Iphone versus...

Google and Yahoo wedding is on

Partnership for adverstisement. Can you imagine that?
Google is trying to convince that a partnership with Yahoo! for adversting (Google Ad Sense and Yahoo! Ads) -- won't bring any issue for the market.

Both together would get more about 90% of Ads market in the web!! It would be dangerous, not only bad!! In this point of view, Microsoft took their shots trying to acquire Yahoo (unsucessfuly) to beat Google -- which has more than 50% of this market.

Read more:
http://www.crn.com/software/210602487

9/11 And if all that was a lie?

Full movie (free): http://loosechange911.com/finalcut/

Hug a developer!

Onde esta a individualidade?

Acho que nem todo mundo gosta da segunda-feira. Pra mim é indiferente dos demais dias da semana, na verdade tive segundas-feiras excelentes; de qualquer modo não sou generalista.

Mas muito me intriga noticias como esta que passou no fantástico, onde o pessoal de RH fica vasculhando as comunidades do Orkut da pessoa, de forma a conhecer melhor o candidato.

Claro que o rapaz da notícia, não foi muito feliz entrando na comunidade "Eu odeio a segundas-feira". Ao meu ver, comunidade do orkut não serve pra muita coisa. Se quero me expressar procuro fóruns de discussões mais eficientes. Se quero jogar papo pro ar, procuro um amigo. Se quero fazer amigos, saio de casa.

O que realmente me intriga é esse pré-julgamento. Aliás, pra que chamar o cara pra entrevista com esse preconceito todo?

No meu conceito, o candidato pecou em privacidade. Talvez ele nem tivesse motivos para não gostar da segunda-feira, mas por uma "epidemia social" ele acabou se aliando à essa comunidade que, muito provavelmente, nunca participou com sequer uma postagem.

Entretanto, acho que o mais grave está nesta análise baseado em modelos que RH's vivem pregando (e agora inovando) por aí. Quem já viu o "embromation bingo" sabe do que estou falando. Jargões dizendo que as pessoas devem ser elas mesmas, ter sua individualidade, respeito a diversidade... mas na hora "H" mesmo, vale o modelo de ser uma pessoa comunicativa, que saiba trabalhar em equipe, focado em resultados (metas), etc etc. Einstein era bastante criativo e não trabalhava muito em equipe. Nossa própria história se repete! Um nerd de tecnologia era tido como CDF com uma visão muito curta. Hoje eles são adorados pelas empresas de ponta tecnológica, vide Google, Microsoft, Apple dentre outras.

Não estou defendendo o rapaz. Nem conheço ele. Mas será que alguém quis conhecê-lo? Onde esta a individualidade? Para mim individualidade (lê-se: honestidade em viver aquilo que você é) é muito mais que ter uma cor ou opção sexual diferente...

Se servir como referência acesse esse link. De qualquer forma, os efeitos das redes sociais são visíveis.

Uma pitada de JustJava - Fragmentação

Fragmentação: o copo esta meio cheio, ou meio vazio?!

Minha primeira intenção com este tema era tentar atrair o público com este famoso dilema psicológico da visão otimisma ou pessimista. Alguns amigos me apoiaram rapidamente dizendo: "Do que diabos vc ta falando?!". Resolvi então publicar neste post uma breve descrição do que irei tratar no dia 12 de setembro as 14 horas no auditório 4. O localização exata esta no final deste post.

Fragmentação em dispositivos móveis é um problema para o desenvolvimento em massa de aplicações. Obviamente, durante a palestra o foco será em Java ME; mas este problema atinge praticamente todas as linguagens. Isso acontece em diferentes níveis:

- No nível de design, os dispositivos apresentam recursos que outros não tem: é a câmera, o touch screen, GPS ou ainda o sensor de movimento (acelerômetro); recrusos que não estão disponíveis em todos os aparelhos.

