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A few companies and organizations have recently announced that they’re finding new applications for traditional printing presses, inkjet printers and silicon ink. Not since Gutenberg’s famous invention has the printing industry seen such revolutionary changes. These new techniques have the promise of reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and improving the quality of life of many people around the world.

Kovio, a high tech company based in Sunnyvale, CA, has announced a method of using silicon ink with commercial printing equipment to produce electronic chips known as radio frequency ID (RFID) tags . The ink can be applied to flexible surfaces using traditional presses to print circuits in an efficient and cost-effective process. These tiny chips, which are used to help companies track products that they ship, will consume less energy and reduce costs from 15 cents to 5 cents by 2008. Kovio has signed a number of customers including Cubic Transportation, which manufactures fare-collection systems for public transportation.

Another innovator in the field of silicon ink has emerged in Santa Clara, CA. Innovalight is a venture-capital backed firm that has won many awards for its silicon ink process for printing thin-film solar power modules. Their proprietary ink recipe also promises to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of traditional solar cells, which will hopefully allow solar power to become a more viable technology. According to Innovalight’s website, “The high cost of production of solar cells today has been one of the major factors inhibiting the overall growth of solar energy as a market. Innovalight has developed a silicon nanocrystalline ink that holds the promise to bring flexible solar panels to cost that could be as much as ten times cheaper than current solar cell solutions.”

Perhaps the most astounding of the newest printing technologies is in the medical field. Scientists are working on a technique to manufacture human skin cells using a printer similar to an inkjet. This article from Live Science describes the project, which is based in the UK and headed by Brian Derby. The process aims to use the patient’s own skin cells, multiply them, soak them in a nutrient-rich “ink”, feed them through a printer to be joined with a soluble plastic tissue scaffold for stability, then apply the new “skin” to the wound. The new technique could undergo clinical trials in as little as five years, and eventually scientists hope to produce commercial skin printers for use in hospitals. This amazing technology would be a godsend for patients and doctors alike, as it would revolutionize the way doctor’s interact with both patients and technology.

Another aspect of the printing world will be changed beyond recognition if industrial designer Yves Behar has his way. Behar is an award-winning artist and designer for fuseproject, and he works in many mediums and materials. His latest technological feat is something we expect to see in a living room near you. It’s called “The Dream Room”, and it consists of walls impregnated with LCD displays. This chameleon-like “digital wallpaper” can be changed to look like whatever you want. If you want mountain streams, sandy beaches, leopard print, or even plain old white with family pictures, the screens can project whatever your imagination can dream up. This floor-to-ceiling projections can create a trompe l’oeil that extends the landscape beyond the limits of walls. This, coupled with new touchscreen technology, could see you setting the room color, the thermostat, or even your alarm clock just by tapping your LCD walls.

While we aren’t yet calling the printing press dead, we at Talkibie are looking forward to watching how these new techniques affect our energy sources, our medical treatment, and even our interior decorating tastes in the future.

Social networking is all the rage, and new companies keep popping up that focus on a different aspect of user’s lives. Some enable photo sharing with friends, some focus on travel destinations and blogging, and some have reached out to music lovers who want to share their tastes with friends. MOG is one of the more successful of these social networking sites. MOG is a network that was created by a community of self-described music “freaks” who want to find new music, watch music videos, read news and reviews, and blog about their favorite bands.

Like most social networks, MOG allows users to customize profile pages that reflect their personal tastes. The site is built around the “MOG-O-MATIC”, an application which tracks the music you listen to in a variety of media players. By clicking on the “Magic Button”, you download the MOG-O-MATIC app and it scours your hard drive to discover your playlists and preferences. You can also add songs and artists manually to your profile, and the content you see on MOG is based on these two data pools. The Magic Button can be used to personalize content to you preferences throughout the site. Don’t worry, though. If you don’t want your punk rock friends to know about your secret Dolly Parton obsession, you can remove “9 to 5″ from your profile.

