We commissioned a study on the Indian app economy back in 2013. The report was completed in 2014. One thing that study did not pick up on was the danger that governments could use the app store to control access to information. We were not alone in missing this critical implication: For more than a decade, we users of digital devices have actively championed an online infrastructure that now looks uniquely vulnerable to the sanctions of despots and others who seek to control information. We flocked to smartphones, app stores, social networks and cloud storage.
It’s a little odd to use a concept like vertical integration but that seems to best explain what IBM is doing. IBM calls what Watson does “cognitive computing,” heralding an age of machines that supposedly think. What the company has not figured out is how to make this into an engine of growth. The tech giant has had years of shrinking revenue, but says its investments in Watson will take time to bear fruit. It will be picking up more talent in the deal.
While the rest of the Sri Lanka slept peacefully, a considerable number of young and enthusiastic programmers gave up sleep this weekend – but for a good cause. Anyone dropping in to the WSO2 offices in Colombo the early hours of Saturday or Sunday morning would have been greeted by the sight of exhausted but determined coders hunched over laptops, tapping away. Among them were three teams working on a problem put forward by LIRNEasia. This was the scene of the Code4good hackathon which started on Friday evening (18th) and ran non stop until Sunday evening. Though the intense work happened this weekend, preparation began much before.
In an attention-grabbing talk where among other things he wrote off Facebook, the Forrester CEO placed the mobile at the center of it all. Mobile engagement, built on architectural change brought about by the app internet will replace the broader Web as the focus of innovation and change, he said. For CIOs it means, “You are going to put your company in the pocket of customers so that when they need you, they are in contact and you are there for them…anytime, anywhere.” Here is his forecast on Facebook: He then described Facebook as “half way there,” before adding: “I think Facebook is toast…the company is in major trouble around mobile engagement and the app Internet.” Why else would CEO Mark Zuckerberg buy Instagram or be talking about launching a mobile phone, he asked.