Technology – Page 2

Shai Agassi

I’d like to say that Thomas Friedman said it best when he said,

“What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi.”

I think I can improve.

Bottom line. (Read Thomas’s book , The World is Flat, and you might think he is one as well)

The plain reality is that our civilization is experiencing harsh consequences directly resulting from our own innovations. The most highly debated and discusses innovation being automobiles and oil.

But, when you look at how oil has effected the socioeconomics of almost every culture worldwide, you would immediately understand how it is going to take a lot more then alternative energy to fix the oil problem. Because within the oil problem, there exist an entire set of other connected issue, from technology, to economy, and even religion. Being able to solve a problem, that addresses all connected problems, is extremely difficult. Doing this on an international scale is much harder, and executing the solution is near impossible.

Shai Agassi is on a mission to create

“global energy independence and freedom from oil”

Say that out loud. Think of all the many countless factors at play. He is trying to account for them all, and deliver a solution that could fix the ills brought upon by the industrial revolution.

Most importantly, he is committed, and determined to address, perhaps the hardest issue of our time. And for that he is a hero.

Linking Up the Living Room With The Internet

Intel’s announcement with Yahoo to bring widgets to the living room is not a real shocker.

I have seen this image 2 years ago, while I was in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. (The widgets appeared on a 42″ LCD, hanging behind a 1 way reflective piece of glass. This was hanging in the bathroom, allowing people to check stocks and weather while brushing their teeth. It was also a prototype by Yahoo).

The idea is simple: make the Internet available in and on more mediums.

Television is clearly the most logical place to start.

But does it require hardware modifications on a television? Couldn’t the same be accomplished with a console or set box top provider like Microsoft or Scientific Atlanta?

Either way, its nice to see that companies are taking real strides to get Internet in the living room. Or is it?

If only Facebook created their own Microsoft Exchange

How great would that be? For those of you that are not familiar with Microsoft Exchange, the idea is this: Being able to sync your phone with Facebook. Everyone in your Facebook social graph becomes a contact in your phone.

Some things you could do with such a solution:

Anytime your friend buys a new phone or changes their number, they simply make the edits themselves in their Facebook account, and the number becomes available in your phone.
If you add a new friend on Facebook, you can choose to include them in your “Mobile Sync” setting allowing you to choose, whether or not you’d like this new “Facebook Friend” as a contact in your phone.
Text messages becomes Facebook messages.
Your Facebook newsfeed becomes a newsfeed on your phone.

I’m probably going to buy the new iPhone when it comes out. In the past, I’ve stuck with Windows Mobile devices because it allowed me to sync my contacts, email, calender, and tasks with my Microsoft Exchange Server (I run MS SBS out of my house). But instead of updating all of my contact information time and again in outlook, I’d prefer a system that utilizes self published user information; aka: Facebook.

As Apple and Google have been addressing the mobile market in new and innovative ways with the iPhone and Android, it seems to me that Facebook is in the best position to capitalize off of the “network” business.

ON A SIDE NOTE: I’ve also been looking for a tool that seemlessly syncs outlook Contacts and calender with my Facebook account, but I haven’t found one yet. This would be ideal.

I hope Facebook comes out with either of these solutions.

Organizing the world’s heath

Of all the doctor’s offices I’ve ever been in, I can undoubtedly say they all have one thing in common: The overwhelming amounts of patient files and folders. Next time you go see the doctor, take a look behind the front desk. You will most likely find the sea of colored tabbed, manila folders, each one corresponding to a different patient.

Think about this for a second. Each medical office or facility has huge amounts of patient data that exist in isolated silos. If I were to visit two different general physicians, I would get two different examinations, with two different diagnoses, two different perspectives, and two different data sets on my health. Although they may be very similar, they will most certainly be different to some degree.

With the advent of the internet, the social web, search optimization, and relational databases, it has become increasingly easier to share and access information.

