John Savageau is a veteran of the telecom and data center industries, and has a unique understanding of the importance of big-city “carrier hotels” – the major data center hubs that tie networks together in the world’s most important business markets. Savageau, who spent many years at CoreSite, recently shared his thoughts on the dual role of carrier hotels, which operate as both commercial real estate and critical national infrastructure.
“While MMRs have improved greatly during the past few years, the reality is we have a tremendous amount of national infrastructure being built into properties not designed for the telecom industry – infrastructure that will continue being more and more essential to our ability both as a nation, and as a member of the global economic and social community,” John writes. “The United States should view telecom and cloud computing as a utility, critical to the national infrastructure. Standards that follow the same principles of roads, water, and electrical distribution must be applied to the telecom industry, including carrier hotels and other implementations contributing to the Fourth Utility.”
Dell may have more than one serious suitor come Monday. After weeks of rumblings, the Blackstone Group and investor activist Carl Icahn are preparing their own rival bids to the Michael-Dell-and-Silver-Lake-Partner $24.4 billion buyout offer, according to reports on Saturday.
Dell sweepstakes gets more interesting
Bloomberg News, which has been on top of this story from the get go, now reports that the Blackstone Group made a tentative offer for Dell late Friday. The Wall Street Journal subsequently posted that activist investor Carl Icahn, who has a 6 percent stake in the PC-and-server maker, is likewise preparing a bid. Both Blackstone and Icahn have been reportedly in the hunt for weeks. Icahn and others have said the $24.4 billion Silver Lake offer significantly undervalues Dell’s worth.
None of the reports named their sources and none of the companies offered comment.
Dell’s private equity back story
Dell management has connections to both Blackstone and Silver Lake. Dave Johnson, who Dell poached from IBM in 2009 to head up its acquisitions strategy left Dell for Blackstone in January of this year. John Swainson, now president of Dell’s software group, consulted with Silver Lake Partners.
As one former Dell exec said via email: “So there you have John Swainson, previously Silver Lake and currently at Dell and Dave Johnson previously at Dell, and currently at Blackstone. Add Marius Haas previously KKR and now at Dell, and you have a pretty interesting PE clique there.” Haas is VP of Dell’s Enterprise Solutions group.
According to the Journal’s sources, the entry of new bidders will extend Dell’s “go shop” period for another four days.
Adding more intrigue to the mix, Fortune reported last week that Blackstone Group might tap Mark Hurd, Oracle co-president, to lead Dell. That raised eyebrows. Hurd left Hewlett-Packard, where he was chairman and CEO, under a cloud of accusations about sexual harassment and misuse of company expense accounts.
HP rival Oracle then hired Hurd, presumably for his hardware expertise and possibly because Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wanted to taunt HP chairman Ray Lane, a former Oracle president. So far, the hardware turnaround Hurd has promised for Oracle has not materialized. That Dell, which competed tooth-and-nail with HP for PC and server market leadership, might be run by a former HP guy would be ironic.
It’s also not at all clear whether ownership by a private equity firm will right Dell’s course. It’s missed a lot of opportunity by being late or ineffectual in the mobile device and tablet market — areas where HP has also missed the mark.
Mark Hurd? Seriously?
Hurd is often mentioned as a successor to Ellison at Oracle. But the tech world is littered with former successors to Ellison who are now elsewhere. Just ask Charles Phillips or Tom Siebel or Gary Bloom or Marc Benioff. Or Ray Lane. It’s by no means a certainty that Hurd will be any more successful and he may be looking for an out. Especially since, as one Wall Street analyst put it, Oracle’s promised hardware turnaround has failed to materialize.
I’m on a listserv for librarians – the following message was posted there. I wanted to share it here (with permission) for two reasons. One, it’s a great program. Two, it’s a great reminder to get your librarian involved in digital literacy programming. We’ve been showing patrons how to use computers and the online card catalog since the old shelves went away about 20 years ago. People come to librarians for help. Librarians are trained on how to help with digital and information literacy!
Today, March 21st, Connect2Compete (C2C), http://connect2compete.org/, launches a 3-year national public service campaign to promote digital literacy called EveryoneOn, http://everyonone.org. The key message of the campaign is to encourage limited or non-Internet users to learn how to do “one thing better online”. Public libraries and their community partners are key to the success of this effort due to their demonstrated commitment to providing free access to the Internet as well as to improving people’s skills (e.g. using a mouse, applying for jobs online, creating email accounts, and so much more). While some libraries offer formal classes, all libraries offer public access computers and skilled assistance to patrons at point-of-use.