- No nível de implementação, este problema aparece quando os dispositivos não apresentam um conjunto de API's (Application Programming Interfaces) que permitem com que o desenvolvedor crie uma aplicação utilizando um recurso físico do aparelho. Um bom exemplo, é a MMAPI (Multimedia API) em Java. Ela permite acessar os recursos de som, video e imagem dos aparelhos. Mas o fabricante não é obrigado a implementar todas as API's, visto que um determinado aparelho pode não possuir a câmera, por exemplo. Porém, isto deixa uma abertura para que, inclusive aparelhos que possuam câmera, não disponibilizem determinados recursos da MMAPI.

Mas qual problema?
Java ME é a linguagem mais presente nos celulares. Cerca de 2 bilhoes de aparelhos possuem uma Java Virtual Machine. Quando alguem escolhe usar Java para desenvolver uma aplicação, esta pensando em atingir o maior número de devices possíveis, visto as limitações de design como tamanho de tela, recursos do aparelho, etc.
Devido a essas limitações, fica impossível assegurar que uma aplicação irá atingir todos os dispositivos, apesar de possuírem inclusive o design especificado. Você pode desenvolver uma app. para celulares que possuem câmera e Java. Porém pode não atingir todos estes dispositivos. Punk!?

Em 2006 estive no JavaOne onde a Sun fazia a promoção da MSA, de modo a solucionar o problema da fragmentação. Voltando um pouco em 2003, dizia-se que a fragmentação era problema do passado: tinha nascido a JTWI. E mais recentemente, no mês passado a Sun publicou um artigo sobre a futura MSA2.

Já vi bastante gente importante no mundo ME, chateada com isso como Vikram Goyal em um artigo sobre as diferenças entre as implementações; além de discussões calorosas sobre a possível morte do Java ME, o surgimento de uma implementação mais rica, próxima ao JSE para celulares já que os recursos dos dispositivos melhoraram bastante com relação ao tempo da especificação de MIDP, CLDC e CDC; há ainda os que prevêem o JavaFx.

Mas a dura realidade da fragmentação, torna-se bastante inspiradora sob o ponto de vista mercadológico. As aplicações que mais se destacam, não são voltadas para o uso de massas; e quando são, são desenvolvidas com suas particularidades.
Um primeiro exemplo é o Google Maps que disponibiliza diferentes versões para BlackBerry, Symbian e Java. Se um dispositivo possui GPS, ele acessa os recursos para melhor precisão; em outros casos, faz triangulação para dar a localização atual mais próxima.
Outro exemplo: o Yahoo! Go que também se adapta ao tipo de resolução de cada device.
E o caso iPhone? Onde todas as aplicações só funcionam no iPhone?! E esta sendo promovido através do iTunes.

Você pode estar pensando, ainda assim esta fragmentado. Ainda assim, o esforço de desenvolvimento não esta sendo reduzido. E você esta certo!

A fragmentação inclusive atinge até os diferentes modelos de negócio: O getJar fornece aplicações freeware, o handango uma espécie de iTunes; além de games e conteúdos distribuídos exclusivamente através de parceiros e operadoras. Tudo isto têm que estar linkado ao device do consumidor final.

Todos os dias novos devices são lançados em um mercado extremamente competitivo, onde o que irá ganhar o consumidor final chama-se: diferencial. Portanto, podemos pensar que a fragmentação não é um problema que precisa ser resolvido, pois ela não esta aí para ser resolvida; mas para ser uma vantagem competitiva. Adaptar-se a ela sim, é um problema que precisa ser discutido.

As aplicações para estes dispositivos precisam ser dinâmicas e se adaptar aos recursos nativos quase que instantâneamente em tempo de execução. No evento iremos ver que se trata de uma questão tecnológica e mercadológica; e que flecha já foi lançada nesta direção visto a evolução das lojas e dos ecossistemas de comercialização das aplicações; bem como o surgimento de novos padrões tecnológicos como é o caso dos Widgets e dos Widsets.



Quer saber mais?

Data: 12 de setembro (sexta-feira)
Horário: 14h00 às 15h00
Local: Auditório 4
No SENAC-SP (clique para ver o mapa).


