Wow! This could possibly be used replacement for breadboard+wires for trying out circuits i.e. almost like you can create PCB on a plastic circuit by using this instead of copper.
It once cropped up for seemingly simple everyday problem that I will describe here:
When I was still a graduate student (1980's), I was helping out some local businesses. There was a need to print a lot of receipts, and these receipts would be of some size, measured in number of lines. Say 10, 35, 20, 5, 12 etc. The paper size would be about 60 lines.
And then, we thought we should reduce the number of papers actually consumed for printing, by fitting as many receipts in single paper (We had cheap manpower to cut the pages manually.) Ordering of receipts was immaterial.
So given a simple list of (receipt no, #lines), how do you re-order them and create groupings so that each of that group size is less than 66 (in this case), and yet, the wasted size from all groups is minimized?
It will be interesting to compare amazon with Flipkart (in India, but growing quite big now.) Flipkart has largely followed Amazon's design. Yet, flipkart has better information handling and quicker searches. (And Amazon India site is noticeably slower these days when you visit product pages.)
I think the big difference is, how quickly they can change the home page experience to respond to business decisions. For example, flipkart has got a lot of attention in selling Redmi and other phones in "flash sales" - when potential users arrive at once. And flipkart has been amazing to make it easy for users to quickly access those product areas. When they ran big billion day recently, they had changed both their home page and mobile interface to reflect the right set of options and to easily navigate in the site. In general, amazon (Indian site) hasn't been able to put up similar experiences. During the same big billion advert days, even amazon also gave big press advertisements. However, they had hardly changed their home page for the visiting users to highlight the right deals.
But then, if they continue to focus on lower prices, who will care for better UI ?!
In a way, there is good amount of knowledge base in India on Advaita, which is pretty much the same concept - that world is Maya, and the creation is just the triad of knower-knowledge-knowable.
The "experiments" in this philosophy include stuff like meditation, quietening of mind, and just removing the false sense of ego.
Now, like in any experiment, what is the expected, measurable output? Firstly, since the underlying model changes, the meaning of "I", perceptions, the meaning of "sense organ" etc. should all change. After all, we created our world models from "experiencing" through five senses. If we go beyond, the reality would be very different, including the possibility of the fact that the very concept of "I", time or space doesn't exist anymore.
Now, since Advaita has existing for thousands of years, it is natural to ask if anybody went "beyond" this world? How did they express the reality? Indeed, you have thousands of people like that - and through almost all the centuries. And they have expressed what it feels like.
Are they able to manipulate our reality? Perhaps. We indeed read about these things. But then, the focus usually is on the fact that everybody has access to that state, and waking up from Maya is something inherently a journey into the self.
UG Krishnamurti (who was supposedly one of enlightened persons) put it as this: "How can you transmit certainty of certainty of truth to somebody else?". Indeed, one may transmit by conducting experiments etc. But there is no certainty really - our assumption that natural laws will never change is still an assumption.
Also, when writing about -p option (e.g. -p 8080:8080), you could choose different port numbers for container and host, so we know the latter is for the host and former is for container.
The problem in India is not about creation, but adoption, and it is mainly cultural.
Selling to companies is highly driven by relationship, and then cost. The company who was named as the topmost technology innovative company (http://www.nasscom.in/innovation-awards2013) is yet to find some solid traction.
And helping government? There will be no takers, since they want you to make solution as costly as possible (and thus more money can be allocated and spent, you know why).
So that leaves consumer-centric approach: "Help people help each other." Particularly because today everyone can afford a smart phone. But how much change people-only focus will bring about, we need to explore and debate.
We should very much welcome the efforts such as this one; but I hope we all appreciate and understand the underlying constraints.
Tagore: "According to Indian Philosophy there is Brahman, the absolute Truth, which cannot be conceived by the isolation of the individual mind or described by words but can only be realized by completely merging the individual in its infinity. But such a Truth cannot belong to Science. The nature of Truth which we are discussing is an appearance – that is to say, what appears to be true to the human mind and therefore is human, and may be called maya or illusion."
Indian philosophy has long held that there is no individual consciousness, but something encompassing the whole:
- Knowledge is just that, knowledge, and it just exists; like numbers, pythagorous theorem etc.
- Reality (as consumed by human mind) is result of senses interacting with that knowledge, and producing the illusion of individual. More importantly, it creates "observed knowledge".
- The relationships within observed knowledge, which are uncovered by mathematics. Observed knowledge "shadows" the reality, but at no point can we say that observed knowledge is exactly same as reality.
- Exactly as we can manipulate the information in computer, the observed knowledge itself can be manipulated. For example, one could add a new "sense" and thus sense the reality in wholly new manner.
So, if anybody says "There is an entity independent of the observed reality, and thus can manipulate it independent of the rules of that reality", then they are merely creating another observed reality.
But then, Indian philosophy further goes ahead and says the consciousness is independent of all this, and therefore, it will forever be creating newer and newer experiences out of the contents of the reality.
So if you identify yourself with brain, all you are saying is that "it is simply not possible to derive any more knowledge other than what senses + mathematics give us".
Instead, if you identify yourself as an entity independent of knowledge itself, then at least there is possibility of finding out if there is an ultimate reality much beyond the brain, and most important, it should "free you" from the bodily limitations.
And hence in India (in particular, the Advaita philosophy) they say, you are "Brahman", i.e. you are yourself God, but you mis-identify yourself as body and brain.
(As an aside, if you come to India, check out the religious channels and listen to Gurus talking there. Most of them convey this very philosophy to its very core!)
Krishnamurti truly gives all the tools to free oneself of the very root of culture.
Indians are also known to be highly tolerant of different types of behaviours; they usually believe that this world is "maya" - a virtual reality. Depending on one's own predicament, they will create and experience their realities. All this comes from the core Indian philosophy, and those who have read Krishnamurti, know that he very well represents that philosophy.
While this view may not mean all Indians are philosophical; I would say, it may be higher % wise than other cultures. Even the most popular religious channels and their gurus hold extremely engaging philosophical discussions - very different from other cultures.
There are many more that normally haven't taken a deep marketing track (and that remains a challenge).
For example check out colama - http://www.colama.net - using VMs for college education; http://www.emee.co.in/ (note - this is my employer's product) - gamification of enterprise workflows, and http://www.kpoint.com/ - which allows you to record videos and embed them in the website (and often used in many conferences, for internal company presentation).
Leave aside first billion people. The next 2-3 billion people on the planet now have access to a computer that can truly help them in their everyday activities.
That seems like a disruption. But then, getting a ticket booked through a friendly travel agent over phone is definitely easier and affordable than using smartphone and using self service - effectively takes more time.
Self service is a compulsion in developed world due to play of economics.
And it is not optimized for mobile. I am really surprised - India in country of mobiles!
One thing, this will be an interesting case study if content can win over usability, particularly in my country (India). It can become a celebrity site.