EveryoneOn Campaign Materials:
Libraries and community partners can begin using these campaign materials at any time via this Ad Council website for EveryoneOn, http://everyoneon.adcouncil.org/. Additional campaign materials for EveryoneOn, including logos, graphics and examples of public service announcements are expected to be made available later this month. Libraries and their community partners will have full access to these campaign materials to promote digital literacy in local communities.
With some preliminary support from the Ad Council, the St. Paul Public Library did a Kickoff event today – 3-21 On! EveryoneOn.org Kickoff. Check their Facebook page for photos!
EveryoneOn is designed to raise awareness of the importance of digital literacy skills – which libraries have embraced for years. This is a great opportunity to promote public libraries as a trusted and valuable provider of free public access technology and training as we strive to build stronger communities.
Orientation:
Libraries will be invited to view a webinar that will discuss EveryoneOn, including campaign toolkit materials and how they might be used.
Training Locator Database:
Connect2Compete is creating a Training Locator database with details about the services and resources the library and their community partners make available to help people learn digital literacy skills or access the Internet. Using information from the Institute of Museums and Library Services and the American Library Association, Connect2Compete has created a database of information about public libraries in the United States.
The database will power a Training Locator tool for people interested in finding digital literacy training or public access computers in their area. A 1-800 phone number will also be available with this information for those without internet access.
Important Notes to Minnesota Library Staff:
1.Your help may be needed to update this database with information about what each library location/branch currently offers.
2.We are advising Minnesota libraries to wait to update their entries until further notice. C2C had a tight launch timeframe, and they will be tweaking the data load for Minnesota libraries. While instructions and a link for updating the Training Locator database are on the Connect2Compete site, we suggest you wait to update Minnesota library entries until further notice from Minnesota State Library Services to avoid possible duplication of effort.
3. Your help to promote the database will be needed in the future. At the moment, C2C is resolving known search problems. So, if you play with the Locator and encounter challenges, try again in a few days. C2C considers 3/21 a “soft launch” for EveryoneOn.
Look for more information soon! If any questions, please contact Mary Ann Van Cura (651-582-8632 or [email protected]).
The Bentley Continental GT Speed and Audi S4, two siblings separated at birth and both from the same mother (Volkswagen). One went to the best schools, ate the best food and had the hottest girlfriends. The other, although still successful, had to work a little bit harder for it. From a price perspective you’d think the Bentley Continental GT was 10 times the car the Audi S4 is, but after enjoying a stint in both vehicles, Chris Harris seems to think differently. Click through and check it out.
No educational technology or teaching method has been embraced faster or more widely than so-called Massively Open, Online Courses (or MOOCs for short). For the uninitiated, these are online-only college courses where accredited professors teach audiences that in some cases number in the hundreds of thousands. This used to be considered a fad and a misguided approach to instruction, but it’s now rapidly going mainstream.
The state of California – a big player in establishing educational standards that are often adopted across the nation – is moving to approve legislation that will require colleges in that state to honor and give credit for faculty-approved MOOCs taken by their students.
Remember when Steve Jobs said 3D simulations on the NeXT computer would revolutionize education? That vision helped him break free of Apple. It led to the evolution of what is now known as Mac OSX and it is directly responsible for the smartphones many of us use every day.
But the education revolution he spoke of never happened. For generations, educational technology was a sleepy market sector that was always touted but never fulfilled. What makes this time any different?
I see three major forces at work that will create a “perfect storm” that will fundamentally change what we call education.
Huge student waitlists
As the cost of higher education has skyrocketed, colleges have been forced to cut back on expenses. As a result, many classes at public universities and community colleges are over-subscribed. Some students can’t get into the classes they need to graduate and must extend their college experience to gain the credits they need – which further overcrowds schools and classes (and mires students in even more debt).
The biggest waitlists are for introductory courses, which generally are also the least rewarding for professors to teach. In California alone, an estimated 784,000 community-college students are on such waiting lists, with the prospect of demand only increasing. It’s a legitimate crisis.
Last Fall, MOOC pioneer Udacity tested three math courses with San Jose State University. Students could enroll in intermediate algebra, college algebra, and elementary statistics courses online and only show up on campus for exams. One Udacity computer class alone had 250,000 people enrolled. The power of MOOCs is that they can fulfill the demands of students and schools in an economically efficient manner on a massive scale, while resolving the problem of overcrowding that has been festering for decades.
Academics as the new rock stars
MOOCs are already proving to be the greatest thing to hit universities since football. They bring worldwide attention to universities yet in a genuine way that completely supports the overall mission of university. And the MOOC platforms tend to feature university brands as prominently as ESPN features a school’s sports teams, making top-tier universities even more powerful for attracting students, faculty and research funding.
In times past, an outstanding professor could publish textbooks on his or her own as a supplement to teaching, which featured the professor’s personal brand as much as his/her employer’s. Early on in the development of its online courses, though, Stanford (followed by others) has made it clear though that all courses are owned by the university, not the professor doing the teaching.
