Posts tagged near
ElastiCache and CloudFront Coming To a Location Near You
Dec 6th
Amazon announced four new regions for Amazon ElastiCache and three more locations for its CloudFront and Route53 locations this week.
The new ElastiCache regions are in Northern California (US West), Dublin (EU West), Singapore and Tokyo (both in Asia Pacific). This means that customers in those regions can add distributed in-memory caching to their applications. The CloudFront/Route 53 additions are in South Bend, Indiana; San Jose, California and a second location in New York. What, still no Texas?
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How does Amazon decide where to fire up new services? Amazon’s Jeff Barr writes that it’s primarily driven by performance and cost. “We also measure latency from various points around the globe to our existing set of locations. We correlate the latency metrics with predictions for growth in broadband Internet penetration and match this up against existing CloudFront usage in the area…We look at traffic to our existing locations and see if some of it could be served up from a different location with better results.”
After all that’s gathered, Amazon evaluates and prioritizes the locations then starts setting up service in those regions.
Since CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN), the locations matter quite a bit. As you can see from the global infrastructure map, the CloudFront/Route 53 locations are spread out a bit farther than the AWS regions. Any bets on the locations in 2012?
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Coming Soon to a Coffee Shop Near You: NFC-Powered Foursquare Check-ins
Nov 28th
If you think whipping out your phone, searching for a venue and then tapping the “Check In” button on Foursquare is a tiresome waste of several seconds, you’re in luck. Like so many other things in life, the Foursquare check-in promises to be simplified by NFC technology, allowing us to simply wave our phones to automatically check into a venue.
Of course, mainstream adoption of NFC is at least a few years away, but owners of Symbian-powered phones can get started thanks to a new update to the Foursquare app for the platform.
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To enable NFC-powered check-ins, establishments need to display a sign or poster containing an NFC tag that points to their venue’s Foursquare listing URL. Nokia’s developer blog has some resources on getting started with NFC tags.
Signs like this not only enable people to check-in with less effort, but can also provide a visual, real-world call to action. For non-power users of location services like Foursquare, it can be pretty easy to simply forget to check in to a restaurant or other local business. Having that sign hanging there can provide a mental trigger. Business owners can also use the opportunity to push promotions and deals, offering discounts or free products to the mayor or anybody else that checks in.
Admittedly, the average person has no idea what NFC is right now. But it’s almost universally predicted to reach mainstream adoption within a few years, quite possibly replacing our wallets and keys at some point in the future. NFC is already included on a number of Android-powered handsets and is rumored to be coming to the iPhone 5 next year.
Are you excited about the prospect of checking in by waving your phone, or do you think this propels laziness to new and unprecedented heights? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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Facebook IPO: Public Offering in Near Future? [INFOGRAPHIC]
Nov 21st
Although Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly stated that he is opposed to rushing the company to an initial public offering (IPO), there are new rumors that an early 2012 offering is likely and even a December IPO is possible. While a December IPO is highly unlikely due to regulatory requirements and filings, [...]
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Coming Soon to a Bank Near You: Cloud Computing
Nov 3rd
The financial services industry is warming up to the idea of using the cloud for some of its critical computing needs. More than half of bank transactions will be supported by cloud-based infrastructure and software by 2015, according to a recent report from Gartner.
That is the expectation of about 39% of financial services CIOs worldwide, according to the survey. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 44% of CIOs for banking firms expect that more than half of their institutions’ transactions will take place via infrastructure that lives in the cloud, and 33% expect most of them will be processed using some type of SaaS application.
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For banks, the cloud can offer far greater computing power and scalability. Migrating critical operations there won’t be without its risks, however. Security and stability are always a concern when moving to the cloud, and that’s especially true when highly sensitive data like financial transactions are involved. It simply requires that systems are architected in a secure and fail-proof way.
Let the Machines Do What They Do Best, So People Can Focus Elsewhere
Another key value the cloud offers to financial firms is increased efficiency. As Gartner points out, banks are increasingly going to be replacing people with machines to perform certain tasks, leaving humans to do things the human mind is good at.
