By now we all heard about this news and wondering how Robots would invade your life in future. This is a time to reflect back the science papers, novels and imagination of the +Issac Asimov, a biochemistry professor and author at Boston University. His work on the “The Positronic Man”, “I,Robot” among the best gave the impression on how AI Robots can learn from humans and behave like humans. Remember that these novels are from 1970s.
Looking forward from today, the science fiction of the past is becoming a commercially viable product of future. Automated cars, Robot driven cars, Robot helpers at home, Robots doing surgeries, Nano Robots in the body to monitor health is nothing but a reality.
Very excited to see this rate of progress in the CS / AI / Engineering.
I am one of those early adopters who was very excited about the LEAP Motion technology and the potential. I started playing with LEAP on August 14th 2013 and finally i returned the device today. LEAP Motion is a good device but probably not for me at this time.
Here are top 3 reasons for me to return the device.
1) Free Apps: There are 23 Apps on the LEAP App Store (called AirSpace) for both Windows and Mac. I would not use some of them and I don’t want to buy apps. I have spent $70+ for the device and I am not ready to pay for the Apps. My favorite game “Fruit Ninja” is $2.99 on Windows. Unfortunately, in the era of the iOS and Android Apps ecosystem, I never paid more than $.99 for an App. I enjoy most of the Apps for FREE. In that context, paying anything more than $.99 is a burden on me.
I believe LEAP (or partners) should have created more Apps before this launch. I like to explore but without lot of FREE Apps, my options are limited.
2 )New HCI Paradigm : Of course, LEAP is all about the new human computer interaction that potentially creates multiple opportunities. It took me a while to get used to the hand gestures and how i control the screen.
No wonder, Steve Jobs is the genius to understand the users as well as the business sense when he introduced the iPhone and iPad. The user interaction is pretty intuitive, starting from 2 year old kid to 90 year old grand ma. The usage of the finger to accomplish any task on iPhone/iPad is the trick. Everything just works.
With LEAP Motion, I was not able to get the same intuitiveness and it just feels odd. Also, i work mostly on the laptop and it becomes very cumbersome to keep Leap on your lap and do hand gestures. Perhaps this is designed for people using the desktops.
3) Usecases : After playing couple of FREE games, I did not know what ELSE to do. Can i control my whole Windows 7 experience? probably not. Unless, i launch the AirSpace to start the App, I cant not do anything. Perhaps, I may have tried to explore more if i had more Free apps????
So ???? : As a Computer Science engineer and a MBA, LEAP Motion is freaking cool technology and has some cool usecases. Usage of the cameras, infrared sensors to create the 3D space and manipulating the apps is great. But, I (as a user) was not too sure what i can do with this device.
I would definitely imagine there are lots of use cases in the 3D modeling space. Especially in the Construction Industry, this can be used to do the BIMs (building information models) and model them collaboratively. I can also imagine the use of LEAP Motion in Education/Schools/Medical Schools, for kids to touch and interact with the virtual body parts. In addition, they can build great FREE Apps for kids. My daughter would love to interact with the objects in the air and dress up Dora and all her favorite princesses.
I will definitely re-visit LEAP in couple of months and hopefully I can find some compelling usecases. But for now, it’s not for me!
OK, finally i was able to play with my new Leap Motion . Pretty cool technology that detects your hand motion and transfer it to your computer screen.
Some notes on Day 1:
* Setup is freaking simple! Plug it in, install the Leap Motion and go!
* Leap Motion is small in size and fits on most desks
* This is a new way of interacting with the applications
* Current FREE Apps are *NOT* enough to explore.
* I would like to see more FREE Apps. I don’t want to buy Apps! No way!
* Hopefully I should be able to control the whole desktop (not just the Airspace App) with hands.
Am I excited now? Yes. Will I be excited the Day 10? Not sure yet.
This is a classic question many people kept asking me in the past 3 months. Its a frustrating question to react to but a very valid question that must be answered by every graduate. Some people asked my directly on how i am going to use my MBA at work and others asked me very politely that they assume that I have a promotion or a pay rise in the coming months. Many felt there is no use of my MBA degree if i don’t do that “next” thing. This blog is like my journal and I thought of reflecting some thoughts on the big question of what’s next.
Why I did my MBA :
As a technology guy with computer science background, I worked in various industries and not always understood how it “all worked together”.
I had no idea why economists, accountants, financial analysts and statisticians are critical to businesses and organizations. As silly as it may sound, I never understood difference between Accounting and Finance topics 🙂
I could talk and think about the technology and i felt it might give me a good chance to succeed if I knew how to talk and think business.
