Innovation is about finding a better way of doing something. Like many of the new development buzzwords (which many of them are over-used on many business documents), the concept of innovation originates from the world of business. It refers to the generation of new products through the process of creative entrepreneurship, putting it into production, and diffusing it more widely through increased sales. Innovation can be viewed as t he application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society.
Innoveracy: Misunderstanding Innovation article points out that there is a form of ignorance which seems to be universal: the inability to understand the concept and role of innovation. The way this is exhibited is in the misuse of the term and the inability to discern the difference between novelty, creation, invention and innovation. The result is a failure to understand the causes of success and failure in business and hence the conditions that lead to economic growth. The definition of innovation is easy to find but it seems to be hard to understand. Here is a simple taxonomy of related activities that put innovation in context:
- Novelty: Something new
- Creation: Something new and valuable
- Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
- Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful
The taxonomy is illustrated with the following diagram.
The differences are also evident in the mechanisms that exist to protect the works: Novelties are usually not protectable, Creations are protected by copyright or trademark, Inventions can be protected for a limited time through patents (or kept secret) and Innovations can be protected through market competition but are not defensible through legal means.
Innovation is a lot of talked about nowdays as essential to businesses to do. Is innovation essential for development work? article tells that innovation has become central to the way development organisations go about their work. In November 2011, Bill Gates told the G20 that innovation was the key to development. Donors increasingly stress innovation as a key condition for funding, and many civil society organisations emphasise that innovation is central to the work they do.
Some innovation ideas are pretty simple, and some are much more complicated and even sound crazy when heard first. The is place for crazy sounding ideas: venture capitalists are gravely concerned that the tech startups they’re investing in just aren’t crazy enough:
Not all development problems require new solutions, sometimes you just need to use old things in a slightly new way. Development innovations may involve devising technology (such as a nanotech water treatment kit), creating a new approach (such as microfinance), finding a better way of delivering public services (such as one-stop egovernment service centres), identifying ways of working with communities (such as participation), or generating a management technique (such as organisation learning).
Theorists of innovation identify innovation itself as a brief moment of creativity, to be followed by the main routine work of producing and selling the innovation. When it comes to development, things are more complicated. Innovation needs to be viewed as tool, not master. Innovation is a process, not a one time event. Genuine innovation is valuable but rare.
There are many views on the innovation and innvation process. I try to collect together there some views I have found on-line. Hopefully they help you more than confuze. Managing complexity and reducing risk article has this drawing which I think pretty well describes innovation as done in product development:
8 essential practices of successful innovation from The Innovator’s Way shows essential practices in innovation process. Those practices are all integrated into a non-sequential, coherent whole and style in the person of the innovator.
In the IT work there is lots of work where a little thinking can be a source of innovation. Automating IT processes can be a huge time saver or it can fail depending on situation. XKCD comic strip Automation as illustrates this:
System integration is a critical element in project design article has an interesting project cost influence graphic. The recommendation is to involve a system integrator early in project design to help ensure high-quality projects that satisfy project requirements. Of course this article tries to market system integration services, but has also valid points to consider.
Core Contributor Loop (CTTDC) from Art Journal blog posting Blog Is The New Black tries to link inventing an idea to theory of entrepreneurship. It is essential to tune the engine by making improvements in product, marketing, code, design and operations.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Who Is the Inventor? The Art of Determining Conception of an Idea
https://www.mddionline.com/who-inventor-art-determining-conception-idea?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=5617&elq_cid=876648
In fields such as biotechnology and medical devices, where ideas and projects are often the product of extensive research and collaboration across various disciplines, inventorship choices can be intricate, sensitive, and complex.
In the world of academia and research, scientists spend countless hours thinking, researching, experimenting, and finally, drafting manuscripts before sending them off to journal editors and reviewers. In the course of preparing each article, they may include as co-authors the names of other graduate and undergraduate students, thesis advisors, collaborators, and/or other individuals who gave them valuable feedback along the way.
Such is the way of the research community, but not so when it comes to inventorship on patent applications. To most scientists, inventorship is rooted in collaboration, collective research, and, in some cases, seeming fairness. In fields such as biotechnology and medical devices, where ideas and projects are often the product of extensive research and collaboration across various disciplines, inventorship choices can be intricate, sensitive, and complex. However, the determination of proper inventorship is actually a complicated question of critical legal nature, with vast implications.
