Commentary by Prakasan Kappoth

I posted a commentary on search engine and IFR of a search engine here a while back; as search engine has found a place in my TRIZ examples, I thought of giving a shot to this news article (Google: The party is over) appeared in Fortune recently through another TRIZ interpretation. While I wouldn't state that Google is struggling to find the next innovation, statement like slowing down their core business of search is certainly intriguing me especially when some data points are given by the authors from their research.

What might have been going wrong with them, a very innovative company like Google? While failure like Google Wave is not a measurement to say they are going down, (In fact we all know that in the journey of innovation, you must fail), getting stuck with a conundrum of "search using Google is not the future" is a matter of concern especially if you generate 91% profit through search.

If we can do a simple 9-Windows thinking, considering Search as the system-present, can we see a subtle evolution happening there in the super-system, beyond technology evolution (If it is only technology, Google will certainly catch up) and business model innovation? As said in the article, if 5 years ago, we want a shoe, we will simply Google it, but now I just need to "tweet" or add it in the "what's on my mind" in FaceBook, and you get answers with "human touch"..

The technology enabling these systems (Twitter and FB) aren't great innovation according to me as in the search engine algorithm of Google; then what makes the search engine is not the future for Google? One element I see is the social system evolution as the game changer. What I mean the social system is the ability to have "emotion" in what you are doing like search. It is far better feeling to ask your friend or relative than a machine about something and get answers based on reference-able experiences, and those changes, enabled by platforms like Twitter and FaceBook is the new way in future. Now, could Google have come up with this earlier?

Perhaps yes if they have applied TRIZ trends :)

Well, the trend is that Search engine is transitioning to the super-system not because the current system has reached to its limit, but a newer system (like social system) is emerging faster and is almost outdated the current system. In a scenario like this, what a company like Google should perhaps try to do is to look at the way how in future people will communicate to each other with emotions.

Apart from the "Transition to super-system trend", we can look at other trends like "Increasing degree of ideality" (Try applying this in the super-system) too.

What else do you think Google can apply and come out with the next best search? Remember the "Resources" are aplenty for a company like Google.

I decided to be fit this year and reduce my personal carbon footprint by introducing a bicycle in my daily life. I spent more money (considering this will be a worthy, onetime investment) than I would spend in a high class fitness center on this. This one is an imported bicycle, weighing about 5 -8 Kg (I heard there are cycles weigh just about 5 Kg!), and attracts lot of attention when I ride :)

As we all know, the reduced weight is an important aspect of racer bikes to provide enough comfort, speed, modularity etc to the rider, but the reduced weight is also a big problem in India for the high end cycle consumer base, and may be in many other countries too. Here is why;

I want to use this cycle for all my local travels, including going to shops, going to restaurants for my dinner etc. But, I'm really afraid to take the cycle for anything other than a morning fitness ride so that I don't have to "park" anywhere. I'm afraid of the theft if have I parked, even after locking the rear wheel as usually done; the reduced weight means even a 10 year old boy can lift the cycle and simply walk away!

One obvious option is that I lock with a long chain, but we need some fixed, "intermediary" object to do that. This is the common solution available in some countries, but the super-system (government, perhaps?) has provided the options.

Well, this is not my own problem by the way. I did a small search including the shop I purchased this. Interestingly, all the high end bicycle consumers are not using their cycles as much as they would like due to this reason. The bicycle industry is in India is growing. Unlike in the past, there are bicycles available for USD 4000.00 (costs more than a Tata Nano) and interestingly there are buyers (any bicycle above USD 500 will have a lead time of 3 weeks) for these varieties.

Other obvious solutions are :
- Encourage government to provide parking areas for bicycles, including the "fixed, intermediary" option to lock it : About changing the system
- Dismantle the parts and take away the small parts with you, without which the cycle is not usable. Still, not sure..
- Encourage people around where I park the cycle to keep an eye on :) Use the free resources around me..
- Insurance coverage for bicycles: One company in India is already providing this for high end cycles, but at a premium, and nowhere close to the 10% of the cost

As usual, I have tried to use this problem as a case study in my TRIZ sessions, and also wanted to hear from others through this commentory. While this is explained here only through the contradictions, application of 9-Windows, IFR and Trends would be more interesting for a real solution.

