According to the video above, in the upcoming Adobe Flash CS5, there is a way to export Flash to HTML5 canvas. If this is possible for the entirety of a Flash application, it could mean that a flash app could be exported to HTML5 and then run through Webkit (ala PhoneGap), which would be allowed according to Apple’s developer agreement policies.

We’ll only know for sure once CS5 is announced tomorrow, but here’s to hoping Flash isn’t shut out of the party just yet.

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

While I have read many arguments about Job’s hatred for Flash and their concern that it would flood the app store with sub-standard apps, my beef is not with Apple’s rejection of Flash for content. If they feel Flash is buggy and should not be allowed for content consumption in Safari, that’s fine with me (though I disagree with them).

However, when Apple forces developers to write apps in Objective-C which in my opinion is a confusing, mediocre and much too verbose language, I can’t help but feel that Apple is kicking their developers in the teeth. If it wasn’t for the iPhone developers, Apple would not enjoy the consumer appeal of the wide range of apps that exist in the App Store today. The iPhone developers have helped Apple become a leader in the smartphone 3rd-party app store segment, far above their competitors. And Apple repays them by insisting that developers code in a very specific set of languages?

It’s amazing to me how far Apple has come from their “Think Different” appeal in the 80s – when standing up to Big Blue and Microsoft by claiming “openness” (well, Steve Wozniack did, not Steve Jobs), they now epitomize the essence of who they were standing up against. They are making it mandatory to not only follow their arcane and flaky App store processes, but insisting on using their coding languages, standards and processes seems incredulous. Apple, why don’t you embrace “openness” and allow meta frameworks to compile to your language of choice? You still control the platform, the language and the process. Why are you screwing the very developers who have stood by you through thick and thin to contribute to making the iPhone the success it is today.

Please Apple, please change your stance and give developers a break.

Luckily, the fix is quite easy. Just surround your console.log() with a check to see if its available:

   if ( window.console ) {
      console.log( whatever );
   }

The article goes on to say that it might be due to the fact that not much information is contained in short 140 character tweets, thereby not being very useful for searchers. I tend to agree. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Historically, we’ve been used to reading news articles – either published in old media (newspapers, magazines, etc.), or new media (online news sites, blogs, etc.) – that always present a holistic view about the topic being reported on. The information contained is logically formatted into an intro, body and a conclusion. This format largely makes sense to us, and is easy to read and follow.

However, the new age of information dissipation is much more fragmented and dare I say, iterative. News about a topic does not necessarily contain all the facts at once, but each small snippet of news (aka a tweet) may add iteratively and chronologically to the overall topic. To understand a breaking news story, we may have to scan multiple tweets to understand context, get relevant and pertinent facts and then read the commentary. This is why I believe most real-time search engines are doing it wrong currently. Most of them present commentary (tweets) about popular (or not so popular) topics – which is great, but only for the person who is already familiar with the subject being reported on.

Last year, if I searched for “hudson plane crash”, there wasn’t a single real-time search engine that consolidated all the facts and presented a timeline of events. Instead, users had to piece together (very carefully and often mistakenly) the chronological episode of events. Most users gave up after reading the useless commentary (“omg… a plane has crashed into the hudson!”) and instead waited until news outlets like Yahoo! News, AP, etc. consolidated and reported the entire story.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Fortunately, all the important and relevant pieces of information are out there – contained in short tweets. Real-time search engines should be getting smarter about collecting tweets, analyzing them for relevant and trustworthy content, and combining them to be ’super tweets’. These super tweets could be structured (depending on the subject), or unstructured. Maybe even use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to stitch tweets together to form ad-hoc news stories on the fly. So that when the user searches for “hudson plane crash”, they wouldn’t just happen to see the last 10 tweets about the topic, but instead a timeline of events, most recent pictures, videos, commentary and rich media like the plane’s path, local emergency numbers, affected airport/airline delays, etc.

Each and every day, we’re producing an incredible amount of new information. The future won’t just be about effectively searching that huge corpus, but consuming information in a concise and logical format – hopefully one that is created automatically.

Luckily, I get to work on these types of problems at Yahoo! Research. If you’re interested in working on similar problems, take a look at our open positions.