Basically, an inventor is the individual who invented the subject matter of the invention.
The rights bestowed upon inventors and owners of a patent to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling [their] invention” hinge particularly on the claims listed within a patent.[
However, inventorship does not necessarily vest with those who contributed to the entirety or any part of the application, but only with those who contributed to the claims which are ultimately designated. Once the claims have been drafted, determining inventorship comes down to a question of “conception.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT continues to push the demand on engineers. Are you ready?
Tomi Engdahl says:
How can the fabric of a simple dress be part of our 5G vision?
Explore use cases that illustrate how industries transformed by 5G will enrich people’s lives.
https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2018/08/01/how-can-fabric-simple-dress-be-part-our-5g-vision?cmpid=br5gus182540503228494347426562343
Tomi Engdahl says:
Erityisoppilasta ei saa kiusata rajattomilla koulutiloilla
https://kariuusikyla.com/2018/09/11/erityisoppilasta-ei-saa-kiusata-rajattomilla-koulutiloilla/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yrityskansalaisaktivismi 0.0 – Just Do It
http://blog.dingle.fi/yrityskansalaisaktivismi-0.0?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_content=Zapa
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Socialism” vs. “capitalism” is a false dichotomy
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/8/16/17698602/socialism-capitalism-false-dichotomy-kevin-williamson-column-republican-ocasio-cortez
We need go-go capitalism to afford a generous welfare state, and people won’t support go-go capitalism without a safety net. “Socialists” and Republicans forget different parts of this lesson.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Cognitive Biases Tricking Your Brain
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/cognitive-bias/565775/
Science suggests we’re hardwired to delude ourselves. Can we do anything about it?
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Medical Device Industry’s
9 Most Critical Metrics
https://guidingmetrics.com/content/medical-device-industrys-9-most-critical-metrics/
Tomi Engdahl says:
South China Morning Post:
How China is working to expand industrial robot usage tenfold to 1.8M units, 70% of which to be made in China, up from 30% currently, by 2025
‘Made In China 2025’: a peek at the robot revolution under way in the hub of the ‘world’s factory’
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2164103/made-china-2025-peek-robot-revolution-under-way-hub-worlds
In the second report in a series, He Huifeng and Celia Chen look at how Beijing’s ambitious industrial plan aims to break China’s reliance on foreign technology and pull its hi-tech industries up to Western levels
Tomi Engdahl says:
FreeTheTech Finds 5,784 Inventions Suppressed by U.S. Government Secrecy Orders
https://www.powerelectronics.com/news/freethetech-finds-5784-inventions-suppressed-us-government-secrecy-orders?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20180917_ED-003_436&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=19991&utm_medium=email&elq2=fde28dda35364395989b06d8a906df85
The organization is looking to spread awareness of the suppression and bring greater transparency by creating a citizen review panel to assess the classified patents.
As reported last month via PRNewswire, over 5,000 inventions are being suppressed via the U.S. Government’s classified patent program, according to official data obtained under a recent Freedom of Information Act request by the Federation of American Scientists. This means literally thousands of potentially ground-breaking inventions and technologies are being withheld from the public.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Waiting for inspiration to strike?
http://info.designatronics.com/improving-creativity-ebook?ADTRK=StockDriveProductsSterlingInstrument&elq_mid=5697&elq_cid=876648
Picasso once said, “The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” With all due respect to Picasso, science is telling us exactly what it takes to advance our creative output. This scientific approach to creativity makes a lot more sense to us engineers, who tend to need a little more logical reasoning and a little less haphazardness.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Braille on a Tablet Computer
https://hackaday.com/2018/09/19/braille-on-a-tablet-computer/
Signing up for college classes can be intimidating, from tuition, textbook requirements, to finding an engaging professor. Imagine signing up online, but you cannot use your monitor. We wager that roughly ninety-nine percent of the hackers reading this article have it displayed on a tablet, phone, or computer monitor. Conversely, “Only one percent of published books is available in Braille,” according to [Kristina Tsvetanova] who has created a hybrid tablet computer with a Braille display next to a touch-screen tablet running Android.
Braille for a New Digital Age
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/arts/tablet-devices-blind-braille.html
When she was a graduate student in her native Bulgaria about five years ago, Kristina Tsvetanova was once asked to help a blind friend sign up online for a class. Understanding why he could not do so opened her eyes to the lag in technological innovation to benefit blind and visually impaired people.