Looking though the sub-system contradiction: I want a light weight cycle(for all the good thing I mentioned above) Vs I want the cycle to be heavy (So that no simple lifting is possible). There are more contradictions we can talk about, at sub-system, system, and super-system. What do you think are the contradictions, and solutions?

I also shared this problem with my TRIZ friends, and here is an interesting illustration of TRIZ applied by Dr. Ragunath.

In fact you cannot have a meaningful system contradiction with improving parameter being (weight of moving object) and worsening parameter being (weight of the stationary object) as the contradiction matrix for this is empty!

If OTOH you read the classical TRIZ books you will find similar problems about ships to be light & heavy at different times and the solution being filling in/emptying out of sea water into the buoyancy chambers in the hull. This is separation in time principle for the resolution of this physical contradiction. Assuming that the weight of the bicycle does not change when it is moving or when stationary (except for your weight :) ), what other parameters are there to conflict resolution?

if you forget the fact that heaviness is insurance against theft, what worsening parameter do you map theft to? Loss of substance :)? I used to attend college in Canada where lots of students come cycling. They used to detach their seats and front wheels and bring along with them to the class leaving only the frame and back wheel chained! The fear there was people used to steal the detachable parts of the bike :(

Probably people won't steal what is not a whole bike (?)

If you think of the worsening parameter (due to reduced weight of the (stationary)cycle - param 2) as Object Affected Harmful Factors (param 30), you get the following principles as applicable:

2 : Taking out

19 : Periodic Action

22 : Blessing in Disguise

37 : Thermal expansion

Is potential theft of a light-weight cycle an object generated or object affected harmful effect? OTOH if you take the worsening parameter to be param 31 - object generated harmful factors you get the following principles:

35 : Parameter Changes

22 : Blessing in Disguise

1 : Segmentation

39 : Inert Atmosphere

If the bike is so flexible that it can be rolled up and pocketed then may be parameter changes works.

Inert atmosphere - is it a benign environment where you leave the bike without worry of theft? Or is it that you don't worry if it is stolen - like you cantrack it through GPS? Looks last solution is feasible but expensive than insurance? Even when one insures, the insurer would like to track, right?

A car that is capable of reaching half the speed of a jet cruising at 30K ft... So, we have the world's first fastest production car, Aero costing over half a million dollar available in the Indian market. (My average speed of driving here is 14 kmh and on highway at 55kmph). This recent news here in India tempted me to check out some of the fatest car available and found not just this one, but this entire list.

What is intriguing me is the thinking behind a company manufacturing and the customers buying the fastest car; why would someone buy a car with a speed which normally can be driven only at the Nevada desert or in the Wind tunnel for a "function" (Speed @ 254 mph) they can't normally achieve on the public road other than the initial 0-60 seconds?

I can't force myself to think that any auto company for that matter could have ignored the fact about the road condition, speed limit (legal requirements anywhere in the world, except probably on the Autobahn in Europe), before commercializing. I agree that several of them are iconic brands, and are made to order, and there are customers ready to wait for 6 months after writing a check of this amount.

My question here is, are companies consciously introducing contradictions for some benefit? If yes, what are the benefits? How do company sustain by introducing a contradiction, not the solution?

To make my point little clear, here is a possible contradiction in this particular situation.

- A car that can run at 254mph Vs Road condition to accommodate that speed, legal requirements for driving at this speed

My interpretation on TRIZ terms

- Speed Vs Ease of operations/object affected harmful

What are your thoughts?

