Summary of this week:

• CVS buys Aetna, will health care improve?
• Google releases a lighter version of Android
• Microsoft and the NFL renew their contract
• The Windows 10 little PCs with Qualcomm processors are here!!!
• Tesla is eating all the world's battery capacity
• Nvidia releases the Titan V GPU card
• Apple is buying Shazam

Monday December 4, 2017

CVS and Aetna may have just drastically changed American health care. We hope for the better.

News Flash (not): people skim through the Internet without reading the stories.

How scholarly research spinoffs (Google Scholar et al) are peering around paywalls and letting knowledge spread.

How the TSA's misdirected efforts at security are making trips to the airport just plain confusing. Security theater at its worst.

I love this post from Seth Godin about reading at work instead of sitting in unproductive meetings.

Apple's designers claim they are hearing all the complaints about the current line of Apple portable computers. And they will fix the problems.

And Apple is dismissing the criticisms of their Pentagon West, Spaceship, $5Billion headquarters. We work here; you don't.

Congress, without much of substance to do, is busy passing laws about how software buys goods online.

They don't make 'em like they used to: demolition experts fail to knock down Detroit's old Silverdome. See the video.

Tuesday November 28, 2017

Amazon leads the way again. This time, replace human jobs with machines. And how much stuff will those machines order from Amazon.com?

code.org gets $12Million in donations. More programmers, lower pay for programmers.

Trying to fund start up companies in the great fly-over zone, a.k.a., real America.

Somebody reduces the size and resource-hungry of their software. Google has a lighter version of Android out.

Microsoft and the NFL renew their contract for having the Surface hardware on the sidelines.

Tech companies "fight" to hire folks with AI expertise. Funny, my phone hasn't been ringing. Then again, with 30 years in the field, my experience is irrelevant.

We return to the gilded age where the plutocrats build their own schools to educate their own children (and no one else). Oracle gets a school at its office building. Good for these folks. They have the money, they have the desire, and they do it. Their kids will benefit in the short term. The long term? Well, we will see.

Predictable and predicted: big US tech companies are complicet in the Chinese government's spying on its subjects.

Apple, Ireland, the EU, and a mere $15Billion. What is $15Billion among friends? Come on folks, let's just be nice here.

.....

Wednesday November 29, 2017

Microsoft extends its Whiteboard app to all Windows 10 users.

The Internet becomes the ultimate protector of the minority from the majority—even when we (the majority) don't like them (the minority).

A record income ($520Million) allowed Mozilla to fund the major upgrade to the Firefox browser.

This may change a few things. HP and ASUS now have real portable computers using Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. How about 20-hour battery life?

IBM releases the Power9 chip for advanced computing. The market is primarily cloud providers, and there is a lot of money in that market.

I doubt the veracity of this story, but it is fascinating about creating an unofficial official intelligence network that bypasses established, i.e., ossified, government bureaucracies and reports directly to the President.

More reports of how companies are clamoring to hire people with AI expertise, and those people don't exist, and still my phone isn't ringing.

Qualcomm introduces its new Snapdragon 845 processor.

Consumer Reports agrees with me: the iPhone 8 is better than the X.

The adults are criticizing Facebook's attempts to bring children into the Facebook world. Dome things aren't safe for kids and we finally have some folks saying so.

Thursday November 30, 2017

A little slow on Internet viewing today as I was riding the subway.

Google adds more pivot table power to Sheets.

The (in)affordability of broadband in Africa. You can't get there from here.

Co-working space provider WeWork becomes the single largest renter of office space in London.

BitCoin mining—and I'm not really sure what that is—becomes a huge energy sink across the planet. We are ruining ourselves chasing make believe.

And speaking of ruining everything while chasing silly dreams...Tesla is consuming all the world's batteries and associated resources...and getting no where.

Forget the promises of Patreon as the story is still the same. Only a small few earn a livable living.

Senator Al Franken resigns after allegations of sexual misconduct. This is a big stunt played by his party. They know the temporary appointee and the eventual permanently elected replacement will be of his party. They party loses nothing and appears to be righteous.

Dell introduces a new "tough" server for harsh factory environments. Big performance. Flames come out the back.

Need something to heat a room during the winter? Get this Gigabyte graphics card. Liquid cooling radiator with two big fans. Yeah, gotta have one.

.....

Friday December 1, 2017

Nvidia has a new desktop GPU card. The name—Titan V—is appropriate as it has more power than anything anyone has ever seen in a card you drop in your PC. Not for games, but for AI and other number crunching $2,999.

The government of the city of San Francisco puts strict limits on delivery machines, some call them robots.

As an example of smart people who can do amazingly stupid things, Silicon Valley companies are hiring pretty women to come to Christmas parties and not wear much clothing.

Lyft is offering self-driving cars to give you a ride in Boston. There is a person sitting behind the wheel "just in case."

Boeing claims it will beat SpaceX to Mars. Boeing might be able to do this if they shed themselves of NASA.

Qualcomm releases a higher-quality USB-C digital to analog converter for music and mostly high-end headphones. Consumers won't buy it, but it will appear in products soon.

Tesla says it is building its own custom AI processors.

WalMart has started selling meal kits.

..... Email me at d.phillips@computer.org 

Saturday December 2, 2017

Facebook hires fact checkers, but just about everyone dislikes just about all the fact checkers and labels them as biased. Reporting facts is much more difficult than spouting opinion. And that is my opinion on the matter.

Apple is buying Shazam.

Why get a real job when you can be a YouTube star and earn a Million bucks annually. This is a sign of a booming economy. We pay anybody to entertain us a little.

Our US universities are falling behind in AI research. It must be someone else's fault. Let's blame the government.

Some researches the news from the last election and finds that fake news and the Russians were dwarfed by lousy reporting from the real journalists. No surprise here, but it's hard to blame the world on the Washington Post while Facebook is sitting there for easy pickings.

News Flash (not): People have been mistreating one another since there have been people. Doesn't make it right, but it is so. Interesting story how women were driven out of computing.

I like the ability to do longer Tweets. It seems most people agree with me on this one.

..... Email me at d.phillips@computer.org

Sunday December 3, 2017

A record income ($520Million) allowed Mozilla to fund the major upgrade to the Firefox browser.

This may change a few things. HP and ASUS now have real portable computers using Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. How about 20-hour battery life?

Forget the Chinese and the Russians; the Iranians are hacking into everything in the Middle East.

How censorship on YouTube is making some people unemployed. Censorship is subjective. The majority usually censors the minority. What could possible go wrong? (much)

We are returning to the nanny state—literally. We return to the Victorian era where the plutocrats hire a quarter of the rest of us to run their households and lifestyles.

Make $11Million a year reviewing toys on YouTube. The job space is extremely limited.

The age of surveillance continues as small countries simply buy software that watches over their subjects.

Writing and healing. This is another benefit of journal writing. I learn about myself and am happier for it.

Writing and editing and editing and editing.

Something a writer can give to themselves: the benefit of the doubt. Excellent.

Having a full-time job and writing "on the side." The vast majority of us do this. There are good reasons to do so. The biggest is most of us cannot earn enough as a writer.

..... Email me at d.phillips@computer.org