“The shock that my friend couldn’t perform this simple task stayed with me,” Ms. Tsvetanova said in an interview.
Ms. Tsvetanova, who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in industrial management and a master’s in engineering, knew that she had stumbled onto an untapped opportunity.
“I realized that there was a gap in the market and a business opportunity in developing technology to provide access to content and services for the blind,” she said. “I am a second-generation entrepreneur, my father taught me to take risks.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8455-edullinen-ultraaanilaite-alypuhelimeen
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/09/20/edullinen-ja-jopa-taipuisa-ultraaanilaite/
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8454-innovaatiokilpailu-etsii-ideoita-kuinka-merkita-alyteras
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is the era of management over?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/12/is-management-era-over
“The key to management is to get rid of the managers,” advised Ricardo Semler, whose TED Talk went viral, introducing terms such as “industrial democracy” and “corporate re-engineering”. It’s important to point out that Mr. Semler isn’t an academic or an expert in management theory, he is the CEO of a successful industrial company. His views are unlikely to represent mainstream thinking on organizational design. But perhaps it is time we redefine the term “manager”, and question whether the idea of “management” as it was inherited from the industrial era, has outlived its usefulness.
The World Bank estimates the size of the global workforce at about 3.5 billion people
In a world of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), it is the tech unicorns that will be the early adopters of a post-hierarchical model. In fact, some have already embraced it. Today’s competitive landscape is defined by one word: disruption.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Coding for Catastrophe: Contest Seeks Apps to Mitigate Effects of Natural Disasters
https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/computing/software/coding-for-catastrophe-contest-seeks-to-mitigate-natural-disasters
The United Nations’ Human Rights Office, the American Red Cross, the David Clark Cause, and IBM today announced Call for Code, a contest seeking applications that address natural disasters—aiding either prevention, response, or recovery
https://callforcode.org
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://mielenihmeet.fi/parkinsonin-laki-miksi-hukkaamme-niin-paljon-aikaa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Megan Geuss / Ars Technica:
UN survey of 3,500 people in 75 countries using microtask platforms like Mechanical Turk found workers made an average of $6.54/hr in US and $3.31/hr worldwide — UN questions whether this work has any benefits for society.
Low pay, poor prospects, and psychological toll: The perils of microtask work
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/09/in-most-cases-online-microtask-work-can-be-a-raw-deal-un-study-finds/
UN questions whether this work has any benefits for society.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Google feature to help bridge the skills gap
http://www.itpro.co.uk/business-strategy/careers-training/31980/google-pathways-skills-gap
‘Pathways’ feature can link job seekers with local training programmes
Google has created a new feature for its search engine to help job seekers find local training programmes and find the skills employers are looking for.
The feature is called ‘Pathways’ and aims to help people find useful information about the skills and training they need for a job and better connect them with local resources that can help them realise those opportunities.
“We want to help people everywhere and believe these opportunities should be more discoverable online,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/26/425066
We present BrainNet which, to our knowledge, is the first multi-person non-invasive direct brain-to-brain interface for collaborative problem solving. The interface combines electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain signals and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to deliver information noninvasively to the brain. The interface allows three human subjects to collaborate using direct brain-to-brain communication.
Tomi Engdahl says:
#WeAreNotWaiting
http://genomemag.com/nightscout-diabetes-type1/
Using innovative, do-it-yourself hacks, healthcare consumers are creating solutions to help manage their diabetes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Zennström manifesto
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/28/zennstroms-revolution/
With a ‘techlash’ underway, Atomico founder Niklas Zennström still believes a fourth industrial revolution can save us from the first three
What is perhaps better — and accurately — understood is that Atomico is one of the few European VCs to have developed a penchant for making “moonshot” investments: putting money into a number of genuinely groundbreaking companies and exploratory technology that isn’t expected to generate revenue for many years to come and will either change the world or fail spectacularly.
The best-known is probably Lilium, the Munich-based startup developing an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet.
With $1.5 billion of capital under management, and its fourth fund totaling $765 million, perhaps more than most European VC firms, Atomico is well-positioned to help shape what that future looks like and play a significant role in determining how the technology industry evolves over the next 10 years and beyond.