“As banks progressively replace people in the value chain with algorithmic operations (AOs) to run processes and make decisions, their intellectual property increasingly resides in these algorithms,” reads a post on Gartner’s blog. “The value of people is not in running operations but in improving the AOs.”
It’s this type of efficiency and operational enhancement that can drive what Gartner calls “creative destruction” within the banking industry.
As Gartner Managing Vice President Peter Redshaw summed it up, “Successful new cloud services can displace the existing and dominant process for design, distribution or transacting in a disruptive way, rather than just incrementally improving them.”
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The Tablet Commerce Revolution, Coming to a Site Near You
Oct 17th
A recent study from Alexander Interactive took a close look at the top 10 Internet revenue-producing retailer sites, specifically peering into the quality of their site user experience on tablets. Recent findings show that tablets and smartphones will surpass PC sales in 2015, and comScore reported that 48% of tablet owners made a purchase using their tablets last month.
Yet not one of the top 10 sites from this list (Amazon.com, Staples.com, Apple.com, Dell.com, OfficeDepot.com, Walmart.com, Sears.com, LibertyMedia.com., OfficeMax.com, CDW.com and BestBuy.com) are tablet-optimized, even though most of them have iPad or iPhone apps. As the tablet commerce revolution draws closer, it’s essential for Internet retailers to create tablet-optimized sites.
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Amazon.com is the top revenue-producing Internet retailer, and its site is the most tablet-optimized of the list. A redesigned navigation bar, bigger buttons and the “Shop by Department” feature are clean on both a monitor and a tablet. Though the site was not built specifically for the tablet, it almost feels like it was.
Amazon is primed for the the tablet commerce revolution, which makes sense given the launch of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet in September 2011.
The Tablet Commerce Revolution Isn’t About Apps
The tablet commerce revolution is not about a desktop site that goes mobile, or an app built for the iPad. It’s about dedicated tablet sites, which are a complete convergence of the app and the full browser version. They offer an experience that is wholly visual, featuring bigger screens that are better for the overall shopping and browser experience.
Responsive design is key for a tablet-optimized site, meaning “the site scales gracefully from the desktop experience to the tablet experience, delivering content, functionality and layout optimized for tablet screen size and capabilities.”
Four other leading factors mentioned in the report include adaptive layout (the site can easily adapt whether the screen is in portrait or landscape), appropriate content sizing (fonts and screen elements look proportionate), minimal clutter (the number of page elements is useful and appropriate) and finger-swipe support (the site is easy for finger-swiping between items). As the tablet market opens, it’s essential for online retailers to create tablet-optimized sites.
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Interactive Marketing Spend Will Near $77 Billion By 2016 – Forbes (blog)
Aug 25th
 Forbes (blog) |
Interactive Marketing Spend Will Near $77 Billion By 2016
Forbes (blog) Search marketing (paid search and SEO) will continue to own the largest portion of the interactive marketing pie. But its overall share will decline as marketers shift search spend into biddable display investments, mobile marketing, and even social … Interactive Marketing To Garner $77B By 2016 |
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Google’s Self-Driving Car, Manually Driven, In Fender-Bender Near Company HQ
Aug 5th
That image appears to be the first crash involving one of Google’s self-driving cars. (The one on the right with the gear on top.) According to Jalopnik, it happened earlier this week near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Jalopnik speculates that Google’s Toyota…
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An “Open” Perspective on Near Field Communications
Jun 22nd
When talking Near Field Communications (NFC) – the common name for the emerging technology enabling close range device to device interaction – there are two main camps: open NFC and secure NFC. Open NFC refers to the interaction of two NFC-enabled devices or the use of an NFC device to read an NFC tag (a chip embedded in a poster, card or other print medium) in order to receive content or perform an action of some kind. Secure NFC, on the other hand, is about using your mobile device as a virtual wallet or credit card to pay for things by swiping it over an NFC reader.
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Jeremy Belostock is Head of Near Field Communication for Nokia’s devices unit. His team is responsible for developing and implementing Nokia’s NFC strategy, working with industry stakeholders to drive the acceptance of NFC, identifying further growth opportunities for Nokia Near Field Communication devices and developing the best combination of devices, software and services working with all Nokia units. He was previously responsible for NFC sales and marketing within Nokia’s emerging business unit.
