Glassouse, let your head control mouse or trackpad

The new wearable device, Glassouse, turns your head into a mouse or trackpad. The device is designed for those who can not use hans for any reason. It connects through bluetooth to your computer and move mouse curser with your head movements. Glassouse has a clicker that is placed between your lips or teeth. You click the mouse biting the clicker or pressing it with your lips. Its rechargeable battery can last up to ten days of use with single charge. Glassouse is compatible with various operating systems such as windows, OS X, Linux, Android and Apple handheld devices.

    For more information:  http://glassouse.com/

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How do I set bilingual or multilingual Wordpress?

Here is another way of doing bilingual or multilingual blog using Wordpress (wp). This method is easier compared to the bilingual blogger building, the one I explained years ago in this blog.

Let’s plan our objective as an example. It’s so simple.

We will have a site with Wordpress hosting both in English and Spanish.

First, you must register for your selected domain name. After registration you should have a domain hosting service. I will not explain how to register and get a domain hosting service, which I presume you already have one. If you don’t have a domain name and domain hosting, you will find hundreds of them if you google it.

Select your domain name for English site. Let say your domain is www.myabcdomain.com  

This will be your main domain name. Let’s presume this domain (main domain) will work in English.

Now you should have a subdomain for Spanish site under your main domain name. Your subdomain name for Spanish site will be

esp.mydomain.com

If you want a third language domain for German, you can generate another subdomain that will work in German as

ger.mydomain.com  

Please note that each subdomain must have a separate wordpress instance installed on your hosting service.

Thus here are your domain and subdomains

www.myabcdomain.com  (domain)

esp.myabcdomain.dom     (sub domain)

ger.myabcdomain.com      (sub domain)

Then login to your hosting service.

Prepare your wordpress hosting environment (same template) separately for all your domain and subdomains. You will have three wordpress installation in same template and same picture content but will be in different language texts  accordingly.

After creating your wp site to your domain.

Login as wp admin

Go to Appearance then menu from the left side bar as seen in the picture.

In the coming page, click on the link “create a new menu”

Select a menu name. Let say “Languages”

Now your menu structure is ready which will be shown in the main page of your website upper corner depending on your word press template.

Now we need to add menu items for English, Spanish, German etc.

Select “Custom links”  item

URL  : http://www.myabcdomain.com

Link Text:  English

Click Add to Menu

URL  : http://esp.myabcdomain.com

Link Text:  Espanol

Click Add to Menu

URL  : http://ger.myabcdomain.com

Link Text:  Deutsch

Click Add to Menu

Check “Primary Menu” in the theme locations as seen in the picture on the right hand side.

Finally don’t forget to click Save Manu button when you finish all.

Thus your menu will be ready mostly in up right corner of your site for www.myabcdomain.com 

Now you should do the same for each subdomain. Login as wp admin in your subdomain esp.mydomain.com  and repeat the same steps starting from "Login as wp admin" till here.

At the end you will have 3 wp instances installed on your hosting account. You will pay one domain hosting. Subdomains are free. But you should make 3 instances of your site in 3 different languages or more.

I hope it helps. It is easy way of handling multilingual or bilingual websites with Wordpress.
If you have an intent to do it with blogger instead of Wordpress, Please check my other post How to bilingual or multilingual with blogger.

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How To Identify Big Data

Let me start by describing the amount of daily data generated by human. Every day, 2,5 quintillion (10¹⁸) bytes of data are created. This means 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years [1]. Some estimates for the data growth are as high as 50 times by the year 2020 [1].


The term “Big Data” is widely used about the amount of data by business professionals. Every organization believes that the world is spinning around them. They mostly believe their customer database or data warehouse is “Big data”.  Because the amount of data that is stored in their database is increasing every day, maybe double or triple in a short while. This increase in the amount of customer’s data pushes them to think their data is “Big Data”. Lately there has been popular saying such as “X organization’s Big Data” particularly in Turkish. Even if people presumes “Big Data” as the indicator of size of the data, I recommend them to compare size of an organization’s data, and daily-generated data which is not comparable.

Ask a dozen CIOs to define big data, and you'll likely get a dozen different responses, Gartner analyst Mark Beyer says.

According to a study done by IBM and Oxford University [2] has proved that, much of the confusion about big data begins with the definition itself. Respondents were asked to choose up to two descriptions about how their organizations view big data from the choices in Figure below. No single characteristics dominating among the choices.

Considering the chaos in the definition of “Big Data” by people, I wanted to give some scientifically accepted definitions and bust the myths about Big Data.

“Big Data” is not about the amount of data. Stop looking for a standard size of Big Data, because there is not one standard data size. Even if there had been a standard size to define “big data”, then it would change rapidly. Hence standard data size is not an identifier for Big Data neither today nor tomorrow.

Big Data is a term applied to “data sets” whose size is beyond the capability of commonly used software tools to capture, manage, and process [3]. I’m sure most of the enterprises are using off the shelf, common software tools to capture, manage and process their data. Considering just size parameter, if this is the case, then they are not dealing with big data.

As far back 2001, there's the classic definition of Big Data with 3V model -- high volume, high variety and high velocity as shown in Figure.



