and behold, I'm advocating a public service!
Shit.
I've been against public services since... well a long time. We even founded a political party on the matter (the June List if anyone remembers) and it's against my whole body that I admit that a public service can bring safety to this shitty industry of hooking drivers and passengers up.

The big reason to all of this is the price of fuel that is based on political incompetence and market domination by the oil industry which have created an enormous pressure on the consumers that still needs to drive to work or elsewhere because the imbalance between taxation for environment (not really) and the big shift that needs to come someday (far away).

But it feels like the only way to do it because now it's a jungle and jungles tend to kill people. Which I find unnecessary for traveling from A to B.

So kill the Ants;) and the other sucky ones by making the best of the breed the EU approved service for ride sharing and make it fast otherwise it will be proven by death statistics that this wasn't a good industry segment.

Btw, my favorite team is Flinc:-

I might be wrong but...

I've recently started to map up what I've seen in the last two years as a limbo of technology. Not in general stupid, mobile and software based technology.

You know, five years ago the world entered into mobility for real by Jobs launching the iPhone, that was remarkable and as yet to be seen; impossible to repeat. So we now live with mobile devices that all look the same, carry eithe one or two or the bad third kind of OS but all got apps, more or less (sorry Lina, you won't get a smartphone until you are 12) so the world fragmented and then kind of joined up in one kind of playground again.
Which is kind of what ecosystems do.
I could go on and on about the similarities between the ecosystems and how they work and how we as so-called humans work. Anyway.
The thing is that stuff that we just need to work in our life, the pyramid you know, Ma Ma Maslow's; works on the stuff that is constantly getting huge amounts of useless venture capital thrown at it. Software back in the days, my teens; the golden 80-ies, then we rapidly woke up mid 90-ies with the Web, that is as dead as a Dodo today; it's now all in the protocols.
Shazaam enter the 00-ies with add-ons for the Web similar to aids for the elderly; like e-commerce platforms, CMS and ERPs that sooner or later will die like a fly. Some still hang on but they are hung out to dry. Btw don't let me guide you on stock promises, I suck at stock exchange analytics as there are still millions of idiots out there and they can't be analyzed. I think.

Ok The decade of 2010 came with promises of mobility for everything but we are still struggling, hell even Facebook are hanging like a dry duck because of the lack of mobile smartness (pssst, I know how to fix it but I don't know if I want to...)  and we see even pretty smart people struggling with how they can transform their rigid backbones to something that could be embracing mobiles at least to a point of 10% and that would be counted in as a success; hey they don't know what they are doing and that's fine, it keeps the economy going even if it could be something much better.

I'm talking about all the companies that just got supergazillions of financing to extend, sell and stupify the audience with their databases, analytics tools, big data stuff, semantic search, image/face/social/graph recognition platforms/systems/tech; well they are all in for the bleedin' kill. That was yesterday when stupid managers were looking for stuff to fix their stupid systems for stupid ecommerce/communications, now anyone can do it with free tools. So all proprietary sales is going ape; let me say this once again:

Single, walled garden, freemium licenced still standard server based shit is dead.

Go find yourselves a new tech, life, economy and future; the current one is killed. This is a list that I will update as soon as I can of dead stuff:

Oracle, Sun, WMware, HP, Apple, Blackberry, MySql, Neo Technology, everything CMS, semantic web and search, face and finger recognition, search optimization and meta currency.

Hola.

Indoor positioning and navigation in the balance

Today the effort called In-Location was launched; a 22 partner strong(?) alliance to get going "with the goal of driving and unifying industry innovation in mobile indoor positioning" which all sounds fantastic until I dive into the list of partners:

Broadcom, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, Eptisa, Geomobile, Genasys, Indra, Insiteo, Nokia, Nomadic Solutions, Nordic Semiconductor, Nordic Technology Group, NowOn, Primax Electronics, Qualcomm, RapidBlue Solutions, Samsung Electronics, Seolane Innovation, Sony Mobile Communications, TamperSeal AB, Team Action Zone and Visioglobe.

It's a mix of startups, consulting companies, hardware, software and mobile producers, the strong one being CSR and Qualcomm that both have reasonably ok chipsets that supports indoor positioning though not navigation. Next level bellow have Nokia, Samsung and Sony Mobile listed, none of them have a working and launched indoor positioning service even if Nokia have indoor maps. But maps are just crap unless combined with positioning technology. Let me show why.