That could change, but for now the personal brands of faculty have become analogous to athletes or rock stars. While for now they can’t earn royalties for teaching a MOOC – and it’s worth noting these represent a significant undertaking – their visibility is unlike anything remotely possible before, with many courses reaching tens of thousands of students at a time. Such recognition bolsters their careers and reputation far beyond the royalties they might receive from textbook publishing in the past.
Untapped demand
Some skeptics have pointed out that overall MOOC completion rates vary from 3 percent to 20 percent of those who initially enroll in a given course. They say the “dropout” rate is 90 percent, which indeed sounds bad. But it’s also misleading, and here’s why: Most of the dropoff is by people who are not really ready to take a full-on university course but who are happy to observe and learn something along the way.
What are we to make of this? Millions of people around the world want to take online course, but the current offerings are too rigorous and not yet suited to their needs. And this is a problem? Sounds to me like we are engaging a whole new set of students and developing new methods to invite them to pursue their dreams through the courses and classes they can take online. If the goal is spreading knowledge and education, then MOOCs are wildly succeeding.
John Duhring has been s a founding team member at nine startups, including Supermac Software and Bitmenu. During his career he has also applied technology to learning at large companies such as Prentice-Hall, Apple and AOL. Follow him on Twitter @duhring.
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The HTC Myst (or Opera, depending on how far back you keep up with these phones) has recently come through the FCC, and it’s sporting four LTE bands that AT&T smartphones are generally seen with. Aside from that, the only other concrete details from this filing are dual-band WiFi antennas and Bluetooth 4.0. Nothing exciting, but at least we know the phone is more than just rumor. Of course, if the earlier rumors are true, the phone will have a dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus clocked at 1.5 GHz under a 4.3 inch, 720p screen, as well as 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage, but no SD card slot. There’s nothing here that’s going to excite the enthusiast chasing the cutting edge of technology, but I think it’s a safe bet that’s not going to be the primary demographic of this phone.
If you’ve been keeping an eye on T-Mobile’s new Uncarrier Value Plans that are are likely to be unveiled on the 26th, you’re in for a treat, as we’ve got a few more details about how the plans are going to work. Like with the other leaked info we’ve seen, unlimited talking and texting is the centerpiece of these plans, with different amounts of data being the part that you’re charged more for. The base plan starts at $60 with free 500 MB of data, or you can go up to 12 GB for $130 per month, tethering included. For $90 a month, you get unlimited talk, text, and data, but no tethering. The tethering plans can be added on individually to the unlimited plan in 500 MB, 2.5 GB, or 4.5 GB bundles.
They are also offering family plans rivaling those of the bigger wireless carriers, with $160 getting you unlimited everything for two phones. (Add $50 for each line after that for unlimited data) It’s fairly competitive pricing that’s sure to keep T-Mobile relevant in the near future.
We also have some info at how T-Mobile will be marketing these plans. They’re going to be pushing four big unservices they’re offering; uncongested, unbeatable, unlimited, and unrestricted. On paper, this all looks like a great idea, but as we all know they’re going to be dropping carrier subsidies on phones in the process of moving to these plans. It’s going to be interesting to see if the general public reacts positively to that kind of change.
We’re back! After a long hiatus, we’ve started up the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast, our weekly review of everything hardware. We’ll be talking about hardware startups, flagship gadgets, and the wild and wooly worlds of Apple, Samsung, HTC, and all the rest.
Featuring the TC Gadgets team, this weekly audio podcast will bring you the best we have to offer and comment on the news of the week.
We’re looking for guests! If you’d like to be featured, me a line at [email protected]. We aim to make each of these about 20 minutes long – just right for a commute – and will bring on a rotating cast of TC writers.
This week we talk smartwatches, Apple on the defensive, and the release of the Nook HD+. Enjoy!
In theory, every time you import MP3 files to a PC you should rename them to follow consistent rules, then save them in an appropriate folder where they’ll be easy to find, later. In practice, of course, life’s too short — so it’s just as well that MusicZen can handle all this for you.
The program is available as a tiny (627KB) executable, and it really couldn’t be much easier to use. At a minimum all you have to do is download and run it, choose the folder where your MP3s are right now, and a destination folder where the finished results will be stored. Then click “Organize”, and watch as the program goes to work.
As with similar tools, MusicZen uses MP3 tags to figure out what it should do. And this starts by creating the new folders where your music will be stored. By default it organises these by artist, then album, but there are several other options available (Artists\Years, Artists\Years\Albums, Artists, Albums, Years\Albums, Years).
