Trying Out Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha, the new computational knowledge engine from Wolfram Research has been getting a good run  in the press this week so I decided to try it out.

It gave pretty good answers for most of the following queries. Try them out yourself.

• 2, 4, 8, 16, 32
  
• x x + y y < 1 && x < 0 
  
• Sin[x] == (x + 0.5) (0.5 - x) + 0.5
  
• linear fit {{1.3, 2.2}, {2.1, 5.8}, {3.7, 10.2}, {4.2, 11.8},{1.3, 2.5}, {2.1, 2.8}, {3.7, 13.2}, {4.2, 11.8}}
• eigenvalues {{4,1,2,2},{2,-1,2,2},{4.1,1,2,2},{2,-1,2,2}}
  
• svd {{1,2},{2,4},{3,6},{4.0001,8.001}}
  
• google vs.yahoo
  
• lung cancer
  
• bovine tuberculosis rate New Zealand
  
• GDP per capita vs life expectancy
  
• number of moose in Canada
  
• infinity + 1
  
• infinity ^ infinity
  
• How long does it take to count to infinity?
  

Trying out BurnURL

More bonfire action by Natmandu

BurnURL seems to work well. Here are some examples:

• blogit ergo sum: Smart Metering
  
• blogit ergo sum: Test Automation for Complex Systems
  
• blogit ergo sum: Patent vs. Patent
• blogit ergo sum: Trying out BurnURL

Smart Metering

This Smart Meters blog post says

In the report, information compiled by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) from 21 different studies of projects varying in size found that the median amount of energy saved would be 18 percent over 13 years. This works out to Americans saving 1.5 percent more energy each year, which has been demonstrated at utilities deploying aggressive energy conservation programs.

Reduction of peak load can range between 7 and 22 percent according to other ACEEE studies. Depending on the geographical area, savings can be significantly higher. For example, in the southern states summers are typically hotter so there is much more potential for consumers who are enrolled in demand response programs to cycle down their air conditioning on the hottest days.

So what is a "Smart Meter"?

Smart Meters
Wikipedia says

A smart meter  generally refers to a type of advanced meter (usually an electrical meter) that identifies consumption in more detail than a conventional meter; and optionally, but generally, communicates that information via some network back to the local utility for monitoring and billing purposes (telemetering).

There are a lot of smart metering projects taking place in the world. Click on the map below to navigate to your part of the world.

World Map of Smart Metering Projects

View Larger Map

Applications of Smart Meters

Smart meters and electric cars: a match made in efficiency says

Studies have found that electric vehicles could be charged with electricity produced under the current system, if done at the right time, agreed National Resources Defense Council scientist Simon Mui.

It might seem that simply plugging in your Chevy Volt or Ford Escape before bedtime would do. But increased use of electric vehicles could lead to everyone plugging in at the same time, peaking demand and complicating things, particularly if electric vehicles take hold of entire neighborhoods, as car trends often do, Kjaer explained.

So instead, Edison and auto manufacturers are turning to "smart metering" technologies. Such technologies allow consumers and, potentially appliances, to be aware of how much electricity is being consumed everywhere so that they can try to consume when other people are not.

Smart Metering Products

Comverge

offers a spectrum of Demand Response, advanced metering, and grid management solutions – all designed to assist utilities and end consumers in utilizing energy "smarter" and more efficiently.

Tendril Inc's TREE platform

The TREE Platform is an open, enterprise-class demand side energy management software solution for utilities and energy retailers. Designed to support multiple energy management applications simultaneously, including Energy Efficiency , Demand Response , and Pricing . TREE provides a complete solution that is scalable, unified, and optimized for seamless integration with the utility back-office, a variety of meter networks, and ZigBee® enabled devices.

The TREE platform can be accessed by consumers in various ways including, the Vantage consumer portal, mobile devices, an energy management widget, smart thermostats , and smart in-home displays. These devices provide access and information about the other devices in the Home Area Network (HAN) as well as details on their energy consumption and billing information. The Vantage Utility Management Center provides energy retailers with the ability to monitor and manage millions of HANS simultaneously, and communicate directly with their customers regarding service and support in real-time. 

SilverSpring

Utilities are challenged to connect a variety of disparate systems, including AMI/AMR, GIS, and supervisory measurement and control systems. Only one technology will mitigate the considerable risk posed by obsolescence or proprietary solutions: a network based on open, secure standards.

The protocols making the Internet possible have become ubiquitous–every major standards organization has embraced the suite of networking protocols, simply known as IP, in one form or another. Use of IP provides the highest ROI, the least financial risk, the greatest number of proven security options and the shortest payback cycle.