Recommendations are then made either based on the music you put on your profile or review or the songs you listen to in iTunes or download from Rhapsody. Your profile will update your music collection, and display the last songs you listened to and your top artists of the week. Other sections of a MOG page can include concerts you plan to or want to attend, your favorite albums or artists of all time, a personal blog, and a customizable RSS feed. The MOG-O-MATIC technology makes it easy for you to find new music that appeals to your tastes, read news about your favorite bands, and review artists for your friends to see. It can also connect you to other users with similar tastes in music.

MOG has also expanded into video, with the MOG TV section. This is essentially a database of all the YouTube videos for a particular artist or band, for a total of over 400,000 videos. The “Magic Button” also comes into play here, using the MOG-O-MATIC to match the videos it shows to your tastes. You can filter which videos you want to access based on your profile. They’ve also incorporated a feedback system into MOG TV, which allows you to easily report if it shows you the wrong video, bad quality, or a video where embedding is not available.

MOG is focusing on building a community of music lovers who can congregate and discuss their ideas through blogging, reviews, and news. Users can review their newest albums, post their thoughts on favorite songs, and discuss their opinions with other fans. The site is also fast becoming a host for bands where they can post their songs for others to enjoy, a la MySpace. This puts fans and bands on the same plane, and allows them to influence each other in a very open way. Though some genres of music are more represented in the reviews than others, it’s an education in diversity to sift through random blog postings looking for the next big thing that catches your ear. And, of course, MOG’s technology embeds the song being discussed right in the post so readers can experience the music for themselves. That’s quite an improvement over the flowery, unfocused descriptions of songs one sometimes reads in Rolling Stone.

Since social networking is all the rage at the moment, it’s highly likely that some of the new contenders in the arena will not survive the ever-changing winds of Web 2.0 technology. MOG, however, is focused and specific enough in its market that it has a bright future.
As noted by Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal, “MOG isn’t trying to be a social-networking site that enables all things… [it] successfully improves the way people discuss, share, and discover music online.” The new and improved site shows their commitment to enhancements that meet the expectations of users, and they’ve successfully generated a lot of buzz surrounding the relaunch.

Back in November, Google announced the launch of OpenSocial, a platform which will aid developers who create applications and widgets for social networking sites. In a highly-anticipated move, Google is positioning themselves and their partners to compete with Facebook by means of more functional and more streamlined applications. With a growing number of social networking options online (and approximately 400 million users accessing these websites) comes an ever-expanding list of applications, most of which must be developed specifically for each site. Google’s platform will significantly reduce the headache involved and open up the social networking industry to more sleek and flexible third party applications.

OpenSocial works by providing a set of three APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, which allow developers to build apps that can be used across multiple websites. Programmers can use standard JavaScript and HTML to create applications which can access a social network user’s friends and update feeds. Common APIs mean that the learning curve is gentler for programmers who build for multiple websites. This will likely mean more quality applications delivered in a shorter timeframe, with functionality across the social networking world. Websites which have already begun implementing OpenSocial include Friendster, MySpace, Orkut (Google-owned), Ning, Tianji, and XING, among others.

According to OpenSocial’s website, “The ultimate goal is for any social website to be able to implement the APIs and host 3rd party social applications.” If they’re successful, users might see applications combining Orkut or MySpace with Google Maps capabilities, which will show where your friends are located. Also, you may see an Orkut widget designed for MySpace or Friendster that will show whether or not your friends are online through other social networking sites. The difference with current social networks is that, as with Facebook, applications are designed for use with just one site, and cannot be seamlessly integrated into the larger context. Facebook has a platform that allows third party developers to build applications on Facebook itself, but OpenSocial is significantly more flexible, allowing third parties to give and take data in and out of Google and non-Google programs. Google will also allow developers to host their applications on their own servers, which Facebook does not permit. These changes will give Orkut and other OpenSocial partners the much needed boost to help them compete with the heavy hitters.