I’ve had my fair share of troubles with poorly implemented online systems (I’m looking at you Citibank), but my experience today with Comcast takes the cake. This is an example of how digitizing traditional processes with state-of-the-art online payment systems might reduce costs for large corporations, but if not implemented correctly can backfire by deteriorating the brand image. After today, I am thinking of changing cable/internet providers not because my current provider Comcast doesn’t offer a great lineup of channels and have been generally very good about giving me discounts, but simply because of the amount of pain I had to suffer as a customer to use their online system.

My troubles started a few months back when my account on comcast.com wouldn’t accept my password. Now I use a lot of different passwords so I attributed it to user error and tried to recover my password. Upon loading the password recovery screen, it presented me with the following:

Secret Question: Your secret question has expired.
Secret Answer: <text input field>

Of course since my secret question had expired (which I wasn’t aware had an expiry date in the first place), submitting the form with a blank secret answer worked and it sent me the password recovery email. Using the link from the email I was able to change my password and log in to my account. But oddly enough, the new password wouldn’t be saved. So the next time I went to login, I was reduced to following this same process.

Now this is fine. The customer will always chose the least costly option. For me, it was repeating this arcane process instead of calling their tech support. Most customers deal with minor annoyances for any product so it wasn’t very unusual.

However, the kicker came recently when Comcast supposedly “upgraded” their system. This new system locked me out completely. And worst of all, it seemed to throw errors all over the place for no apparent reason. Trying to repeat the above process, I would get to the password recovery screen only to be told a very generic “An error has occured. Please call 1-800-COMCAST”.

Unable to yield the system to my ways, I decided to throw up my hands and call 1-800-COMCAST. Lo and behold, after the 5-minute promo messages, I was asked to choose whether I had a problem with my service or had a billing question. As a customer, I’m now supposed to chose between two options of which neither fit my problem.

Suggestion to Comcast: Choices are great for streamlining helpdesk/support systems for companies. Not so much for customers who have to decide on options which may not be clear or to which they themselves might not know the answer to. Keep choices open-ended and inclusive of all possible problems.

Anyway, having previous experience with such systems, I decided to try the undocumented press “0″ to speak to an operator. Unfortunately, Comcast doesn’t believe in offering that convenience so it didn’t work. I was reduced to choosing “problem with my service” (even though I didnt). The next choice was between Cable, Internet or Phone. Huh? I guess I have no issues with my Internet connection but comcast.com is *on* the internet, so I guess that is the closest choice. Let’s go for it.

After waiting through the usual stellar music choices, I was connected to someone. Anyway, reading from her script, she explained that their new system was migrating all accounts from comcast.com to comcast.net and then proceeded to up sell me on the great new features about comcast.net. At this stage, since I didn’t really care about comcast.net I decided to cut her short and explained my problem of not being able to login to comcast.com, not comcast.net. She didn’t seem to understand and kept repeating that I had to login through comcast.net.

With no energy to argue any more, I decided to sign up and establish an account with comcast.net. Once I logged in and saw an option to “Pay my bill”, I rejoiced. Unfortunately, clicking on “Pay my bill” put me into a giant infinite loop where it would send me to Login followed by Logout and back again. It was almost comical.

Trying a different browser seemed to fix the infinite loop issue. One. Step. Closer. Arriving at the screen to supply my credit card information, I didn’t have much faith in the system. Here’s a reputable company who has completely lost my faith because of a horribly implemented IT solution. I proceeded to enter my details (I had to pay the bill anyway), hit Submit and lo and behold, it got stuck in the infinite loop again. No indication whether the payment went through successfully or not. I guess I’ll have to check with my bank.

This rant isn’t to highlight the major fallacies of the Comcast online system as much as the importance of implementing IT systems that are in line with the strategy of brand building. It’s quite easy to look at IT as a way of reducing costs, streamlining processes and reducing headcount. Those are all operating concerns and should be of high importance to any CIO. However, the risk of implementing these IT systems poorly and not testing them enough results in a severe loss of brand equity. Comcast – the brand – in my eyes is now an organization that does not value technology. It gives me no faith in its crucial systems (like credit card transactions) and will now lead me to look elsewhere. Their brand equity is so depleted in my case that I’m ready to overlook all their good qualities (discounts, good cable quality, great selection of hi-def channels, etc.). I’m ready to move to DirectTV or Dish Network or anyone else that has a much more reliable online system because to me as a consumer those are all integral parts of the brand.