Scalable details
First, the indoor maps provided today are suffering from the outdoor map development as they lack the indoor scale details that we as humans observe while being in the location. We easily spot the faults that all the existing providers Micello, Google, Nokia, Bing, etc present on our mobile screens. We need vectorized, hyperdetailed indoor drawings, not maps that looks like a somewhat improved version of outdoor maps. You don't believe me? Trust me, I've worked with architectural drawings for 25 years and the interpretation of a presented indoor environment correlates to the detail level unless you want confusion and need to add explanations.

Positioning technology and accuracy
So far the accuracy is platform dependent and often bad as with Google's Android indoor project. Nokia have the BT4 thingy going but it sucks as no one can implement it, yet, even if the accuracy is what we need to aim for ~0,30,5 m. Why? Because of the indoor scale ans size of objects that needs to be found by consumers and professionals; everything in retail to maintenance.

Coverage
Bragging about 4500, 7500 or +10000 indoor locations with (lousy) maps is... ridiculous. When one player can show 500 locations in a medium sized city of 300-500.000 people, then we are talking about coverage and that means way beyond 1.000.000 indoor maps and they need to be, yes, great.

All of these areas needs to be fixed before the market for indoor positioning and navigation becomes mainstream and build some kind of super value to marketers and consumers. At this point in time we are veeeery far away from that.
Btw, did I mention platform independence? ;-)
Well that is an absolute necessity, everything else is just a kids game so shape up or be extinct. The In-Location partner project? Dead as a Dodo.

Sigh...

Konka - the new Apple of China?

I'm so happy and amazed to be living in these times; they are the truly most amazing times ever!

Remember back, way way way way back, in 2007 when Apple launched the revolutionizing iPhone? Yeah!
Now five years later we are so bored with the new versions of iPhones and Android based shitphones that we don't even have the time to read all the reviews. Of course it's still a novelty with a new version but it's not revolutionizing to hold a new iPhone or iPad, for goodness sake my daughters and their friends have these "killer machines". Duh.

I won't go into my rant on how old Android is as OS (blah blah Java mobile, Savaje, J2me blah blah), how nothing new have really come into iOS since 2010 and the lack of any kind of exciting apps released lately. If you say Instagram I'll push my Kiev 60 down your throat.
I'll be talking about Chinese smartphones and the fantastic market they are creating as we sleep.

Konka (is that really a good brand name??? it means bankruptcy in Swedish slang...) just launched their smartphone initiative by investing €50M into a new factory that will build approx 7 million smartphones the first year; you're saying "that's not much, even a loser like Sony /SonyEricsson sold +32 millions last year" and I'm saying: -"You've seen nothing yet!"
Btw, I get this Nokia feeling looking at the logo... you too?

Anyway, they are starting to build smartphones in their own factory this year and what a coincidence they got a contract with China Mobile too...
China Mobile Announces TD-SCDMA Handset Tender Winners

Remember, Apple started with computers, went on to laptops, then mp3-players, smartphones, pads and now TV. Konka started with TVs (which I believe is stoooone dead) and goes into smartphones; will we see laptops and computers from Konka? Wouldn't be surprised and they wiill be....

Cheap. And Good.

Yes, that is the main difference but it's like my grandmother said 15 years ago "quality and price has no connection anymore".


You're thinking "well China is China and that market takes care of itself" but I would put it "China is China.
End.
And they will take care of you.


I wouldn't be surprised if my kids and their friends would be surfing on a Konka device in 2-3 years.


But I'm 100% sure it will be rebranded. In Scandinavia at least.

Clash of the location patents

I subscribe to a patent service that sends regular updates on patents from interesting companies and areas of interest. Even if it's not the most joyful reading of the week I tend to be inspired by the pure energy that is put into the applications; lot's of fantasy and words put together to try to outpace time and competition. Almost like an immortality game.

I've followed the patent troll discussion for years and I agree its a menace to society though I have a hard time seeing another system taking its place; what would we do if there wasn't a patent system?

The long time problem is the competence of patent lawyers, they are the real problem both on the applicant side and the patent system approval side. Even if the approval side is supposed to be "objective" they let stuff slip through that shouldn't even reach the wastepaper basket.

What are those people thinking and are they not part of everyday life?
Well well.

The update today was especially interesting for location of mobiles and any context of that you can imagine. First I want to cite Ebay and their patent Application 20120129553 on "Location-based services":

"Provided herein are methods and systems relating to location-based services such as providing a geofencing, outputting location-based information on a mobile device, varying transmissions to and from a mobile device, and providing location-based alerts. More specifically, a method can include receiving a selected location on a mobile device, monitoring a current location of the mobile device, determining when the current location of the mobile device is within the geofence, and initiating an action on the mobile device associated with the geofence and the selected location."