I could not make much sense of the technology, business models, innovation, customers, markets, international marketing, micro and macro economics, marketing mix, M&A, org. behavior, HR and CRM.
I had 2 opportunities to go independent and start a company and i did not have the confidence to do so (and of course, i did not understand if MBA would help)
What I learned from my MBA :
Think; Decide; Do it; Get the results; Learn; Move on.
How to ask right questions and connect the dots with the answers.
I don’t need to have all the answers but i should know all the people who can answer my questions
How you decide and what you decide are equally important. Use the right set of tools and methods appropriately and practice the decision making process repeatedly.
A right or wrong decision is not absolute. Decision making process is relative to what information, data and goals you have at that time.
Is it worth it ?
It could be a million dollar question. But to make it simple, i would say an affirmative and positive YES. When i look at what I learned in my MBA class, they are applicable to personal as well as professional life. They build confidence that I know how to connect the dots and problems can be solved one way or the other. While the take home lessons from an MBA degree could be different to different people, I think its mostly to do with how you apply your lessons from MBA and make them a habit in life.
“Knowing and not doing is not knowing”
Not talking too technical here, I feel, I can better analyze and solve problems, find my way out, understand the power dynamics, understand the customers and markets that everyone serves to.
So what ?
This question is hard to answer. If a third person does not feel a difference with you before and after MBA then there is a problem. The problem many people face is when they try to “showoff” business degree knowledge when they talk to others. Instead, i have seen many successful people who mixes business knowledge and human touch to the problems.
Hopefully the MBA graduates do better in their jobs and think about the business responsibility to the society. Ultimately prevent any future Enron, Worldcom, Freddie Mac and likes and hurt the confidence on the economic systems in our society.
What’s next ?
I have no idea at this point of time on what’s next. I am currently on vacation in India and really not thinking about this next thing in my career. But i am sure I will think about it eventually and do something. I still don’t know what, why and where. I have lots of unanswered questions. While this phase of my life is the most difficult and frustrating one, this probably has meaningful end result.
“Keep looking and don’t settle” 🙂
I definitely hope to write a Update to this story and see “What i did next ?”
A country’s culture and background (a predictor of course) pretty much decides the direction of the growth in this modern world. India is a risk-averse country and people are not ready to take risks. The younger generation is coming out being more entrepreneurial but still it lacks the big impact on the society. I only wish that the politics and government policies become more open to embrace the modern infrastructure and standard of living. This will hopefully encourage the brain drain and helps smart people to stay back and for Indian origin people elsewhere in the world to go back to India. I am hopeful!
Below is a wonderful study and results on the Startups in India.
A major part of #productmanager ‘s daily life involves a lot of communication, decision making and feature #prioritization among many. With multiple product lines and time pressure, the feature prioritization decisions could become very subjective.
Here are the 5 questions every #productmanager should ask before making a decision.
– Is there a lost revenue if this feature is NOT made ?
– Is there any other opportunity that is more worthwhile than doing this ?
– Did customers ask for this ?
– Does this capability bring you #differentiation in the market ?
– Is the benefit of developing this capability > the cost ?
As +Prod Mgmt group, do you have any other suggestions ? Any other best practices ?
From iPhone 3GS it was a natural upgrade for me to 4S. I was so happy to be getting the 4S mainly because of the camera and #Siri. But not anymore.
Battery drains too quick. I keep it charging the whole night and when i take it to office the next day morning, it lasts only till 3.00pm to 5.00pm. Yeah.. yeah.. i did remove the location based services and all.
iOS 5 hangs frequently. Unfortunately this is the least I would expect from #Apple’s software.
When you are on a call and then you open Camera, my phone almost always goes into “dead” mode. The only way it comes back is when all the batter is drained. Till that time I can not even force restart. None of the buttons work.
At times I see funny scroll of numbers on the event notifications. I attached my company outlook to my 4S and during certain situations, the time on the event notification message just rolls randomly.
I was very exited about Siri initially but not anymore. Especially, for my Indian-English accent, Siri is not the best voice recognition software that i would rely on. Instead, when i use my wife’s #Samsung #Galaxy S 2, I thought #GoogleVoice has a better capability than Siri.
May be i should have got the Samsung’s Galaxy S 2 ? I am still confused.
I have been using iPhone since 2007 and thought of moving to Android. Unfortunately, this did not happen. After 2 days of playing with the Samsung Infuse with Android, I returned this device in favor of iPhone 4.
