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:
Today is the International Day of intelligence. Fortunately, the intelligence can be developed, says Time.
And these simple means to make you day by day a little bit smarter:
1. Use your network time better – Online when there’s a lot of educational materials
2. Write down what you have learned – It enhances brain activity.
3. Write down what you have done – Self-confidence and happiness are a good basis for intelligence.
4. Play – Boards and playing puzzles are fun – and inject a visually vibrant in the brain!
5. Get smart friends – spending time in such a company is one of the fastest ways to learn new things
6. Read a lot – read the newspapers, as well as the fiction and non-fiction
7. Explain what you’ve learned to others – If you can not explain something simply, you have not learned a thing well enough.
8. Try new things – Test your skills in a variety of open-minded, places and events.
9. Learn a new language – learn even basics to refresh the brain and memory
10. Remember also counterbalanced – The brain needs the efforts, but also for rest and tranquility.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/mieli/2015093020443088_md.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Alphabet using Nest, with its own infrastructure, recruiters, marketing, legal teams, as a model for its other projects to maintain efficiency of a startup
At Google, Breathing Room for New Ideas
Nest Labs unit insisted on autonomy and is now a model for Alphabet Inc. reorganization
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/at-google-breathing-room-for-new-ideas-1443729244-lMyQjAxMTA1MjAwMTAwNDE0Wj
To see how Google Inc. Chief Executive Larry Page hopes to turbocharge a growing fleet of speculative projects under a new holding company, look at Nest Labs.
After Google acquired the maker of connected-home devices for $3.2 billion in 2014, Nest kept its own recruiters and its own system for vetting job candidates, skirting Google’s famously deliberate hiring process. Nest still rents computer servers from Amazon.com Inc., rather than use Google’s data centers. Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell also curbed some Google perks, such as free food, to maintain Nest’s scrappy vibe.
The restructuring separates Google’s core businesses—including Internet search, the Android operating system and YouTube—from newer unrelated businesses such as Nest, Google Life Sciences and Fiber, the fast Internet service. Mr. Page will remain CEO of the Alphabet holding company, but step back from running Google’s core to oversee the other units, which will operate more independently.
“If Google can deliver more broadly what it gave Nest, that predicts success for the rest of the Alphabet projects,” said
“It gets a little faster, more efficient and a little more independent,” said Andy Conrad, CEO of Google Life Sciences, one of the bet companies. “I act as a CEO of an independent company instead of a senior executive within a large company.”
That might seem like splitting linguistic hairs, but former Google executives say new projects historically have struggled to get resources, which flow to larger divisions that generate more revenue. Business units within Google compete for talent, these people say, both in number of employees, and sometimes, for specific people.
In a 2012 conference call with analysts, Mr. Page said Google aspires to spend 70% of its time, money and other resources on core businesses like search, 20% on related new businesses and 10% on projects in new areas. But, he added, “We’ve really struggled to even have 10% on the speculative things.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hour of Code Kicks Off In Chile With Dog Poop-Themed CS Tutorial
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/10/04/1251224/hour-of-code-kicks-off-in-chile-with-dog-poop-themed-cs-tutorial
In an interesting contrast to the Disney princess-themed Hour of Code tutorial that ‘taught President Obama to code’ last December, Chile is kicking off its 2015 Hora del Codigo this week with a top-featured Blockly tutorial that teaches computer science by having kids drag-and-drop blocks of code to pick up dog poop.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hurrah for the sharing economy!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/03/only_a_cnut_would_hold_back_the_waves_of_the_sharing_economy/?page=2
it pays its share of tax to maintain society. The ‘sharing economy’ is just an excuse not to do any of these things.
Now, Uber isn’t totally reckless, even if its TNT proponents are a bit short-sighted.
This is an essential element of the sharing economy, which is all about “democratising supply” and boosting competition to benefit consumers.
Exactly how concentrating $60bn into a smartphone app developer and $6bn into its owner equates to a “democratisation” of anything is beyond me. And I’m struggling with the argument that a multinational that channels its profits off-shore and undercuts local taxi services will boost competition. Surely, the exact opposite is happening.
But all this is just detail. Uber is right about one thing: it is certainly not a minicab business, let alone one capable of earning $60bn in revenues in anyone’s lifetime.
It’s just a social media framework accessed from an app. All it does is offer the equivalent of phoning around for the nearest available and affordable minicab, doing it swiftly and conveniently from an net-connected smartphone.
Sorry, all you TNTs, whether you use a phone or an app, calling a minicab is not a new concept. It demands no box-exterior thinking or paradigm-shifting. As such, it does not require a change in legislation or relaxation of regulations. Claiming that it does is just a way of bamboozling local government with sparkly IT to mask your heap of steaming bullshit.
I fear that Uber itself has been sucked into this daft belief that it is doing something new.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting More Women Coders Into Open Source
http://insights.dice.com/2015/10/06/getting-more-women-coders-into-open-source/
Tomi Engdahl says:
$2 billion startup GitHub’s next mission: Turn you into a programmer
http://uk.businessinsider.com/github-ceo-chris-wanstrath-interview-2015-10?r=US&IR=T
The San Francisco startup GitHub, which has been called the Facebook for programmers, seems to have it all.
To date, GitHub has racked up 11 million registered users, over 36 million unique visitors every month, $350 million in venture funding, and a $2 billion valuation.
With over 21.1 million code “repositories” at last count, GitHub hosts more software source code than any other single service in the world.
The San Francisco startup GitHub, which has been called the Facebook for programmers, seems to have it all.
To date, GitHub has racked up 11 million registered users, over 36 million unique visitors every month, $350 million in venture funding, and a $2 billion valuation.
With over 21.1 million code “repositories” at last count, GitHub hosts more software source code than any other single service in the world.
What’s next?
GitHub has made its fortune by enabling software teams to work more closely together. But now, with the ubiquity of software everywhere, the world is changing very rapidly.
“We have this sort of classic understanding of what a developer is,” says Kakul Srivastava, GitHub’s vice president of product who joined the company three months ago after stints at Yahoo and WeWork. “But our understanding of what a developer is, is changing rapidly.”
Even today, Wanstrath says, there are journalists and scientists who are using GitHub to find, build, and share data-driven applications that assist with research or interactive projects.
The goal, then, is to gradually make it a lot easier for anybody to get started on the platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Sullivan / VentureBeat:
Andy Rubin’s Playground Global incubator closes $300M funding round, will invest in hardware startups — Andy Rubin’s Playground incubator has closed a $300 million funding round — Former Android chief Andy Rubin has a new incubator called Playground Global, and says the firm has now closed …
Andy Rubin’s Playground incubator has closed a $300 million funding round
http://venturebeat.com/2015/10/07/andy-rubins-playground-incubator-has-closed-its-funding-round-and-is-now-a-vc/
Former Android chief Andy Rubin has a new incubator called Playground Global, and says the firm has now closed a $300 million funding round and will be investing in new hardware startups.