An IP-based network empowers utilities to add new products today and advanced services as they become available.

Software solutions include UtilOS®, a network operating system designed to enable maximum control, and UtilityIQ®, a network management platform for advanced meter reading, advanced network management and scalable, reliable data management. Network infrastructure is enhanced with Access Point SG, a central hub between end-point devices and the enterprise, and Relay SG, a highly reliable, open, standards-based RF repeater. Silver Spring Networks also makes endpoints more intelligent with Network Interface Cards (NICs) and the Gas Interface Management Unit™.

Trilliant 

Trilliant was the first AMI vendor to introduce an open standards-compliant wireless mesh network solution for mass-market (residential) applications. The MeshReader™ intelligent metering communications product family has established a new open standards and cost effective approach to two-way communications for residential customer applications. ..Our products are all standards-based, state-of-the-art devices. They include different options (retrofit, external box), to cover all needs for electric, gas and water meter data collection and management. The utility will find all the appropriate solutions for its different requirements. We have developed very economical devices for the residential and small commercial customers.

Ember

Ember is the ZigBee leader, delivering a series of industry firsts:

First fully integrated System-on-Chip combining processor,memory and radio on a single chip

First ZigBee coprocessor simplifying the addition of ZigBee networking to a wide range of systems

First ZigBee PRO Feature Set stack, enabling truly scalable, robust, and reliable ZigBee networks

Ember has proven the ability to enable scalable AMI and AMR network solutions. The EmberZNet PRO stack implements important AMI-oriented enhancements, including advanced “deep sleep” modes that minimize power consumption for gas and water meter applications, where multi-year battery life is critical.

In addition to leading silicon and ZigBee stack software, Ember also provides the software and tools infrastructure to deliver complete, robust solutions quickly. This includes reliable over-the-air software updating, complete reference applications for AMI and Home Automation devices, industry leading development tools that speed system development, and manufacturing test library options that enable high-volume manufacturing.

 Smart Metering Protocols

Can 100M ZigBee Fans Be Wrong?

Shipments of chips based around the 802.15.4 standard will rise to 292 million units in 2012, way up from the seven million sold in 2007. (ZigBee  is based around 802.15.4) About one-third of the chips on the 802.15.4 protocol will be based around d a ZigBee stack, but that’s still nearly 100 million chips sold.

A leading driver of demand for these chips will be smart meters and sensors for home networks. With these home networks, electric meters will be able to turn down air conditioners or turn off the heater in dryers to save power.

EETimes  interview

ZigBee has great market opportunities, but only if the promise of extreme low cost and low power can be realized. For the target devices, battery lifespans are measured in years and the market won’t bear more than $1 or $2 per unit for the ZigBee controller and radio. A company can be successful in this market only by aggressively cutting costs in every area of design, engineering, and production.

WiMAX
This Energy Australia's WiMAX rollout article says:

Data will be collected over the last-mile via WiMAX-enabled substations which will connect to new upstream and downstream smart metering devices installed in homes and businesses.

A new 1000km fibre backbone, built over the last three years, will carry the data from the substations to 250 sites across the two states.

The fibre backbone replaced an aging copper network with upgradeable 1Gbps Virtual PrivateLAN Service (VPLS) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) layer 2 and 3.

Advanced Metering Infrastructure
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) refers to systems that measure, collect and analyse energy usage, from advanced devices such a selectricity meters, gas meters, and/or water meters, through various communication media on request or on a pre-defined schedule. This infrastructure includes hardware, software, communications, customer associated systems and meter data management (MDM) software.

The network between the measurement devices and business systems allows collection and distribution of information to customers, suppliers,utility companies and service providers. This enables these businesses to either participate in, or provide, demand response solutions, products and services. By providing information to customers, the system assists a change in energy usage from their normal consumption patterns, either in response to changes in price or as incentives designed to encourage lower energy usage use at times of peak-demand periods or higher wholesale prices or during periods of low operational systems reliability.

AMI "raises the bar" with regard to traditional Automatic meter reading (AMR) in that it enables two-way communications with the meter. Traditional systems which were only capable of meter readings don't qualify as AMI systems.

This MCE information paper lists the following Smart meter functionalities 

Communications interface – to allow a range of other devices (such as in-home displays and direct load control equipment) to access the communications network through the meter.

Remote load control – devices (such as airconditioners and pool pumps) could be turned on or off by the meter, either according to a remotely-settable time schedule or following a remote request through the communications network.