Websites who want to implement OpenSocial can enable their sites as containers and access a support forum. In the long-term, Google seems to be positioning themselves very prudently in the social networking milieu. These mini-applications/widgets/gadgets, instead of being non-matching components, instead take on a similar look and feel, and are easy to integrate into any site with the use of OpenSocial. With Orkut as a site from which to gather data and test ideas, Google seems to be adding a social networking layer to the “Google suite”, which could mean seeing Google Docs or Calendar on your MySpace page, Google Maps on your Facebook profile, or Google Reader pulling news feeds of stories to share with your Friendster friends. This is yet another example of how Google is spreading their influence into diverse corners of our lives. Here’s hoping they continue to use their power for good instead of evil, making every aspect of our web lives just a little easier.

The election season is reaching a fever pitch, and this election year the candidates are reaching out to voters in unique ways. All of the top contenders have some type of online presence, though some have been more successful in their social networking efforts than others. They have created Facebook pages and groups, MySpace profiles, YouTube videos, and encouraged their supporters to organize through Meetup.com. So far, Republican Ron Paul has focused on Web 2.0 tools more than any other candidate, and he tops the list of candidate Google searches for 2007. He has certainly started a trend, but the question remains: will hits and Facebook friends translate into votes?

The candidates have used different means of reaching voters who hang out online, and with varying degrees of success. Democrat Barack Obama’s Facebook group, “One Million Strong for Barack” was created by a supporter, and infamously joined by Rudy Giuliani’s daughter. Other candidates have copied the verbiage, including TV personality Stephen Colbert, though to date the group is home to just over 400,000 Facebook members. The group is a grassroots effort run by supporters, and is not affiliated with Obama’s campaign. This is in contrast to the other candidates Facebook groups, which are calculated PR moves. Perhaps this puts Obama ahead of the curve when election time arrives.

Another frequently used site is YouTube, where the candidates have jointly posted over 2500 videos since last January (452 of those belong to Republican Mitt Romney, never one to be camera-shy). Perhaps the most entertaining of these comes from Mike Huckabee, who is clearly trying to capitalize on the recent endorsement from Chuck Norris, a.k.a. Walker, Texas Ranger. Huckabee asserts (with straight face) that “there’s no chin under Chuck Norris’ beard, only another fist.” It’s clear this ad is meant to appeal to the YouTube demographic, as I’m sure my grandmother wouldn’t laugh at this joke.

Perhaps the most influential of the Web 2.0 sites used by presidential candidates is Meetup.com, a networking site which allows users to connect with others in their communities with similar interests. Their website states: “We want to see the world’s people self-organize. We believe that people can change their world, or the world by organizing themselves into groups - Meetups - powerful enough to make a difference.” Ron Paul has had tremendous success with Meetup, and his approximately 82,000 supporters have organized 21,000 offline events to fund raise and generate support for him. Whether he wins or loses the nomination, his success using Meetup and other social networking sites will likely be emulated in future election campaigns.

Web analytics company Compete has created a tool to track the candidates and their successes and failures using online networking. Candidate Facetime breaks up the candidates by party and shows what percentage of their “hits” are on their official websites, how their hits stack up against their competitors, and how many total hours people have spent learning about them through their Web 2.0 efforts. November’s data shows Ron Paul as a clear Republican frontrunner when it comes to generating online buzz, while Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards are neck-and-neck for the Democrats.

As Mike Huckabee points out on his Facebook group, “I believe that the internet will play a huge role in the 2008 campaign and sites such as this are wonderful tools for people to come together and show their support for the candidate of their choice.” Right he is, especially when it comes to gathering support among younger, more wired voters. Or are they “voters” when all they’ve done to express their political beliefs is to post a candidate’s name to an online profile? Are these groups just a way for lazy voters to establish a political identity, or will they transform into actual support for these candidates? We’re about to find out.