Which got me to think about the patent that Where got in Dece 2010:

"Provided herein are methods and systems relating to location-based services such as social networking, providing demographic information, tracking mobile devices, providing business information, providing an adaptable user interface, remotely effecting a change on a portable electronic device, providing a geofence, outputting location-based information on a mobile device, varying transmissions to and from a mobile device, providing location-based alerts, verifying transactions and tailoring information to the behavior of a user."

Of course this is only the abstracts and there are thousands and thousands of words more, but as an amateur reading this I get a sense that we are talking about the same thing right? The words location-based services, geofence and mobile device kind of lead the way.

Then using terms like "initiating action on the mobile device" is similar to what is described by Where as alerts, transactions, information and effecting a change on a portable electronic device (which I assume can be covering a mobile phone:-)) seems like the same?

Well well.
Both are approved so the good thing is that anyone that wants to get into this mess can be sure that any law suit on any party would take years to settle and wouldn't be possible to solve as there are most likely no living creature that can separate who owns what which is a sure sign for All Square.

Apple
They got some good ones this week. Look at this patent approved:

"Location information is used to build a database of locations having associated audio, video, image or text data. In some implementations, a device includes a touch-sensitive display and collects data associated with a geographic location of interest. The geographic location of interest can be displayed on a map using an indicator. A touch selection of the indicator provides access to the data through an interface displayed on the touch-sensitive display. One or more locations of interest can be displayed and grouped together by an attribute."

Hmm, feels pretty solid but I imagine there are +5 that carries the same things? Even in the same email update I get this from RIM that seems to be still doing some heavy patenting...:

"Shared image database with geographic navigation"

"There is disclosed a method and device for operating an image database shared by a plurality of users. In an embodiment, each image captured by a user and stored in a shared image database is associating with the geographic coordinates of the location at which the image was captured. A search engine for the image database is configured to accept geographic coordinates as a search criterion for locating at least one captured image stored in the shared image database. The images having location coordinates within a predefined range of geographic coordinates is displayed to the user."

Crossover? Looks like it.
So the story of patent clashes goes on, and on, and on.

Privacy in private

The 3rd Location business summit Europe in Amsterdam has come to an end today; very few would argue that there has been groundbreaking news and intellectual talks on privacy concerns with new ways to position smartphones and their users.
The problem is not really that positioning technologies are used in smartphones, the problem is that I as a user can't control it, what to share and store as the manufacturers are eager to bundle the mobile OS with the data collection of where I'm using the smartphone.

They all do it, Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM, Nokia even if Google keeps the data for the Android users away from the manufacturers that exchanged their need for a cheap OS with the users privacy and Nokia has no control over WP7 and a shrunken number of Symbian users still alive. But the fact is that they all do it. Fuck up our privacy.

This is all we can accept as there are no alternatives unless you want to use a feature phone without apps or build your own smartphone (which I believe is just a year or two away).


But this is not the worst part of it. The real problem begins when you are getting sick or old and needs safety.
Then the booming market of healthcare apps and services steps in and wants to use smartphones to connect 
their devices to, monitoring through the apps with sometimes superaccurate positioning in place (what room, 
floor, etc) and this is when it becomes creepy for real.


I say let us be private and control our privacy. Of course this cannot be trusted to the ongoing masters of reality,
so we need personal positioning devices, very much like the old GPS with Bluetooth that you had to buy some
6-8 years ago if you wanted positioning with your mobile, but this time it should be able to position you indoor or
outdoor, accurate down to a meter and You should be in control of what services You share your positioning
with.

The need for superb location while making innovation

Sitting in Nässjö waiting for a connecting train. I've never been here before so I looked it up on google maps to see how the urban landscape looked and it looks really good.
It fits into my vision of that the great innovations are made in great environment for innovation, I stretch it to that the superb location for innovation is setting the height of innovation.

A couple of days ago Fred Wilson wrote a short piece on the Evolution of startup hubs, a good summary of How to Look at Location as the core of monetizing innovation and innovative startups; to make some reference to the pure geographical input based on my empirical studies (yeah I'm scientific:-):

- One hear a lot of complaints on the weather from startup people in Boston but rarely from people in startups or visiting startups in SF area, ergo the Cali is a leading location over MA.
- To increase innovation companies like Microsoft, HP, Intel, Google, Apple and now Facebook build designed campuses to get the mojo working; and it works (unless some mid level management steps in and destroys the good vibes as they did at HP etc etc); ergo a campus looking like an enchanted forrest, a white castle or a Battlestar Galactica resource center brings big points to the awesomeness to the innovation height.