I was introduced by this book called "Design of Everyday Things" authored by Donald Norman by a friend of mine few years back. I was ignorant to the fact that there is such a great amount of work going on in the concept of User Iterface (UI) design until I read this book, and my further research on the UI arena has really enthralled me about the depth of thinking evolved during the last decade or so. After reading about the concept, I see there has been a subconcious change in my approach to use a product or service, and as a matter of fact, I started criticizing every UI I come across since then, and nothing satisfied me from the User Interface point of view yet. (including iPod).

I think many of us don't pay enough attention to the User Interface of a product we use when the sole purpose of using a product/service is to achieve a function to complete my job. As long as the job gets done even with some difficulties, we as a user tend to compromise on the user interface part, with the exception that some UI's are really ridiculous that people stop using the product itself. Perhaps this approach of giving importance to the functionality than UI slowly started creating a mental model about the perspective of a UI for us, and every other UI we come across incrementally added to the existing mental model of usage scenarios of functions than the UI.

My background and experience as an IT professional helping people to design new software and products and as a customer of various software and hardware products enticed me this line of thinking, what should have come first, the User Interface or Functionality? Designing a new UI in the traditional approach involves understanding the functionality first, thinking about the end customer, their culture, habit, the customer base, and design a UI to cater the different type of such end customers. However, thinking backward from the user perspective, is there way to design an Ideal User Interface?

If you are an extensive MS Office user for the last 5 years, you can probably understand me and the reason about this lingering thought, what should have come first? Work with office 2003 Power point and the 2007 Power Point versions; note the differences in the UI. 2007 packed with more functionality, (and I'm happy with that), but the UI to achieve those common functions that were easy in 2003 became so complicated in 2007 version. Although the UI changes in the 2007 version perceived to be like (how the designer of this product perceived may be) they have simplified for the users, could they have designed the UI first for 2007 for adding more functionality?

I asked the same question to a colleague of mine working as a User Experience Lead, and her answer wasn't surprising. We have always designed the UI for a function that exists. We created the function to satisfy our customer "jobs" and then designed a wrapper around that function to accept the input from them and provide output back, typically known as User Interface. Therefore the role of a UI designer then gets in to the level of making the UI attracting (make it flashy?), reducing the complexity of using it, making it simple to operate, and we are done. Further pushing with my agenda of "UI should come first," my colleague really argued how is it possible to create a UI for a function that do not exist? Fair question, and frankly I didn't have an answer to back up my thinking. It's like creating a roof first for a house before the foundation and the wall.

Ok, if we can't create the UI first for the functionality that does not exist, can we do it other way around, create a function from the UI that I'm working on? To make this possible, can we think about the Ideal user interface? Since every user interface is to achieve some function, can there be an ideal user interface to create an ideal function?

Ideality is a concept within the systematic innovation framework to break the incremental approach in thinking and looking at the ideal scenario we would like to achieve. In other way, ideality is the results of function achieved without any cost or harm. If we can apply this technique for our UI should come first issue, we could ask

What is my Ideal Final User Interface?

An ideal user interface for me as a customer for any product could be that there is no UI. This may sound hypothetical, but the notion here is to bring an idealistic thinking for the functionality.

I would be happy to have my PowerPoint 2007 without any UI at all, but provide me things as and when I needed to do something. For example, if I want to insert a picture in a slide, all that I need is an insert option (only when I need that) where PowerPoint can point me to the place I will load the image from, and more ideally, automatically bringing the best and suitable image for that slide, insert it, change the orientation etc . Well, now I'm talking to a very intelligent Power Point application by Microsoft, because if it to make my ideal UI a reality, a very new intelligent function should be created. By asking the question "what is stopping Microsoft to provide me an intelligent Power Point feature," I may be pushing the ball to the technical guy's court!

Well, ideality does not really exist, so do the intelligent functionality today in the Power Point. Now, if the ideal ideal UI (no UI at all) is not possible, what could be the next IFI (Ideal Final Interface)? Drawing the same Power Point insert example, the next IFI for me should be the insert option UI is so convenient to me that clicking on it would give me a thumbnail view of all "preferred" images, preferably giving me some ratings, also identifying the size, automatically converting them to fit in to my slides etc. Wouldn't that be possible?

