Showing posts with label Tech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tech. Show all posts
Thursday, May 30
Thursday, May 9
Bad QOTD: "Mobile broadband demand on board aircraft is exploding"
The story with Qualcomm's very poorly worded 'exploding' quote is here, and the reminder of what can go wrong when introducing new technology on flights is in the below video.
Saturday, December 15
Google + Kurzweil: "What an amazing, slightly terrifying combination"
I disagree with Jon Mitchell's take on the fantastic news that Ray Kurzweil has joined Google in a full-time role in Mountain View as Director of Engineering.
Pairing the iconoclastic futurist/inventor with arguably the most innovative technology company in the world is not scary but very exciting (although I catch Jon's drift).
Much as it did when it hired Vint Cerf, one of the internet's father figures, Google has once again boosted its nerd/geek street cred with the addition of Kurzweil to its roster of science and tech luminaries.
This is definitely a coup for Larry Page & Co. Not quite on the same level as when Princeton's fledgling Institute for Advanced Study landed Einstein. But after the Pope of Science made his way to New Jersey many of the leading physicists, mathematicians and scientists of the day followed. No doubt Kurzweil's arrival in Mountain View should have a similar effect in drawing today's pioneers in the areas where Ray has made significant contributions, such as speech recognition and artificial intelligence.
Ray begins his new gig on December 17. Congrats to Ray and Google, and we anxiously await the results of your collaboration!
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| Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil joins Google |
Much as it did when it hired Vint Cerf, one of the internet's father figures, Google has once again boosted its nerd/geek street cred with the addition of Kurzweil to its roster of science and tech luminaries.
This is definitely a coup for Larry Page & Co. Not quite on the same level as when Princeton's fledgling Institute for Advanced Study landed Einstein. But after the Pope of Science made his way to New Jersey many of the leading physicists, mathematicians and scientists of the day followed. No doubt Kurzweil's arrival in Mountain View should have a similar effect in drawing today's pioneers in the areas where Ray has made significant contributions, such as speech recognition and artificial intelligence.
Ray begins his new gig on December 17. Congrats to Ray and Google, and we anxiously await the results of your collaboration!
Thursday, October 11
Adventures in Alternative Currencies: Bitcoin Goes Mainstream
But following an undeniably rocky road the little digital currency that could appears to be having the last laugh. A good read can be found here on how Bitcoin is beginning to go mainstream.
At this stage the obvious first question is why has the decentralized, 100% digital currency proven so resilient? Scientific American provides one good answer:
When they (a merchant) finalize a deal in Bitcoin, they do so knowing that the transaction can never be reversed. The Bitcoin network doesn't edit its ledger. As such, merchants no longer have to worry whether they are charging a stolen credit card.
"'The fraud mitigation is big for Internet merchants, because they are all handling card-not-present transactions. And the business has to eat the loss if the payment is reversed later on,"' Gallippi says. "'Using Bitcoin, a business can receive a payment from any country on the planet, instantly, with no risk of fraud."'In addition to helping cut down on fraud costs for merchants, Bitcoin is chic. Using Bitcoins to transact business is a mark of digital savvy for both tecno hipsters and the merchants who cater to them.
What the future ultimately holds for Bitcoin is less interesting to me than a more general issue, which is the apparent growing trend in alternative currencies coming into existence.
We have already seen some Congressional saber rattling about Bitcoin prior to its flash crash. Will governments continue to tolerate it, Bristol's new pound note, etc., while they remain small? Or will we see a more formal move in the not too distant future to stamp out these fledgling alternatives to government fiat money? As the article points out, government's might have a hard time shutting down Bitcoin:
But perhaps most consequential for the future of Bitcoin—in order to shut down a peer-to-peer currency exchange, one would have to terminate every node on the network. The few lawyers who have studied Bitcoin all agree that the currency inhabits a legal gray area. No one really knows how governments would react if it gains traction, but many consider the exchanges to be the easiest target for people who want to regulate Bitcoin. Decentralizing the exchanges would make that job nearly impossible. Bitcoin developers are quickly proving that they can design decentralized alternatives to even the most sophisticated financial institutions.