Each file will be renamed along the way, which may help if you’ve no consistent naming structure right now (mixed upper case, dashes or underscores as separators, and so on). By default they’ll be named using the track number and title, but this changes according to your folder structure. If you’re organising files according to their year, for instance, they’ll given the album name first, then the track number, and finally the song title.
You’re also able to decide whether files will be copied or moved, but otherwise that’s about it: MusicZen will handle everything else itself. This includes sorting out duplicates (if a file it’s moving already exists, then the original will be left in the source folder). And if some MP3s have no tags then they’ll be saved in an “Unknown” folder for manual reorganization later.
If you’re thinking this sounds very much the same as other MP3 renaming or organising tools, then you’re right. The core functionality is identical, and if anything you have less options than with some other programs. You can’t define exactly how your MP3′s should be renamed, for instance, only choose from the options provided by the program.
MusicZen does have one major plus, though: it’s extremely easy to use. There’s no installation required, no complex settings to consider, and the interface has an app-like simplicity. Even the Preferences tab contains only three controls; a “Change” button which you click repeatedly until you’ve selected the folder structure you need, and a couple of radio buttons to decide whether files should be copied or moved. It’s all very well designed, and a great choice for anyone who wants a hassle-free way to reorganise their MP3s.
At some point every guitarist has uttered the following statement: how the [censored] did he play that? Riffstation ($49.99), simply put, is a program that helps you learn how the [censored] he played it.
The core of Riffstation is a component that lets you load an audio file, and have it scan for chords it finds in the song. Currently it’s limited to Major, Minor and 7th chords. You can then play the audio file within Riffstation and it will show you when the chord changes occur. It’s important to note that currently it only handles detecting chords, so if you want it to score an Yngwie Malmsteen solo, you’re out of luck.
Trial by fire: How it handled four songs
I gave it a mix of songs, most of them I already knew, to see how it fared.
Rockin’ in the Free World, Neil Young: This is a pretty easy song, all open chords. The main part is a E-D-C chord progression and the chorus is G-D-C. Riffstation handled this one completely accurately.
A song involving pretty girls and jewelry, ZZ Top: Again, a pretty easy song based on a E-A chug, with some B, C# and F# thrown in as well. Again, Riffstation did an admirable job, although it temporarily thew me by referring to a C# chord as a D-flat (they’re the same chord, I just call it a C#, so it’s not inaccurate). There are a couple of ways to play the song, either with E major, or E5 chords. Naturally, it only detects the major chords, but I’ve played the song both ways depending on my moods.
White Room, Cream: This song isn’t really a fair test, since most of the song isn’t really chords, per se (for a good lesson on how to play it, I found this guy’s to be one of the better lessons). Riffstation didn’t really know what to do with the alternating major/minor chord progression in the intro, actually didn’t do a bad job with the verse chords, and did very well on the chorus. This is one of those songs I don’t think is a good song to have Riffstation detect the chords, but you can use the looping tools to help you learn difficult passages.
Wasted Years, Iron Maiden: This song shows one of the big limitations to Riffstation: while it will tell you the correct chords, it will not tell you the position they are played in. So, for Wasted Years, it did a good job on telling me the first chord is an E, it didn’t tell me that it’s played on the 7th and 9th frets; instead it showed an E chord on the 2nd frets. I’m going to repeat this several times, but while Riffstation is a great tool to help you figure out how to play songs, it is a complement to your ears; not a replacement.
Other features
Isolation: Riffstation lets you isolate the guitar tracks using the Jam Master tab. You can adjust the separation to let the guitar parts stand out as much as you want them to. I don’t like to isolate the guitars too much, since I like to hear the backbeat while I’m learning a song.
Looping: If there’s a part of a song you’re having problems with, you can select the passage in the uppermost window by clicking and dragging, clicking the loop button on the playback controls, and then hitting play. This is handy also when learning a solo. While Riffstation won’t transcribe the solo, you can loop the passage so you can figure it out by ear, or, if you have the tabs to it, while reading along. What I’ll usually do is pick a measure before where the solo actually begins and loop that with the solo.
Tempo controls: As you’d expect with a program of this nature, you can affect the tempo while the song is played back. This is very handy if there’s a passage you are struggling with, and especially useful when combined with the looping tools to repeat that troublesome passage.
Final thoughts
I think Riffstation is a fantastic tool to help musicians learn new songs. As I said, Riffstation is a complement to your ears; not a replacement. You are still going to need to listen to the songs and detect if Riffstation was correct in its analysis. The developers have said that the program is about 80 percent accurate, and I found that to be the case. However, I didn’t throw at it songs I felt it would have a problem with, like Hendrix songs. What it does do is get you in the ballpark and helps you build your ears.
What I’d love to see in future versions — other than better detection tools — is a way where it can play a version of the song based on its analysis of the song, so you can tell if it’s even close at all.
