Worlds first computer mouse

Another image and facts I found on a friends Facebook page:

The world's first computer mouse was made by Douglas Engelbart in 1964, it consisted of two gear-wheels positioned perpendicular to each other -- allowing movement on one axis. Ergonomic shape, great button placement -- and it's made of wood.



We have came a wee way since then!

We have used a variety of different mice since then, some of which are:

• Optical and laser mice -  They make use of one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and an imaging array of photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, rather than internal moving parts as does a mechanical mouse.
• Inertial and gyroscopic mice - They do not require a surface to operate, inertial mice use a tuning fork or other accelerometer to detect rotary movement for every axis supported. The user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor, reducing user fatigue.
• 3D mice - These devices generally function through ultrasound and provide at least three degrees of freedom and was worn on a ring around a finger, which enabled the thumb to access three buttons. The mouse was tracked in three dimensions by a base station.
• Tactile mice - It contains a small actuator that made the mouse vibrate. Such a mouse can augment user-interfaces with haptic feedback, such as giving feedback when crossing a window boundary.
• Ergonomic mouse - It is designed to fit natural hand position and movements, to reduce discomfort and to avoid injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and other repetitive strain injuries.

YOUR SMARTPHONE IN THE 80s

Found this image on a friends facebook page and thought I would blog it.



It was accompanied with the following words:

"This image beautifully portrays how far technology has come in 30 shorts years. All of the gadgets seen here effectively reside in the palm of your hand. When you sit back and think of the computing and multimedia powerhouse [many of] us have at the touch of our fingers, it’s quite remarkable.

Now try and imagine 30 years from now when we look back at our technology of today!"

I wonder what we will have 30 years from now?

Solar Powered Cellphones

Wouldn't it be great to have a solar powered cellphone?
To be able to charge it on the go just by leaving it in the sun?



In the book I am reading at the moment mentioned, the main guy, was trying to create a solar powered cellphone.

I wondered if it was possible or if it had already happened so I decided to google the possibility.
It turns out there have been trials by Nokia but it did not work very well.
Nokias commented

"When carefully positioned, the prototype phones were able, at best, to harvest enough energy to keep the phone on standby mode but with a very restricted amount of talk time. This means there’s still some way to go before a workable and care-free solution is achieved."

and

"The most substantial challenge is the limited size of a phone’s back cover, which restricts the extent to which the battery can be charged. What’s more, to ensure mobility, it is essential that the phone’s weather protection doesn’t cover the solar charging panel."


But you can by a Eton Mobius, which is a phone case, for an iPhone 4, with a battery and solar panel on the back. When the phone is inside the case, a 30-pin connector can draw power from the charged battery. When fully charged, the 1800mAh lithium ion battery provides five hours of talk time, or up to 32 hours of audio playback, Eton says. Depending on conditions, estimates have each hour of direct sunlight providing around 25 minutes of talk time.

 
 

Also the phone does not need to be in the case for the battery to charge. The case can be left in the sun while the phone is used elsewhere and you can just slip the phone in when you need a little more battery power. It will keep its charge if the power switch is left in the off position and an array of LEDs lets the user know that power is or is not being transferred to the phone.

 

Invisible Ink

I was just watching the build up to the All Blacks playing against Argentina and a lady was interviewing a guy from weka workshop and mentioned a map with invisible ink.
It got me thinking about whether there was in fact invisible ink, so I decided to research it over the internet.



It turns out there is at least four ways of making invisible ink.

1. Making it with lemon juice
• Squeeze the juice of half of a lemon into a bowl.
• Add a few drops of water. Stir the juice and water with a spoon.
• Dip a cotton swab into the lemon juice mixture and write a message on a piece of white paper. A feather, a toothpick, a fountain pen, a paintbrush or a calligraphy pen will also work in place of the cotton swab.
• Allow the invisible ink to dry. As the ink dries, your message will disappear.
• Hold the paper that contains your invisible ink message over a light bulb. Keep the paper near the bulb until the message reappears.
2. Making it with baking soda
1. Mix 1/4 cup (60 ml) of baking soda with 1/4 cup (60 ml) of water in a small bowl using a whisk or a spoon.
2. Dip a cotton swab into the baking soda and water mixture. Use the swab to write a message on a white piece of paper.
3. Wait until the ink is dry.
4. Dip a paintbrush into some grape juice concentrate. Paint the grape juice over your message and wait for the message to appear.
    
3. Making it with milk
1. Dip a cotton swab into a shallow dish of milk.
2. Use the cotton swab to write a message onto a white piece of paper. Allow the milk to dry.
3. Place the paper over a light bulb. The milk will heat up at a slower rate than the paper, which will cause the message to reappear.
    
4. Or using a white carayon
• Use a white crayon to write a message onto a white piece of paper.
• Paint over the message using watercolors and a brush. The message will reappear.

Not as magical as I had thought, in my imagination when I heard the words "Invisible Ink" but it is something fun I could do with my girls on a rainy day, which we are getting a lot of lately.

Hmmm,human microchipping?

Why would we, as humans, need to be microchipped?

The thought of human microchippng scares me.
As someone who is very private and enjoys being pretty much anonymous, I do not like the thought that my every movement could be traced!
And why would my every movement, or anyones movements, need to be traced?

What is contained in a microchip?
A microchip typically contains a unique ID number that can be linked to information contained in an external database, such as personal identification, medical history, medications, allergies, and contact information.

You can see why the people, who are into the idea of being microchipped, would want to promote it as it would be good to have all that information on you at all times so that no matter what happens it is available.
But it is all the thoughts of people getting hold of all that information and what and how they use it which scares me and possibly many more.
There would have to be strict control and regulations when it came to using and accessing the information.
But even then would you totally trust "Big Brother" to stick with the rules and regulations?
Maybe it would be good to microchip repeat offenders etc. so authorities could keep an eye on them and make sure they do not offend again.