Thursday, September 27
Boomerang: Apple's "It Just Works" Promise to Customers
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| iPhone Maps app icon: what's wrong with this picture? |
First, flashback to 2008 and Apple's launch of their cloud email/calendar syncing product called MobileMe. From MacRumors and Fortune:
Mr. Jobs called the MobileMe team into a town hall meeting in one of Apple’s auditoriums after the service launched with problems and garnered unflattering reviews from noted tech commentators like Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Jobs reportedly asked the assembled engineers and other MobileMe team members, “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” When one of those employees then volunteered a satisfactory answer, Mr. Jobs followed up with, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”
He (Jobs) then spent some 30 minutes berating the team, telling them that they had “tarnished Apple’s reputation,” and that they, “should hate each other for having let each other down.”
He added, “[Walt] Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us.”
Jobs appointed a new executive on the spot to run the MobileMe team.The MobileMe story may suggest that the iron fist with which Jobs ran Apple may now be missing, but it also helps explain why Apple's new map software problems are getting so much media attention.
Ever since Jobs returned to Apple the mantra he emphasized over and over again about new products was "It Just Works". What you're seeing here is what happens when, contrary to what you promise customers, something not only doesn't work but actually fails in very unpleasant ways. From NY Times tech guru David Pogue:
99 percent of it (iOS6 Maps), Apple says, is accurate. Unfortunately, when the overall data set is that huge, even half a percent of faulty data means a lot of flaws. And the trouble is, you never know when you’re going to encounter one. One wild goose chase, and you’ll find it hard to trust the software again.
So Apple has written a beautiful, well-designed app — and fed it questionable data. It’s as though you just got a $1,500 professional coffee maker and then poured moldy beans into it.
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| The actual map with safe instructions |
The blow to Apple's promise to customers that everything just works certainly doesn't help the company. But whether or not Apple's maps fiasco figures prominently into this blog's prediction that Apple is nearing its high water mark remains to be seen. For more on the future of Apple, Holman Jenkins of the WSJ also has a good read.
Sunday, September 16
Tuesday, February 21
Tuesday, January 17
2012 Predication #2: iTV Will Prove Apple's Waterloo
Should Apple's all but confirmed iTV make landfall in 2012 I expect that it will serve as a fitting high-water mark for the high-flying tech company.
In this sense perhaps the Battle of Waterloo, which marked the once-and-for-all final defeat of Napoleon, is the wrong metaphor. Instead the Battle of Borodino, a contest which Napoleon won and allowed him to enter Moscow but also ultimately led to his later retreat from Russia in 1812, may prove a better analogy.
I'm sure the iTV will be a huge hit and will make a great addition in Apple's ecosystem. I'm so frustrated with the TV market that it was the subject of a rant a few months back. Let me be clear: TVs are begging for the Apple treatment.
And there is no doubt that Apple will be a successful, highly profitable company for years to come. Apple is more than Steve Jobs, and there is enough magic and momentum to sustain success for the next 3-5 years, at least. But having said all that some recent trends for Apple aren't looking so hot.
Apple is squarely in the competition's cross-hairs and very few -- if any -- companies have historically been able to sustain the level of success achieved by Apple this past decade. And the reasons are well known: people leave, get rich and lazy, retire, distracted, all of the above.
But perhaps the biggest problem will be Apple's own DNA, which is based on cult of personality, not long lasting institutions. Steve Jobs lionized and embodied the Great Man school. In contrast Bill Gates' favorite business book was Sloan's My Years with General Motors, a rather dull treatise on the art of running a large corporation through a series of committees. As so often happens following the departure of a dominant, charismatic leader there is growing talk of an Apple palace coup. Jockeying and politics won't make success any easier in Cupertino.
There is nothing Apple does that can't be replicated, and part of the evidence of that comes from Apple increasingly turning to the courts to fight its battles. Steve Jobs' seethed vitriol from his deathbed over Android's success. Because Apple controls its products end-to-end it has to flawlessly execute by itself every time. But there are literally hundreds of younger, hungrier companies competing with Apple. In some ways the relative demise of Apple is simply a numbers game.