The day is soon approaching when the major electronic devices in our lives will become integrated. Our phones are already MP3 players, our digital cameras are already phones, and our phones are becoming more and more like laptops. The TV set seems to be the last man out in this trend, like the wimpy kid who gets picked last for the dodge ball team (no offense meant, I was that wimpy kid). In our heart of hearts, we all expected to be surfing the internet on our TVs by now, and it’s disappointing that it hasn’t come to fruition. However, some folks are working on providing internet video through our TVs, and the challenges they face are immense. With the high cost of service and hardware, the lack of quality content, the slow download speeds, and the complications of setup, there are definitely hurdles that these companies are going to have to jump.

Apple TV is a serious contender in this market, and some industry experts expect their business to grow significantly in 2008. Their relatively small box would be fairly easy to find room for in your entertainment center, but the 40GB version retails for $299.00, which is a bit much for the pleasure of watching YouTube on a widescreen. In addition to other internet video sites, Apple TV can access your iTunes library and display your downloads on your TV. The device works with a wireless connection, so it wouldn’t be practical if your home connection isn’t wireless.

Sony also released a device called “BRAVIA Internet Video Link”, which will be integrated into most of its new television sets to allow them access to free internet video content from providers such as AOL, Yahoo!, Grouper, and of course, Sony BMG and Sony Pictures. The BRAVIA link will access your broadband Ethernet connection, so it won’t be a problem for non-wireless subscribers. There’s also no extra fee for the service, though how long that will be true is another question. One is immediately suspicious that ISPs or cable companies (which are mostly the same these days) will find a way to charge you extra for downloading and watching videos on your TV. After all, as a Canadian man found out recently, providers always seem to find exceptions to the term “unlimited”.

There is another concern for companies looking to bring web video to the living room. Those Marshall McLuhan scholars may recall the mantra, “The medium is the message,” and while television is the medium of passivity, the internet is the medium of creativity, at least when it comes to user-generated video content. People do not contribute to their favorite TV shows, but they do increasingly contribute to the content we view on the web. People watch TV when they want to absorb, not create, and it’s unclear as to whether these two desires can be balanced.

So the question is: does anyone really want to watch YouTube on their TV? Do they want to flip on their TV and actively search for shows or do they want to consume whatever FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS has planned for the evening? Forrester Research indicates that 80% of responders would not pay for an internet video TV device at any price (Wall Street Journal article). The makers of these adaptive devices may find that there simply isn’t a market for their product.

Another challenge they face is the rise of web-enabled cell phones. It seems that we’re watching internet video on increasingly smaller screens rather than on our increasingly humongous television sets. Web-enabled phones have seen huge growth this year, and their ability to entertain us seems endless. Who wouldn’t want to check out last night’s episode of The Office during the morning commuter rail ride?

Internet video TV devices may be barking up the wrong tree, but it’s not entirely a lost cause. The industry needs to do some serious thinking about their target market, and they need to make the devices less obtrusive and more affordable. Whether or not web video is brought to our TV screens, the idea of consolidating electronic devices will live on, and eventually our TVs will be able to join the rest of the proverbial dodge ball team.

As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, Google is finally close to a launch of the long rumored “GDrive” (not yet the official product name), a service which would offer online storage for data of all sorts. Pricing and storage capacity has not been announced, but it is likely to come in free and paid versions, depending on the level of service/size of storage. Rather than a completely new product, the GDrive will probably combine the existing storage capacities of your Gmail, Picassa web photo albums, Google Apps documents, etc. The GDrive is aimed at replacing your computer’s hard drive with an online, searchable option that would support your email messages, photos, documents, music, and videos.

Google is not the only company to attempt an online file storage service. Omnidrive offers several levels of service for yearly subscription fees. One gigabyte is free (it will grow with your files for a fee), and features include drag-and-drop for file transfer, collaboration on documents, and file sharing by web address. Microsoft also has an online file storage service, called SkyDrive. One gigabyte is also free, and each folder can be password protected for sharing with different individuals and groups. Unlike Google Apps, however, files cannot be edited online with SkyDrive.