“People told me there is no ambition level in Europe, there’s no development, no talent, nothing,” says Zennström. “Certainly what was true, what I learned firsthand, [was that out of] the VC firms back then in Europe, most of them were very risk-averse. They’d rather bet on a copy of something they’d seen in the U.S., deployed in a small market. And there was also much more of a mentality back then about making a quick buck and exiting early instead of building companies for the long-term.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
UUSIEN IDEOIDEN SYNTYMINEN VAATII KONEIDEN KESKELLÄKIN VUOROVAIKUTUSTA IHMISTEN VÄLILLÄ
https://www.itewiki.fi/blog/2018/09/uusien-ideoiden-syntyminen-vaatii-koneiden-keskellakin-vuorovaikutusta-ihmisten-valilla/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Henning+beck+basware
Aivomme eivät toimi kuten tietokone ja siksi olemme askeleen edellä tekoälyä
Tomi Engdahl says:
Waiting for inspiration to strike?
http://info.designatronics.com/improving-creativity-ebook?ADTRK=StockDriveProductsSterlingInstrument&elq_mid=5733&elq_cid=876648
Picasso once said, “The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” With all due respect to Picasso, science is telling us exactly what it takes to advance our creative output. This scientific approach to creativity makes a lot more sense to us engineers, who tend to need a little more logical reasoning and a little less haphazardness.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In a Brain Fog? Probiotics Could Be the Culprit
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/201808/in-brain-fog-probiotics-could-be-the-culprit
Probiotic use may lead to bacterial overgrowth and brain fogginess, study finds
Probiotic use is a Link Between Brain Fogginess and Severe Bloating
https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/probiotic-use-is-a-link-between-brain-fogginess-and-severe-bloating-307256
Tomi Engdahl says:
Economics Nobel Prize Winner Sees No Singularity on the Horizon
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/abc-is-a-very-nice-alphabet
The two economists who today were awarded the Nobel Prize have both written extensively on the role that technology plays in economic growth, and one of them has even investigated what enthusiasts in Silicon Valley call the Singularity.
We called it “the rapture of the geeks” in our special issue on the topic 10 years ago, because it envisages not merely an explosive increase in computational prowess that would greatly increase economic output but also the uploading of human minds into a kind of cosmic cloud.
Of the two winners of what is technically known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, William Nordhaus was honored for research in environmental economics and Paul Romer for his work on economic growth. But though the Singularity is the ultimate in economic growth, it was Nordhaus who tackled it
In a 2015 paper, Nordhaus reasoned that the Singularity would be necessarily preceded by ever greater technological progress that would accelerate the replacement of human labor by automation. More work would be accomplished with less labor, so the level of productivity would rise. But in actual fact, he noted, productivity has been in the doldrums for a long time, and there seems to be no systematic rise in unemployment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mikä on keksimisen tila Suomessa? Haastattelussa Keksintösäätiön hallituksen puheenjohtaja Urho Ilmonen
http://www.bocoip.com/blogi/keksiminen-suomessa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/technology/future-internet-of-things.html
More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.
No one really believed them, so few tried to stop them. Then before anyone realized it, the deed was done: Just about everyone had a Windows machine, and governments were left scrambling to figure out how to put Microsoft’s monopoly back in the bottle.
This sort of thing happens again and again in the tech industry. Audacious founders set their sights on something hilariously out of reach — Mark Zuckerberg wants to connect everyone
In recent years, the tech industry’s largest powers set their sights on a new target for digital conquest. They promised wild conveniences and unimaginable benefits to our health and happiness. There’s just one catch, which often goes unstated: If their novelties take off without any intervention or supervision from the government, we could be inviting a nightmarish set of security and privacy vulnerabilities into the world. And guess what. No one is really doing much to stop it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.itewiki.fi/blog/2018/09/uusien-ideoiden-syntyminen-vaatii-koneiden-keskellakin-vuorovaikutusta-ihmisten-valilla/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Henning+beck+basware
Tomi Engdahl says:
SO MUCH GENETIC TESTING. SO FEW PEOPLE TO EXPLAIN IT TO YOU
https://www.wired.com/story/so-much-genetic-testing-so-few-people-to-explain-it-to-you/
in 1988, the Human Genome Project was in its very first year, DNA evidence was just beginning to enter the courts, and genetic health tests weren’t yet on the market.