The concept of an IFI is more than just for designing the best UI, but also creating a better functionality for the product and overall changing the experience of getting my "job" done as a customer. Now do you agree that UI can come first, what are your thoughts?

A recent article published by McKinsey (March '09) quarterly shows this interesting (to me at least) study on the increasing US consumer savings in the last couple of quarters. Well, in a time when we see the bad news all around, the tendency for the rest of us earning are naturally towards saving it for the rainy day ahead. Apparently this article also put some lights on the debt Vs income ratio and justifies the reason behind this savings trend.

However, my interest here is abstracting the contradictions which I think are the contradictions (you may find a different contradiction, which is ok, and good) from the two important stakeholder's perspective, especially when the economists pointing the reasons behind the recession is the lack of (or reduced) consumer spending, not just limited to buying a new home or car, but down to the spending on their vacations, purchasing goods, and even food.

I, as a consumer, first want to save money to spend; from a business perspective, they like me to spend money to keep me in the job. (So that I can save). An interesting vicious circle and the contradiction may be;

As a consumer – Improve my savings Vs As a business – Reduced spending

If I, as a consumer focus only on the savings today, the existence of the businesses will be in question. They want me to spend, but I'm too concerned about my future if I don't save.

There is also a physical contradiction for the consumer: I Save Vs Do Not Save – I want to save for the better and make sure that I can survive during this period, but I don't want to save all my money (or want to spend) to make the businesses thrive so that I have my job!

According to TRIZ, when we are in a contradictory situation, there is an opportunity for innovation without compromising both the stakeholders need. I have no idea how my friends actually "Save" money back there, but presume they save using various financial instruments available, including, but not limited to, stocks, properties, mutual funds, pension funds, and even bank savings. (I may be completely wrong for bank related savings since what we have seen in the last few months of abysmal collapse of banking behemoths could have triggered another new trend in the way people save – Still an opportunity for innovation if you can identify that trend).

Translating the above contradictions in TRIZ terms, you have some thinking principles to brainstorm for ideas. I selected the improvement parameter from the classical TRIZ as "Reliability", because I can dependent on my savings for securing my future. The obvious worsening parameter to me here is the "harmful side effects generated", in this case is reduced spending, because I'm keen on saving.

With the following inventive principles, can you generate some ideas for the consumers to save money, and at the same time they spend money so that the businesses can run?
35. Parameter changes
# Change a system's object's physical state
# Change the concentration or consistency.
# Change the degree of flexibility.
# Change the temperature.
2. Taking out
# Separate an interfering part or property from an object, or single out the only necessary part (or property) of an object.
40. Composite materials
# Change from uniform to composite (multiple) materials.
26. Copying
# Instead of an unavailable, expensive, fragile object, use simpler and inexpensive copies.
# Replace an object, or process with optical copies.
# If visible optical copies are already used, move to infrared or ultraviolet copies.

You may select another set of improving and worsening parameter to identify more principles to ideate. The quantity of ideas will certainly lead to quality of your end results. Oh, and do not forget to look at the "resources" available to you if you are serious about coming out with some innovations within your business domain.

The current economic scenario has triggered several discussions on emphasizing an innovation action plan for Obama administration to revitalize the US (and apparently the world) economy. The recent Business Week article by Thomas D. Kuczmarski proposing a step-by-step innovation action plan for Obama is encouraging at this juncture, because the growth of several other countries around the world has been depended on US innovations. An unbiased view of Kuczmarski's plan as an "outsider", and indeed by supporting him for his proposal, the question remaining to me is how the government should rationalize the implementation of this plan when the priority is dealing with the reality at the grass root level problems of unemployment, reduced consumer spending, and over and above the looming negative sentiments leading to a deep recession? Is there a way President Obama can tie the innovation policy to bring the changes immediately that we are looking for, so the action plan for innovation can yield benefit quickly?