It is nice, though, to have my dog microchipped although it would suit me better if I was the one who was able to do the tracking so that everytime he wandered off I would be able to find him.

The Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project was a 13 year project which started in 1990 and was coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.



Its goals were to:

• identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA,
• determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA,
• store this information in databases,
• improve tools for data analysis,
• transfer related technologies to the private sector, and
• address the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) that may arise from the project.

Even though the Human genome Project has finished,the  analyses of the data, will still continue for many years.

You can look at the timeline of major events of the Human Genome Project on this website http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/timeline.shtml

There were many ethical, leagal and social issues with the Human Genome Project. Some of these were:

• Who should have access to personal genetic information, and how will it be used?
• Who owns and controls genetic information?

To deal with these two issues there are two primary pieces of federal legislation which directly apply to genetics nondiscrimination:

1. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008
2. The 2000 Executive Order to to prohibit discrimination in federal employment based on genetic discrimination.

Other issues which have arisen are:

• How does personal genetic information affect an individual and society's perceptions of that individual?
• How does genomic information affect members of minority communities?
• Do healthcare personnel properly counsel parents about the risks and limitations of genetic technology?
• How reliable and useful is fetal genetic testing?
• What are the larger societal issues raised by new reproductive technologies?

 There were many more issues whci have arisen and they can all be answered on the following website http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/about.shtml.

Luddites

Luddites, a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which replaced them with less-skilled, low-wage labour, leaving them without work and changing their way of life.



You can understand why the Luddites smashed the new machines which were replacing the workers.
Its a hard life when you are stuggling to feed and clothe your family and when you lose your job because of a machine which replaces you of course you would want to take action against it.

This is something that happens all the time. Not just workers being replaced by machines but also by companies gettting there products made overseas, in places like Taiwan and China, to cut costs. you put the words "Manufacturing in China" in Google and get lists of websites, such as http://www.manufacturingchina.com/ and http://www.made-in-china.com/, who can help you with finding the right manufacturer for your product and most of them mention the cost savings you can have.
Even when you ring a big company in New Zealand, the phone gets answered by someone in India, which I have always found frustrating as I am always repeating what I am saying and asking them to repeat what they are saying as we never seem to understand what the other has said.
But do the companies care?
No!
Why?
Because they are saving themselves money by having their customers enquiries answered by someone in India.

People are being replaced by computers and machines all the time and the reason always is more about the company saving more money than anything else.
At the end of the day most business' and companies are obsessed about making money and if there is a way that they can save money, they will do it.

RFID in Supermarkets

Having had worked in a supermarket myself, for two years, at Countdown, I have had experience with using little hand held devices which I had to carry everywhere, to send reports to an upstairs computer.
I and my work collegues found it all a bit too ridiculous, as we were only a small supermarket, with, at most, one person in each department at a time, that we felt it a waste of time having to send a report on what stock needed to be put into the store, then take 15 minutes to run upstairs, find the report on the computer, print it out and then run back down stairs, across to the otherside of the store and start filling the shop up.
Before we had to work with these handheld devices all we did was take a pen and a scrap of paper, spend 5 minutes in the shop jotting down what we needed and then start filling the shop up. Much less time and hassle!!!

So after watching the following video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob532iEpqk
I decided to do some research of my own.

This article http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/7483/getting-rfid-of-supermarket-queues is a brief one about a German supermarket tagging RFID chips in their grocery items, with information such as the price and product information, which is transmitted to a computer via antenna. Which is what the youtube clip above is advertising.
This article, however was written in 2004. So why do we not see it being used in our supermarkets? Was it because the idea did not work as well as was hoped? or was this just their starting point and they have moved on to a new improved idea?

Reality Mining

What is reality mining?
According to Wikipedia, reality mining is  the collection and analysis of machine-sensed environmental data pertaining to human social behavior, with the goal of identifying predictable patterns of behavior. It was declared, by Technology Review Magazine, to be one of the "10 technologies most likely to change the way we live".
Reality mining studies human interactions based on the usage of wireless devices such as mobile phones and GPS systems which provides more of an accurate picture of what people do, where they go, and who they communicate with, rather than from more subjective sources such as a person's own account. Reality mining is one aspect of digital footprint analysis.

I found a video, on the Science Channel, that you can watch here on reality mining.
I actually found it rather diturbing as I am not sure whether it is a good thing that I can be tracked where ever I go.

"If all this movement-tracking sounds invasive, that's because it is, privacy advocates say. Guilherme Roschke, a staff attorney at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, in Washington, D.C., says that while reality mining may have some legitimate uses, it can also be abused. He's also concerned when people are monitored without their consent. "There is a lot of new information being collected, and it brings significant new capabilities, some of which are privacy-infringing," Roschke says. "The first thing is to let people know this data is being collected, and how it's going to be used. And whenever it's put to a new use, then it must be disclosed." " (Hesseldahl, 2008)

On the otherhand it would be very useful to use on my girls when they become teenages!

Hesseldahl, A (March 24, 2008). There is Gold in Reality Mining. Retrieved September 1st, 2012 from http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-03-24/theres-gold-in-reality-miningbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

Medical Informatics

What is Medical Informatics?

Simple definition: Computer applications in medical care

Better definition:
Biomedical Informatics is an emerging discipline that has been defined as the study, invention, and implementation of structures and algorithms to improve communication, understanding and management of medical information.  The end objective of biomedical informatics is the coalescing of data, knowledge, and the tools necessary to apply that data and knowledge in the decision-making process, at the time and place that a decision needs to be made.  The focus on the structures and algorithms necessary to manipulate the information separates Biomedical Informatics from other medical disciplines where information content is the focus.

What do people trained in Medical Informatics do?
Many people who train in medical informatics have professional degrees in a health related area.  Nurses, physicians, medical librarians, and computer scientists will each find their professional niche in a different area: Consultants with management consulting firms, hospital record managers, data analysts, librarians, senior staff in state health departments, programmer/analysts in industry, and just good old family doctors.