This morning, in a Google+ post, Eli Fennell expressed something I felt for days: That the furor over Google Reader’s execution is way, way, way too much. I’ve written little about the service’s demise and actually have argued with colleagues in group chat about their trying to hold onto Reader or mimic the sorely, last-century user interface.
My one quip, from a Thursday story: “You’ll never guess what you gave up Google Reader for? The tried-and-true makes way for a few, ah, experiments. Newest: Chrome World Wide Maze“. Gasp! Some people took that seriously. I meant it as indictment against all the stupid fuss about the RSS service’s July 1 retirement.
I explained on Google+: “LOL. I’m not ‘desperate to somehow tie this to Reader’. Just the opposite. I intended to be brutally sarcastic. I’m aghast at how much fuss people are making about this whole Reader thing. The Chrome experiments obviously have nothing to do with Reader, which is why I made the reference. So much for my writing capabilities”.
People, please, shut the frak up. Fennell writes:
I had expected the childish whining about Google Reader to have died down by now. Instead there has not only been an obnoxious volume of people continuing to post about it using nearly any excuse, but the tech media has become even worse, publishing an endless parade of “no one will use Keep because Google killed Reader” articles.
GTFOI people, and stop thinking you’re so all-fire important that the vast majority of us care at all whether you decide to boycott future Google products like self-entitled spoiled little brats. You want to stop using Google products? Go for it. Just shut up about it and keep it to yourself.
The Devil You Do
The whining about Reader is ridiculous. I often wondered why so many other companies that had developed worthwhile RSS sync for their software abandoned for Google Reader. I used NetNewsWire (on Mac) and Newsgator (on Windows PC) long before Reader and when they provided their own sync services before adopting Google’s. I only came to use Reader because the other developers dropped their own sync services. They slept with devil. What should they or their users expect? Compassion? Behavior that isn’t about self-interest?
Colleague Wayne Williams calls the July 1 execution a “blessing in disguise” and rightly observes that “Google has slowly been killing off Reader for a while”.
I eventually switched to Feedly because the user interface is fresh, particularly on tablets, and found Google Reader sync to be somewhat convenient but not really necessary. I am simply stunned by the rush to makeover Feedly into a Google Reader UI-like clone. Geez Louse, what the frak is wrong with you people — my tech journalist peers worst of all? Change is good.
Trust Whom?
I’ve seen no blogs, news stories or social network shares that get the point: It’s amazing that Google kept Reader alive for so long. Think about it. The UI is terribly-dated, Google made no real improvements in years and feeds bypassing sites with advertisements defeat the company’s core source of revenue. That Google kept Reader alive at all is testament to customer and partner commitment. The search and information giant should have killed Reader long ago, from this perspective.
Yet I read countless posts with people whining about how they can no longer trust Google, that they won’t adopt Keep and worry that any service they commit to using today might be gone tomorrow.
Google gives away Reader for free. People complain Google takes away something they don’t pay for? Get a life. Suck it up.
Of course you can’t trust Google. Everything the company produces is in a state of constant revision. Gmail stayed in beta for five years. The beta monikers are gone from most Google goodies, but refinement is a constant — as is public experimentation. You can love it or leave it, because you are a perpetual beta tester if using Google anything. That’s the price you pay for free software and services.
I tell you this: When constant refinement stops that’s sure sign Product X is bound for the scrap heap. That’s when you want to jump to something else. Because Google will put aside that thing in favor of something else. Yesterday, colleague Alan Buckingham linked to timely Slate post: “The Google Graveyard“. The incomplete list shows 39 products or services axed by Google henchmen.
Taste Freedom
Reality is this: There’s a new sheriff in town. April 4 marks Larry Page’s second anniversary returning as CEO. From Day One, he swung the hatchet. Google Reader won’t be the last service killed past its prime. If there was a law against technology euthanasia, Page would have received multiple life sentences already. He’s a mercy killer, and doing Google Reader really puts you and a bunch of other RSS products out of misery. Even if no one sensed the pain of it.
To the nearly 150,000 people signing the “Google: Keep Google Reader Running” petition, I say this: Suck it up. Stop complaining — and rejoice. Google just freed you from slavery. Don’t whine about freedom, use it!
Reader’s dominance held back competition in the feeds space. Maybe RSS can evolve into something better now and become the truly useful tool envisioned in the last century. Google Reader’s UI isn’t contextually useful at all, particularly on smartphones and tablets. Don’t cling to Google slavery. Now is time to re-examine all the products important to your digital lifestyle — as Wayne is doing and writes about (now in two parts, here and here).