Playground has said that it provides resources, mentorship and funding to startups that make hardware devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The high tech diversity problem’s bottom line
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/measure-of-things/4440427/The-high-tech-diversity-problem-s-bottom-line?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151006&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151006&elq=0bc0bbd24f0c4bd3999d5d320725496a&elqCampaignId=25072&elqaid=28488&elqat=1&elqTrackId=75a87a760f1940aea22d6e910ab31384
An Internet search on diversity in high tech leads to hundreds of stories about the disproportionate number of white men who hold high paying jobs that produce a great deal of wealth. Tech workers in Si Valley are about 60% white and 70% male, with less than 7% coming from African or Hispanic heritage. The resounding impression from every stripe of the media
ntel recently announced its goal to have a workforce “more representative of the talent available in America” and plans to spend $300M on the problem.
Beneath the headlines, buried in a tiny fraction of the media coverage is another, more bottom-line focused reason to increase diversity:
Diversity is key to a group’s ability to innovate.
When it comes to innovation, discovery, and creativity, we know one thing for certain: great ideas emerge when people apply ideas from one field to another. Innovation emerges from lateral thought.
For example, groups of people tend to favor ideas that come from their members and disparage ideas that were “not invented here.” NIH idea-prejudice wastes time by encouraging people to reinvent wheels and wastes innovative power by rejecting ideas without due consideration.
Innovation occurs when we think big and broad. That is, when we increase the diversity of our thoughts.
Our genius springs from everything in our backgrounds.
As an individual, you can increase your innovative prowess by looking at the world from as many perspectives as you can muster and by lowering your inhibition to ideas that, on first glance, might seem crazy. We can do the same thing in groups by including people with widely varying perspectives and then opening up to their ideas.
If your team needs someone with the skills of an electrical engineer, then hiring someone with a completely different background, say, a historian, wouldn’t make sense. Though that historian could probably provide innovative solutions that wouldn’t occur to an EE, the process of conveying the technical nuances of the challenge presents too great a challenge in itself. So, rather than hiring people with widely different skills, the easiest way to broaden the group’s perspective and enable it’s ability to think laterally, is to increase the group’s cultural, ethnic, and gender diversity.
People with widely varying idea-prejudice—different musical tastes, different tastes in food, different ways of perceiving the world—see the world differently, approach problems differently, and that is the essence of lateral thought, the nucleus of innovation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting More Women Coders Into Open Source
http://insights.dice.com/2015/10/06/getting-more-women-coders-into-open-source/
Diversity remains an issue in tech firms across the nation, with executives and project managers publicly upset over a lack of women in engineering and programming roles. Multiple explanations for the gender gap persist; some point accusing fingers at the country’s educational pipeline, while others say that the culture within tech companies discourages women from participating more fully.
Sujatha Kashyap, vice president of products for Robin Systems, which builds tools for enterprise data storage and optimization, believes that the culture of coding, particularly open-source, attracts “a certain demographic” that might keep some women coders away.
Specifically, Kashyap thinks many open-source communities may be more geared to the way men communicate, especially in an online context. That makes it more difficult for women interested in code to make their presence known.
Where to Start
Ratliff suggests focusing on a project that interests you personally. “If you’re interested in security, have a look at the CII Census, and pick an interesting, high scoring project, and try to fuzz test it or write an automated test suite for it,” she said. “Read the code.” OpenHatch Easy Bugs has a list of projects, which tag certain bugs for new contributors to tackle.
She also recommends conventions and online groups that concentrate on women in open source. For example, one of the highlights of the LinuxCon and CloudOpen annual event is a “women in open source” luncheon
OpenStack also has an active Women of OpenStack group that can help get women coders started on projects.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A historic moment: the technology does not limit the development
The impact of digitalisation of business, and it’s boundaries are fading
“The banking and insurance sector generated already mostly digital services. In the future, it’s the role of business accelerator key,
According to him, we live already interesting time.
“For the first time in history, the technology does not impose constraints on development. We have available sensor technology, high speed data transfer and high-speed data connections. Intelligent analysis of the data is managed and the information can be edited and shown quickly. Robotics and automation are progressing, “Mutikainen list.
Mutikaisen believes that in the midst of upheaval required a new kind of business innovation and agile experiments.
“New service models can be tested at a small cost before they are put into practice. What is invented, but, all things are possible to make. ”
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/historiallinen-hetki-teknologia-ei-rajoita-kehittamista-6057066
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah McBride / Reuters:
For the first time, computer science is the most popular major for female students at Stanford, accounting for 30% of those majoring in that department
Computer science now top major for women at Stanford University
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/09/us-women-technology-stanford-idUSKCN0S32F020151009
Computer science has for the first time become the most popular major for female students at Stanford University, a hopeful sign for those trying to build up the thin ranks of women in the technology field.
Based on preliminary declarations by upper-class students, about 214 women are majoring in computer science, accounting for about 30 percent of majors in that department, the California-based university told Reuters on Friday.
Human biology, which had been the most popular major for women, slipped to second place with 208.
If more women majored in technological fields like computer science, advocates say, that could help alleviate the dearth of women in engineering and related professions, where many practitioners draw on computer science backgrounds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NASA medical expertise helps Earthlings
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/nasa–revealing-the-unknown-to-benefit-all-humankind/4440536/NASA-medical-expertise-helps-Earthlings
NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio has perhaps the most contributions to people here on Earth related to Medical Technology. Utilization of the International Space Station to conduct research and validate technology is a cornerstone of this competency.
The following are a few slides that demonstrate this sharing of technology to improve health and wellness on Earth and you can see more examples on my Planet Analog site as well here.
Medical advances by NASA in Space that benefit Earth
http://www.planetanalog.com/author.asp?section_id=3065&doc_id=564066&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top boffin Freeman Dyson on climate change, interstellar travel, fusion, and more
When physics gurus speak, they speak to El Reg
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/11/freeman_dyson_interview/
The life of physicist Freeman Dyson spans advising bomber command in World War II, working at Princeton University in the States as a contemporary of Einstein, and providing advice to the US government on a wide range of scientific and technical issues.
He is a rare public intellectual who writes prolifically for a wide audience. He has also campaigned against nuclear weapons proliferation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medtech Event Debuts New Projects
Injectable sensors, virtual clinic on the way
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327952&
Imagine an injectable sensor that helps soldiers and athletes optimize performance. Or a virtual clinic where expert social networks diagnose patients using data from smartphone sensors. Or a social network that posts heart-rate data along with pictures, creating a massive data set for health researchers.
Leslie Saxon is going a step further. She is overseeing such projects at the Center for Body Computing she helped form at the University of Southern California. Work on all three will be described at the CBC’s annual conference this week.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Book delves into engineering thinking, comes up short
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/power-points/4440499/Book-delves-into-engineering-thinking–comes-up-short?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20151009&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20151009&elq=7c9117df5b95406d9778784b8738c44b&elqCampaignId=25156&elqaid=28597&elqat=1&elqTrackId=bfebe22ce987436a810af4a146f0d1f1
I saw in The Wall Street Journal of the just-published book Applied Minds: How Engineers Think by Guru Madhavan.
However, it was a disappointment in many ways.
In fact, the author sort-of acknowledges this when he says, “Often, great engineering designs are foes of reasonably suboptimal designs,” which is a fancy way of saying what all engineers know: the perfect is the enemy of the very good.
Perhaps the real issue with this book is its underlying assumption that there is a so-called “engineering mind.” Instead, just as with all other groups, engineers and their minds come in all types and flavors. For example, there are perfectionists like the late Jim Williams, who sought to squeeze every trace of imperfection from a design’s performance and then extend it. I have often cited the weight-scale he designed for the MIT nutrition lab (“This 30-ppm scale proves that analog designs aren’t dead yet”) as an example where he took on a well-defined challenge and identified every source of error, then either minimized them or figured out a way to have them self-cancel.
In other cases, there are engineers who look to uncover new ways of solving existing problems, via components, topologies, architectures, or other techniques. Further, there’s another group who see a function that really hadn’t yet been articulated yet or solve a problem people didn’t realize they had, and have a new way of looking at what people do; Steve Jobs was known for this. They then come with a rough-cut product which is pretty good but not great, get it out to market, and refine it as users get some exposure to it.
The problem is most of these “engineer’s mind” approaches can only deal with consumer, mass-market products as the problem to be solved, yet the reality is that many engineers work on non-consumer products or sub-systems which have a very different frame of reference.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Treat Computer Science As a Science: It’s the Law
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/10/13/1229214/treat-computer-science-as-a-science-its-the-law
Last week, President Obama signed into law H.R. 1020, the STEM Education Act of 2015, which expands the definition of STEM to include computer science for the purposes of carrying out education activities at the NSF, DOE, NASA, NOAA, NIST, and the EPA.
Comment:
Where does it say that “computer science must be treated as science, by law”? It declares computer science to be part of STEM. STEM does not simply mean “science” – science is only the “S” in STEM. STEM means “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math” There’s nothing inappropriate about computer science being taught in that grouping.
Smith’s STEM Education Act Signed Into Law
https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/smith-s-stem-education-act-signed-law
Washington, D.C. – The president has signed into law the STEM Education Act of 2015 (H.R. 1020), a bipartisan bill introduced by Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.). The bill strengthens science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education efforts and expands the definition of STEM to include computer science. The bill recently was approved unanimously by both the House and the Senate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Citizen Scientist: Forrest Mims
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/13/citizenscience/
Before the modern notion of the citizen scientist lies the earlier ideal of the independent scientist. Scientists outside of the academic community but engaging with it. These days citizen scientists are often seen as valuable assistants in the scientific process, helping collect and process data in a quantity which would be otherwise intractable.
In the past however, independent scientists had a far more central role. Galileo, Kepler, Darwin and Hooke were all self funded at various points in their careers.
Sadly, peer-reviewed scientific contributions by scientists un-sponsored by a research organization are now few and far between.
In Hacker circles Forrest Mims is perhaps best known for his series of electronics books and the unforgeable Atari Punk Console. But it’s his ability to engage with the scientific community as an independent researcher through a series of well thought out scientific articles that interests us here. Contributions made all the more significant by his lack of formal scientific training.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kids Explore Engineering with Cartoon Tech Build
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/14/kids-explore-engineering-with-cartoon-tech-build/
Toys Mean More When You Build Them Yourself
A few weeks after we finished the Creaturepods, they’re still making the rounds in nearly every playdate. They’ve weathered most usage by our energetic kids and their neighborhood friends
Building the Creaturepod as a family is something we’ll always remember. We got excited, frustrated, bored, and excited again, together. Our kids got to experience the thrill of taking an idea from concept to reality and learned about the focus and effort that it requires to do so. Nothing was pushed on them and they only did the tasks that they could handle at the times they could handle them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is the glass half full half full or half empty?
Generally, people think that if you answer half empty, you’re a pessimist, if half full, you are an optimist.
Professor of Psychiatry Mikael Landen According to pessimism or optimism is very much in our genes. Inherited the basic tune in any way affect the various twists and turns of life.
In the evolutionary point of view it makes sense that humans have both optimists and pessimists. People are often inclined to optimism: we do not believe have accidents, we do not think our marriage ending rid of it, and we do not get sick.
Optimism can also grow to extremes. In such a state a person can still too sanguine than ecstasy to take great risks, and imagine that they can cope with totally over-blown tasks.
Manic optimism did not realize they needed help because his presence status may themselves have a very positive experience for him. Tough going, and it feels good.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/mieli/2015100820481986_md.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Genetic Technologies Diagnose Critically Ill Infants Within 26 Hours
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/biomedical/diagnostics/new-genetic-technologies-diagnose-critically-ill-infants-within-26-hours
In a record-breaking 26 hours, pediatricians can now scan and analyze the entire genome of a critically ill infant to find a diagnosis that can significantly alter the course of treatment. In a new study published in Genome Medicine, pediatricians explained how hardware and software specialized for genetic analysis can provide such fast and life-saving information. The key piece of technology: A processor from the company Edico Genome that’s designed to handle the big data of genetics.
Kingsmore’s 26-hour diagnostic pipeline starts with the machines that do the brute-force work of sorting through an individual baby’s genome. This task is like putting together a 3-billion-piece jigsaw puzzle without looking at the picture on the box. Right now, Illumina HiSeq machines are the gold standard for this genetic sequencing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
One paragraph from Taylor Swift explains how she has managed to avoid a catastrophic flameout in her career (thus far)
http://uk.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-avoid-disaster-2015-10?r=US&IR=T
Taylor Swift has been one of the biggest pop stars in the world for half a decade now.
While many stars wilt under the pressure of fame, Swift shows no sign of slowing down.
In essence, she has been studying success and failure since she was young to prepare for this moment. So far, she hasn’t blown it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CB Insights:
KPMG and CB Insights: VC funding this year already exceeds all of 2014 with $37B raised in Q3, including 68 $100M+ mega-rounds
Global Venture Capital Report – Q3 2015
https://www.cbinsights.com/research-q3-2015-venture-capital-report
KPMG and CB Insights: VC-backed Companies Haul in US$37.6 Billion Globally in Q3 2015 Due to Mega-Rounds and Continued Crossover Investor Activity
Tomi Engdahl says:
Woody Norris:
Hypersonic sound and other inventions
https://www.ted.com/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_things
Woody Norris shows off two of his inventions that use sound in new ways, including the Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD. He talks about his untraditional approach to inventing and education, because, as he puts it: “Almost nothing has been invented yet.” So — what’s next?
Comment:
Woody has learned the hard way that once your invention is out, unscrupulous people will steal your invention and make money on it anyway so he after being burned a couple times is simply beating them to the punch.
“I don’t care if I pass your test, I don’t care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won’t let you beat me unfairly – I’ll beat you unfairly first.”- Ender
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Can Now Use Federal Money To Pay For Unaccredited Coding Boot Camps
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/you-can-now-use-federal-money-to-pay-for-coding-boot-camps#.ipl6YBq52
An experimental program will open up access to coding classes and MOOCs for low-income students. But some are concerned that the availability of financial aid could eventually lure bad actors to the sector.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Legos Can Teach Us About Software Design
http://recode.net/2015/10/16/what-legos-can-teach-us-about-software-design/
Lego attracted generations of customers primarily because they do not force us to adhere to a strict system of what you can build and what you can’t. However, this is not the norm for many of our other human tendencies. We seem to have an instinctive need to organize the world into strict hierarchies, like the Dewey Decimal System, the taxonomy of species and the pages of Wikipedia. The problem with strict hierarchies is they work in their existing environment for predetermined purposes. But they fail when new, disruptive creations come along that don’t fit that categorization.
We see this in software design. Decades after playing with Lego as a small boy, I realized that the same open, flexible design pattern also makes for great software platforms. Because the most powerful software must adapt to changing environments and needs in markets that didn’t exist when the software was designed.
Here is the basic approach to open design in software: First, develop an open, flexible framework that can take forms or perform functions defined by its users (not the software vendor). Then ship it with some built-in “happy path” templates or usage scenarios that allow customers to be productive and solve problems immediately. But don’t hard-wire these templates and usage scenarios. When customers come across new and novel problems to solve — ones that were never even envisioned by the original developers — provide extensive training and support to extend the behavior of that framework.
The largest Web companies in the world follow this open design pattern. It’s also why they invest in open source software. Not because it’s free of costs, but because open source software can be redesigned by companies to fit their own special needs, and needs unimaginable today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maybe You Don’t Need 8 Hours of Sleep After All
http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/10/18/0354238/maybe-you-dont-need-8-hours-of-sleep-after-all
You’ve heard of the Paleo diet, but the next big thing in health may well be the Paleo sleep schedule.
our ancient ancestors may not have slept nearly as much we thought, and may have actually slept less than modern Westerners
Siegel found that members of the three aforementioned groups sleep between 5.7 hours and 7.1 hours per night. That’s less than is recommended for our health, yet the groups seemed very healthy indeed.
Up Late? Looks Like Our Paleo Ancestors Didn’t Sleep Much Either
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/10/15/448932273/up-late-looks-like-our-paleo-ancestors-didnt-sleep-much-either?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news
In America, it seems only unicorns get seven or eight hours of sleep a night, and the rest of us suffer. But people may be meant to sleep as little as 6 1/2 hours nightly and were doing so long before the advent of electricity and smartphones, researchers say.
What You Can Learn From Hunter-Gatherers’ Sleeping Patterns
It’s not what you think.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many-myths-of-paleo-sleeping/410707/
Here’s the story that people like to tell about the way we sleep: Back in the day, we got more of it. Our eyes would shut when it got dark. We’d wake up for a few hours during the night instead of snoozing for a single long block. And we’d nap during the day.
Then—minor key!—modernity ruined everything. Our busy working lives put an end to afternoon naps, while lightbulbs, TV screens, and smartphones shortened our natural slumber and made it more continuous.
All of this is wrong, according to Jerome Siegel at the University of California, Los Angeles. Much like the Paleo diet, it’s based on unsubstantiated assumptions about how humans used to live.
The team asked 94 people from these groups to wear Actiwatch-2 devices, which automatically recorded their activity and ambient-light levels. The data revealed that these groups all sleep for nightly blocks of 6.9 and 8.5 hours, and they spend at least 5.7 to 7.1 hours of those soundly asleep. That’s no more than what Westerners who have worn the same watches get; if anything, it’s slightly less.
They don’t go to sleep when it gets dark, either. Instead, they nod off between 2 and 3 hours after sunset, well after it becomes pitch-black. And they napped infrequently
Ekirch combed through centuries of Western literature and documents to show that Europeans used to sleep in two segments, separated by an hour or two of wakefulness. Siegel doesn’t dispute Ekirch’s analysis; he just thinks that the old two-block pattern was preceded by an even older single-block one.
Even if Siegel is right, that doesn’t mean that our sleeping patterns have been unaffected by modern lifestyles. After all, his team found that insomnia, a common affliction of Western society, is almost non-existent in the three groups.
Tomi Engdahl says:
6 things Back to the Future promised and are here (sort of)
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/serious-fun/4376436/6-things-Back-to-the-Future-promised-and-are-here–sort-of-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20151016&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20151016&elq=349f293b0997447da5997c984f4cbd8b&elqCampaignId=25262&elqaid=28729&elqat=1&elqTrackId=421fdaeebd844975acda224caa311bde
we’ve been busy in the nearly 30 years since BTTF II came out. Here are six goodies from the film that engineers have either met or will soon meet the tech challenges of.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 Back to the Future DIY projects
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/serious-fun/4440611/5-Back-to-the-Future-DIY-projects?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20151016&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20151016&elq=349f293b0997447da5997c984f4cbd8b&elqCampaignId=25262&elqaid=28729&elqat=1&elqTrackId=acedd81254624f7cbb1abd45e3530d11
Tomi Engdahl says:
So just what is the third Great Invention of all time?
First we had agriculture, then the scientific method, now …
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/18/so_just_what_is_the_third_great_invention_of_all_time/
So here’s a fun little game for a Sunday morning: what was, or is, the third great invention of all time?
Of course, if we’re going to have an argument over which is third, we need to have some sort of agreement on what are the first two. But that’s OK, they’re well known; agriculture and the scientific method. For that second we can substitute the Enlightenment if we prefer, the concept that evidence matters, even humanism if you really want to stretch it.
The interesting thing about both of them is, to me at least, that they’re not really what we would normally call “an invention”. They’re more an approach to something rather than the result of a Eureka!
And, as you all know, the first computer databases were pretty cool things: but they weren’t relational which I am using here as a synonym for cross-referencing. Which brings us to EF Codd’s definition of an RDBMS of 1970: I think we could argue that that’s in line for being an exemplar of our third great invention.
No, not the RDBMS itself, that would be like saying Sage was, instead of double entry bookkeeping. No, it’s an exemplar of that idea, that data should be properly cross-referenced in order that we might be able to extract information from it.
So I’m willing to put forward any of those three as the third great invention.