The pros of this storage method are obvious. With online editing capabilities a service of this kind would do away with multiple versions of the same document, and it makes collaboration easy and convenient. Online data storage also allows you to share your documents through a simple web address, which is great for family photo albums, HR policy documents, etc. These files are accessible from any computer with internet access, so your hard drive essentially travels with you regardless of who’s computer you’re using. The GDrive is also remarkable for its disaster recovery possibilities; no more losing all your documents if your hard drive crashes, your office burns down, or your laptop is stolen.

Unfortunately, the cons of the GDrive and similar services are just as clear. First, the ever-present privacy question: will Google use the content of your GDrive to target advertising at users? This is already in place for GMail, and it’s frankly a huge turn-off. Google does have a strong track record of protecting user data from third parties, but they’re a bit lax about using said data to push ads in our faces. The fact that all files are stored online is also a detriment, since business users in particular may need to access documents when they cannot access the internet (i.e. when flying). Google has said they want the service to mimic a traditional hard drive, but the jury is still out on how they can accomplish this without offline functionality. There are also copyright issues to address, particularly when it comes to music and video clips that will be stored and shared through the GDrive service. Google is reportedly working with key copyright holders to create solutions, but they have faced complaints in the past with regard to content on YouTube. Tech bloggers are sure to carefully comb the Terms of Service of the GDrive to prevent any abuse of copyright claims.

Whether the pros outweigh the cons in this case is a personal opinion. Obviously it will take time to build up the level of trust that businesses will need to store sensitive files online, though I’m certain the GDrive will be popular with younger Web 2.0 users, who already publicize much of their lives online through social networking sites. The GDrive reflects a trend of mobile computing that is likely to see huge growth in the coming years. Users are beginning to demand access to all their data from any device, be it a phone, a micro laptop, or a traditional computer. Google, while not the only company to respond to these desires, is potentially the most likely to pull it off due to their general propriety and trustworthiness. After all, the much-quoted Ten Things which serve as a moral compass for the search giant does suggest, “You can make money without doing evil.” What more can we ask of our technology innovators?

Science fiction films and TV shows have long touted the virtues of voice recognition technology, perhaps the most popular example being Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unlike Captain Kirk, who had to rely on subordinates to do his bidding, Captain Picard would simply call out, “Computer?” and the ship’s invisible intelligence would activate, jumping to obey his every command. It’s clear why this type of technology appeals to science fiction writers and fans; who wouldn’t want to interact with artificial intelligence as easily as we interact with other human beings? No more memorizing keyboard commands, no more texting on minuscule cell phone number pads, no more waiting for a computer to boot up/connect to a wireless network/open a large file. All we have to do is ask.

This voice-based interface is becoming less of a fantasy and more of a reality. Voice recognition software is improving greatly, and while we won’t likely be jumping to warp speed anytime soon, we may experience a hands-free voice activated interface within a year. One of the companies working in this vein is Nuance, who recently released Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, a software application that allows you to speak at a normal speed while it “types” your words. Their ingenious website allows you to challenge the software to a typing race (which you will lose, trust me), showing off how accurate and fast their product is at recognizing speech, including unusual words like “aardvark”. In addition to typing applications, Nuance has a a voice control product which allows you to operate a mobile device with spoken commands. You can send short emails, set appointments in a calendar, place calls, and access the web with phrases like, “Go to website: www.cnn.com”.

Voice recognition technology could be a huge advantage for a couple of reasons. Wouldn’t it be great to access and answer emails during your morning commute, hands free? Or be able to dial a phone number by speaking the name of your friend or client? Not only would it cut down on the time we spend actually touching a computer, but it would allow more open access to technology for many people around the globe. Populations with low computer-literacy rates, like Grandma and Grandpa, would be able to stay in touch with family, access health information, and play internet bingo. All jokes aside, though, those with visual or physical impairments or in developing countries (where previous experience with computers is limited) will have an easier time operating computers and mobile phones with the further development of this technology.