In his previous post The 4400, Jack Hipple seeded some excellent thoughts on using the "free resources" effectively. Taking the cue from there, some wild ideas to ponder..

• Setting up micro-venture capital fund to help people at the grass root level for the area they have expertise in. May be it is ok to tax the wealthy more but force them to invest in the new businesses as micro-venture capitalists.
• Encourage the huge pool of unemployed, diversified, experienced group of people (resources) to build their own businesses by providing a federal grant, entrepreneurship support, and tax break(must be better than bailing out the banks). Well, can even infuse creativity by ensuring that there are people coming together from different discipline to build a business.
• Leveraging huge unemployed talent pool to setup private educational institution to educate the future generation. Remember, the future gets hands-on education from these diversified, experienced people if we don't enforce the teachers should have high qualification. to teach. ( Kuczmarski mentioned about training people on innovation)
• For those ready to get their hands dirty; encourage, support (money and other) for the community farming. (Another way to focus on "what is consumed in America is built in America")
• And how about letting the community driving the energy initiatives (especially green) by allowing them to setup their own community based power grid (You don't have to be a nuclear scientist to setup a micro wind turbine). Also inline with Obama's commitment to invest in infrastructures, energy. Clean energy, new jobs..

A thought plane for you to think further; what are your ideas?

Ellen Domb posted a commentary about the Holiday TRIZ when the "sub-prime" axes slowly began to uproot the decades old financial institutions like Lehman Brothers. She suggested TRIZ thinking even while you are holidaying to identify innovation opportunities around us. I guess, for many of us the July 4th vacation then was much peaceful and happier than the December holiday when the whole world is reeling under economic crisis and mounting job losses. Come December, I'm not sure how many of us will really enjoy this vacation the way we would like to enjoy by keeping all worries aside.

As a strong believer of "every problem is an opportunity" statement, I see there is a good side of the current crisis we are facing. There is an interesting analogy perhaps relevant here is from the ancient Indian Ayurvedic detoxification treatment (Ancient Indian herbal medical practice), which is suggested by ancient literature. It is said that at least once in 3 years we should undergo a detoxification process to rejuvenate our body and cells to live longer and healthier life by expelling or neutralizing the toxic elements within. During this detoxification period, sometimes lasts up to 4 – 8 weeks depending upon your body condition, you are forced to go through the tough diets and stringent routines and live a life with all sorts of constraints. Drawing the same analogy with a positive frame of mind for today's crisis, we should perhaps consider this as a detoxification package provided by our system to clean up the mess so that our future is better and young.

Now, how can we consider this situation with an opportunistic mindset and enjoy our vacation? What are the possibilities for you as an individual, wanting to do something your own, setting up your own new business, or as a representative of your current organization to develop new innovations, and most importantly HOW can you think out-of-the box and enjoy your vacation?

Extending the "Holiday TRIZ" concept, there are powerful thinking techniques within the TRIZ framework to help you enjoying your vacation by exercising your grey cells and adding some fun, but also generating new ideas for a better future.

Resource thinking: Resource thinking is a very powerful concept in TRIZ considering everything around you as the resources for solving a problem or creating new products or services, which is easily attainable and free of cost (or low cost).
- Resources are Time, Space, nearby systems (product/services), people, and even emotions
- Resources can be found within your domain, the super-system around you
- Even bad things in the system are powerful resource for you

E.g. Do you find people spending maximum TIME inside their houses? Can you create an affordable product or service for them to utilize that time?

Trends: There are nine laws of technological trends in TRIZ. But, look around you; can you identify some MicroTrends? Are people becoming spiritual during the crisis time, how are they spending their money for food items, children education plan, health habits… the lists can go on. The more you start observing small things around you, the better you start thinking about a new opportunity to capitalize the trends.

E.g. Do you see a trend more and more families are gathering to churches, more socialization happening around the church?

It is easier said than done, because we are naturally wired to think about the present worries than future opportunities. Wish you a very happy festival season and a vacation ahead. Hope the New Year will be prosperous with new business ideas, service model and products.