Why can’t we apply the same methods to our own heath? Imagine if every doctor’s office shared one database, offering more insight to a patients health. Granted privacy is an issue and a big concern. But what if those patients lived in the database as ID’s rather then name? The patient would be completely anonymous, and doctor can gain new perspective to a patient’s health they may not have previously had.

Now imagine the database existed in an open source, atlassian-like structure. If the doctor was trying to diagnose a patient based on a list of symptoms, they could hypothetically type in some keywords into the database, and have real time, real world patients at their finger tips (with no personally identifiable information). It would be like a real time, global medical journal. Doctors would have to qualify in order to participate in the database.

Ultimately, the patient wins as their health becomes an open source project for all of the doctors that participate, without their indentity ever being known.

My version of IBM’s new supercomputing initiative

IBM has recently announced “a next-generation version of its Cell processor, the first specifically geared for computer servers.”

The PowerXCell 8i will drive the Road Runner system now under test at Los Alamos National Labs to see if it can become the world’s first supercomputer to deliver sustained petaflops performance. Besides cracking the petaflops barrier, IBM hopes hundreds of users will decide to plug into their IBM servers a two-socket board housing the new Cell chips to deliver what IBM calls “supercomputing for the masses.”

Instead of servers being plugged into a grid, why not use PCs and gaming consoles?

I find this announcement to be kind of ironic since it was IBM that realized open source (the Apache Web Server) is more valuable than a centralized and closed platform, even if is somewhat open.

If I was IBM, here is what I would do.

The idea: Mixing different kinds of computers into a supercomputing grid to create an infinitely scalable supercomputer for enterprise solutions. Just as SETI and Stanford have created new hybrids of supercomputers for astrological data analyzation and Computational Earth and Environmental Science research respectively, a similar supercomputing hybrid model has yet to be adopted for commercialized use. This idea will allow users to submit their PCs or gaming consoles to the supercomputing grid, where they can be accessed whenever they are not being used, and will contribute to a commercially available supercomputer. By participating in this supercomputing grid, donations will be made to charities on the users’ behalf. These donations will depend on the amount of data processes computed on their machines. On the other end of the business, enterprises will be able to rent, lease, or even purchase data processing bandwidth. This will enable startups, small to medium businesses, and large businesses, to acquire computationally intensive processing power with extremely fast clock cycles which could easily deliver sustained petaflops performance and beyond. This would be the first ever cluster of machines available for commercialized use providing for cheap energy costs and cheap hardware costs. By participating in this grid, users will be members of ongoing charitable donations, and businesses will, for the first time ever, have paralleled computing power to the likes of SETI and Stanford. PCs were once thought of “business or research only”. Today, virtually everyone owns a PC. Supercomputers today are only thought of as “research-only”. This put supercomputers in the commercialized or “business” realm. IBM has just announced a new initiative to delver a supercomputer to the masses, as they predict an $8-$10 Billion market. Instead of creating a centralized supercomputer for the masses, this idea will create a decentralized supercomputer to the masses, that will exceed any one supercomputer.

That is what I would do.

An invention I should have pursued further

Last year, I began pursuing an idea with a good friend of mine. We met with one of our extremely talented professors, Giri Venkataramanan, and began developing mathematical equations to turn our idea into a reality. Well, we stopped pursuing the idea due to a simple lack of free time, and sure enough, the idea has surfaced and is now in production.

“Terry Kenney’s Dragon Power Station prototype works by harnessing the kinetic energy of trucks passing over plates buried in the road and turning that energy into electricity.”

– Jason Chen, Gizmodo.com

Even one of the comments made, expresses the same thought process we encountered.

“@ludwigk: It’s a great idea though if done as already noted by NOT lowering your fuel economy. If they placed this on, say, every interstate off-ramp. Everyone needs to slow down anyways. Lots of traffic. It’s not going to hurt your fuel efficiency if you’re already trying to stop. all it will do is save you some wear and tear on your brakes. Granted, it’s probably not generating as much power as that article initially claims, but still…every bit counts.”

