Summary of this week:

Google Glass has $80 worth of parts
Linus Torvalds receives IEEE Computer Pioneer Award
$20 smartphones coming this year
Tech jobs are up in New York City
Apple buys Beats headphones

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

Monday May 5, 2014

Online food ordering is growing fast in Europe.

If you think there is trash on the side of the road, take a look at the ocean floor.

The $1,500 Google Glass has $80 worth of parts including a $5 camera.

Here is something you may not realize about consumer electronics: they are made as cheap as possible. The parts have a wide variation in performance, and these variations provide a fingerprint for anyone wanting to follow you.

Seth Godin on bullets in presentations and their folly. The goal is to change minds, not shoot a series of points at the audience.

The IEEE gives Linus Torvalds the Computer Pioneer Award.

I am happily surprised at the amount of press coverege devoted to the 50th birthday of BASIC programming.

It seems that video makers love to use little UAVs to shoot footage of Yosemite. No more says our government.

Close a city street, make a giant slip n slide, have fun.

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Tuesday May 6, 2014

The tablet business is collapsing. Apple is holding steady, but everyone else is flailing.

Microsoft keeps trying. Microsoft will hold another Surface tablet event later in May.

We can now edit images inside Google Docs. That little online editor is becoming a full-fledged word processor. I hope it doesn't bloat, but if it does, it isn't running on my computer as it runs up in the clouds.

Lenovo continues its move into Chromebooks with two more models.

The wheel, or at least the spokes of the wheel, has been reinvented.

Mozilla officially asks our FCC to change its net neutrality ruling.

The Windows tech support phone scam continues. We continue to receive their calls.

When worlds collide: you can now connect your Twitter and Amazon accounts and tweet items into your shopping cart.

This is an excellent post showing the Middle East and all its complexity via 40 different maps.

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Wednesday May 7, 2014

LinkedIn is moving towards more news to keep members looking at the pages.

Tales from a frequent business traveller. Stay with one brand, earn points, and upgrade.

A look at online sales. Apple and Wal Mart are big recent winners.

Twitter's stock fell 18% yesterday.

Electonic Arts had a big financial quarter.

A look at Kickstarter's "offices." Wow. Lucky people.

Looking for a job? Learn Python, Hadoop, and all things big data.

Alex Pentland: the father of wearable computing.

Google pushes more into education with a service called Classroom.

Look for $20 smartphones this year. A huge worldwide market.

Shame on the FBI. Shame on all of us for allowing our FBI to act this way.

GitHub releases the Atom text editor.

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Thursday May 8, 2014

LG shows a new 5.5" display for their new G3 smartphone.

Apple and iOS continue to dominate mobile use in business.

D-Link enters home automation with an Internet-controlled electric outlet. This seems silly to me, but I suppose there is some benefit to turning on a lamp via the Internet when you are not home.

Hacker or whistleblower in UMd security lapse? I am afraid we will see much more of this in the future. I advise against such activity as the government has more money than you do.

The return of the LP vinyl record.

Disney is going to spin off movies of side stories of Star Wars. Look for some of these spin offs to be better than the main stories. That seems to happen by accident in Hollywood.

FORTRAN still reigns in the realm of serious scientific computing. It is simple, basic, and efficient.

Our Navy can now sink a rubber raft with a super-expensive laser. Well, it is a start.

It seems that no one in the Tech community likes our FCC's ruling on net neutrality.

Yet another energy producing experiment: use hot air down drafts in Arizona. This might work.

Yet another study reveals what everyone knows: we get hundreds of TV channels, but only watch a few.

If you want to reach women, use Pinterest.

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Friday May 9, 2014

No Internet viewing today as I had breakfast with some fine gentlemen.

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Saturday May 10, 2014

The PareUp app tells you about excess food that stores and restaurants are about to throw away.

Etihad Airways of the UAE has private rooms on their planes. The ultimate in luxury travel.

Tech jobs are rising in New York City—Silicon Alley.

A look back at when computers where people who performed computations for others.

Ten of our Senators also don't like our FCCs net neutrality policy.

An ISP throttled down the FCC's access to the Internet as a protest.

Our FCC chairman continues to reassure everyone that the net will remain neutral. No one seems to believe him.

Most of America's farmers don't make their living farming—it is a sundown hobby.

Everyone seems to hate Common Core in education. So why is it still here?

This story must be important because it is all over the Internet: Apple buys Beats headphones and makes Dr. Dre a billionaire.

Reflection is a critical but often neglected part of learning.

Google sponsors a $1million prize for shrinking AC/DC power inversion.

Our patent office granted Amazon a patent for using lights and a white background in photography. This is silly, but it is true. This is hat happens to our tax dollars.

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Sunday May 11, 2014

It is Sunday, so we look at writing for much of today's entry. And I wish that Google would do something with its Internet service at Starbucks so that I could run a script that calls ftp.

The Wayback Machine now covers the Internet form 1996–today. And that is 400million webpages.

The Chinese are considering a train line from China to the US. The tough part would be the 125-mile-long Bering Sea tunnel.

The American dream lived through Christian Gheorghe. He arrived with $26 and no English, but now is a billionaire. This is America. Indendent effort and personal responsibility vice government programs.

Contemplating how big data could make travel so much better.

Mark this month and year as a moment in medical technology history. The first prosthetic wired to muscles is approved by the FDA. I don't expect much from this first model, but it has broken through several technical and government barriers. It has been a very long time coming. I made a presentation on this type of technology while in grad school in 1984.

Keep writing. Sitting and doing nothing will accomplish nothing.

Is freelance writing for you, or not?

Hey writers, you can't use any photo you grab off the Internet. Someone owns those photos.

Tips for academic, and all other types, of writing. These are excellent tips.

Some tips of writing your life story. There is much to be gained from this exercise.

One rule to help you write: Do the work that’s available when it’s asked of you.

You don't have to run away to some special place to write. Stop, sit, breathe, and write.

Being published is just the start. Next the writer has to try to stay published again and again.

Despite loud proclamations to the contrary, the novel is not dead.

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