"…over the history of software development there have not been that many innovations.." I must have heard this statement elsewhere in some forum, but now this is the base for a new TRIZ for software innovation book recently launched. This is the book written and re-written several times in the last four years by Darrell Mann, and something I personally had been waiting ever since he said the concept of a TRIZ book specific to Software. I must confess though, that the anticipation (for this book) had become oblivious to me at some point of time. (A lot have happened in the last 4 years). Last month Darrell launched his latest book, Systematic (Software) Innovation; I'm almost half done with that.

If you have read his earlier editions of Systematic Innovation for business & Mgmt, and Technology, this is an easy read (hence I could finish half), flipping through the pages will do. However, if you are interested in learning TRIZ for software and new to this concept, consider this as a good reference book (still please do read another primer book to understand the basic concept of TRIZ techniques), and suggest a thorough read, but not a very easy read as Clayton Christensen's books..

First impression – Considerable changes in his style; not difficult to read, usage of nice and catchy words, phrases, simple explanation of the techniques. This is a great improvement considering his previous books.

I'm not intending a complete book review here. I need to read (or flip through) this at least till the 10th chapter to do enough justice to that. But, something out-there-in-my-mind is here:

- Interesting examples used across. However, should have had more detailed examples with "real" software stuffs; data structure, algorithms, architecture design etc. Considering the time he had taken for writing (researching) this book, I can understand how difficult it would be. But certainly there is a great scope for the future editions.

- Has covered lot of UI examples. I'm happy to see the Google search engine in this book

- Using perception mapping for software – I was expecting to see something more of this use in software when we were exchanging notes long time back. I don't see anything more than the original perception mapping technique from the Systematic Innovation for Business & Management book.

- Very good, step-by-step approach to applying it in actual problem (He has justified that the software problems are not necessarily "software" problems, but is in the periphery of software) with loads of templates. Templates should help for the first timers, and especially for the software guys.

- A sole good chapter devoted how to teach this – Well thought through. Will help lot of new people would want to embrace this in their organization

- Last couple of chapters about the fascinating (for me at least) concepts about ToE (Theory of Everything). I'm sure he is writing his next book with this concept.

- Couple of things I'm not impressed a) quality of printing – Pictures are shrunk and nothing readable inside the charts and graph etc. b) cost – one of the costliest paper back edition book I have purchased..  - Around $51.00

Finally – Thanks to Darrell. Last four years of applying TRIZ for software in my company (no book targeting TRIZ for software existed until now) deriving our own approaches from the basic TRIZ, and his previous books have been validated now with his examples, approaches. I can go back and show his book, applications, case studies, approaches to those who weren't ready to listen what I had to say without any "master data"!

If you get a chance to read this book, do share your thoughts, views. I hope this book is possibly a foundation, and many more concepts, application, and books will follow..

Couple of years back I was explaining the Ideal Final Result (IFR) concept to our engineers (Computer engineers) using the example of "search". The question we tried to answer; what is the IFR for the function (for consumers) search. Since then I was intrigued by the potential possibilities in the human-computer interaction aspect of one of the most active phenomena on the internet, and search was always a fascinating topic to sell TRIZ concept to computer engineers. Recently Google released their browser (Chrome); before I wanted to install it myself and reading some of the fine prints about Chrome, the concept of IFR with "search" struck me queerly. Before I analyze why, let me try to describe some of the IFR's we used to fantasize about.

In TRIZ Ideal Final Result means achieving the maximum functionality without any harm and increasing the overall cost (significantly). I assume the cost of developing a browser for Google should not be expensive considering the 20% time given to engineers doing something their own!

What is the Ideal Final Result for us in the "search" function?

- We never want to search if we know everything – This one is beyond the science fiction indeed.
- What if my system can understand what I would be searching in another few minutes – Something like a mind reader?
Possibly some commercially viable IFR's
- I get paid for searching. Currently, searching is a free service for me.
- My search engine selects the keyword automatically and searches for me.
- My search engine knows what I need to search the moment I open the browser
- My search engine knows from where (my location) I search and what
- My search engine understands my situation in which I'm searching and giving the results based on that. Example; searching for hospitals for, and I get the results with the hospitals very close to the place I'm searching from.

A search engine does my actual work –I'm writing a research paper on cognitive thinking and emotions, and the moment I hit on the search, I may get the results related to the topic I'm searching, and search engine recommends an extra paragraph. (Hmmm...This is a cool feature for me to finish some pending articles…)
- Browser understands my emotions and search based on that. My blood pressure is so high after a meeting with my boss, and my browser is providing me some tips to cool down myself. (Think about integration with my mouse embedded a blood pressure sensor and browser)
- Searching what I may need tomorrow

The list can go on:

When Google announced their browser Chrome last week, the immediate connection made was – "Search" and "browser", as in a function diagram interacting each other. Naturally, it is pretty evident why Google should develop own browser and enter this market, which is a very competitive from the era of Netscape, and also having partnered with Firefox supporting their browser for sometime.

They may have nicely packaged about their browser capabilities, (I must admit some of them are unique though), however, that doesn't give their browser an edge on what's there already, especially FireFox or Safari for a common user like me.

Illustrating the entire thought process behind launching a browser, what I believe Google's attempt to bring a browser is nothing more than to implement the next generation search feature, indeed a very innovative thinking and an innovative way to achieve the same via their own browser.

Few Ideal Final Result's we discussed above has been implemented in some part of the world, not necessarily specific to the search, but in similar context. Product like Autonomy is already providing intelligence searching, but with a limited knowledge base (internal to the organization). However, bringing intelligence to the search for the mass, like the way Google excelled in the search engine isn't very easy with a restricted user and knowledge base.

How could Google fill this gap? A dedicated browser for using their own search engine should help them understanding the usage pattern, context in which we search etc and add some brain. Browser as an application running in my own PC, can facilitate more actions, record/log the instances, situations, applications I'm running and more to understand me as a user.

Here is a classic (?) feature:

When I search for the latest movie and book a ticket through online booking site, my search engine knows that and records it; after few days, I'm enjoying some music on my PC and suddenly remembers this movie I watched and want to check out the option to buy some music and open the browser to search. Bingo, there comes your browser and tells you, dude – here is the best site to purchase this song rated best by your friends (remember I also use my social network) from the movie you watched last week!
Well, perhaps not just fantasies after reading this news I guess – Be sure to read Chrome's fine print . Some of the terms and conditions are very close to achieving the search IFR, like self searching, not searching etc, if they get to know what I do using their browser, the way I described above.

Incidentally, they have amended some of the clause mentioned in the copyright license, but still I believe they are on to something. Let's wait and watch.

Prakasan Kappoth (Prakash) is a Senior Manager working as a Systematic innovation facilitator and innovation consultant at MindTree Ltd., Bangalore, India; a mid-sized IT Service Company delivering techno-business solutions to clients across the globe. He helps MindTree's internal and external customers with identifying and solving technical and non-technical problems using structured innovation techniques (specializing in TRIZ).

In his capacity he is also working toward his Ideal Final Result (IFR) of "not doing his job – or others doing his job" by implementing continuous learning platforms for structured innovation and effective thinking focusing on engineers and leadership team. He recently started working with educational institutions (engineering and business) providing them hands-on systematic innovation workshops and frequent lectures to inculcate creative thinking for the future workforce (more ideal solution).

He has been in the IT industry for over 12 years; He has worked in a variety of technical domains including network management, industrial automation, image processing, consumer and embedded appliances, automotive and storage. He is an active student recently completed his MBA besides Dip in IT, Textile and Fashion Technology, and is now enrolled in a psychology course.

Prakash also represents ETRIA (European TRIZ Association) in India as a global coordinator, Member, Altshuller Institute of TRIZ Studies, and founded the TRIZ India Forum, a not-for-profit platform bringing together TRIZ enthusiasts from India.

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