The need for technology

I've been thinking on how technology, particularly software, has been satisfying the basic human needs and what areas hold potential for further developments.

1. The need for certainty and security - usually involves basic surviving needs (food, shelter, clothes, etc). Since lots of people drive their security from a steady job or income, anything that can help them do their job better would satisfy this need. No wonder that business software has such success. In the same category would also go tools for managing personal finances and finding investment opportunities.

2. The need for uncertainty, adventure, novelty. This area is mostly satisfied by entertainment applications (games, media distribution/consumption) and e-commerce promoting travel and adventure.

3. The need for uniqueness, appreciation and social proof. This can explain the success of services that allow users to create content and claim ownership and enhance status (blogs, media sites, discussion groups).

4. The need for community, belongging and intimacy is covered by participating in social networks, dating services, etc.

5. The need for growth and learning is met by online education and news feeds. This is probably the area that's currently best served by the avalanche of information that can be accessed online. The challenge is how to filter that based on individual interests.

6. The need to contribute and make the world a better place. This could explain the widespread of open-source projects and people contributing their expertise without immediate payoff. The web also helps spread awareness about worthy innitiatives in need of resources.

privacy with Google

Many people are using Google applications like Gmail, Docs and Calendar to store and transmit confidential information. However many are not aware that using such apps over networks that are routinely monitored (e.g. your employer's network) may expose that information.

That's because by default people use the plain "http" URI scheme when accessing Google's apps. As a result the information between your browser and Google's server flows in clear.

A straightforward solution is to use the "https" scheme, which results in the same information flowing encrypted using SSL/TLS, providing much better security.

I tried some of the apps I use and it works well (e.g. https://www.gmail.com, https://docs.google.com, https://www.google.com/calendar)

iPhone mania

With a few days away from the official launch, it's interesting to see how iPhone will fare in the marketplace. I'm expecting to see a well-thought usable UI and seamless integration with other applications like iTunes. Following the good tradition of Apple, everything is just going to work, right off the box.

One thing I'm not sure is the overall robustness of the operating system. Retrofitting OSs that were designed to run on a desktop for use in an embedded environment, with scarce resources, so far produced mediocre results. Contrast that with an OS like Symbian, built from ground-up with the ability to gracefully handle exceptions common in the embedded environments. One interesting metric to look for will be the average time between reboots.

Will the users care about reboots ? As the line between the phone (thus far perceived as a robust device) and the computer blurs, it remains to be seen.