Elon Musk’s company SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have grabbed the headlines in the space race, both of them building rockets and spacecraft. But there is fascinating backstory on how this race and the private space industry came into existence. It is the tale of a renegade entrepreneur, Peter Diamandis, who founded the XPRIZE… Read More
Network vs. Platform
So, how do we define these terms? What is the core difference? Why does it matter – what is the implication on business models? And finally, which firms today embody these models?
First, the basics. Digital business models are inherently exponential in terms of value generation. Data drives powerful flywheel effect, and these … Read More
Digital – what is different about it?
A very basic question, surely, but something that has been surprisingly difficult for many to answer coherently! There is no universally acceptable description or definition out there. Many use digital and mobile interchangeably, some more technology-minded define Digital by use of APIs (and differentiate it from ecommerce… Read More
Alexa – what should tech do next?
In the ongoing debate over substantive use cases and the difference between we “can” do something and we “should” do something, technologists and the firms they work for may be all that stand between the rebirth of innovation and the decline of civilization.… Read More
Will Unicorn Tech Startups Go the Way of the Unicorns?
After a record pace achieved in 2015, there’s no doubt the rate of billion-dollar valuations for startups has cooled down in 2016. But it is too soon to tell if the pause is temporary or reflects a return to the past when billion-dollar valuations for startups were as rare as unicorns.
Success in general brings greater scrutiny and… Read More
Petahertz Electronics?
In the early days of integrated components, we used to think kHz (~10[SUP]3[/SUP]Hz) processing was pretty wild. Those systems were quickly eclipsed by MHz (~10[SUP]6[/SUP]Hz) performers and now we’re blasé about GHz (~10[SUP]9[/SUP]Hz) speeds. Recently (2014), DARPA announced a THz (~10[SUP]12[/SUP]Hz) amplifier, built… Read More
What is Virtualization?
Virtualization is software that separates physical infrastructures to create various dedicated resources. It is the fundamental technology that powers cloud computing.
“Virtualizationsoftware makes it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple applications on the same server at the same time,”… Read More
What is Deep Learning?
Deep learningis an emerging topic in artificial intelligence (AI). A subcategory of machine learning, deep learning deals with the use of neural networks to improve things like speech recognition, computer vision, and natural language processing. It’s quickly becoming one of the most sought-after fields in computer… Read More
Bacteriography
I recently found a couple of articles which caught my interest, both on roles bacteria can play in electronics. The first has to do with a method to form semiconductor-like structures on a sheet of graphene. Graphene is an excellent conductor but in sheet form but conducts more or less equally in all directions. So the first problem… Read More
Why is Jet-Lag Worse Flying East?
Anyone who travels long distances frequently is painfully familiar with this problem, but you may be wondering why I am mentioning it in this forum. The American Institute of Physics has a Chaos journal which looks at interdisciplinary problems in non-linear dynamics and recently published an article on just this topic.
There… Read More
Facing the Quantum Nature of EUV Lithography