So my definition of an invention is being limited to what is really more an approach to something, not the invention itself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wealth Therapy Tackles Woes of the Rich
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/10/19/0348254/wealth-therapy-tackles-woes-of-the-rich
Jana Kasperkevic writes in The Guardian that it can be very stressful to be rich. “It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. It can be scary – people’s reaction to you,”
this means the rich tend to hang out with other rich Americans
Wealth therapy tackles woes of the rich: ‘It’s really isolating to have lots of money’
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/17/wealth-therapy-tackles-woes-of-the-rich-its-really-isolating-to-have-lots-of-money
It’s tough at the top. As one psychological counsellor to the 1% says: ‘I am not necessarily comparing it to what people of color have to go through, but …’
And as they stroll through Manhattan, what issues are America’s 1% struggling with? There is guilt over being rich in the first place, he said. There is the feeling that they have to hide the fact that they are rich. And then there is the isolation – being in the 1%, it turns out, can be lonely. It seems F Scott Fitzgerald was right, the very rich “are different from you and me”. Especially in 2015.
In recent years, members of the 1% have been singled out by protesters seeking to highlight the growing disparity between rich and poor.
These types of protests can be very stressful for the rich. “It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. It can be scary – people’s reaction to you,” said Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology.
‘The rich have become more and more isolated’
The growing gap between the poor and rich is a global phenomenon. According to Oxfam, the richest 1% have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014 and are on track to own more than the other 99% by 2016.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the income gap has expanded
“Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don’t want anything from you!”
“Wealth can be a barrier to connecting with other people,” confessed a spouse of a tech entrepreneur who made about $80m.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Diversity Issue Silicon Valley Isn’t Trying To Fix: Age Discrimination
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/10/19/1313248/the-diversity-issue-silicon-valley-isnt-trying-to-fix-age-discrimination
The tech industry has recognized it isn’t as welcoming to women or minorities as it should be, and is loudly taking steps to solve that issue. Major companies are now releasing diversity reports to highlight their efforts. But as Stephen Levy points out, none of them seem interested in doing something about a different diversity issue that’s been pervading Silicon Valley for years: age discrimination.
And as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms.
How Can We Achieve Age Diversity in Silicon Valley?
https://medium.com/backchannel/how-can-we-achieve-age-diversity-in-silicon-valley-11a847cb37b7
Silicon Valley has always been prone to buzzwords, often annoying and almost always overused. The latest is an exception: diversity. Suddenly, there’s an explosion of discussion, press, conference panels and even executive attention devoted to expanding the workforces of tech companies into something other than enclaves of white and sometimes Asian males. One result has been a trend towards releasing diversity reports that show how incredibly far we have to go.
In Silicon Valley there is one underrepresented group in particular — one that by law is entitled to fair treatment in hiring and employment practices — that not only has failed to enter this conversation, but is often regarded as anathema when it comes to headcount.
And that is people over 40. Or 45. Or 50, or 60. You know…old people.
In my view, age information should be included in those diversity reports, to underline the need for change— and, even more important, those in charge of company cultures should view age diversity as a plus.
Right now, that’s not happening.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook, Google, IBM and Lenovo are technology industry LGBT standard bearers
Zuckerberg lead the pack when it comes to positive promotion and inclusion
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2431178/facebook-google-ibm-and-lenovo-are-technology-industry-lgbt-standard-bearers
A STUDY OF THE MOVERS and shakers in the technology industry has found another imbalance to go alongside the gender one: a low proportion of senior lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) staffers.
“In a complex business like ours, we need to be creative about how we solve problems and when we have outstanding employees from a diverse range of backgrounds we consider problems from multiple viewpoints and ultimately develop better solutions.
“Diversity also helps us better understand our customers. At Lenovo we actively celebrate difference and believe it has been one of the reasons behind our success.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook:
Facebook launches TechPrep, a computer science resource hub, for minorities and women
Announcing the Launch of TechPrep
Exposing learners, parents and guardians to computer science
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/10/announcing-the-launch-of-techprep/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Polymath: Lowell Wood Is America’s New Top Inventor
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/10/20/178230/the-polymath-lowell-wood-is-americas-new-top-inventor
It’s taken more than 80 years, but someone has finally overtaken Thomas Edison as America’s top inventor. The dude is named Lowell Wood; he was once behind the infamous ‘Star Wars’ space laser project, and he was a protege of Edward Teller. On July 7th, he received his 1,085th patent, breaking Edison’s record. The article says he has 3,000 more inventions awaiting review at the patent office.
How an F Student Became America’s Most Prolific Inventor
Lowell Wood broke Edison’s patent record and helped bring down the Soviet Union
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-americas-top-inventor-lowell-wood/
Wood insists that if he’s smart, he didn’t start out that way. Growing up in Southern California, he says, “I didn’t do well in any classes.” He often failed or received the lowest score on the first exam given in a particular course and improved his marks through repetition and intense effort. The strategy worked. He skipped a couple of grades and enrolled at UCLA at 16, where he tested into an honors-level calculus class. The worst score on the first exam—once again—was his. “I’d gotten into the class on the basis of aptitude, not knowledge, which is a ruinous sort of thing,” he says. “It’s like being told I understand the theory of swimming, and so here I am tossed into a high-speed river.”
The score horrified Wood, and he tried to make up for it with a very hard extra-credit problem
As it happened, UCLA had just taken delivery of the first digital computer west of the Mississippi. Wood taught himself how to use the machine over the Christmas break and then wrote a program to solve the tiling problem.
Wood went on to get undergraduate degrees in chemistry and math from UCLA, as well as a doctorate in astrophysics. Then, in 1972, he got a job at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he served as a protégé of Edward Teller, the theoretical physicist and father of the hydrogen bomb. Wood worked on projects ranging from spacecraft to the use of gamma rays to place hidden watermarks on objects. Then came the Star Wars project
In 2006, after four decades in the government, Wood retired to become a full-time inventor.
Wood has taken on the role of on-demand puzzle solver for many of Gates’s humanitarian projects. “Whenever there’s a scientific question I need to understand better, Lowell is one of the first people I turn to,” Gates says. “If he doesn’t know the answer, which rarely happens, I’m sure he can figure it out.”
Wood attributes his ability to hop from subject to subject, making associations that sometimes lead to inventions, to reading—a lot. He subscribes to three dozen academic journals.
This habit goes back at least five decades. “I went to hear Linus Pauling lecture when I was a student,” Wood says. “Afterward I waited until everybody else went away, and then I asked him frankly, ‘How do you come up with these huge number of wonderful ideas?’ He said, ‘There’s really nothing to it all. You just read, and you remember what you read.’”
The more difficult the problem and the more layers of complexity it has, the more emphatic Wood’s disquisitions get.