The iTV will likely be insanely great in the way it integrates and simplifies our digital lives, and it is a product I'm very much looking forward to. But I predict that it will also mark the plateau of the greatest run in tech history.
In this sense perhaps the Battle of Waterloo, which marked the once-and-for-all final defeat of Napoleon, is the wrong metaphor. Instead the Battle of Borodino, a contest which Napoleon won and allowed him to enter Moscow but also ultimately led to his later retreat from Russia in 1812, may prove a better analogy.
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| All great runs ultimately meet the same fate |
I'm sure the iTV will be a huge hit and will make a great addition in Apple's ecosystem. I'm so frustrated with the TV market that it was the subject of a rant a few months back. Let me be clear: TVs are begging for the Apple treatment.
And there is no doubt that Apple will be a successful, highly profitable company for years to come. Apple is more than Steve Jobs, and there is enough magic and momentum to sustain success for the next 3-5 years, at least. But having said all that some recent trends for Apple aren't looking so hot.
Apple is squarely in the competition's cross-hairs and very few -- if any -- companies have historically been able to sustain the level of success achieved by Apple this past decade. And the reasons are well known: people leave, get rich and lazy, retire, distracted, all of the above.
But perhaps the biggest problem will be Apple's own DNA, which is based on cult of personality, not long lasting institutions. Steve Jobs lionized and embodied the Great Man school. In contrast Bill Gates' favorite business book was Sloan's My Years with General Motors, a rather dull treatise on the art of running a large corporation through a series of committees. As so often happens following the departure of a dominant, charismatic leader there is growing talk of an Apple palace coup. Jockeying and politics won't make success any easier in Cupertino.
There is nothing Apple does that can't be replicated, and part of the evidence of that comes from Apple increasingly turning to the courts to fight its battles. Steve Jobs' seethed vitriol from his deathbed over Android's success. Because Apple controls its products end-to-end it has to flawlessly execute by itself every time. But there are literally hundreds of younger, hungrier companies competing with Apple. In some ways the relative demise of Apple is simply a numbers game.
The iTV will likely be insanely great in the way it integrates and simplifies our digital lives, and it is a product I'm very much looking forward to. But I predict that it will also mark the plateau of the greatest run in tech history.
Sunday, January 15
Video: Lawrence Lessig's Republic, Lost - How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
Note to video departments everywhere that the below video is a fantastic way to show a presenter and his/her slides.
h/t Barry
Tuesday, December 27
Video: The Great Stagnation vs. The Singularity
For anyone who missed Tyler Cowen's presentation at the Singularity Conference from earlier this year.
Saturday, December 24
Recapping The PolyCapitalist's 2011 Predictions
For those keeping score three topics I made 2011 forecasts on were:
On Android, the verdict is in:
On Android, the verdict is in:
The U.S. housing market officially double dipped in May and then continued to fall, so that call looks correct as well.
The China prediction is a bit murkier, but here are some points worth noting:
- The Hang Seng and Shanghai stock markets are in a bear market and down roughly 20% for the year, or 30% since May. From its peak in 2008 Shanghai is off 60%.
- Housing prices are softening quickly; in Beijing new home prices dropped 35% in November alone.
- Coastal cities such as Wenzhou and Ordos appear to be experiencing a credit crisis with reports of businessmen leaping off rooftops.
- Hot money appears to be flowing out of the country: China's $3.2 trillion in foreign reserves have been falling for three months despite a trade surplus.
Things aren't shaping up too well for China or trade relations with the U.S. in 2012 either. For more on this see here, here, here and here.
Overall, does 2.5 out of 3 predictions sound about right?
Two more quick ones: bullishness on gold has been a steady theme since starting this blog in May 2010. And how did gold do in 2011? Despite the autumn selloff gold priced in U.S. dollars has returned around 10%. Not too shabby given that the S&P500 is flat YTD. I also managed a correct mid-year bearish call on the euro.
Check back later for The PolyCapitalist's 2012 predictions.
Thursday, December 15
Sunday, October 23
Recommended links
1. Is there a shadowy plot behind gold? (FT)
2. Ray Dalio video interview (Charlie Rose). Ray doesn't have the most compelling television presence, but as the world's largest hedge fund manager he's clearly doing something right. Here is an interesting earlier read from the New Yorker on him and his firm, Bridgewater.
