Tag Archives: future

The IoT AI Manifesto

With the recent sloppiness in implementation of software & hardware and synergizing them into so called the being called IoT  The time is appropriate that a defacto manifesto be brought in place for the artificial species called IoT.

I assume most of us are aware of the Three Laws by Isaac Asimov.

What I propose is build for the interacting robotics with lesser-minded-human-kind!

  1. An equipment if called IoT should abide by:
    1. It should be considered a legal offspring of the last hand-off human entity.
    2. It should have an IDENTU  mode that should let it spill out its purpose/identity/owners.
    3. It should have safe mode where any voice may command it to stop the current action.(something like a STATUE/RESUME mode)

Pretty simple! Very much make-possible!

Thoughts?

Java EE 9 Survey ~ Technology has gone Democratic and Political(rant!)

If you are in the Java ecosystem, please fill out this survey.

After you are done laughing and wondering what you just saw, I will pen down my thoughts and serious objections to the way they are doing the survey.

Here are a few things asked, which I think are absolutely unnecessary, humorous to ask in a tech survey:

  1. How important is Eventing support for the next generation of cloud and microservices applications?

    • Is there any application which does not have eventing? Is there any application that has only Eventing support system??
  2. The current practice of cloud development in Java is largely based on REST and asynchrony

    • So cheeky statement!
  3. Application development style is changing…

    • This is happening for the first time in history of mankind!
  4. How important is HTTP/2 for the next generation of cloud and microservices applications?

    • What if it is important and then What if  a newer protocol/standard comes?
  5. How important are the new features proposed in JSON-P for the next generation of cloud and microservices applications?

    • How many people are aware of these concepts?
  6. The databases may be used as replacements or additions to standard RDBMS storage

    • ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
  7. Should we standardize a Java EE application configuration API?

    • no let United Nations drive this initiative.
  8. In the Cloud, failure of application instances and services are inevitable

    • Truth statement, not a survey question!!!
  9. Should Java EE introduce a mechanism to communicate the health of the cloud application to the cloud infrastructure?

    • umm.. why just health? why not a cumulative health parameter listing?
  10. Current trends talk about building ‘stateless’ applications and services, but the need to store some state exists nonetheless

    • why NoSQL did not happen yet?
  11. To be successful, many microservices need a scalable, fault tolerant state management solution

    • someone tell me how Oracle defines a micro service?
  12. Should Java EE investigate standards for state management? Should Java EE 9 investigate how to package a set of microservices together?

    • Let some federal body do the investigation? Is modules dead??
  13. The Java EE runtime components could provide an “embedded” API

    • what on earth is an embedded API? some kind of zombie api??
  14. We could enhance key Java EE APIs such as JAX-RS to better handle these technologies.We could integrate JCache with the Java EE platform

    • so kind of you!
  15. We could define a secret management facility suitable for a cloud environment

    • there oracle’s way of management is *secret*… Where on earth are Sun Microsystems engineers?
  16. How important is MVC API for the next generation of cloud and microservices applications?

    • (scared of the spring tools?)
  17. How important is the Management API, as proposed in JSR 373, for the next generation of cloud and microservices applications?

    • So there will be a mgmt api and a secrets management api! I already  like Oracle!
  18. How important is the continued evolution of the JMS API for next generation Java EE applications?

    1. wow! That is so political, stop working on something just because there is little traction… Does not happen in tech guys!

This is my opinion. Could be utterly wrong or out of context.

But Dear World, use democracy judiciously, by indicating you are a a thought leader, do not sit on the general opinion and say you created a standard. A standard creation needs long term vision and astute conformance that a chosen approach would suffice for years to come!(Java is 20+ years already no?)

(Here is an aside…)

It is like you have your food daily on the dining table, its a standard. What you are saying, hey our neighbors are here for couple of days,they have trouble walking, why don’t we have the food daily in the bed itself?So let’s ask everyone if its okay to have food in the bed daily? Let’s ascribe whether we can have chow mien while we are still  in bed?

So please STOP taking opinions and start taking a firm stance and start defending it to your core.You all are at the top of your game so when are you going to put to use of that knowledge? And if something is wrong, humbly accept that for the betterment of the standard. You all sound like a group of politicians gathered to sit and harp on majority public opinion.

Now is the best time for all the smartest minds of the world to forge and take charge and establish standards that are the outcome of their experiences, and not just there to please the majority public opinion. What is correct as per their experiences should be put forth and debated as standards. Not whether X should be a standard or should Y be the standard. What is the use of your expertise then?

Please get back to being engineers and not just tinkerers!

Bots – BOring Tasks Systematized!