More on the Robot Car Calling 911

Touching more on my previous blog . . . .

The robot, which was installed in the car, could have been what is called a Ford SYNC. Which is an integrated in-vehicle communications and entertainment system that allows users to make hands-free telephone calls and control music and other functions using voice commands. The system consists of applications and user interfaces developed by Ford and third-party developers that run on the Microsoft Windows Embedded Automative operating system.

It's features:
Mobile Phone Integration

• Voice activated, handsfree calling
• Automatic phone book transfer
• Uninterupted connections
• Supprot for advanced calling features
• Ring tone support
• Audible SMS messages

Entertainment

• Digital music player support
• Instant voice recognition
• Multilingual intelligence

It's aplications:

• 911 Assist†
•  AppLink†
• Traffic, Directions and Information
• Vehicle Health Reports†
• Ford Work Solutions
•  Crew Chief
•  Garmin Nav
•  LogMeIn
• Tool Link

I could write an explanation about what all these features and application but as I was only curious about how the car made the 911 call i am only going to put an explanation about how that part worked. If you want to read more click here.

So what does the 911 Assist† application do?

The 911 Assist† application places a direct call to a local 911 emergency operator in the event of a serious accident with an air bag deployment. Before initiating the emergency 911 call, SYNC will provide a 10-second window to allow the driver or passenger to decide whether to cancel the call. If not manually cancelled within the 10-second window, SYNC will place the emergency call. A pre-recorded message will play when the call is answered, and occupants in the vehicle will then be able to communicate directly with the 911 operator.

Robot Car Calls 911, Man Saved

This heading for a news article, just now, caught my eye and I just had to blog about it.
The article read:

"Some might say it's equivalent to an automotive Lassie, but it's more akin to Knight Rider.
A Texas man is lucky to be alive after being trapped unconscious in a car that had ditched in a river.
The Ford Mustang belonging to one Michael Hicks had in-built technology that called emergency services after he had the accident, according to Fairfax Media.
He had the accident in a remote area, in a black vehicle difficult to spot by passers-by.
The automatic 911 call led rescuers to the vehicle and Hicks was rescued.
"I heard the crash and the last thing I saw was the dashboard flashing calling 911. Where it happened was so remote and so unlit, there was absolutely no chance of anyone seeing me because it was a black car. It gave me my life. That's the ultimate technology right there. It's got my back," he said." (Yahoo, 2012)

I will do some more research on it, when I have more time, and add it to this blog. :)



Yahoo(August 31st, 2012). Robot car calls 911, man saved. Retrieved August 31st, 2012 from http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/14697622/robot-car-calls-911-man-saved/

Time Travel

I was at work yesterday chatting to one of my regular customers and he brought up the topic of time travel. Apparently he has spent years researching time travel and is therefore interested in any movie which has a mention of time travel (I work in a video store).



He has come across, over the years, a lot of evidence which suggests that people have come considerably close to doing actual time travel. In some cases people have time travelled but not survived the journey. I found it very interesting talking to him as he tried to explain to me how time travel works.
He told me how it all comes down to physics, the speed of light.....I did not quite understand as I did get into physics at school. He also believed that the UFO's etc. that people have seen are in fact people time travelling as that too would look like the lights in the sky of a UFO. And time travellers would also look like the aliens because of the special suits worn to protect them from harm while time travelling.
He had some interesting theories.
So I have decided to do some research myself to see whether I could back up his theories.

This is what I have found:

"Some scientists have proposed the idea of using faster-than-light travel to journey back in time. After all, if time slows as an object approaches the speed of light, then might exceeding that speed cause time to flow backward? Of course, as an object nears the speed of light, its relativistic mass increases until, at the speed of light, it becomes infinite. Accelerating an infinite mass any faster than that is impossible. Warp speed technology could theoretically cheat the universal speed limit by propelling a bubble of space-time across the universe, but even this would come with colossal, far-future energy costs." (Bosnor & Lamb)

I found this video clip, which the customer had mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViwcqNQk4BY
it tells of time travel which happened in 1943 and how it was covered up.

There seems to be many theories and being close to making a time machine which actually works like the Large Hadron Collider which
"the most powerful particle accelerator in history located on the border of Switzerland and France. In its 27-kilometer ring scientists are trying to collide beams of protons accelerated to nearly light speed." (Pravda, 2010)
but for this one to work it would need to reach at least the design capacity (now it is working at half capacity) and stop breaking down.

In an articleI found by Dr Michio Kaku he mentions that a guy called Kurt Goedel, who was perhaps the greatest mathematical logician of the past 500 years, found a new solution to Einstein’s equations which allowed for time travel but Einstein concluded that as the universe did not rotate Goedel’s solution could be thrown out for “physical reasons".

With all the research, and trying to find actual evidence, I found many theories and almosts but, besides the short YouTube clip, no evidence to say time travel had happened unless of course it is one of those issues which is always going to be covered up so we are never to be allowed to know about it?

Will time travel ever happen?
Will someone from our future turn up on our doorstep?
Or will it simply stay as a thing of science fiction films?



Bosnor, K & Lamb, R (N.A.). How Time Travel Work. Retrieved August 29th, 2012 from http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time-travel2.htm

Pravda, K (2010)Time Machine Built in Europe, Russian Scientists Say. Retrieved August 29th, 2012 from http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/06-08-2010/114515-time_machine-0/

Nostradamus

Michel de Nostredame (aka Nostradamus) was a 16th-century French "seer", used astrology and various "occult" sciences to get his predictions of the future.



