iphone – Page 4 – DECISION STATS

Google AppInventor -Android and Business Intelligence

Here is a great new tool for techies to start creating Android Apps right away- even if you have no knowledge of the platform. Of course there are existing great number of apps- including my favorite Android Data Mining App in R – called AnalyticDroid http://analyticdroid.togaware.com/

Basically it calls the Rattle (R Analytical Tool To Learn Easily) Data Mining GUI -enabling data mining from an Android Mobile using remote computing.

I dont know if any other statistical application is available on Android Mobiles- though SAS did have a presentation on using SAS on IPhone

http://www.wuss.org/proceedings09/09WUSSProceedings/papers/dpr/DPR-Truong.pdf

SAS Mobile -Iphone App

All you need to do is go to http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/index.html and request access (yes there is a 2 week approval waiting line)

Because App Inventor provides access to a GPS-location sensor, you can build apps that know where you are. You can build an app to help you remember where you parked your car, an app that shows the location of your friends or colleagues at a concert or conference, or your own custom tour app of your school, workplace, or a museum.

You can write apps that use the phone features of an Android phone. You can write an app that periodically texts “missing you” to your loved ones, or an app “No Text While Driving” that responds to all texts automatically with “sorry, I’m driving and will contact you later”. You can even have the app read the incoming texts aloud to you (though this might lure you into responding).

App Inventor provides a way for you to communicate with the web. If you know how to write web apps, you can use App Inventor to write Android apps that talk to your favorite web sites, such as Amazon and Twitter.

Here is a not so statistical Android App I am trying to create called Hang-Out

using the current GPS location of your phone to find nearest Pub, Movie or Diner and catch Bus- Train based on your location city, the GPS and time of request and schedule of those cities public transport- very much WIP

Open Source and Software Strategy

Curt Monash at Monash Research pointed out some ongoing open source GPL issues for WordPress and the Thesis issue (Also see http://ma.tt/2009/04/oracle-and-open-source/ and http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/switching-things-around/).

As a user of both going upwards of 2 years- I believe open source and GPL license enforcement are general parts of software strategy of most software companies nowadays. Some thoughts on open source and software strategy-Thesis remains a very very popular theme and has earned upwards of 100,000 $ for its creator (estimate based on 20k plus installs and 60$ avg price)

Little guys like to give away code to get some satisfaction/ recognition, big guys give away free code only when its necessary or when they are not making money in that product segment anyway.
As Ethan Hunt said, ” Every Hero needs a Villian”. Every software (market share) war between players needs One Big Company Holding more market share and Open Source Strategy between other player who is not able to create in house code, so effectively out sources by creating open source project. But same open source propent rarely gives away the secret to its own money making project.
- Examples- Google creates open source Android, but wont reveal its secret algorithm for search which drives its main profits,
- Google again puts a paper for MapReduce but it’s Yahoo that champions Hadoop,
- Apple creates open source projects (http://www.apple.com/opensource/) but wont give away its Operating Source codes (why?) which help people buys its more expensive hardware,
- IBM who helped kickstart the whole proprietary code thing (remember MS DOS) is the new champion of open source (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/) and
- Microsoft continues to spark open source debate but read http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2010/07/02/a-perspective-on-openness.aspx and also http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/
- SAS gives away a lot of open source code (Read Jim Davis , CMO SAS here , but will stick to Base SAS code (even though it seems to be making more money by verticals focus and data mining).
- SPSS was the first big analytics company that helps supports R (open source stats software) but will cling to its own code on its softwares.
- WordPress.org gives away its software (and I like Akismet just as well as blogging) for open source, but hey as anyone who is on WordPress.com knows how locked in you can get by its (pricy) platform.
- Vendor Lock-in (wink wink price escalation) is the elephant in the room for Big Software Proprietary Companies.
- SLA Quality, Maintenance and IP safety is the uh-oh for going in for open source software mostly.
Lack of IP protection for revenue models for open source code is the big bottleneck for a lot of companies- as very few software users know what to do with source code if you give it to them anyways.
- If companies were confident that they would still be earning same revenue and there would be less leakage or theft, they would gladly give away the source code.
- Derivative softwares or extensions help popularize the original softwares.
  - Half Way Steps like Facebook Applications the original big company to create a platform for third party creators),
  - IPhone Apps and Android Applications show success of creating APIs to help protect IP and software control while still giving some freedom to developers or alternate
  - User Interfaces to R in both SAS/IML and JMP is a similar example
Basically open source is mostly done by under dog while top dog mostly rakes in money ( and envy)
There is yet to a big commercial success in open source software, though they are very good open source softwares. Just as Google’s success helped establish advertising as an alternate ( and now dominant) revenue source for online companies , Open Source needs a big example of a company that made billions while giving source code away and still retaining control and direction of software strategy.
Open source people love to hate proprietary packages, yet there are more shades of grey (than black and white) and hypocrisy (read lies) within the open source software movement than the regulated world of big software. People will be still people. Software is just a piece of code. 😉

(Art citation-http://gapingvoid.com/about/ and http://gapingvoidgallery.com/

New Year Resolution Presentation

Here is a short clip I made using two softwares-

1) Prezi Desktop

This is an innovative single slide way of creating macromedia presentations. Recommended for offbeat new look presentations.

2) Xvidcap screencapture- For capturing and creating a video based on screen capture. This is the Linux Version of Camtasia- there is only one drawback the default rate is a bit fast- so audio and frame capture settings in a multi frame need to be tweaked.