Many of the best ideas bubble up during IV’s monthly Invention Sessions, where Wood, Myhrvold, Gates, and others gather in a room and brainstorm for hours. Lawyers and assistants sit on the periphery and take notes. “I know lots of supersmart people, but most of them, including me, don’t keep remotely as many facts in their head as Lowell does,” Myhrvold says. “He can remember the physical properties of almost every element. It’s just astonishing.”
Hundreds of staff scientists pile into a laboratory each day to collaborate with a much larger, worldwide network of scientists on retainer. This research community has come up with amazing breakthroughs—patented, of course—which the company is increasingly turning into actual products. It does this by either forming startups or entering ventures with large, industrial partners. The company also has a philanthropic division called Global Good, which is a joint venture with Gates and often does work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Bill Gates and I share the common viewpoint that vaccines are the closest thing to magic that human technology has come up with.”
On a much brighter note, Wood thinks there are plenty of ideas—really big, great ones—left to be imagined. “It’s irrational,” he says. “It’s frankly illiterate to not be optimistic. We’re going to see a blossoming across essentially every front, unprecedented in human technological history. This is not something that’s hoped for. This is baked in the cake.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shanghai Seeks ‘More-than-Moore’ in Silicon Valley
“Angel investors like us have stepped up.”
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328048&
In a global quest for “More-than-Moore” innovations, the Shanghai Industrial Technology Research Institute (SITRI) has come to Silicon Valley to open a hardware accelerator in Belmont, Calif.
The Chinese research institute designed, built and recently opened an incubator, called SITRI Innovations, to support hardware entrepreneurs who are developing and commercializing “More-than-Moore” devices.
SITRI’s goal is to go beyond the process-node driven CMOS technologies that have defined the IC industry for decades and helped propel PC and smartphone market growth.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital Health of Body, Mind and Community
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328066&
Words, data, sounds and images can be digitized easily, but can medicine be digitized; can health care be transmitted by ones and zeroes?
I recently attended the Health 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley (www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/health-20-presents-the-final-agenda-for-the-9th-annual-fall-conference-2015-300133997.html) where leaders in health care met with innovators and entrepreneurs in the digital realm to find common ground and a common path forward.
Certainly, the digital revolution is coming to health care. And the impact will be as beneficial, and as disruptive, as it has been in music, publishing, the auto industry, and so many other fields.
Everyone involved in heath care in any way—from parents struggling to insure their children, to hospital executives facing closure of their facilities—knows the current system is broken beyond repair. We cannot bend the cost curve, health industry leaders say; we have to break it.
‘Analog’ health care that we’ve known since childhood—of physicals and workups done with needles and stethoscopes—is going digital, even as the need for health care increases due to longer life expectancies.
Numerous issues delayed the transition to digital health, doctor-patient confidentiality, and FDA regulations among others, but it’s happening now and accelerating rapidly.
Physicians must now learn about big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), open source, and analytics. And at the same time, digital engineers have to become familiar with ACA, ACO, EHR, HIPPA and HIMSS.
And looking out only 5-10 years, Artificial Intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and the merging of human and machine intelligence will force us to rethink the very notion of what it means to be alive; to be human; to be conscious. To have a soul?
And in spite of HIPPA’s tight security, what if the data is breached, destroying doctor-patient confidentiality? The entire practice of medicine is based on Trust: only a physician can ask a stranger to disrobe; only surgeons are allowed to cut open another’s body.
There are many issues before us as we begin this epoch-making transition to digital health care. And for everyone involved, whether MD, EE, VC or retiree, it’s the first day of school.
But to fulfill the promise of digital health care fully, it is necessary to go beyond re-active cures and prevention practices, to the pro-active practice of wellness.
And it is here that the traditional notion of ‘health care’ opens up to a much wider vista.
The ultimate success of the merging of digital technology and health care depends on the creation of a truly holistic approach to medicine; one that goes beyond curing and preventing, to living a healthy life in a healthy society.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nurses Create in a Medical Makerspace
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/21/nurses-create-in-a-medical-makerspace/
Although there are many skilled and dedicated types of health care professionals, nurses are often the main point of contact between the medical establishment and a patient. You will probably spend more time with your nurse–especially in a hospital setting–than any other health care provider. Every patient’s needs are different, so it isn’t surprising that nurses sometimes improvise unique solutions to help their patients be more comfortable or recover faster.
That’s the idea guiding an innovative program called MakerNurse–an initiative backed by MIT and the Robert W. Johnson Foundation. The idea is to encourage nurses to be makers.
With the MakerNurse program, Young’s group surveyed nurses across the United States and then went to five hospitals to study what nurses were making and what support would help them do even more. The study, which will be published next year, identified resourceful maker projects from nurses and even collaborations between nurses, patients, and their family caregivers.
The logical conclusion: makerspaces in hospitals. Young has made it happen, and the University of Texas Medical Branch’s (UTMB) John Sealy Hospital in Galveston Texas has the first of what she hopes will be many such spaces.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IARPA’s New Director Wants You to Surprise Him
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/iarpas-new-director-wants-you-to-surprise-him
Jason Matheny, former leader of the Office for Anticipating Surprise, hopes to cast a wide net to help solve spy-agency problems
Got a concept for cutting-edge spy tech? Jason Matheny, who was named director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) in August, wants your great ideas. The agency, established in 2006, invests in high-risk, high-payoff research to solve problems faced by the U.S. intelligence community. Partly due to Matheny’s work, the agency is tapping resources outside of government, including crowdsourcing ideas from the general public.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Should You Get a Ham Radio License?
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/23/why-should-you-get-a-ham-radio-license/
Several of the authors you read on Hackaday are ham radio operators and we’ve often kicked around having a Hacker Chat about “Why be a ham today?” After all, you can talk to anyone in the world over the Internet or via phone, right? What’s the draw?
The Radio Society of Great Britain had the same thought, apparently, and produced a great video to answer the question. They mention the usual things: learning about technology, learning about people in other parts of the world, disaster communications, and radiosport (which seems to be more popular outside the United States; people compete to find hidden transmitters).
Amateur radio – a 21st Century hobby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x6x_6mDVlQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacking and Kids: The One Hour Egg Drop
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/23/hacking-and-kids-the-one-hour-egg-drop/
Here’s how it works: I have a step stool or something that will safely hold my weight in front of the class. I climb up on it with an egg in a baggie and I drop the egg. So far, that always results in a messy broken egg (inside the baggie, hopefully). Now I have their attention.
I tell them that the egg is an astronaut and when the space ship she’s in lands, we don’t want her cracked up like Humpty Dumpty. I split up the kids into a few teams (with reasonably even distributions of ages, if they are a mixed group) and I show them that I have lots of materials in yet more baggies.
Each team picks a name and decides how they want to protect their egg. Here’s the catch: each bag of materials has a cost. I will tell the kids that we will have a prize for the lowest cost solution and the lightest solution (as long as they, of course, don’t break the egg).