T-Mobile is just days away from their March 26 event in New York and aside from hearing more about their UNcarrier plans, there may also be talk about 4G LTE hitting more cities. Thanks to OpenSignal, it appears that T-Mobile has been testing LTE in nine different cities which are Seattle, Denver, Las Vegas, New Orleans, New York, San Diego, Kansas City, and San Jose/Bay Area. In early testing, speeds have been very solid with 25Mbps down and 8Mbps up. Unfortunately, unless you have the Galaxy Note II, S 4 (lucky you), S III, or the S II HD LTE, you won’t experience LTE speeds until T-Mobile makes the networks live for everyone.
Andy Rubin was a major part of Android ever since Google acquired the company in 2005, and Andy left his position with Android last week to work on something else inside Google. At Business Insider’s IGNITION Mobile conference in San Francisco, Jessica Lessin spoke with Samsung chief product officer Kevin Packingham. Kevin mentioned that Samsung’s relationship with Google has strengthened over the past couple years, and praised Sundar Pichai who will be replacing Andy, saying that he’s a “a super-nice person” and “very collaborative”. While there were good things said about Rubin, Kevin said that once he made a decision, “You weren’t going to get him to deviate from that position.” Stubborn or not, Andy’s decisions have clearly paid off.
As the first apps start to come out for Google’s augmented reality glasses, we’re starting to see how viewing the world and consuming digital content could be transformed. You can capture photos and videos and send them to your friends with a simple gesture, or scan the New York Times headlines without moving a finger. But perhaps the real breakthrough app for Google Glass wouldn’t be about content consumption at all, but about control.
This week the folks at Engadget dug up a patent around Google Glass using wireless connectivity to control connected devices in your home. The glasses could use any number of wireless methods — from RFID, to infrared, to Bluetooth to QR codes — to identify a connected device that could be manipulated, and then, presumably, to manipulate it.
Picture arriving home from work, and the door of your house automatically unlocks to let you in as you walk up to it. Inside, your NPR app comes on the glasses screen and you can tune in or change the channel while you fiddle with turning on the connected sprinkler system for your lawn. Your Nest thermostat app then pops up on your Google Glass screen to let you know that you’ve been good this week and saved a lot of energy, but with a wink you override the conservation mode and crank up the heat.
The scenario isn’t as crazy as it sounds and all the basic technology is there. There are mobile apps that already do all of these things. Essentially you’d just be moving the control function from the cell phone touch screen and your fingertips to the screen in front of your eye and either a facial gesture or hand movement. All devices in the home that would benefit from having connectivity and control are getting it, and there will be a variety of remotes that will control them — why not one on your face?
Move outside of the home, and the world filled with the internet of things could be controlled, too. You could unlock your Zipcar with your Google Glass app, or start warming up your Tesla Model S electric car remotely before you take it for a spin.
As Om suggested in his recent data Darwinism post, the biggest changes coming for the connected world won’t be about technology; they’ll be more about how philosophical, legislative, and political norms evolve in response to this new world. And using Google Glass as a way to be the master of the internet of things would have interesting implications for all of these areas.
Getting the design, interface, architecture and ecosystem right for such a vision will no doubt be difficult. Mark Rolston, the chief creative officer at Frog Design, has noted the challenges inherent in designing interfaces in a world where devices are both trying to understand a user’s intent, and also test out new ways to interact with them, such as motion.
But ultimately these are design issues, and designers will spend the next several years trying to humanize such an experience.
Joshua Foer thought he might have set out on a fool’s errand when he started training to compete in the U.S. Memory Championship. Only, he ended up winning it in 2006.
Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can doIn his talk from TED2012, Foer shares the simple trick of memory that helped him become a champion — creating a memory palace that helps you physically and spatially locate memories in a familiar space. But can anyone do this? This week’s TED Weekends on the Huffington Post explores the power of memory. Below, three essays to pique your interest.
Last weekend in New York City, Ram Kolli defeated the reigning USA Memory Championship Nelson Dellis to win the 16th annual USA Memory Championship. Readers of my book Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything will remember Kolli as the “mental athlete” I went toe-to-toe with when I won that same contest in 2006.
Here’s the thing: Despite being U.S. memory champions, Kolli, Dellis, and I occasionally misplace our car keys, just like everyone else. We don’t actually have great memories. Rather, we know how to use the memories we’ve got more effectively in certain contexts, thanks to a set of mnemonic techniques invented in antiquity.
One of those techniques, known as the memory palace, was supposedly invented by a Greek poet 2,500 years ago. Read the rest of the essay »
Here’s a provocative claim: Great creativity is based in great memory. If we enhance our ability to remember, we will become more creative. You probably think that memory is the exact opposite of creativity. After all, the things you memorize already exist — they’re not new. And creativity is all about a new idea that didn’t exist before… right?