But if anything good comes from this, it is this: Validation. (Andy M taught me this)

The fact that this idea was developed, and is in production, validates our initial pursuit of invention.

Maybe next time.

Rocks, Paper, Scissors….Memristor?

Consider the game of Rocks, Paper, Scissor. Three components. Three pieces that make up a rather historical game. What if a fourth component was introduced to the game? What would that fourth component look like, and what would its properties be. Wouldn’t this drastically alter the way the game is played?

Yes.

This is happening now in the world of electronics and circuits and stands to revolutionize an entire set of rules. What was once three fundamental devices (resistor, capacitor, and inductor), now has a fourth family member called the memristor.

Basically, this new device remembers how much charge was passed through, either forwards or backwards. Disregarding all the technical jargon, I wonder how this will effect chip manufacturing and design.

Might the smallest invention or innovation ultimately have the most profound effect?

There is simply nothing like true innovation.

What happens if you play Rocks, Paper, Scissors, _____________? Try it.

On the Microsoft/Yahoo merger…

“No one wants it (the Microsoft-Yahoo merger) to happen. The only reason it’s being considered is that the management of Windows Live has been so ineffective that they can’t ship anything worth using. They are consistently behind what consumers want, and unlike the old Microsoft, they are so poorly managed that they can’t even copy everyone else. “

–Anonymous source to Mary Jo Foley of ZDnet

So adding more layers of complexity to an already dwindling organization is going to help? Microsoft is better off staying focused on XBOX and bridging the gap between media and the living room.

Where did their core competencies go?

Google, Microsoft head to MadTown

The amount of countless hours I’ve spent in UW-Madison’s Engineering Hall, should earn me the “GAL” or “Get a Life” award. Instead I will receive a degree in Electrical Engineering from UW-Madison. And perhaps the same reasons I decided to attend this University, are now being considered by Google, as they too plan on setting up shop in Madison, Wisconsin.

In a statement to The Badger Herald, Google representatives said, “We are opening an office in Madison because the city offers an excellent quality of life, a deep local talent pool and commitment to education at all levels, including the University of Wisconsin.”

Photo © UW-Madison University Communications

And anyone that has ever stepped foot in Madison could agree with that statement. But being that Google is a worldwide leader in software and computer architecture, its main focus will be within the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Leading this Madison/Google operation will be “retired professor emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering James Smith and 1980s computer engineering graduate James Laudon.”

Add a new Biomedical research to the list as well, and Madison will continue to lead the way as one of the premier research facilities in the world.

Some other great programs within my department, that I have been lucky to be a part of.

WEMPEC – Wisconsin Electrical Machines and Power Electronics Consortium
WCAM – Wisconsin Center for Applied Microelectronic Devices

It is extremely rewarding to see that my department, its students, and faculty members, have yet another great achievement to add to the list.

Investing in the Machines

Investing in internet companies is relatively straight forward. Find good people with a good idea, and let the programming begin. But what about all of the other industries out there? I recently read a post by GigaOM’s Stacey Higginbotham, titled “RIP Microprocessor Startups” discussing the issues and significant costs involved with chip-maker startups. A quote from her piece:

“I don’t want to believe it’s the end of startups trying their hand against the likes of AMD or Intel, but until we come to a breakthrough in materials, ways to reduce the IP hurdles or the cost of masks and design, entrepreneurial chip engineers will have to focus on power management and cooling, MEMS and RF.”

There is a bit of a catch 22 here. The scientific breakthroughs needed to make chip-making more cost effective are going to either come from the large chip makers themselves (Intel, AMD) or research institutions and universities. Either way, the chip makers maintain their lead in the market place (they may even buy up some of the patents), or the small startups will still require that big initial investment in the machines, lithography labs, clean rooms and every other expensive component needed.

Might it be beneficial for Intel to initiate a program with a model that looks like Y-Combinator or Betaworks, but for microprocessor design and manufacturing? If so, beneficial to who?