Até lá! :-)

IE Sends Mozilla a New Cake for Firefox 3

This is really great:
http://www.arcanology.com/2008/06/17/ie-sends-mozilla-a-new-cake-for-firefox-3

Thanks Rodrigo :-)
By the way... comments are awesome. Check some:

- "The cake is probably poisoned."
- "IT’S A TRAP!"
- "… There is no cake."
- "By the time the cake arrived, it already had several vulnerabilities in the wild."
- "Did they give the recipe? Is it open source?"

lol

Knowledge Sharing

I'm recentely involved with Knowledge Sharing activities in my job; what is really cool actually to perform this "evangelist" activity to my colleagues. In other hand, it is far away to be easy.

My company has chosen MS Sharepoint for Wiki, Blogs, RSS, discussion boards and storing content. I really would like to get reports and more data than the usual provided, but I couldn't find any kind of "open" interface or Web Service for my queries.

(Yeah yeah... don't laught about seeking for open stuff in a MS tool.)

Also, I'm really curious about more process using these tools. Like IBM does with BluePages (not really for KS, but community aspect). Basically, I'm trying to reach an action plan answering 2 questions:

1) How to get people using it?
I've been based into Forum Nokia and SE Developers community as a model. I really believe in two points:
- The tool must work properly (so people can use it well). Also, there are many many tools, need to improve usage in a natural way.
- Rewards like Champions program works better than make posts mandatory (as a target or whatever...). Giving a prize to best contributors is a good idea, but don't know if my budget fits on that.

2) How to get people involved with KS?
Or better, how to make people spread this or start searching before doing anything? How to make people participate into communities eveyday?
- Sometimes using Sharepoint is confusing and slow. So, I planned starting a Wiki with How To's for each kind of "job". In that way, wiki may drive people to right site seeking for approprieted content.


What practices do you use in your work for Knowledge Sharing?
There is many ideas, I really would like to get the best practices.

Fasten your seat belts: Android is comming

T-Mobile has recently annouced that will have a Android phone still this year.
Time to see what happens with this new player in mobile platform war!

From: Engadget Mobile

Is mobile fragmentation an issue or reality?

Funny! Couple weeks ago, I've asked Marcelo about Apple SDK in his blog. Seriously, fragmentation is a reality. We're always trying to avoid it, having a standard and trying to reduce the way of delivering and developing applications... But, is this the only way doing business here?

I'm convinced Java is a great development platform, but it will not surive in the "write once, run anywhere" way for so long. Don't get sad JME guys. I'm not thinking or even telling Java is going to die. It's a pretty mature platform, but it will co-exist. At least not for now.
I believe Android (funny picture aside!), iPhone SDK, Java, Symbian will co-exists as well. And seems like the only convergence point is (again?) the web: Webservices, widgets/wisets will definetely defines the new user experience to mobile-browsing in the internet, enhancing competition for services and content, not for delivery.

In my opinion, we're facing different scenarios:

• Platform based changes - where Google promisses launching it's own O.S - Android.
• End user experience - iPhone definetely re-invented this business.
  
• Internet services - Widgets and Widsets (more in forum.nokia.com) and
• Yahoo! Go (and next, Yahoo! Connect) experience.
  

So, developers might think to work in three kind of business:

• Specific device-target development (iPhone, N95, etc)
  

• General device development (Java dev.)
  

• Mobile internet services development (Widsets/Widgets dev.)
  

Can you think out of the box? Make your points!

Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed...

... everything is copied! (In a sweet way, by the way)


Check this: Samsung Instinct experience -- from Engadget
and video!

Hacked in Blogspot.com?

Seems like something is wrong with Blogspot. I never looked like Bush before, but Google don't show that...

Try to access the URL: http://www.myjavaserver.com/~albinati/luis_sf.jpg

Now, cut and paste the link in your web-browser. Note, it doesn't seems to be a defeacement in MyJavaServer account.

Seems like something is re-directing wrong when replacing the "~" character by the unicode standard. If you can't see the right image, press CTRL+F5 to refresh browser.

Open Contests

Good oportunities to earn some prizes such as N95 device, shirts and even money.

NAVTEQ LBS Challenge
Forum Nokia Wiki - Best Widgets/Widsets
NetBeans Bloggin Contest

Updated:
Forum Nokia Code Camp Competition

Wi-Fi Detector Shirt

ThingGeek is offering a shirt that can show to others the signal strength for 802.11 b/g.

"Finally you can get the attention you deserve as others bow to you as their reverential wi-fi god, while geeky chicks swoon at your presence. You can thank us later."

Check more at ThinkGeek website.

Charge

Perfect!!!
- sent by Daniel in J2ME list (SouJava)

About my FNC experience

I'd began in Forum Nokia, since it was introduced by Janaina (Engineer from INdT). She told me that I could reach the best content for developers.

January, 2006

I got a message from Forum Nokia group in my Gmail inbox. As I usually do, I just pass through those topics, start reading something like: "Congratulations, you...". I had no doubt: it was a spam, (probably something related to Viagra, etc.). No doubt. I moved that message to trash and kept reading...

Then I stoped for a while and start thinking that, why should it comes from Forum Nokia? Spammers don't usually do that. I was working in a web component for a bank system. I start reading and I couldn't believe until check all that information: I was elected as Forum Nokia Champion -- and won a N90 device by the way (great!).

Lunch celebration and everything else that you can imagine. Like a child getting a new PS3 or Wii :-)

But the best of all was just in the beginning. FNC group invited us (Champions) to the first ever - Forum Nokia Champion Day, to be placed in San Francisco, CA. Awesome, I've never been in USA before, I was going to meet the other Champions, the management team, going to JavaOne, etc.

If you think everythink was easy, you're wrong. This is how it begans:

January 2005 - October 2005

I was a Java developer. A good developer in desktop but really getting more experienced in enterprise and mobile. Specially architecture, designing -- of course, love coding :)

My university has joined in a Nokia partnership with universities through the Nokia Technology Institute. My team Sinapse -- was invited and eligible to participate in this program.

I must admit, I'm in love about innovation. More than coding (or Wii). We had the freedom to choose what we wanted to develop, but of course, using nokia devices.

After many ideas, we chosed to develop something using the Bluetooth technology and our expertise in Java. In that time, I didn't realized that JSR-82 wasn't so available as we expected. Anyway, we created the AoW application. I was the responsible for communication between the devices -- in other words, to make it works through Bluetooth.

In that time, there was only ONE device from Nokia, whose implemented the JSR-82. It was the S60 1st edition Nokia 6600. Incredible bugs. Hard time to make L2CAP work on that. No easily firmwares updates available. Getting worst: there was another little problem. JSR-82 needs adaptation to desktop (since our budget allows to bought only 1 device) and USB adaptor. We tried, Avetana, Rococo, and finally we did it with Atinav.

After that, we presented the solution and it was recognized by INdT as a innovative solution. Also, I started helping people under discussion forums and exchanging experiences. In the same year, I did a presentation in a brazilian Java event called JustJava. It was a sucess for me and my colleagues.

It wasn't my first time in mobility. I've developing some midlets for our M2A solution in the medical area, and some simple games. It helps a lot when you get a complicated work, to have some expertise, saving time with trivial stuff like how midlet works, signing, jad and manifest, etc.

Experiences
Forum Nokia Champion program had many opportunities to developers get ahead in technologies: remote device testing, mosh pre-experience, access to early documentation, meetings, webinars, free pass, etc. Also, you can take the Symbian Certification for free, help managing the Wiki board (Ron's team), bloggin', getting more involved at all.

The best point to me was to meet people. I could be in touch with experts like Rosso, Tote, Alexander Traud, Juarez Barbosa, etc; guys really experienced in mobility.

About bad points: I've already gave them my feedback, but I really would like to say that it's not easy for a recent graduate guy, spend money to travel for different countries around the World, even with tickets covered. I had tickets for 3GSM, Nokia World and other events. But traveling expenses turn it impossible to make it :-(

I did started some Wiki, and tried to increase my participation in discussion boards, but I couldn't draw a line and make my time work for me and this period. I'd moved job from IBM to Ericsson, since my extension in this program -- 2007; I couldn't participate as much as I can (and as much a Champion needs to). To be a FNC, it requires not only expertise, but dedication and reserved time.

Now, I'm working at Ericsson (not the joint venture - Sony Ericsson please) and my main role is not with mobility. Not yet! But I'm always getting more involved working in IPTV and breaking the IMS and Mobile TV area. I've become more active in Sony Ericsson Developer world and in Knowledge Base at Ericsson (not public forum).

Maybe in the future I can be eligible again. I hope in the future I can enjoy a bit more the program, being available to travel and participate -- maybe in Forum Nokia, Sony Ericsson, or another great home for mobililty guys ;-)

Macbook Air x Flights

Nice history :-)
http://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2008/03/steve_jobs_made_me_miss_my_fli.html

Yahoo! Go experience

After the Mobile World Congress 2008 happened in Barcelona few days ago, I've been heard a lot (cool stuff and "blind" marketing of the new trend revolution) about mobile applications.

It is true that mobile is growing fast and services will define what will be delivered to the end-users. But, it is not defined yet a model of business or concept building applications in this way.

Nokia moved acquiring Navteq -- whose to me, is the most significant step beyond launching Mosh, Ovi, etc.

Google launched ** (not properly launched yet, but expected soon) Android, and it's purpose is very agressive trying to compete with Symbian, Java and the other platforms with an "open source" flag and "not be evil" slogan.

Sony Ericsson won the award of the best handset with it's w910. Also, SE will release the XPERIA series in near future, which promisses is to fit for the best user experience.

... and Yahoo! after Microsoft proposal, demissions and not profitable last year; launches the Yahoo! Go mobile experience. I've tried it in my Nokia E61, and I've done some comments.

Good points:

• Interface is beautiful and easy to navigate. Very intuitive and user-friendly
• It enables services easily such as financials, news, maps.
• OneSearch is really good
• Fickr support is great and works well
• Very friendly informative messages
  

Bad points:

• I'd configured it for "Brasil" and I got "Portugual-Portuguese" words sometimes...
• Too slow. I know it can depend from the network speed, but really, it need improvements.
• Specifically for my E61 -- cannot use NUMBERS (special key) in search fields :-S
  

Missing:

• Sign the midlet... it's annoying to have confirmation messages all the time
• Online data traffic metter (how much I'm spending?)
• Regional maps. Yahoo Maps already provides it. Definetely needed.

More: http://mobile.yahoo.com/go (or type from your mobile)

After boom: Google's Android

Yes, Google is a trend setter today. You might think: "Everything these guys develop works!", of course this is not true, but it's really cool seeing a company that allows itself to take the risk.
I've been trying Android for a little while. Unfortunately, I didn't had so much time to get more involved with this, but I had sufficient stuff to choose my side in the first impressions about Android.

Android is the Google promisses to turns easier the mobility development. It says: Open, All applications created equal, Breaking down application boundaries and fast and easy application development on their web site. So let's take the first analysis:

Open - It's not opened yet. Google will open the code soon (I hope).
All applications created equal - Browsing, phone, etc. Symbian platform and others has the same, so no innovative here.
Breaking down application boundaries - Full control based on set of API's. What's new here?
Easy Development - It's Java based!? It has a SDK! It has tools, plugins, etc. What's new here too?

First, let's try breaking the "perfect" paradigm of Google:
Video - it is a high investment from Google, but definetely it failed, or Google wouldn't even care about Youtube.
Answers - have you ever heard about it? Google Answers was an idea of Sergey I guess. It was supposed to work like Yahoo does. But it completely failed, and they decided to remove it.
Froogle - it has been re-invented and now it calls itself by Google's Product Search.

All those products, had been launched with a huge informal advertisement, and some people blinded by the "Funny way of Google", doesn't even care if it is innovative or not. Based in "not be evil" philosophy, accelerated by a nice GUI and the world "hate" for Microsoft, Google has spread their name into everyplace which sounds as the most innovative company in the world. And yes, they are.