Perhaps some of the more alert readers will have spotted a disconnect between the current capabilities of speech recognition and the Star Trek version. In the movies this technology seemed to easily recognize conversational language, intuitively carrying out orders given in any configuration. But what about slang? What about foreign languages, or even regional accents? Will a voice-activated dashboard device be able to “pahk the cah at Hahvahd Yahd?” What about timber and tone of voice? Obviously, these are problems that haven’t yet been fully addressed. We’ve all been frustrated by a telephone menu where we’re forced to speak commands, say our PIN number, etc., and as a result we’re unable to talk to a real person. Imagine if there was no “real” person to eventually reach by shouting, “CUSTOMER SERVICE!” into the handset. Such a possibility could become a reality, and it could cause major headaches as it did for one man. His bank’s voice recognition software froze his account because it “thought” he was a female. Not to mention security concerns about using your voice as a type of fingerprint to establish your identity. Clearly, our “intelligent” technology isn’t as fallible as we would like it to be.

Leading companies in the field of web applications are already being encouraged to make their products as accessible as possible to people who, for one reason or another, do not have physical access to a computer. Not only will it be a major step for those with physical impairments or handicaps, it will also benefit users who want to access a computer hands free (when driving, for medical procedures, for military operations, etc). However, a balance is required for voice recognition software to be effective without being overbearing. As with any new trend, it should be implemented slowly with great concern for security, and it should never be the only barrier between us and our email, internet access, or bank accounts. However, if ever there was a case for the good outweighing the bad, this might be it. Voice commands could allow a whole new set of users to experience the connectivity and benefits of a digital lifestyle.

The Navajo Nation (Diné in the Navajo language) have been working hard to close the digital divide in the four corners region. Their massive reservation, the largest in the country at 27,000 square miles, covers vast stretches of rural Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, and the remoteness of the region have contributed to a lack of basic services for the Navajo people. Many government groups, schools, and citizens have no internet connections or computers, and some don’t even have telephones. In fact, the Navajo reservation has a staggering 38% poverty rate. Poor roads and far-spread services means that citizens have to drive hours for medical care and government services. A new initiative by the local government, called Internet to the Hogan (hogans are traditional Navajo dwellings), hopes to address these issues through better internet and computer access.

Internet to the Hogan is a collaboration between the Navajo Nation Department of Internet Technology, the state governments of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, and private philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. The simple goal is to bring broadband technology to schools (both public and private), homes, and Chapter houses, which are local government offices similar to town councils throughout the reservation. This will enable those living on tribal land to access health care services, local government resources, libraries, and all the other tools that “wired” Americans take for granted. The infrastructure is immense and expensive, but the project seems to be jumping these hurdles. Navajo Technical College is spearheading the effort; students, faculty, and community members are building a series of wireless broadband towers which will connect 31 Chapter houses to the internet, later to be extended to schools, clinics, hospitals, police departments, fire stations, and homes.

The Navajo people stand to benefit enormously from this initiative. Health care services are sadly lacking on the reservation, and access to online tools and information could be a first step to a healthier population. Diabetics could establish healthy eating habits and track their blood sugar levels with the help of the American Diabetes Association website. Families can look up symptoms for minor illnesses on WebMD or upload their medical records to HealthVault for the benefit of a doctor in Flagstaff or Albuquerque. And, with the spread of video conferencing technology, they could even have a “doctor’s visit” over a laptop or cell phone without an onerous four hour drive. The communication services would also be a major improvement in emergency services during natural disasters, which, believe it or not, have previously been announced by dropping leaflets from airplanes.

