How Does Google Work?

Infographic by PPC Blog

"Artificial life" created in lab

We knew the time was coming. The first “artificial” life has been created in a lab. The positive potential to society will be astounding as this technology progresses (as will the potential negatives).

Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first living cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA.

The researchers constructed a bacterium's “genetic software” and transplanted it into a host cell.

The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species “dictated” by the synthetic DNA.

via BBC News – ‘Artificial life’ breakthrough announced by scientists.

Below is a video interview with Dr. Venter:

Disrupters wanted?

A survey from IBM’s Institute for Business Value shows that CEOs value one leadership competency above all others – creativity.

CEOs identify “creativity” as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.

That’s creativity—not operational effectiveness, influence, or even dedication. Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day…

via what-chief-executives-really-want: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance.

With the more complex, more dynamic world, leaders are needed to be creative. A creative person who can lead can be a disrupter. They can do 3 things that are needed by companies:

Disrupt the Status Quo. Every company has legacy products that are both cash—and sacred—cows. Often the need to perpetuate the success of these products restricts innovation within the enterprise, creating a window for competitors to advance competing innovations. As CEOs tell us that fully one-fifth of revenues will have to come from new sources, they are recognizing the requirement to break with existing assumptions, methods, and best practices.

Disrupt Existing Business Models. CEOs who select creativity as a leading competency are far more likely to pursue innovation through business model change. In keeping with their view of accelerating complexity, they are breaking with traditional strategy-planning cycles in favor of continuous, rapid-fire shifts and adjustments to their business models.

Disrupt Organizational Paralysis. Creative leaders fight the institutional urge to wait for completeness, clarity, and stability before making decisions. To do this takes a combination of deeply held values, vision, and conviction—combined with the application of such tools as analytics to the historic explosion of information. These drive decisionmaking that is faster, more precise, and even more predictable.

via what-chief-executives-really-want: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance.

The game of life

Below is a presentation by Jesse Schell at DICE 2010 “Design Outside the Box” Conference explaining what’s next in gaming. Interesting points throughout. Great food for thought.

http://g4tv.com/lv3/44277

TrueTouch Hover Video

Cypress Semiconductor has a technology to allow you to hover your finger over a screen to interact with it. This could create a cool new way to interface with mobile and tablet devices, adding another level of interactivity.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/1875385286?isVid=1

TrueTouch Hover Video – Cypress Semiconductor.

Rethinking restaurants

Digital ID: 482752. Abbott, Berenice -- Photographer. February 10, 1936 Notes: Code: III.C.1. Man takes pie out of Automat, stone counters and walls below metal and glass display. Source: Changing New York / Berenice Abbott. (more info) Repository: The New York Public Library. Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. See more information about this image and others at NYPL Digital Gallery. Persistent URL: digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?482752

It is Valentine’s Day weekend and a lot of people (including myself) will be taking loved ones to restaurants. When I was young, I worked at a restaurant that had phones on all the tables. There were no waiters – when the customer was ready to order, they would pick up the phone and it would ring in the kitchen. A cook would answer the phone, write down the order, and cook it. When the food was ready, the cook would ring the phone on the table – and the customer would go pick up the order at the front desk, and pay.

I think it would be cool to experiment with some new (and old) models for running restaurants. I don’t think anything is particularly wrong with current restaurants, I just have a habit of rethinking current ways of doing things.

Below are a few ”what if” thoughts I have when I visit restaurants:

Automats

Automats, where people could go and buy food from what was essentially a gigantic vending machine wall have declined and almost disappeared since the 1950s. As the US interstate system was developed suburbs grew massively out of this massive government action – and the dense urban population that used these restaurants declined. I still wonder why there are not more of these in densely populated cities. Although the personal touch is certainly reduced, the cost and efficiency could make up for that in some instances. With newer technologies and better foods, I would think that super high-tech automats could be created today that would be much better than those that existed in the 50s.

Hub restaurant

A ”hub restaurant” would be a restaurant that served food from other restaurants. For example, the customer would walk into the restaurant and they would have some basic drinks and peanuts or other simple snack-type appetizers. It would not have a kitchen. Instead, it would have a group of ”runners” in place of a kitchen. The customer would have a large menu with items from restaurants that are physically around the restaurant – let’s say within 5 miles. This would be a pretty diverse menu. The customer would still have a waiter/waitress and would still order from them. The customer would get drinks and snacks and could put in their order for a meal. The orders would then be phoned in as pick-up orders at other restaurants and then given to the ”runners” who would go pick them up. The customers would have a restaurant experience, but they would be able to order many different types of food – Italian, burgers, Chinese – all at the same restaurant.

Digital menus

By putting menus on a server, and also allowing orders to be digitally automated, restaurants could take orders via mobile phone. They could also have digital touch menus on all the tables that would allow the menu to be read and allow orders to be made inside the menu via touch. When not in use as a menu, these digital menus could have a browser to surf the web and could have some games built in as well.