Export metering – the ability to measure electricity flowing out of customers' premises, supporting tariffs for distributed and embedded generation (such as cogeneration or solar).

Remote connect/disconnect – the ability for the electricity supply to be cut off and restored remotely. Combined with remote special reading this would allow for cases where there is a change of occupancy and there is a gap between the departure of the old occupant and the arrival of the new occupant.

Outage detection - to allow utilities to monitor the status of each meter - for example allowing utilities to test whether supply has been restored to each house before a truck leaves after a repair.

Meter tamper detection - to monitor whether the meter is accessed without authorisation, helping protect the physical meter asset and helping manage non-technical losses.

Remote time synchronisation - to keep the meter's internal clock accurate without requiring a site visit to check and adjust.

Quality of supply measurement and recording - to detect and record events such as outages, voltage spikes and voltage drops at each house or business.

The Victoria (Australia) 2009 smart meter roll-out will focus on four key services that will be of most benefit to consumers.

• Recording electricity used every half hour, so households can better monitor their energy use and cost;

• Meters read remotely, to help make bills more accurate, help retailers respond to customer enquiries better and distributors can more easily identify faults;

• Remotely connecting supply; and

• Remotely disconnecting supply, making it more convenient for people moving house.

Further Reading 

Smart Fridges

 The CSIRO report ‘Smart’ fridges stay cool by talking to each other says

CSIRO Engineer, Sam West, says the smart fridges work as a network of distributed fridges, each fitted with control technology that allows them to communicate with each other via a network to share and store the energy provided by renewable-power generators.

“The fridges are designed to talk to each other, negotiating when it’s a good time to consume electricity and when it’s better not to,” Mr West says. “These scheduling decisions improve the quality of electricity produced by renewables and can help increase renewable uptake in the energy market.”

During the day, for example, supplies of electricity generated from photovoltaics can be interrupted by cloud cover resulting in periods of variable power supply.

“The fridges are designed to talk to each other, negotiating when it’s a good time to consume electricity and when it’s better not to,”

Mr West says.

“These fluctuations are bad for the electricity grid,” Mr West says. “Rapid variations in electricity flow can destabilise the grid and result in blackouts and other unwanted side-effects, but your fridge can help smooth out these fluctuations if it turns on and off at the right time.

“The fridges work together to decide when to cool down, and thus consume power, based on how much surplus power will be available. They are able to anticipate power shortages and change their running schedules accordingly to use as little power as possible during these times. In short, the fridges are working cooperatively to use the available power supply efficiently.”

CSIRO have a broader research program called Smart agents : an intelligent way to manage and control energy

The distributed intelligent agent system gives individual consumers real-time information about their power demand and energy pricing during peaks; utilities are provided with a tool to arrange coordinated action by thousands of users.

The inter-connectivity of the intelligent agents provides global appliance supervision. The aggregated response of the agents can address higher order goals like matching consumer demand to intermittent renewable energy supply systems.

As a result, local generation and load control are made more attractive and beneficial as investment options for power generation companies.

Because power retailers are able to manage demand by aggregating consumer-level supply and demand, businesses can reduce their exposure to high wholesale electricity prices.

The project’s scientists see the typical application of this technology being in a number of commercial buildings and domestic residences where there are numerous energy loads and some local generation.

The Smart agents program is run by Dr Glenn Platt who is described as

Dr Platt is currently putting all of his research and management efforts into an Energy Transformed Flagship project that is investigating the application of intelligent agents into the management and control of distributed energy.

Dr Platt explains 'Distributed energy is the generation of electricity using small generation sources located close to the actual electrical loads, as well as more effective control of how electricity is actually used at the load itself.'

The Smart agents program is part of CSIRO's Flagship research into distributed energy which is described as having the following benefits

With a major asset investment required to meet the predicted growth in Australia’s energy demand, and increasing awareness of the environmental costs of our current power generation technologies, LEDE (Low Emission Distributed Energy systems, which use small scale stationary technology [producing less than 30MW] to provide local power, heat and cooling) offers the least cost, low CO2 option for electricity capacity growth.

It achieves this by providing energy (electricity, heat and cooling) and improved efficiency at the point of use in industrial, commercial and residential applications, avoiding the need for costly transmission and distribution network upgrades and new large centralised generation assets.

Widespread uptake of LEDE would supplement existing, large, remotely-located, base-load power stations and power delivery networks, assisting in overall green

LEDE systems provide energy at the point of use, avoiding the need for new large centralised assets and distribution network upgrades along with their associated emissions.

