Dwayne Phillips ' Day Book

Items I happen to view each day. Science, Techonology, Management, Culture, and of course Writing

This is my day book for this week. I have modeled this after science fiction and computer writer Jerry Pournelle's view, or as he calls it, his Day Book. I encourage you to see Jerry Pournelle's site and subscribe to his services.

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This week: July 20-16, 2015

Summary of this week:

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

Monday July 20, 2015

Samsung introduces the Galaxy Tab S2 tablet computers.

The possibility of powering devices with the excess energy in the human body—it exists, but isn't practical real soon now.

Tablets? A look back at the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100.

There is no honor among cheats and hacks: AshleyMadison cheaters' site is hacked.

Try this: IBM's technology analyzes the tone of a piece of writing.

Spam email is on the decline. Of course email is on the decline, so are we getting anywhere?

iTrackBites: a $3.99 app that does everything the Weight Watchers program does.

Reddit is running a lottery: get a million persons to donate $1 and give the cash to one person.

These personal assistant "robots" are available now including smiley faces. They want to be the next app space.

Microsoft brings out the cute little kids for its first Windows 10 ads. I guess I am so old that I remember the day when no one made ads for their operating systems.

A look inside Amazon Studios where they make movies—an online shopping company is making movies. Why not? Everyone is these days.

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Tuesday July 21, 2015

Qualcomm to lay off thousands and possibly split into several companies.

The next iPhone will have a minimum of 32GigaBytes of memory. It is not an exageration to claim that you will have more computer memory in your pocket than existed in the world in 1970.

SpaceX believes it knows what went wrong on its latest exploded launch.

Apple has hired another auto manufacturing expert.

The plague of the certification. You have to have letters after your name PMI, CNA, MCSE, etc.

A recent study shows that we could be back on the moon in 2021 for $10billion. So, if we could just convince Apple or Google to do this...

More thoughts on the future of cities filled with driverless cars. For one possible future, see my short story "The Car Hackers."

IBM's revenues fall short of predictions. So we punish IBM instead of the predictors who were wrong.

Evernote's new CEO is Chris O'Neill, formerly of Google Glass.

The Internet takes another step into society: online food ordering bypasses telephone food ordering.

Omid Kordestani: the man who runs Google's business and the most-liked person in Silicon Valley.

Grooveshark founder Josh Greenberg found dead at 28. No cause know at this time.

According to estimates, June was the hottest month in the history of the planet. Today is the hottest day in the history of the planet. At this rate, we will all be dead by Christmas. The folly of estimates is also not measureable.

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Wednesday July 22, 2015

Security researchers show how easy it is to hack your car and take control of it.

On the subject of easy-to-hack and stupidity, our President brings telepresence robots into the White House.

In the last three months Apple sold 45million phones and made $10billion profit, and people are disappointed. The estimators were incorrect, so market players punished Apple for the estimators' errors.

Apple now has $203billion in cash. Can anyone convince Apple to fund that $10billion man-on-the-moon project for us?

Microsoft lost $2billion last quarter. Much of that is accounting and the collapse of Nokia phones.

Our FTC is charging LifeLock with fraud. Can our FTC charge our OPM with anything?

MakeSchool opens with a two-year program to teach criticial-thinking and product-building skills. Here is their website.

These are habits of the most productive people. Many are counterintuitive.

Google improves the integration of its Drive with Microsoft Office.

Someone finally sues a major company for discriminating against older applicants. It happens all the time, and, so far, the companies get away with it.

Scientific evidence that the carbon dating method just doesn't work very well. Remote sensing is difficult, and remote can be time as well as space.

GoPro's quarterly earnings were better than expected. No one punishes the estimator errors in cases like this.

AnandTech tests Microsoft's new Edge browser—good performance, much better than IE.

Google Glass Enterprise Edition appears more practical and ready for the workplace.

A Google employee shared salary information (gasp). The world didn't end; it improved.

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Thursday July 23, 2015

T-Mobile brings four new lower-cost Android phones today.

Xiaomi plus Uber plus Singapore equals buy a phone and have it delivered in minutes.

A big security hole in OS X is discovered. A patch is forthcoming.

Qualcomm has a bad financial quarter.

Accenture buys Chaotic Moon; three-piece suits meet flip flops.

Can America be the first to jump into the industrial Internet.

Starbucks partners with Lyft, not Uber, in a ride sharing and points earning deal.

YouTube hires MTV's head of programming to help it start producing its own content.

For now, the government of New York City will "allow" Uber to conduct business. Arrogance institutionalized.

Amazon spreads its home repair services to more cities.

Amazon Prime now offers a credit card that pays back 5 percent on every Amazon.com order.

Analysts estimate that Apple has 75% of the world's smartwatch market.

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Friday July 24, 2015

One user's experience with Windows 10 and talking to it through Cortana.

To bring people into Nearline Cloud storage, Google offers 100PetaBytes of storage free.

Intel pushes into cloud computing with its Cloud for All initiative.

Amazon's profits are better than estimated, so the stock soars. It seems that the strategy is obvious—pay estimators to give estimates that you know you will best.

Apple announces its annual back-to-school promotion.

Now we have a programming language for swarms of drones: buzz.

Security researchers at HP find gaping security holes int he vast majority of smart watches.

Bicycle plus solar power plus coffee shop equals Wheelys. It might work.

A look at the tech industry in Africa. It has promise, but a long way to go.

Comcast now has more broadband than TV customers, but it still takes ten minutes of push 1 push 3 etc. to speak to a person.

Google voice promises much better transcription real soon now.

Maybe, just maybe, Hillary Clinton will be prosecuted for using her private email server as Sec of State. Of course she violated the law and all security practices, but so what—she is Hillary Clinton.

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Saturday July 25, 2015

The era of cyber car jacking: Chrysler recalls 1.4million cars because they can be hacked and jacked.

The world changes: Amazon is now worth more than WalMart. Thank cloud computing.

Our government now tackles air traffic control for drones. Google and others are already in on it.

Our FCC approves the merger of AT&T and DirectTV.

Our government concludes that Hillary Clinton sent classified content through open email. Normal people go to jail for such. Since she is Hillary Clinton, she will probably be elected President for doing this.

HP cracks down on casual, i.e., slob dress in Silicon Valley. You are adults now, act like it.

Here comes Windows 10, and here is how we will get it.

NASA goes to Pluto and learns that most theories were wrong. Perhaps one day the climate change crowd will admit...no, no chance.

TechCrunch explains how the Washington Post's editors don't understand anything about ones and zeros.

The Amiga 1000 computer was introduced 30 years ago. It broke all the molds and, perhaps because of its vision, never did well in the market.

How Hillary Clinton blasts Uber and other companies without naming them. Hence, she can deny everything later. She is a master politician. I guess that is something some people wish to attain.

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Sunday July 26, 2015

A look at a smart piano that promises to make learning to play easier.

Startup funding and lying. Take care with this. If you lie, you become known as a liar.

Amazon may build brick-and-mortar grocery stores. Order online and pickup at the store.

HardenedBSD, a fork of FreeBSD, continues to add security features. HardenedBSD site is here.

The government of China will now allow video game consoles. Is Communism safe?

The balance between creative and commercial writing. Just one of many that writers and other humans face.

A nice infographs on the benefits of reading. Someone has to write what all those readers are reading, so let's get at it.

Thoughts on Ernest Hemginway.

The freelance writing gig world shifts a bit; now go to UpWork dot com.

Sorry artists. Writing is Think, plan, write, edit, repeat.

Editing: that dreaded practice that separates some writers from others. I tend to think it is over rated, but that is just me.

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