Tuesday, October 15, 2002

I liked this joke (from W3Schools), so had to post it: Question: When should I use XML? Answer: When you need a buzzword in your cv (resume). As I always tell my students learning "Java/XML for Wireless" from me, now you can be confident in the acronym you've already put on your cv! They all seem to laugh, so I think they must be guilty. 1:34:22 PM     Software agents for wireless - "how do i use my phone?" Downloaded the Active Buddy SDK yesterday that enables interactive software agents to be created that you can speak to in plain English via a text-messaging channel (by that SMS, WAP, IM, whatever). Personally I think there is a lot of potential for what these guys are doing. The value-add seems to be in the pattern-based processing of question text from the user. Where is my mind going with this? I am utterly frightened of the huge challenges that come with supporting users in a complex wireless data environment. Let's face it, anyone who has made a helpdesk call to do with even the most rudimentary aspects of GPRS knows the issues we face in customer support in this industry. Could software agents be used to improve the support experience? That would be an experiment worth doing. 10:41:09 AM     File storage on mobiles will be device centric I posted earlier my desire for my mobile phone to incorporate non-volatile file storage of the kind found on my disk-on-key key fob. So I dug around a bit to see what other forums were up to. One place I looked was the GSM Association's M-Services requirements reference doc [Word Doc 1.1M]. Their discussion of the data repository requirement seems geared towards downloading "fun" objects only like icons, images, ringtones etc. Fair enough as these things are proven to make money. General file storage would be nice though. But the surprising thing is the recommendation scope only includes local storage (i.e. device) with remote storage (i.e. networked) being out of scope. That seems a pity as I think such a view is too short sighted. I think we have to stimulate a culture amongst the users that their mobile is an extension of their digital self and not a self-contained accessory. Such "paradigm shifts" will be important in moving the wireless data world into an area where enourmous cross-fertilisation can take place with other services and technologies that in the end will fuel the growth for 3G. The only clue that operators are thinking along these lines is the tiny paragraph in the document called "Distributed Architecture" that simply lists SAX, SOAP, UDDI like some kind of latest acronyms wish list, the whole section being marked "provided as informational/ longer term". This is the problem with operators. Their event horizon is light years behind where they need to be. This is an IT world now guys, not a billing utility company world. 10:28:27 AM     Problem with links Note that some of the links on my log to other pages on the log are currently not working. This seems to be a problem on the server with resolving "/" to my root as opposed to the server root. I've emailed the Userland webmaster so please be patient. 10:03:24 AM

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