What a difference 30 years makes. Today, with precision medicine going mainstream and an explosion of apps piping genetic insights to your phone from just a few teaspoons of spit, millions of Americans are having their DNA decoded every year. That deluge of data means that genetic counselors—the specialized medical professionals trained to help patients interpret genetic test results—are in higher demand than ever. With two to three job openings for every new genetic counseling graduate, the profession is facing a national workforce shortage.
“There’s been a surge in the number of new programs in a relatively short period of time,” says Riconda. This year, there were 406 slots available for new applicants to genetic counseling programs, up from 378 the year before. “It reflects the greater opportunities available today that didn’t exist when I first entered the field.”
In the clinic, genetic testing has expanded from its origins in prenatal and reproductive health to cardiac and cancer care. Dozens of treatments now work by targeting specific tumor mutations.
Pharmaceutical and lab testing firms are routinely hiring genetic counselors to make sure new screening technologies for these targeted drugs are developed in an ethical way. According to a 2018 survey conducted by the National Society for Genetic Counselors, a quarter of the workforce now works in one of these non-patient-facing jobs.
One place that isn’t welcoming new counselors is consumer testing companies like 23andMe. “I would love students to have more opportunities in the consumer-driven space,”
In 2017 the US Food and Drug Administration allowed 23andMe to release disease risk reports to customers for 10 health conditions. In March of this year the company got the green light to add breast cancer to its list. More approvals for 23andMe and its competitors are likely to follow soon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla Challenges Educators To Integrate Ethics Into STEM
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/10/10/1740248/mozilla-challenges-educators-to-integrate-ethics-into-stem?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
The context, called the Responsible Computer Science Challenge, will award up to $3.5 million over the next two years to proposals focused on how to make ethics relevant to young technologists.
Big Tech’s Half-Hearted Response To Fake News And Election Hacking
https://www.fastcompany.com/40468458/big-techs-halfhearted-response-to-fake-news-and-election-hacking
Despite big hand waves, Facebook, Google, and Twitter aren’t doing enough to stop misinformation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to engineer the future and increase energy efficiency
https://www.csemag.com/single-article/how-to-engineer-the-future-and-increase-energy-efficiency/033f46ed922af013ecbf0774dbc102dc.html?OCVALIDATE=
Current methods and devices for mass production are outdated and need to adapt to more flexible, automated, and energy-efficient methods of engineering.
To facilitate building engineering, small but efficient temporary manufacturing cells (Construction Labs) equipped with very advanced production machinery are dedicated to producing mass-customized components. As construction and maintenance robots become more advanced, they will interact with Construction Labs by generating, moving, and installing new and replacement building parts.
The following is a list of top-10 tips for engineering the future and reducing environmental impacts.
Use automation to close the disconnect between design and manufacturing.
Embrace mass customization for innovative and better-made structures.
Deploy onsite construction labs for local fabrication.
Engineer buildings for the future of collaborative robotics.
Create digital twins of buildings as living user manuals.
Use fewer cranes during construction and maintenance by deploying robots to do the heavy lifting in hazardous conditions.
Inspecting buildings by drones is safer and more accurate-with no cradles required.
Use Lidar-equipped drones to check the as-built condition against the digital twin.
Reduce waste by manufacturing and delivering components to order.
Calculate weight to better understand environmental impacts and true operating costs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Synthetic Biology Gets a New Molecular Programming Language Called CRN++
https://interestingengineering.com/synthetic-biology-gets-a-new-molecular-programming-language-called-crn
A new programming language called CRN++ has been developed for use in synthetic biology applications.
New language opens new possibilities for synthetic biology
The solution lies in the development of ways that can represent computations using molecular components. Researchers from the The University of Texas at Austin have offered a solution by creating CRN++, a new language for programming deterministic (mass-action) chemical kinetics in performing computations.
build a compiler that translates CRN++ programs into chemical reactions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Same-sex mice have babies
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45801043?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook&ns_mchannel=social
This adult mouse has two mums and no dad, was healthy and able to have healthy pups of her own
Baby mice have been made with two mums and no dad, say researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
It took a substantial feat of genetic engineering to break the rules of reproduction.