Background : In the past 4 years many called me Google and Apple fan boy. In general, I am passionate about how technology changes our lives and Google and Apple definitely had their share in this world. With Google, I am a daily user of the GMail, Calendar, Docs, Chrome, Google TV, Sites, Picasa, Blogs, Youtube, Reader and especially in the past few days the Google+. As a user, i get much more out of Google for “free” (?). Yes, people might argue on this “free” stuff from Google, but that’s a separate discussion. The first time I bought an Apple product is in 2007 ( I know, i was introduced to Apple pretty late) with iPhone (EDGE). Then I moved from EDGE -> 3G -> 3GS, in spite of expensive upgrades from AT&T and Apple.
All these years, I used products from Apple and Google enough to form some opinions and evangelize my thoughts. The fact that Google was my “window” to Internet world and Apple was the inventor of “cool” gadgets, I never had them as competitors. Until the introduction of the Android mobile platform from Google. With Apple’s iPhone – “Software and Hardware engineered to work together” and with Google’s Android – “Mobile OS became a commodity”. With Android, technically any mobile phone manufacturer can come forward and start using the Android OS with their hardware.
I hated iPhone : Yes, right from 2007, so many people around me have this iPhone thingy that i slowly started getting “sick” of iPhone. Every year, there is a new release and if you don’t upgrade, you look like an old 70’s guy these days. As a user, I would like to have unique phone (at least in thoughts) or at least a phone that’s popular and not many people have. With iPhone, this sense of “premium” is lost. I live in Bay Area and when you walk in the streets of San Francisco/San Jose, you will know what i am talking about. However, in the mean while, i never realized how i got used to the iPhone UX. Its not just the user interface, but the elements of hardware in iPhone is what i think is the novelty.
I loved Android : For many doing businesses, it is a intuitive part to think about “giving choices” to users. Yes, Android did that. You could choose from LG, Samsung, HTC and others as mobile vendors and any mobile carrier at least in US. The Android applications are raising in numbers fast enough to touch or surpass the iOS applications and of course many are *free*. Many phones that had Android OS had better features “on paper” compared to a iPhone 3GS or 4G. e.g. Camera resolution quality, front/back camera, video quality, integration with Google Apps and others. And then, I love technology and I am a java programmer. So, i thought that going to Android would give me the “virtual” power of choice, software upgrades, and play with the applications as and when i want.
Something Changed : Last week (06/30/2011), i got my Samsung Infuse and played with it for few days. Its a great phone with 4.5″ Super AMOLED Plus screen looked great with emails, pictures and in general the screen looks very bright and lovable. Its very light and thin that i can carry it in my jeans. Believe me, for the screen size of the phone, I expected a lot of weight. The 8MP still camera and 720p HD video camera are very usable as if i don’t need any camcorder or digital camera (which i love that idea). But it was not the same when i used it for the most what i do – email and phone calls. The biggest WIN for the iPhone is that i got used to it unconsciously to the “simplistic” approach of the UX.
Rest is a history and please see the below video to see why i say “UX of iPhone is a lot better than Samsung Infuse phone”. Again, these are my views. Not many people may use the phone as i use and not many may see UX differences. When i used Samsung Infuse, i realized what i love about iPhone and what i got used to with Apple’s UX design. Its not just the software but the hardware too (a single button interaction for all the 4 generations of phone).
I love both the companies Apple and Google for their novel products and the ability to bring in a lot of innovation. I love Android technology and iPhone for my personal use.
I am a huge believer that the way we consume the video is going to change. And its not far off. Google TV made a bold step to bring the online video content to the TV. The Google TV platform went into the Logitech Revue and Sony Internet TV. Below is a short review of the Revue that i have been using from past 3 months.
Well.. not exactly. Till now, video calling has been a luxury and expensive act that remained with in the corporate walls or riches. What Skype did is to bring this luxury to common man and small businesses. Yeah… you may say, this is not a big deal. Yes, i agree! But the recent Skype move to provide Video calling on iPhone 3G and Wifi is phenomenal. Combined with the iPhone 4 face time feature it is just a great feature for the “globalized” families and businesses.
I have a iPhone 3GS model and this feature works as you expect with the back facing camera. You can just innovate the usage scenarios…
When i am on the move, or at restaurants or at grocery stores, i could just Video call from iPhone+Skype and ask my wife which specific flower bouquet she wants?
If i see a wonderful scenery, i could just call my daughter and show it to her.
You are walking along the Golden Gate Bridge and at a perfect sunset, call your parents in India (or anywhere in the world as long as they are a Skype user) and share the joy.
Thanks to 3G data speeds, Internet and Apple (iPhone) for making this possible. Thank you Skype. This is an amazing job!
Thanks for those invisible researchers/scientists who made this video compression techniques possible to travel across world.
Note : My AT&T signal sucks on iPhone (even on freeways). Good luck Verizon users.