But it is also undeniable fun. When they shout out 3…2…1… before you drop their egg, you can feel the excitement. The suspense when you open the baggie to see if the egg survived is palpable. The fun keeps them interested and it will help them remember the lessons you teach them.
As engineers or makers or designers or whatever label you apply to yourself, it is tempting to go overboard on something like this. We could build test fixtures with instruments. A shock absorber design immediately comes to mind. Resist that. Keep it simple and save those ideas for long term science projects. A simple activity like this will let you share your love of creation with a large group and maybe start a kid on the road to being a hacker like you.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will the child be allowed to use the tablet PC? Experts advise
It is not strange, if your children know how to use the tablet computers and other digital devices before they can read.
However, the impact of digital equipment on child development has been the dissenting opinions. In the United States to promote the health of children by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended the use of digital devices has been quite restrictive.
Now, however, the recommendations have changed. In the background is a group of experts published a report (pdf), which was drawn up by the educational scientists, children’s doctors, neuroscientists, educators, media scholars and representatives of the social sciences.
Still the question is not whether or not the children use the digital devices, but how they are used.
The use of digital equipment can provide benefits, for example, learning, self-discipline and problem-solving. At the same time, parents need to understand the drawbacks of the use of digital devices.
Parents should work together with the children to use the equipment.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/saako-lapsen-antaa-kayttaa-taulutietokonetta-asiantuntijat-neuvovat-6059857
Paper:
Growing Up Digital: Media Research Symposium
https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/digital_media_symposium_proceedings.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Coding Academies — Useful Or Nonsense?
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/10/25/2019227/coding-academies—-useful-or-nonsense
Stephen Nichols, CEO of a platform that helps non-coders create simple video games, thinks that so-called coding academies are essentially snake oil. “In 20+ years of professional coding, I’ve never seen someone go from novice to full-fledged programmer in a matter of weeks, yet that seems to be what coding academies are promising, alongside instant employment, a salary big enough to afford a Tesla and the ability to change lives.” His point is reminiscent of Peter Norvig’s in “Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years.”
Coding Academies Are Nonsense
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/23/coding-academies-are-nonsense/
In 20+ years of professional coding, I’ve never seen someone go from novice to full-fledged programmer in a matter of weeks, yet that seems to be what coding academies are promising, alongside instant employment, a salary big enough to afford a Tesla and the ability to change lives.
It’s an ingenious business model. There’s a dearth of skilled coders in the marketplace to fill the five million computing jobs available in this country. For somewhere between free and $36,000, you learn to program computers in less than a year. If you’re one of the lucky few, you will hit your aha moment with programming and develop a personal passion for it, as well land a real job.
In 15 years, those hard-won skills will be obsolete — if they ever stuck in the first place. Despite their promises, coding academies don’t manufacture coders. They cast wide nets to discover new talent that has not yet been exposed to code. Most people don’t find coding enthralling or interesting enough to continue to pursue it as a career. Given the changing nature of software, they probably shouldn’t.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
http://norvig.com/21-days.html
Why is everyone in such a rush?
Walk into any bookstore, and you’ll see how to Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours alongside endless variations offering to teach C, SQL, Ruby, Algorithms, and so on in a few days or hours.
The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn about programming, or that programming is somehow fabulously easier to learn than anything else.
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
Researchers (Bloom (1985), Bryan & Harter (1899), Hayes (1989), Simmon & Chase (1973)) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music.
It may be that 10,000 hours, not 10 years, is the magic number. Or it might be some other metric; Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) said “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” True expertise may take a lifetime
Fred Brooks, in his essay No Silver Bullet identified a three-part plan for finding great software designers:
1. Systematically identify top designers as early as possible.
2. Assign a career mentor to be responsible for the development of the prospect and carefully keep a career file.
3. Provide opportunities for growing designers to interact and stimulate each other.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Does Government Science Funding Drive Innovation?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/10/25/195215/does-government-science-funding-drive-innovation
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, British businessman and science journalist Matt Ridley argues that basic science research does not lead to technological innovation, and therefore isn’t deserving of taxpayer funding.
Patents and copyright laws grant too much credit and reward to individuals and imply that technology evolves by jerks. Recall that the original rationale for granting patents was not to reward inventors with monopoly profits but to encourage them to share their inventions. …
The Myth of Basic Science
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-basic-science-1445613954
Does scientific research drive innovation? Not very often, argues Matt Ridley: Technological evolution has a momentum of its own, and it has little to do with the abstractions of the lab
Innovation is a mysteriously difficult thing to dictate. Technology seems to change by a sort of inexorable, evolutionary progress, which we probably cannot stop—or speed up much either. And it’s not much the product of science. Most technological breakthroughs come from technologists tinkering, not from researchers chasing hypotheses. Heretical as it may sound, “basic science” isn’t nearly as productive of new inventions as we tend to think.
Today it is impossible to imagine software development coming to a halt.
It is easier to prohibit technological development in larger-scale technologies that require big investments and national regulations.
And if there is no stopping technology, perhaps there is no steering it either. In Mr. Kelly’s words, “the technium wants what evolution began.” Technological change is a far more spontaneous phenomenon than we realize. Out with the heroic, revolutionary story of the inventor, in with the inexorable, incremental, inevitable creep of innovation.
Simultaneous discovery and invention mean that both patents and Nobel Prizes are fundamentally unfair things.
Patents and copyright laws grant too much credit and reward to individuals and imply that technology evolves by jerks.
Politicians believe that innovation can be turned on and off like a tap: You start with pure scientific insights, which then get translated into applied science, which in turn become useful technology. So what you must do, as a patriotic legislator, is to ensure that there is a ready supply of money to scientists on the top floor of their ivory towers, and lo and behold, technology will come clanking out of the pipe at the bottom of the tower.
This linear model of how science drives innovation and prosperity goes right back to Francis Bacon, the early 17th-century philosopher
When you examine the history of innovation, you find, again and again, that scientific breakthroughs are the effect, not the cause, of technological change.
Technological advances are driven by practical men who tinkered until they had better machines; abstract scientific rumination is the last thing they do.
It follows that there is less need for government to fund science: Industry will do this itself. Having made innovations, it will then pay for research into the principles behind them. Having invented the steam engine, it will pay for thermodynamics.
And we can never know what discoveries were not made because government funding crowded out philanthropic and commercial funding, which might have had different priorities.
The perpetual-innovation machine that feeds economic growth and generates prosperity is not the result of deliberate policy at all, except in a negative sense. Governments cannot dictate either discovery or invention; they can only make sure that they don’t hinder it. Innovation emerges unbidden from the way that human beings freely interact if allowed. Deep scientific insights are the fruits that fall from the tree of technological change.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM: Modernize your business or risk being Uber-ized
http://fortune.com/2015/10/26/ibm-modernize-business-disruption/
Executives from Kohl’s department store, Urban Outfitters, and HSBC share how to avoid being passed by a new rival.
