Falling in love with RIA

RIA is not the name of my girl friend..even if it is I wouldn’t blog about her..as my wife is watching me this blog Rich Internet Applications (RIA) is the new avatar of what we used to do sometime back using Applets and then later Java Web Start..RIA provides a rich user interface platform on web…Java FX, Flex, Silverlight are all on race to get their share in this world. We did try doing this using Flash long time back..where the whole web application was done as a Flash embedded into a web page…I wondered how is RIA different from what we have been trying to do? ..I googled, downloaded a few APIs..tried them…most of the material I could find were marketing and hyped..I did not really buy into RIA…I wondered how is it that I am not able to accept this technology…The mind block I had was..I always was trying to compare RIA with flash, applet, etc…that was the problem…it took sometime for me to realize that RIA has evolved over these technologies and RIA is just a name coined for such applications…and starting from this..RIA offers a lot more focused direction towards offering some of the features like prefetching of data, working offline (Google gears)..and all the advantages that Webstart gave us..like versioning, cross platform etc…On top of all this..security is one another focus area of RIA.

So I downloaded Netbeans and Java FX to get a feel of this (try this out http://www.javafx.com/)…The concept of Common profile is pretty intresting…this means build the UI and u should be able to view it in any device (desktop or mobile)..and the widgets..imagine..u find a widget..lets say a calendar..on your web page..and u would love to have it on your desktop..u just need to drag and drop that widget onto your desktop…isn’t that cool?..there are lot of such features..which are cool…I can go on..but I just got started..so will post more as I find more.

To get a feel of what I am talking about..go to http://www.javafx.com/learn/training.jsp

Now coming back to the questions that are running in my mind..on one side we are looking at stratedization by moving towards XML, Webservices, SOA etc…on the other hand we are creating new platforms for RIA I know these platforms come free of cost as a plugin to my browser…but then I am not that comfortable having to install so many plugins on my browser…why can’t be there a common RIA standard or something…and a common runtime for RIA applications…while Adobe, Java & Microsoft can restrict the RIA at the IDE??..but I am falling in love with RIA…:-) and even my wife cannot stop it

11-Aug-2009

Check this out people

Humans can be Gods who take Avatars – Virtual World & Automotive..

Here are some of the thoughts that go through my mind, when I walk down the second life World. The Evolution of gaming from desktop gaming to MMORPG (Multi Media Online Role Playing Game) to Virtual World on the internet is going to change the way we think of the user interface. e-Commerce will be moved to a 3D, virtual world. There will be a new breed of applications running in 3D virtual world applications, which will provide a better user experience. In the context of Automotive the following are some of the directions that I could think of.

For the Customers

Virtual Dealer Shops

The customer can walk into a virtual shop that exists in the virtual world, go around the shop, look at the various models, interact with an online sales “avatar” person, get the details of the car, and provide the customer details for follow-ups. The customer can also take a virtual vehicle for a test drive. This virtual vehicle can replicate the look and feel of exterior and interior furnishings of the model. This provides a better user experience than the customer visiting the vehicle websites, and going through the catalogs. Also dealers can leverage global resources as their sales person to man the shop on 24 hours basis.

Vehicle Shopping: variants and comparison.

The limitation of physical space in a real life shop limits how many variants of a vehicle can be displayed to the customer. Virtual worlds can solve this problem as the customer can instantiate any number of variants and compare them in real-life like setup before choosing. The final choices can be submitted to the e-commerce site for follow-up.

Vehicle Shopping: Custom modelling

The customer can also build his/her own model with the available options virtually in the shop, and get a 3D look of the vehicle that was configured. The customer can then provide the details for further followups. This provides a better way of implementing the existing custom-build vehicle configuration, eCommerce sites.

For the OEM

Vehicle Model/Design Visualization

Before the model is launched the OEM can feed in the software model/design of the vehicle on to the virtual world and provide a showcase for its stakeholders, customers to get the feedback, before it can invest on that model.

Process Simulation (Work In Progress etc)

OEMs can use the virtual world software as a simulation of the existing world for business process optimization, before actually implementing those processes. For example, an OEM can look at shop-floor layout planning on the virtual world, before actually implementing. It can use this simulation for discussions, brain-storming..and “Wiki”.

Dealer Parts Inventory Management

Dealers can use virtual world software (may be loaded onto a Pervasive Device) to locate the parts in a store.

Ofcourse there are lot of other ideas…Its quite exciting…I have started learning linden…I have already taken the avatar let me see if this avatar is of any help to the community

Clouds are coming..

Clouds is catching up and that is what the customers want..why do u want ur customers to buy a complete powerhouse..to get power?? they shud be able to pull in power from the lines and shud pay only for the power that they consumed..Utility computing + SAAS+ HAAS + Visualization = Cloud Computing. I am loving this concept and if I am customer that is what I would want..now who ever catches up with this cloud computing and provides services on cloud are going to be the winner!!!..now what about the Integration with ur Enterprise Systems?? what will u do with ur existing applications?? how can I customize the generic services that is there on Cloud?? can I just move everything onto a cloud and just buy a net-books and be happy??..these are some questions..that need serious thinking and answers..but I am sure they all will be solved sooner or later…I am personally excited with clouds …and started thinking cloud for everything..thanks to IBM there is a cloud sandbox in the intranet, where I can do some experiments…and thanks to google apps…I wish I had all the time in the world to focus on this thing…and sit in the back office and see how the Infrastructure would look like for a cloud…instead of being just another application developer on the cloud