Cookies are for Closers: Oren Hurvitz's Blog

Apple is currently suing Samsung, claiming that Samsung has copied the appearance of their phones and tablets from Apple. In response, Samsung says that it was inspired by the 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”. I was very excited when I saw this headline in Slashdot:

Samsung Cites 2001: A Space Odyssey In Apple Patent Case

Because I thought that this is what they are citing as prior art:

Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey

But sadly, it seems Samsung were only referring to some tablet computers that were shown briefly in use by the astronauts in the movie. You can see that picture in CNET’s coverage.

Samsung would have made a better argument, and a winning one, if they’d claimed that all of the current smartphones and tablets, which are black and shiny rectangles, are derived from the Monolith. As has been foretold.

(By the way, there’s an “Action Figure” toy of the Monolith. It’s just a featureless black plastic rectangle. This is a real thing.)

Windows 8

Yesterday Microsoft revealed details about Windows 8 for the first time. Watch this:

I was very impressed by what I saw. Microsoft has been behind the curve for so long that I’ve nearly forgotten that they can be great. The tiles UI is an improvement over icons, and the touch-based interface looks fast and attractive.

Combining Tablet and Desktop UI’s

Windows 8 differs from the offerings from Apple and Google by combining a full desktop OS with a tablet UI. This decision is being ridiculed by some. For example, super-blogger and Apple enthusiast John Gruber of Daring Fireball says:

[...] it’s a fundamentally flawed idea for Microsoft to build their next-generation OS and interface on top of the existing Windows. The idea is that you get the new stuff right alongside Windows as we know it. Microsoft is obviously trying to learn from Apple, but they clearly don’t understand why the iPad runs iOS, and not Mac OS X.

Gruber goes on to explain the different strengths of the iPad/iOS vs. Mac OS X, and why combining them is a bad idea. However, I think Windows 8 is actually a very smart idea, and the reason is convergence. Imagine having a Windows 8 tablet, thin and light, which you can dock at home or in the office and get a full-strength PC that runs Microsoft Office and plays high-end games. That would be my dream machine, for the following reasons:

• Simplify my life! The fewer devices, the better. This hybrid machine would eliminate the need to have both a full-strength PC and a tablet.
• All my data in one place. No need to copy documents around, or rely on the cloud. (I love the cloud, but like a deadbeat father, it hasn’t always been there for me.)

If Microsoft had copied Apple and Google and created a tablet-only OS then this super-duper-machine wouldn’t be possible. There are already some tablets that can be docked, but so far each of them has had to choose whether to use a tablet OS (in which case it can’t replace your main machine), or Windows 7 (which makes it poorly suited to be a tablet). Using Windows 8, a dockable tablet can provide a simple touch interface when in tablet mode, and a full-strength desktop UI when a mouse and keyboard are available. The critics are correct that desktop programs such as Excel aren’t suited for tablets, but once the tablet has been docked it makes a lot of sense to be able to run such sophisticated programs.

The Ultimate PC

There is one fly in the ointment: in order for a tablet to be thin, light and have a long battery life, it must have a weak CPU and a limited amount of RAM and disk space. This means that even when it’s docked, it can only compete with netbooks: it can’t become your main machine if you run demanding programs. I would love to see this problem solved, and here’s how it could be done:

The ultimate Tablet/PC combo would use two sets of hardware. The tablet would contain a highly efficient CPU that is suitable for a mobile device, and relatively small amounts of RAM and storage. The docking station would contain a full-strength CPU and gigabyte after gigabyte of RAM, ranging as far as the eye can see. When the tablet is docked it would use the high-end hardware, but the operating system would still be run from the tablet’s flash memory. This is the key point: the operating system is the same whether you’re using the tablet or desktop configuration. That means your working environment remains exactly the same wherever you are: all the programs remain installed, all registry keys are the same, the files are in the same locations, etc.

As a bonus, the docking station, since it has its own CPU, could function as a file server while you’re away. So your most-used files would be stored locally on the tablet, but you would still have remote access to the files stored in the docking station.

Unfortunately, this hybrid dream machine would not be cheap. Since it contains two sets of hardware, it will cost about as much as a PC + tablet cost today. But the convenience of having just one machine would still make this a slam dunk for me.

Start Your Photocopiers, Redux

One final note: why did Microsoft announce Windows 8 so early (it won’t be available until 2012 or 2013), and why at the D9 conference and not at one of their own events? I suspect it’s to preempt Apple. Apple will be announcing the next versions of their mobile and desktop operating systems in a few days at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, and Microsoft probably wants to make sure its innovations are seen as original, and not knockoffs. In WWDC 2004, Apple tweaked Microsoft by claiming that the upcoming Windows Vista would just be copying features that Apple invented:

Not this time.