Some of his top predictions were:

1. "From the enslaved populace, songs,
   Chants and demands
   While princes and lords are held captive in prisons.
   These will in the future by headless idiots
   Be received as divine prayers"

Which was thought to be the French revolution. It was interpreted as:

The peasants ("the enslaved populace") rising to power, the aristocracy taken down and beheaded (the "headless idiots," now "princes and lords ... held captive in prisons"). In another verse, the "great wall" falling is said to mean the storming of the Bastille.

       2.  "The blood of the just will commit a fault at London,
             Burnt through lighting of twenty threes the six:
             The ancient lady will fall from her high place,
             Several of the same sect will be killed."

Which was thought to be the Great London Fire of 1666. Some of it's interpretations:

Medieval London ("the ancient lady") within the old Roman walls. Only six deaths were recorded (hence "the six" in the second line).

        3. "Near the gates and within two cities
             There will be scourges the like of which was never seen,
             Famine within plague, people put out by steel,
            Crying to the great immortal God for relief."

Which was about the Atomic Bomb.
It is apparently a good description of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Scourges the like of which was never seen," people "crying to the great immortal God."
        4. "The two greatest ones of Asia and of Africa,
             From the Rhine and Lower Danube they will be said to have come,
             Cries, tears at Malta and the Ligurian side.'             And
            "From the depths of the West of Europe,
             A young child will be born of poor people,
            He who by his tongue will seduce a great troop;
            His fame will increase towards the realm of the East."

Which is about World War II and Hitler.

Question is do are all these prophecies what we are making them out to be?
Or are we just trying to make big events, which have happened around the world, fit with what Nostradamus has predicted?

Innovation Processes

There are four different processes to innovation:

1.  Identify opportunities for new products and services
Antcipate future needs for customers and identify the needs for new products and services.
 
2.  Manage the research and development portfolio
Once ideas for new products and services have been, decisions need to made on which ones to fund and which was to cut. The ones which are being funded need to be kept under review
in case of new opportunities and resource constraints and whether to continue supporting the project at the current level of resources e.g. money, capital equipment, and people or to reduce resource commitments, or  to stop the project because of limited progress made to date or more attractive opportunities which may have recently been identified.
 
3.  Design and develop the new products and services
A successful design and development process finishes as a product which has the desired functionality, is attractive to the targeted market, and can be produced with consistent quality and at a cost allows satisfactory profit margins to be earned. The development process also has to meet its own targets for completion time and development cost.
This process follows these stages:
Concept development
Product Planning and
Detailed product and process engineering
 
4.  Bring the new products and services to market
 In this stage the product team releases the the product for initial ramp-up into commercial production and starts pilot production to finalize the specifications for the production process and tests whether the new or modified manufacturing processes can produce the finished product at commercial level of production.
They then start a commercial production at low levels and the marketing ans sales teams start selling to customers. When customer orders start rising the product production increases and when the company achieves targeted levels of sales and production, at specified levels of product functionality, quality, and cost, the development project concludes.

Apple vs Samsung

Well it seems the US jury verdict is in and Samsung are to pay Apple $1 billion in damages for patent infringement.



"After just three days of deliberations on the complex and technical case, the jury has ruled that Samsung violated six of Apple's patents, including utility and design patents. Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages, which is about half of what Apple had originally asked for in its lawsuit against Samsung. The jury found that Apple had not infringed on any of Samsung's patents and was not fined a penny." (Johnson, 2012)

Samsung responded by stating

"Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple's claims."
But in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday, the court ruled that even though Samsung didn't copy Apple's iPhone design, both of the companies were guilty of patent infringement against one another and as a result of this verdict, the court is imposing a partial sales ban, in the country, on both  Samsung and Apple, which will apply mostly to the older products and not necessarily to new devices. It yet to be seen if they will do the same in the US.

Bibliography
Johnson, B.A(August 25th, 2012).Apple vs. Samsung Lawsuit Verdict is in; Jury Orders Samsung to Pay $1 Billion in Damages, Patent Infringement.  Retrieved August 26th, 2012 from http://www.latinospost.com/articles/3290/20120825/samsung-apple-trial-verdict-is-in-jury-orders-samsung-to-pay-1-billion-in-damages.htm

BSA

BSA meaning the Balanced Scorecard Approach (not to be confused with Broadcasting Standard authority or Birmingham Small Armies)

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system which is used in business, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals.
It was brought in by Drs. Robert Kaplan, from the Harvard Business School, and David Norton as a performance measurement framework which added strategic, non-financial, performance measures to the traditional financial metrics, to give managers and executives a more 'balanced' view of an organizations performance.


A graph showing the BSA's startegic planning and management system.

Business Drivers

What are business drivers?
Business drivers are the main factors and resources which provide the essential marketing, sales, and operational functions of a business.



The best way to find out what the business drivers are for a business is to ask:

• What drives the sales figures?
• What drives the costs?
• What drives the cash flow?

An online survey conducted among a sample of technology decision makers selected from the Ziff Davis Enterprise Service Provider database concluded that the top 10 business drivers for 2008 were:

1. New Customers
2. Existing Customers
3. Sale of Solution
4. Incremental Services Revenue
5. Managed Services
6. Operational Cost Savings
7. Large Customers
8. Higher Per-Hour Services
9. Application Development
10. Software

 

Innovation

Do you think that innovation can only occur after development of a new technology, or can innovation be achieved with an existing technology?

Innovation can definately be achieved with an existing technology.
How did Dr Martin Cooper, of Motorola, invent the very first cell phone without first the invention of the telephone?


Dr Martin Cooper making the first US analoguemobile phone call.

In fact most of the new technology around today has been based on already existing technology.
a lot of innovation occurs because inventors are trying to make existing technology etc. better and more efficient.

Some examples:

• The toilet would not have come about if it were not for developments such as the running water in the home - indoor plumbing.
• If it wasn't for the wood burning oven and the invention of electricity, the electric oven, most of us have in our homes today, would not have been invented.
• If it wasn't for the first lawnmower, which was made of cast iron and featured a large rear roller with a cutting cylinder (reel) in the front, then the petrol ones we use today would not have come about.