Currently NFC is seen as one of the most exciting areas in our industry in terms of revenue generation: projections show up to 700 million NFC-enabled mobile phones will be sold by 2013, according to Jupiter Research. At Nokia, however, we would argue that the industry’s current focus on secure NFC may be at the expense of realizing the potential of open NFC. As pioneers in NFC technology, and as a founder of the NFC Forum, Nokia believes that open NFC will have a far greater impact on consumer behavior and the NFC ecosystem than secure NFC will. Open NFC has the potential to spur a vast number of business opportunities for developers, retailers, advertisers, electronics manufacturers and others.
An open argument
Let me give you an example. With open NFC technology you can simply tap your NFC-enabled device against an NFC tag in order to perform such actions as ‘checking in’ at a specific location, gathering loyalty points in a store or accessing a website without the need to type in a URL. NFC tags can also be used to promote an application in any online app store; for example, instead of having to visit the online store to search for a specific application, you can just tap on a tag and go straight to the app download.
NFC tags, which cost only a few cents, offer huge potential for advertisers, retailers and others to reach, reward and stay in touch with their customers. These tags can be promoted at any location, including a phone retail point, a coffee shop, or even at the local supermarket, with immediate and measurable results. And the best part is that NFC tag reading requires very little existing infrastructure, other than a critical mass of NFC capable devices out in the market and recognition from marketers of the benefit of such tags.
In addition to reading tags, with open NFC people can easily connect their NFC phone with another one, simply by tapping the two devices together. In this way you can easily swap content, such as photos, or play dual player games, without the need for time-consuming pairing through Bluetooth®. The best-selling mobile game Angry Birds, for example, has just released an exclusive NFC-enabled game for the Nokia C7. “Angry Birds Free with Magic”* has hidden levels which can be unlocked by touching phones with a friend’s NFC-enabled Nokia C7, or by reading an NFC tag that will take you straight to Nokia’s app store to download more levels.
Open NFC will benefit consumers on a much larger scale and get people familiar with using their device for NFC interactions, before secure NFC reaches a high level of penetration. As more and more NFC phones come to the market in 2011 and 2012, open NFC will change the way consumers interact with each other and open up a host of opportunities for developers both large and small.
Open NFC also makes it easier to connect your mobile device with NFC-enabled wireless speakers or headphones, so you can come home from a run with your headphones on, for example, and simply tap your home speakers with your NFC music player for the music to continue uninterrupted into your home. It’s pretty easy to imagine the host of new consumer electronics applications and devices that could develop along these lines.
Secure not sure
Secure NFC, on the other hand, is going to be limited to a smaller number of service providers and will take some time before consumer behavior changes to the extent that many people will be able to and feel safe to use their phone to pay for a train ticket or something more expensive. In London, Nokia delivered secure NFC on devices to include the provision of the Oyster card for traveling on public transport. But away from major metropolitan hubs, secure NFC will take some time to become a significant part of the average person’s daily activity. And while secure NFC will ultimately expand to encompass payments, hotel door keys, car keys and even identity cards, we believe that only a limited number of service providers will be involved in the value chain.
Opening the way to the future
Nokia is the most experienced mobile device manufacturer in the NFC space, having already launched five commercial NFC devices. But across the industry, key partnerships will need to include payment bodies, banks, mobile operators, system integrators, the developer community, etc. All of these parties have a role to play in making NFC a commercial success.
In the meantime, open NFC will benefit consumers on a much larger scale and get people familiar with using their device for NFC interactions, before secure NFC reaches a high level of penetration. As more and more NFC phones come to the market in 2011 and 2012, open NFC will change the way consumers interact with each other and open up a host of opportunities for developers both large and small. We believe that developers will embrace the opportunity offered by open NFC in creating apps for sharing information, reading tags, joining social networks and more. And this open NFC opportunity will be realized long before secure NFC takes off.
*Angry Birds Free with Magic will come as an exclusive preinstalled app on the Nokia C7 as part of the Symbian Anna update. It will also be included on Nokia’s future NFC-enabled Symbian devices.
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