In addition to the potential health benefits, schools and universities will have the resources available to make their students competitive beyond the borders of the reservation. Computer training and e-learning is a given at most American schools, and students who do not have basic skills are handicapped when it comes time to enter the work force. The Internet to the Hogan initiative is giving Navajo students the chance to catch up to their peers in more affluent communities. This also translates to a stronger economy for the tribe. Native-owned businesses with web access will be able to create e-commerce sites or web applications to showcase their products and services outside the local area. This is especially significant given the recent popularity of native handicrafts from the four corners region, including pottery, silver jewelry, and traditional rugs. Navajo artists could sell their wares online directly to consumers, instead of selling to gift shops in and around the National Parks, giving them higher profits and a better margin. This could also potentially create jobs in remote parts of the reservation, and increase tourism to the ancient Anasazi sites of Canyon De Chelly and Chaco Canyon, which are administered by the Navajo Nation.

Not only Navajo tribe members stand to benefit from the Internet to the Hogan initiative, though. The wireless network and IT services will reach beyond tribal land to other rural communities in the Four Corners region. The project serves as an inspiring example of the power of community action and the desire to improve one’s circumstances that will likely be duplicated in other areas. The Navajo people are wisely preparing to meet the technical challenges of tomorrow while entering the global information arena. Let’s hope their spirit of enterprise spreads far beyond their borders.

Google is re-imagining the mobile phone as vehicle for superior internet applications that can rival the experience of internet users on personal computers. After months of waiting, Google has finally announced plans to release software - free software - for mobile handsets in the latter half of 2008 through the Open Handset Alliance, a multinational alliance of technology and mobile industry leaders. Having partnered with 33 handset manufacturers, wireless networks, and other heavy hitters, Android, as the platform is called, will make web-enabled cell phones available to a larger market at smaller prices. While some may be disappointed that Google did not unveil a proprietary handset, the emergence of Android is likely to encourage carriers to open up their devices to more third-party applications and web capabilities.

Android reportedly includes an operating system, a user interface, and a web browser. It follows a sort of open source model, allowing programmers to adapt and write new applications that can run on any phone. Carriers would be able to decide how much or how little of Google’s influence they add to their handsets: they could use Android as a base platform for new applications, or they could offer Gmail, Google Maps, and Google search capabilities for cross-branding. While Android itself is not a revenue source for Google, they are hoping to forge new relationships by which to sell ads on cell phones, which has always been the core of their business. They have even mentioned the possibility of splitting ad revenue with cell carriers, which would reduce the cost of services for users.

The platform has failed to impress a few of the major players in the market though, including Verizon, AT&T, and Vodaphone. They have voiced concern about privacy issues and some speculate that they are waiting to sign on to Android to be sure sensitive user information doesn’t fall into the hands of nefarious third-party software developers. Android is set up to give software developers access to information that they did not previously have, like a user’s location, communication’s history, contact list, and whether their phone is on or off. Google’s release has also failed to impress Nokia, the world’s largest cell phone maker, who has been using an open source approach with its web-enabled phones already. Nokia has relied on Symbian operating system and already have a large group of independent developers creating applications for their platform.

T-Mobile, on the other hand, has embraced Google’s platform, and they plan to release a phone next year which will be the first Android-based phone on the market. They are associating with Google because it’s a brand customers trust to deliver the best in web technology. René Obermann, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile said, “Google has been an established partner for T-Mobile’s groundbreaking approach to bring the mobile open Internet to the mass market.” (T-Mobile Press Release). T-Mobile must differentiate themselves from the other wireless networks, which experience a flurry of mergers that now dwarfs them in size. Carriers like AT&T and Verizon now offer packages bundling various telecom services, and T-Mobile is doing its best to compete by being an “early adopter” of Google’s platform. They got a head start by associating with Andy Rubin, who developed the Sidekick phone, and who is now the head of Google’s Android project. T-Mobile has taken an active role to address the privacy concerns of the other carriers by promising to screen third-party applications.