Some other energy load management products are

• Fujitsu AC Models with Presence Sensors
• Fridges Remotely-Controlled by Power Company 

See also

• Smart Metering 
• Einstein Refrigerator 
• CSIRO Solar (Heat-Powered) Cooling System 

Real-time Web Based Power Charting

From Jason Winters' Pico-Projects .

Very cool.

Mobile Phone Apps

This post has formating issues. A better formated version is here .

In a previous post I discussed mobile phone APIs>. In this post I will look at the most promising classes of mobile phone apps.

Mobile Barcodes

Mobile Barcodes Background

Mobile Barcodes in 2008

Mobile Barcode Patents

Introduction to 2D Barcodes

Google print ads

QR Barcode Detection

Android Scan

Android Zxing

QmCodes 

2D Barcode Reading Apps
UpCode 

Nokia 2D barcode scanner

UPC 2D barcode reader for mobile phones

Neo Media Neo Media Patents

AirClic

ScanBuy

3GVision

Apps that Use Barcode Readers

Shop Savvy 

T-Mobile G1 barcode reader 

Mobile Phone Ticketing

Masabi Mobile Barcode Tickets

Personal digital shopping assistants

Compare Everywhere

GoCart

Biometrics based authentication

BioWallet

Products that help discover structure in information

Mobile Phone Video

Capture Cam from Richmond, VIC, Australia

Japanese mobile phone users are doing Live Video feed via Piconet

Mobile Advertising

How to measure the value of mobile advertising

Dream Eye Media from Australia

Continuum Mobile

Location Based Social Networking

Services Companies

New Media Studios Entertainment. An infrastructure provider & content aggregator of demographic specific new media content. It has two current content related initiatives CiVision and emtyspace.

Mo-Style mobile portal and community.

Further Reading
Top 10 Android Apps in 2008

WiMax
WiMax vs. LTE 

2009 pundit's predictions

First Android Phone From HTC

The WSJ  says T-Mobile USA plans to begin selling the first smart phone powered by Google Inc.'s new mobile software late next month ... The phone's manufacturer, HTC Corp....  says it expects to ship 600,000 to 700,000 units of the smart phone, dubbed the Dream, this year... T-Mobile, a Deutsche Telekom AG unit, is expected to announce the phone Sept. 23 ...HTC, which is based in Taiwan and is a large provider of phones for Microsoft Corp.'s mobile software, declined to comment   

New Facebook Apps Architecture. New Opportunities to Monetize Social Networking?

Tech Crunch posts on facebook's new three tier app system and developers' need for certainty about the app platform.

I put foward some ideas for facebook apps in this post but I never got around to finishing my "How Long Are You Going to Stay Married" facebook app. This company beat me (and people who could actually carry this out) to it on using images for matching people but maybe there is a way to predict the length of marriage as a function of appearance, or people may want to know how likely their potential partners are to end up in jail .

You may be asking "Why predict what people will need? Why not just let them choose?". The reason is that in some cases it is difficult to do so. To para-phrase the Rolling Stones, You don't always know what you want but sometimes you just might find you can deduce what you need. Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases (and the related cognitive bias) enumerates some of the barriers to us understanding the world around us. The relatively straightforward objective measurements and statistical analyses proposed above and in the previous post can help people overcome these biases. Don't let Dunning Kruger effect stop you from exploring this!

Photo Sharing Website APIs. Why is Printing so Difficult?

Does everyone find it as annoying as I do that the big photo sharing websites don't have good printing interfaces, say Photoshop quality, and seem to be relying on pushing cusomters to photo printing companies for business. As a user of these sites, it seems to me that a lot user-value could be added in a straightforward way.

But first some background:

Comparison of Traffic on Photo-Sharing Sites

APIs
http://code.google.com/apis/picasaweb/developers_guide_protocol.html seems clean
http://www.flickr.com/services/api/
http://www.snapfish.com/
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Welcome.jsp
http://www.shutterfly.com/
Photo Sharing and Printing
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,127882/printable.html
http://gallery.menalto.com/node/954
Potential Back End
http://www.enomalism.com/features/next-generation/
Interface to Mobile Phones with Cameras
http://peterwilliams97.blogspot.com/search?q=mobile+phones


Potential Plugins
Printing to computer printers (instead of print shops)
Image filters
Image analysis
Photo organization
Making people more attractive which could also impact crime rates .
http://machine-learning.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-translation-flickr-api.html

Mobile Phone APIs

This is currently a collection of references. I will add some comments later.