These were just some examples but there are many more.
So repeat Innovation can definately be achieved with an existing technology.

Sparking the Fire of Innovation

Do small organisations offer more oportunity for inventiveness, in particular, through research and development?

Without first reading 'Sparking the fire of invention' my first thoughts, on the above question, were that the bigger the business, the better they are financially for reasearch and development and the more staff to come up with new developments. But it soon became apparent, while I was reading, that my thoughts were slightly wrong as I didn't realise that what was meant by a 'small company' was a company that was solely for coming up with inventions, not a company which had a portion of its employees, who were inventing.


After reading 'Sparking the fire of invention' I will like to state that I do not agree with the way big businesses diregarded the impotance of the invention stage of 'technological change'. The following statement from the reading says: 

"Companies adopted the view that invention by itself was only a tiny part of business success; for every $1 spent on basic research, the conventional wisdom went, $100 would be spent on development and $1,000 on commercialization."

If it was not for the invention there would be no innovation, where the invention is transformed into products and services, and then there would be no diffusion, where the products and services are maketed. The invention is the most important part of the process.
It is little wonder that smaller companies do very well at inventiveness when that is the way big companies think. That is where little companies spend their time and money, with researching and developing new ideas.

This following extract from the above reading is what holds back bigger companies"

"Invention is so steeped in the myth of accidental discovery that one might conclude it’s like playing the lottery."

Some inventions may come from accidental discovery but most come from lots of research and 'trial of error'.

I very much like the following, from the inventor Jay Walker.

"invention is about taking risks that will almost certainly fail in order to find the unlikely breakthrough."

Which is basically the theory the small businesses like Myhrvold's Invention Science,  and others referred to in the reading, go by.

So to answer the question which was asked at the start, do I agree that small organisations offer more oportunity for inventiveness, in particular, through research and development?
I believe they do but only because big companies do not value the inventiveness stage of technological change. If big companies were to change their way of thinking then maybe they would have a better chance against the little companies.


 

Man drives into harbour

Just had to share thisfollowing  article, which I came across today, as I think it is kind of funny, although it could have ended as a deadly mistake.

Man guided by GPS drives into US harbour.

The guy in this article had just relocated to Alaska and as he was unfamiliar with Alaska decided to put his hands in the trust of his GPS. When the GPS told him to turn a hard right turn which led him down a boat launching ramp!
Thoughts?
Why did he continue to drive when he could see that he was heading down a boat ramp?

As good and handy as GPS's are, anybody who has had any experience with them knows that you still have to use your own instincts and disregard what the GPS says every now and then.

Distruptive/revolutionary versus evolutionary/sustaining technology

Is the distinction between them valid?

First lets look at what each technology is.

Disruptive Technology

"Disruptive technologies are usually those innovations that initially do not improve the focus of the company. Disruptive technologies often don't have a market when they're created. A market must be developed and often it's made up of new customers that the established companies in that field haven't been called on to serve (often 'down-market' from their current customers--smaller computers, smaller numbers, etc). The initial benefits of the disruptive technologies are not features that their current customers are calling for. For example, small, light-weight hard drives with less capacity and a higher cost per megabyte of storage are not appealing to desktop computer users. They don't care about weight because they don't move their machines. They want storage and price. Laptop computer users, however, highly value lightweight storage and are willing to buy disk drives with less capacity if they make significant gains in size and weight. What makes small disk drives a disruptive technology is that they begin to improve in capacity and cost until they reach the same or better price points and storage capabilities as the larger drives. Now desktop customers also want lightweight, high-capacity hard drives and they go to the new companies, leaving their old suppliers scrambling to adopt the new technology." (Deb, 2003)

Sustaining Technology
"Sustaining technologies are those technologies or improvements that sustain an organization's focus, goals, and customers. Sustaining technologies allow an organization to do their job better, to improve their products and to increase customer satisfaction. In addition, sustaining technologies provide obvious improvements in the things that current customers want. In an example that Christensen uses in his book, desktop computer users want disk drives with more capacity at the same or lower cost. A sustaining technology would be a new technique or production method or disk drive that delivered increased storage capacity for desktop computer users.
Sustaining technologies can be radical. For example, a method of manufacturing more cardboard boxes per hour might involve completely different equipment for the operation. What it doesn't involve, though, is a change of focus or a creating a new market." (Deb, 2003)

Now lets have a look at some examples:

Disruptive Technology
The telephone.
The computer.
The internet.

Sustaining Technology
The modern washing machine which now uses less water and power than the first original washing machine.
Any technology which has been improved on

In general, "old" products based on sustaining technology are perceived to be superior to the 'new" ones based on disruptive technology.

Conclusion

It would be fair to think that all technology must have started out as a disruptive technology as they had to be something absolutely new and disruptive to begin with.

I admit I am finding it hard to see the distinction between sustaining and disruptive technology. I wrote this blog entry as a way of making me research the topic further and maybe coming away with a clear understanding on it but I am finding the line between very blurred.

Deb (October 3rd, 2003). Tech, Knowledge, and Community. retrieved August 22nd, 2012 from http://www.extension.iastate.edu/mt/dcoates/archives/000606.html 

Disruptive Technology

Disruptive technology is a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new technology that unexpectedly displaces an established technology. Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience, and may not yet have a proven practical application.

Lets take a look at some of the disruptive technologies in the reading 'You'll want one of these'

Super-vision
Wouldn't it be great to have x-ray vision?
As a mum I can see how handy this would be. To be able to look staraight through the walls and spy on what mischief my girls were up to and for later on, in their teenage years, when they start inviting boys home...
But alas it is something that has yet to be invented.
But the next best thing has been. Engineers at Cambridge Consultants, in the UK, announced, in 2006, that they had built what they called a Prism 200 which was a briefcase-sized system that could detect people through a brick wall by firing off pulses of ultrawide-band radar and listening for returning echoes.