We are surrounded and supported by a bots ecosystem. I will try to bring that into perspective to evaluate the current rate of explosion of bots and newer solutions coming around it — and how to stay human still!

Connected with the Bot Ecosystem!
  • When we wake up,with help from an external alarm clock , we are taking help of a Bot.
  • When we are parking our car and when reversing it, there is a smart system that warns us for the exact safe-distance to keep going. That’s a smarter Bot!
  • Notice the cool soap dispenser that spits soap when we put our hand under it? That’s a Bot!
  • Recall the automated vacation response you configured in your favorite email client? Well, you have guessed, that’s also a …Bot!

We have never thanked these systems for their existence, for we know they are physics concepts glued together mechanically. A Thank-You comes and goes via a heart! 🙂

Coming back to the topic, now imagine all of those Bots, fusing into a single system with a human structure!

SuperBot
Hey, I am SuperBot and can do everything that was listed above & much more!
  • What was your reaction when the last time, your car backing system told you incorrectly that you were 1 meter from an obstacle while there was a gap of roughly 5 meters!
  • When was the last time your alarm clock did not wake you up?(battery out or way too low?)
  • Isn’t it way irritating when the mechanical soap dispenser does not spit the soap, instead only throws out the air?
  • Haven’t we all misfired a wrongly configured vacation response and feeling way embarrassed and apologizing for it for all day long to colleagues and co-workers!?

As for the premise, these bots *independently* do their job perfectly. But when they break, nothing else is affected around it. Well I am yet to hear about misconstruing a vacation response due to a non working soap dispenser!(all right that’s way too much exaggeration — but we get the point!).

The fact that they are disconnected, allows us, the user of that system to fallback/switch to another means. Say the car backing system is down, well ask a passerby to help you. Your alarm clock is out, well start working on your body’s alarm clock(no excuse here!).

I will construct two hypothetical views that are actually happening in the bots eco-system and obviously I am opposed to such developments. Hence suggesting a way out, as I cannot stop these movements.

  1. Once these systems are connected, and one of its components starts acting strange(see I elevated it to a human), the whole behavior might be eccentric to say the least. If your SuperBot is out of battery, it might just get you to wake you up but might not be able to help you with and send the vacation responses.
  2. Add the internet to the mix!

    I’m out of order but controlled via the internet.

The take away from the whole story:

  1. Let us as individuals, not try to fuse all our bot dependency into a single system. It makes it highly probable to fail and although it gives us lot of convenience, but at a high cost of dependence. This whole connected thing is a convenience at the cost of our freedom.
  2. The most secure sites are still subject to theft/fraud ( I am only referring to financial losses). When a fused bot with the thinking of the whole internet is there, and one small error/condition unchecked/unnoticed will be not safe, to say the least.

As for the bots ecosystem, I would love to see

  • a centralized parking bot, letting a big relief to all humans from this petty job
  • an aerial bot that delivers newspapers

But then again, I won’t allow either of them talk to each other, A single Bot good for One Task. 🙂

Questions to ask to a VC

Incase you stumble upon a VC, here is a list of questions that can help you use their knowledge/expertise/insight for your products long term vision and validation!

1/Does your experience tell you [your-product-name] is a unique solution?

2/Do you think the idea will be accepted?(a)by people b)by investors?)

3/Are you convinced by the idea and ready to risk loosing your investment? 🙂

4/What are the areas that [your-product-name] needs to specifically work on?

5/What is the suggested milestones/checkpoints you recommend that are
important post launch/before/beyond?

6/Do you think [your-idea-name] needs investment/funding/backing?

7/Does [your-product-name] need to rush the idea to the market?

8/Is it ok to go for an [country-location-name] only launch for now?

After this form of scrutinizing is over, ask the VC to take off their hat and give feedback about your product as a normal user(if they have the capacity to be your products consumer).

Hope this is helpful to anyone reading it 🙂

Autos hold the key to the future of self driving cars!

This is part-2/epilogue to an earlier post title Why is new-style(apps based) cab booking still a mess?

In my recent bad-experience with the cab booking scenario, I decided to try out the autos on a similar route of commute! Fortunately, I can shout out to an auto-walla from my home and there is never a dearth of options thanks to the auto-wallas agreeing to go by the meter!

Time for a good detour of the main route?

What is the most weird mode of transportation you have ever been subject to?

My 7 km long most weird transport medium! [PS: I was not driving! ;-)]

While keeping a tab on the state of self driving cars, and the experiments being done, no wonder the google-car looks so much like a delhi-auto!

Delhi-auto as google-driverless-car!

And having experienced first-hand the skills of an auto driver, I am inclined to suggest,for any thinking future self driving company, if you are looking out to train your cars, reach out to the auto-wallahs!