Tomi Engdahl says:
13 Signs You Are Smarter Than You Realize
https://www.iflscience.com/brain/13-signs-you-are-smarter-than-you-realize/
13 common traits and behaviors only the smartest people display, drawn largely from a Quora thread and supported by scientific evidence.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Pentagon’s Push to Program Soldiers’ Brains
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/the-pentagon-wants-to-weaponize-the-brain-what-could-go-wrong/570841/
The military wants future super-soldiers to control robots with their thoughts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why graphene hasn’t taken over the world…yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IesIsKMjB4Y
Graphene is a form of carbon that could bring us bulletproof armor and space elevators, improve medicine, and make the internet run faster — some day. For the past 15 years, consumers have been hearing about this wonder material and all the ways it could change everything. Is it really almost here, or is it another promise that is perpetually just one more breakthrough away?
Tomi Engdahl says:
DON’T WORRY! THE FUTURE IS GOING TO BE FINE
https://www.wired.com/story/wired25-sebastian-thrun-sam-altman/
SILICON VALLEY IS coming to terms with the impacts of some of its inventions, which are not always in line with the techno-optimistic vision that the industry offered the world 25 years ago, when WIRED started reporting on it. Sure, social media has connected people around the world, but it has also led to isolating filter bubbles. The data companies collects about our lives can make things very convenient, but it can also be used against us. And the rise of autonomous cars and trucks, while awesome, also means that the fear that robots could take certain jobs is looking increasingly justified.
Y Combinator invests in the technology, which could theoretically generate electricity without emissions, but hasn’t ever been successfully demonstrated at scale. Altman laughed it off, “We will get that to work—we have to,” he said. “The climate change scare at this point should be top of mind for everyone.”
“I think we are not that far away from a world where any repetitive human work, that does not require an emotional connection, will be done by AI,” said Altman.
He acknowledged the fear that AI could lead a dystopian gray-goo future. But he says the fear is misplaced. “I have become much more optimistic we’re going to get to the good case,” said Altman. Altman is also the co-chair of Open AI, a non-profit research company that wants to figure out how to get to a friendly AI future
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s Nadella: We want our tech to be used for good
Microsoft’s CEO also says at the Wired25 conference that antitrust law
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-says-wants-tech-to-be-used-for-good/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=58238902
Microsoft wants its tech to be used for good, not evil, the company’s CEO said.
Satya Nadella, speaking Monday at the Wired25 conference in San Francisco, noted that the tech industry has a responsibility for how its technology is used.
“We start from saying, look we want to take tech and empower the world with it,” Nadella said. “Our responsibility is to ensure that what tech we provide is being used for good.”
Big tech has been facing questions lately about who it does business with. Employees at companies like Google have protested the use of its technology — from cloud computing to artificial intelligence — by the Defense Department. Microsoft has faced fire from employees over its contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has separated members of families that cross US borders illegally. And other companies are facing criticism over their ties to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been building relationships in the technology industry, particularly through its partnership with Japanese telecom giant SoftBank. But that relationship and the country’s other ties are being reexamined in light of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Cloud computing rival Google earlier this month pulled out of bidding for a $10 billion Pentagon contract after employee protests.
“If big tech companies are going to turn their backs on the Department of Defense, we are in big trouble,” Bezos said. “This is a great country, and it does need to be defended.”
Nadella, Microsoft’s third CEO since it was founded 43 years ago, has been working to change the company’s image, both among employees and everyone else.
At Microsoft, he’s attempted to change the company’s historically sharp-elbowed culture to a more collaborative and supportive one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Voiko organisaation innovaatiokyky olla vain erinomainen tai huono?
https://energiamessut.fi/blogi/–Voiko_organisaation_innovaatiokyky_olla_vain_erinomainen_tai_huono–/index.tmpl?sivu_id=8377&id=357#.W8cF6emU80O
Innovaatio on prosessi, jolla luodaan ja toimitetaan asiakkaalle uutta ja ainutlaatuista lisäarvoa markkinapaikalla (5DOI). Käytännössä innovaatioprosessi on niin moniulotteinen ja vaativa, että hyvin harvalla voi yksilönä olla erinomaista innovaatiokykyä. Innovaatioprosessi vaatii vahvan toimialaymmärryksen ja teknologiaosaamisen lisäksi paljon, paljon muutakin osaamista
Tomi Engdahl says:
These Researchers Want to Send Smells Over the Internet
https://www.google.fi/amp/s/spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/these-researchers-want-to-send-smells-over-the-internet.amp.html
The researchers who are working on “digital smell” are still a very long way from such applications—in part because their technology’s form factor leaves something to be desired. Right now, catching a whiff of the future means sticking a cable up your nose, so electrodes can make contact with neurons deep in the nasal passages. But they’ve got some ideas for improvements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech Will Save Us offers STEM toys you’ll actually use
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/15/tech-will-save-us-offers-stem-toys-youll-actually-use/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
I hate STEM toys. I have three kids and ultimately every “educational” toy they’ve used – from LittleBits to Nintendo Labo – has ended up in a corner somewhere, ignored for more exciting fare. This happens for a few reasons but the primary one is that the toys require too much attention and have no lasting play value.