3) I Phone- For Photography- It’s still the handiest camera around.

(Note- The Collage and Presentation are works of fiction)

WHAT I DID IN 2009 THAT I DONT WANT TO DO IN 2010

and here is a more offbeat version

Using Ipod and Iphone with your Ubuntu Laptop

If you love your Apple iPhone / iPod, the latest release of Ubuntu from Canonical called Karmic Koala ( the counter part to Microsoft’s Windows 7) is totally compatible for USB connection

If you love your Apple iPhone / iPod, the latest release of Ubuntu from Canonical called Karmic Koala ( the counter part to Microsoft’s Windows 7) is totally compatible for USB connection.

Ubuntu uses Rhythmbox for playing songs and uses FSpot and Gimp for images. The audio quality is excellent ( even if you are using very old hardware like I do) and Gimp is the best image manipulation software -comparable to ones from Adobe- intuitive and easy.

The declining market for Telecommunication Churn Models

[tweetmeme=”decisionstats”]

Users of Predictive Analytics within telecom sector can look into an interesting side effect of the iPhone – AT &T agreement. With Google also jumping into the market with it’s Droid – the new norms in Telecom agreements is lockedin contracts for consumers. While this is permitted by the telecom regulators as fair to competition- this also means that there is very little churn within these locked in contracts. This leads to further savings for the telecom provider allowing them to have higher profits and even share the profits by price decreases-

and thus the traditional bug bear of telecom analytics churn modeling is slowly losing importance to plain vanilla reporting or better data mining dashboard like solutions. Lower Churn , means also lower costs on analytics softwares to predict churn.

As competition within the 3G Mobile market ramps up due to Google’s entry and licensing with partners exclusively- the trend will likely increase for reduced churn due to locked in customers.Even existing mobile providers can offer discounts to lock in customers for not switching ( especially in Mobile Markets like India- where I have personally interacted with large players like Bharti) and China which has even bigger mobile market.

Ergo Lower need to buy softwares that predict churn-

See Below Image from TeraData’s Churn Model.

10 iPhone Apps you can actually use ( and dont have to pay for)

Having come lately to the Apple party, here is my contribution. Click the images to see the download links-

You can view the whole Iphone Apps at Apple as well here-

Navigating lots of iPhone apps can give you lots of fun sometimes wasting time but that’s the way it is.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-iphone/

10 iPhone Apps I actually use ( and dont pay for)

1) Skype

The cheapest ( almost) VoIp to call India using my iPhone ( note most university campuses have extensive Wi Fi)

Download the iPhone App and then sign into Skype from any WiFi zone and reach friends and family free with Skype-to-Skype calls.

2) Yahoo Messenger – Almost the same as Skype but better in messaging and not so great in Voice.

Alerts you when a new IM arrives, even if you’re not in the app.

http://messenger.yahoo.com/platform/iphone/

3) NY Times – For News reading

Good Nifty features, is faster than the Web Site ( loading on ATT 3g sigh!)

Offline reading – access The Times’ sections and articles to read on and offline

Simple navigation – view pictures and articles quickly

Photo view – browse the news in pictures and link to the related articles

Customize your display by selecting your four favorite news categories

http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/iphone.html

4) Tweet Deck on iPhone

If you thought tweeting wastes too much time, here is the app for you

Tweet directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Manage multiple Twitter accounts.

View notifications for new tweets received.

Use columns to create your personal dashboard.

Simply sync to set-up

Continuously updates between your desktop and iPhone.

Create Groups to easily follow all your friends.

Follow topics in real-time with saved searches.

Reply to tweets and send direct messages.

Easily re-tweet messages.

Share photos with Twitpic and YFrog.

Shorten links with your favourite URL shortener.

Follow and un-follow people.

Shake your iPhone to refresh columns.

5) Pandora- Music for Nothing that means free music streaming on 3G.

Pandora Radio is your own FREE personalized radio now available to stream music on your iPhone. Just start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a “station” that plays their music and more music like it

6) TextPlus – for free SMS

Group text conversations

Text with several friends, all at once. Everyone in the group gets every message. It’s like an instant chatroom in text!

7) Battery Magic- helps you take notes on when to charge the Iphone ( an inevitabl and alas necessary function)

8) Alarm Clock Free- Much better free alarm clock

http://www.apptism.com/apps/alarm-clock-free

9) Maps + Compass

Very very useful when travelling to a new city. Effectively a GPS for your car as well.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/maps-compass.html

Note –

10) Facebook for iPhone- It is the best way to share photos actually with your friends

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6628568379

10 +

A website called Apptism currently tracks 94,000 IPhone apps in case you want to explore more.

You can see it here it is quite nice and nifty-

http://www.apptism.com/

Screenshot-14

Hope that helps-

	Because App Inventor provides access to a GPS-location sensor, you can build apps that know where you are. You can build an app to help you remember where you parked your car, an app that shows the location of your friends or colleagues at a concert or conference, or your own custom tour app of your school, workplace, or a museum.
	You can write apps that use the phone features of an Android phone. You can write an app that periodically texts “missing you” to your loved ones, or an app “No Text While Driving” that responds to all texts automatically with “sorry, I’m driving and will contact you later”. You can even have the app read the incoming texts aloud to you (though this might lure you into responding).
	App Inventor provides a way for you to communicate with the web. If you know how to write web apps, you can use App Inventor to write Android apps that talk to your favorite web sites, such as Amazon and Twitter.

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Group text conversations

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