Summary of this week:

Panasonic has record losses
Several advances in technology for medical use
HP to layoff 30,000 people

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday May 14, 2012

Technology advances could restore sight in some forms of age-related blindness.

The Scott Thompson story at Yahoo gets strange. Thompson resigned as CEO from the resume scandal, but now says he has thyroid cancer. And here are the names of the interim and next CEO of Yahoo.

The Wintel 8 tablets should be here in November.

Cool pics of earth's northern hemisphere.

Panasonic lost more money last year than ever before. They hope for better times, but...

I like these thoughts on the idea of everyone having 20% of their work time to do whatever they want.

London gave IOC members green lights in traffic during the selection process. That made them feel better about London as the site of the games. In the old days, cities just gave large cash bribes, booze, and women to the IOC.

I guess these are rumors about the next update to the MacBook Pro portable computer from Apple. They seem to be really strong rumors.

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Tuesday May 15, 2012

In the UK, O2 is providing 3G speeds up to 42MBPS.

Kyocera has a smartphone that does not have speakers. It uses bone conduction to allow the user to "hear." This is great for the hearing impaired and those who use their phone in noisy places.

Little computers that we will wear on our bodies without noticing them may improve our health. The computers will collect data and send it to our doctors. This all makes good sense, but has plenty of problems on the personal side. Most people don't want their doctor to know what they do between visits. And then we consider the unsecure nature of computer data.

Lenovo has updated its entire line of ThinkPad portable computers for 2012.

This story has been buzzing about for a few days. It seems that Kodak had some weapons grade nuclear material in a basement in Rochester for years. Few people knew about it.

I love this story. High school students are suing the Federal Government over climate change. Federal education dollars have proclaimed that the world will end as we know. Okay, if you say so. Therefore, I will sue you for robbing me of my future. Do you now want to retract those "end of world" claims?

The world is about to come to an end. You can use your cellphone on Virgin Atlantic flights.

Oh, yes, this can happen. People can and do hack into surveillance cameras. Is everyone ready for national electronic health records?

Intel delivers several dozen new Xeon processors. One big area is for smaller servers with lower-power-consumption processors.

The National Wireless Emergency Alert system comes on line this month. The Feds will send us a text message if a tornado is headed our way. We shall see.

Despite what we read in the news, Box.com is the king of cloud storage.

2011 was the warmest year ever recorded (some say). The warmth, however, was limited to a few spots on the planet. Parts of North America and Europe were those little spots. I guess we are the most important peoples in the history of the world, so panic is justified.

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Wednesday May 16, 2012

The Internet connection here at the Community Canteen is unusually slow this morning.

Netgear shows their new 802.11ac WiFi gear.

Big plans from Nvidia including virtual GPUs. They have tripled their performance-per-watt metric.

I used this last night while make notes. Google Docs now has a Research bar on the side. You don't have to go to another tab to do searches. I am surprised at how much coverage this is receiving this morning on the net. Here is Engadget's report.

With all this pooh-poohing of Ashton what's his name playing Steve Jobs in a movie, Hollywood fixes that with another Steve Jobs movie. The prospects look better for Sony's attempt.

Mobile phone sales worldwide actually fell a little last quarter. This is good news for the makers of mobile phones. They have won! Their product is ubiqitous and its sales rise and fall with the economy.

The iPhone delivers the highest customer satisfaction in the U.S. Five years ago, we would have attributed that to that small group of crazy Apple fans. We can't do that any longer as Apple has moved into the mainstream.

A treatise on fungibility. Younger people look at Facebook and Twitter to see who won in the NBA playoffs last night. Newspapers? CNN.com?

A dozen tidbits about smartphone use around the world.

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Thursday May 17, 2012

Something is wrong with Twitter this morning.

Fujitsu has put a palm scanner on a portable computer. The biometrics unit will ensure that no one else uses your computer.

It seems that everyone in the world has now confirmed that the next iPhone will have a 4" screen.

Little by little we are moving closer to allowing people whose muscles no longer work to control robotics with their mind. This is what technology should be doing for us.

This gasoline engine could boost efficiency by 50%. We have heard such things before. Maybe one time they will come true.

I'll have to look at this one, for the sake of my grandchildren of course, video.disney.com.

The new iPad has a great display. Will people pay the extra price to have such on their portable computers?

Researchers in Tokyo have transmitted 3GigaBitsPerSecond wirelessly in the TeraHertz spectrum. The key item here is they have developed a transceiver that can be mass produced cheaply.

Police in the UK now carry a device that will pull all the data from your mobile device on the spot. Isn't that great? NOT! The government can grab all your data?

Lots of good photographs from Russia's Star City.

Good news for me: coffee drinkers live longer.

Bad news for me: the Internet brings depression.

The world is mobile. Americans have 28% more mobile apps in 2012 than in 2011.

If you have money and need computing power, look at Nvidia's newest Tesla GPU.

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Friday May 18, 2012

A small (11" screen) gaming portable computer from Clevo. Very nice.

Steve Wozniak will be working on Sony's Steve Jobs movie.

Apple's data center in North Carolina will be powered by renewable energy by the end of the year.

The Justice Department is telling local police departments that recording Police on video is protected by the Constitution. I don't see how anyone can read the Constitution any other way. I don't like the Fed Justice Department telling everyone how to do their business.

Here we have the Android 4.0 mini PC. It is a computer that is just a little bigger than a USB thumb drive for $74. It doesn't look as interesting as the $35 Raspberry Pi, but you many actually be able to by this one.

This computer from VIA is intended to go in your car for "infotainment." It is small and rugged.

People are more likely to tell the truth over SMS than over voice.

HP is planning to layoff 30,000 people.

Coach, high-end women's handbag maker, has made some men's wallets out of old baseball gloves.

Here are the ten new companies most sought by Silicon Valley engineers.

Tired of employees sneaking onto Facebook now and then? Establish 15-minute Facebook (or whatever) breaks in the morning and afternoon. Just like the old smoke breaks.

Thomas Massie wants more engineers to enter politics. I would agree. Some logical problem solving and systems thinking skills would be helpful.

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Saturday May 19, 2012

Hasselblad is discounting a few cameras by 20%. They are still far more expensive, and far more capable, than most of us can afford.

Facebook traded publicly its first day yesterday. Some say it was a bad opening as the price only rose one percent during the day. It was still the third largest IPO in history.

James Gray won a Turing Award for his work in computer science. He disappeared while boating five years ago and was declared legally dead this week.

Time management skills. Among the best tips are to sleep, exercise, and eat the right foods.

SpaceX is trying to launch and go to the space station. Engine problems have delayed the launch.

India is moving towards Internet censorship.

2,800 Legos went into building this Land Rover.

A pretty clever idea - a sun umbrella coated with solar cells.

A simple camera added to the Raspberry Pi. Now if I could just buy a Raspberry Pi...

Pretend to be someone who knows how to do what you want to do.

Apple, Google, and other notables are considering jumping into Skolkovo - a Russian research center.

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Sunday May 13, 2012

Kinect provides a new type of user interface for surgeons in the operating room.

I like Godin's concept that "There's no such thing as a true story."

Rehabilitating stroke victims with computer games.

Cities are competing for Apple retail stores. It seem that when an Apple store opens, the area is revitalized with young and moneyed shoppers. Apple is given favorable leases and tax packages.

Mainframe computer advertising in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mark Zuckerberg married his long time girlfriend yesterday. The couple timed the wedding to the day after she graduated medical school. The IPO and other events of the week were coincidental. This story has a photo. I like it.

One $41 cake at a time. A sad tale of America's falling.

I am a writer. I just need to write.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. - Anne Frank

“This is my grandfather...He lives in the basement and does nothing.” Such is the way the world describes the writer.

Some thoughts on transitioning from some activities into writing.

I love this. Turning a Pirate Box into a Library Box. For information on the Pirate Box, see here.

I love this video. It shows the changing map of Europe for the last thousand years.

Are coffee shops good offices?Some of them are.

Writing in a lousy economy.

Thoughts on writing without thinking, I think.

Your writing dreams don’t have to be realistic.Pause. Please don’t bet your house or your family’s welfare on your dreams. Dream big, live practical. Hmm, that sounds like pretty good advice in four words.

Some thoughts on willpower and writing.I know several prolific and successful writers who claim to have no willpower. They write things that interest them, i.e., they have things that they cannot help but write. One piece of advice I like in this post is that it is easier to write everyday instead of three days a week.

It seems that National Public Radio has been running fiction on their nonfiction programs. Gee, who has more integrity than NPR? In response, NPR is trying real hard to say that what it does is alright because its audience is sophisticated.

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