The trend in general is one of customization, and users of all ages now expect to have personalized content wherever they go. The Android platform would enable tiny applications like widgets to become a part of your phone’s “desktop”, providing you with current weather info, reviews of nearby restaurants, cinema show times, multiplayer mobile games (already available in Europe), or instant photo sharing with your contact list. Google’s technology will loosen the reigns that carrier’s currently have over cell phone content, and it will allow more than one application to run at a time. The open source model will allow individual programmers to offer ad-ons that you can download, similar to the applications users can add to their Facebook or MySpace profiles. This constitutes a change of policy for Google, which has not previously released source code for its applications, though they have written academic papers describing portions of their technology. Mobile video and music companies are among those celebrating this change, since an open source platform will make it easier to create file-sharing features.

While Google is not the first company to create an open platform (Microsoft, Apple, and Research in Motion all work with third-party developers for cell phone software), the move is likely to spur a change in how we daily use web-enabled phones. By sharing the code for a platform, private developers will be able to provide applications that work universally on different models of hand-held devices. This type of technology is a more logical step for Google than entering the hardware industry with their own mobile device, á la iPhone. Though rumors are still churning about a potential “GPhone”, this platform essentially turns any phone into a Google-branded device. Android will likely bring a universal “language” to the world of web-enabled phone applications, and users will be the big winners.

With the advent of more and more open source technology, Yahoo has gotten into the game with their sponsorship of Hadoop, a project which mimics some of Google’s techniques for storing and processing vast amounts of data across thousands of commodity PCs. While Google has understandably shied away from making their code available through open source products, Yahoo and Hadoop are setting themselves up to circumvent and replicate Google’s success.

For the less tech-savvy, open source technology or software is that in which the original code is made public. This allows programmers to manipulate and customize software for their needs. Some of the best-known open source programs include Mozilla Firefox (a fully-customizable web browser), WordPress (a popular blogging tool), and OpenOffice (an office suite with word processing, spreadsheet, and multimedia capabilities). These tools are often free, and their flexibility makes them useful to programmers and casual users alike.

Hadoop is an open source platform which gives programmers the ability to write and run applications that replicate the technology which has made Google a success. It consists of a distributed file system known as the “Hadoop Distributed File System”, which is similar to the Google File System. It also implements a MapReduce function, where any given application is divided into small pieces to be processed by any node in the cluster of commodity PCs. This distributed computing environment allows computer-intensive tasks to be divided and assigned to individual computers in a cluster. In the case of a search index, this would mean thousands of computers are each assigned to index a smaller piece of data, and then the results are sorted and merged to create a usable data set.

While Google has not released code for their file system or MapReduce tools, they have published academic papers on their technology, and they must have realized that someone would make an open source product available based on their innovations. The fact that Yahoo is involved is no surprise, since they have the most to gain from piggy-backing on this kind of technology. What is surprising, however, is that Yahoo has not yet implemented the system into their web crawl data. They are said to be using Hadoop for other purposes, such as market research and product development. For example, Hadoop might be used to look for snippets of code (like that used to display a Flickr or Digg badge) instead of locating keywords and links.

Hadoop’s website makes the following claims for its usefulness:

• Scalable: Hadoop can reliably store and process petabytes.
• Economical: It distributes the data and processing across clusters of commonly available computers. These clusters can number into the thousands of nodes.
• Efficient: By distributing the data, Hadoop can process it in parallel on the nodes where the data is located. This makes it extremely rapid
• Reliable: Hadoop automatically maintains multiple copies of data and automatically redeploys computing tasks based on failures.

It seems that Yahoo agrees with the principles of the project, and the way in which they are implementing these techniques could be called innovative. While Yahoo and Hadoop certainly have a reason to “copycat” the systems pioneered at Google, they are doing so in a way that makes the technology available to programmers everywhere; it’s certainly a little less distasteful than if they were plagiarizing without sharing. Open source software has proven its competitiveness in the market, and its only a matter of time before users begin to demand a higher level of customization in every application they employ. Hadoop is making the first move towards an open source model in data distribution and storage, and Yahoo is smart to take advantage of it.