Summary of this week:

• The American central government starts the week without starting the week...shutdown! Paid vacation!
• And it ends one day later
• 512GigaByte micro SD card is here
• SpaceX test fires its Falcon Heavy rocket
• Galaxy 9 coming 25 February
• Intel has a good financial quarter

Monday January 22, 2018

The American central government starts the week without starting the week...shutdown! Paid vacation!

Speculating about future uses of utltrasound technology. Especially promising are treating the brain.

"'The Cleaners' is about the outsourced workers that these companies use to determine whether photos and videos that have been shared online should be allowed to stay there."

Amazon Go: the convenience store with fewer fewer fewer employees. Jobs? Who needs jobs?

Recent research indicates...(what a way to start) the kids spending more time in front of a screen will be good for them. Of course the catch is what type of screen time.

An idea: hire person to help me know when to click, when not to click, and what is safe online.

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

Tuesday January 23, 2018

Intel is trying to fix its fixes to the Spectre and Meltdown problems. The fixes have driven the rest of us nuts.

US economic sanctions against Russia have fallen to the level that they are now affecting Microsoft there.

Netflix continues to grow and succeed beyond expectations. Funny, in these situations no one seeks to fire the predictors who got this all wrong.

Google grows its presence in France with more space, more employees, and a big AI research center.

Mathematicians cringe; technicians rejoice. Facebooks invents the "flick" or a unit of time that divides equally into all the standard video frame rates.

We now have a MicroSD card, really small and easy to lose, with 512GigaByte capacity. There must be some video application for this.

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

Wednesday January 24, 2018

Mozilla releases Firefox version 58.

Google releases the G Suite Enterprise for Education.

Amazon uses some of its stockpile of cash to invent a store that no one else had the R&D funds to invent. The rich get richer...

Facebook creates a simple survey of news trust. Journalist scream that their job is much more complex than that.

In 2007, Google created the Lunar X prize. The deadline is 31 March of this year. No one is going to win, not even close.

The saga of the iPhone X...yes, it will still be here next year.

In India only...KFC will sell chicken wings in a box that is also a little drone.

Another European commission fines another American tech company another billion$.

I wonder how anyone can wonder if anyone is using social media to influence public opinion. Of course the answer is, "YES"

..... Email me at d.phillips@computer.org 
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Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Thursday January 25, 2018

Of all people, Burger King jumps into the "debate" on how we define net neutrality.

SpaceX test fires the engines on its big Falcon Heavy. There are 27 such engines on the first stage. And no, you cannot build such a thing that works without lot of computing.

Samsung tells us that it will tell us about the Galaxy 9 phone on February 25th.

Google, as well as the other big 5, are becoming older. Are they ossifying?

The NSA revises its core values and leaves out "honesty." Sometimes these are just bureaucratic exercises; sometimes these things mean something.

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

Friday January 26, 2018

Intel had a big financial quarter. The predictors were all wrong, but none of the predictors will be fired.

Google and Facebook are blasted at Davos World Economic Forum. Gosh, they don't make anyone use their free services.

Microsoft cuts the price of support for Azure from $300 to $100 per month.

It appears that Apple's "What's a computer?" ad is annoying folks. Apple doesn't always make great commercials.

The world goes around and around. Want to sell software to Russia? They will read your source code, and oooops you sell the same software to the US government. Hence, the Russians know every vulnerability in software our government uses.

Twitter reveals auto-magical cropping of photos to the "most interesting" part. This is a good trick and long overdue.

Why we can't have nice things. Teenagers are still eating laundry detergent. I guess Congress should pass a law or something.

Apple increases its test fleet of self-driving vehicles from 3 to 27 (order or magnitude).

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

Saturday January 27, 2018

AI (actually pattern recognition), inexpensive image sensors, and the future of surveillance. It was all predictable and predicted (by me for one).

The folks at Google discuss the user experience of their Clips camera system; it will be here real soon now.

Building a home theater or dreaming how cool it would be to have one? This post gives all the goodies.

Top resources on learning up-to-date skills from O'Reilly. I have always liked O'Reilly and their resources.

Legislation in Washington state may require devices with easily replaceable batteries. Proprietary will become illegal.

The geniuses at Tesla are slowly learning that manufacturing things is different from designing them.

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

Sunday January 28, 2018

Given what Amazon says about the spot for its next headquarters, Atlanta is the choice. Do we believe what Amazon says about this?

The high cost of orthodontics and how tech startups are trying to move into that market with much lower cost via technology.

Google pushes for diversity; not everyone at Google likes the pushing. "Diversity" is, of course, subjective and easily falls into abuse. This stuff isn't easy. And folks who are attracted to tech companies aren't always equipped to work these types of problems.

The flood of ideas. Sometimes these wonderful new ideas stop us from writing.

Shame, doubt, and writer's block.

Let's get down to basics about writing things that people will read and will change their lives.

Go outdoors to write or at least to learn about what you will write.

Ursula K. Le Guin passed away recently. I have seen several tributes; this one gives some of her advice.

Some ideas on improving your writing space so that you don't hurt your body (as much).

Ideas for work-at-home mothers and writers.

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