optimistically-named organization Tech Will Save Us, has changed my mind.
TWSU toys are nice in that they are at once rugged toys that withstand constant play and electronic devices that can be programmed by a clever eight year old. For example, the $60 Creative Coder is basically a LilyPad device with a USB interface and a block-based programming language that lets you program it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Are Engineers Educated?
https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/are-engineers-educated
Every now and then, I’ve wondered how people view a person graduating with an engineering degree. Do they generally think that he or she is truly “educated,” or is this instead someone who has undergone vocational training aimed at a specific job?
article about why a liberal arts education is more important than ever
virtually all the essays I saw had been written by liberal arts graduates or faculty. Perhaps that’s not surprising: They are more inclined to write essays, and understandably may feel defensive about the current emphasis on STEM
The two disciplines are increasingly intertwined, in any event.
There are also many essays about what it means to be “well educated.” After browsing a number of them, I saw little agreement in their conclusions.
I could find no mention of software coding. An emphasis was often placed on the inclusion of what is called in liberal arts “critical thinking.” I had thought engineers did critical thinking too,
While we often argue within the bounds of our own technological domain, most definitions of critical thinking stress broader sociological and philosophical considerations.
Since we have no idea what tomorrow’s jobs will be, it is best to start with the current job and to depend on learning and personal evolution from there. The real danger is training aimed at yesterday’s jobs. I got some of that myself.
Let me just give you my take. A graduate of a good university noted for, say, philosophy or English literature, would be considered to be “well educated.” A graduate of a similar university noted for engineering would be considered bright and intelligent. I’ll settle for that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Think global: How to overcome cultural communication challenges
https://opensource.com/article/18/10/think-global-communication-challenges?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Use these tips to ensure that every member of your global development team feels involved and understood.
In today’s workplace, our colleagues may not be located in the same office, city, or even country. A growing number of tech companies have a global workforce comprised of employees with varied experiences and perspectives. This diversity allows companies to compete in the rapidly evolving technological environment.
But geographically dispersed teams can face challenges. Managing and maintaining high-performing development teams is difficult even when the members are co-located; when team members come from different backgrounds and locations, that makes it even harder. Communication can deteriorate, misunderstandings can happen, and teams may stop trusting each other—all of which can affect the success of the company.
What does it mean to be a high- or low-context culture? In the United States, children learn to communicate explicitly
Japanese children learn to
read between the lines and pick up on social cues when communicating.
Most Asian cultures follow the high-context style of communication.
The first step toward effective cross-cultural communication is to recognize that there are differences.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Some of the best employees I’ve hired have never had formal post-high school education. They also tend to be better at both creative thinking and coming up with new ways to solve problems.
Google, Apple and 12 other companies that no longer require employees to have a college degree
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/15-companies-that-no-longer-require-employees-to-have-a-college-degree.html?__source=facebook%7Cmain
Today’s tight labor market continues to be a promising landscape for job seekers, with economists even predicting more opportunities for professionals without a degree.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The White House hopes tech employees will drive government innovation
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/22/the-white-house-hopes-tech-employees-will-drive-government-innovation/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
The Trump administration has a major ask to make of big tech companies. In a meeting at the White House today, officials will ask Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM, among others, to make it easier for employees to do stints in the government.
It’s a heavy lift, of course, asking well-compensated workers to take time out from demanding gigs for the betterment of federal and state governments. A number of companies, including Facebook and Google, already allow employees to take time off for this exact reason.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Intellectual Yet Idiot
https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577
What we have been seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.