How does one use it?
By standing with your back to the wall while the machine scans, using ultra-wideband radio frequencies, then you look at the display to see what is going on.


To watch a quick youtube clip on a Prism 200, click here.

Who can use it?
It is expected that it will be used to law enforcement agencies, emergency services or soldiers in high-risk and hostile situations.

Disappearing act
Cloak of Invisability. If you have ever watched Harry Potter you know what the Cloak of Invisibity is and to be truthful we have all thought about what we could do if we could actually own one right?



But is it all just fiction or is the Cloak of Invisibity a reality?
Apparently it is something of a reality.
How does it work?
By steering electromagnetic waves around an object it disappears. So far the only way to do that is with metamaterials which are made up of electronic components which are designed to interact with light and direct it in a controllable fashion.

Dr. Susumu Tachi, from Keio University, has come up with their version of the invisiblity cloak - a retro-reflective projection technology which uses a computer, a video camera and projector to shine background images onto the front of a subject wearing specialised clothing, creating the illusion of invisibility. you can watch their youtube clip here.
The way they do it is not exactly what I imagine when I think about using an invisibility cloak as I always imagined myself being invisible to others not just on camera.

In the US, at the start of the year, researchers had made a breakthrough with being able to make an 18cm cylinder invisible by using plasmonic metamaterials.

"When light strikes an object, it rebounds off its surface towards another direction, just like throwing a tennis ball against a wall. The reason we see objects is because light rays bounce off materials towards our eyes and our eyes are able to process the information.
Due to their unique properties, plasmonic metamaterials have the opposite scattering effect to everyday materials.
When the scattered fields from the cloak and the object interfere, they cancel each other out and the overall effect is transparency and invisibility at all angles of observation." (Daily Mail, 2012)

But it can only be invisible to microwave scanners.

I am sure that the Cloak of Invisibility will be here in the future and researchers are getting closer but will be here for my lifetime?

Jet packs/Rocket belts
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just put on your jet pack and fly to work, not having to worry about traffic?



Well it seems this could be a reality. There are already a few companies that have invented and sell them.
There is the  Martin Jetpack which is the said to be the worlds first practical jetpack.
"is the result of inspiration and many years of development work by Glenn Martin and an enthusiastic team of engineers and other experts. It uses sophisticated composites and a highly efficient propulsion system to achieve the goal of personal flight, with many safety features including a ballistic parachute." (The Martin Jetpack, n.d.)
And there is the JetLev which is powered by a 200 hp engine that pumps water through a 10-meter hose at 1,000 gallons per minute, generating more than 420 lbs. of thrust. It is on sale for $100,000.
For $250,000, you can buy a Tam rocket Belt which goes more than 60 mph but only lasts for 30 seconds.
For $155,000, you can buy the Jet Pack H202 that goes up to 70mph but it only lasts for 33 seconds.
It seems they may still be in the developement stage.
But will they become the transportation of the future?






Daily Mail Reporter (January 26th, 2012). Breakthrough in bid to create 'invisibility cloak' as 3D object is made to vanish for first time. Retrieved August 21st, 2012 from
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2091792/Invisibility-cloak-breakthrough-3D-object-vanish-time.html
Martin Jetpack (n.d.). Retrieved august 21st, 2012 from http://martinjetpack.com/

Technology Substitution

New technology is always being created and when it does it usually replaces existing technology.

There have been many significant examples of technological substitution over the years, such as:

• With music it went from the gramophone to record players, to cassette tape players, to Compact Disc's. Now a days music is becoming more likely to be downloaded from the internet straight to an iPhone or MP3 player.

• With movies it went from movie projectors videos to DVD's and now onto Blu-Rays but like with music, it is also becoming increasingly popular to download a movie from online movie web sites.

• They way we take photo's has changed from the camera obscura, a device dating back to the ancient Chinese and ancient Greeks which uses a pinhole or lens to project an image of the scene outside upside-down onto a viewing surface. It has in more recent times changed from a camera which takes film to the digital cameras we have today.

So when, as a business or organisation, do we shift to using the new technology and when do we phase out the old technology?
It is not an easy thing for a business or organization to know when it is right to make a change or to just leave things running as they are. There are a lot of people out there with the attitude "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", which is all good if the technology is working fine and business is pumping.
But if they are not willingly to make the change, how are they going to keep up or ahead of their competition? and how do they know that the new technology is going to work for the better?
There are lots to consider. For example:

• How much is the technology going to cost?
• Will the way we run the business/organization change much?
• Will we need to retrain staff?
• Will we need to add new departments, such as an IT department?
• What concerns will there be for OSH (Occupational Safety and Health)?
• Are there any government regulations to think about?

With all these considerations it cannot be an easy task for a business/organization to change the technology they use. Sometimes the consequences of implementing a new, sometimes even unproven, technology can lead to disaster. For example, the INCIS project which has been described as "One of the biggest bureaucratic bungles in NZ history" (Dale, 2000). Just a few of the reasons why it was a disaster were:
1. It was too over ambitious - "INCIS was big and was going to lead the world" (Dale, 2000)
2. INCIS specified a lot of high technology at the start, but as it was such a big project, quite a lot of it became obsolete along the way.
3. Having an unrealistic timetable - the INCIS completion date slipped from March '97 to, eventually, August '99 when it was canned.

A lot of time, money and research needs to go into the thought process of implementing a new technology.



Bibliography
Dale, T (2000). How to plan a computer disaster. Retrieved August 19th, 2012 from http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/research/RG/svg/tony/papers/incis.html

Push and Pull

What is technology push and market pull?

'Technology push' is when the technology has been developed but the need  must be created.

'Market pull' is when a business has a need for a product and technology develops to fill that need.