Getting back to Android. My sigh is that Google is going to a different territory. Building a platform, makes sense to me as Google must want the access to basics layers to keep their target - "It's all about search", remember? But mobility, and even, telephony it's a different kind of business. There are several trials to keep a standart into this market, and I must be realistic, all them has failed until now. The 1st place is for the Symbian group which tries to makes an easier standart and has been more and more adopted in the world. There are linux (qt)-java based phones but several companies has droped it away, like Motorola did. CDMA based phones are minimal, and must pay royalties to Qualcomm. The Java platform is the largest adopted, but it is not an OS.

The mother of all those problems is: fragmentation. Different vendors, operators, etc has different demmands, for example: call operators in US tells Nokia they want to sell the newest N95 phone, but they don't want to allow their users, to use the newest Nokia VoIP feature! So, Nokia has disabled this feature for those clients, also, developers cannot do anything to enable this feature, they just may try to hack the phone, but it is not a commercial point.

In this way, how Google expects to "Break down the boundaries"? How does Google will solves the fragmentation problem just delivering a "new" platform? Who will adopt it, beyond themselves?

Trying to merge with recent news that Google is looking for 700Mhz bandwith and Sprint's telecom, you might think that they possible is going to deliver a end-to-end solution for mobility. They might own the channel, the operator and of course, the device platform. So, it would makes sense to me, based in Eric Schmidt's says: "is more ambitious than any single 'Google Phone'". If they have the money, why not?!

Anyway, compared to other platforms like Symbian, Android is a joke. This is some of the main problems I noticed in Google's platform, and questions you may be having too:

- Poor documentation. Try to compare with Forum Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Sun.
- It supports one and ONLY one Java subset API.
- IT IS NOT JAVA STANDARDIZED. Android has they own interpreter called Dalvik. They makes developers wonder they are developing using the Java5 standard but you can get errors like this:

Object o = new Object(); o.getClass().getAnnotations();

"native method not implemented"
Backtrace:
java.lang.Class.getDeclaredAnn

otations(Native Method)
java.lang.Class.getAnnotations(Class.java:202)

- Promisses to open source, but will Dalvik being open-source?! A point for Google: The Open Handset Alliance, seems to be working faster than the JCP (which is ruled by Sun but works in a highest level)
- It doesn't implements the JME API
- It doesn't has OSGi
- It parses XML (like JME POLISH does), so how to be faster than the other platforms?
- Where is the trust? Applications should be signed (Symbian Signed, Java verified, etc.) and this process is the safest way to trust applications. To me this is an add point to Google become one of the worst companies in security and privacy.
- What about code safety? Obfuscators, etc...

Carlos, developer from Poliplus has designed a solution to fit JME applications into Android. So, if it is a need, why Google don't use JME API instead as they are already using Java.

Also, will Dalvik open source? The source of Android may be, but what does this "hidden" virtual machine does with all provided stuff? I'm really afraid of this.

Google solutions like search, maps and mailing is really amazing. But definetely, Google should have a tricky way to get into the mobility market, not just by Android itself. As developers and solution makers, we might have a clear view of this business and the rules. Not only adopt this or that because it's color and beauty. Hope we won't be blaming Google in next years, as it does to Microsoft.


Some sources:
Arstechnica
Bad Ideas
Android
Symbian
Android Groups Discussion
InfoQ
Polipus
Forum Nokia
IntoMobile US
IntoMobile AU
Engadget

Wibree or Bluetooth? Both!?

Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wibree... Definitely there is several different standards for short-range communications. Bluetooth is a standard well-adopted by the market, Zigbee is an industry standard and Wibree provides short-range communication with low-power usage, thing that is excellent for small devices whose depends to battery capacity.

Bluetooth and Wibree is going to merge make the use of low-power consumption from Wibree and the well-adopted Bluetooth standards. I'm excited to say that it will make real the possibility of making PAN's for mobile devices, and developers would thanks for this.

Nokia is already planning to use the new standard for the next generations mobile devices.

More about this from Nokia