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Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

All the world’s computers equal to one human mind

16 Feb

The time may come when a computer will be able to out-compute a human, but not yet. According to a recent study, adding up all the computation power in every laptop, server, mainframe, cell phone, and digital processors of all kinds, everywhere on the planet will give you approximately the ability to handle approximately 6.4 x 10^18 operations a second. About the same as a human brain.

All the worlds storage – paper, film, hard-drives, etc. would give you same amount of storage as human DNA. In other words, somewhere around 2011 the planet has enough computing power to account for 1 extra person. The vast amount of “thinking” is still done by organic chemistry. Read the article I read on ARS Technica.

 
17 Comments

Posted in Imagination, Science, Technology, The Future

 

Time to take another look at GWT

09 Dec

Cody Burleson and I looked at Google’s Web Development Toolkit (GWT) when it cam out in 2007. We even build some small applications to test it. We liked it because it seemed like a good bridge between the enterprise world of J2EE development and the lightweight, web 2.0, AJAX driven applications of today. Now Google has released the 2.0 version of the product. What remains the most promising of this is that complier. Which takes code and compiles it for the web and applies all kinds of magic to make it lighter, faster, and better in many ways. Take a look at the video below. To me the most telling part was the testimony from the Google Wave team – with 100’s of developers working on dozen of feature the JS code alone grew to over 1.5mb. I’ know from experience that when you get just 2 or 3 people working on the same complex application, optimization and looking for reuse opportunities becomes a project in and of itself. Delegating some of that work to a smart complier looks like a brilliant idea.

 

I’m also keen on taking a look at the Speed Tracer…Looks like a winner to me.

 

If you have tried either of these, I’d love to hear about it.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Google, Technology, Web Design, Web Software

 

A “Thanks for your order” message with authenticity

02 Apr

The Saddleback Leather Company is the real deal. It has something the rest of the world is now trying to recreate after a century of washing it away with bureaucratic, six sigma, dehumanization – authenticity.   The problem most large organizations will have with being authentic this is identifying exactly WHO is thankful. Think about it – the first line of customer interaction at your company is probably more authentically happy when the phone STOPS ringing and they can take a break. This means of coarse that you are going to have to hire someone (ahemmm) to help you find your voice.

Study this email. I don’t recommend you copy his style (which is reminiscent of overindulgent catalog king J. Peterman on “Seinfeld”) but rather think about how honest-to-goodness thankfulness, and transparency can be incorporated into your business, regardless of its size.

Hello there Ben Shoemate

Just wanted to let you know that I sent your bag out just a little bit ago. Your tracking number is listed below along with a link to the shipping company so you can track your leather piece every couple of hours.  To care for your leather piece and read about the photo contest please see the Questions page on the website. I have all sorts of tips to keep your leather in top shape.

Oh, and by the way, I didn’t want to tell you this before you joined, but 10% of the gross amount that you gave to Saddleback went directly to one of those aid organizations on the Dave’s Links page.  If you spent $500 + $20 for shipping then $52 went out to love people.  Basically, you just contributed to drilling a well for an entire village or partially sponsored a 5 year old street kid in Rwanda to get into a loving orphanage and go to one of the best schools in the country. This is the main reason Saddleback Leather exists. Just wanted to let you know… between friends. Thanks for helping.

The way I see it, out of the thousands and thousands of companies in the world, on the Internet or down on the corner selling leather goods, you chose mine and I really do feel honored.  You are very much appreciated.. Welcome to the family.

Thank you and have a great week.

Warm regards,

Dave Munson
Presidente
Saddleback Leather Co

Your order number is SBL-*********.

The tracking numbers are:
******************************
You can track your package by visiting the links below:
http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?TypeOfInquiryNumber=T&InquiryNumber1=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The following items have been shipped to you:
line items
———————————————————————–
Small Wallet Light Tobacco Brown (WA-SM-LTB)
quantity: 1
total price: $28.00
———————————————————————–
subtotal:                        $28.00
sales tax:                        $2.28
standard shipping: *             $12.98
*shipping total includes handling and insurance fees
=======================================================================
grand total:                     $43.26
———————————————————————–

This order will be billed to:

Ben Shoemate
************
———————————————————————–

Orders for merchandise ship UPS and will receive a confirmation email and tracking number when your UPS order has shipped.
Orders for gift cards only ship via USPS mail with Delivery Confirmation and usually arrive in 3 to 5 business days.
—

This is an automatically generated email

Even down to letting you know this email was generated automatically – the message is honest and personal. Well done Dave.

 
9 Comments

Posted in Email, Humor, Philosophy, Social Networks

 

A primer to communication – 1953 film

16 Feb

The basics of communication presented in this 1953 introduction to "the era of communication" (aka the information age) are still true in 2003. Transmission, noise, redundancy, distortion… misunderstanding. Charles and Ray Eames were husband and wife, not brothers. They were not initially architects. Ray was a visual artist. This is a classic Eames film and a great introduction to their creativity that spanned many industries.

 
1 Comment

Posted in All Blog Posts, Imagination, Information Visualiation, Technology

 

Kindle + MacbookAir = What I really want for Christmas

12 Feb

Kindle is Amazon’s eBook reader. It uses epaper. The difference between it and a normal device is that the words stay on the screen even when the device is “off”. So it only uses power to “change” the page.

It does this with millions of tiny balls, black on one side, white on the other. These rotate independently. The screen is more readable, like a newspaper, uses real light to show the screen, and use a lot less battery.

I think the ultimate devise would be to put a page of epaper on the lid of a thin laptop – like the Macbookair. I mocked it up in Photoshop below. Close the lid – read a book. Open it, use the laptop. Perfect.

macbook-kindle

 
No Comments

Posted in Technology

 
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