Sometimes a designer will design a new or improved product just because they believe that the very existence of the product will create market pull. Designs like this may either succeed or fail, depending on consumer demand, how innovative the product is, and the state of the market at the time.

An example of 'Technology push' include the first Sony walkman which was created because the chairman of Sony got sick of travelling with the companies existing portable stereo as it was too heavy. Sony embarked on an aggressive marketing plan by targeting teenagers hoping that the walkman would become associated with youth and leisure activities. Their marketing plan was successful.



Another example of 'Technology push' was the Sinclair C5, which we all know was a failure (you can read more about it in an earlier post).

Children and Technology

I found this artcile- Switched-on iPad infants put to the test - an interesting read.
Before having children, the thought of children growing up in front of a TV or computer screen made me believe it was because of bad parenting. And children who came around to our house, who sat on the couch and played their handheld computer games, I felt were just rude.
Maybe some parents do it as a way of having a constant babysitter and I, myself, am guilty of using a DVD, computer or the Wii to entertain my children, especially in the last few years while studying and have found games, such as Angry Birds, on the iPhone very handy while out and about.
It is fantastic that children these days have the opportunity to have access and ability to use all the modern technologies, such as the iPad, as it is where the future lies. To see an infant or child pick up and use iPads and computers so easily and to quickly work out how to use it, is an amazing thing to watch. It can take adults ages to work out how to use modern technology, so for a child to pick it up and work it out, sometimes after only being shown a few times, its just fantastic.
After researching iPads and children using them I found out that iPads are not just for fun. iPads and their apps, are also being recognized for helping children with disabilities such as Autism. It helps with communicating and aid in learning, which you can read more about here, where you can read about why iPads are successful and click on some links to reviews by parents who have autistic children.

Technology Convergence

In my mind the convergence of technology is a wonderful thing. To be able to create something new simply by combing two or more technologies together is fantastic.
It is nothing new. Look at the cellphone - it started off being made just so you can call people away from the home or office. Then it got texting capabilities. Now-a-days the simple, little, cellphone can do a wide range of things from making phone calls, to taking pictures, and from taking video footage to reading your emails and browsing the interent.
It makes you wonder can a phone do anymore than it already does?
But everyday there is a new app, or somone designing a new app.
Below is a digram to illastrate technology convergence

An Image of Technology Convergence



This image shows examples of how technology has merged over the years.
Moving image has gone from picture theatre to iPod.
Computing has gone from computer to cellphone.

What technology convergence are we going to see and buy in the next ten years?
Anything, it seems, is possible.

My Top Ten Predicted Future Trends

The following are the ten trends which I believe we are most likely to be using and be seeing more of, in ten years time.

More wired applications. For me it is not surprising that the world is moving towards a world where almost everything is connected to the internet. We already have, in what feels like a short time, phones, TV’s, e-books, computers etc which can connect to the internet. My imagination goes wild with the endless possibilities of what else, of the stuff around my home, could be connected to the internet – microwaves, the refrigerator, my bed? The blog entry at Digital Pacific also has this same view “By 2020, it is expected that almost every device will be wired to the internet – from microwaves to sofas. Furthermore, more applications will be specifically designed to be net friendly.”

I am also remembering the video clip we were given to watch – A Day Made of Glass. I don’t believe that in 10 years time this will be the world we live in but I think we will be a lot closer to it.

Mobile internet will be more common than browsing via the computer. Having internet on the go and being able to connect just about anywhere at any time on your mobile phone is a much easier, more convenient way to browse the web than turning on a computer, which unless you have an internet stick (or something similar) you would have to wait until you got home or to an internet cafe etc. Most people like convenience.   

On the Digital Pacific Company Blog, their blog entry “Top Ten Future Trends- The Internet by 2020” they also mentioned that their number 8 trend was that they think Mobile internet technology is will be the most popular way to browse the web by 2020 and as a result many sites will be specifically catered towards mobile devices.

I do not think it will be strictly phones either and looking at Cisco’s IBSG post on Ten Technology Trends That Will Change the World in Ten Years, on slide 4, there is a graph which shows internet growth and underneath the images of the people there is ‘Connected Devices Per Person’ which shows there was 0.08 devices connected per person in 2003, 1.84 in 2010 and they predict in 2015 there will be 3.47 and 6.58 by 2020. Which show that the number of connected devices is on the rise and is it no wonder when we now have phones, kindles laptops, iPads and even computer type games like Wii which can all be connected to the internet?

Solar power. As power is becoming more expensive for the average household I think more and more people will be turning to alternative means of powering and heating their homes.

With looking at using alternative sources of power, we will need to look at the technology we use. We already have solar powered gadgets such as garden lights, calculators and torches but we need to be looking at our every day gadgets and how to make them solar powered. I found a website which has great solar powered inventions – Smashing Hub – it has solar powered camera straps, chairs which you can sit in and charge your electronic gadgets, barbeque grills and even boats.

Just a few days ago a solar powered airplane completed its 4,000-mile journey, making the first solar-powered intercontinental round-trip air journey. You read the article here.

By trawling the internet you can come across many examples of new solar powered gadgets which, to me, is proof that there is only going to be more and more solar powered gadgets emerging in the next 10 years.

Cars which are not reliant on petrol. Petrol is getting more and more expensive and you can’t help but wonder when the world is going to run out and how are we going to travel from A to B when it does. There are already many alternatives to fuel and I am predicting that in the next 10 years this is going to rise. At Web Ecoist they have written an article on the 7 alternatives to fuel that have already been developed – compressed air, vegetable oil, hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol, water, electric power and wood pellets . With so many alternatives it is just a matter of time before people turn to these alternatives to running their vehicles but to do this they will also need to purchase cars which are able to be run on these alternatives. For example, the electric vehicle which was used in the early 1900’s and Fuel Cell vehicles which run on fuel cells, which is electricity from a catalyst-facilitated chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen ions in a cell. Fuel cell busses are being trialled at Sun Line Transit in Thousand Palms, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit (AC Transit), and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (Santa Clara VTA).

