Items I happen to view each day. Science, Technology, Management, Culture, and Writing

    This is my day book for this week. It is a log of things I see on the Internet.

This week: 21-27 September, 2020

Summary of this week:

• Microsoft buys ZeniMax  Media—owner of many famous gaming companies
• Microsoft has a big in with Xbox Game Pass
• Microsoft updates it Azure Machine Learning
• The Swift programming language and system comes to Windows 10
• Amazon has a big event and shows new Fire TV, a flying home camera, and Ring for a car

Monday 21 September 2020

The rise of Jensen Huang and Nvidia. The company is now valued higher than Intel.

Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior and life in the year of the virus. These used to called pranks and other names. Now everyone is worried that the pranksters will overturn the world.

While computer processor power gains are slowing a bit, the speeds of AI processors are bounding and leaping. This is not surprising as it is a relatively new area with big areas of improvement waiting for technology to arrive.

The smallest viable audience is the secret to Seth Godin's success.

It appears that our Air Force has broken all the established norms and built a flying prototype of a new fighter plane in one year. This could be hype or it could be the biggest change in defense spending and building since WWII.

Tuesday 22 September 2020

Look out for the coming wave of disinformation with much of it generated by software. Old saying, "Only believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."

Microsoft releases an Xbox app for Android. Yes, play your Xbox remotely on your Android device. This solves one of the world's great problems, I think, maybe not.

The year of the virus has been good for Microsoft and its Xbox Game Pass as subscriptions jump to 15million (50% rise) in six months.

Pushing further into this gaming business, Microsoft buys ZeniMax Media which owns  id Software (Doom, Quake), Arkane Studios (Dishonored, Prey), Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within) and Bethesda Game Studios (The Elder Scrolls, Fallout).

The year of the virus has been bad for the pay TV industry with record numbers of chord cutters.

Wednesday 23 September 2020

Google releases a work-tracking tool called Tables. It does many tasks that previously required manual, time-consuming work.

Microsoft announces a bunch of new features to Teams. In the year of the virus, Zoom and Teams have become the most important things in the world.

Microsoft boosts its Azure Cognitive Services and Azure Machine Learning.

Microsoft partners with OpenAI and buys exclusive license to the GPT-3 model.

The Swift programming language and system is now available for Windows 10.

Oracle announces more and better hardware is available in its cloud computing offerings.

Facebook finds and removes a dragon in the form of a "Chinese disinformation network." We are safe once again. Of course, Facebook doesn't mention that they created a situation where evil dragons can walk in the front door and sit in our living room.

SXSW plans to hold its 2021 event online as well as sort of in person. Interesting situation we created for ourselves.

I am fascinated that during the pandemic professional activists can travel from city to city and gather in large groups and that is all okay.

Thursday 24 September 2020

Google's Flutter software development kit can now build apps for Windows.

Intel announces a new line of processors aimed at edge computing (low size, weight, and power).

The UK's National Health Service releases its contact tracing app.

The year of the virus has demonstrated that most folks don't want to come into the office everyday and many businesses will be just fine.

California will have the biggest market for used cars in the world starting in 2035.

Wikipedia will have a new look coming real soon now.

"Changing the system changes everything. And it might be even less work than pouring water on today’s tactical emergency."—Seth Godin

Friday 25 September 2020

Amazon had a big event. This is one place to review all the announcements.

Amazon shows an indoor camera that flies around your home. I guess there is value in this to some people.

A former Facebook executive tells how they created a monster that could lead to a civil war in several countries.

Microsoft promises a buy-once-own-forever version of Office in 2021. What a concept.

Ring now has a security camera for the inside of our automobiles.

Amazon updates its Fire TV.

Amazon has a new AZ1 Neural Edge processor that will make Alexa understand us better.

Where the money is: gaming. Amazon announces its own streaming gaming service called Luna.

A $1 audio amplifier, yes, it is a hearing aid.

Saturday 26 September 2020

Google makes its AI Platform Prediction available to everyone. It is a service that makes it a bit easier to deploy machine learning applications.

Half of Americans want new media outlets turned off a week before the election. Old media outlets did a good job of convincing folks that they are the only legitimate source of information.

Strong rumors about the coming iPhone 12 and a 12 mini (lower price model).

The other half of the smartphone world can rejoice as Microsoft announces remote Xbox play on the iPhone.

Coursera is running a special with 100 courses at $0 through the end of 2020.

Sunday 27 September 2020

Johnson & Johnson progresses with their COVID-19 vaccine. A vaccine will be an emotional boost to the economy and the national mindset. So much has been spent on so little in such a short time...something like that.

Firefox 81 is released.

What a writer is writing today, is what a writer is writing today—no more and no less. "My work-in-progress doesn’t have to be the pen ultimate of my entire body of work. Neither does it need to contain everything I’ve ever wanted to say about life and death and religion and politics and living day-by-day on the planet earth."—Heather Webb

Will Barnes and Noble survive? Will any major chain of bookstores survive?

The year of the virus has been good to traditional publishing of books on paper.

Are you writing? Are you tired of writing? For me, I am just plain tired. I have been working ten-hour days for six months during the year of the virus.

The writing process, doesn't matter. What matters is my writing process and your writing process.

Yet another post on how to find jobs as a freelance writer. You have to know someone.