Conveyor belts

Sushi restaurants use conveyor belts to allow people to sit down and quickly grab food off the belt and eat. The bill is based on number of plates. What if other types of restaurants used conveyor belts for different types of foods? Special plates could be built using warming elements powered by their proximity to the belt to keep all food items warm (through resonant induction charging). The plates could also be built with RFID built in so that the waiter or waitress could simply scan them to bill you. The plate would know the price of what is on it. The customer would pick up a chicken fried steak plate, a mashed potatoes plate, and a green beans plate. Each would know its price and would tell the table what the bill is. The table itself could sense what plates are sitting on it and tally a bill in real time as you pick items off the belt and put them on the table. I don’t think that this would work in all circumstances, but it could work in situations when the restaurant has a big crowd that is in a hurry (like for lunches).

Mobile restaurant

A restaurant could be built that fits on the back of a tractor trailer. It would drive around town and stop at specified locations to bring on new customers and let off others. It would be a big tractor trailer (with great suspension) that would have a kitchen and rows of tables along the sides. The sides of the trailer would be large windows. The routes would be chosen to maximize great views. Plus, it would stop at scenic points to sit for a while to allow people to eat and enjoy the scenery. Eating at the mobile restaurant would feature a different view every night. This might be especially good for visitors to big cities that would like to see all the sites and get dinner at the same time.

First arrest via drone

Welcome to the future. Police make first arrest using an unmanned drone.

Police make first-ever arrest using unmanned drone | Mail Online.

The roomba has some competition

The roomba has some competition from the Neato….

The new news

People often stick to ideas and concepts they have known all their lives. This can be a hindrance to innovation. Both individuals and businesses latch onto linear thinking and miss how things can change. We like to think linearly, but reality is not linear. When the automobile came out, some continued to improve horse carriages and horse whips. Why? Because everyone knew transportation was all about horses and carriages. As Ford said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. The media is one of the most obvious areas where people have latched onto what they have known their entire lives, so it is difficult for them to see what is coming.

For my entire life, magazines and newspapers have been words and pictures printed on paper, and for the past 15 years, some of that same exact information has moved to the Web. So in order to improve on that we just take those words and pictures and put them on computers, right? Yes, but there is more. New devices and new technologies will push the meaning “book”, “magazine”, and “newspaper” into new areas. And, news organizations will need to change and develop new skill sets to create these new types of media.

New devices/ technologies

iPad devices can be future they are looking for. I have been looking for something like the iPad to be created for some years now, because I believed that a tablet-type device that is properly designed and marketed would mark the big turning point for computing and media. My guess has always been that there is a big market for tablet computers. The reason being that it meets most people’s home computing needs. Many people only surf the web and do a few other basic tasks – yet the industry is selling computers that run powerful applications which casual users will never buy. So tons of hard drive space is left dormant as people move more and more into the cloud for their computing. A solution that invests less in hard drive space and expensive hardware, but which invests in a user experience – all in a low cost device – can be a winner – especially for books, newspapers and magazines. But, new skills we be required.

New skill sets to create a new product

Old media companies – like newspapers and book and magazine publishers have a new skill set to develop. Skills in printing on paper will continue to decline, while multi-media skills will be in increased demand. Over the past decade these media companies have moved in that direction because of the web. But technology will re-make media and publishing companies into content, trust, curation and multi-media expert companies. “Newspaper” will become an antiquated term – kind of like “carriage”. Paper won’t be involved in the process of most newspaper distribution. Being able to research and write well will still be critical – but what will be needed more and more is the ability to turn information into videos, pictures, images and interactive features. The iPad type devices will mean this type of content will be more easily accessible for everyone. Unbound from the more expensive, bulkier and slow-to-boot-up computers – the tablets will boot almost instantly and do all the things you want to do more conveniently. This type of device makes a great platform for a lot of things – including better books, magazines and newspapers.

For example, we have all read text books. Imagine a new type of textbook on a tablet device. It would have interactive charts, graphs based on real data sets. The data would be in the textbook and could allow the student to create their own queries and charts – another level of interactivity. Video and sound could be incorporated. Social functions would be available, too. Text and images could be shared with friends instantly. This is the textbook of the future, and it looks a lot like the book, magazine and newspaper of the future as well. I have a Kindle, which I like a lot. But I expect more from media now, because of the internet. I will be reading a Kindle and I will think: “I need to email this paragraph to a friend”. But it does not have that capability – right now.

A couple of my favorite media sources – The Economist and the Wall Street Journal seem to be at the leading edge in these areas. And, from data I have seen, these two sources are not experiencing the big decline in subscribers that have plagued other newspapers and magazines. Part of this is because these two news sources are simply superior news organizations and writers – but another reason is that they moved earlier than others to incorporate what technology could offer their readers. Especially the Wall Street Journal, which for years now has done a great job of creating interactive features on its website. These features, and ways of working, will move onto tablet computers in the long run. I think this may apply to books as well. I believe books will also morph into multi-media and data-driven experiences. This will shape new media – and will reshape the companies behind them. This will be disturbing for many in the industry but exciting for consumers of their valuable content.

Stop the Presses! Literally.

Total paid subscriptions are starting to really fall off of a cliff for print media. This is greatly due to the Internet and the fact that they are giving their product away on the Internet.

Interestingly enough, out of the top 25 newspapers, only one has seen growth in 2008-2009 – the Wall Street Journal.

Link: MINT-DEATH-OF-NEWS-R2.png (PNG Image, 1100×2001 pixels)