The good people at Atlassian are running an incredible offer: get full versions of Confluence (a wiki) and Jira (a bug tracker) for $5 each, for up to 5 users. These are outstanding products that normally cost $1200 each (but those versions support more users). The offer is valid only until April 24, so act now, while supplies last! At my company we bought both Confluence and Jira, and they’re absolutely indispensable.

I was surprised by this promotion because Confluence and Jira are not second-tier products: they’re leaders in their class. I’m a Wiki fanatic, and a few years ago I performed a comprehensive review of all the Wiki products I could find (about 20). Two wikis were head and shoulders above the competition: Confluence and JotSpot. They both had a very long list of features, such as rich-text editing, comprehensive security, good collaboration tools, etc. Both were highly polished: the features were complete and easy to use. The biggest difference between them was that Confluence was meant to be installed on the user’s server whereas JotSpot was hosted. I prefer to have the Wiki installed on my own server, for fast access from within the company’s LAN, so I chose Confluence. (Nowadays there’s also a hosted version of Confluence, if you’re one of Those People who value access over speed.)

Some time after my Great Wiki Evaluation JotSpot was acquired by Google and shut down, to reappear later as Google Sites. Google Sites is far simpler than JotSpot had been, which means it’s not as feature-rich and no longer in the same class as Confluence and other leading Wikis. Google have turned a Harley Davidson into a pink bicycle with training wheels, and that’s the end of JotSpot.

I also recommend Jira, although to a lesser extent than Confluence. Jira is very powerful and customizable, but I find its workflow to be rather cumbersome. I had used FogBugz before Jira, and it was a smoother experience. They’re both much better than open-source products such as Bugzilla and Trac, however (both of which I have also used).

Preemptive disclaimer: I’m not getting anything from Atlassian for this post; I just really, really like Confluence, and I want to spread the word.

My brother recently started working at SportVU, a company that uses video analysis to track the positions of players in live sport events. It provides real-time statistics about the players’ average speed, distance covered, etc.

We were watching a basketball match tonight between Maccabi Tel-Aviv (Israel) and Barcelona (Spain). During the first quarter, seven Spanish demonstrators ran into the court waving Palestinian flags to protest Israel’s recent Gaza offensive. My brother wasn’t paying attention at the moment, so I pointed out to him that there’s a real-time political demonstration taking place before his eyes. His immediate comment: “this will wreak havoc with the tracking”.

(Photo by themattharris)

Snowclones

A snowclone is a sentence template that can be used to construct many similar phrases. For example, the snowclone “X is the new Y” has been used extensively, e.g.: “White is the new black”, “40 is the new 30″, and “Snowclone is the new Cliché”.

My favorite snowclone is “In Soviet Russia, X Y’s You”. I find these jokes endlessly amusing, and it is my earnest belief that everyone else does, too. For example:

My mom: I’m going to program the VCR to record the news.
Me: In Soviet Russia, VCRs program you!

Neighbor: This bag? It’s dog food.
Me: In Soviet Russia, dogs feed you!

Coworker: Oren, can you help me debug this program? Something’s not right.
Me: In Soviet Russia, programs debug you!
Coworker: Never mind, I’ll ask Larry.

A snowclone is born

Here in Israel a new snowclone was recently coined, courtesy of our upcoming elections. Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, is one of the contenders in the elections but trails behind two more popular politicians. Barak is considered smart and capable, but he’s also viewed as calculating and aloof, and he has a reputation for discarding his allies when he doesn’t need them anymore. Barak’s campaign managers decided to tackle this reputation with a series of ads that, unusually for Israeli politicians, poke fun at the candidate.

The ad campaign began with huge outdoor signs that listed Barak’s well-known flaws: “Not a pal”, “Not trendy”, “Not nice”.

Not a pal

After a few days the signs were replaced. In the new signs, the snowclone was completed: “Not a pal. A leader”.

Not a pal. A leader.

"Not trendy. A leader."; "Not likeable. A leader."

The snowclone spreads

The ad campaign was wildly successful in capturing the public’s attention. Political analysts self-importantly explained how the ads were either clever, or self-defeating. Advertising executives debated whether mentioning a product’s negative attributes is a good idea. Satiric shows riffed on the ad campaign with glee. But the meme didn’t remain confined to the context of Ehud Barak’s election campaign. The phrase “Not X. Y” became instantly recognizable and was adapted to every possible context.

One internet poster, in a forum for copywriters, said that the ad campaign makes Ehud Barak seem like a historical figure that was also known for being a strong leader:

Not nice. Not likeable. Not a pal. A leader.