Here are the motivations:

  1. Lowest ground distance — matching to the sef-driving car’s design.
  2. They know the best routes — Point A to Point B, you end up spending 500 bucks or 250 bucks!
  3. They know how to best absorb a speed breaker cruising @ 25 kmph and make you feel as if you’re flying!
  4. They know how to best wake you up(in case you start to feel dizzy) by bumping you in a pot hole!
  5. I have never heard/read about an auto wallah being involved in an accident( a quarrel is not an accident) — Best premise for self driving cars!

What I am suggesting is have the driverless cars minds trained by putting an Augmented Intteligence chip in an auto! First ride, they just learn what is the route all about, good roads, bad roads,bumps,breakers. In latter rides, they should pick up: speed up/slow down suggestion,collision detection, collision prevention, safe stopping etc. All this should happen in shadow mode, where in realtime the chips response and the actual response should be monitored! Once an acceptable level of confidence is arrived at, let the chip start talking about its suggestions. Once the driver starts trusting the suggestions, go auto-pilot! 🙂

Also, I doubt if the driverless cars are made to ride as a sensitive travellers? Like lets say someone cannot handle bumps as efficiently as a child can, Do these vehicles cater to this requirement?(PS: auto wallah do cater to this requirement!)

The future of driver-less cars is exciting, but the possibility of breaking it down is also very high, as someone can use a VR thingy and make the AI sensors of the car sense that an obstacle is coming and in reality there is no obstacle and eventually a future race of hacking driver less cars where you’ll come across advt like “Make the other driver-less cars around you go automatically slow”

My car makes other cars give me more way!

In closure, The roads will be way too full of cars and quarrels, we should look up! 🙂

The Java Roadmap – Its second life.

Woo Hoo!

I am excited to know about Java being back on-track with its journey of being the most preferred in-demand platform.
I started following the development at the following interesting links:
Here’s what I have learnt in the last few hours:
1/With news about the next JDK releases slated for 2011 and late 2012, the java platform is in for a complete re-write much more intutive and more robust than ever before.
2/The sensor api is the answer to the recent advancements in the mobile domain viz-a-viz touch screen/GPS enabled life-apps. Looks like J2ME(or what ever it will be called) will reign in for the first time in serious cometetion!
3/Must read Project Coin.
4/Oracle’s official statement is adamant at keeping two versions alive for whatever product they already had and what they inherited from Sun. A tough situation to be in.
I have been recently loosing faith in what the future of java will be after Oracle took over and a lot of Sun luminaries quiting Oracle controlled java. Atleast I see new life(hard work and pain going in) in my most loved language, Ever!
I look forward to it with renewed hope!

Public Network Passwords under attack!

With options like this which are available now, the public network passwords are a vulnerable lot today!
Coming to the solutions mode, the question that raises concerns and needs to be addressed is:

How to protect public network password from brute force attack?

And we think about the answers:

1/Biometrics?
No, can be easily imitated, and IMHO, causes the power to rest with anyone who has power/money.

2/Special fonts?
Kinda-OK, the fonts that are created, should reside on a system only.
Limits mobility, but sure seems a viable option.

3/Thick client logins?
Yup, Can be mobile, enables a secure area.
More like double-check locking!

4/Best of 3 login attempts?
Black list the brute force IP. (+)Good for cleaning up the internet, (-)bad for businesses!

5/Image/Non-Text based passwords?
(+)Increases complexity (+) can be copyrighted/encrypted (-)Need to carry that picture always! (-) little randomness.

What could give the password crackers a new challenge?
It seems brute force is won over and the text books needs to be edited!

Comment Anywhere!

Has it occurred to you(the reader) that you came across something and you like to comment on it?
Be it a feedback/improvement/suggestion/Aha moment or something you recall, simply said, how something that you see or read related to you?
If this could happen, you got another encyclopedia of stories of people and their experience getting ready to be scripted.
What would be unique to this movement is everyone takes the role of an author and a reader!

Very Exciting!

Challenges:
1/ How to track different people commenting at different times!
2/ How to keep it consistent with varying media on which comment is to be made?
3/ We have become thick, we use the desktop, and our applications sit on top of them, How to bring it to the desktop?

Now its becoming interesting!

~rohit.

Remote Controlled Application-Feature On-Off Facility

This morning an idea just hit me of enabling/disabling features of an application/system remotely.
If we add(already have?) a way where a module(per-say feature) has an attribute of whether it is alive or not, we can control the way a feature is available at runtime for that application/product.
We do layering, we would need to put the feature On_OFF switch withing that layering so that would need a standard of packaging/module-ring an application.
Is this possible and how would that be advantageous?

~rohit.