3. Eurozone summit - despair and backbiting in the corridors of power (Telegraph)
4. Steve Jobs Was Willing To 'Rip Off' Everyone Else... But Was Pissed About Android Copying iPhone? (TechDirt)
5. Michael Pettis Talks China (Infectious Greed)
6. €1.5bn Dexia loans used to buy shares in...Dexia (FT)
7. Generation X Doesn’t Want to Hear It (Emptypage)
2. Ray Dalio video interview (Charlie Rose). Ray doesn't have the most compelling television presence, but as the world's largest hedge fund manager he's clearly doing something right. Here is an interesting earlier read from the New Yorker on him and his firm, Bridgewater.
3. Eurozone summit - despair and backbiting in the corridors of power (Telegraph)
4. Steve Jobs Was Willing To 'Rip Off' Everyone Else... But Was Pissed About Android Copying iPhone? (TechDirt)
5. Michael Pettis Talks China (Infectious Greed)
6. €1.5bn Dexia loans used to buy shares in...Dexia (FT)
7. Generation X Doesn’t Want to Hear It (Emptypage)
Thursday, October 6
Steve Jobs RIP (1955-2011)
The King of the BHAG is dead.
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| Steve Jobs (1955-2011) |
Official statement from the Apple Board:
We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.
Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.
His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.
For more reflections on Jobs recent resignation as CEO and some rare, early interview footage of the Apple co-founder see End of a Tech Era.
Wednesday, September 21
Tuesday, August 30
One Chart: Why Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. are Teaming-Up Against Google
Here's last year's prediction, made back when Android had under 25% of the market and was smaller than the iPhone. Below are the latest comScore market share figures, which have Google's Android up 5.4% in three months and rapidly closing in on 50% of the U.S. smartphone market.
Look no further than above for an explanation of the strange bedfellows which recently united against Google.
| Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Jul. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Apr. 2011 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens | |||
| Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers | |||
| Apr-11 | Jul-11 | Point Change | |
| Total Smartphone Subscribers | 100.0% | 100.0% | N/A |
| 36.4% | 41.8% | 5.4 | |
| Apple | 26.0% | 27.0% | 1.0 |
| RIM | 25.7% | 21.7% | -4.0 |
| Microsoft | 6.7% | 5.7% | -1.0 |
| Symbian | 2.3% | 1.9% | -0.4 |
Thursday, August 25
The Great Hope - An Update on the Holy Grail of Clean, Limitless Energy
Good story from the Guardian on the state of fusion research here.
While economically viable fusion may be decades off at the current low relative level of investment, it's good to see the world's great geopolitical powers working together:
While economically viable fusion may be decades off at the current low relative level of investment, it's good to see the world's great geopolitical powers working together:
Last year, bulldozers began clearing land 60km north-east of Marseille in southern France. By 2019, it is hoped that the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokamak will be switched on. The €15bn International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is being funded by an unprecedented international coalition, including the EU, the US, China, India, South Korea and Russia.h/t Tyler Cowen
End of A Tech Era - Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO (Video)
Details here.
Sadly, this is likely grim news as I imagine the only reason Jobs would resign is for health reasons.
The multi-episode documentary Triumph of the Nerds is one of the first films to chronicle the early rise of Mr. Jobs and Silicon Valley, as well as Jobs' legendary rivalry with Bill Gates. It features rare, candid interview footage with Jobs.
Embedded below is the Jobs-Apple focussed episode 3, and if you want to skip ahead to when Jobs comes on go to the 9:45 mark.
Sadly, this is likely grim news as I imagine the only reason Jobs would resign is for health reasons.
The multi-episode documentary Triumph of the Nerds is one of the first films to chronicle the early rise of Mr. Jobs and Silicon Valley, as well as Jobs' legendary rivalry with Bill Gates. It features rare, candid interview footage with Jobs.
Embedded below is the Jobs-Apple focussed episode 3, and if you want to skip ahead to when Jobs comes on go to the 9:45 mark.
P.S. The earlier Triumph of the Nerds episodes 1 and 2 are also on Google Video.
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