This isn’t limited to Comcast. I was recently so frustrated with Citibank’s online system that I decided to move all my checkings, savings, and investment accounts to Bank of America – specifically because of their online system. Sure, I’m not the typical consumer because I put a lot more value into online systems and how they make my life easier, but that’s not to say that this online channel is not important. After all, if it wasn’t important, large corporations wouldn’t be spending millions on implementing these new online payment systems.

I know most people have horror stories about their technical problems with a variety of online systems. How has the brand image of a corporation been affected if and when you’ve had such problems in the past? Have you been frustrated enough to change to a competitor? Have you lost trust and faith in the brand? Have you gone so far as to virally spread the negative brand experiences with others?

There’s no denying that Quantum of Solace is stellar. It helps further the new direction that the Bond franchise is moving in. It’s a thrill-ride (yes, it’s cliche) for the die-hard Bond fan as well as casual action-seeking movie goer. The opening scene is breathtaking, the story progresses well, and even though the running time is only 1 hour 46 minutes, you never feel like you didn’t get your money’s worth. The direction is reminiscent of the Bourne series, if a bit theatrical at times. Quantum of Solace was expected to show James Bond get in touch with his feelings, which he did and it was handled expertly, not going overboard with emotion. The movie may not be as good as Casino Royale, but it stands far apart from previous Brosnan’s exploits like Die Another Day and The World is Not Enough. So go watch it.

With that being said, the rest of this review is for the die-hard fans. These are the small details that make a Bond movie special or fall flat for the fans.

First off, the opening credits scene was a bit weak. As you’ve come to expect with any Bond movie, the credits are surreal, full of visual trickery and have a memorable theme song. The theme song was not catchy, the visual trickery was not as good as Casino Royale. The trademark body silhouettes just weren’t evocative enough.

Quantum of Solace is full of chase sequences. Bond is chased through mountains, lakes, in cars, boats, planes, anything else you can think of. It is so full of chases, that you almost wish it would stop. There are too many, some overly theatrical. Most Bond movies (including Casino Royale) intertwine a bit of fun, glamour, romance (if you can call it that) in with the captivating action. But this movie seems to take itself too seriously. There are few moments that give you a chance to reflect, even fewer that show Bond having a bit of fun or mentally jabbing with the villain (like the poker scene in Casino Royale). At times, the movie was so intense, you almost wished that they would show 5 minutes of Bond sleeping.

The only other gripe I have is that there are too many location changes in the movie. Usually Bond does his share of world traveling, but being a short movie, it felt very fragmented each time he kept switching continents every 10 minutes. You’ll also notice that (for some odd reason), they start referring to M as Maum (Mom?). They alluded to this in one short scene in Casino Royale, but she is addressed by this name exclusively in Quantum of Solace. The villain is a bit weak, and there are no classic henchman like Jaws, Oddjob, etc. There are almost no gadgets in this movie, which isn’t a bad thing, but it moves away slightly from the classic Bond theme.

This Bond movie, in my opinion, felt like the second part in a three part trilogy. This is the penultimate one that furthers the story line set forth in the prequel, and sets the stage for the final one. The Bond franchise seems to be making a deliberately effort to change the Bond legacy to a new format – one of realism and humanness. Ironically, it almost starts to feel Bourne-like.

With all that being said, this movie is definitely worth a watch. The added bonus: after watching the movie, you find out the real meaning of “Quantum of Solace”.

The question often asked is: if you were asked to choose from two candidates – a specialist and a generalist – which would you choose? Like most things in life, it’s not a binary answer. There isn’t a right or wrong answer. There are, however, right or wrong decisions on hiring the right candidate for the right job. Each type of candidate has their strengths and weaknesses. It’s best to make the decision after careful evaluation of how closely aligned these types of candidates are to the job requirements and to the company at large.

This post is intended to be an introduction to a series of posts where I hope to give valuable tips on becoming an effective generalist. Before we begin though, I’d like to clarify a couple of things. By offering tips on becoming a better generalist, I don’t mean to suggest in any way that a generalist is better than a specialist – it’s just that I have more experience as a generalist as I have spent my career being one. And more specifically, I will tell you how to be a better generalist. How you use my tips in practice to improve yourself will be an exercise left up to your talent, dedication and passion. With that out of the way, let’s begin with the first in the series.

Become a specialist at being a generalist

This may sound almost like an oxymoron, but hear me out. Often, I’ve seen too many startup-headed, caffeine-infused, entry-level engineers who are ready to conquer the world. They dive into their projects with vigor and passion, trying to excel and outshine other members of the team. This is great and is the right attitude to have, and if you’re one of these individuals, you’re on the right track.