Well, not exactly. Creative insights always come from combinations of existing mental material. New ideas don’t just appear out of thin air; they build on existing ideas, concepts, and perceptions that you’ve stored in your mind over the years. Researchers have discovered that major creative insights tend to happen only after you work many years in an area — because it takes years to absorb the many small bits of mental material that will feed your creative process. If you don’t remember all of this material, then it won’t be available as raw material to your mind’s insight generating combination machine. Read the rest of the essay »
Your brain is pretty darn incredible. It grasps quantum physics and converts cow manure into biofuel with the same alacrity that it overeats, skips out on spin class, and hits the snooze button on the alarm, particularly, especially, when it knows it shouldn’t. Joshua Foer finds himself the winner of a memory contest without any prior claims to an exceptional memory. He found that all he had to do was train the brain.
In other words, what your grandma told you was true: Habits are first cobwebs, then cables. If we keep doing something, the involved brain circuits become very strong. Which is why it is best not to take up midnight ice cream raids in the first place. The night call of the refrigerator siren is irresistible once the neurologic cables that heed her call are laid. Read the rest of the essay »
To call the Porsche 911 GT2 a Porsche Turbo on steroids, really doesn’t do this car justice. We’re not taking anything away from the Turbo here, but where that’s a more high performance street car, the GT2 is more of a true drivers car. Powered by a twin-turbo flat-six that makes 530 hp, the GT2 is rear-wheel drive only and comes with a proper 6-speed manual transmission. Not as hard edged as the GT2 RS or GT3 RS, the GT2 fits into that perfect slot by blending all day livability and power, with flat-out track performance. Such an amazing machine.
These videos were paid for and created by Microsoft. GigaOM’s editorial team had no involvement in their production.
What happens when devices at the edge of enterprise networks are connected to software and services in the back end or the cloud? Suddenly, a rich new source of information is available. The data has always been there, but now with Windows Embedded 8 and an integrated stack of Microsoft technologies, extending from the server room to the customer’s fingertips, your enterprise can evolve business intelligence to operational intelligence to identify and act on new opportunities.
Watch the videos below or visit www.getwindowsembedded8.com to learn how Windows Embedded enables you to drive a new level of business intelligence and identify opportunities that would be otherwise out of reach.”
Video #1
Unlock business intelligence with Windows Embedded 8
What happens when devices at the edge of enterprise networks are connected to software and services in the backend or the cloud? Suddenly, a rich new source of information is available. The data has always been there, but now with Windows Embedded 8 and an integrated stack of Microsoft technologies, extending from the server room to the customer’s fingertips, your enterprise can evolve business intelligence to operational intelligence to identify and act on new opportunities.
Watch the videos below or visit www.getwindowsembedded8.com to learn how Windows Embedded enables you to drive a new level of business intelligence and identify opportunities that would be otherwise out of reach.
Video #2
Capitalizing on the internet of things
The internet of things is prompting businesses to rethink how they use their digital assets. Kevin Dallas, GM of Windows Embedded at Microsoft, tells GigaOM Research’s Adam Lesser how companies can build intelligent systems to take advantage of the data their devices are already generating, for better business intelligence.
Video #3
Transforming business in manufacturing
For manufacturers, competitive advantage lies in connecting equipment on the factory floor to backend systems to harness real-time data. Windows Embedded GM Barb Edson, Microsoft CTO for Manufacturing Rohit Bhargava and ARC Advisory Group analyst Craig Resnick join GigaOM Research’s Adam Lesser to discuss how intelligent systems drive operational efficiency and new business opportunities in manufacturing.
Video #4 here
Transforming business in health care
Connected technology can be transformative for healthcare organizations but also needs to be secure. Windows Embedded GM Barb Edson, Microsoft’s WW GM for Health Neil Jordan and Ovum analyst Cornelia Wels-Maug join GigaOM Research’s Adam Lesser to discuss how intelligent systems help health care providers securely improve patient care, access and outcomes in less time and at lower costs.
Video #5
Transforming business in manufacturing
For manufacturers, competitive advantage lies in connecting equipment on the factory floor to backend systems to harness real-time data. Windows Embedded GM Barb Edson, Microsoft CTO for Manufacturing Rohit Bhargava and ARC Advisory Group analyst Craig Resnick join GigaOM Research’s Adam Lesser to discuss how intelligent systems drive operational efficiency and new business opportunities in manufacturing.
Video #6
Building edge devices and intelligent solutions
To be a part of the internet of things, businesses need the right kinds of devices. Kevin Dallas, GM of Windows Embedded at Microsoft, tells GigaOM Research’s Adam Lesser what OEM and ODMs should think about as they help their customers build intelligent systems to take advantage of the data their devices are already generating.