References
Apple Reveals iPhone SDK
New Era of Open Source for Mobile Phones
Linux mobile
Lips (Linux Mobile)
Android (Google Mobile)
Yahoo Mobile

Android phone slide show

Further Reading

Print Ads 2D Barcodes

Print Ads Barcodes says "Google believes that technology can revolutionize traditional print advertising and make it even more useful for readers. This fits with our commitment to making advertising as useful as possible for the end user.

Recently, you may have seen newspaper ads for jewelry retailer Blue Nile placed through the Google Print Ads platform. These particular ads include a Google footer with multiple response mechanisms: URL, search terms, phone number, coupon code, SMS code, and 2D barcode. This test is part of our efforts to make print advertising more useful for readers and more measurable for advertisers. 2D barcodes are an especially exciting part of this because they allow readers to "click" on interesting print ads with their cellphones and seamlessly connect to
relevant online content."

Further Reading
Print Ads Home
Print Ads User Page (requires an AdSense account)

Monetizing Social Networking

This innovative use of social networking could have a short-term payoff. It turns out to be one of the few successes to date in making money from social networking. When I ran a straw poll on making money from social networking with some software engineers, wannabe entrepeneurs and friends, they all came up with essentially the same idea: Mining the users' personal details and finding some way to make them pay to keep this information confidential. This is outside the ethical bounds of this blog so I am forced to look elsewhere for this post.

Here are some ideas. Many social networks are forums for dating or job searching so an obvious angle is to provide tools that help users in these pursuits. The drawbacks to this approach are

• it is obvious so there will be many competitors
• people don't like to stalked by unwelcome suiters or harassed by recruiters

Possible solutions are to

1. Match people. Find compatible dating partners or employee/employer matches. This suffers from being obvious but it may be difficult enough to deter competitors
2. Help people be found by the type of people they want to find them. This is a variation on 1.
3. Lower people's resistance to being matched.

Anatomy of a Relationship
Relationships with spouses, friends, employers and employees are equilibrium states. Relationships are likely to persist because of

1. Emotional attachment to current partner *
2. Financial cost of breaking relationship *
3. Irrational fear of change
4. Rational risk of change. This includes limited ability to evaluate the new partner
5. Difficulty of finding a new partner
6. Cost of learning the skills needed for the new partnership
7. Inablity to be productive while learning
8. (Current) lack of suitable partners
9. Inability to find a good match
10. Cost of relocation

Some people are not in relationships. The main groups are single people searching for partners and unemployed people searching for jobs. The * items do not apply to these groups
Helping people find partners = finding a partner for whom these barriers are low
Matching partners = is finding pair for whom these barriers are mutually low. It is not clear what mutually low means yet.
Lowering resistance to change = lowering a subset of these barriers.

Bad Strategies

1. Trying to appear what one is not. Copying other people's witty profiles, faking work history and qualifications are strategies that suffer from being easy to replicate, focusing on the means (getting a date/interview) rather the end (getting a sustainable relationship/job) and high risk/reward ratio.
2. Dating/job search advice. Many companies already provide these services. This can also suffer from focusing on the means rather than the end.
3. Competitive analysis. Competition is not the main driving force in the creation of relationships though we tend to focus on it. Monogamy, trust and reliability dominate the relationship sphere. Any winning strategy must embrace these forces.

Remaining Strategies

1. Apply actuarial prediction to people's profiles and social graphs to reveal things about them that they do not know themselves. Use these predictions to provide the matching and introductions services that are currently based on raw profile data. The tools listed on Ian Ayers' web site give an indication of what can be predicted. E.g. Probability of divorce on a given year, income 10 years from now, date of death.
2. Use the stategies from 1 for predictive health care maintenance. Monitor user data to predict disease and injury.
   

REFERENCES
Social Networking Usage
http://blog.compete.com/2007/09/14/facebook-activity-breakdown-application/
http://valleywag.com/tech/advertising/facebook-consistently-the-worst-performing-site-242234.php

Information Mining - The Social Graph

My Way Business The Social Graph: Issues and Strategies in 2008 is an enlightening overview of the social graph.

http://apps.facebook.com/socialistics/ attempts to map social graphs in facebook. When I ran it on myself http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504949372&hiq=peter%2Cwilliams it did not reveal any insights I was not currently aware of. Whether this was due to the weakness analytics in the app or the lack of information in facebook links or my own lack of ability at using the app was not clear.

8598th most popular website in the world and growing fast!

http://www.quantcast.com/spock.com

Quantcast says:

Spock.com is a top 10,000 site that reaches over 300K U.S. monthly uniques. The site attracts a more educated, primarily older, fairly wealthy, more male group.The typical visitor reads celebritywonder.com and visits allmoviephoto.com.