But commonly, what develops is this insatiable thirst for doing too much. It starts slow at first. Inconspicuously over time, you may find your behavior leading to a need for constant exploration of new fields of knowledge. In a startup company, it’s the engineers in the team who have the “i-can-do-everything” attitude. You start to not only code, but help out with tech support tickets. A marketing colleague drops by and you promise to deliver a new undocumented feature that will look good on your resume. Your geek buddies suddenly start talking about Python, and you want to learn it right away and test it out on a project. A new framework hits the web, you need to rewrite that last web application using the new framework. This weekend. Sound familiar?

What is important to note is that the above attitude isn’t bad – instead it’s possibly detrimental to your development as an outstanding generalist. In fact, the attitude is the focal point of being a great generalist. However, being caught in a never-ending spiral of exploration is the crux of someone who could have been a great generalist. That’s why it’s important to specialize in being a generalist. What does this mean? Specialization in any field means knowing the ins and outs. It means being ahead of the curve, leading rather than following innovation in the field. It also means doing what you do best, and better than the rest. And this is exactly what differentiates an effective and outstanding generalist from the rest.

It means to know what to explore. It means knowing how to keep your skills up to date. It means critically thinking about every new technology and what it means to you. It means visualizing the results before jumping into a new project.

So, I hear you say, that’s easier said than done. Actually, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to accomplish with a little discipline and a few tips. Here are a few:

• Stay up-to-date with your area of generalization. This is crucial to the art of being a generalist. You must be able to consume large amounts of information each and every day to stay current on trends in your field. Over time, get into the habit of refining your methodologies. Always adapt as tools evolve and new ones come up. Become a master at picking good information out from the bad. Try to read sources of information that you trust, and have helped you in the past. Don’t get caught in the ‘chatter’ – opinions are plenty and every blogger has more than a few, learn to separate them from the real information.
• Know what to explore and what to ignore. This is the second step after you’ve found the right information. Read and learn more than what you actually explore and implement. Remember that time is very precious for every generalist. Don’t waste it by exploring a ‘cool’ website, learning a new language that all the cool geeks are talking about, etc. without knowing exactly how and why it will help you. Almost 50% of what you decide to explore will be of no use to you. The higher you manage to push this success rate, the more successful you’ll be.
• Be critical of new technologies. Mankind will always continue to invent and innovate. And when there’s not enough innovation, there’s recycling. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll be able to pick out what’s recycled and what’s innovative. Learn this skill and get better at it. Think critically of a new technology that claims to solve a problem. Can this problem be solved with what you already know? Was this ever a problem or is this a problem that’s made up just to invent a new technology that solves it?
• Visualize the results of all new pursuits and endeavors. It’s easy to start every new project with an unknown factor. It’s the thought that whatever work you do will be worth it and at the end, there will be a lesson learned. Though this is a very healthy attitude to have, it only works well if you have a lot of time on your hands. But when time is short, it’s better to visualize the rewards from such a project. Is it going to increase your skill set in a particular language? Or is it going to help you gain understanding of a core technology across all languages? Spend time on it only if the rewards qualify the effort. Otherwise, be patient and spend time on something else that will give you bigger rewards.
• Don’t over-generalize. No potential employer is going to look through 30 different buzzwords and be excited that you tried and explored each. In most cases, an employer has already decided and probably spent a great amount of resources on a few key technologies. They need someone that fits into one or more of the technologies they use – not the other way around. The key is to explore many technologies but concentrate and gain expertise in a select few.

These tips should help you direct yourself on the path to becoming a more effective generalist. Stay tuned for more articles on specific tips to help you along the way.

Always remember that being a generalist helps you get your resume through the door, specializing at being a generalist gets you the job.

Imagine if the attempts by startups in the genome space like 23andMe were to succeed at cataloging everyone’s DNA. Would this piece of DNA become the ultimate representation of who and what you are? What would be the effects of having all the things that make you uniquely human be reduced to a string of characters?

It’s interesting to wonder if there would exist social networks around your DNA. Imagine a Facebook-style profile page that is uniquely identified by your DNA. Others could browse for the abilities that make you unique, your inherent strengths (and possibly your weaknesses), and possibly “friend” you based on your DNA. Maybe your DNA will be your OpenID or MicroID?

