In the 2013 movie “Her,” Theodore Twombly, a lonely writer, falls in love with a digital assistant designed to meet his every need. She sorts emails, helps get a book published, provides personal advice and ultimately becomes his girlfriend. The assistant, Samantha, is A.I. software capable of learning at an astonishing pace.… Read More
This Apple Fell a Little Further from the Tree
Some companies are famously, even obsessively secretive about internal development. We never get to see discussion of areas they are working on (other than through patent filings) – we only see the polished and released product/service. Amazon is one such company but Apple must rank for many of us as the pre-eminent company in … Read More
IBM Demonstrates Blockchain Progress and Clients
IBM must have laid off its lawyers or something since never before has the company seemed so ready to reveal clients by name and the projects they’re engaged in. That has been going on for months and recently it has accelerated. Credit IBM’s eagerness to get blockchain established fast and show progress with the open community HyperLedger… Read More
The Other Half of AI
I touched earlier on challenges that can appear in AI systems which operate as black-boxes, particularly in deep learning systems. Problems are limited when applied to simple recognition tasks, e.g. recognizing a speed limit posted on a sign. In these cases, the recognition task is (from a human viewpoint) simply choosing from… Read More
Renewable Energy is On a Roll
Since everything we build in this industry either runs on, stores or produces electricity, we should have a more than passing interest in how we get that power. A couple of organizations, confusingly named the IEA (International Energy Agency) and the EIA (Energy Information Administration – a US agency) provide lots of interesting… Read More
Driverless Cars and our Global Economy
While traveling to California this year I had my first Uber trip after a concierge in Santa Clara recommended it as the best way to get to the airport, instead of the usual and expensive taxi ride. Later in the year I had my first Lyft ride after my road bike broke down and I needed a ride back home. Our transportation choices are shifting,… Read More
Building a Solar Powered Ice Freezer
My vacation is your worst nightmare. Well, at least that is what the bumper sticker says – it’s referring to Burning Man. It’s well known that among the tens of thousands of people attending this arts festival in Nevada at the end of each Summer there are lots of high tech luminaries. I also have gone many times – not to say that I am a luminary.… Read More
Microsoft Ignite 2016: Stepping On The Enterprise Accelerator
At the Microsoft Ignite Conference in Atlanta, Microsoft announced a series of major capabilities across Windows, Office, Azure, Dynamics and Cortana. Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella highlighted, like he has in so many other of his big-tent speeches, the importance of enabling IT to drive the digital transformation in businesses… Read More
Google Pixel And Home Event: A Quick, Industry Technology Analyst Take
I just completed watching Google’s special hardware event and wanted to share my high-level, industry analyst take on it.
Google Assistant
Everything Google showed on-stage was very compelling, but as we have seen with most claims in intelligent assistants, rarely if ever have they lived up to the hype. Until consumers can truly… Read More
These 6 new technology rules will govern our future
Technology is advancing so rapidly that we will experience radical changes in society not only in our lifetimes but in the coming years. We have already begun to see ways in which computing, sensors, artificial intelligence and genomics are reshaping entire industries and our daily lives. As we undergo this rapid change, many … Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay