http://ontokyotime.com A Swiss in Silicon Valley Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:47:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I've been very impressed with 3 friends of mine that have been working really hard to launch their own business in the second half of 2009. They're all based in San Francisco/Bay area. Go check them out: Kinetic Arts Center - circus school, fitness, yoga and dance classes Beebliss  - Yoga clothing ... http://ontokyotime.com/2009/12/08/3-startups-to-check-out/ Idiomag's value proposition is great: A daily personalized music magazine. Unfortunately they take it too literally. I signed up in January 2007 and have been to the site only about 10 times since, typically as a result of an email notification that new content is available. These notifications seem to come ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/07/27/idiomag-a-missed-opportunity/ The Coming World of Mobile Sensors does a great job illustrating how mobile phones will impact our future. We'll soon think of mobile phones not only as communication devices but also as sensors. This talk on Sensor Networks at the Lift conference first changed the way I think of mobile ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/07/17/mobile-phones-as-networked-sensors/ I was pleasantly surprised that PG&E includes graphs for usage and billing history on their website. You can view electricity usage and charges in a pretty neat (but simple) graph. I've been living in my current apartment since March 2007 which is the first data point on the x-axis. I wonder ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/06/27/how-to-improve-pge-grap/ Has this ever happened to you? You remember reading something but can't find it again! It's happening to me constantly. While discussing a topic with a friend or co-worker I remember having read a relevant blog post a few days ago. I want to send the link for reference. I know ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/06/26/google-custom-search-for-my-feeds/ Nokia has announced three interesting acquisitions in the last 9 months: Navteq is the leading provider of Maps data for GPS, mobile devices and Internet. This acquisition will allow Nokia to provide improved location-based services and at the same time making it harder for competitors to get this data. Smart move! ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/06/24/nokia-acquisitions-navteq-plazes-and-symbian/ I start seeing more articles that emphasize the social  'features' over the social 'network' (also see my post Increasing relevance by adding social networking features). This video on FriendConnect shows some examples and makes the difference more obvious. I love Nova Spivack's comparison to cars and how the choice of a ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/05/19/when-the-social-context-becomes-ubiquitous/ ReadWriteWeb picked up the latest Hitwise numbers that indicate that Myspace is still way bigger than Facebook in terms of traffic. Depending on which metric you're looking at you end up with a very different picture though. I've only recently started using Myspace and I use it exclusively to listen to ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/05/15/visitors-or-users-myspace-vs-facebook-traffic/ As mentioned before I've been fascinated by the play by play evolution of the attempted takeover of Yahoo! by Microsoft. A few days ago I started having a feeling that the deal will not go through. Even when the rumors of a higher bid started surfacing I still didn't believe ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/05/03/microsoft-walks-away-from-yahoo-now-what/ I've been having issues in the last weeks where my CPU would peg at 100%. This is typically caused by a web page with an embedded Flash object (e.g. an ad or a music player). Closing the respective tab brings the CPU back to normal. This happens to me on ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/05/01/browser-performance-issues-caused-by-flash/ Microsoft's attempt to purchase Yahoo! and the ensuing public moves and counter moves have been fascinating. It is a major milestone in the history of the Internet and witnessing it from within Yahoo! is very interesting. The fact that all of this is happening in a very public way is ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/04/21/new-turn-in-the-microsoftyahoo-saga-coming-soon/ If 'survival of the fittest' ultimately comes down to reproduction and the successful people have children late or not at all, what does this mean for the future society? http://ontokyotime.com/2008/04/12/survival-of-the-fittest/ Mashable reports that Microsoft is introducing a new technology called 'clearflow' that calculates driving directions based on current traffic conditions. I will have to try it during rush hour. They're using GPS devices to enhance their data sources: “collecting trip data from…employees who volunteered to carry G.P.S. units in their cars.” I ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/04/10/traffic-based-driving-directions-microsofts-clearflow/ I've been buying a bunch of concert tickets recently. I typically buy two and then figure out who I want to bring. The math used by the online ticket sellers is stunning. Here is an example of ticketmaster: 2 x $32.50 for the tickets 2 x $9.45 convenience charge 1 x $5.15 order processing ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/04/07/how-you-get-ripped-off-when-buying-concert-tickets/ Facebook has launched various community-based translations of their site. I'm currently seeing French, German and Spanish next to English (US) in a drop-down menu. The Spanish version launch received a lot of blog coverage but I almost missed the German and French launch. They're also working on a traditional Chinese ... http://ontokyotime.com/2008/04/02/facebook-in-spanishgermanfrench-now-what/