Although there seems to be a pattern between the price of fuel and the sale of fuel alternative cars, it does seem that the sale for the fuel alternative car is rising. According to a table I found on Ev World, The Future in Motion, on the 1^st, January 2012, in the USA, when fuel was at $3.38, alternative fuel car sales were $14,902. When fuel was at its peak on the 1^st, April at $3.89, sales were $29,799 and last month when fuel was $3.54, sales were $23,778. These figures show that sales for fuel alternative cars are definitely on the rise.

More technology in schools. As the world is fast becoming a world surrounded in technology, it only makes sense that schools get on board and use more technology to assist in the learning of their students.

When I went to primary school there was only one computer in the classroom which sat in a corner and was hardly ever used. We had to wait until we went to high school before we had any real access to a computer and then it was only the geeks and nerds who used them. But these days, schools are supplying more computers and netbooks etc, for their classrooms which the children seem to love using and it is not just the schools with money. The school my 6 year old daughter goes to, does a lot of fundraising to pay for the netbooks and computers which are in each classroom and the children love the time and learning they get to do on them. They get to use them every day for playing math and reading games.

I don’t believe it will be strictly left at just computers and netbooks either. At Howick College, a Ministry of Education pilot programme urged students to use their cellphones in the classroom and use them for learning, rather than keep them at home. You can watch the One News report here. On the same report it was mentioned that at Wellington High, paper was on the way out and that two thirds of the year nine students have netbooks and every student has their own blog and high tech programmes which let students work like professionals. Teachers were also creating lesson online.

Robots. The invention of robots has been around for centuries, starting back to when Henri Maillardet made Automaton in the 1800’s. But robots have come a long since then and they are being created not just for entertainment but for actually being very useful. For example, the swumanoid which is a human-like robotic swimmer that they are hoping will help athletes swim faster.

There is also the Rescue robot (you can read about it by clicking on a link underneath the swumanoid article) which was created to help rescue miners who were trapped.

There is no shortage of new articles, on the internet, about new types of robots being created so, to me, this is proof that, in the next 10 years, there is going to be more and more robots being created to do a variety of tasks from social experiences to being the ones put in danger to save a human life. I feel we are still at the beginning of discovering the possibilities of what a robot can do.

Smartphones. This is an obvious prediction because statistics show that the use of smartphones is already on the rise. Devin Coldewey wrote an article which backs up my prediction on this.

He says

“In 2009, smartphones only made up 18 percent of mobiles bought. But late 2011 saw their numbers increasing, up to almost half. Now, just seven months later, it's up to two out of every three.”

And with iPhone 5 already in the making and being released in the very near future (rumoured to be in October) it looks as though the future in smartphones is very high.

Text by thinking. According to FutureTimeline.net, by the year 2020 we will be able to text by thinking which is achieved by a sensor-mounted headset worn by the user. The device contains brain-machine interface technology which analyses brain waves, converts them into digital signals and displays the resulting letters on-screen.  This I think is a real possibility and it would be great for the times when you are driving and you need to send a text to someone to say you are going to be late or that you will pick them up in 5 minutes.

5g Network. As, with all technology, there is always a new technology on the horizon as soon as the last one is released and since 3g came out in 2001 and 4g came out in 2011 I can predict that by 2020 there will be 5g and according to FutureTimeline.net they agree. They are saying that some of the new features of the 5g are wearable devices with AI technology, IPv6 and High-altitude stratospheric platform station (HAPS) systems.

Holographic TV. There has to be something new with the TV by 2020 and as every TV is already going digital and some even having 3D, it only fair to think that we will be getting holographic TV’s. According to Peter Pachel, Japan's Communications Ministry has set a goal for creating holographic TV by 2020.

Bibliography

Alternative Fuel Vehicles (N.A.). Consumer Energy Centre. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012 from http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/transportation/afvs

Cisco (July 13^th, 2011). Retrieved 28^th, July 2012, from http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoIBSG/ten-technology-trends-that-will-change-the-world-in-ten-years

Coldewey, Devin (13^th, July 2012). Two out of Three Phones Bought in the US are Smartphones. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/technology/gadgetbox/two-out-three-phones-bought-us-are-smartphones-879330

DesMarias, Christina (28^th, July 2012). iPhone 5 and Everything You want to Know, PCWorld.  Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.pcworld.com/article/260005/iphone_5_and_everything_you_want_to_know.html

Digital Pacific (Monday August 15^th, 2011). Retrieved 28^th, July 2012, from  http://www.digitalpacific.com.au/blog/top-ten-future-trends-the-internet-by-2020/

EECA Energywise (2012). Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.energywise.govt.nz/funding-available/insulation-and-clean-heating

Future 2020 timeline content (N.A.). Future Tmeline.Net. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012 from http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2020.htm#mobilestandard

Hybrid, Electric Car Sales Soar Despite Falling Fuel Prices (). Ev World. Retrieved 29^th July, 2012 from http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=28372

Nancy Atkinson (23^rd, July 2012). Solar-powered plane comes home after 4,000-mile odyssey. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48311607/ns/technology_and_science-innovation

One News (Monday July 26^th, 2010). Retrieved 28^th, July 2012, from http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/nz-taking-lead-in-classrooms-future-3674120/video

Pachel, Peter (7^th, October 2008). Holographic TV Could be Here by 2020, dvice.com. retrieved 29^th, July 2012 from http://dvice.com/archives/2008/10/holographic_tv.php

Quyinn, Ali (2012). 10 Great Solar Powered Inventions, Smashing Hub. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://smashinghub.com/10-great-solar-powered-technology-inventions.htm

Roach, John (2012). Swumanoid Robot Help Future Olympians Go for Gold, Future of Tech. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/futureoftech/swumanoid-robot-help-future-olympians-go-gold-913877