SO looking at the Swedish hubs just makes me cry.

Stockholm/KTH - I wouldn't even call it a hub. What is the latest innovation that came out of that place?
Chalmers - better but where is the vibe, the campus looks like something a deranged architect came up with while trying to design a nightmare.
Lund/Ideon - don't make me laugh, the Spaceship goes Ikea design sucks and the lack of any kind of nice vibe was lost or never found; it's fragmented, hostile and worst of all there is nothing else than a commuter bus every 20 min if you don't drive a car (and you shouldn't, it's 2012)

I will continue to comment on this matter very soon, stay tuned!

Startups, Speed and Sustainability

Those who know me would say I'm a focused idiot. Probably right. When I get a focus I keep going at it like a Japanese warlord from the 17th century and my new battleground is Startup Speed and Sustainability.

This SSS is built on the belief that incubators are missing either one of these two big ones. The European ones mostly miss the Speed thing and the US ones can't grasp Sustainability. Btw few people do grasp sustainability as it's pretty tough to be consistent and follow up so you see if you are sustainable or not. Often it's not even cool to know that you missed the target with 5000 miles. I see that.

Startup
Most of you think this is about Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc but every day there are thousands of startups that actually is started and creates the jobs which is the foundation of the economy. Jobs. Not Steve. The real Jobs. Comes from startups but from startups in "normal" industries (I carry the belief that Internet and mobility startups are not normal, ask me about why) Normal industries keep their focus on the basic needs, this is all about Maslow.
A real startup is growing in a pale white space someone left open in a market where the business is already ongoing but they use the wrong methods, tools (IT or not), people or vision. The REAL startup actually has customers. PAYING customers. Duh.

Speed
Most of you thing Instagram speed is ridiculous but I believe it was unnecessary, slow and stupid. Unnecessary because if the idiots at Facebook or similar would be thinking about their thing (sitting on gazillions of photos and such) instead of wanking of to Forbes articles they would have adopted their own mobile apps fast and accurate so actually the price tag on Instagram is a tag on how bad the employees are at Facebook doing what they were supposed to be doing.
The stupid thing is that this behavior is opening up massive new areas where these idiots can't do their job (LBS, positioning tech, UI/UX, testing, real interactive services etc) and it means that the flanks are open, if Napoleon was alive he would have a field day with the troglodytes at Facebook. Mark please clean out the garbage.

Sustainability
I could go on for ages about this area of knowledge. Look at it, look at what is cooking in your home town. Do you see that there are less than 1% that is going to sustain change and 99% will die over the next 25 years due to either self strangulation, M&A, change of times, weather or stupidity? See it now.
It's a tough one to build for sustainability but if you look at it from an agnostic perspective (no Believers thank You), spread the risks on to many legs and keep an eye out for talent to hire then you are off to a good start. Wait. What's that to do with Sustainable??
Well the only sustainable I've seen is the one that you can hand over to your children. With good confidence and a clean mind. Agree?

Imprexio

I have seen some smart research and startups using Microsoft Kinect devices to build new innovative services based on that device. What jumps to mind is that they seem to forget a couple of things. First; what are the limitations of the device and what it can do? Second is what if you build something that smart that anyone wants to do the same, how do you protect yourself from competition?

The answers are not so simple.

Device? Sure it's built to serve a gaming platform so it's fast, short range and not possible to collect individual data. That's up to the game to build. And Microsoft to support, if they want. But their track record is devastating on that point, they might change even if I doubt it, and you might be able to continue to trust them handling your needs.

The second part about protecting your IP, forget it. Forget it.

Build your own device, go to market with a unique offer and be good at what you do; and remember that all of these three are not something that Microsoft is good at so you could be looking at an exit.

Yes. The MSFT exit.

Radio and waves

've spent the last years discovering radio.

No.

Not the FM shit, the real deal. The waves of radio. Radiating stuff.

It started with the problems with so-called 3G, why is the 3G data not working as good as 2G, GPRS data traffic for mobile devices and therefore not used as the primary way of transporting data for applications and services? Boy. Not simple to understand.

Then I met with many people working with the roll-out of 3G and got to understand the practical implications of working with 3G after the 2G revolution. What looked like a planned attack on the lack of capacity was nothing like it, it was purely the need to sell something new that drove the launch of WCDMA/UMTS and in the first years it was pure crap. Glitch was just the standard.

It got better. But the standard was implemented by monkeys and the services from the operators couldn't meet the consumer needs, lot's of bullshit startups that got bullshit VC money and amazing exits. Woops. Ok, let's not get too exited...

Looking back at the amount of shit that's been bought just to be safe of not missing out on the new stuff gives me yet proof of the status of human intelligence. It's lower than low and low is not even close to crap. Who came up with the idea to think that Loopt was a good idea? Why pay billions for navigation software companies? Gosh.

Everything was going mobile and mobile was going constantly online and there we are today. But all the moneeeey wasted on services that no-one is using today is stupid. Get real. It's the real world that still holds the secrets to success.

What about the real world? You know, where people actually reacts to impressions in stead of advertisement, likes to walk together with strangers and interacts with social ambitions. The mobile device, best case the smartphone, is their best friend if there is no alternative but no-one gives away their inner secrets to a device; they use it to put a layer of disguise on. Nothing else.

So I came to think about radio waves from people. Is it possible to detect their inner decisions just by observing them, like an invisible ghost following the steps of a human?

I'm still not completely convinced but I think I'm close. It should be possible if I just can combine the right radio waves with the right technical solution. And it will be powerful. Reaally powerful.

If it will work.

Follow up next month.

It was a while since the last blog post. Yes.

I've spent way too much time working, I said some years back that I was aiming at working 25% of a normal work week and if I couldn't do that I failed. Whooops.

Fail.

But so that you know I kind of exited from the startup that I initiated in November 2009, Qubulus, by signing over my shares to the investors in December 2011. Didn't really feel good about it, leaving what was started as a whim and not nearly finalized. Whatever can be called finalized these days. But it did give me a break and a vacation from duties that now feels really great.

Push.

Some of you know my way of living I just felt it was time to start something new. (For the X time...) And I did, I call it Service Individuals and it's about bringing services to Individuals. Dooh. But it's not that simple, because what do we want as individuals? Very different things. Can one build a platform for that? Maybe. Most likely.

Since this week I can be found at Minc in Malmö, it's the fourth shape I'm taking at that place; probably a very difficult person for these kind people running this place. I can hear them whispering -"what is he up to now? Is he going to make trouble? Gosh."

Curved

It's very difficult to walk straight, to follow a line takes a lot of concentration. So it's not what you normally do, instead you walk in curves, sliding from right to left, left to right. Everything around us impacts the brain and the spine reacts and sends us here and there based on what Mr Brain just decided.

That's why it's so interesting to work with how people behave indoor, seeing their pattern of curves is like seeing skaters on ice making patterns with their sharp blades. These curving, wandering people, what's driving them? What's repelling them?

We have known for a long time that colors, lights, shadow, open/closed spaces all play an important role in guiding us. Add noise and sounds to that but today it's more about cutting us off instead of helping us, the background noise can be quite deafening. In a cluttered environment as a mall or a large retail store we tend to recognize the objects around us more than the actual guidance from signs, lines and color codes. We immediately combine our Jungean obsessions for objects into go or no go's.

To navigate the great indoors takes a lot of guts, taking into account the social game rules; what if I'm seen buying stuff here? Is this place "me"? Are these people around me my crowd?

That increases the amount of curves even more.

Lite foto

Då jag ibland faller för frestelsen att måla igen så samlar jag på inspiration genom att fota med mobilen/er beroende på vilken modell så blir resultatet olika men för mig intressant.

Taget med en SonyEricsson Experia X10 Mini Pro genom tågfönster en regnig morgon. Som på en kanvas.

Nokia E71 vintern 08 tagen på gångvägen hem. För mig är det både som en bild från en saga med en lyktstople á la Narnia men också verkligheten som ska bli annorlunda när jag får tummarna ur och bygger den där ateljén.

Skånskan, beskärning och allmän inkompetens i Höörs kommun

Häromdagen skrev jag detta som efter en vecka togs in i Skånska Dagbölet, kraftigt beskuret så att den egentliga synpunkten försvann, dvs att ledande politiker och tjänstemän än en gång försöker föra medborgarna bakom ljuset med att flytta ut tillgångar och sälja ut dem för att täcka enorma pensionsskulder.

Här är den oavkortade versionen som gick till Skånskan:

Robin Hood och framtiden
När jag läste om de nedskärningar som Höörs kommun planerar att göra i skolverksamheten så blev jag först uppgiven, sedan besviken på Alliansens totala tystnad om detta i den avslutade valrörelsen, för visst höll de detta hemligt och till slut blev jag heligt förbannad.
Inte på det faktum att det inte finns något att göra åt detta elände, det finns det säkert, utan en ilska riktad mot den girighet, dumhet och okunskap som så länge varit ledord för ledningen av kommunens verksamhet.

Nyligen såg jag den nya Robin Hood-filmen och den berättade samma berättelse som tidigare med det tillägget att den försökte ge sig in i och förklara hur det kunde bli som det blev i England under kung John. jag kan inte låta bli att göra en jämförelse.

Likheterna är slående med dagens Höör, här finns en rovdrift och beskattning av sina egna undersåtar (höjda hyror för barnen i skola och omsorg), här utnyttjas medborgarnas oförmåga till uppror för att sko sig själv (expandera fastighetsbolag, investera i mark som ingen efterfrågar), sälja ut landet (

elnätet) och bedriva idiotiska sparbeting på bekostnad av framtiden (nedskärningar i skolan).
Frågan är vem som är vår Robin Hood som ska se till att kasta John ur stolen?

Tittar vi på detaljfrågorna så är det ren idioti att med ena handen investera i utbyggnad av fastigheter och fastighetsbolag och med andra handen betala det med barnen och deras framtid, för skolan är vad vi bygger med för framtiden och nu tappar vi återigen en generation i Höör som så länge haft problem i skolorna pga Alliansens rädsla för att förlora nästa val. För det kan väl inte vara så att man bara är obegåvade, tecknen tyder på en farlig kombination av de båda.

Hur gick det till?
I april 2008 gjorde kommunfullmäktige en tjusig manöver när man samlade ihop fastighetsbeståndet under ett paraplybolag genom att sälja alla fastigheter som kommunen ägde då till Höörs fastighets AB för den nätta summan av 32,4 msek. Med tillägget att bolaget kunde göra en emission riktad till den ende ägaren, kommunen, på 40 msek till. Obs, värdet på fastigheterna var enligt politikerna ca 300 msek, bra affär för bolaget eller hur?

Det är omöjligt att hitta siffror, undrar varför, i kommunens budget och tillväxtplan gällande tiIllväxten och den eskalerande vinstmarginalen i fastighetsbolaget. Men gräver jag tillbaka i tiden så ser jag att fastighetsbolaget bygger sin vinst på tillväxten i Höörs Byggnads AB och Höörs Industribyggnads AB de senaste åren, ca 20 respektive 58% det senaste verksamhetsåret.
Under 2009 gör alltså Höörs fastighets AB en vinst på 11,8 msek. Man har sålt ut ett bolag till kraftigt underpris, expanderat det och hämtat hem vinster allt på bekostnad av barn, skola och gamla som betalar av kalaset.

Varför gör man så här?
På kommunens hemsida hittar man “ Inkomster från försäljningar av anläggningstillgångar skall gå till återbetalning av lån, reinvesteringar eller avsättningar till kommunens pensionsskuld”, lägg till det Pehr-Ove Pehrson skriver i januari i år på Höörsmoderaternas hemsida angående utförsäljningen av elnätet:
“Motivet från den borgerliga alliansens sida är att utnyttja det föreliggande intresset från marknaden och inbringa en stor reavinst till skattekollektiivet (ca 100 miljoner), så att vår pensionsskuld därmed kan finansieras. Det betyder att framtida generationer slipper ta medel från sin driftsbudget och slipper inskränka i sin verksamhet för att betala den gamla pensionsskulden från före 1998.”
Enligt artikel i Skånskan den 7/3 så berättar Michael Andersson, kommunens ekonomichef som konsekvent misslyckats med att få en budget i balans, att det efter transaktioner med elnät och fastighetsbolag saknas 88 msek av pensionsskulden. Givetvis hoppas man på att göra bra affärer på aktiemarknaden framöver så det kan täckas. Lycka till.

Men, vänta nu, om kommunen skulle sälja ut fastighetsbolaget med en realisationsvinst på minst 88 msek? Då är både den hopplösa skulden som politikerna genom åren skapat borta och allt är frid och fröjd!

Vad blir konskvensen?
Precis som med elnätet som inte skulle höja sina avgifter, vilket redan är gjort, så kommer givetvis en sådan affär att återigen pungslå invånarna. Hyror för skolor, barnomsorg och förvaltningar höjs till nya astronomiska höjder och barnen får återigen betala för politikern och tjänstemäns dumhet, okunskap och girighet. Om och om igen betalar vi för ingenting mer än sittande politikers fåfänga i att få sitta kvar, för inte lyfter de ett finger för att rädda framtiden.

Framtiden får utvisa om det kom en Robin Hood och bestraffade sheriffen och kungen för deras girighet, dumhet och okunskap. Höör har alla möjligheter att bli en blomstrande kommun men de senaste tio åren har kantats av misslyckad skola, misskött ekonomi och utsålda tillgångar.

Qubulus live!

Sedan årsskiftet har jag byggt upp ett nytt startup kring inomhuspositionering av mobiler, Qubulus. Sedan två månader tillbaka är vi live även om vi tjuvstartade lite med att påbörja utveckling innan dess.

Tillsammans med Jayway sitter vi i Öresundashuset i Malmö, en underbar plats med stora ytor, gott kaffe och kallt vatten. Ingen aircondition dock vilket gjorde att teamet chockades hårt:-

Qubulus har haft en del intressanta besök från mobiltillverkare och system för mobile apps; just nu är Frank Schuil i SF/Palo Alto för att besöka en del av de företag som visat intresse för oss. Ett heter Google men jag kan nog inte stava det rätt. Undras vad de gör?

Lite bilder att använda i juletid

Det är fritt fram att printa denna bild och så skriver ni vem julklappen är till i rutan; väldigt elegant eller hur?

Detta är ett mer allmännt "Sprid julens budskap" kort som gör sig utmärkt på spiselkransen, som en kommentar till de andra glättiga skitkorten...

Ha en GOD JUL 2009!

God Jul 2009!

Since the dawn of the navigation device, PND's, the market has been dominated by technology that is outdated and not user centric, compared to what one could see in comparable tech like PC's, Mac's and Smartphones. When the first Smartphones where PDA's with GSM chip the makers of navigation devices produced with CPU's at 25% speed, bad bus designs, really bad usage of OS, no memory and absolutely no connectivity.

In the late 2008 when we have seen a boom in UMPC's like the Asus EEE 900 series, one of the (former?) giants of portable navigation Magellan has; CPU's at 25% speed, bad bus designs, really bad usage of OS, no memory and absolutely no connectivity, plus no customer service, no management and no future.

So meanwhile Microsoft has changed their business model on OS to fit UMPC's and entering new innovative projects with Nvidia and to launch a new Windows mobile that will (if we guess, it takes place 16th Febr in Barcelona) merge Smartphone, UMPC and PND into one device.

Microsoft see the niche market opening up as the players in PND market hasn't used their years of domination very well. The Garmin, Tomtom, Mio, Navman, Magellan, Sony, Navigon, Pharos etc brands has grown because of the rise in demand from the consumers to have a PND in the car, slow rise first as the price where high 5-800 € in 2002-2004, lowered to 3-500 € in 2004-2007 and then down to 2-400 € in 2007 and on which opened for high sales; strangely the manufacturers didn't continue to really develop the devices, they upgraded, got a bit larger screens and memory but mainly nothing happened compared to the laptop/UMPC market.

And while the Windows OS business is good in numbers of licenses, the revenue per license is dropping fast, they are looking for a new good market and the small mobile computing and navigation device with full connectivity is a very good market, especially because the majority of the consumers in the world doesn't own a computer, want it but can't afford it unless a whole new production takes place.
That is why it's exiting to see Nvidia pushing out Intel, combining expertize from graphic processing which is a key to small screens, with a clear will to move into new business areas.

When we enter 2011 the good ole' brands of navigation will have diminshed to nothing if they don't adjust to the new reality.
And as we expected Dell is now finally into Smartphones which they internally has worked on since 2004.

Är man inte tillbaks så säg?

Tack tack. Inga mer applåder.
I'm back.
När jag började skriva denna bloggen var den tänkt att vara allmänt inriktad på mina breda intresseområden. Tittar jag på läsfrekvensen så är det ett enda ämne som läsarna bryr sig om och det är om exploateringsprojektet på Ekeliden.
Med bedrövelse har jag följt de senaste månadernas byggande, ca 40% av marken är skövlad, utfylld, utjämnad, uppgrävd och totalförstörd med de urfula betonghusen i någon sorts design som jag skulle vilja kalla "Karl Marx Stadt möter Ibiza i Sverige". Konstigt att Lloyd står som arkitekt, det måste ha räckt med att kopiera några gamla ritningar från t ex Väike-Öismäe, Tallinns sovjetiska skrytbyggeområde. Konstigt hur det postsovjetiska husbyggandet i Tallinn också är inspirerat av samma föregångare.

Men åter till Optimum på Ekeliden. Höör är en liten ort, kanske för liten för dess invånare men en sak är säker, det som händer sker inte i tysthet och nu har flera oberoende källor rapporterat att alla tidigare kunder som skulle köpt lägenhet i seniorboendet, har backat ur. Därför har man från ledningens sida dragit handbromsen och det är nu fokus på att få några lägenheter färdiga men man avvaktar och drar ut på tiden för att se hur en eventuell försäljning går. Därför är bygget nu mer än sex månader försenat.

Så här såg det ut häromdagen. Nästan noll aktivitiet.


Så ryktena verkar stämma fullt ut tyvärr, det innebär att detta blev precis det högriskprojekt som jag förutspådde förra året. Med resultatet att ett unikt stycke kulturarv gått förlorat. Tack, Höörs politiker och tjänstemän för den insatsen, ni hade uppdraget att se till att sånt här inte fick hända och nu sitter vi där.

Mer kommer, var så säkra.

Man måste undra

Ena dagen så är det totalt ner på världens börser, analytikerna rasar:- sälj sälj sääääälj, nästa dag går börserna upp och räntorna sänks, dagspressens ekonomiidioter skanderar "köp köp köp" och " så hääär blir dina nya räntor";

what a schmuck;

Lektion A:

1. Aktier är andelar i bolag inte räntebärande obligationer

2. Aktiehandel går upp och ner, sammantaget går de upp om inte företaget i sig visar sig vara ett falskspel

3. Räntor sätts i huvudsak av riksbanker och deras kompetens varierar med den politiska viljan att hålla hög kompetens; det senaste årtiondet har starkt drivits av att politiker har velat styra riksbankernas arbete och har tillsatt marionettfigurer i ledningarna vilket visar sig nu, Hawaiihockey istället för styrmedel

4. En bra idé är alltid en bra idé, om folk behöver bostäder, transporter, papper, datorer, el, skor etc så försvinner inte det behovet i en lågkonjunktur (dvs en politiskt misskött period av ekonomisk instabilitet) och köp alltid aktier i företag som sysslar med dessa områden, vid bra pris dvs

5. Köp aldrig dyra hus, bilar, skor, resor, böcker, datorer, el etc om det inte är helt nödvändigt för att rädda liv eller leva vidare

6. Investera alltid i det som vi behöver om 2 år, då har du din investeringshorisont klar, gränsen för din fantasi och greppbar teknologisk utveckling, säger någon att "detta är nästa stora grej 2015", stäng dörren...

vi ses på andra sidan, just nu kokar vi över av projekt som vi utvecklar i samma takt som ljuset; kanske ljuset en fin varm höstdag, men ändå, detta är min mest kreativa tid någonsin;

I'll keep you posted:-

 

Efter allt

Under de senaste veckorna har jag arbetat intensivt med ett par viktiga projekt som tagit bort tid för bloggen, mer information kommer.
Nu vill jag delge ett antal profetior:

EU driver svensk konjunktur till 90%, med byggbranschen i centrum.
Obama har redan vunnit USA-valet.
2009 kommer Junilistan att överträffa 15%, våra nya partiledare är fenomenala i sammanhanget.
Yahoo köps av Microsoft innan jul och MS köper innan dess +50 startups för att ge liket en vitamininjektion.
Navigationsbranschen går in i en totalkris och alla större varumärken köps upp innan årsskiftet.
På lokalplanet kraschar Ekelidenprojektet, personalen signalerar brott mot tekniska lagar och kassan tar slut innan september, Optimum seniorboende blir årets föetagskrasch i Skåne.

I'll be back,

Ants

ÄNTLIGEN!!!!!!

Har suttit på nålar i veckor för att vänta ut min mycket tidiga prognos att Obama plockar Clinton och nu, äntligen, gav hon upp; det tog tid, minst sagt...

Ska det stanna här?

För drygt en vecka sedan satte de igång med att fälla träd och schakta för det nya seniorboendet på Ekeliden i Höör, Optimum Seniorboende AB äger och ska bygga och vi som promenerar förbi fick veta att nu sätter det igång;
i fredags lämnade de maskinerna och tog helg men igår måndag så var grävmaskinen borta och ingen jobbar.
Några av grannarna spekulerade för några veckor sedan i om Optimum skulle först sätta igång och visa handlingskraft för att försöka sälja några lägenheter till. När de säkrat bygget av de två första husen ekonomiskt så skulle de fortsätta bygga men om inte så skulle de dra sig tillbaka.

Bilden visar sitt tydliga språk.

Kanske får de rätt, ska det stanna här?

Det hade varit en välsignelse, så här har det sett ut nu sedan i söndags och om det bara stannar nu så kan man reparera skadan rätt så bra...