Predictably, sports editors were quick to seize on the snowclone to spice up their stories. For example, one article described a basketball team’s new and tough-minded coach as “Not a pal. A coach”:

Not a pal. A coach.

World-affairs stories were next. This story describes Putin’s foray into painting, which contrasts with his well-known tough image. The title is “Not a hunter, a painter: Vladimir Putin’s gentle side”.

Not a hunter. A painter.

Ubiquity

Yesterday the snowclone scored a major coupe, which cements its leading position in Israeli culture. Here is the front page of yesterday’s Yedioth Ahronoth, the most widely-read newspaper in Israel. It prominently displays a teaser for an interview with Gabi Ashkenazi, the current CJCS (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), with the following title: “Not a pal. CJCS.”

Not a pal. CJCS.

In the same issue of Yedioth Ahronoth, there was a story in the entertainment section about the difficulty of having famous actors portray characters that are different from their well-known public image. The story mentioned Brad Pitt’s performance in his new movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where he portrays an old man for a large part of the movie. The accompanying photo had the following caption: “Not an icon. An actor.”

Not an icon. An actor.

Two mentions in one issue, including on the front page. Truly, the snowclone has arrived.

The snowclone has also spread to informal communications. The residents of one apartment building had a problem: people were putting trash in a decorative column near the building’s entrance. So they put up a sign: “Not an ashtray. Not a trash can.” Some wit added in handwriting: “A leader”.

Not an ashtray. Not a trash can. A leader.

Google have announced that they’ll reduce the amount of time that they keep individually-identifiable information about searches from 18 months to 9 months. I would like to think that my previous post on this topic played a small part in this decision, but it looks like it was mostly due to pressure from the European Union.

In that post, I showed a request that I had sent to Google, asking them to reduce the amount of time they keep private data to just one month. I asked everyone who read the post to send a similar request to Google, and judging from the comments some people did so. For the record, I did receive a reply from Google, but it was just a standard email that didn’t actually address my points: it just reiterated their position on data retention. In fine Google tradition, it would appear that no human was involved in sending that response.

Although I would like to see Google reduce the retention period further, to one month, this is a big step in the right direction. Google deserves credit for listening to the public and changing their practices. It is therefore unfortunate that they chose to pepper this announcement with vague threats:

• “Back in March 2007, Google became the first leading search engine to announce a policy to anonymize our search server logs in the interests of privacy. [...] Although that was good for privacy, it was a difficult decision because the routine server log data we collect has always been a critical ingredient of innovation.”
• “When we began anonymizing after 18 months, we knew it meant sacrifices in future innovations in all of these areas [search quality, security, fighting fraud and reducing spam]. We believed further reducing the period before anonymizing would degrade the utility of the data too much and outweigh the incremental privacy benefit for users.”
• “While we’re glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy, we’re also concerned about the potential loss of security, quality, and innovation that may result from having less data.”

What on earth could they mean?

Translation #1: “Ok world, you win, we’ll keep the data for less time. But you’re going to be sorry!”

Translation #2: “We’ve now reduced our retention period as far as humanly possible, and then some. Please don’t make us reduce it any more!”

Google are keeping this discussion (of how long to keep the data) at a superficial level: they throw a number (“18 months”), the European Union throws a number (“6 months”?), I throw a number (“1 month”). You, too, can become a highly respected privacy advocate by coming up with your own number (that no one else has claimed yet) and writing about it!

A more substantive discussion would require Google to reveal some of their cards: how much of a benefit to fraud protection do they derive from keeping this data for 9 months (vs. a shorter length of time)? How do 9 months of individually-identifiable information help them improve their algorithms vs. 1 month of such information, especially given that they will always have an unlimited amount of anonymized data?

Of course, Google will never reveal this information because it would hurt their competitive position. But an experienced programmer, well-versed in the art, can make some reasonable guesses.

Individually-identifiable information is most important for security, fraud prevention, and fighting spam. But since these are time-sensitive tasks, the information quickly loses its value. I believe that the residual value of this information is close to zero after a few weeks have passed.

The other use for this data, improving search quality, can be handled with anonymized data for the most part. One example that Google commonly give is their automatic spell checker. But they don’t need individually-identifiable information in order to figure out that people who search for “brittaney” really mean “britney”. Yes, I can envision some types of search quality improvements that would benefit from studying individually-identifiable information, but they are a minority, and Google can learn how to do that while keeping data for a shorter period of time. I therefore stand by my position that 1 month of private data would strike the right balance between privacy and security/fraud prevention/spam detection/search quality.

(Photo by lesprit_descalier)