Volume: The amount of data. Perhaps the characteristic most associated with big data, volume refers to the mass quantities of data that organizations are trying to harness to improve decision-making across the enterprise. Data volumes continue to increase at an unprecedented rate. There is no standard data volume. If the volume of data you’re looking at is an order of magnitude or larger than anything previously encountered in your industry, then you’re probably dealing with Big Data. However, “high” volume is not smaller than the Petabytes (10¹⁵ bytes) and Zetabytes (10²¹ bytes) often referenced today.

Variety: Different types of data and data sources. Variety is about managing the complexity of multiple data types, including structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. Organizations need to integrate and analyze data from within and outside the enterprise. With the explosion of sensors, smart devices and social collaboration technologies, data is being generated in countless forms, including: text, web data, tweets, sensor data, geographic location, audio, video, click streams, log files and more.

Velocity: Data in motion. The speed at which data is created, processed and analyzed continues to accelerate. Higher velocity is the real-time nature of data creation, as well as incorporates streaming data into business processes and decision-making. Velocity impacts latency – the lag time between when data is created or captured, and when it is accessible. Today, data is continually being generated at a pace that is impossible for traditional systems to capture, store and analyze. For time-sensitive processes such as real-time fraud detection or multi-channel “instant” marketing, certain types of data must be analyzed in real time to be of value to the business. An example of instant marketing, some kind of discount offer to a customer based on their location is less likely to be successful if they have already walked some distance past the store.

This figure shows the changes in dimensions with the time in big data. As years pass, Data volume goes from GB to PB, Data velocity from batch processing to Real time processing, data variety from text tables to video or social data. 








Today, “Big Data” is increasingly being defined by the 4 Vs.  

Veracity (4th V) that refers Data uncertainty. Veracity refers to the level of reliability associated with certain types of data. Some data is inherently uncertain, for example: sentiment and truthfulness in humans; weather conditions; economic factors; and the future. Despite uncertainty, the data still contains valuable information. Just ignoring it, can create even more problems than the uncertainty itself. In the era of big data, executives will need to approach the dimension of uncertainty differently.

Let me conclude my words with the following summary. I believe this will guide for those who has the tendency to use the term “Big Data” in their sentences to refer high sized database incorrectly.

• Big Data is not all about the data size. Data size is just one parameter to identify Big Data. 
• In addition to Volume parameter, Variety, Velocity and Veracity (uncertainty) must be in the nature of “Big Data”.
• There is no standard data size for Big Data. But one should consider the volume of data to be larger than anything previously encountered in your industry such as around petabytes (10¹⁵ bytes) to zetabytes (10²¹ bytes) today.
• Big Data needs to be processed to support decision-making.
• Big Data should include data sets such as text, web data, tweets, sensor data, geographic location, audio, video, click streams (such as likes), log files and more.
• Big Data cannot be captured, managed, and processed by commonly used software tools.

In the cases where the indicators above are not taking place, it is misuse of “Big Data” term to identify the data set.

Regerences:

1. Performance and Capacity Implications for Big Data, IBM Red Paper,  January 2014.
2. Analytics: The real-world use of big data, IBM Institute for business value-Said Business School, Oxford University, 2012.
3. Information Management and Big Data A Reference Architecture, Oracle white paper, February 2013.

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What are the implications of Employee Engagement and how it drives growth in Organizations?

Gallup Inc. reviewed more than 25 million responses in a survey for the employee engagement between 2010-2012. This survey took place in 189 different countries, 69 languages. The questionnaire based on famous 12 questions for measuring employee engagement.

Gallup’s research showed that only 30% of employees are engaged. Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.

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An Innovative camera with DSLR Specs: Samsung NX300

If you are ready to change your habits on DSLRs, without loosing main features such as interchangeable lens, classical 18-55, 50-200 kit lens, various other lenses options, APS-C sensor, high ISO etc.;

If you are looking for a technology adaptable DSLR, with social media and email integration, NFC, GPS location, digital image processing, digital filter, digital zoom, 3D, panorama capture etc.

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Are Bluetooth headsets harmful?

As the number of mobile phone users grows, cell phones' impact on human life and health is ever more of a concern. On the other hand, cell phones provide us with the most convenient form of daily distance communication in human history. Growing usage of mobile phones let us direct contact to the device, for long time. There is no possible way of leaving cellular phones or drop them in modern life. We have moved to a new era of wearing mobile and particularly Smart Phones and to use it not only voice but also for internet too.

Mobile phones and, Bluetooth headsets that use radio waves as transceivers. Radio frequencies that carry the energy, give rise to changes in cell structure of human body. Cancer is also a disease result of changes in the structure of body cells. The report released by the World Health Organization (WHO)/ International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in year 2011 had revealed that radiation transmitted by mobile phone is potentially carcinogenic to human. It indicates that malignant type of brain cancer associated with wireless mobile phone use. The report also indicates a solution to decrease the potential risk by using the Bluetooth hands free devices to lower the radiation exposure.

SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) is an indication of the amount of radiation that is absorbed by a unit of mass of tissue of a person. In other words, SAR is the value of amount of radiation absorbed into a head whilst using cellular phone. Bigger SAR values are more harmful to the body.

Bluetooth headset's effect to human body is very small compared with the rate of cellular phones. Bluetooth transmitter and receiver run efficiently at distances of less than 10 meters. Cell phone base station antenna communicates with cellular phone hundreds of meters away. Comparing the distances of both wireless communications can make, mobile phones need more powerful radio waves to reach the base station antenna in longer distance. That means Bluetooth headsets need less powered radio wave energy to reach the base within 10 meters.

The Blackberry 9700's SAR value is 1.36 W/kg, while a Bluetooth headset, depending on brand and model, ranged from 0.001 W/kg to 0.01 W/kg. So Bluetooth headsets are 100 to 1000 times less harmful compared to cellular phones. According to a study from Jabra Bluetooth headsets is 800 times lesser radiation than mobile phones. As the report from WHO indicated to use the Bluetooth hands free devices are essential to cut the risk of cancer.

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Colourful world of Pentax K-50 for professional users who wants waterproof DSLR.

Pentax, my favourite camera manufacturer, coloured world of DSLR consumers. DSLR manufacturers of different brands have coloured their DSLR cameras as black for many years. Consumers had no other colour option to buy. Pentax has been the pioneer of colouring DSLR with its K-30 model. Pentax K-30 had 3 colours as white, blue and black.










But Pentax K-50 has 120 colour combinations. Red, White and Black is the most available colours in the market while the other colour combinations mostly needs pre-order. But if you really want to create your own style, it worth to pre order and wait for a while.

Pentax mid size or compact size DSLR series started with K-x and continued with K-r, K-30, K-500 and K-50. Definitely K-50 is the most advanced and most capable of these series. Technical specs are close but with some difference. Main futures and main elements are not changed much. It seems that it satisfies the consumers. No need more pixels but weather and dust resistance in mid level DSLRs is really great value.
Articulating screen would be helpful for users but I believe it will not be that easy for weather sealed cameras.
For more features about Pentax K-50 Please check the link.

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User’s Perception for Intelligent Phones.

A personal observation on Iphone 5 (Ios) vs Galaxy 4 (Android)

  

Mobile phones evolved in couple of years. They are larger, faster, that means more processing power, and more applications are available for users. Definitely they are more computer than phone. Their processing power enables more complex application and artificial Intelligence to be used in daily life. This evolution enables more intuitive usage on mobile. Human interfaces started to be natural, such as speaker independent natural speech recognition, speech to text or text to speech conversion, or face recognition etc. We carry whole web in our pocket, google search can be performed with speaker independent speech as well as dialing.  Computer, radio, TV, web, camera, calculator, word processor, spread sheet and many dizzier technologies are all in one box. But natural man-machine interface always has been intuitive and appealing for the users. Short cuts and easy buttons can not replace natural interfaces.

Technology is evolving and placing itself in the daily equipment. Two major operating systems are available. Ios by Apple and Android by many others include Samsung. Common operating system enable more application to be placed in phone hardware very fast.

Apple was very innovative with Iphone features before Android’s domination in the phone market. Iphone 4, 4s has been a phenomenon for consumers with available features. Iphone 5 did not add much to existing features, thus didn’t generate a great impact on consumers. Meanwhile, Android phones have added more to their portfolio. Let say “Siri” of Iphone, as the natural interface was successful for English and some other popular languages. But I haven’t heard any local language adaptation of it. So what I can say Iphone is designed for USA and some EU market and could not localized itself for other market’s consumers. Maybe this was the impact of absence of Steve Jobs or Apple strategy is missing something in global market trends and “glocal” needs.   

I observe a challenge for those who wish to replace his/her phone in these days. Samsung and Apple substantially share market with their flagships Galaxy S4 and Iphone 5.  Diversity of Samsung models is covering for many users’ needs in different segments while android applications are fulfilling several needs for them. Samsung’s innovative technology such as hardware radio application, speaker independent speech to text conversion for local language, cut, copy, paste, handwriting to text conversion, face detection to play and pause video, camera settings for photographers, step counter without any sensor are attractive widgets for users.  All of them seem complicated but at least some of these features are for you to ease or enhance of your life.

Apple’s operating system with available applications is behind of all these features in these days. Iphone’s hardware is just one block that cannot be expanded. When you buy it with 16GB, you have no chance of expanding memory capacity with additional memory that is available in many phone models.

Apple seems to be slow in delivering technology and application while its competitors are providing diversified solutions for different user segments. Definitely, Android, as a common platform and seemingly with more software developers, is going to beat Ios world.

I see a parallelism with old Symbian operation system that is supported by Nokia years ago and today’s Apple Ios. After Nokia lost market share, company replaced its phone operating system and stared to use more common platform, Windows mobile. Today’s consumers are waiting for Ios 7 and Iphone 5s/6 or whatever they call it. If this move is not a satisfactory one compared to Android competitors, then Iphone is going to loose more market share. This might let Apple to back off from phone business line or to move to another platform such as Android.

We will wait and see.

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