Video #7
Building edge devices and intelligent solutions with HP
Today’s health care providers are looking to implement intelligent systems that connect data across departments and organizations. HP’s Lance Stevens joins GigaOM Research’s Adam Lesser to discuss how his company’s Windows Embedded devices enable healthcare organizations to seamlessly and securely access data across multiple touch points while driving operational efficiency for increased productivity and improved patient care.
Video #8
Building edge devices and intelligent solutions with Dell Wyse
As retailers look to provide a better shopping experience for customers, OEMs will play a key role, creating the devices that deliver rich, personalized customer experiences.
Video #9
Building edge devices and intelligent solutions with Omnicell
As health care providers work to provide effective care for patients, they need to securely access information in many different systems from a single location. Omnicell’s Jeff Kropp joins GigaOM Research’s Adam Lesser to discuss the intelligent systems opportunity in health care and how his company’s Windows Embedded devices deliver the security and interoperability health care organizations need.
An aerial view of one of Apple’s two major solar panel arrays in Maiden, North Carolina, which supply electricity to help support the power requirements for a nearby Apple data center. (Photo: Apple)
For your weekend reading, here’s a recap of five noteworthy stories that appeared on Data Center Knowledge this past week. Enjoy!
Squeezing More Efficiency Out of Microsoft’s Cloud – Squeezing more efficiency and density out of bleeding-edge facilities is the next phase in the data center arms race. It’s a process that Microsoft has undertaken with its Dublin data center, and other leading players will be pursuing as they seek to get more mileage out of new server farms that came online in the huge construction boom from 2007 to 2010.
Apple Hits 100% Renewable Energy in its Data Centers – In the wake of pressure from the environmental group Greenpeace, Apple said Thursday that it has achieved 100 percent renewable energy at all of its data centers, including facilities in North Carolina, Oregon, California and Nevada.
Bringing Colo to the Customer: Modular Gets Local – Colo has come to the customer. In a business park just minutes from its global headquarters, LexisNexis is housing racks of IT gear inside factory-built data center modules from IO. It’s an example of a new paradigm for enterprise data centers, in which pre-fabricated designs can create resilient Tier III facilities within 120 days at any location a customer chooses.
Sabey Opens High-Rise Manhattan Data Tower – Some New Yorkers who look upon the huge Verizon high-rise at 375 Pearl Street have trouble seeing past its foreboding stone facade. The team at Sabey Data Centers saw it as a blank canvas: an opportunity to remake 1 million square feet of Manhattan real estate as a high-tech data hub.
Old Gas Tower to Become Futuristic Data Center– In one of the more interesting retrofit projects we’ve seen, a Swedish ISP is planning to convert a huge former natural gas holding tank into a five-story data center. The developer is Bahnhof, which has gained notice for its unusual data center designs, including the “James Bond Villain” data center in a former nuclear bunker and a modular unit designed to look like a space station.
Three months after the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama says that the Senate has taken important steps forward to help protect our kids by reducing gun violence. The American people made their voices heard, and the Senate made progress to make it harder for criminals and people with serious mental illnesses to get guns, to crack down on anyone trying to funnel guns to criminals, and to reinstate and strengthen a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons. Each of these ideas deserves a vote. The President urges Congress to pass these commonsense measures while affirming our nation’s tradition of responsible gun ownership.
For those of you in the US that are itching to get your hands on the newest tablets from Archos; you’re in luck. The GamePad, 97 Titanium and 80 Titanium tablets are breaking US soil through various retailers. The tablets that made their debut at CES this year will be available through Adorama, Amazon, B&H Photo, Brandsmart, Beach Camera, Hastings, and J&R.
Both the 97 Titanium and 80 Titanium tablets will house a 1.6GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, dual cameras, 8GB of storage and both will run Android 4.1. The differences between the two are what display each will have and pricing. The 97 will run a 2048×1536 9.7-inch display where the 80 will come with an 8-inch 1024×768 display. They’ll both come in under $300 with the 97 coming in at $249 and the 80 at $169.
If you don’t remember, we were able to get some hands on time with both the Titanium series and the GamePad. Unlike the other two tablets, the GamePad has dedicated gaming buttons that are mappable. It comes with a 7-inch 1024×600 display and powered by a 1.6GHz A9 dual-core processor. It will have 1GB of RAM, 4-core GPU and will also run Android 4.1. It’s priced at $179.
As you can see Archos has priced these tablets to move and while the GamePad may not be set to take on Nvidia’s Project Shield, it should peak the interest of mobile gamers out there. If you’re interested in finding out more about these tablets you can check out the source links below.
Joshua Foer thought he might have set out on a fool’s errand when he started training to compete in the U.S. Memory Championship. Only, he ended up winning it in 2006.
Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do