Here are a few interesting thoughts on how different applications could/would use your DNA:

• Dating sites – Matching people based on their DNA would outperform any complex dating algorithm out there right now (or so I believe). Imagine choosing your partner not just based on an algorithm’s recommendation, but based on specific scientific properties – maybe someone that complements your recessive genes?
• Recruiting – What if companies started asking for your genome in addition to your resume? It’s not that far fetched really – some companies already do extensive drug tests. Could companies accept/reject you solely based on your genes? Imagine if a company could pass on hiring a graphic designer just because he/she didn’t have the desired ‘creative’ gene?
• Insurance companies – Your DNA could easily identify the diseases that you’re most susceptible to. Could life insurance companies reject you based on that? Would that be fair?

If you notice, all the above have a common theme of solving the problem of selection (the irony of natural selection). A way to solve it is to carefully quantify the selection criteria and score individual candidates against each criteria. Fortunately, that’s not mathematically and/or scientifically possible right now (that’s why we have approximation models). But that may all change once each selection criteria can be mapped to a specific gene. The selection problem will not only be solved, but the answer may be very accurate – too accurate.

Do you think its a good idea to decode the entire human genome? Will companies like 23andMe have unfortunate and undesired side-effects? Should there be a fair-use clause for DNA samples?

The upgrade process was a snap thanks to this guide. The whole process took about 20 mins (backup, downloading the new version, overwriting, setting up plugins, and tweaking the template). Luckily, none of the plugins I use had any problems (including the Actionstreams plugin).

Here’s what I like about this release:

• Visual Editor: The interface is less cluttered and slick. The full-screen version rocks.
• Tags: Even though they were introduced as a core functionality in a previous release, they weren’t really usable until the new AJAXy version came along in this release.
• Widget-based dashboard: Now plugins can use the Dashboard screen real-estate for administrative information like the WP Stats widget.
• Lightweight UI: The UI looks more current than the previous ‘99 style. It looks more customizable, so I’m hoping for a outbreak of WP Admin themes (like the useful Fluency theme).
• Related section: In most admin pages, there is a nifty new section titled simply “Related”. It has a list of links that are related to the current page (writing a post, editing categories, managing comments, etc.)
• Multi-file uploading (with progress bar): It’s very similar to the Flickr uploader. Its intuitive, easy and just works.
• Built-in galleries: Though I’m not sure if I’ll ever use this, its good to know that I could roll out my own gallery instead of having to install another app. Amazingly, you only need to include the text in your post to turn it into a gallery (complete with navigation).

I highly recommend watching the 4-min screencast by Matt Mullenweg about the new Dashboard and Editor features.

For the curious, no additional tweaks were needed for the Grid Focus theme (the one used on my blog) to work in WP 2.5.

Download Wordpress 2.5 here.

1. Apple buys Yahoo! – As some have discussed here, Yahoo! provides Apple with a huge entry into the Chinese market, helps with the online bits (iTunes, iStore, etc.). Apple in return helps Yahoo! maintain its online web presence and grow to lead the market share in search and display advertising. Other interesting integrations would be iChat+Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Music+iTunes, iPhone+Yahoo! Go+oneConnect.
2. Yahoo! Japan buys Yahoo! Inc – Another idea that’s been pondered here. Yahoo! Japan is Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! all rolled into one in Japan. Can Yahoo! Japan swallow up Yahoo? What does Y! Japan stand to gain (if they already have the necessary technology and have the majority market share)? Will it help Y! Japan to have a controlling stake in Alibaba in the chinese market? That might make things interesting.
3. Amazon.com partners with Yahoo! – I’m not sure this has been discussed widely, but it would be an interesting angle. Amazon could help Yahoo! out with its shopping areas. Yahoo! Mobile could bring Amazon’s store to every mobile out there. In areas of technology, Yahoo! can contribute to (failed?) Amazon’s A9 Search, and both could join forces with Hadoop (and other grid computing efforts) with EC2. Bring in the social element of relating users’ reviews, wishlists, etc. with their inboxes and voila, you have much more relevant advertising profiles.

Some of the above are highly unlikely and most are probably not even on the table. But while you think about them, here are some parting questions:

• What other interesting scenarios can you think of?
• What other partnerships could potentially make sense?
• What other integrations can likely happen that haven’t been explored yet?

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to have any insider information about the possibility of any of the above, nor are the views expressed in this article the views of my employer, Yahoo!