But the problem is the one-eyed following the blind: these self-described members of the “intelligentsia” can’t find a coconut in Coconut Island, meaning they aren’t intelligent enough to define intelligence hence fall into circularities — but their main skill is capacity to pass exams written by people like them.
Indeed one can see that these academico-bureaucrats who feel entitled to run our lives aren’t even rigorous, whether in medical statistics or policymaking. They can’t tell science from scientism — in fact in their image-oriented minds scientism looks more scientific than real science.
The Intellectual Yet Idiot is a production of modernity hence has been accelerating since the mid twentieth century, to reach its local supremum today, along with the broad category of people without skin-in-the-game who have been invading many walks of life. Why? Simply, in most countries, the government’s role is between five and ten times what it was a century ago (expressed in percentage of GDP).
The IYI pathologizes others for doing things he doesn’t understand without ever realizing it is his understanding that may be limited. He thinks people should act according to their best interests and he knows their interests
The modern IYI has attended more than one TEDx talks in person or watched more than two TED talks on Youtube.
Typically, the IYI get the first order logic right, but not second-order (or higher) effects making him totally incompetent in complex domains. In the comfort of his suburban home with 2-car garage, he advocated the “removal” of Gadhafi because he was “a dictator”, not realizing that removals have consequences
The IYI has been wrong, historically, on Stalinism, Maoism, GMOs, Iraq, Libya, Syria, lobotomies, urban planning, low carbohydrate diets, gym machines, behaviorism, transfats, freudianism, portfolio theory, linear regression, Gaussianism, Salafism, dynamic stochastic equilibrium modeling, housing projects, selfish gene, election forecasting models, Bernie Madoff (pre-blowup) and p-values. But he is convinced that his current position is right.
he doesn’t know that there is no difference between “pseudointellectual” and “intellectual” in the absence of skin in the game; has mentioned quantum mechanics at least twice in the past five years in conversations that had nothing to do with physics.
He knows at any point in time what his words or actions are doing to his reputation.
IYIs fail to distinguish between the letter and the spirit of things. They are so blinded by verbalistic notions such as science, education, democracy, racism, equality, evidence, rationality and similar buzzwords that they can be easily taken for a ride.
IYIs can be feel satisfied giving their money to a group aimed at “saving the children” who will spend most of it making powerpoint presentation and organizing conferences on how to save the children and completely miss the inconsistency.
Likewise an IYI routinely fails to make a distinction between an institution (say formal university setting and credentialization) and what its true aim is (knowledge, rigor in reasoning)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nitasha Tiku / Wired:
Three recent books argue that big tech became powerful not because of “software disruption” but by ducking regulation, squeezing workers, strangling competitors — A FEW YEARS after the Great Recession, you couldn’t scroll through Google Reader without seeing the word “disrupt.”
https://www.wired.com/story/alternative-history-of-silicon-valley-disruption/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartsheet:
Automation and AI will change the pace of business – here’s how. — AI has tremendous potential to reduce costs and increase productivity for the enterprise. But its true impact comes to life when combined with human ingenuity.
How Automation and AI Will Change the Pace of Business
https://www.smartsheet.com/blog/how-automation-and-ai-will-change-pace-business?utm_source=TechMeme&utm_medium=sponcon&utm_campaign=automation
It’s long been the stuff of science fiction, but increasingly, the practical side of artificial intelligence (AI) is very real. On the consumer side, personal assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Cortana help automate the simplest of tasks. Meanwhile, AI adoption is also accelerating within your workspace.
According to a recent Spiceworks survey of more than 500 IT professionals, nearly a quarter of large companies have already implemented digital assistants and another 40% expect to follow suit by 2019. For small and medium businesses, that number is closer to 25%.
It’s virtually indisputable that AI (in the form of natural-language processing, machine learning, and deep learning) has tremendous potential to reduce costs and increase productivity for the enterprise. But its true impact comes to life when combined with human ingenuity.
How People and AI Work Together
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creative problem solving with LEGO® Serious Play®
https://www.frantic.com/blog/creative-problem-solving-with-lego-serious-play
tools to facilitate workshops and do better co-design to solve design problems. I was lucky to be able to participate in a LEGO® Serious Play® workshop last summer and I got excited about its power to enhance creative thinking.
I wanted to try it out with my colleagues – and we learned how LEGO® Serious Play® can yield serious results and improve creative problem-solving.