IBM has a stern warning for big old companies that fail to modernize their technology and business practices. You risk being disrupted by an Uber-like startup.
Big Blue executives took the stage at an IBM conference in Las Vegas on Monday to urge companies to undergo a so-called “digital transformation.” That usually involves using more software and data technology — preferably IBM’s — and paying closer attention to how customers shop online and use social media services like Twitter.
“You better figure it out, because there’s an Uber out there that’s already figured it out,” warned Glen Finch, IBM’s global leader of big data and analytics.
companies are worried about more nimble startups like Uber overtaking their business
“The bottom line is that the c-suite is staying up at night,” Finch said.
IBM is itself going through a challenging time with fourteen straight quarters of declining revenue. The company has been shifting its business to focus more on cloud computing and data analytics.
Meanwhile rivals like Amazon AMZN 1.60% and Microsoft MSFT 2.61% have generated a lot of interest with customers looking to use cloud computing services, much to the chagrin of IBM.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robin Wauters / Tech.eu:
Skype, Spotify, and others create European Tech Alliance lobbying group to influence policy-making
European tech companies create new EU lobbying group, headed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström
http://tech.eu/brief/european-tech-alliance/
Today sees the launch of the European Tech Alliance, which aims to represent Europe’s technology ‘scale-ups’ to influence policymaking at EU governments and institutions.
Headed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, now the founder and CEO of VC firm Atomico, the brand new lobbying group intends to “share their experience of building their businesses in Europe with policymakers” and “contribute to the Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy“.
“We have formed an alliance to share our collective experience with policymakers and challenge mindsets about Europe, technology, and the Internet. There are so many European tech company success stories. We think we will be able to help European leaders understand that Europe is good at tech and show how policymakers can clear the way for the tech industry to grow further.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Businesses must embrace digital transformation
http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/business-intelligence/5488/businesses-must-embrace-digital-transformation
Hitachi Data Systems’ research revealed 81 per cent of companies aren’t set up with the digital age in mind
Hitachi Data Systems has revealed most businesses aren’t prepared for modern working, particularly when it comes to digital transformation and the use of cloud services.
The research, which questioned 200 IT decision-makers from UK organisations with more than 1,000 employees, revealed a staggering 81 per cent don’t think their companies are set up for the digital age, which puts cloud-based systems and services at the forefront of processes.
Additionally, 75 per cent of IT leaders are unable to make informed investment decisions, because the data is not available to show how investments should be made and business strategies are not clear enough.
However, nine out of ten IT leaders recognise that effectively storing, retrieving and analysing data can identify future revenue streams, yet 87 per cent said they are facing barriers to using big data.
“Technology plays an integral role in helping UK organisations transform to thrive in a digital economy, but only if there is consensus about which technologies are relevant to future growth and about the ability to adapt to these known priorities,” explained Richard Gadd, UK managing director at Hitachi Data Systems.
“This isn’t about innovating for innovation’s sake, it’s about UK organisations having the ability to garner valuable business insights to make informed technology investments that will drive future growth and enable [them] to redefine business agility.”
Another surprisingly high statistic from the research was that 90 per cent of IT leaders don’t think their organisation is agile enough to respond to the changes in the industry they work in, meaning they are likely to lag behind forward-thinking competitors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When Does School Life Begin? Zuckerberg’s New School To Admit Fetuses
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/10/27/1351204/when-does-school-life-begin-zuckerbergs-new-school-to-admit-fetuses
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan’s latest initiative to tackle educational inequity is The Primary School, a “private, non-profit school” which will eventually provide both free education and free healthcare for 700 low-income students from the Palo Alto area.
The Primary School
http://www.theprimaryschool.org/
The Primary School is an integrated health and education model serving children, and their families, from birth through the transition to high school.
We are recruiting children and families from the communities of East Palo Alto and Belle Haven to join us in August 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Tech Elite’s Quest to Reinvent School in Its Own Image
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/salman-khan-academy-lab-school-reinventing-classrooms
Salman Khan sits at the head of a conference table, surrounded by about a dozen children, talking about Hitler. It’s late June, nine months into the first year at Khan Lab School, Khan’s educational R&D lab in Mountain View. At most schools, the students would be counting down the minutes until their summer vacation. But the Lab School eschews most of the traditional trappings of US education, including summer break. So the kids here don’t seem particularly fidgety.
Khan himself is the famed creator of Khan Academy, the online juggernaut that provides thousands of hours of free video tutorials and exercises to anyone with an Internet connection. Plenty of big-brained tech types—including the likes of Bill Gates, Ann and John Doerr, and Walter Isaacson—have hailed Khan Academy as a breakthrough: world-class teaching unencumbered by space and time, an agile system that lets students learn at their own pace, the most compelling case yet for how technology might revolutionize education around the globe
But a few years ago, Khan began arguing that videos weren’t enough. They were supplementing traditional education, when the entire system needed to be rethought. He wrote a book called The One World Schoolhouse that spelled out his vision, one in which schools abandon outdated practices—like homework, daily schedules composed of distinct 50-minute periods, grades, and classes organized by age—and embrace radical new methods to prepare students for the post-industrial world. Khan argued that the traditional lockstep approach to education, in which students all learn the same material on the same schedule, is anachronistic and crude; kids who are capable of learning faster are compelled to slow down, while others are forced to move on before mastering a subject, dooming them to a lifetime of incomprehension. Instead of inspiring students to think creatively, classes are filled with soul-killing lectures and emphasize conformity and obedience over passion and individuality. “The old classroom model simply doesn’t fit our changing needs,” Khan wrote. “It’s a fundamentally passive way of learning, while the world requires more and more active processing of information.”
For decades now, technologists have been attempting to reinvent the school system. But at least so far, most of these efforts have run afoul of the rigid bureaucracies, parental anxieties, and political minefields that define much of the US education debate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The logarithm and the flogarithm and don’t play Powerball
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/math-is/4440677/The-logarithm-and-the-flogarithm-and-don-t-play-Powerball?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151028&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151028&elq=530cacc5f33a40cebdd241663ea195de&elqCampaignId=25455&elqaid=28949&elqat=1&elqTrackId=6aadbb1b2b0049628179ac864707ecb8
I recently found a pretty neat mathematical book entitled How not to be wrong: The power of mathematical thinking by Jordan Ellenberg. The author outlines real-life applications that show how mathematics makes them possible. This is a great STEM book that answers the question that many, many students ask, Why do I need to study math? How will I ever apply this stuff in real life in my future job?
Ellenberg states that not many people know what a logarithm is.
I highly recommend this book to math aficionados, engineers, students, gamblers (just kidding), and anyone who says Why do I need to know math?
How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
http://thepenguinpress.com/book/how-not-to-be-wrong-the-power-of-mathematical-thinking/
The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hand.
The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.
Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted